The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-05 00:00:00

THE ALABAMA CLAIMS.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

Another long article appeared in the 7 ribune of
the 20th March about the, Alabama Claims, written
in a One of dignity and moderation. These papers
have been attributed to the pen of Senator SUMNER,
and great interest is excited towards the speech he
is shortly, expected to deliver on the subject. One
of the points urged in the Tribune was the cession
of Canada, and curiosity is raise I to see if he will
deal with it as in the extract from the Tribune lately
transferred to our pages. The points discussed in
the last article are, that the premature recognition
was in disregard of the understanding, between Mr.
DALLAS and Lord RUSSELL that the arrival of Mr.
ADAMS should be awaited ; the other is that in the
case of the rebels the usual conditions to the exer-
cise of belligerent rights were altogether wanting.
-The first assertion is based on the letters from Mr.
DALLAS, Mr. ADAMS, Lord ItussELL, and the second
on the remarks of the English Ministers, members of I
the House of Commons, and the Press; the article I
closes with these words :—" Let the English press
and the English people rec,lll the past, not with a
petulant spirit, but with an honest desire to dis-
cover the truth, and to make fitting reparation if ,
they find they have really done us wrong, and the i •
world will see two great nations setting a noble
example in settling, by peaceful negotiations and
voluntary reparation, wrongs that in the olden
time men would have held could be wiped out only
by involving in war nations which should be one
in sympathy and interest, as they are in language,
literature, and law." The Nation replies to the ,
English charge that Americans are taking a senti-
mental view of their wrongs in an article in its issue
of the 18th March, which commences by condemn-
ing sentiment in legislation, including treaty-
making, asserting that those nations are the happiest
and greatest who are least influenced by it, while
those are the most backward and miserable which
allow pride, prejudice, and passion to mould foreign
and domestic policy. When the opportunity offers ;
to retaliate on England the measure she meted to
the United States during the rebellion, the Nation
feels assured that American action will be regulated
by the national honour and interest solely, and
not by the strength or weakness of the popular
desire for revenge. While saying this, that journal
retorts the charge, asserting that sentiment has
been at the bottom of the whole affair in England
from first to last. What gave the recognition of
the Southerners as belligerents such importance was
the sentiment that dictated it—extreme dislike to
American government and society. The Nation
glances back on a record which it is a pity the Eng-
lish now so persistently forget. If they would but
recall it, the reason would come forcibly home why
Americans regard the premature recognition of
belligerency as an act arising from the unfriendly
character of the English ruling class. It was the
sentiment.of a profound dislike which then dictated •
England's course, not the intensely practical view
it now desires Americans to take. While we grant
this, it should not be forgotten in the United States
that the English aversion was generated by the
ceaseless abuse and the imaginary hatred of Eng-
land expressed by Americans. It was the fashion
in the Republic to make political capital out of the
British lion ; and if the Nation wants to learn why
England took the senseless course it so well de-
scribes, let it glance back through the debates in
Congress for years, and remember that the most
vicious and unfriendly speeches were always those
most fully reported in England. The fact is, that
a false estimate of the national feeling in America
dictated her conduct, and Englishmen replied to 1
what they believed to be a bitter hatred cultivated
towards them in America by a dislike really intense. I
The singular part is that America professed to care
nothing for the feeling entertained in Europe, and
took no pains to set England right or disseminate
any information, while the South made the greatest
exertion to represent the Confederate cause as that
of liberty and justice. An American, at the time
resident in London, told us the other day thtt
he called on Mr. ADAMS after his arrival as Minis- ,
ter. There was a well-known American editor with
him in the room, who rerlied to a remark made to
Mr.ADAMS, "That it would be a lvisable to circulate
information in England as to Vie causes and ob-
jects of the war." At that time, s:li I this gentle-
men, '' Englishmen hungered for such knowledge,
for they were igivirant of the subjects in dispute,
an I had not then formed any opinions." The
E litor's answer was, " We do not, care a d-- I
what they think." Eight years lt,re elapsed, an 1
w hat English man did think and say furnishes asubject
of such bitter recrimination, that it may even-
tually lead to a war. Shortly after, most of the
leading papers were committed to opinions hostile
to the North, and millions of Englishmen were in
their ignorance led by what they taught, who, had
they known what they do now, would have held
very differentopinions. The Nation says that no such
abuse had ever been directed by England through four
weary years against any foreign people, but the
Nation forgets that no foreign nation has ever so
abused England as did the United States. That
the sentiment of America towards England was
not what the English believed it to be is now better
known ; yet the general impression in England is
that any war involving Great Britain would in-
clude America as an enemy. That the nations
should continue to keep up so senseless a feeling of
enmity is one of those things which " no feller can
understand" when it comes before him in all its
naked absurdity; but they do so, and may continue
to do so for many a long year, and sentiment will
be at the bottom of it all. America gets into a
habit of abusing England, and indulging in out-
rageous attacks on her in Congress—England be-
lieving she is kited, hates in return ; and showed it
so unreservedly in the day of America's trial that what
had been mere buncombe in America has taken the
colouring of the real feeling of dislike entertained
in England.. But the fact ought never to be over-
looked, that those who are generating this enmity are
but a small class of the inhabitants of either country
—the old Tories in England, and the Irish and their
descendants in America. It is a pity that the good
sense of both countries cannot separate the Tory
detraction and abuse on the one side, and the Irish
declamation against England in Congress and in
the press on the other, from the genuine sentiment
of the people. They should not permit themselves
to be made the cat's-paWs of, for hot chesnuts,
which might have ended in the case of America iu
gratifying Tory spiteduring the civil war, or yetdrag
the United States into a great and disastrous con-
, filet to redress the injuries, which the same Puritans
who founded New England inflicted on Ireland, by
Old England's humiliation.

ART.—Powers's statue of Washington, which
was removed by General Butler from the State House at
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has bean taken from the Patent-
office and shipped by express to Governor Warmouth, to
be replaced in its old position.—Miss Hosmer at Rome,
has received an order from the ex-Queen of Naples for a
statue of heroic size of herself standing in the uniform
she wore on the ramparts of the fortress, boots, spurs,
and cloak, with a pile of cannon balls at her feet.
"The lives of great men remind us" that they
may leave cash to their posterity in the shape of budgets
of interesting letters and signatures. At an auction
sale of autographS at New York on the 16th March,
among others the following prices were realized :
Baron Humbo7dt—letter, $5 25 ; Albert von Haller,
died 1777, $2 50 ;A. G. Oehlenschlager, poet, died 1850,
$1 50; Jean Paul Frederick Richter—characteristic letter,
$5; Anne of Austria—address and seal, $2 50; Louis
XVI.— royal signature, July, 1792, $3 25; Marshal H.
Turonne, $3 ; Napoleon I,—signature, "Bonaparte," $1;
Marshal L. N. Davoust, $5 25e ; Charles Maurice Tally-
rand, $2; Alexander Dumas, $1 13c; 3i. Guizot, $1 10;
Marquis do La Place, groat tnatherantician, $5 25 ;
Chas. Linuteus, the botanist, $6 ; Jean I..a.ques liosseau,
interesting and characteristic letter, $9 50; Mad•tme do
Steel, $1 63; H. A. Voltaire, $3 50; Gen. Henry Knox,
first United States Secretary of War, historical letter on
public affairs, $3 • President George Washiugton, $8 ;
President Jas. Madison, $2 25 ; President James Monroe,
letter, $3 25 ; President John Quincy Adams, $350 ; Pre-
sident Andrew Jackson, interesting letter, $6 ; President
William Henry Harrison, $3 25 ; President James K
Polk, political letter, $3 63 ; President Zachary Taylor, $1
13 ; President Millard Fillmore, $2 25; l'resident Abra-
ham Lincoln, official, $7 ; President U. S. Grant, $2; Henry
Clay, $3 25 ; Daniel 'Webster, $2 50 ; John C. Calhoun
John
,
$2 50 ; Jefferson Davis, signature on frank, $1 13 ;
C. Breckiuridge, $l5O.
Captain Townley, while accompauyiug Lord Poulett on
a visit to Capt. W. H. Cooper at Cobham on Monday last,
was "eased" at the railway station of his dressing-case,
containing his jewellery, all attempts to recover which
Imo kitliorto proyod Lruitlem.