The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-19 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tins DAY.—Morning, lh. 38m.—Afternoon, 2h. Om.
To-monnow.-Morning, 2h. 22m.—Afternoon, 2h. 43m.

~...
...
,k tu r ..., ~
..,.. 4 -
. , 4
•::.2.".--‘---
~ irk
,71.04,-,,i..„, 4
'',.....Q.,, '''l; r . ,•!.,-,„1'11, •MO • -N,,, S., -?,-/r ,
-f- - •,..,Agt-c- ....•-"A,,„
..._..- ~

~urui'i~

THE SUN.
LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1860.

The gathering of Kings and Dukes to do homage
to the EMPEROR at Baden-Baden was, for it is the
EMPEROR'S system, heralded by an Imperial pam-
phlet. This time the scribe, or Imperial AARON,
was our old acquaintance M. ABOUT, and the
" German Question" is certainly an appropriate
topic for the nominal author of the " Roman Ques-
tion." It were affectatidn to pretend that the
pamphlet has no political significance. The POPE
and ANTONELLI rightly judged differently in the
former case, though they did not manage their
diplomacy respecting it with the superhuman
cleverness and cunning which we naturally attri-
bute to the Vatican. The secular sovereigns who
met at Baden will be much wiser, and though
rumour says that due care was taken they should
see a copy of the pamphlet, we may be pretty
sure they will say nothing about it which
shall commit them with the EMPEROR,
or with the European public. We have
at least opinion enough of their wisdom to
have little doubt that they will, officially, know
nothing whatever about M. ABOUT and his bro-
chure:

We cannot agree with one of our most respected
contemporaries, that the EMPEROR condescended to
visit Baden. As in all other cases, he gained his
object. The Regent would rather he had been a
thousand miles off, after the awkward affair of the
intercepted correspondence; knowing, too, the sus-
picions of the petty German Princes. His Minister
tried to keep the EMPEROR from coming ; but the
EMPEROR would come. Admitting that he forced
himself, perhaps half rudely, on the Prince Regent,
Lours NAPOLEON is just the man to feel that to be
a triumph. Carrying his point, not critically con-
forming to the formal courtesies of courts, is that
on which ho plumes himself. And he did carry his
point. Tie placed the Regent in the dilemma of refus-
ing him, and of thereby being first in a quarrel ;
or of receiving him, and thus giving him the
coveted opportunity of laying before him, not Im-
perial views and opinions (those he might find out
as he could), but Imperial representations. He
even gained another point, for he compelled a" mob
of monarchs" to gather around his presence. It
reminds us of the olden times in the East, when
Rings by the score used to gather their meat
under the table of some conquering potentate, or
to think it a high honour if they sat at meat
withth him. It is certainly a curious question what
thought, and perhaps whispered to each
other, :lthey " took tea" with the Great Monarch
of the occasion, each of them having, perhaps, a
copy of M. AiouT's pamphlet in their pockets.
It was, indeed, a rather unpleasant dose for all
the parties present. It begins with love to Ger-
many, to be followed by rather unkindly sayings
about German princes. Till the great uprising of
Germany which drove out the French, the old
Teutons were fast Frenchifylng their language and
their mann°. s ; now the Parisians, our author tells .1
us are Germanizing. Heavy German compounds
and rough gutturals can Lever indeed be adopted
into the glib, polished language of France, but in
music, and philosophy, and science, and art,
Germany is becoming the honoured idol of France.
And the friendship of France is worth something.
'he Ottoman Empire felt it in the Crimea, where
Frazee delayed her fate; the deliverance and

union of the Moldavian and Wallachian provinces
is also witness to the blessings of French philan-
thropy; and "Italy, our august mother in civilization
and the fine arts, has, under the auspices of France,
entered on the path of independence and unity.
It was French Armies who opened the way
in which she now marches alone under
the guidance of Piedmont ; if GOD allows
this great work to be accomplished, and a nation
of 26,000,000 of inhabitants is organised at h r
gates, France will take no offence. Faithful to
her generous traditions she will sacrifice her pri-
vate susceptibilities to the general welfare and for
a peaceful future ; for European order will not be
firmly established until the day in which there shall
be neither nationalities oppressed nor kings insup-
portable to their subjects." M. ABOUT does not
advert, however, to the fact that, in Savoy and Nice,
France took the keys of the north-western gates of
Italy into her own hands. A rather suspicious
looking preamble all this for the monarchs.

But what follows was worse. First the lesser
ones have their lesson the " swarm of petty
Princes who buy and sell their subjects as they
would their flocks," who have divided a nation,
naturally homogeneous into a " deplorable multi-
tude of Governments." The intelligence and pride
of the German people resent the degradation, and
regard the support of 37 Governments, when one.
would be sufficient, as ridiculous. The German
people can unite ; they did it to expel the French
in 1813, they strive to do it in the Zollverein, they
showed their national sentiment at the SCHILLER
feast, they would hare united under the lead of
Prussia, in 1849, but for the imbecility of
FREDERICK-WILLIAM, and they are ready to do it
now ! Their Majesties of the petty territories
must have read these words of the Imperial
anonymous Secretary with rather uneasy con-
sciences.

But the greater ones were not spared. Austria
comes in for the most contemptuous denunciation.
She represents the doctrine of Divine right in its
most absolute vigour ; political and religious
despotism, abnegation of the rights of the
people, the most enormous concessions to clerical
authority, a blind worship of the past, and an
obstinate hatred of all progress ; these, says M.
ABOUT, " are the worm-eaten bases of the Austrian
monarchy." She is then contrasted as a confused
heap of nationalities with Prussia, which repre-
sents German nationality, religious reform, com-
mercial progress, and constitutional liberalism.
Hence the people of Germany love Prussia, and
look to her as the centre and rallying point of
German unity. Moreover an Austrian unity,
by comprehending with the same hand nationalities
amounting altogether to 70,000,000 men, would
have threatened the equilibrium of Europe. A
Prussian unity would number but 32,000,000 sub-
jects of one Government.
Let not, however, Prussia think herself immacu-
late, She at the crisis of 1849 adopted the
principle :of Divine right in opposition to that of
popular suffrage. She has been guilty of supress-
ing constitutions around her, and of putting to
death the noble patriots of the Fatherland ; still,
peoples are more forgiving than Monarchs, and
she will be forgiven if she repent. But Germans
may ask—Who is a Frenchman that he should talk
to us of liberty ? Gagged and deprived of all
political liberties, what honest interest can he
take in German liberties ? Of course M. ABOUT
gets out of his own awkward question as
well as he can, but it is a sorry affair.
He succeeds easily enough in showing that Prus-
sians are pretty closely fettered, and that the dif-
ferent provinces of the Kingdom, do not, like the
departments of the Empire, enjoy equal rights.
What, however, those rights are, in France, he
does not tell us, and a German would doubtless tell
him, that unequal franchises, may be better than
equal fetters.
But what about the Rhine ? Why, says M.
ABOUT, you have all been very uneasy about it ever
since we claimed " natural boundaries" in Savoy.
Now, really, if you will go on saying that we mean
to make the Rhine our boundary, too ; if no protes-
tations, no explanations will suffice, you will just
irritate us into doing the thing. It would be just
like a man persisting in telling another that the
latter meant to give him a slap in the face ; per-
sisting in following him and telling him so—tell-
ing him, also, at the same time, that he would crush
and annihilate him. If he did of course, the
accused man would at last find excellent reasons for
giving the slap which his provoking neighbour
dared him to inflict.

Such then is the scope of the last Imperial pam-
phlet. Germany is but a name for a miserable
batch of feeble states. Two only of them can com-
bine, and unite all into one efficient whole. Austria
is out of the question; she represents but antiquated
principles. Prussia may do, but she must mend
her ways ; and as to the Rhine, why, you say we
will come there, so we suppose we must ; if we do,
thank yourselves.

A remarkable letter from the hand of Colonel
Sir JOSHUA JEBB will be found in another part of
The Sun of this evening. It is an argument in
which that gallant soldier supplements in. an ad-
mirable manner the elaborate Report of the Royal
Commissioners appointed to inquire so far into the
state of our National Defences, as those Defences
are substantially embodied in oar outer For-
tifications. Nothing could be more happily
timed or more directly to the purpose than
this well reasoned communication. Colonel JEBB
recognises the justice and accuracy with which the
one damning blot of the report (a report otherwise
entitled only to our heartiest commendation) was
hit immediately upon its issue from the press
and its submission to the two Houses of the
Legislature. That solitary but all-important
omission was at once indicated among others
by ourselves. It is a hiatus, in fact, quite as start-
ling in its way as that in which the character of
HAMLET was said to have b2en once overlooked in
the distribution of "parts," when the Danish
Prince was about to be doubly murdered at some
redoubtable amateur performance. The Commis-
sion, it will be remembered, has, in effect, simply
evaded the very point of the most vital importance
among all tie points of vital importance submitted
to their consideration. They have shewn, as
their report shows with admirable lucidity, how all
the naval ports may be the most rapidly and the
most effectually rendered impregnable. They have
dedicated to this end the whole of their energies.
They have set apart for the realisation of
this design a round sum of £12,000,000 sterling,
only providing that that otherwise somewhat
alarming aggregate of £12,000,000 shall be die-
tributed over fonr years, and disbursed in com-
paratively moderate instalments. But—while pro- :
viding thus for the safety and security of such
places as Portsmouth and Chatham, the Medway 1
and the Thames—the capital of England, the heart
of the British Empire, is passed by ! Certainly, it
must be admitted, with a wistful look askance
in its direction. It has been passed by as
though it were a subject of the most secon-
larY nature. This, moreover, while it is
candidly acknowledged all the while that " the
main object of an enemy in invading this country

would be to push for the capital, in the hope '
that if he succeeded in obtaining command
of it, such a disaster would result in
our buying him off upon any terms he
might find it expedient for him to exact." Yet—
admitting this—the 33.0yal Commissions do nothing,
suggest nothing towo.rds rendering that " main
object" of an unscrupul,lus invader, that paramount
prize towards the acquisition of which his every
energy would inevitably be directed—■beyond his
reach, inaccessible to his tenterprise, indestructible,
inexpugnable ! Now, Sir JOSHUA regards this,
without, so to speak, one in etant's hesitation, as not
merely a startling, but as ita a manner a fatal omis-
sion if allowed to pass uncared for. His reasoning
at the very outset is cogent, and even to our think-
ing irresistible. He maintains that—" If the
British Lion is to be bearded in his den [recollect
by the way that it was a den once upon
a time called, and that not by any
means so very long ago, called too by certain
French imperial Colonels, whose words were echoed
in the official Moniteur, A DEN OF ASSASSINS ?]
it would be to draw his teeth, to cripple
his power, and to humiliate him !" Unquestion-
ably Colonel JEBB is perfectly right in so arguing.
It is only an argument like this, indeed, that—to
use an expressive idiom—stands to reason. Sir 1
josHua continues, in the enforcement of this
powerful argument, thus " The capture of
one of your naval ports would not effect
this object, or do much more than produce
permanent exasperation and temporary incon-
venience. No the path before the invading'army is
clearly visible, even now, when looked to thus by an-
ticipation and hypothetically. It trends onwards—
as plainly as a pikestaff could point it out—directly
upon the metropolis.
What we have to do, Sir JOSHUA (with
the foregoing conviction strong upon him)
clearly and succinctly indicates. The First
line of defence, he reminds us, is—THE CHANNEL.
For the guarding of which we have happily
already our noble Channel Fleet ! The Second—
MEASURES FOR OPPOSING A LANDING. This being
precisely the very line of defence cared for espe-
cially, one might say exclusively, by the Royal
Commissioners ! At least that portion of it ex-
tending from the Humber in a south-westerly
direction to Plymouth. The third and fourth lines
of defence Sir JOSHUA JEBB'S letter marks
out boldly and broadly ; and they are
these—" one or more general actions," the
gallant officer should rather have said
one general action, or more than one, at a certain
distance, or at certain distances from the metro-
polis. And—beyond this—the traceing around the
capital successive lines of defence in its more
immediate neighbourhood. In regard to the " third"
head or section, that relating to general actions
in the field—is one that, of course, must always be
contingent upon the accidental development of the
campaign, and upon the particular genius or pecu-
liar idiosyncracy of the Commander-in-Chief, Be-
fore passing it by, however, for the purpose of ar-
riving at the " fourth" (the consideration of
which constitutes the gist of Colonel JEBB'S
letter) our gallant commentator upon the Report
of the Royal Commissioners, very aptly quotes the
opinion expressed upon this point by the late and
great Dake of WELLINGTON ; where speaking of
invasion his Grace observed that, " There is no
mode of resistance, much less of protection, from
this danger, excepting by an army in the
field capable of meeting and contending
with its,' formidable enenmy." Then follows
Colonel JEBB'S most impressive and persuasive
argument replete with masterly suggestions.
To it in its entirety we would earnestly direct the
attention of the general public, but more especially
that of our military authorities—sanguine that the
timely hints thus thrown out by this tried and
valued servant of the Crown may have
due weight in the oncoming deliberations of
the Legislature in the matter of our Defences,
and may receive all the consideration to which
they are eminently entitled at the hands of
her Majesty's Government. Sir JOSHUA, it will
be sufficient here to remark, insists upon the
urgent advisability of the first determined stand
being made within a distance not less than thirty
or forty miles from the metropolis; He then points
out the exact line of country—a line of country
so full of strong positions that he emphatically
declares it might be not inaptly desig-
nated the Torres Vedras of London ! This most
favourable and even formidable line, he writes
is to be found "in the escarpement of the
chalk range running westward from near Maid-
stone, towards Reigate, Dorking, Guildford, and
Farnham. At the latter point this general line,
after including all the strong ground in front of
Aldershott, might be advantageously thrown back
in the direction of Oliham and Reading, resting
its right on the Thames. Chatham and the river
Medway lie on the left, and would compel a hostile
force marching in haste from the south-east to take
the road passing through Maidstone. Keeping this
road they would soon find themselves at the foot
of Wrotham•hill, and would not be likely to
diverge to the right, because in such a case they
would come upon some of the proposed Chatham
defences, near Cobham. The whole of the ground
also on the left bank of the Medway is very de-
fensible ; and, as the proposed work at Shooter's-
hill lies upon the old Dover-road, it may be as-
sumed that the high ground at Wrotham-hill
might be taken as the left of a line which in its
course westward intersects every road by which an
enemy could march to London from the most ac-
cessible parts of the coast." Having indicated by
which extracts the eminently practical character
of Colonel Sir JOSHUA JEBB'S suggestions, we
must now content ourselves with referring our
readers to the gallant officers entire communication. 1
Commending the public attention also, in the same
breath, to the patriotic propositions thrown out to the
same end by our earnest hearted correspondent
" Nauticus," who most wisely argues that what we
have above all things to do is to remain what we
have hitherto been, THE MASTERS OF THE SEAS !
It is the one grand moral of our glorious Patriotic
Song—that song the ringing chorus of which avers
that so long as " Britannia rules the waves"—so
long—" Britons never shall be slaves !"

POLITICAL SERMONS IN ISLINGTON.—On Sun-
day last sermons were preached at several of the churches
in the above parish against Lord Chelmsford's Bill. At
St. Luke's, Holloway, the minister said that petitions
against the bill were lying in the vestry-room, and urged
the congregation before leaving church that day (Sunday)
to go and sign, as it was a holy work to oppose a bill which,
he alleged, had been carried through the Lords by a dis-
honest trick.

The report of the National Bank of Austria an-
nounces a half-yearly dividend of 28 florins per share.
A further distribution of £5 per share is notified
to be paid to the proprietors of the Western Bank of Lon-
doa on the 4th of July next, making the total returned £35
per share out of £5O. Another sum of £5 per share is ex-
pected to be realisedin the course of a year.
THE MAILS. SOUTHAMPTON, Monday._ TLe
Royal Mail Company's steamer Atrato, Capt. Woolly, sailed
hence this afternoon at 3 p.m., with her Majesty's mails
for the British and foreign West India Islands, Pacific,
and Central America. She took 51 passengers, amongst
whom are the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Antigua ;
Staff-Surgeon G. Hoffmann, for Barbadoes ; and Capt.
Anthony, for Coldera. The Atrato took on freight 370
bottles quicksilver, value 12,500 ; French jewellery, £2,124 ;
French specie, £320 ; English jewellery, £3,106 ; English
specie, £lO,OOO, for the colonial Bank of Barbadoes ; dia-
monds, £200; and a full cargo of French and Digit sh mer-
chandise. The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer
Tagus, Capt. Woodgates, also sailed hence to-day, with
the usual mails for the Peninsular ports, 16 passengers,
and a general cargo.