The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-30 00:00:00

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Mr. Rawlings on England's Debt to

America,

The following letters on this subject appear in
the Anglo-Anzerican Times.
SIR, —ln his letter of last week, published in your paper,
Mr. Rawlings informs us that America owes to England a
debt of gratitude for her courage In refusing to co-operate
with France in recognising the South during the late re-
bellion. This assertion about France having attempted
to seduce England from her position of neutrality has
been so often made of late that even we, who knew better,
will by and by begin to believe in it as true. if true, we
should know the facts, in order that those of us virho believe
otherwise may be set right, and thus give credit where it
is due ; and, if not, that justice should be done to our
French neighbours by no longer charging them with a
conspiracy of which they were never guilty. Until some
very substantial evidence is adduced to support Mr. Raw-
lings' assertion I, for one, shall continue in my present in-
credulity, knowing, as I do, that the facts, as far as known,
all point the other way. It is true that more than once
during the War certain London papers put forth
some such statement as this, that the French
Emperor had been seeking the co-operation of
the British Government for the aforesaid object ;
but when Earl Russell was appealed to in Parliament to
corroborate the report, he flatly and promptly contradicted it,
adding that no communication whatever had passed between
the two Governments on the subject. In the face of this Mr.
-Rawlings may prefer to believe the newspaper reports. I
do not. _ _

I mp rpooor
of
re fi
st laweania et tom
it intentions e
aasnyd spirit
his reply to Mr. Dayton, our late American Minister to his
tocite
Court, in the interview, as reported in that gentleman's
of
thef a founrcthh eEr
official correspondence. To Mr. Dayton's question, " What
will your Majesty do in the event of my (United States)
Government declining to accept your offer of mediation ?"
the Emperor answered promptly and emphatically,
" Nothing.", This is too well known to be disputed, and
it would be accusing the Emperor Napoleon of some-
thing worse than duplicity to suppose in the face of such
a declaration he would deliberately conspire with another
Government to bring about the disruption of the Union.
I should like to ask Mr. Rawlings whether it was from
France or England that a deputation, composed of influen-
tial members of Parliament, went to urge upon their neigh-
bouring Sovereign the propriety and importance of recog-
nising the Southern Confederacy without delay, and
whether that Sovereign did not positively refuse to do
anything of the kind; and, furthermore, whether it was
in France or in England that a society called the "Southern
Independence Association" was formed' for the purpose of
aiding the enemies of the Union in their villainous
designs.

It may appear illiberal to take exception to Mr. Raw-
lings' generally excellent and able letter even on this one
point, but it seems to me a matter of historical importance
that the question should be cleared up ; and as I have not
seen any contradiction to the statement so often repeated
since the war about French intrigue and English neu-
trality, I think it my duty to raise my humble voice in the
cause of what I firmly believe to be the truth. If wrong,
I am open to-conviction ; but I require some better evi-
dence than unfounded newspaper statements, made at a
time when nearly the whole press of this country was
furious with passion and hostility against everybody and
everything connected with the Northern Government or
the Union cause. If Mr. Rawlings can produce that
evidence nobody will be more pleased than
•

•
London, July 25, 1866. Your obodient servant,

Silt,—Under the above heading IPnAotßlios,e
iJuuylyou2r4l,aleBt 6ie6s.ue
a letter signed " T. Rawlings, F.R.G.S ," whose friendship
be than
enthusiasm as they are
ain e reality.
tot the present
for the United States, I think, has led him to represent
matters he touches upon more as he would have them to
present and future of the
United States may, however, be properly founded, though
were it put forth by an American, I am under the impres-
sion that it would be in great danger of being pronounced
in England, " Yankee brag." i would not detract in the
least, but rather add to the honours already due to your
correspondent, and such names as Cobden, Bright, New-
man Hall, Cossham, and others whose principles will yet
prove the political redemption of the English people; but,
nationally considered, history and my own experience
compel me to question the correctness of several of his
inferences.
England's traffic in slaves was greater
the capturing
sympathy,
and education, Abolitionists. Let us see. Previous to
c.
of an
to slavery in another
hemisphere,thethaHne 3innocenttsehtaaartt
el:people and
taybon I iodi
Englishmentnh ceur carryingna a t mio intsaher; ree al: 61,
and
bbl ienydeath in their trans-
portation thither, made her most profitable argosies. 4The
persistency of the British Government in keeping open
a great market in the American colonies, where men
should be bought and sold, Was a
subject for
complaint which would have been incorporated .in
the preliminaries to the declaration of Independence of
bad not a few of the Southern states, on
labour for raising cot-
ton, its continuation.
termination :of the war for indepen-
denceof slave
thett ho
ne. 6
pleaUu rice,t nti
the
United dfns
dSi
theiet s acutoges sasl.
u,
necessity
di
desired
s
compelled England to abandon the infernal traffic,
and soon after the Northern States not only prohibited fur-
ther importation of slaves, but commenced the entire aboli-
tion of slavery, and effected it in a way thatproved a social
benefit to both white and black. It was not until thirty
or forty years afterwards that England, finding herself be
-
apparent consideration for the
hind in the reform, became possessed of the spirit (I won't
negro, and the frequent questions
say of jealousy), and liberated some eight hundred thou-
sand slaves in the West Indies. As this was done at a
laenayding English journals, and by
that the great anti-slavery
futured as h , andof
the
subsequently
in
unpreparedthe
without
pro-
minent people, as to the propriety of the emancipation,
bsytromkaenyof " pious thunder." Hence
arguing the superior condition of the negro as a slave, it
has
impulse
nwsauss
these precedents, with the revelations of the last few years
of the complicity in every available form with the slave-
drivers' war for more firmly establishing and vastly extend-
ing "the peculiar institution" that was to be " the-thief
corner-stone" of their empire, must satisfy the world as to
pbeuctteda
England's real position. True, the kingdom possessed
within itself no black slaves, but " cunning dogs don't kill
sheep at home."
There was once Cowper, Wilberforce, and many others
who.plead for abolition; but who knows, had they lived
i through the American elave-drivere' war, which of them