The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-15 00:00:00

titrting PATIt

LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1847.

Advices from America to the 25th ultimo have
been received by the French line of packet steam-
ship Missouri. The previously received accounts of
the capture of Mexico by the American troops have
been fully corroborated. The loss to the victorious
army, in killed, wounded, and missing, amounted to
no less than 1,623 men. 238 were killed
and 47 missing, the greater number of whom, it is to
be feared, bare been cut off, the great exasperation
of the Mexicans, and their determination to carry on
a guerilla warfare, and the measures said to have
been taken for the assassination of the hostile soldiers,
leaving little hope that mercy would he extended to
any of the enemy who fell into their hands. General
WoaTtes brigade suffered much more severely than
any of the others, nearly three•fifths of the total
loss having been sustained by htat division.
General QUITMAN, of Mississippi, had been
appointed the American Governor of the city,
and had in that capacity occupied the palace of the
late President. He had also levied a contribution of
150,000 dollars on the inhabitants.
We regret to say that the intelligence of the execu-
tion of the deserters from the American army has also
been confirmed. More than fifty were butchered in
cold blood, after the battle of Churubusco, ten, it

appears, had their sentences commuted to receiving
"fifty lashes with a raw hide whip well laid on the
bare back of each ;" each of them was also to be
" branded on a cheek with the letter D, to be kep

close prisoner as long as the army should remain in
Mexico, and then to he drummed out of the service.''
In these instances this mercy was extended because the
parties had left the American service before the war had
commenced, indeed, while the United States were at
peace with the entire world. Other circumstances of
mitigation existed in the other cases, the particulars
of which have not been stated, with the exception of
one whose life was spared because he had a son in
the same company who had remained faithful to his
colours. The whole proceedings of America with
respect to Mexico have not created very favourable
impressions amongst other nations. These feelings
will not be improved by the legalized murder of fifty
prisoners, very many of whom were
citizens. not American
A. great change has taken place since the
period when wholesale massacres could be justified
under any pretexts'
prevails to the The sanguinary spirit no longer
same
extent as formerly, and
the Americans may becertain that the ruthless and
which barbarous severity of they have been guilty
will excite a general feeling of disgust amongst all
civilized nations.
It remains yet to be seen whether
of the enemy's capital will obtain forthe possession
the conquerors
by
the desired concessions. They may seize
brute
force the dominions of the sister republic,
t hey may,occupy their chief towns, and establish garrisons
in
strongholds throughout the country, but
their own
expenses and losses have been enormous, and a heavy.
n
taxation will teach those who have hitherto escaped
comparatively scatheless from tho demands of the tax
collectors, that wars and victories, however much they
may pamper the national vanity, are at best expensive
luxuries, and that unprov)ked aggressions on other
nations, however successful, generally bring many
evils along with them—that with nations as with in-
dividuals "Honesty is the best policy." The 31exi
cans are now exasperated to the highest pitch, means
the most sanguinary and atrocious are stated by
General' SCOTT to have been resorted to. The
American Commander-in-Chief, in a general order,
says **that an extensive conspiracy is, on foot to sur-
prise, by means of an insurrection, our guards and

quarters, and to murder our officers and soldiers,"
and again, " until ready for the insurrection the dis-
guised villains hope to do us much harm in detail.
Their plan is to assassinate stragglers, particularly
drunken men ; to entice individuals or small par-
ties into shops to drink, and to stab them.
when in their cups, to entice our gallant Roman
Catholic soldiers, who have done so much honour to
our colours, to desert, under a promise of land in
California, which our arms have already conquered
and which for ever will remain part of the United
States." Is this a state of affairs from which either
honour or profit can be derived, and which is to be
protracted to an indefinite period to gratify the feel-
ings of avarice or of territorial aggrandisement?
Will it be received with approbation by high-minded
and honourable citizens ? It will be perceived that
the flimsy disguise of negotiation is cast aside. Califor-
nia is no longer to be acquired by treaty or pur-
chase. According to General SCOTT, it has already
been conquered and will for ever remain part of the
United States. The pretexts that have been hereto-
fore made are now castasiie, and the real object of the
war, " the acquisition of California by conquest" is
plainly avowed. Indeed it is asserted, that still
more extensive schemes are now projected—that
some of the Cabinet are for the retension of the
whole of the Mexican territories, while the more
moderate are, as yet contented with a large portion
thereof.

The commercial intelligence is of considerable im-
portance, and affords an additional illustration of the
impolicy and inexpediency of our monetary laws, which
attempt to bring back a portion of useless gold, that
it may lie idle and unproductive in the Bank
cellars at the cost of a general depreciation of every
description of property, and the ruin of hundreds of
our most eminent mercantile firms. We have long
foreseen that the effect of the Act of 1844 may be wholly
different from. that which was. contemplated. On the
21st ultirao,;a:few days,hefore_ the present amounts
were received from New 'York, we used the following
language :—" The object of this Act was to enforce
the retention of gold in the country, or to bring it
back if it should by any means be exported ; but
this may likewise. operate in a manner wholly
different from the intention of its originators. The
wide- spread alarm that it has occasioned has cast dis-
credit on the British name ; the honour and the
solvency of British merehants cannot now: be relied
on as in former days. The value of bills on England
are consequently depreciaied4,from. the fear that'they
may be returned' dishonotired,, and payments- in other
lands can'therefore be More profitably made in specie
than hill-Ills; !MI, as a natural resnit,, the bullion
will still leave'the country, ho matteihowanxiously
our rulers -may endeavour. .to retain it, Either that
must be the case, or there must be a total- cessation
of our commercial 'pursuits, and all classes must

be exposed to the greatest misery and pri-
vations." • Unfortunately these predictions have
turned out to, be but too well' fOunded.

The natural consequences of the depreciation of our
credit are taking place. We are told, %We„tio not
anticipate that much specie will- be sent to you. ,Such
as goes now is transmitted chiejiq by parties who are
afraid of all bills, and who do not mind losing the
difference. We understand that some of the principal
London houses urge their agents to. send gold ;" and
again, in speaking of the probable-supply of bread stuff,
the following language is used :—" If many breadstuff'
are wanted on your side thisvv-inter, we think, under the
present shattered state- of credit, gold must be sent out
to buy them. • There is a desire to ship flour and grain
if advances could be got ; but houses feel the necessity
of being very guarded." The probable consequences
of a continuance in our unwise policy is pointed out
in the transference of our manufactures to other lands.
They say, " We have heretofore found the best mar-
kets for our most important staple productions in Great
Britain, and whatever tends to cramp or cripple that
demand is, of course, for the time, a great evil. Our
cotton has been the most important raw material one
country ever furnished another. The industry c.f
England has depended upon it, and her wealth has
been increased enormously by the addition of that
industry to the first cost. It has given employment
and subsistence to millions of her people, and
afforded an important item of transportation to
the commercial marine of that country. England
has been such an important_ customer for this staple
that all others have been made subservient, and we have
been, 111 a measure, controlled in prices by,the will ofher
manufacturers. It therefore appears plain that what-
ever affects the demand for this staple in England
affects prices in this country; and if the manufac-
turers of England curtail their operations we must
reduce the supply of the raw material. It does not,
however, follow that the consumption of cotton
is reduced in proportion to the reduction
in the demands from the manufacturers of
Great Britain. A demand for the raw material
springs up in other sections, and the markets
of the world are supplied from other sources. If the
manufacturers of Great Britain work short time, and
consume one third less cotton than usual, the supply
of manufactured goods from that source becomes
reduced, and the consumption must be supplied from
other sources, or reduced to a corresponding extent.
Notwithstanding the deficiency in the harvests of Eu-
rope generally, the masses have been in a very prospe-
rous condition, and have been in a position to consume
these fabrics as largely as usual, and the demand in the
aggregate has doubtless been as large as usual. It is,
therefore, a very important question with those coun-
tries which have hitherto imported so largely of British
cotton manufactures, what increase there has been in
their domestic supply, and what progress they have
made in the establishment of manufactories within
their own limits ? The United States have progressed
wonderfully in this element, and anything tending to
depress the manufacturing industry of England gives
a great impetus to it in this country. We have no
return showing the actual increase in this branch, but
we have no doubt it has been a very large per cent
A. few years will suffice, at the rate we have advanced
within the past few years, to place us independent of
Great Britain, not only for supplies of manufactured
goods, but for markets for the raw material."
' How long will our legislators be blind to the signs
of the times, and, in the face of such events, persevere
in the maintenance of an abstract theory, the adoption
of which has exposed their country to the greatest
calamities, and threatens eventually to occasion her
total ruin ?
a

On Saturday evening we referred, in a particular
manner, to the measures adopted for the conservation
of our colonial interests in the West Indian Archi-
pelago ; this evening we would epitomize the en-
deavours recently made for the tranquillisation of
affairs in New Zealand. It were but a one-sided
and short-sighted policy which would tend to the
depreciation of the difficulties existing in our colonies
merely to enhance the appreciation of our internal
embarrassments. Were the Government of the
country to concentrate its energies upon a single
point of administration--no matter how vital its
exigency, no matter if it implied the maintenance of
national credit or the prevention of foreign invasion
—the affairs of Great Britain would very speedily
fall into such involvements as would evince the in-
capacity of its statesmen, and demonstrate the neces-
sity for a more prudential course of legislation. It is
this which justifies the complication of the adminis-
trative authority ; it is this which not merely
justifies its complication, but proclaims the corn-
summate wisdom of those councils in which
that complication originated. IVithout arrogating
to itself the characteristics of omnipotence or omni-
science, the law requires for its proper enforcement
such a variety of channels, in the persons of its offi-
cial representatives, as would be incompatible with
any less simple arrangement than that which is pe-
culiar to the constitution of the United Kingdom.
hence it is that the vigilance of the Legislature is
imntio;binil,e an
—d
more
el
ypaaslttsthofanouthroesneoorfmimoupersdioa-1
ol more enriched by commercial enterprise
than those of republican Carthage--more than suffi-
cient for the ambition of the
fMacedonian, or for the
philosophic. investigation of
ALXANDER been doubly successfulthe
' a
he could never have acquired territories Qr : conqueror,
' and gigantic as those which own sovereigntytheies
VlCTORlA—stretching to the antarctic
ayrite. Had
a
so remote
i
circle
efo of
theforeats of Canada, and to the torrid zone rill
from
the shores of Ilindostan. Had ARISTOTLE brought
to , the science of legislation an the craft of