The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-26 00:00:00

FATHER IGNATIUS.

Father Ignatius is, to say the least, a funny man.
Although au ultra-High Churchman, he, being only
deacon'sin orders, celebrates the Holy Communion,
andinvites a woman to preach. He seems, too, to be
fond of litigation. For some years past there has
been- a feud between him and Mr. Drury, of Claydon,
who with him founded the Norwich monastery. The
matter was referred to the arbitration of two
London clergymen, who certainly were not
_disposed to be unfriendly to Mr. Lyne—Mr.
tuart, of Munster-square, and Mr. Hill, of
St.
Edmund's, Lombard-street, in which church Mr.
Lyne has for several months lectured with the
rector's consent. They have now communicated to
the public that Mr. Lyne has formally revoked his
submission to their arbitration, and that therefore
their office as arbitrators is at an end. At the same
time they state that the charge of collusion
.brought
against Mr. Drury and Mr. Jackaman, solicitor of
Ipswich, has no foundation, and that both gentlemez
acted with perfect honour and good faith throughout
the matter. Mr. Stuart adds that the failure of the
arbitration is " certainly through no fault of Mr.
Drury's." It will not require a very lively imagina-
tion to Mess at the real cause of the failure.

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•
711 E AMERICAN PRESS ON THE ALA-
BAMA CLAIMS CONVENTION.

(From the Anglo -American Times.)
The following are samples of the spirit of the
New York weekly press on the Alabama Claims
Convention. The Nation of Feb. 4 says :—" There
appears to be little doubt that the Clarendon-John-
son Convention will be rejected by the Senate, on
the ground, taken it is said by General Grant, that
the injuries sustained from Fngland during the war
are of such a nature that they cannot be adequately
atoned for by compensation in money for the loss of
a certain-number of ships; that the sympathy ex-
tended by England to the South prolonged the
war for at least a year,' and that she is, therefore,
directly responsible for all lives lost and money
expended during this time.' Fhe opponents of the
Convention do not propose any present substitute
for it, and do not contemplate a resort to war.
Their plan is to leave the controversy open interrorenz,
either until England has been reduced to a more
contrite mood, or until she is engaged in war
with some other nation and can be subjected to
exact retaliation. It does not seem likely, however,
that any peaceful settlement of the question can
ever be effected on the basis indicated in General
Grant's objection. If an apology is what is
wanted, no apology Eugland is likely to put on
paper will be any better compensation for the losses
of a year of war than payment of the Alabama da-
mages ; nor is she likely to pay all the money ex-
pended during a year of war,' unless it can be shown
that the prolongation of the war for this period was
the result simply of English sympathy ; nor is she
likely to pay smart money for having sympathized
with the wrong party in a contest to which
she was a stranger. These are conditions to which
nations have sometimes submitted at the close of a
bloody and disastrous conflict, as the price of their
existence, but they are not conditions of which
diplomatists talk before a shot has been fired. So
that, though it may be the wisest thing to reject
the Clarendon-Johnson convention and keep the
controversy open, it is hardly wise to present to
the public as the only proper basis of negotiation
one which no lawyer or attesman familiar with
foreign affairs believes to be in the least likely to be
finally adopted. If everybody who exercised an
unfavourable moral influence on the South during
the war ought to pay a portion of the total ex-
penses of every kind of putting down the rebellion,
France ought to be mulcted heavily also, and all
persons who voted the Democratic ticket in 1864
ought to pay double taxes." The Round Table
alludes to the popular estimate of the damage
done at one thousand million dollars, and con-
siders that it would be a fine thing for the
nation if it could get one-fifth. It explains the
eight articles, but before discussing them, it asks
" the candid reader to bear in mind two things :
First, that the treaty, such as it is, must be re-
garded as in a great measure the product of Mr.
Seward's diplomacy. Few will accuse him of par-
tiality for England, nor will many concede that he
is likely to have been outwitted by Lord Claren-
don. Several of the points were devised by Mr.
Seward, and their adoption was insisted on by him.
He has acquiesced fcr his part in all of them. It
does not seem quite reasonable then to assume in
advance, as some of our journals have done, that
the treaty is necessarily a triumph for England and
a humiliation for the United States. Second, that
the treaty is in itself a concession of the point of
international law which has been at issuebetween the
two countries. Au evening paper, whose incapacity
is notorious to bring to bear on any subject where
England is concerned the clearness and impartiality
of judgment that commonly distinguish it on others,
said (Jan. 23), ' nor does the treaty secure to our
claimants a fair hearing. In fact, their right to
recover depends upon a question of international
law on which the treaty is silent.' This is surely
temper, ignorance, or both. The assent to the
commission is in itself a recognition of the law.
England flatly refused in the first instance to make
these claims the subject of either conference or arbi-
tration. Her retreat from that position is plainly
a triumph for the United States ; the more decisive
since it is distinctly understood, and has been over
and over again declared by English publicists, that
the purpose of the Administrations that have suc-
ceeded Lord Palmerston's has been, and is in join-
ing this treaty, to recognize the principles contended
for by the United States and hitherto by Great
Britain denied."

It goes on, after criticizing each article, to say—
" Keeping all these things in view, together with

the fact that the Commission is to be held not in
London but in Washington, it seems hard for the
dispassionate mind to understand how it is that we
are, according to the authorities we have referred
to, a plundered and betrayed people,' or iu what
respect we have not got, on the whole, rather the
best of the bargain. We are ready to go as far as
any in vindication of the honour of our country. If
there are points in this treaty whose operation
would injuriously affect that honour, and which we
thus far fail to see, we are ready to be instructed
and will gladly revise our judgment. But looking
at the matter with the eyes of average common
sense we do not believe there are such points ; and
if there are not, this wretched spirit of buncombe,
this pitiful catering for the prejudiced appetites of
the most ignorant and unthinking of our popula-
tion, deserves to be sharply rebuked. The time
has gone by for it in this country, even if the re-
volutionary changes in England itself did not
render such spirit an anachronism. The people of
England desire at this moment of all things on
earth, next to their own complete enfranchisement,
the friendship of the people of the United States.
If this treaty is not satisfactory to us, we have only
to be patient and the people of England will insist
upon a treaty that is so. There is not the least
danger but that we shall get substantial justice in
the matter, without menaces and without war.
Less than this the American people will not take,
and more they do not desire. Meanwhile it is to be re-
gretted that their certain victory should be tarnished
in advance by pointless and ridiculous bluster,
which is as little called for by its ostensible occasion
as it is rendered either wise or generous by the pro-
spects of future relations between the two countries."
The Spirit (if the Times has a series of very strong
articles against the Convention, which derived much
of their importance from the fact that the editor is
a personal friend of the President Elect. The
Spirit considers Great Britain " responsible not
only for the ships the Alabama burned, but for the
commerce Anglo-Rebel pirates drove from the
ocean. Responsible not only for the value of the
vessels plundered and destroyed; but for the thou-
sand millions of dollars we lost by English perfidy.
Responsible not for even these alone, but for a
policy that inspired the rebellion with hope, and
disheartened the Union with fear, and prolonged
our war till England had reaped a harvest of
gold from a field fertilized with American blood.
North or South, we owe her no gratitude ; to
the North, England was a bully who profited
by our troubles ; to the South, she was like the
witches to Macbeth, luring it on to misery, by
promises she never meant to keep. Who can doubt
who knew the spirit of the Southern people, who
read the messages of Jefferson Davis to the Confe-
derate Congress, that England encouraged the re-
bellion solely to profit by the misfortunes of our
whole country ? And now she comes, like a bank-
rupt, and offers to pay a penny in the pound, and
even embarrass this offer with conditions that make

it possible that we may never even get the penny !
Grant's opinion,'we think, kills the Alabama treaty.
The Senate which refused to confirm Andrew John-
son's civil appointments, that Grant might be left
free to reform the service, will scarcely saddle the
next Administration with the foreign policy of this.
But there is more to be done than to wait. The
Fortieth Congress should not expire without plac-
ing itself upon the record as the enemy of their
treacherous bargain which even now every effort is
being made to compel it to confirm. The House
of Representatives has no part to act concerning
this treaty ; the formal responsibility rests with
the Senate. But the House owes it to itself, as its
members are the immediate representatives of the
people, to sustain General Grant in his earnest pro-
test, and to condemn the unrighteous treaty from
beginning to end. Congress should declare that

.r.••.•, "".""'
our claims against England are not to be satisfied
by the payment of the value of a few burned ships.
It should denounce the suggestion that any just
claim of the United States shall be referred to a
foreign umpire. It should reject the idea of a
joint commission, which is but another name for a
joint betrayal. And above all, as the strongest,
plainest, most direct protest it can utter, it should
demand the recall of Reverdy Johnson." After his
recall " will follow the other duty—not less la'
portant—that of asserting, in the right way, and
at the right time, these claims against England,
which should have bee❑ permitted to become s
question to be debated and decided. The united
States should assume the debt; they should estab'
lish a Home Commission to ascertain and pay Ara'
rican losses ; then we ►night turn to Great Britain
and demand reparation for all the injuries she hos
inflicted. Were it refused, then, at least, we would
be free to act in the future. IVe repeat, that while
we hold this debt uncompromised, undiminished hi
the decisions of foreign umpires, America is master
of the situation. England is iu our power, and
o
it would be folly to surrender the advantage.
Of course, the Irish papers sing to pretty much the
same tune, but the tone of the daily papers is on
the whole moderate and sensible, though the Tri"
butte takes strong ground for rejection, assuming a
position which if the nati'in took would instantly be
construed by England to mean war.

Of the three leading New York dailies the Times
considers the Convention eminently favourable to
the United States :—" Every material point made
by the Department of State has been conceded
substantially in the form in which it was sub'
mated." The TVorld thinks that by its toles
England recognizes her liability for the A/abanza
claims. The Tribune, however, writes strongly
iegaiust the Convention. On the 3d inst. it land
an article running over three columns, in which it
asserts that the remonstrance of Mr. Upton pre-
sented to the Senate by Mr. Sumner against the
Clarendon-Johnsou treaty was based on the clear
understanding of the meaning of the protocol'
After entering at length into the history of inter'
national neutrality, maintaining the loyalty of the
United States towards other countries, and illas"
trating it by the rebellion in Canada in 1838, the
'tribune shows the danger of the precedent est°.
blished by England to England, of which her Go'
verument and merchants are not insensible,
shown by their constant and profound anxiety t°
settle the Alabama precedent. The article coil'
eludes with these words :--

" Upon the grave questions of international neutrality
involved in the dispute, the Treaty is silent. It proposes
to settle our claims by the decision of an umpire chosen
by lot ; but such a decision decides no principle, and would
h
leave America with her strict views, and England wit"
her looser code, without any mutual agreement for the
avoidance of the future difficulties which are certaill.t°
arise, unless the United States, thoroughly satisfied with
the reparation offered by England, cordially unites Wit"
her in revising the neutral code on a fair basis of equalitP
It is idle to suppose that America will continuto to poci:
tise for the benefit of England the strict principles whie;
England rejects, or that some of her citizens will /41;
when the occasion arrives, to remember the precedent Se
by England iu her treatment of us, unless these precedepts
ate for ever disposed of by their frank repudiation °II
the part of the English Government, and a satisfactg
reparation for the damage which they caused to AJnelv
can merchmits."

From the tone of the English press the CO°:
cessions made are, at least at present, consi-
dered;
the utmost to which England would asse°
in preference to war. Judging the nations,
;
opinion from its spirit the assertion is that
England has been systematically bullied by the
Republic for half a century; that the tone assunie,
by American statesmen when contrasted with thses"
assumed by English statesmen exchanging despatch t
so proves this as to leave it an historical fact ; th°,,
England never was in a difficulty or at war in whit;
the active sympathy of the United States was 13°
with her enemy ; that she fomented the rebellion .„
Canada and the rising in Ireland. Although this
proves the difficulty we last week noticed of age
similating in any degree whatever the Americas
national view of the position and the English national
view, it shows also, we regret to add, how lithe
is the love between the countries ; and we fear the
result of Mr. Reverdy Johnson's peace efforts will
be to intensify the dislike on both sides. It is
satisfactory, however, to see two papers rising je7/
such importance as the
.Nation and the R°llBA-
-7able arguing the question on its merits only, a/3c;
we venture to say, more free from passion 311
prejudice than almost any paper in England. be
any one read the vehement article last week in !be
~,
Saturday Review, which, we are confident, but falrl
expresses the general tone, and it will be
seen how wide is the split, if General G'-'3 "a
adheres to his ascribed opinion. With his harl,4
he writes 4‘ Let us have Peace ;" with his mouth. Pe
makes a declaration which, if carried into pract!c;
would lead to a horrible war, the result of which°
impossible to predict. There are, however, teniP:t
rate and just men in tens of thousands through°o
America whose influence is not the less because
they wake less noise, and in the end the decisle.a
will fall into their hands. We fear that Grant %Yle
carry with him into office a difficulty for which u
is but little prepared.