The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-21 00:00:00

THE SUN, LON

looked with a jealous eye on the open declaration
of DAVIS and LEE that the negroes ought to be
impressed. Their losses, at leases, no Englishman
will regret, nor will they gain much pity for their
compulsory abandonment of their property which
the change of circumstances forced upon them.
The tone of the Southern Congress showed any-
thing but the unanimity and patriotism required in
such an emergency, and JEFFERSON DAVIS was too
constitutional a ruler to enforce the measures which
he believed to be indispensable to the safety of his
own Government. His voice was raised indeed in
warning and expostulation, and for this the Con-
gress called him sharply to account, declaring
that he was exciting unnecessary alarm
among the people, and they immediately
issued a counter statement declaring that
the prospects of the Confederacy were sanguine,
even while the enemy was at their very doors. We
can all remember the grave and dignified reply
made by the Southern President, in which he
mournfully said he hoped they might find him mis-
taken. It must, indeed, have been a bitter disap-
pointment for JEFFERSON DAVIS to watch the in-
.evitable collapse of a Government which rested on
popular representation, and which failed to find in
the Representative Assembly the support which it
required. We can fancy that his own fate seemed
to him at that moment a matter of indifference
compared to the failure of the cause to which he had
devoted himself heart and soul. Had DAVIS been
a man of different temper the result might possibly
have been different, or the struggle, at least, would
have been prolonged. had ANDREW JOHNSON been
at the head of the Confederacy his strong will might
have bent the planters to the necessities of the hour,
but JEFFERSON DAVIS and his associates were too
faithful to the principle that they ruled by the will
of the people for the success of their cause. North
and South both suffered from the war to an extent
which it is difficult to realise from mere figures,
but the South has paid by far the heaviest penalty. A
grim but striking fact brings home to us the vast
extent of the destruction. It seems that the trade
in bones has become a profitable occupation in the
South, and at this we need not wonder, when we
hear that in the valley of the Shenandoah alone it
is said that 160,000 skeletons of horses have been
collected. At Fredericksburg, another name of
terrible memory, a bone mill has been established,
and has been in active work during the past five
months, waggon loads arriving there daily. And
how many human bones cumber the green fields of
the Southern States ? What a vast amount of
human suffering and wretchedness does not this
war, which has now passed into a name, repre-
sent 1 It is said that on the boats and trains going
northward travellers are often surprised to see a
large box with a skull and crossbones painted
outside, together with a name and date. This con-
tains the remains of some Northern soldier who
fell in the South, and whose relatives wish to have
him buried near them. American ingenuity has
turned even this melancholy wish into a sort .of
profit, and the removal of corpses 'has become a
thriving trade. The Southern people are too
poor for any such "luxury of woe," and accord-
ingly these mournful conveyances are seldom seen
moving towards the Southern States. The poverty
of the South is indeed something fearful, and even
in Richmond itself the wealthiest classes are poorer
than the poorest tradesman used to be. There are
many reasons for this. The Confederate currency
lost all its value suddenly, and those who held a
good sum one day were penniless the next. Again,
the barbarous conduct of the Northern Generals,
who, like SIIERIDAN in the fertile valley of the
Shenandoah, ruthlessly destroyed the crops and
granaries and burn the homesteads of the
people, has been productive of much of will'
we may call unnecessary misery. Then the
obstinate laziness of the blacks, who believe f oirM'c
4. ininpt
most part that Congress intends to give them lalias
for their support, hinders the cultivation of the
land and the sowing of the crops, and there is,
therefore, little prospect of a good harvest redeem-
ing matters. The negroes themselves, according to
the official report, have suffered terribly from
scarcity. A struggle like that which America has
just passed through could not fail to leave its traces
on all classes. In its extent and in the magnitude
of the armies employed on both sides it rivalled
the wars of antiquity, in which every able-bodied
man in the country was called to bear arms. Surely
this survey carries two lessons. It should teach
European powers to be patient during the inevitable
transition state through which America is now pass-
ing, remembering how much she has suffered, and
how hard a task lies before her statesmen, while it
should also warn the A mericans themselves to be
less hasty in provoking another gigantic contest
before the wounds so recently inflicted have fairly
closed.

THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE PASTON LETTERS.—
The first meeting of the Society of Antiquaries
since the long vacation was held last evening at
Somerset-house, Mr. Frederick Ouvry in the chair.
After some routine business had been transacted, the
secretary (Mr. Christopher Knight-Watson) said that
recently his attention had been directed to an article in
the Fortnightly Review, by Mr. Herman Merivale, im-
pugning the authenticity of the famous Paston Letters.
He (Mr. Watson) immediately put himself in communica-
tion with Mr. Bruce, who was the most competent person
to decide as to the internal evidence of the letters, and Mr.
Almack, who, there was reason to believe, could speak as
to what might be termed the internal evidence, in conse-
quence of his long residence in that part of England where
the Preston family dwelt, and his acquaintance with Mr.
Dalton, the intimate friend of Sir John Fenn, who helped
him into the publication of the letters. In the meantime,
Mr. Philip Frere, the literary representative of Sir John
Fenn, instituted a search among the papers of his father,
the late Sergeant Frere, who edited the fifth volume of the
letters. The result was the discovery of the original MS.
of the letters comprised in the fifth published volume, to-
gether with a mass of undated letters and other documents
connected with the publication of the whole. There was
reason to hope that these originals would be laid before the
society on an early occasion, when Mr. Bruce and Mr. Al-
mack would make some valuable communications on the
subject. He (Mr. Watson) had received a letter from
Philip Frere, in which he stated the particulars of
the discovery of the original documents at his resi-
dence at Dungate, Cambridgeshire. It appeared that
the late Sergeant Frere could never find the originals
of the fifth volume, though he was by no means an
ignorant or careless successor of Sir John Fenn. On
the contrary, he put such originals as he could find
into the hands of his son Philip, then a schoolboy, and
taught him to read and decipher them. Afterwards, in
1830, he forwarded such documents as he had to the Bishop
of Llandaff, for that learned prelate's inspection. Very
fecently, however, Mr. Philip Frere, found a box about
2ft. square, marked "Fasten Letters." On opening it he
found the specimens which had been sent to the Bishop of
Llandaff, below them various undated documents of the
15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, and in another tier the long
missing originals of the fifth volume, complete and in ex-
act order. These, of course, furnished a triumphant an-
swer and refutation to the charge brought against Sir John
Fennhb ee e
procured
om cnaut made
referenceto the authenticity of the Fasten Letters.
The chairman remarked that as an attack of this kind had
shouldsp
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visabledthe manuscripts alluded to before the society. Mr. Richard
Cull said he would use his personal influence with Mr.
Frere to attain the desired object. He might mention that
he had himself gone over the MSS. with Serjeant Frere,
and compared the originals with the printed letters. That
was about 1834 or 1835. The serjeant died in 1836, and
after his death he (Mr. Cull) saw portions of the MSS. of
the first four volumes, and many letters still unpublished.
He well remembered they were kept in a box which an-
swered to the one described in Mr. Philip Frere's commu-
nication. Ho had no doubt that Mr. Frere would be glad
to send the documents in question for inspection by Fel-
-1 lowfs Q# the society.