The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-03 00:00:00

MR, FRELINGHUYSEN.

The American papers publish the following letter ad
dressed by ex-Senator Frelinghuysen to President Grant,
immediately after the official news of his nomina-
tion as Minister of the United States to the Court of St.
James's :

" Newark, N.J., July 27, 1870.
" To His Excellency President Grant.
" Permit me to express my appreciation of the distin-
guished honour done me in my appointment as Minister
to England ; an honour the more valuable because origi-
nating with one whose confidence I so highly prize. I
received the official notification of my appointment on
Friday, the 22nd instant. Since then, and before, I have
deeply and disinterestedly reflected on the question
whether it was my duty to accept the office,
and having come to the conclusion that it was
not, I regret that the telegrams indicating the
resolution to which I have come, sent, the one
on the morning of Thursday, the 14th inst., just as soon
as the rumours of my possible nomination took place
in the press, and the other on the morning of the 15th,
as soon as I heard of my nomination, did not reach
their destination in time to lead to the selection of another
than myself for the position. Although my mind was
fixed on this subject when I telegraphed, yet the most
grateful vote of the Senate on my confirmation, which I
am aware was to a good degree the result of a natural
kindly feeling toward a recent associate, and also an ex-
pression of views as to the national policy, has led me
carefully to review the subject. In view of my domestic
relations and duties, which, I was gratified to find, in a
recent interview, you appreciated, my own distaste for
diplomatic position, and my conviction that there are
others better suited to the office, I am brought to my first
conclusion, and shall forward my letter, declining the
office, to the Secretary of Slate. While I regret that
my efforts to avoid the association of my name with this
office were not successful, you will please permit me again
to express my high appreciation of the honour con
ferred. I am, with much respect, your obedieni
servant,

" FRED'S T. FRELINGHUYSEN."

The Newark Advertiser explains that Mr. Frelinghuysen
never accepted the position or intimated that he would.
His friends in the Senate requested him to remain silent
to avoid confusion at the ch,se of the session of the
Senate.

NAPOLEON'S DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS.
ENGLAND OFFERS A CHANCE OF
ESCAPE.
England has offered to the French Emperor a way of
escape from the difficulties and dangers which threaten
r his overthrow and expulsion, and the re-establishment of
the republic in the further prosecution of this war.
England's proposition is simply a treaty of peace. Napo-
leon intimates through Lord Lyons that he is ready to
bury the hatchet, but King William replies to the special
messenger of Queen Victoria that if France wants
peace she must ask an armistice in the nsual way, or
, leave the issue to the arbitrament of war. This reduces
Napoleon, then, to the war of an armistice, and while by
war his empire may be lost, through an armistice the em-
pire and his dynasty may yet be saved. It is probable,
too, that with very little urging on the part of her Britan-
nic Majesty the Emperor will be persuaded even
to an armistice. Why not ? Excepting a sus-
pension of hostilities, with a treaty of peace, what
alternative of safety is offered to Napoleon ? With
-the presence of the Prussian invading army in
front of Paris "the republic" is threatened, and from
present appearances this invading army will not be
arrested till in front of the walls of Paris. Stout old
King William, over the most formidable obstacles of the
most difficult line of approach from her Eastern frontier,
has passed into the heart of France. Through a network
of fortified cities and towns, over mountain ranges and
difficult rivers, fighting and routing at every step the
flower of the French army, its best generals and its
best soldiers, the massive columns of the German
Confederation have maintained their resistless
. advance towards the French capital. Compared
with the natural. and artificial obstructions they
have passed the obstacles which lie between them
and Paris are comparatively insignificant. They have
shewn that against an invading army, powerful enough
to protect itself in the open field, front, flanks and rear,
detached fortified towns and cities, mountain defiles and
river crossings are no impediments ; that all such obstruc-
tions may be swallowed up in the general advance. It
follows, then, that, having driven the French army from
the strongest defensive lines which lie between the French
Rhine border and Paris, there is nothing that can
arrest the advancing German columns except a
more stubborn and effective resistance in the open
field than any resistance they have so far encountered.
The invading army of the Germans is reported as exceeding
in numbers half a million of men; that each of the power--
ful and expansive wings of the Crown Prince and Prince
Frederick Charles numbers two hundred and fifty thousand
men, and that the veteran Steinmetz, who appears to be
a second edition of Blucher, holds in the centre a chosen
body of nearly a hundred thousand men. Nor is this all ;
for it further appears that a second German army, one
hundred and fifty thousand strong, is following King Wil-
liam's to protect his rear and his communications, &c. This
German campaign, therefore, in France dwarfs the most
imposing campaigns of the First Napoleon ; for even the
mighty army with which he marched into Russia, French
and Germans, hardly numbered, all told, four hundred
thousand men. In half a dozen or more of the recent
battles, from Woerth to the line of the Moselle, it would
appear from the reports received that the Prussian forces
alone has exceeded in numbers the strength of all the
three armies engaged in the battle of Water-
loo. The great mistake of Napoleon, then,
it would appear, in entering upon this war was
in his calculations concerning the Germ'an army
he would have to meet in the field. He evidently
supposed that a fighting French force of 250,000 men
would be sufficient for all the requirements of a short
triumphant campaign to Berlin ; and under this erroneous
calculation he advanced to the Prussian frontier and
*opened the ball in the little deceptive affair of Saarbruck.
We say deceptive, for only a few days after it the re-
joicings of Paris were changed into a panic with the news
of the defeat of MacMahon by the overwhelming forces of
the enemy. By one-half Napoleon's estimates have fallen
short of the actual German army to be overcome. Can he now
repair this blunder ? Can he even repair his losses with his new
levies of raw troops ? The odds are heavily against him.
He can hardly recover his strength short of a retreat with
his disabled army to Paris. In the stubbornness of despair
the tide of battle may, perhaps, be turned, but this alter-
native involves all the hazards of a crushing defeat. The
only perfectly safe alternative of Napoleon in the crisis,
as it appears to us, is the armistice suggested by
King William and a treaty of peace, This will
give the Emperor the strong hand over Paris, through
his still powerful and loyal army, and then, thrceirrh
conference of the great Powers, which Prussia can hardly
deny, looking to the general interests of peace. France,
under the empire, may be regularly acknowledged by all
the great Powers, and still be maintained intact. England,
Russia, and Austria have only to unite in saying that
there must be peace, and there will be peace ; for has not
Prussia already amply vindicated her rights and the rights
of the German Fatherland? and has not Napoleon had
enough of war to satisfy him that " empire is peace ?"
New York

Lord Eliot, the eldest son of the Earl of St. Ger-
mans, who, the Times affirms is to be called to the Upper
House in his father's barony, as Lord Eliot, of St. Ger-
mans, Cornwall, a title created in the year 1784, and
ranking among the Barons next after Lord Rodney, and
before Lord Berwick, was born in 1829, was formerly in
the diplomatic service, and sat in the Liberal interest for
Devontiort from 1866 to 1668.