The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-27 00:00:00

lish public—• Rho in reality govern and rule the state
who are used to see order arising from most disorderly
agitations, to disdain all the excesses of the press, to
beware, in fact, of all the exaggerations of unlimited
freedom—the British public, I say, knew nothing of
the attempts previously organised in England against
the Emperor's life, nor of the doctrines professed by a
portion of th e refugees ; the British public was sincerely
as ignorant as it was innocent of all those infamous
attempts. It was, therefore, with the most painful
as

Itonishment that it fancied, assuredly without rea-
son (1), that it detected in speeches delivered in
Paris under the feeling of indignation which the late
attempt had aroused, a disposition on the part of
France to consider England as responsible for the
attempt, and to throw upon her the odium of being
a party to the crime. From that moment public
opinion in England suddenly came to a stand in the
midst of the manifestations by which the crime was
being branded throughout the length and breadth of
the land."
The change in the passport system also caused
natural annoyance, for it was felt to be aimed at
ourselves—neither more nor less, in fact, than an
expression of distrust. It must, at all events, be ad-
mitted that the time selected for the change was
peculiarly infelicitous. We hail the able and truth-
ful speech of Count DE PERSIGNY with sincere plea-
sure, convinced that it conveys an accurate view of
the feelings of both countries, viz., " That there is no
interest, no serious question at issue between the two
Governments, that the simplest exercise of common
sense cannot satisfactorily solve, and that thus it only
rests with us to maintain an alliance so advantageous
for the two peoples."

Although the satisfaction excited in the minds and
hearts of reflective men in these islands, by the suc-
cessful completion of the grandest of all the grand
submarine telegraphic enterprizes, may have been
less uproarious than that expressed by all classes in
the United States immediately upon the announce-
ment of the great exploit, it has in no way been less
profound, less sincere, or less comprehensive. While
Englishmen remained dumb at the first tidings,
Americans, wherever the news spread among them,
broke forth into instantaneous acclamations. Church-
bells were rung, cannon fired, flags unfurled—there
were banquets, balls, and torchlight processions.
Speeches were delivered by heads of corpora-
tions. Sermons were addressed by enthusiastic
clergymen to their flocks. Cousin JONATHAN was
half-wild with pleasurable excitement. And
no wonder. He had ample reason, in all con-
science. The intelligence thus welcomed spontane-
ously by the multitude of free citizens all through
the States was in truth, as one of the chief function-
aries on the opposite shores of the Atlantic said
through that magical talking-wire trailed across the
unfathomable abysses of two thousand miles of salt
water—far more glorious tidings than any ever
bruited abroad in regard to some sanguinary
victory gained upon the battle-field. The ardour
of the United States' men is in truth a thing to be
respected—an outburst of feeling in the impassioned
fervour of which there is not one generous-hearted
inhabitant of Great Britain who has not already
sympathised to the very uttermost.
Meanwhile JOHN BULL has been quietly
enjoying the luxury of an apparently appath-
etic brooding over his great achievement. Days
and nights passed and not a single church bell has
tinkled, not a single banner has been displayed,
not a pinch of gunpowder has been exploded.
JOHN bad actually accomplished what he had been
so long anxiously bent upon accomplishing. And
having coiled up the end of the cable at Valen-
tia, and received news, through it, that everything
was going on satisfactorily at Newfoundland—
having seen all taught, put the entire machinery of
the telegraph in gear—he sat down to have a good
think over his doings—over what had been done and
what there yet remained to do. Both—considerable.
The actual achievement certainly immense—scarcely
at this moment quite conceivable. The residue
of work of the like kind, vast and complicated, to
an extent beyond very ready computation. At
length we are waking up from our reverie. A con-
gratulatory banquet is to be given to Mr. BRIGHT,
the principal engineer of the expedition, at Dublin,
on the Ist of September. A similar demonstra-
tion is being set on foot at Liverpool. There
cannot be much question that another and yet
grander movement of the same kind will begin before
long to be prepared in earnest by the good citizens
of London and Westminster. Atter the exultatio❑
natural under the circumstances has been indulged
in—then will come the hard work yet in store fin
us in regard to the paying out and laying down of
these submarine cables. By the time the last toast
has been cheered, and the last bumper quaffed at
these banquets of congratulation, we shall hope to
see good earnest given of an energetic resolve on the
part of Englishmen generally—English speculators,
and English merchants, and English engineers, backed
by a patriotic English Government—to carry out
elsewhere far and wide the magnificent system
inaugurated so gloriously and triumphantly by the
completion of the submarine enterprise between
England and America, uniting by means of the line
threading the bed of the Atlantic the two great
hemispheres.
Literally no impediment whatever stands in
the way, in regard to mere distance, in any
part of the globe—east, west, north, or south

—now that we have succeeded, by one enterprise, in
vanquishing an ocean-breath of two thousand miles
from point to point, from Valentia to Newfoundland.
Nowhere else, either in the old world or the new, i 9
there any such gap as this to be spanned, any such
unbroken interval to be traversed. Elsewhere the
task, to be sure, is, to all intents and purposes, easy
by comparison. Having satisfactorily laid
down so many thousand miles of wire in
one continuous length under the Atlantic,
we may set resolutely to with a heart and with a
will—to the gigantic but facile toil still lying before
us, that of laying down a whole net-work of telegra-
phic wires and cables, stretching hither and thither,
under seas and gulfs, through straits, across
isthmuses, alike over continent and peninsula, and
in unseen loops from island to island through the
whole chain of a vast and scattered Archipelago.
It is not a day-dream nowadays—the notion of the
time coming when England may hold instantaneous
communication at pleasure with the whole of her
enormous and scattered possessions, to the east
with Hong
Kong, to the west with British
Columbia, northwards with the Red River
Settlement,
southwards even to our antipodes

in Australia. It has happily become now
merely a question of time and money. It will cost
so much and so much—directly we can make up our
minds about the extent of the disbursements it
is done. We have only to manufacture so many
hundreds of thousands of miles of gutta percha cable,
with a copper core to it—to coil the rope up safely
on board appropriate steam-vessels—to pay it out
according to an approved system—to keep our eyes
open and our wits about us, while we are going

through these momentous labours—and the achieve-
ment, wonderful from first to last, scarcely com-
prehensible from first to last, is, as rapidly as we
please, accomplished.
It was whimsically
to h
retmarked by Boz when he
paid his famous
all about it
States and then
came home and told us
out it in his American
N
theA lclh
rairgahc characteristic
s tii
in
i oetses of fo
Britishcoaehmen as of
ther General e
Yankeenera Circulation—thatla ntth e
the two peoples are—in England—
„
America—" Go-a-head 1" It would be well in
regard to the acceleration of the mere speed
of our doings here in England if—now
that
(Tons and JONATHAN thrill smpathetically to the
same nerve trailled along the be of the Atlantic—
the former were to take an obv d ious hint from the
latter—linking the incentive to the consolation.

A very interesting trial has just taken place in
Liverpool, involving questions of the deepest impor-
tance to the commercial community. It was an
action brought against the manag;ng director of the