The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-11 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Jan. 27.

The " sensation" of the day, which has thrown
into temporary insignificance all other events of
war or peace, is the cession, reported from San
Francisco, of Lower California and the provinces of
Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua to the
Emperor of the French, in trust for the repayment
by Mexico of the expenses incurred in establishing
the throne of the Emperor Maximilian. The an-
nouncement that this new and rich territory is to be
governed, on behalf of Napoleon 111., by ex-Senator
Gwin, of California, a native of the State of Missis-
sippi, and one of the warmest friends and best
known advocates of Southern
,independence, has
strongly impressed the public mind with the belief
that an alliance between the two Emperors on the
one hand and the Government of Mr. Jefferson
Davis on the other is a main condition of the
arrangement, and that the recognition of the
Southern Confederacy by the Great Powers of
Europe will follow as a matter of course, if it do not
take place simultaneously with the action of the
French Emperor. It is asserted by many that the
facts have been long known to Mr. Lincoln and
Mr. Seward, and that they are alone sufficient to
account for the two missions of Mr. Blair to Rich-
mond—charged with the duty of ascertaining from
Mr. Davis what terms, if any, he is prepared to
make with the Federal Government if the latter will
take the initiative in recognition. It is hinted that
a slight concession on the subject of slavery, pro-
mising a gradual emancipation, or the establish-
ment of a system of serfage, such as that inaugu-
rated by General Banks in Louisiana would recon-
cile the main body of the Republican party to
" accept the situation ;" that an export duty of 10
cents per pound on cotton would satisfy the manu-
facturing interests of New England ; and that if
Mr. Davis would break with his French friends, and
enter into an alliance offensive and defensive with
the North in vindication of the Monroe doc-
trine, he would gratify the ambitious lust of empire
entertained as vividly by the North as by the South,
and bring the whole strength of the Democratic
party to acquiesce in separation. The consequences
predicted are no less than the annexation of the
whole of Mexico, including Senator Gwin's Vice-
royalty, to the South, and the whole of British
America to the North. Such is the dream of the mo-
ment ; such is the hallucination which has taken
temporary possession of the American mind, and
which causes steady people to assert in public places
that it is a neck and neck race at this hour between
Napoleon 111. and Mr. Lincoln who shall first make
terms with Mr. Jefferson Davis. Whether the re-
turn of Mr. Blair from Richmond bearing the news
that the South refuses to treat, except after uncon-
ditional recognition of its independence, will change
the tone of the public mind remains to be seen.
The political dissensions in the Southern capital,
as reported both in the journals that support and in
those that oppose the Administration of Mr. Davis,
also attract unusual attention. Some observers see
nothing in the attacks made upon Mr. Davis but a
proof that the Southern people are so weary of the
war that they are anxious to make peace upon no
other terms than these of a general amnesty and a
repeal of the Confiscation Acts ; while others, better
informed, or drawing more correct conclusions from
the study of human nature and of the lessons of
history, see in the animosities expressed against Mr.
Davis and in the forthcoming appointment of Gen.
Lee to the supreme control of the armies of the Re-
public nothing but a determination on the part of
the South to carry on the war with renewed vigour,
to centralise power for the better organisation of
victory, and to allow no man, however great and
able, or however eminent in character and previous
service, to stand in the way of the accomplish-
ment of the national purpose, if from any cause,
real or imaginary, he have forfeited the once
implicit confidence of the people. The restora-
tion of General Joseph E. Johnston to the com-
mand of the Army of the Tennessee, contrary to the
advice and wish of the President, marks not alone
the diminished respect of the Confederate Congress
for the military judgment of Mr. Davis, but shows
to what cause the public opinion of the South attri-
butes the recent reverses which have befallen their
arms. In like manner, the resignation of several.
members of the Cabinet is to be accepted as a proof,
not of discouragement, but of the inauguration of a
more vigorous or, at all events, of a more popular
system ; and if, as the indications seem to prefigure,
Mr. Davis will cordially accept the position in which
a temporary want of success—if not an error of
judgment in the removal of General Johnston—has,
perhaps, undeservedly, but not unnaturally, placed
him, and act in thorough military subordination to
General Lee, it is probable that such energy will
be infused into the heart of the Southern people as
will speedily enable them to achieve a victory suffi-
ceent to overbalance their late losses, and bring upon
the North a renewal of the cold fit of despondency
which it suffered in the early days of the Chicago
Convention, when the war was pronounced to be a
failure, and the whole tendency of Northern opinion
was towards peace and conciliation.

As General Lee some time ago declared himself
to be in favour of arming the negroes and reward-
ing their faithful service with freedom for them-
selves and families, it is safe to calculate, now that
he is about to assume the rank of Generalissimo of
the Confederacy, that he will continue of the same
opinion, and represent through the proper agency
to Congress the necessity or expediency of taking
measures in accordance with his views. The oppo-
sition which may be made by such slaveowners as
maintain that their slaves should not be taken
from them by their own Government without

compensation need not stand in the *ay of the
project, for if the Northern Government and
people, in their extreme need of men to re-
plenish their armies, are willing to pay bounty
money of 1,000 dollars ahead for fair-skinned
Germans and Irishmen, and almost as much for
dark-skinned Africans, to fight their battles, the
South can find means to buy the manumission, at
the same rate, of such ablebodied slaves as their
masters may not be disposed to lose upon lower
terms. If there be no question of prejudice to re-
move or conciliate, the political and financial impe-
diments in the way of the arming of the slaves will
not be of a kind to try very severely the statesman-
ship of Mr. Davis and the military genius of Gen.
Lee. Mrs. Foote, the wife of the Confederate repre-
sentative, arrested with her husband while attempt-
ing to pass the Northern lines, and who was subse-
quently permitted to continue her journey to Wash-
ington, where she was hospitably received and enter-
tained by Mr. Seward, is reported to have assured
that gentleman that the South would have at least
200,000 ablebodied black troops embodied, drilled,
and disciplined before the month of May, and to
have expressed her conviction, which she shares with
the great majority of the Southern people, that they
will make good and faithful soldiers. However that
may be, the question of a Northern conscription
seems almost as difficult of solution as that of the
replenishment of the Southern armies. On the 15th
of February, less than three weeks from the present
time, Mr. Lincoln has proclaimed that measures
must be adopted to provide him with 300,000 men.
Little has been done in any of the States to furnish
them by voluntary enlistment. High bounties have
been offered, but scarcely a man has presented him-
self to receive them, except soldiers whose term
of service has expired, an occasional negro, and
batches of newly arrived emigrants, who either left
Europe for this special purpose, or were inveigled,
stupefied with drink, and robbed by the bounty-
brokers of Castle-garden and the Battery. It is
publicly notified and lamented that not 100 men a
week are recruited in New York, notwithstanding
all the efforts made and all the inducements offered
singe the last proclamation was offered. A feeling
of anxiety for the consequences of a forced conscrip-
tion in this troublesome city, filled with a foreign
and unruly class accustomed to the discontents of
the Old World, and tainted with the Communistic

and Socialist ideas of the Red Republicans of Paris
and Germany, begins to prevail, and has within the
last two days been strengthened by the unwelcome
notification that all the naval recruitments, and some
others hitherto credited to the city of New York are
to be credited to the State at large. The city has