The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF T

The London Spectator (says the New York Evening Poe
labors to convince Englishmen that the United States are
not likely to make war upon England. It strikes Ameri-
cans oddly that it should be necessary to make an argu-
ment on this point. If Englishmen who are alarmed at such
a prospect could know the mind of the American people
they would see that what they fear is as improbable as
almost any possible event could be.
We do not want to go to war with England ; the
American people understand very well that the chief suf-
ferers by such a war would be the English people—they
were our true friends during the war; the aristocracy
would not suffer. Our people understand, too, that the
example of our successful Republican Government will
have much greater power in England, and will be of much
greater use to the Liberal party there, if the two coun-
tries remain at peare, than if they fall by the ears
together.
But it is true that Americans enjoy the dilemmas in
which the British Government has placed itself by its con-
duct towards the United States during the late war. We
are amused at the Fenian attempt, and cannot help chaffing
John Bull when we see him falling into a dreadful "funk"
at the prospect of a rising in Ireland. We remind him, at
such a time, of Alabamas, and of blockade runners, and of
Fenian war sepplies drawn froth America, as, until last
April, Davis's supplies were drawn front England. We
talk to the respectable Bull about acknowledging the bel-
ligerency of the Fenians, &e. In short, we "Yankees"
are a laughter-loving people, and it is scarcely to beex-
pected that we should lose so good a joke as this Fenian
ex:citement in England gives us.
As for our claims against England on account of the
Alabama's depredations, &c., let no Englishman flatter
himself we are going to war to get them settled. While
they aro unsettled England gives us most important host-
ages for good behaviour. If she chooses to deny the
justice of these claims, she puts herself in our power the
first time she goes to war, and we are neutral. It may be
said, indeed, that we are presenting our claims for da-
mages out of pure kindness to England. Their payment will
bind us hereafter to the most thorough and real neutrality,
just as the refusal to pay will establish a precedent which
will hereafter place our shipyards, our machine shops, our
gun foundries, our coal mines, at the service of any Power
at war with England, and enable Americans to build and
equip Alabamas and Shenandoalis to sweep British com-
merce from the seas the first time England goes to war
with even a fourth-rate Power.
No—we do not need war with England; we have too
many advantages on our side already. We are laughing
at her, and that is better than fighting her. We expect
her to keep her fingers out of the Mexican pie, which it
will presently be our duty to cut up. We may have some
trouble with Napoleon, if our Government does not wisely
and firmly show him that he must "get out of Mexico."
But for the present we have no desire to fight England;
and as for our little claims, we do not need the money,
but England does need, for her own comfort and safety, to
settle certain principles and points of international law and
practice ; and it is very kind in us to give her a chance to
settle them in a way advantageous to herself. What could
be of worse omen, for English commerce, what could be
more embarrassing to her, than for us to withdraw now
these claims, and simply say we will accept your reading
of the laws and act accordingly in the future I Such a
course, we imagine, would give every sensible Englishman
alarm and annoyance. .

The Mineral Wealth of America.

Day by day new developments aro made and fresh el*
dence accumulates of the vast mineral wealth of the
country. We are only yet beginning to realise its abund-
ance and forecast its influence upon ourselves and upon
the world. Since the first discoveries in California a
powerful and populous State has sprung into existence,
with well-built cities, flourishing villages, husbandry upon
a grand and advanced scale, with flocks and herds, Vine=
yards and orchards, and all the appliances of civilisation
and signs of social and material progress, such as has not.
been matched in any other part of the world in the same
period of time. This great State, large enough for an
empire of and in itself, is bone of our bone, and flesh of
our flesh, and is as much an integral part of our body
politic—though lying three thousand miles apart upon the
Pacific shore—as is Pennsylvania. She is amply able to
defend her coasts in case of need, has a teeming commerce,
is stretching out her arms for the trade of Asia and China,
posts her steamers and ships north to the Russian posses-
sions and south the whole extent of South America. She
is proud of her lineage, and ranks herself the brightest
jewel in the trousseau of the Republic.
This is the beginning, the immediate result of the
mineral discoveries there. How immensely enhanced will
be the importance of the geographical position when Colo-
rado and Nevada shall have equal age and development,
and the great Pacific Railroad shall be a realisation—when
Montana, Utah, Nebraska, and New Mexico shall be
brought within easy distance of her golden gate !
Colorado is so accessible, and is so growing in population
and consequence, that it will soon be the fashion to make
the trip in June or early autumn to its rising cities and
magnificent gold fields. From Boston to Atchinson, Kansas,
is a continuous railway. Thence a coach leaves daily for
Fort Kearney, Denver, Salt Lake, and California. Denver
is reached in ten days from Boston or New York. It has
a population of 7,500. It is twenty miles farther to Black
Hawk and Central City, in the centre of the mining .dis-
tricts. The distance from Missouri river to Central City is
only 650 miles.
Colorado yielded in gold in 1839 $4,000 ; in 1863,
$20,000,000. By now and i►nproved processes 95 per cent.
of the gold from the ore is now obtained, when it used to
be 30 to 40 only. So important is this improvement that
old " tailings " are re-worked with rich results.
The increase from '59 to '63 shows what Colorado is to
become in respect to its mineral products.
From Denver to Salt Lake by stage is about seven days ;
thence to the great silver regions of Nevada, eight days.
Here is another stupendous field of enterprise. From
$3OO to $4OO per ton of ore is no uncommon yield, costing,
say, $BO in labor, smelting, &c., and the supply inexhaust-
ible. Great discoveries of silver have recently been made
in Los Angeles, which are developed with extraordinary
success.--Boston Journal.

TIDIES.—It is due to Governor Eyre, no less than
to public opinion in this country, that a full and
searching inquiry should be made into the history
of the Jamaica rebellion, and we learn with the
utmost satisfaction that such an inquiry is to be
instituted forthwith. The announcement of this
intention by the Government should go far to
allay the excitement which still prevails on this
subject. Now that all the circumstances upon
which so many hypothetical verdicts have been
passed are about to be investigated impartially
for the first time, we may hope that our national
habit of not prejudging a case will resume its
sway once more. It cannot be too often repeated
that we are not yet in possession of sufficient infor-
mation to justify us either in acquitting or in con-
demning the civil and military authorities of the
colony. Almost the only official evidence that has
reached us is contained in the Governor's despatch
with its enclosures, in the report of his speech to
the Jamaica Legislature, and in the addresses of the
Legislature in reply to that speech. Private letters
and extracts from colonial newspapers have, in-
deed, been published which undoubtedly betray a
degree of panic and of ferocity which does little
credit to their authors, but which is far from be-
ing reflected in the Governor's letter, composed
though it was on board ship, at broken inter-
vals, during a period of the greatest confusion and
anxiety. Similar passages might easily have been
culled from the Indian press and the military re-
ports of British officers during the Indian mutiny,
and we fear that language is often used by very
humane gentlemen at such a crisis which would
shock their best friends, not to say themselves, if it
were afterwards repeated in cool blood. The ques-
tion, however, is not one of expressions, but of facts,
and of these we know far less than the public has
been led to believe. The number of executions, at first
stated at 200, then at 400, has been swelled to above
1,000, and at last to no less than 2,000. Even the
highest of these estimates may be correct, for the
simple truth is that we have no means yet of testing
its accuracy. By putting together the results of
courts-martial reported from various quarters we
may form a very rough guess as to the probable
total, but that is all. Of the charges preferred
against the prisoners, and of the proofs, if any, by
which these charges were sustained, we are as yet
entirely ignorant, and ought, therefore, to suspend
our judgment. Even upon the material particulars
of Gordon's case, such as the place and time at which
his crime was alleged to have been committed, the
very nature of that crime, the names of the witnesses
against him, and the mode of proceeding adopted
by the Court that tried him, we remain utterly in
the dark. Again, for aught that we can tell, Bri-
gadier-General Nelson and Colonel Hobbs, though
complimented for their -vigour in following up the
rebels, may subsequently have been censured or
punished for their too summary administration of
justice. It may be so, or it may not be so, and in
affirming or denying it we have as yet no better
guide than probability. While so much is uncertain,
it is safer, as well as fairer, not only to express no
opinion, but to entertain no opinion upon the two
questions which must be the main object of the
pending inquiry—first, whether anything could
warrant, and, secondly, whether the occasion did
warrant, the repressive measures actually employed
by the Jamaica Government. In the meantime, we
are not forbidden by any rule of fair play or dictate
of policy to compare those presumptions and facts
on either side which are really within our cognizance.
Foremost among the former is the previous character
of the persons accused of atrocities worse even than
those of the insurgents. Now, of the military officers
implicated we know little beyond their professional
qualifications, and it must he confessed that good
soldiers have often exhibited very loose notions of
equity and a merciless contempt for human life in
crushing native insurrections. But of Governor
Eyre himself, who expressly assumes the whole
responsibility for all that was done up to October 20,
it so happens that we do know something, and that
which we know directly rebuts the suspicion of
heartless cruelty. The man who has been denounced
as " a wholesale murderer and a Robespierre" is the
same man who was the protector of the aborigines
in South Australia, and who distinguished himself
by the defence of the very principles which he is now
charged with outraging. He is also a man who, by
the admission of his detractors, has given as high
proofs of courage as any other man alive, and who
therefore was eminently unlikely to lose his nerve
for a fortnight or three weeks together under the
pressure of au emergency, however terrible. It is
certainly not impossible that he may have done so ;
but we arc dealing now only with probabilities, and
are driven to choose between the horns of an obvi-
ous dilemma. Either a public servant of tried cou-
rage and exemplary humanity was hurried, whether
by fear or the influence of evil connsellors, into
wanton barbarities, or he acted under the strtss of
an overwhelming necessity which his critics have
failed to appreciate. We do not hesitate, until un-
deceived, to embrace the latter alternative, which is
strongly confirmed, in our opinion, by the tone of
his own dispatch. There arc some passages in this
document which require explanation ; there are
others which are open to fair exception ; but there
are none which give colour to the imputation of
unscrupulous cruelty. how can we reconcile the
imputation with such an appeal as the following :
—" I trust, sir, that you will fully bear these cir-
cumstances in mind, and that, in. doing so, you will
not regard the just severity which has been exer-
cised otherwise than as a merciful substitute for the
much larger measure of punishment which would
have had to be executed had the rebellion been
allowed to gather head and extend itself." Far
be it from us to deny that a person may exhibit this
sense of responsibility and yet err greatly on the side
of rigour, but it is not easy to believe that so brave
a man as Governor Eyre, with these sentiments
present to his mind, would act and write, on purely
hearsay testimony, as though he stood on the brink
of a volcano. If conjecture is admissible, it is surely
a far more reasonable conjecture that a deep-laid
and wide-spread conspiracy really existed, and that,
With all the horrors of St. Domingo in their memo-
ries, the Governor and his advisers may have in-
ferred a plan for the massacre of whites from the
discovery of a plan for a generalrising of the negroes,
coupled with the murderous scenes at Morant-bay.
Be this as it may, let us at least abstain from con-
founding several isales essentially di.2tinet; Whether
the outbreak in St. Thomas's-in-the-East was aft
isolated event, or, as Governor Eyre believes, the
first symptom of a preconcerted revolt ; whether it
was right or expedient to proclaim martial law
throughout the district; whether the state of things
which ensued upon the proclamation deserreA the
name of a Reign of Terror ; whether Col. Hobbs or
any other military officer hanged and flogged
" stragglers" without due trial ; whether Gordon
had really matured a plot like that of the sth of
November I and whether, in any case, he could be
legally tried by a Court-martial,--.-- all these and
many other points, though connected with each
other, must be discussed and settled independently.
For instance, it would not follow that because Go-
vernor Eyre overrated the extent and danger of the
prevailing dieaffection he was wrong in approving
the execution of Gordon, di' that if Col. llobbs and
his troops took a brutal pleasure in the sufferings of
their victims it was shared and approved by the Go-
vernor. When the inquiry is concluded we shall
be prepared to hear that deeper motives than a
mere love oi bloodshed actuated the savage mob at
Morant-bay. Oa the other hand, we decline to
attribute the misery and desperation of the blacks
solely to oppressive takes arid unjust legislation.
We have testimony from the most. disintefeeted
sources to the contrary. The " Jamaica Baptist
Union," in reply to a circular from Governor Eyre,
in the course of last summer transmitted to him,
for the inforhiatidii of the Colonial-tiffiee, sin able
and temperate Report on the condition Of the
coloured population. This Report has recently been
republished by Dr. Underhill, and, while it endorses
generally his statements, it also furnishes his oppo-
nents with a remarkable confirmation of their argu-
ments. It does not disguise, but emphatically
asserts, the disputed fact, on which M. Cardwell
had strongly insisted in the despatch censured by
Gordon, " that a large measure of the poverty and
distress is attributable to indolence." Not only does
this remark recur again and again in the text of the
Report, but it is supported in an appendix by detailed
memoranda from Baptist ministers in various parts
of the island. Among the prominent causes of
poverty and crime, they all, with very few excep-
tions, specify the besetting vice of idleness. " Idle-
ness," " downright laziness," " negligence," " want
of energy," " want of industry," " want of thrifti-
ness," inveterate vagabondism, and a habit of prey-
ing oa the provision-grounds of more industrious,
are the almost universal complaint. Other and
artificial reasons are assigned for the prevalence of
distress, and it is to be hoped that such of them as
are real may be mitigated by the constitutional
change which has already been submitted to the
Colonial Legislature, and may be hastened by this
very inquiry. But no constitutional change will
enable a labouring population to subsist without
labour, and no enormities which may be brought
home to the planters by the inquiry can equal those
which the blacks, if left in possession of Jamaica,
would inflict on each other.
POST.—The intelligence brought by the Bombay
mail, published in our columns yesterday, is of an
earlier date than the telegram received about a fort-
night since announcing the termination of the war
in Bhootan. We are not surprised, therefore, at
reading of preparations for a campaign which has
now fortunately been rendered unnecessary. The
Dhurm and Deb Rajahs evidently felt convinced
that the Indian Government had resolved no longer