The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-04 00:00:00

or M., as the case may be, but Captain SIIERARD
OSBORN, R.N., C. 8., who has been in those Chinese
waters, and trodden those Chinese coasts, and who ac-
companied Lord ELGIN, a couple of years since, from
those portions of the mainland of the Asiatic to
the chief islands among the great Japanese Archi-
pelago. An authority no less reliable and instantly
credible than Captain SIIERARD OSBORN, R.N.,
has condescended to take the aforesaid J. C. in
hand, to trot him out by way of display-
ing his paces over again, and then to
show him up, succinctly and seriatim,
for public edification. "So far as J. C. is con-
cerned," says Captain OSBORN with comical em-
phasis, at the very outset of his remarks, " I don't
think I ever read more errors within an equal
qnantity of print." Disclaiming, however, imme-
diately any intention whatever on his own part " to
wade through as much manuscript to refute them,"
Captain OSBORN cannot help adding at once, " But
I may tell your readers briefly that the idea of
blocking up the Peiho river, which flows through
an alluvial plain, is simply folly, and it affords
water carriage to within 12 miles ofPekin, to a place
called Tung-chow, and that few, if any, canals in-
tersect the province of Pecheli, and this because be-
tween the Peiho and the Great Wall the province
is not overblest with water privileges." He imme-
diately goes on to remark, " J. C. sees nothing but
difficulties—nothing but errors." Asking then
with some reason, " Why should he write down
Generals HOPE GRANT and MANSFIELD as consum-
mate asses, who are going to throw themselves,
with 20,000 men, into the city of Pekin, like
the leaders of a mere African razzia, without
looking to their supplies, their supports, &c. 9"
Referring next to J. C.'s astounding piece of infor-
mation to the effect that Pekin is an open town,
Captain OSBORN contents himself with rejoining
in these few simple words—" We all know it to
be a walled one !" And further quoth he—still
speaking of J. C., and alluding now to his sin-
gular notion that Nankin should be attacked in
preference to Pekin : " He ignores the fact that
for five years, not only Nankin, but an area of 200
miles in a due east and west line of the valley of

the Yangtze, has been in the hands of the Taepings
without in any way alarming the EMPEROR for the
stability of his empire. Our occupation of Nankin
unaccompanied by operations elsewhere, would
have about as much effect as the Taeping
movement or the holding of Canton has had."
It may be remembered by those who chanced
to glance the other morning at the strange
communication we are referring to, as having re-
cently appeared in the columns of our chief morning
contemporary, that the writer there spoke of Lord
ELGIN'S having been either coerced or cajoled into
the insertion of certain clauses into his treaty of
peace between the English and Chinese—such,
for example, as the clause requiring the
Court of Pekin to have permanently accredited to
it thenceforth a high diplomatic personage from the
far West (from the outer barbarians) with the title
of British Ambassador ! Upon this insinuation, or
rather we might say more correctly this daring and
even audacious assertion, what says Captain
OSBORNE Quoth he, " Lord ELGIN was never
coerced by home authorities or ' indiscreet indi-
viduals' in China to insert those two most impor-
tant clauses in his treaty—namely, the right o 1
visiting the interior of China by our traders or
missionaries, and the permanent residence of an
accredited British agent in Pekin." The gallant sea-
captain observing still further, " I fancy his lord-
ship knew pretty well that he might as well have
stayed at home if he could not wring these clauses
from the Court of Pekin, and I have no hesitation
in saying that without these clauses we had better
leave all treaty making alone and trust to the mer-
. chants and smugglers fighting and finding their own
• way to every part of China, and protet:ting them-
selves." For the rest we cannot do better than refer
our readers to the gallant officer's admirable refuta-
tion of the rest of these absurdities, as given in
full in that extremely lucid and unanswerable
communication of his in another part of our im-

pression of this evening.
Happily, the course to be taken by our corn
binod military and maritime armaments along
the Chinese coasts will be directed by some
wiser and more skilled intelligence than
that dictating J. C.'s egregious lucubration.
A glance at any chart of those seas, at any
map of that portion of the great Asiatic continent
is sufficient, in truth, to suggest to a rational and
reflective mind that the attack upon Pekin is pre-
cisely the one upon which the Anglo-French allies,
or one or other of their armaments, ought in reason
to adventure. It is the key of the whole position.
It is the central point, the core, the nucleus of that
vast network of a government extending north•
wards to the borders of Russia and Tartary ; south-
wards, to the Chinese Seas and the Gulf of Tonking;
eastwards to the frontiers of Assam and Burmah—
extending far north, far south, far east, the net
work of that huge authority through all its wide
and complicated ramifications. Advance up the
Yungtse Kiang, of course; and seize Nankin. But
beyond doing that as all•essential in this new cam-
paign, carry your maritime armaments southwards
across the Yellow Sea, and so through the Gulf of
Pecheli, come direct upon the coast there within a
distance of twenty miles from the imperial capital
of the Empire. Nankin taken—Pekin taken—
and the Anglo-French troops have but to attempt
both to do both—the Allies would have merely to
send a portion of their land forces
southwards from the latter city, the capi-
tal of China, a little distance of some
twenty-five or thirty miles or so to Tsang,
upon the margin of the Jung Hang, and they would
then be in possession of the whole of that immense
Imperial canal of the Cha-ho, connecting Tcim
with llang-tchou, and all but uniting the
remote cities of Nankin and Pekin by a
broad and unbroken sweep of inland navigation !
Having Pekin and Nankin—and commanding the
whole course of the Imperial Canal between them
—we must have the Chinese Government at our
mercy, at our dictation. We might starve them
into any terms we might deem most advisable.
England and France would have their heels upon
the neck of the Celestial Emperor, and it would
then be our own fault if this Third Chinese War
did not form the last of the series.

Upon the eve of appearing before the English
ngalisidi
public in a new character, namely, as Editor
Projector of the Army and Nary Gazette, Pt.
"WILLIAM HENRY RUSSELL has once more taken
pen in hand as the " Times' Correspondent." his
communication has reference, this time, immedi-
ately to the vitally important subject of our Mili-
tary Organization. It is an argument upon this
theme, possessing. the value naturally accruing
to it from the fact of its being m rit-
ten in the light of Dr. RUSSELL'S personal
experiences in Italy, in India, in the Crimea—his I
experiences, that is to say as an eye-witness, of the
working of the military systems of England, of
France, of Russia, under circumstances of extra-
ordinary importance. Dr. Russw., indeed, ob-
serves upon this point, in the first paragraph
introducing his remarks—" I present them not as
a system, but as stray thoughts, suggested by ob-