The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-03 00:00:00

Colburn's United Service.

The " United Service" pays a handsome tribute
to the memory of the late Prince Consort, by
placing a black border round its cover. In a paper
on the defence of Canada, it is suggested that the
most efficacious way to protect the long boundary
line will be to secure the command of the lakes,
and to this end that we ought to send out a large
number of shipwrights and trained labourers to
build a flotilla, to hold the Americans in check.
Under the head of "The Naval Warfare of England
and America," the reversal of the position of the
two countries since the war of 1812 is clearly ex-
plained. " The Great Shipbuilding Firm at White-
hall" contains some sharp strictures on Admiralty
management, and ridicules some of its short-com-
ings. But although there is no doubt great room
for impzovement, England's navy is in a
far better state of efficiency than it has been for
years past. The American Difficulty is treated:with
great ability, and the writer on this subject treats
our braggadocio Transatlantic friend with the con-
tempt he merits, and recalls to him some unpleasant
facts relating to the last attempt at the invasion of
Canada. In fact, he declares by inference, if not
openly, that the American is a bully and a "coward.
They have moreover a desperately incurable habit of
swagger and lying about the commonest achievements,
which incapacitates them acting, since they seem to gain
the same satisfaction and results by the cheaper method of
blustering and swaggering. When not engaged in pursuit
of the almighty dollar, their whole life may be summed up
in the word—whittling.
From the preponderating force with which the Americans
might have been supposed to be capable of attacking Canada
in 1813, a reasonable doubt might have arisen as to the
capability of resistance en tho part of Canada. In that at-
tack the Americans shewed want of skill, courage, and
every other requisite of success, and—they failed. The
first expeditions were badly conducted. The sick list of a
force of 2,500 men amounted to 1,800. The form of the
sickness was gangrenous—such as, in the opinion of the
chief medical officer, was occasioned by damaged grain and
bad provisions. The expedition, consequently, came to
nothing; and the sickness was stated to have been
caused by the villainous conduct of the commis-
saries or contractors, who sold the sound provi•
sions to the enemy, and fed their own troops with
damaged grain and putrid beef. The generals were
derunfi ht tieind forthre tAh enie
reioama
nms ans
fought
d, wt n ewh
iothunwonted exception ; n
vigour
aei u
andn-
resolution at Chippewa and Fort Erie, but these were iso-
lated efforts. The defence of Washington, when captured
and burnt by General Ross, with a small British force, was
despicable, and scarce worthy of the name, and shows,
among other things, that the Amer cans are not a patriotic
and hard-fighting people. A motive of strong force is ne-
cessary to make them do their duty well and like soldiers ;
the presence of this motive, in the shape of General Andrew
Jackson, caused us disaster at New Orleans; the absence
of it brought about the rout at Manassas the other day, when
regiments marched home on the eve of battle, because their
time of service was up, just as they did in the old revolutionary
war,and in m ore recent times .
nM exico. The general who com-
manded at New Orleans, and who is now canonised as a na-
tional hero, was a man of promptitude and decision. He was
imperious and peremptory, and gave the citizens—who
were willing to compound with the enemy for the safety of
their cotton—to understand that, though ho had not a suffi-
cient force to resist the British without their assistance, he
had still force enough to burn down their city, and that he
meant to do it. They knew him to be a man who did not
threaten vainly, and as they found they could not save their
cotton bags without fighting, they made a virtue of neces-
sity, formed them into breastworks, and from behind this
cover repulsed the British with the greatest slaughter, in
the shortest time that stands on record in modern warfare.
The determination to resist, with a comparatively weak
force, was the act of the general. The troops or militia had
little to do with it ; and no meritin the action except that,
under the cover of their cotton bags, and the eye of their
determined leader, they used their rifles with murderous
precision. As a proof that they do not fight desperately,
when there is a way to retreat, they abandoned an island
in the river without reason, or even an adequate resistance.
A paper on the " Gambia Colony and the late
Baddeboo War" contains matter of interest. A
chapter on " Our Artillery under its New Organi-
sation," reviews the present state of preparation
of our batteries.

Temple Bar.

There is a new story commenced in this number
called "Captain Dangerous," by the author of the
" Seven Sons of Mammon." It is not easy to form an
opinion from a first instalment of a work. It is hardly
so promising a tale as its predecessor, but it bears
traces of that smartness which distinguishes all that
writer's productions. There will be sufficient di-
versity of detail to satis'y the most scrupulous, as
we are informed that the story tells strange adven-
tures of Captain Dangerous, who was a soldier, a
pirate, a merchant, a spy, a slave among the Moors,
a bashaw in the service of the Great Turk, and died
at last in his own house at Hanover-square. There
is an article on the Mormons, called " In the name