The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-01 00:00:00

him had no complaint against him personally. Lord
-Clarftminn went on-to cleeiptre

" lithe Government of a foreign cau n try were capriciously
_And_without any apparent belief that it had good gronndfor
(loins. so to breskoffits diPlornatierelationa withthe Minister
accredited to it by her Majesty, her Majesty's confidential
servants, answerable for maintaining the honour and dig-
nity of he Crown, could not hesitate as to advising her
'Majesty equally to break off all diplomatic intercourse
with the Minister of such Government accredited to her
court. But in the present case her Majesty's Government
are bound to accept the formal and repeated declarations
of the President of his belief that these officers of her Ma-
jesty have _violated the laws of the Union, and are, on that
account, unacceptable organs of communication with the
Government,and authorities of the United States; and her
• Majesty's Government cannot deny. to the Government of
the United States a right similar to that which, in a pa-
rallel case, they would . claim forthemselyes,—the right,
namely, of forming their own judgment as to the bearing
of the law's of the Union upon transactions which have
taken place within the Union,
In other words, the Government had received a gross '
offence from the United &ates, accompanied by serious
imputations upon them. AR that offence was PO acc.on-

parried, they were content ;but had it been offered by
itself, then the spirit of the British Lion would indeed

have been roused. (Hear, hear.) The n Ibis lord can-
eluded as follows :

I have, therefore, the honour to inform you that, how.
ever deeply her Majesty's Government regret a proceeding
on the part of the President of the United States which
cannot but be considered as of an unfriendly character,
they have not deemed it their duty ou that account to ad
vise her Majesty to command me to suspend my diploma-
tic intercouse with you ; and I have to assure you that the
high personal esteem which is felt for you by all the mem-
bers of her Majesty's Government will render it most
agreeable to myself to have the honour of entering into
communication ,with you upon all matters connected with
the mutual relations of our two countries. You will be
certain of meeting, on the part of her Majesty's Govern-
ment, the most friendly feelings towards the United States,
and the most anxious desire so to arrange all questions of
difference as to reconcile the just rights and real interests
of the two countries with the maintenance of those ami-
cable relations, the preservation of which is of such great
importance to both.
Well, he (Mr. Moore) thought be could fini another
parallel to this case in the life of Lord tharendoo. On
one occasion a gentleman in confidential intercourse
with the noble lord wrote to him a letter in which he
declared that a certain right hon. baronet was a " deli-
berate liar ;" whereupon the noble lord's private secre-
tary wrote back acknowledging the receipt of a commu-
nication containing those effeasive words, and demand-
ing a retractatian, adding. " if you will write me a line
NJ that effect you shall receive a hundred pounds."
(Laughter, and some sensation.) Her Majesty's Govern-

went certainly did not send Mr. Dallas a hundred
pounds, but thq sent him what Sir John Falstaff de-
clared to be " worth a ruillion"—tbey sent him their
Live. (. laugh.) Tue quthtion the house had to decide
was a very simple one. Lard Clarendon had been en
gaged in a petty intrigue in America ; he had been found
out, as he always was; he bad persisted in his schemes,
and he had disgraced nut merely his own character, hoc,
his country. 'The house had to decide whether he had
iieen right or wrong—whether or not they would ap-
prove Of his conduct iu these proceedings, and adopt his
chastisement as their own. That was the issue they bad
to try, and let them remember that in the verdict they
would protioukce, they viould judge n t Lord Carew-ion
only, but themselves. (C:ieers.) The hon. gentleman
..ioncluded l,y .0 •ving " rnat the c induct of her M+s-
,,y's Gr:ivereine‘it, in the. differences that have ari,en
oe ;weeu thetu_atid the G.-ivertoneui, of.the United States,
thestue-tiou of . en.t,ttueot, ha; not d them to
'tile approbation of this house."

At,jr a Itttle delay,
Mr. MAGUIRE seconded the me tion.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said he thought the hon.
tnembeifor Mayo would have exercised a sounder discre-
tion had he yielded to the appeals which had been mane
to hi u t postpone for tile present the iliecussiou of this
question. (Hear.) The significant delay wh:ch had elapsed
oefore the mutton hiel fulled a seconder oast, iu some de-
gree, have shaken his confidence iu the expediency of the
course which belted taken. It was but on Friday last that
the First Minic.er of the Crown had iutimated that, i
n
his °pillion, this question could not be discussed consistently
with a due' regard to the public interest, and it had alway.t,
been usual, even in timed when party feeling ran highest, t.:
treat such a statement,, made at a period of public °mei -
iency, with prOper consideration. The him. member fei
Inverness-shire (Air. Baillie), who might be said to-have
vested interest iu this question, since he had given notice
at an early period of the session of his iuteutien to call the
attention of the house to it, uctlng in coucert with those
among whom he sat, had thought it proper and necessary
to postpone his motion ; but the hon. member for Mayo,
uninfluenced by the appeals made to him by members re-
presenting couetituencies of all other.. meet interested iu
the maintenance of a good understandiug with the United
States, had declined to follow that example. The hen.
member for Mayo told the house that it; was to treat this,
question judicially, but had the hon. member hiuiseli
treated it judicially? (Hear.) It was impossible nut to
see that the hon. member was animated by some feeling el'
personal ad.iniosity towards Lord Clarendon. ( !leer.)
Lair. Moore —" Nu, no."J Certainly he had never hear,'
;.‘ speech which led so strongly to such a oonelusiee.
(Hear.) Was it j adiel el, was it just, was it even cow-
men fairness, to drag into this debate allusion to a amnia :s-
-lims newspaper—(near)—to refer to some obscure trail,-
actions the input t and history of which not a single mem-
ber of the house was acquasiuted with ? ( deer, hear.)
Was it arguing the question judicially, was it even iu gone
taste, to compare Lord Clarendon to the inalefector who a
few days ago had paid the penalty of his crimes on the
scaffold ? lie never remembered to have seen a notice of
motion se frequently altered as this hail been. The hon.
member for Inverness-shire had modified the terms of his
motive from time to tunes and the hon. member fur May •
nazi twice altered his motion. As it stood now it was
cart duly e trioA strangely worded motion. It did not
ask the house to express its disapprobation of the conduct
of the Government, but merely to declare that her Ma-
jesty's Ministers were not entitled to the approbatiOn of
the house. That, ha believed, was a new form of moving
a vote of censure ; but as the hon. member moult it for a
vote of censure, as such it must be taken. Let it
not not be forgotten, however, that the responsibility for
this dieciussiou rusted with the hon. gentleman. He had
risen thus soon in the debate because it appeared to him
that this question involved legal principles and considera-
tions which it was most essential should be fixed as early
as poesi'ele, and to which. the hon. gentleman did not seem
to have given the attention which they deserved. The
British Government was chergedavith having by itself or
its agents, infringed, first, international law; and, secondly,
the municipal law of the Uuited States. Me joined issue
With those who made this charge upon both those points;
but it was necessary to see, first, what was the interna-
tional law upon the subject, and, secondly, what was the
municipal law. The international law on this subject had
been left very vague and uncertain by most publicists who
had written upon it. Vattel laid it down that by the law
and polity of nations no state could recruit its forces from
the subjects of another without the consent of the latter.
He would not for a single moment question that proposi-
tion. He doubted whether the authorityof Vattel would be
sufficient to sustain a proposition of any great importance.
Although generally received as an authority upon these
subjects, yet where he could not ground himselt upon the
()plaice, of the jurists he was neither profound nor precise. 1
(Hear, hear.) Nevertheless, he would take the proposition
which he had quoted as it was laid down by this author.
He admitted that one State could not enlist the sub-
jects off another to serve iu its army and navy without
the acquiescence of the State of which they were the sub-
jects. . But then he must go back to another proposition,
which was, that that assent or acquiescence might not only
he expressed by treaty, but might be implied; as for in-
stance, by a State permitting its subjects to enlist into the
forces of another country ; because if a State gave to its
subjects permission to enter the service of a foreign Govern-
ment, such permission necessarily carried with it by impli-
cation a permission to foreign Governments to avail them-
selves of the services of the persons to whom this permission
was extended. That being established, it was necessary to
see what the municipal law of the United States prohibited
and what it permitted the subjects of the Union to do, In
thet law you might find the measure and extent to which
the Union enforced or relaxed its rights of Sovereignty
over its subjects. The municipal law of America upon this
'subject differed moat essentially from our own. The law of
Great Britain claimed and enforced the most complete,
absolute, and uncpialified authorityoverits subjects. (Hear,
hear.) It not only prohibited them from enlisting, or
others from enlisting them upon its own territories, but it
prohibited them from enlisting beyond the territories of the
united kingdom ; it prohibited them from serving iu the
military or naval forces of any other Sovereign or people,
without the express consent of the Sovereign. Therefore,
if a British subject were to enlist beyond the territories of
Great Britain, he would be liable to the penalties of the
law ; and Great Britain would have reason to complain of
any State which should propose to its suejects to violate the
municipallaw which was binding upon them. How stood the
case with regard to America ? Was the law of that country
equally stringent? Certainly not. The American law said
to its citizens, "You shall not enlist withiu the territenies
of the United States." It said to ether persons, " You
shall not enlist citizens of the United States within thv
territories of those States, neither shall you contract with
them to go beyond the precincts of the States there to en-
fiat ;" but it did not prohibit American subjects, when be-
yond the boundaries of the United States, from enlisting
in the service of any foreigu State or potentate, nor did it
- prohibit them from serving such foreign S; ate or pow:,
tate. This was a most material and important (distinction,
ofavhich the hon'. gentleman had entirely lust sight. (Mr.
Moore made a gestuie of denial.) The him. gentleman sig-
nified he had not, but so far as he (the Attorney-General)
bad heard,' he appeared to have done se. If he had not
lost sight of it, he had certainly forgotten it in his speech.
ilia distinction undoebtedly existed, aid he (the Attor-
ney-General) could nut suppose that it was the result of
accident. Perhaps the American law was-so limited that,
While the neutrality of the American territory and the re-

sponsibility of its Government should remain intact, •
that tendency which the right hon. gentleman the member
for Buckinghamshire had the other evening very happily
characterised as a tendency to expansion, and which he i u-
presented as not only the natural but the legitimate policy
of America, might remain unchecked. It might be that it
Nati intended to leave the citizens of Awe' ieti, who were
not quite so patient of control and restraint as the subjects
of our own country—(hear)—free to expand and to give
vent to that energy of character which particulaily dis-
tinguished them ; but that the American law pelinoted
he citizens of the Uuion, ao long as they did not enlist
within its territories, to serve foreign Powers was 1111-
,I.,ubted and unquestioned. (Hear.) We had a grave in-
itance and illustration of tlia iu what was passing at the
,resent moment. Not only did the law of America permit
its citizaus to engagi in the service of a foreign State en-
;aged in hostiaties with another which was not at war with
America, but it allowed them to euli,t and take aims in
support of a faction in a civil war. The existing Govern-
' ,neat de facto of Nicaragua had been established with
the aid of the arms of American citizens, who, without
the sanction of their Government, except sa far as it might
ne implied from the existing state of the law, and from
what that Goverument had done since, had established a
Government in that country, and at this moment main-
tained it. So far was the American Government flom
seeking to punisn those citizens—so far was it from com-
plaining that the State or the Government of Nicaragua,
•