The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-11 00:00:00

MORNING, DECEMBER 11, 1846,

THE WAR BETWEEN the UNITED

STATES and MEXICO,

During a war, policy and strategy go. hand in hand,
and hold in common the management of the operations.
No resolution, exercising a decisive influence on the fate
of the war, can be taken unless both have their share in
it ; and thus we can speak of a political and a military
half of the war, which, however, can in no way be talon
to imply that they are diverse from one another ; on
the contrary, they are most closely interwoven in every
direction, and at every moment. But this does not pre-
clude there being a political and military point of view
from which every war can, and must, be regarded, parti-
cularly if a comprehensive and correct, not a partial,
estimate is to be formed. This can only be obtained by
a consideration of both points, because, as we have said,
policy and strategy in war cannot be separated ; or, in
in other words, because the threads which in the strate-
getical part often appear in inextricable confusion, have ,
their ends in the political part, and vice versa.
If then, in the following remarks we attempt to pro•
nounce a military judgment on the war waging by the
United States against Mexico, we must preface that we
shall not be guided by military views alone. The ne-
cessity of including the political relations in the motives
of such a judgment appears, perhaps, nowhere with ,
greater force than in an examination of the opening of
the campaign in question. In a military point of view
it can in no way be termed brilliant, as well as regards
one party as the other ; nay, more, it was erroneous,
and most on the American side. The frontier, towards
the enemy, was stripped of troops, the army essentially
on a peace footing, and only augmented by a few regi.
meats, the preparations for raising the new levies not
completed, and no step taken for their actual execution
All these, in a military point of view, were most un-
favourable circumstances, and, strategetically considered,
must have forbidden the opening of the war, had not
policy prevented totally opposite chances. That the
latter preponderated, was the result of a correct estimate
of their importance, and of a knowledge of the strength
of the Union as opposed to Mexico. Nevertheless, it
must be allowed that, in the beginning of the war, the
initiative belonged to this latter ; that, in consequence,
the war might possibly have been commenced by a de-
feat of the Americans, which perhaps would have been
followed by a more decisive political one also. 'We may
even assert that it must have been so, if the Mexicans
had known better how to avail the mselves of their advan-
tages. The approaching explanations, which we may
expect will be made about this war, will show what
errors were committed, at first on the Mexican side ;
that they were committed, is not only certain, but that
they were important. Had this not been the case,
General Taylor must have been annihilated at the very
commencement of hostilities. The Mexicans, however,
whether owing to physical inferiority or erroneous
tactics, allowed General Taylor to extricate himself
from his ill-chosen position, and thus lost their hest.
chance. A comparison has frequently been drawn be-
tween the expedition of the American army and the
Russian campaign of 1812 ; the circumstances, however,
are totally different, the Russians in the latter case being
the weakest in the beginning of the campaign, while
on the retreat of the enemy they knew they could reckon
on an important accession of force. The Mexicans, on
the contrary, during the whole of the first period of the
campaign, were the strongest, and therefore had the
initiative.- On the American side, their chief error was
allowing themselves to be seduced, by a few slight suc-
cesses, from the north, on to a line of operations be-
yond the Rio Grande del Norte, Monterey, and Saltillo,
to the city of Mexico, when, having the undisputed
command of the Gulf of Mexico, through their fleet,
their proper basis of operation was there, with the view
of capturing their capital, which would at once have
given them possession of the country. The distance
from Tampico or Vera Cruz to Mexico is only 300 miles,
while from the basis of the American land operations.
through Monterey and Saltillo, it is over 700 miles. The
plan adopted by General Taylor as the principle of the
campaign seems to have been to employ the Rio Grande
as the basis of operation, whence the fortifications he has
erected along the course of that stream, and the 10,000
men left there by him, as a sort of reserve, on his
march to Monterey. The expedition of General
Kearney may also be brought in connexion with this
plan, he having marched on this river, and, as the best
criterion of a strong basis is a great extension, he there-
by strengthened General Taylor's basis of operations.
In this expedition, however, the consideration prepon-
derated that Santa 14, which Kearney chose as the
object of his operations, is the centre of Mexican power
in the North, and, in the position of New Mexico, be-
tween the Arkansas territory and New California, its
capture by the North Americans must be the first step
to the occupction of the latter State, the possession of
which, as is acknowledged, was the primary object of
the war. The eight weeks' armistice granted to Am•
pudia by General Taylor was another error, though pro-
bably owing to the latter's ignorance of the real forces of
Santa Anna in the south and Armijo in the north. This
error, was the greater as it allowed the enemy time to
recover from the effects of the defeat they had sustained
at Monterey. With regard to the basis of operations in
the Gulf of Mexico, the first thing that ought to be
done is the capture of Vera Cruz, or Tampico. The
former will probably be considered too strong to afford
any prospect of success to the American fleet, destitute
as the latter at present is of line-of-battle ships—a defi-
ciency that is, however, about to be remedied, by the
equipment of the Ohio, 84 ; but as this ship is still in
dock, we may regard the attack on Vera Cruz as indefi-
nitely postponed, if it is to await the arrival of that
vessel. It must then be assumed that the Americans
will first capture Tampico, and then besiege Vera Cruz
by land and sea—a plan that presents the ''o.ver difficul-
ties, inasmuch as from the slow progress of the raising
of Santa Anna's army, stated at 30,000 men, the Mexi-
can General will most likely await the Americans in the
plains of Anahuac, which, as soon as Vera Cruz and
Tampico are in the hands of the Americans, will be the
scene of further operations—Avsburg Gazette.

STRANGE INCIDENT-A FOUND

LING.

On Tuesday week a woman, of rather lady-like ap-
pearance, called at a large wholesale and retail ware-
house in this city, and after making some trilling pur-
chases, requested permission to leave, for a fe .7 mi-
nutes, a rather large basket which she carried in her
hand, as she had " another call to make." Some time
having elapsed without the woman re-appearing, the
attention of one of the young men was called to the
article in question by observing, as he fancied, some-
thing moving inside. On farther examination, its con-
tents were found to be nothing less than a fine thriving
babe, with the following words labelled on its breast :
—" Be kind to it. Its father is in the warehouser—
This astounding discovery produced of course, a general
sensation, much titillation, a good deal ,eif bantering, and
not a little sly scrutiny as to which of all the young
nr.'n blushed deepest. Not one, however, of the one
hundred and fifty—for they amounted to no smaller a
number—had the candour, like Mrs. Muhprop in her
love for Sir Lucius, to " own the soft impeachment !"
In this dilemma, one of the partners of the firm resolved
to follow the example of the renowned philomath Doctor
O'Toole, who, when unable to detect a delinquent, uni-
formly took the sure plan of thrashing all the boys in
the school ! In other words, he proposed that eveif
man in the establishment should be mulcted in a penny
a-week for the support of their interesting " charge ;".
and, accordingly, the unconscious little hero or heroine
of this curious story, has been carefully put out to nurse
with the prospect of being well looked after. The progress
of the infant will no doubt be watiked with as much
anxiety as that of the juniar Dombey himself ; and if it
turn out to have red hair, or a nose more than ordinarily
snub, or any other marked peculiarity of person, how
great will be the consternation in the breast of every
unfortunate possessor of similar characteristics among
its one hundred and fifty foster-fathers ! In the mean-
time, the latter will be particularly careful how they
take in any more queer-looking baskets, lest the esta-
blishment with which they are connected should be
transformed into another L'llospitaldes Enfans Trouves.
—Glasgow Argus.

LORD DUNDONALD'S WAR PLAN.—The scientific
commission appointed to examine and decide on the
merits of his Lordship's discovery, is occupied with the
investigation of its principle, which neither trenches on
that oCaptain Warner, nor on the ingenious invention
termed gun cotton, but is, in regards the latter, of a
totally different nature. Cotton explodes instantaneously,
like the galvanic spark, whereas his Lordship's discovery
effects a continuous evolution of intensely powerful
elastic products—like the unremitting generation of ster an
from boiling water, the effect of which has been ren-
dered familiar to the public by the steam gun (or tube)
of the ingenious Mr. Perkins, from which a stream of
shot, following each other in close succession, pass
through the atmosphere with less opposition, and conse-
quently transport their overwhelming effect to a greater
distance than shells, or shot propelled singly from artil-

lery.—Hampshire Telegraph.
ELOPEMENT.—A young lady left the residence a
her respectable friends in this town on Saturday night
last, by the mail train, accompanied by her waiting-
maid. On her arrival at Bristol she proceeded to Chel-
tenham, where she was discovered by her friends, at the
Plough Hotel, not in the arms of her lover, but in those
of the drowsy. god, to whose resistless influence the
fatigue of her journey and its incidental emotions had
compelled her to resign herself. She was brought home
on Sunday. The young lady is in her 17th year, and
will be entitled to considerable property. Being a ward
in Chancery, the favoured gallant, for whose sake she
adopted her indiscreet journey, would eventually have
found the object of his adoration costly fur the offered
PRICE, and consequently that he had' paid dear for his
whistle."— Taunton Courier.
An American journal says, that when a cat's tail is
pinched between the door and the post, she utters tle
vowels a e i o u, and finally dwelling on w till re-
leased, when the sound terminates on y short.
An opinion prevails that a pawnbroker, receiving
an article in pledge which has been stolen, can, demand
from the owner the repayment of money he has ad-
vanced to the thief by whom the stolen goods were
pledged. This is a mistake, as will be seen on reference
to the 39th and 40th George cap. 99, sec. 13, which
enacts that when goods are unlawfully pawned, the pawn-
broker is to restore them, without any mention of com-
pensation.
FATHER EUSTACE.—A. great stir has been occa-
sioned among English Roman Catholics by the report
that Mrs. Trollope, in the new work announced for im-
mediate publication called " Father
herbEutace a Tale of
the Jesuits," has represented some of gher officers
of that order in this country in positions far from cre-
ditable to them. It is even said that the Superior of
the Jesuits in England has received particular instruc-
tions from Rome relative to this work; and from all that
has been suffered to transpire, we are led to anticipate
some revelations not less exciting than those which at-
tracted so much attention in the popular work, known
in England, by the title of " Priest, Women, and Fa•
wines.