The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-26 00:00:00

LONTODN, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2i, 1856

It scarcely appears to be yet realised by Eng
land that we have actually embarked again in a
new Eastern War. The threatened rupture with
America has blown over with the close of the
Presidential Election—has blown over, indeed, so
happily, for the time being, that the period of th•
passing of the Republican fasces from the lictors
of PIERCE to those of BUeXANAN, is celebrated as
amicably in regard to the old Mother Country as
by the presentation to Queen 'VICTORIA of the old
Arctic discovery-ship, the Resolute. The threat-
ened collision between the allied forces of France
and Great Britain, and the maritime and military
strength (or weakness—whichever it may be called)
of the Two Sicilies—has likewise, in its turn, passed
away like another nine-days' wonder. The sullen
withdrawal •f the British and Gallic Legations
from Naples being somewhat inconsistently fol•
lowed up—by nothing whatever of a bellicose
character ! The rather stringent ultimatum (aa it
might almost have been termed) addressed to
King BOUSA some months ago, being succeeded
oddly enough by the most affectionate personal
felicitations addressed to his MAJESTY, only the
other day, on the part of NAPOLEON 111., upon
the fortunate casualty of his (King B.'s)
escape from assassination ! The threatened
conflict between Prussia and Switzerland,
uoreover, has, in its turn, been brought to an un-
expected and even (as one might say with Milesian-
laxity of phrase) before it had well had any be-
einning—How ? Europe has recently learnt with
no inconsiderable amazement ! By the very un-
eracious--and History will hardly fail to add the
-ingularly ungrateful—rebuff addressed to the
Diet of the Helvetic Confederation by the Govern-
ment of his Imperial Majesty the third NAPOLEON
—once upon a time the honoured and chivalrously-
defended guest of the Swiss Republic in his equally
romantic but less august character as the exiled
Prince LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The threa-
tened renewal cf hostilities between the Western
Powers and Russia in the matter of tha t
wretched little affair of the Isle of Serpents—has
in its turn, too, been glossed over as rather a bit
of a bore—being referred, with various other dip-
lomatic annoyances and territorial entanglements,
to the dexterous or sinistrous skill (just as events
may prove it) of that new hocus-pocus Council of
Ten—the Paris Conferences ! Ruptures with
America, with Naples, with Russia again—be-
ween Prussia and Switzerland in re Neuchatel—
r•uptures north, south, east, and west—have all
" blown over," as we have said, one after ano-
ther. Yet, at the very time we might,
for this reason, hope to be congratulating ourselves
(Ton the happy restoration of Peace—lo ! and
behold ! we are now once more actually embarked
in a New War, a new Eastern War, a war with
the empire of Persia.

It will be well not to overlook in the midst of
this "confusion worse confounded," the veritable,
undeniable, actual, positive origin, of this war with
Persia. What is it ? What is the real cause of
this rupture between England and Persia? Who is
the secret instigator of it? The cause is not Persian
ambition but Russian ambition The instigator
is not the Shah NASE-OOD DEEM, but the Czar
ALEXANDER. II.! Let this net be forgotten. Let
it not be overlooked. Let it be ever kept sedu-
lously in mind during the progress of whatever
maritime campaigns may take place in the Gulf of
Persia, or of whatever military campaigns may have
to be recorded as having taken place on the magni-
ficent tract of country extending from the waters
of that gulf to those of the Caspian Sea! Let the
Russian AI7IOCICA.I'S share in originating this un.