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

THE SUN.
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, TAN. 1, 1862.

The Africa has arrived as expected, notwith-
standing strong easterly winds. All her news is
pacific. The Stock Exchange evidently thinks sot
the funds having risen fully one per cent.
since the news was published. Second
thoughts seem to have been, indeed, in
this case best for America; whether for England
and the world, on the widest view of things, may,
perhaps, be doubted. Present danger of war is
probably at an end. The most significant evidence
of this is the action of Congress. We have but just
heard how they thanked the " gallant" WILKES for
his zeal and courage in law• making for his country's
advantage; we now learn that they are taking
much more cautious steps in the matter. A resolu-
tion was proposed to the House of Representatives to
support the act of Capt.ll/ ILK ES —the House did not
indeed reject it, but neither would they as a house
adopt it—they referred it to the Committee on
Foreign Affairs—a prudent way, no doubt, of
shelving it till the Cabinet and the law authorities
should have had time to speak.
The frantic fury which had burst forth on the
arrival of the intelligence, by the Europa and the
Jura, of the attitude of England has given way to
something like " eating the leek. The " impres-
sion" is no longer that the Commissioners will
on no account be given up, but that if
the demands of our Government for their sur-
render are couched in moderate language, they
will be surrendered. The tone of even the
New York press is, we are told. moderate. We
half expected it would be so. It was indeed
impossible to predict before-hand what course the
mob would take, and whether it would not compe-
the Government to resist justice to England as in-
justice to the Great Republic ; still, the fatuity was
so manifest of attempting to beat England and the
South at the same time that even the dullest must
comprehend the position. And, as it was hardly
likely that the prospect of being beaten on both
sides at once, could be pleasant, even the Irish of
America must understand that they had to!
choose between a thorough humiliation or keep-
ing the peace with England.

As the ebullitions of rage were begining to sub-
side before the French letter, and the news from
other States who take the same view as England,
had arrived, we may conclude that when the Ameri.
cans know that all tne world is against them, we
shall hear little more of the matter. If the multitude
see that their Government must give in, the latter
will have no difficulty in doing so. After all, and
phrase their concession how they like, they will feel
deeply enough that they have to make it. A
war might have been a more effectual teacher,
but the surrender of the commi3sioners on the
demand, not only of England but of the civilised
world, will make the great Mr. SEWARD, and the
boastful Bostonians look rather small. There was
positively nothing in the At but the defiance of
_England. It was that which was toasted and
lauded to the skies. There was and could be no-
thing, in a ship of war mounting thirteen large
guns, doing what it pleased with an unarmed
steamer which one broadside would sink—the glory
was not that the frigate beat the merchant
steamer, but that she beat the _English
merchant steamer, not that the ship of war
defied a ship without guns, but that she
defied the _English lig and the British Lion—her
figurehead. On just this point they have to go
down on their knees. They have to confess they
were wrong to defy the English flag. They have
to say that they will not do so again. They have
to part with the men whom they would have given
anything to keep, just because they insulted the
British flig to get them. They have indeed to
read their disgrace in the Court announcement that,
at the P,esident's last levee, neither the English
nor French nor Prussian Ministers were present.
We have by the arrival of the Africa some fur-
ther intelligence of American proceedings as re-
gards themselves. A General PHELPS
is said to
have landed on Ship Island, not far from the
mouths of the Mississippi, and to have issued a pro-
clamation far in advanco on Fremont's, to the Effect
that all the States which have been admitted as
slave states since the Union have been admitted in
violation of the constitution. Of course this is but
an invitation to the negroes of all the south-wes- b

tern States to throw aff the yoke at once. It seems
to be the legitimate' deduction from LINCOLN'S
own principle that the constitution ought to be
worked in the interest of freedom, not of slavery.
It is, however, rather more than the Federal
fleet was disposed to concur in, and an inquiry as
to the origin and ultimate authority of the pro-
clamation was about to be instituted. Mr. CHASE,
in his representatiQns to the bankers, assured
them that something decisive should be done
in January. What it would be can, of course, be
matter only for speculation. It looks, however, as
if it were necessary to produce the impression, in
order to get his loans, that the war will
after all not be very protracted; and certainly, how
the Northern banks can safely continue their loans
to Government on the present scale, and on the
guarrantee of the present rate of taxation, it is by
no means easy to see. Relatively to her taxes
and her present income, the North is at present as
hoplessly insolvent as Austria, and the means pro-
posed by Mr. CHASE, must quickly impoverish the
very banks to which he is compelled to resort.

If one does happen to have a tumble, there is no-
thing like getting up and philosophically putting
the best face upon the matter. Like that ultra-
polite French gentleman, who, upon his tenderest
corn being excruciated by the chair-leg of the lady
next him, protested, with a wincing countenance
and tearful eyes, and all but a scream of agony—in
answer to my lady's enquiry if he were hurt—
" Whew ! pas de tons, .111adanze,le vous remercie !"
There is just exactly a case in point to this, only
this very New Year's morning. The Quarterly and
Annual Revenue Returns have dropped in upon John
B all's Breakfast Table to-day—with It lswarar or
other " little bills" from those extremely punctual
and punctilious arithmeticians, his tradespeople
generally—

" Butcher and baker
And candlestick-maker."
And these same Revenue Tables turn out to be,
when they come to be looked into, pretty nearly as
pleasant as the rest of them. Whereupon—in-
stanter—what says Mr. GLADSTONE'S arch apologist,
the Times ? Well, the Government organ just
simply puts the very best face upon the matter.
JOHN BULL'S gouty toes have a moment before
been crunched under the leaden weight of a rather
ponderous deficit, and with the coolest, the most
consummate effrontery in the world, the Times digs
the old gentleman playfully in the ribs, and calls
upon him to laugh when his nerves seem, on the
contrary, tempting him to the relief of a howl.
The opening sentence of the Times' prelection
this morning is in its way really and truly some-
thing exquisitely delightful. From the broad, racy
humour of the writing it might have been penned
by Mr. DICKENS. Quoth the Times, in the first
sentence of its first leader on this first of January—
" It was said of a rubicund and rotund individual
that his appearance in a room was a personal in-
sult to every one of the company who was in deli-
cate health, and that, if ho had any pretensions to
politeness, he would at least chalk his face and lace
in his waist." Our contemporary then goes on to
apply, most facetiously, this intensely ludicrous
ideal of a person in (literally) rude health ! The
Times observes, with a whimsical air of seriocomic
earnestness —" JOHN BULL is generally pictured
as plethoric and ruddy, with his hands in his

breeches pockets, and a resolute air of independ-
ence which bespeaks a consciousness of easy circum-
stances. Yet," adds the writer, "JOHN BULL is
not wanting in politeness." Our contemporary
goes on then to ask, with a sort of bantering gra-
vity," How could he, then [i.e., JOHN BULL], on
this first day of the New Year come out with an
unvarnished purse-proud statement of absolute
prosperity and over-abounding wealth ? All the
world are looking with perplexed air over their
Christmas bills. France is still cudgelling her
brains for a Budget ; America is—what we shall
hear in a few hours ; Russia is in a financial posi-
tion which we shall probably never know at all ;
Austria is begging in inconvertible rags. Common
politeness compels that England, when she comes
into such a society as this, should put a little arti-
ficial pallor over her saucy cheeks, and givo in, to
some small degree, to the general fashion of
deficits." Now all this may be extremely funny—
nay, when viewed in the abstract, is undoubtedly
very droll indeed, and laughter moving. But',
—when the facts thus insidiously introduced to
public notice come to be looked at for a moment
seriously, the Tax-Payers of the United Kingdom
have only too much reason, while wiping the tears
of laughter out of their eyes, to say in answer to
the limes, with a sudden seriousness, "What is
fun to you is just death to us!" Really, upon the
first blush, from high spirits with which our contem-
porary enters upon the examination of the Revenue
Tables but just now issued from the Exchequer,
one might be led to suppose that there
was an extraordinary Surplus of some kind to be
exulted over ! Instead of which, it turns out of
course, as the Returns themselves only too plainly
demonstrate, that the Times is all the while poking
its fun at JOHN BULL—just in between the old
gentleman's small ribs—apropos to a pretty consi-
derable Deficit—a Deficit of all but close upon
three millions and a half! Nay—as if it were the
best delicious climax of the joke, the bonne bouche
from this little bonbonnier-full of quips and eraneks
(about a Deficit of over £3,000,000 sterling!) our
contemporary comes " out with it" at last point
blank. And we are all of course expected thereupon
to nearly die with laughing. "We have to announce"
sass the Tunes—" We have to announce, then, that
upon making up the
public accounts to yesterday
it has been ascertained that the receipts of Revenue
for 1861, as compared with those of 1860, show a
decrease of no less than £3,363,644." Nor is even
that putting it quite grotesquely enough—the Times
adding, " If we were to reduce these sterling pounds
.into florins, or francs, or piastres, we might make a
still more respectable deficit of it. Nay," says the
writer with irresistible drollery, "we can increase
it a little more by noting the fact that the deficiency
of the quarter, as compared with the previous
quarter, amounts to £1,2,02,309. Upon the whole,
therefore," remarks the Government organ—the
arch apologist of Mr. GLADSTONE as a Financier—
smacking its lips, as it were, over the delectable
flavour of this joke of jokes—" Upon the whole, there-
fore, we are a very well-behaved people, and, as the
French took to wearing grey wigs when Louis XIV.
grew old out of compliment to that Monarch, so
we have simulated a certain amount of impecu-
niosity in order to join in the fashion which has
been involuntarily set by cur friends and neigh-
beurs." Now, really and truly, we cannot in
solemn earnest recall to mind anything more
specious, more insidious than this irresistible mode
of putting the best face upon Mr. GLADSTONE'S
financial blunders and delinquencies.
Here is—when we come to look at the facts of the
case simply as they are--a clear round deficit upon the
year of £3,300,000 upon the quarter of £1,200,000.
Here is a deficit, in fact—when there need have
been no deficit at all—of precisely £3,363,644 upon
the year's revenue of 1861, as compared with the
year's revenue of 1860—led a deficit £1,202,309
upon the last quarter of this past ;-ear as compared
With the corresponding quarter of the preceding