The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.—Sir John Walsh has given notice of an
important question for this evening. It has been
stated with an air of semi-official authority, that
within the last few days an indemnity has been for-
mally demanded by the Cabinet of President John-
son for the depredations of the Alabama, and that
a formal refusal has been already returned. Sir J.

Walsh wishes to know if the first of these assertions

is well-founded. Neither strikes us as probable,
and we await Lord Palmerston's reply without any

great anxiety. In the meantime, however, we know-
that a series of claims has been sent in on account

of damage inflicted on Federal commerce, and we
must be prepared for a possible revival of them
sooner or later. We cannot do better, therefore,
than recall the attention of our readers to the plain
facts of the case, and the principles of the law ap-
plicable to them. In the summer of 1862 a ship
called " The 290" was launched at Birkenhead, and

sailed from Liverpool, with a small crew, on pre-
tence of a pleasure trip. She was pierced for eleven
guns, and adapted in some respects for warlike pur-
poses, but she carried no guns or ammunition. Off
the Isle of Anglesea she took on board forty men
from a tug-steamer, and proceedecl to the port of
Terceira, in the Azores. Four days afterwards her
armament arrived, Captain Semmes followed, and
" The 290," now the Alabama, sallied forth as a
Confederate vessel of war. There is no doubt what-

ever that all her equipments were manufactured in
England, and that the grossest fraud had been prac-
tised by the agents who smuggled her out without
a clearance and afterwards provided her with all
the means of destruction. It will also be remem-
bered that Mr. Adams furnished our Government,

before the escape of the Alabama, with evidence of
her character and destination, which, however, was

deemed insufficient by the law officers of the Crown ;
and that, owing to the inopportune illness of Sir
John Harding, the order for her arrest was at last
telegraphed just too late to prevent her sailing.
The history of her subsequent career until she was
sunk by the Kearsage in the English Channel is
familiar to all. How many prizes she may have
burnt at sea, and what may have been the value of
the cargoes destroyed by her, we do not pretend to
remember, but it is certain that she was the terror
of Federal merchantmen, and contributed singly, in
no small degree, to ruin the carrying trade of the
United States. If we add to her actual captures
the enormous increase of insurance to cover the risk
of falling in with her, the sales of American ships
to foreign owners, and the transfer of American
trade to foreign bottoms, we must admit that Ame-
rican merchants have good cause for their irritation.
The only question is how far their losses occasioned
by this flagrant violation of our neutrality consti-
tute a legal demand upon us. To this question there
is but one answer. There are two grand sources of
what is called international law—usage and mora-
lity. Obligations recognised by the practice of all
civilised nations, especially if confirmed by treaty,
and obligations founded on natural rights, as be-
tween sovereign states, must be treated by a govern-
ment as legal obligations ; and the breach of them
is a legitimate ground for compensation. To which
of these classes, or to what other class of interna-
tional duties, can the alleged liability be referred?
Let us grant, for the sake of argument only, that
the Alabama, if seized in time, must have been con-
demned under the Foreign Enlistment Act, and let
us also grant that a little want of promptitude was
shown by the authorities. Still, not a single prece-
dent, we believe, can be produced for the allowance
of a similar claim under similar circumstances, and
no rule of natural justice enjoins us to pay for the
mischief done by the Alabama. It is the right of a
neutral to prevent his territory from being made
the base of hostile operations, and for this purpose
he may impose very stringent prohibitions on the
officers of belligerent powers. It is also his duty to
do so—but in what sense and for what reason ?
Obviously, because to do otherwise, at least delibe-
rately, would be to show partiality towards the one
or the other, and thus to forfeit the character and
privileges of neutrality. The maxim is " Hostem
esse qui faciat quod hosti placet," and if we had
wilfully permitted the Alabama to issue, armed and
equipped, from the Mersey, we should ye become
virtually the allies of the Confederates. Now, bad
faith has never been imputed to us, but it is said or
implied that, as neutrals, we were bound to insure
the one belligerent against a wrongful act of the
other which we failed to prevent. This doctrine is
wholly untenable.
HERALD.—The panic which the news that an
extensive emigration to Mexico is being organised
in the restored Union has created in French political
circles is not creditable to their judgment or infor-
mation. The danger, indeed, is quite as great as
they rate it. The French Government is in •an
extremely embhrrassing position, out of which,
according to all appearance, it can only get at the
cost of a terrible sacrifice of blood and money, or
an even more appalling sacrifice of honour. There
is cause enough to make all 'Frenchmen who care
for the interests and good name of their country
I extremely anxious ; matter enough for the wretched
crew of democratic writers who during the last three
years have chronicled with glee every check which
their countrymen have sustained, because it embar-
rassed the Government, to chuckle over. But there
is nothing in the news which can surprise any per-
son at all acquainted with the temper of the North
and with the opinions of its leaders. It has been
perfectly clear for the last two years that if the
South should be conquered, the North would in-
stantly turn its attention to Mexico, and that,
directly or indirectly, a desperate effort would be
made to overthrow the new empire, and expel all
European troops. If any doubt could have been
entertained about the course which the victorious
North would pursue it must have been removed by
the accession to power of Andrew Johnson, an
avowed advocate of war against the Emperor Maxi-
milian and France. Not 12 months ago, Johnson,
in acknowledging to a Nashville mob the honour
conferred upon him by his nomination for the Vice-
Presidency, said that "he was in favour of the
Monroe doctrine throughout, and prophesied that
the day was not far distant when, with the rebellion
crushed, we should say to Napoleon that he should
not establiah a monarchy in Mexico." The assas-
sination of Abraham Lincoln has given the Ten-
nessee ruffian the power to fulfil his own prophecy.
He can say to Napoleon, " Take your troops
away, or I will drive them away ;" and we suppose
that if he does he will be applauded by the French
Liberals, who, although well knowing that the
triumph of the North must be followed by these
serious difficulties between it and their own
country, have raved with frantic delight over that
triumph, just as our English Liberals, as bitter
enemies astheir Frenchbrethren of their own country
and of true liberty, have hailed with joy every vic-
tory which precipitated the day in which the blood
of gallant Englishmen must flow in desperate combat
with Yankee mercenaries. And if the French pub-
lic ought to have been prepared for these dangers,
still more ought the French Government to have an-
ticipated them. The action of Mr. Seward, the re-
solution of the Senate, the tone of the newspapers,
the language of the elect of the nation, like Andrew
Johnson, must all have been well known to the
Emperor. He must have been well aware that the
conquest of the South would be followed by hostili-
ties against the Mexican empire on the part of the
American people, if not of the American Govern-
ment. He must have been shrewd enough to under-
stand that from the moment the Southern Confede-
racy fell beneath the ceaseless blows of the North he
would no longer have to maintain his Imperial
protegl, the interests of the Latin race, and the
honour of France, against Juarez and his half-caste
bandits, but against large armies flushed with vic-
tory, anxious to revenge the sympathy given to their
foes, and covetous of the riches Mexico is known to
hide, if not against the disbanded soldiers of the
South, who, having no chance of living at home ex-
cept as prisoners, would be glad to seek their for-
tunes in Mexico. And yet he took no step to avert
the danger. He must have known that the victory
of the Confederacy would be the safety of the Mexi-
can empire. He must have known that with his aid
the Confederacy could easily obtain the victory, and
yet he left it to perish, perhaps, from a selfish, short-
sighted calculation that it must succeed of itself,
and consequently that his object would be obtained
without compromising himself with the North in
any way—perhaps from that cowardice which
often gathers, as he grows old, upon a man whose
daring in his earlier years has been almost sublime.
The expediency of the resolve to regenerate Mexico,
regarded from the stand-point of French in-
terests, is doubtful, izat there can be no question
that the cleverest Sovereign of Europe has made
a fatal mistake in giving the Northern States the
opportunity of upsetting his plans. We are curious
to see what course the Emperor will take, whether
he will wait, or boldly provoke the contest, and thus
perhaps prevent it. Give up Mexico at once he
cannot. To withdraw his troops at the dictation of
Mr. Johnson would .be to incur a disgrace which
might imperil his dynasty. To permit them to be