The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LO!MON, MONDAY JAL `.t 2C. 1832,

o n
We
suche
aar e
and at the present time of the year storms terrific
and destructive, is an attack in truth on the rights
the protection furnished by nature
of nations. It is destroying not onlyre treandae, but
mCRarEiAnTeO: himself, snelefe,
necessities
oititehs the
ofw worn oueatnorexpeeurisse thehing
blocking
uepeasat.
v commercial harbour of refuge, and
,glad to see that England has not been
silent on .the subject. Our Government as soon
as it heard only rumours on the subject, took it up,
and wrote to Lord LYONS. They wrote on the
20th of December, and of course he had the com-
munication about the beginning of the New Year.
It is too plain that it was ineffectual, together with
that which we assume to have been sent by
France ; however, on receiving the information
that the crime had been actually perpetrated, our
Government sent out fresh remonstrances, doubtless
stronger ones, with the view of preventing repeti-
tion of such outrages. Lord RUSSELL'S observa-
tions must have been very stinging, but certainly
not more stinging than jest. He justly represents
the act as a confession of defeat. " Lord LYONS
was told that such a cruel plan would seem to imply
despair of the restoration of the Union, the pro-
fessed object of the war—for it never could be the
wish of the United States Government to destroy
cities from which their own country was to derive
a portion of its riches and prosperity. Such a plan
could only be adopted as a measure of revenge and of
irremediable injury against an enemy. Lord LYONS
was further told that even as a scheme of embit-
tered and sanguinary war such a measure would
not be justifiable. It would be a plot against the
commerce of all maritime nations, and against the
free intercourse of the Southern States of America
with the civilised world. Lord LYONS was desired
to speak in this sense to Mr. SEWARD, who, it was
hoped, would disavow the illegal project."
What even the ingenious Mr. SEWARD can reply
to such arguments it is not easy to conceive. If he
really has hope of restoring the Union, he dare not
allege his real reason—that even in that case he
would like to force the commerce of the States into
the ports of the North. But we may well
believe that the intention of the North is, whether
they recover the South or not, to make the
war an occasion of securing the export and import
trade of the Eastern coast for the Northern ports.
We should think too the President will feel the
important considerations implied in the charge of
plotting against the commerce of all civilized na-
tions. He can hardly mistake the intimation that
if civilized nations do not find remonstrance strong
enough, they may speedily resort to something
stronger. Probably the Yankees will now aban-
don their worse than piratical proceedings, and
perhaps again claim some credit for establishing
some important principle for which they have long
contended, as a soother to national vanity.

Mr. ROEBUCK sounds his cracked clarion im-
mediately before the meeting of Parliament. Time
was when its reverberations were sonorous enough
to hearten many an independent Liberal, not only
among the hon. and learned gentleman's own con-
stituents, but far and wide throughout the United
Kingdom. Even now with all its crotchets, and,
we may add (in recollection of Vienna) his quavers
also, in spite of his many whims and oddities (as
eccentric in their way as those of HOOD, though
hardly as exhilarating) notwithstanding his consti-
tutional and ineradicable irritability, the member
for Sheffield continues to stand forth before the poli-
tical world—still, of course, without any following,
but still also, to the last, a notability. TEAR-'EM
may have lost a good many of his teeth long ago,
but his bark is yet as loud as ever, and applying to
hint by travestie, a refrain of honest CAPERN
the poetical Postman- of Bideford, we may aver,
with some good show of reason, that—" There's
life in the old dog yet." Mr. ROEBUCK we still
look to as capable of good things whenever he may
find the opportunity. With all his faults of temper
and errors of judgment he is a man thoroughly in
earnest. Even when ho insists upon the excellence
of the constitutional Government of his Majesty
the Emperor of AUSTRIA, we may wonder at his as-
tounding obliquity of vision when looking towards
Schcenbrunn, we do certainly marvel at an estimate
so entirely contrary to known, arid preyed, and un-
deniable facts—but, at the same time, that Mr. ROE-
BUCK believes black to be white, in this manner,
when he says that he does, we are absolutely cer-
tain. Marvellous it is that it should be so, but that
it is so, nevertheless, we rest perfectly well as-
sured. And it is because we have this implicit
reliance upon Mr. ROEBUCK'S sincerity, even when
we are most opposed to him, that we respect even
his blunders. We cannot induce ourselves to regard
the member for Sheffield solely through the medium
of his late hallucinations.

It is told of one of the greatest intel-
lects, the Omnipotent Creator of us all ever
vouchsafed to this earth, it is related of Sir
ISAAC NEWTON, towards the close of his life,
when he was falling into "the sere and yellow leaf,''
though yet far from lapsing into intellectual im-
becility, at his death-place (the old fashioned red-
brick house still called, in memory of the philo-
sopher, " Newton house," out at Campden-
hill, Kensington), that he found it impossible
to comprehend some of his own abstruse calculations,
some of the very basis of his own many wonderful
mathematical demonstrations. It may be very
lamentable therefore, it is (net a doubt of it) truly
1 deplorable in its way to all these who ever hoped for
better things, who ever dreamt even of great things
from Mr. ROEBUCK as a politician. Yet it is of
the same time not so very surprising either, remem-
bering the change that came over NEw'roN's intel-
lect when the heyday of its happiest power was
waning—that these twists and flaws, and errors of
judgment should thus be recognisable after all. But
a very few years ago and Mr. ROEBUCK would
have been the very man to cover with ridi-
cule any one who shelled have had
the temerity to select as the theme
of his pinegyric—of all the Governments in
Christendom !—the Austrian Government ! Yet
now so clouded is the once clear-sighted common
sense of this bold and hardy Tribune of the Eng-
lish People that he can have the consummate hardi-
hood to maintain this thesis against all corners, nay,
has done so, as the public may well remember, with
a kind of enthusiasm. A preposterous rumour vas
set afloat, by sonic one who could have known little
either of the man himself or of his pure and honest
reputation, to the effect that Mr. ROEBUCK had
ben either bribed or cozened into this strange and
morganatic alliance between English Radicalism
and German Despotism. How that nonsensical
taunt was repelled we recollect, every one
of us, vividly. Down to Sheffield went
Mr. ROEBUCK instanter. Sheffield was his
natural " platform"—the House of Commons not
being at the time assembled. There, at Sheffield
was, reasonably enough, the fittest rostrum he
could ascend. Thither, consequently, went Mr.
RoeßucK, we say, to Sheffield, as at another time,
and in regard to a very different subject of dispute,
went Mr. HORSMAN down to Ms agitated and
divided constituents at Stroud. In both instances
we deemed the Representatives in a Difficulty, to be
more or lessgrieTously in error. But in bothin

stances we could not for the life of us help admir-
ing the pluck with which the difficulty requiring
to be eneoun4.ered was resolutely seized and grap-
pled with. In each instance the Member, pre-
ciously Under a Cloud, came forth—with
his " rising reputation" for Eccentricity con-
firmed, but with his previous reputation for
honesty and conscientiousness thoroughly confirmed
also. The community could not but look upon each
as an undoubted Political Oddity : but, through the
indignation with which many of their hitherto
hearty supporters and admirers resented the some-
what incongruous policy upon which they had sud-
denly adventured, these very alienated supporters
and admirers could not but still respect the stab-
born determination with which each Member in turn
stuck to his new-fangled ideas as though they were
in perfaet harmony with all his earlier opinions
and recognised principles.
In the oratorical display that has now very
recently been made by the hon. and learned member
for Sheffield—not this time at Sheffield, but at Salis-
bury,not in the Town Hall, but in the local Scientific
Institution—Mr. ROEBUCK has judiciously avoided
dangerous topics for him, such, let us say, as the
redoubtable Galway Contract, or as that new and
vaunted Austrian Constitution, in which, according
to hire, so many of the day-dreams of Utopia are so
very charmingly realised. Yet in spite of the wise
"taboo" thus put upon the Irish packet route and
the glorified farce of the "KAISER turned Reformer,"
Mr. ROEBUCK still, with a singular display of all
his former dexterity in stumbling, could not ac-
tually, as it turned out, descant for two or three
hours upon an innocent theme, such as the one he
had chosen, upon " Popular Education," without
affording new evidence of his aptitude to indulge in
the wildest eccentricities and the most extravagant
hallucinations. Nothing could well be more dis-
cursive than Mr. ROEBUCK'S mode of treating this
subject of Popular Education. Earnest and humor-
ous alternately, animated always, often impressive,
and never dull, the lecturer ranged as lecturers ever
should, no matter what their, theme " from grave
to gay from lively to severe." But the fantastic
scope of Mr. ROEBUCK'S prelection on Thursday
evening down at Salisbury, may be conjectured
when we observe that he brought within the compass
of his remarks, allusions to Mr. and Mrs. RICHARD
GUINNESS HILL at one moment, and at another io
Madame ROLAND, now quoting SAMUEL SMILES,
and now EDWIN CHADWICK. How amusing the
lecture was rendered occasionally by the introduction
of apt illustrative anecdotes in favour of the wider
diffusion of Popular Education, let the following
show :—" I recollect," said Mr. ROEBUCK, " some
years ago being
in Hampshire : I went out of my
house in the morning with the lines in my hand,
and going into the garden I found a labouring man
whom I rather liked--a shrewd, clever fellow. He
said, 'Any news,
Sir, this morning ?" Yes,' I re-
plied, rather bad news.' Bad news !—what's that,
Sir ?" Why,' I said, the Duke of WELLINGTON is
dead.' Ab, Sir,' he remarked, 'I be very sorry for he,
but who was her " At another moment, in a spirit
born, one might fancy, of an admiring perusal of
the Essays and Reviews, the member for Sheffield
observes (in regard to the kind of knowledge in-
stilled into the minds of children) " They talk of
JEROBOAM or JEHOSHAPHAT" asking, amazedly,
afterwards, " but who cares about JEROBOAM or
JEHOSHAPPIAT Nay, adding to this rather won-
drously "They [that is JEROBOAM and lEHOSII-
APHAT] have not only long passed away, but they
have left no trace of their existence behind. To tell one
how many four-legged animals there are on the farm is
a thing all can undeastand, and will go clearly to exer-
cise the mind of the children." So that absolutely
Mr. ROEBUCK would rather "teach the young idea
how to shoot" by counting pigs in the stye than by
familiarising them with the epochs, and events,
and localities associated with names like JEROBOAM
and JEIIOSIIAPHAT. In all which mode of argu-
ment upon the subject of Popular Education we
cannot but recognise a singular affectation on the
part of the lecturer. Arguments like these, upon
a matter of such vital importance, may be very
entertaining, but they are very little indeed to the
purpose.

The advices from America by the Niagara, so
far as they relate to military and naval matters,
are very conflicting. The North tells of successes
at Port Royal, but the South seems also to rejoice
in successes. The former speak only of one attack
by land and water on the Confederate position, in
which the latter, amounting to 8,000, were
worsted by about half their number, and driven
back to works near the railroad—doubtless that
which connects the two capitals of Georgia and
South Carolina. The confederates are represented
as losing alarge gun. They report, however, that they
drove back the Yankees in Bull's Run style on
their first attack, that the latter then retreated, and
obtained reinforcements, after which the Confede-
rate commander, au a matter of strategy,
retreated to his works near the railroad. The

Confederate generals express however full confi-
dence that they shall be able to prevent a Federal
advance on either Savannah or Charleston. Com-
paring the two accounts we should think that the
FedeLals had the best of it, being supported by
the guns of the Wabash, but that out of range
of her fire, the Confederates were too strong for
the invaders. We are inclined to think that the
Federals will not:be able to advance far inland; pro-
bably not even to capture the two capitals on the
railroad. All the time they have been there they
have at least, done nothing worth mention.
The Federal Government has at last condeicendecl
to an exchange cf prisoners. This may probably
be looked upon as a concession to reason, rather
than au indication of weakness. It would not indeed
have occurred to anyone that the latter was implied,
had not the North so foolishly persisted in ignoring
the belligerent character of the " rebels." The
prisoners seem to have been, in many . respects,
hardly treated ; but they speak kindly of the
attentions of some ladies, a surgeon, and
other persons. Probably the Southerns had
not much to spare in the way of comfort
for prisoners, since their own papers give an ac-
count of their own army which may vie with
anything in Crimean history. Drill is neglected,
drunkenness rife, the army becoming a terror to
peaceful citizens, substitutes for service are ad-
vertised for at an enormous bonus—£4o, £5O.
even £3OO has been offered for a substitute !
Money must, after all, be more plentiful
than was supposed in the South. They tell us
however that the spirit of the young men is un-
quenched, but that the dirt, neglect, and mis-
management of the camp disgust them with actual
service. APCLELLAN, who is recovering from his
fever will surely recover ' courage for a grand
attack if he believes the accounts of the liichmond
Examiner.

As to the affair of the Trent all we now hear of
it is from the Senate, there Mr. SUMNER
himself has placed it in the light to best gratify
American vanity. Captain WILKES was misled
by a British law-book; England has stultified
herself ; America has compelled her to acknowledge
the claims she has long made—in fact, WILKES and
SEWARD have gained for America "a great political
triumph." We may follow Lord RUSSELL, and
reply that we do not care about the triumphs since '

this affair is amicably settle.ii. We have also the
Pleasure of seeing that, since Mr. SEWARD lips been
bsiind ovci to keep the peace, he has shown no incli
nation to forfeit his recognisanees. -