The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 31, 1866.

the adjacent States ; and hence we may see how
hopeless it is to imagine that any filibustering
expedition from one country into the other can
ever be rendered absolutely impossible. More-
over, the peculiar organisation of the American
Government, and the conflicting powers of the dif-
ferent States, render it even more difficult for the

authorities at Washington to prevent any tempo-
rary infraction of our frontiers than it was for the

authorities of Montreal to check the raids of the

Confederate filibusters. It is therefore quite within
the bounds of possibility that Fenian sympathisers
in the States may make an attempt to cross the fron-
tier with the object of plundering and sacking some
of the towns near the border. The utter impossi-
bility that such an attempt should be crowned with
permanent success is, as we have seen recently in
Ireland, no positive reason why it should not be
made. Moreover, with good fortune, the raiders
would have a very fair chance of effecting their way
back into the States before they could be over-
taken by the Canadian troops ; and .once safe
upon American soil, they might rely on the facili-
ties of escape afforded by the immensity of the
country, with the reluctance of a Maine, a Vermont,
or a Michigan jury to convict them in the impro-
bable event of their arrest and trial. Nor, indeed,
would the attempt be so absolutely insane—we are
leaving aside all considerations of its wickedness—
as might appear at first sight to English judgment.
General Sweeney, Major Morgan, and the other
United States officers of Hibernian extraction who
have offered their services to the Fenian cause, are
doubtless well aware that they have as little
chance of occupying Montreal or Quebec with
an army of Irish filibusters as they have
of marching with the same army into Lon-
don or Liverpool ; • but yet they may see
considerable advantages in sacrificing a certain
number of lives to accomplish a raid into Canada.
In the first place, by any overt attack upon the
integrity of British territory, they would hope to
keep alive the disaffection in Ireland, and to
stimulate the somewhat flagging enthusiasm of
American sympathisers ; and, in the second, they
might calculate that the excitement created by the
invasion would lead to an imbroglio between
America and Great Britain. This calculation is
not absurd in itself. The certain arrest, trial,
and execution of a number of Fenian filibusters,
claiming, and probably with justice, to be Ameri-
can citizens, would inevitably create strong excite-
ment in the United States.' The Irish population in
the large cities would be sure to raise an outcry
for interference on behalf of their compatriots,
and with the embittered state of feeling between
England and America we arc forbidden to assume

that the outcry might not be supported by men and
classes of far higher standing and position than the

" mere Irish" of the States. Hitherto the Govern-
ment of Washington has acted towards us in the
most honourable and loyal manner ; and we have
every reason to believe that it is as anxious as
our own to hinder any occurrence which might
lead to bloodshed. But nobody can tell what
might be the effect produced in America by the
repulse of an invading force, and by the punish-
ment which we must, however unwillingly,
inflict, if the authors of so gross an outrage
should fall into our hands. Should the peril be
averted by the decisive measures of the Canadian
authorities, we shall owe them a debt of gratitude
for the promptitude and energy with which they
have put forth their strength at the first alarm
When it is clearly understood that any invasion of
British territory will be resisted by the Canadians
to the death, and, if needs be, will be repulsed by
the force of the British Empire, even American
Fenians will think twice before they engage in such
an act of lawless piracy.
The Herald blames the United States Govern-
ment for not interfering with the Fenians. Up to
the very eve of the projected Fenian invasion of
Canada, says our contemporary, Government has
shown so much consideration for the Government of
the United States that it has abstained from even the
faintest remonstrance which might have brought
the Executive at Washington to a sense of its duty.
The question is—ls it, or is it not, the bounden duty
of a Government to prevent its subjects from levy-
ing, war on a friendly Power? It seems almost in-
credible that in tolerating all this the Americans
in power can have kept within the letter of their
own legal code, lax as it is. It is certain that from no
Government in Europe would such proceedings be
tolerated. It is certain that the President and his
Cabinet have been able at any moment, by the
simplest act of authority, to put a summary stop
to these enlistments and these wicked plots. It
cannot be tolerated that such filibusterism should
be winled at just because it is not clearly a viola-
tion of the American Foreign Enlistment
Act. As there is no foreign power in the field
against us enlistments for such foreign Power
cannot, of course, have taken place. It cannot, how-
ever, be borne that the Government at Washington,
while shielding itself from the risks of a collision
with the might of England, should suffer evil-dis-
posed persons within its borders, shielded from
punishment by its flag, to mature their plots
in security and to lay their plans for the
slaughter of British subjects, the conquest and
annexation of British territory. It is well, we
think, that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Seward should
be made to understand that the invasion of
Canada by any sort of disciplined army from the
United States will be an American invasion of
Canada and resented accordingly. And yet it is
only at the eleventh hour—at the very last moment,
and too late, as we fear and believe that Sir F.
Bruce has been instructed to prefer an urgent re-
quest to Mr. Seward that he would take some public
notice of the Fenian conspiracy. Mr. Seward is
reported to have answered that so long as the Irish
leaders kept within the letter of the law the Ame-
rican Government could not, or would not, interfere.
They will have broken the letter of the law, we
suppose, when they have crossed the Canadian fron-
tier, but not before. The power which has been
summarily exercised in the case of a vessel that
was to be fitted out by the South Americans to
make war upon Spain, cannot, it seems, be put
forth in favour of the English Government. 'The
American Government conceives that it has a debt
to pay us, and is bent on punishing us for
the disasters caused by the Alabama and She-
nandoah. Unless some sort of explanation
can be given of it the behaviour of Mr. Seward
does seem most unfriendly to this country. If a
conflict should ensue in Canada, as seems only too
probable, the Government of Washington will be to
blame for it in the first instance • while for the
Canadian difficulty, as well as for the larger trouble
which may spring out of it and deluge the world
with blood, we shall have to thank our pusillani-
mous Ministers, who were too feeble, too fearful, or
too indolent, to take measures in time to avert those
direful calamities. •

President Johnson has assured George T. Down-
ing, chairman of the coloured delegation at present in
Washington, sent there by the coloured people of the
States North and South, that no sudden change will take
place affecting the occupancy of the lands to which Gen.
Sherman gave the freedmen a possessory title. The Presi-
dent suggested that the freedmen should continue to cul-
tivate said lands.
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