The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-28 00:00:00

NOTICE.

Ail remittances are, henceforth, to be made to
Mr. JOHN CHAPLIN, at The Sun office, 112,
Strand, who has been appointed, by the Lord
Chancellor, Receiver and Manager of The Sun
newspaper, and the outstanding debts due in
respect thereof.

•
• •t 7-k; ,L)
• 'll s ' • '

THE SUN.
LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 1862.

Apropos to the Duke of BUCCLEUCH and the
Thames Embankment, the House of Commons was
indulged last night with an amusing little interlude.
As Mr. SCULLY took occasion to remark towards
the close of the discussion " all the rows this session
are English." And here sure enough was the
latest and not by any means the least amusing.
Thanks to the virtuous indignation of the noble lord
the member for Huntingdonshire, it all came out
about the Duke,the Committee,the limes, the "West
Londoner," andthe rest of it! General scorn had been
excited, as everybody almost was more or less aware
during the last eight or ten days, by the knowledge
(tolerably accurate from the fist) of facts that had
got bruited about to the effect that in regard to this
long looked-for and magnificent scheme of a grand
Embankment along the northern margin of the River
Thames, the Duke of BUCCLEUCH'S mansion was
likely—nay, was more than likely, was tolerably
certain, unless Parliament interfered resolutely and
be times to prevent it—to "stop the way." It
came to be known far and wide about town several
days before the report of the Committee had been
published, that the plans originally regarded with
a favourable eye by the Committee had somehow
or another at the eleventh hour hour been marred
by a very serious and vexatious modification. The
printed evidence of the fact of this modification did
not, until several days after its announcement had
flitted by, come in any shape whatever before the
public. Nevertheless the reality of the fact was
for the chief part of the week before its
official notification in print, a matter of
positive notoriety. How had it all crept out? How
had the " West Londoner" come by his particularly
early, and as was, from the very first, apparent, his
perfectly authentic information ? Even now, th e why
and the wherefore of all this remains somewhat
enigmatical. Last evening, during the earlier part
of the discussion provoked by the rather caustic
remarks of Lord ROBERT IVIONTAGUE, we were for
a while seemingly upon the verge of a disclosure.
We had all but contrived to drop the pinch of salt
upon the tail of the " little bird " that had evidently
been flitting about Clubland.
The Right Hon. the Chairman of the Thames
Embankment Committee, the step-son of the Prime
Minister, the Chief Commissioner of Public Works,
of Woods and Forests, of Parks and Palaces, or
whatever his most exact Ministerial title may
chance to be had, it appeared, communicated
r--'----v rr a.. A es.-.1“,n.n" V. ricsaa.aci azsl.ura.,v yn
many circles" (the definition here is Mr. COWPER'S
own) : had, in point of fact, written a letter (enclos-
ing minutes of evidence carefully " ticked" and
marked with annotations), a letter directed to a Mr.
HIGGINS. Wishing to be precisely, we should
rather say, perhaps, to the Mr. HIGGINS, of what
Mr. ANTHONY TROLLOPE calls the The Thunderer.
As it happens, this communication of a Cabinet
Minister to one of the staff of The Thunderer, was
written by the PREMIER'S step-son subsequently
to the appearance of " A West Londoner's" letter
in The limes (under date June, the 23d), and—
what is still more to the purpose, for inasmuch as it
extricates Mr. COWPER from the charge of being
this mysterious informant " upon the sly," who has
been peaching against his brother committeemen
—the communication addressed by the Chairman
of the Thames Embankment Committee to the re-
presentative of The Thunderer, never actually
reached its destination, but was returned back upon
the hands of the right hon. gentleman the Chairman
of the Committee and the Chief Commissioner of
Public Works ! How this all came about was
brought to the knowledge of the House of Commons
last evening. It is a ludicrous little equivoque
that is exposed in its full absurdity by the noble
lord the member for Huntingdonshire. It is ex-
plained by Mr. COWPER, and it is commented
upon I•y Mr. HORSMAN. They are all together more
or less angry in consequence of the proceeding. It
is nothing more than a contretemps, but it is,
apparently, a contretemps of a singularly irrita-
ting character to those who are more immediately
concerned in it.

Mr. COWPER addresses his letter (containing
" private advices" upon the matter of the Thames
Embankment) to—Mr. HIGGINS. So wholly un-
acquainted is the Chief Commissioner of
Public Works with the number of the
HIGGINSES as a clan, that he naively assures the
House that in sending out his letter he was
actually not even aware that there was a
second Mr. HIGGINS! An intimation that was
at once greeted by the house with derisive cries of
" Oh !" and " Laughter." And no wonder: for
supposing the Minister to have been unaware of
the existence of any other Mr. HIGGINS at all, any-
where in the whole length and breadth of the
United Kingdom, he ought surely to have known
that there was still "one" other Mr. HIGGINS here
ill England : to wit, the learned gentleman who
Occupied for so brief an interval the position of
warming.pan
to the late M.P. for Midhurst,
in that learned gentleman's present capacity
as one of the
might at an
Masters of Lunacy. Mr. COWPER
y rate have known that there was
Mr. HIGGINS, the son-in-law of the ex-Chancellor,
I , 3 ri
his private communication addressed
Lord uIIELINISFORD! A 8 ill luck would have it for
INS goes—not, as
tAoIr.MCrO.II,H-PIEGRG,
was intended, to
Mr. "HIGGINS" of the Thunderer, but, as was de-
cidedly not intended, to Mr. HIGGINS, the eon-in-
law of Lord CHELMSFORD. Bewildered by receiv.
ing a letter of this kind addressed to himself so very
unaccountably, Mr. HIGGINS No. 2 shows it to a
Member of the Committee to whose proceed-
ings the letter has immediate reference. And
thereupon the said committeeman returns it
(as Mr. HIGGINS No. 2 should have done
at once himself, and not thus indirectly and
vicariously) to the right hon. gentleman whose
signature was appended to it. " From what has
occurred," exclaims Mr. COWPER, directly he be-
comes aware that there is a second Mr. HIGGINS,
" I do not feel the least desire to increase my acquain-
tance with the second Mr. HIGGINS !" Whereat
the House "cheers." If, however, the Minister (as ,

Chairman of the Committee and writer of the letter
referred to) is indignant with the total want of tact,
of discretion, and of courteous reticense evidenced
by this rather ill-starred relative of the late Chan-
cellor's, this Mr. HIGGINS who, doubtless with the
best intentions in the world, is nevertheless always
putting his foot in it, or trampling heavily upon
somebody's corns—Lord ROBERT MONTAGUE (as
himself a Member ;of the Thames Embank-
ment Committee) is even more indignant with
Mr. COWPER, Minister of the Crown, and Chair-
man of the Committee, for having written this
unfortunate letter at all! Having related, in the
House of Commons yestesday, the whole of the
circumstances of the case, as we have here given
them, the noble lord remarked that " The Thames
Embankment Committee, therefore, placed them-
selves in the hands of the House, and asked whe-
ther it was fair towards them, after they had
spent 25 days upon a most stupid subject—La
noble lord's opinion!]--in investigating very
intricate questions, that they should be insulted
out of the House, and have articles written
against them upon information supplied by some
member of the Committee." Warm words, truly,
but words, the application of which to himself, Mr.
COWPER at once takes occasion emphatically to
repudiate. And certainly the fact that the letter
that miscarried—the letter intended for Mr.
HIGGINS No. 1, but inadvertently delivered to Mr.
HIGGINS No. 2—the fact that that letter was
written by Mr. COWPER after the 23d instant, the
day upon which " A West Londoner" spoke so
loudly to the public at large through the columns
of the Times—is proof positive, if such were needed'
corroborating this emphatic repudiation. As the
affair stands altogether, the difficulty in regard to
it appears to us really and truly to be, not so much
to discover who has been in the wrong throughout
these proceedings, as, in point of fact, who has not
been in the wrong. Mr. COWPER would have done well
—no doubt of it—both in his capacity as Minister
of the Crown and as Chairman of the Committee,
if he had r ever written any letter of the kind to any
Mr. HIGGINS. Again, that unlucky gentleman,
the wrong Mr. HIGGINS, who is everlastingly get-
ting himself "into the wrong box," would have done
much better than he did, in this matter of the mis-
directed letter, if he had returned it at once to the
writer of it—showing it previously to no one—cer-
tainly least of all to a Member of the Thames Em
bankment Committee. Lord ROBERT MONTAGUE,
again, is too hot in his way of taking the matter
up, and in calling the parties implicated to account
in the House of Commons yesterday. Mr.
HORSMAN, moreover, has pleased no one
by the tone in which he commented upon
the whole transaction, saving and excepting only
one delightful mis-reading of a passage of the letter
of "A West Londoner," in the Times of the 23d of
June, a passage running, according to Mr. HORS.
MAN, as follows :—'‘ The real reason put forward
by counsel before the committee was that the Duke
of BUCCLEUCIE and one or two other noblemen and
gentlemen who live between Whitehall-stairs and
and Westminster-bridge, wish to enjoy all the ad
vantages afforded to them by a profuse ex•
penditure in purifying the Times (loud
laughter)—in purifying the Thames." As to
Mr. COWPER and the Committee, we leave
them to fight out the present dispute that
has sprung up among them, to fight it out quietly,
at their leisure, and to their own entire satisfac-
tion. All that the public at large really caros
about—and it does care about this in veritable
earnest, (as certain are we that the result will
prove)—all that the public at large does care about
in the matter is that the interests of A Duke shall
'4l, the interestsotf The People in
realising upon a RLA,Lug scale o
completeness, this great scheme of a Thames Em-
bankment.

Again the Confederates in Virginia have shown
themselves, if not the stronger, the more dexterous.
They appear to have, for the present, checked
M'CLELLAN'S advance. According to the terms of
his own proclamation to his army, by this time we
were to have had another great and decisive battle.
The flooding of the river Chickahominy imposed
on bath parties a not unwelcome armistice after the
murderous battle of Fair Oaks, but we expected as
soon as operations were practicable to hear of a
Federal advance, and to receive tidings either of a
fearful battle, or of the evacuation of Richmond.
The news by the Persia looks all the other way.
In two parts of Virginia the Confederates " show
fight" in a way which does not look like retreat.
Directly in front of Richmond they have made a
second successful assault, this time on the right wing
of M'CLELLAN's army. It was chiefly by cavalry,
which was sustained by artillery; not improbably the
very artillery captured on the left flank from Gen.
CASEY on the 31st of May. They actually turned
M'CLELLAN'S flank, went boldly to his rear, did
all the damage they could in the time to the railroad
and telegraph by which he keeps up his commu-
nications with West Point, destroyed forage and
tents, took many prisoners, and then got back to
their lines again before the Federal army could be
put in motion. We do not know how this informa-
tion should come to us except from a Northern
source; and if so, and it turned out to be in truth
the best phase of the affair, it shows either unac-
countable negligence in the army which allowed
itself to be surprised a second time, or great skill
on the part of the Southerners. It shows at least
that their energy and courage have not relaxed.
A similar spirit appears in the movements of
General JACKSON. It will be remembered how he
was sent into the Valley of the Shenandoah to drive
the unduly diminished army of BANKS out of the
district, an operation which he accomplished, of
course, easily and successfully. That, perhaps, re-
qnired little skill, and not much courage ; it was
intentionally a business of overpowering by superior
force, and perhaps BANKS rather deserved credit for
carrying off his 4,000 so little injured from the pur-
suit of 15,000. But BANKS returned largely rein-
forced; FREMONT by forced marches reached the
valley from the opposite quarter ; JACKSON now
had to retreat, but in doing so he contrived to draw
part of FREMONT'S cavalry into an ambuscade, and
to inflict on him the maximum of injury, while he
made his own way back eastward to join the main
Confederate army at Richmond. So it was thought.
It now turns out that the main army of the Con-
federates is strong enough to spare him sufficient
reinforcements to turn back again on FREMONT and
BANKS; and FREMONT, in turn, is reported to be
in a precarious position, in want of provisions,
and falling back to Mount Jackson. Intercepted
despatches, it is said, show that the real object of
the Confederates in sending FREMONT against
BANKS was to prevent M‘DowELL from joining
M'CLELLAN. 111`DOWELL certainly dare not quit
Ini additionself
his position at Fredericksburg, if Jackson were as
near Washington in the northwest of Virginia ashe
hna
wast
oo nt
this
ewe a
r esouthwesttold
thatat F Fredericksburg.
rriecakrsobfutrhge
Federal army is.
is, the country which
is, by Guerilla corps. That
the Federals have conquered,
and whichlies between
tphtehFr:udgehrailtse,
xacnedptcwomhmeruentihceaytioa
re
'CLELLAN and AVDOWELL
cisannnoot
tsebeenkreepfot ur
ins
in two strong force to be attacked by the Guerillas.
We find as the consequence of the whole that, only