The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-09 00:00:00

ME SUN, LONDON, Mil)" DECEMBER 9, 1870

a personal fritilid whose identity is concealed. It is
less a vindication than the promise of a vindication.
The ex-Ambassador from Imperial France to the
Government of Berlin announces later on that he
will give to the world a mass of documentary evi-
dence, which he tells us beyond all doubt will, when
published, be regarded by everyone as conclusive.
This documentary evidence, he adds, will consist

entirely and conclusively of his own official correspon-
dence during the last six years—the despatches, that
is, which, during that interval, he has from time to
time addressed to his own Government. These ders-
patches, he reminds us, are at this present moment
in the archives of the French Legation in the Prus-
sian capital, in the safe custody of her Britannic,
Majesty's Ambassador. Duplicate copies are also,N
h 3 says, preserved among the archives of the Foreign
Office at Paris. Not a sentence, not a syllable, in
either the one or the other, oonsequently, admits of
being altered or tampered with in any way whatever.
To that correspondence he appeals with confidence
for his own triumphant vindication. When it
is published, the world, he declares, will
recognise beyond the possibility of any further
doubt, that he is guiltless of all the charges
directed against him by his traducers. It will•then
be seen, for example,7 that instead of neglected to
keep his own government informed as to the real
state of the military strength of Prussia, that on
the contrary, he carefully advised the government
of the EMPEROR of the development of the military
system of Prussia, not only as a sovereignty in its
own right, but as head of the North German Con-

federation. His despatches, again, will demonstrate
beyond the reach of contradiction that he
warned the French Foreign Minister of the
candidature of the Prince LEOPOLD of Hohenzollern,
that he warned his Excellency of the actual views
of the Cabinet of Berlin, that ho warned him of the
pro-Prussian proclivities of the Southern States of
Germany—nay, that in an especial manner he bade
him beware of the patriotic ardour that would excite
all Germany, North and South, in a war against
France, and that Prussia would be the first to preci-
pitate it under existing circumstances. As if these
were Lot sufficiently astounding statements,
M. BENEDETTI furthermore declares, in regard to
his forthcoming correspondence, that it will
shew how he not only persistently directed
the Minister's attention, again and again, to the
terrible power inherent i❑ the Prussian system, the
power enabling it to pass rapidly from a state of
peace to a state of war—the KING'S order alone suf-
ficing for the mobilisation of the army ; whereas in
France the consent of the Legislature was required
beforehand.
M. BENEDETTI subsequently refers to the course
pursued by him in his diplomatic capacity upon three
memorable occasions—in 1800, in 1800, in 1870, in
regard to Italy, in regard to Austria, in regard
to Spain, at Turin, at Vienna, and at Ems•
Upon the first mentioned of those three historical
occasions, he successfully arranged with CAVOIJR
the Cession Treaty, by which Nice and Savoy were
reunited to France, without the assent of France
and Italy to the proposed reclamation by Switzer-
land of Chablais and Faucigny. Upon the second of
these occasion he calls to remembrance, how, upon
the morrow of Sadowa, he completely succeeded in
inducing the plenipotentiaries of the belligerent
Powers to sign the preliminaries of peace under
the walls of Vienna, upon the basis of. the
integrity of the Austrian Empire. Finally, in refe-
rence to the last mentioned of the three momentous
missions entrusted to him, M. BENEDITTI insists that
he completely succeeded in carrying out that one also
—arranging satisfactorily, within an interval of four
days, that the candidature of the Hohenzollern Prince

•• I
to the Spanish throne should be withdrawn, with the
entire acquiescence of the Prussian Sovereign.
Throughout the whole of that important cor-
respondence, he tells us quite distinctly,
that he received instructions exclusively
from the Foreign Minister, never once from the

EMPEROR his Sovereign. According to those in-
structions of the Due do GRAMONT, the Ambassador
shaped his conduct and his language. "I never had
the honour," he solemnly avers, " of a private corres-
pondence with the EMPEROR, and contrary to posi-
tive assertions, his Majesty always abstained from
addressing his demands directly to me. You may
not," he says, " be inclined to believe it, but I solemnly
assure you of the truth of what I say, and my
proposed publication will clearly show it." Another
illustration, this, of the flagrant and audacious
manner in which, not M. BENEDETTI alone, but the
Emperor NAPOLEON 111., has been traduced, wholly
and solely through the medium of the most lying mis-
representations, As to the whole of the imagii.ary
garden scene at Ems, M. BENEDETTI asserts quite
positively " there was no one either insulted or
insulting." The haziest of all his statements, it must
be said in conclusion, is the one set forth by him in
reference to what he calls the " pretended treaty"—
a theme that everyone has long since come to regard
as no less inscrutable in its way than a bad conun-
drum-to the bewildered wits of Lord DIINDREARY.

TOPICS OF THE DAY•

completing - them for service at sea . cost
&:2,146073 in the twelve months. This does not
include sums spent in maintaining ships in the
Reserves. The wages paid to seamen and. marines in
the fleet, apart from all questions of feeding and
clothing them, amounted to £2,920,558. The
coastguard service, Royal Naval Coast Volunteers,
and the Naval Reserve were all maintained
at an expenditure of £1,338,008. The most expen-
siveof her Majesty's dockyards, as a matter of course,
is Portsmouth; and the others come in the following
order, Chatham, Devonport, Woolwich, Sheerness,
Deptford, Pembroke, Haulbowline. The total expen-
diture in these home naval yards was R 2,977,109.