The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-17 00:00:00

Ex-Confedei ate Alliance with France.

The New York Herald says that while the
Southern Confederacy existed, an alliance with
France was desired and intended ; now that the
Confederacy has gone down, the ex-Confederates
are no longer soldiers in arms to whom the French
can lend some assistance in their campaigns against
American troops ; but they are good military ma-
terial, ready to assist the French against the United
States as effectively as the French assisted them
some time before. In hostility toward the United
States it is the same on both sides, only the Con-
federacy has passed out of view. That disguise for
all the operations that France could assist against
America is no longer at hand, and they must find
a new one. Immigration settlement is a good and
plausible one, and France immediately proceeds to
organise a colony between the United States and
the Mexican empire, as a sort of buffer to break the
blows that may come by and by ; and that colony
is neither more nor less in material and spirit than
the reorganisation of the Confederate force that
went to pieces at the close of the war. It is a de-
iberately cogitated threat. All the arrangements
for the organisatien of this new and hostile Power
on American borders are made directly with the
Emperor of France, not with the puppet Maximilian,
who is treated all through by every one, from Na-
poleon to Gwin, as a mere form, a name, a shadow.
The territory chosen is greater in extent, as well as
richer agriculturatly and minerally, than the part of
Mexico that would be left if this were taken away.
France proposes to Mexico to take this little strip
of land in payment for the Mexican debt, and the
French authority in Mexico assents. Gwin makes
grand promises to the Emperor of France—that
countless thousands of Ccnfederates will rally at his
call ; that they will make the finest colony in the
world; that it will be at once a safeguard to the
empire, a source of uneasiness to the United States
and of wealth to France, and that, in short, it will
be the same as if France had recognised the Con-
federacy, only the United States will not venture
to take hold of it. Gwin, for all these sanguine
views, is appointed Director-General and given ex-
traordinary powers. Just as all is going on swim-
mingly, notice of it is brought to the United States
Government by Mr. Romero, Mexican Minister,
aud, as the circumstances imperatively require it,
Mr. Seward writes to Drouyn de Lhuys on the sub-
' ject. He writes a mild little note, however, merely
suggesting that if all this is true, then France is not
acting just as she promised to do, and declaring
that the President " confidently and sincerely ex-
pects, in some form, an assurance that all the pre-
tences of Dr. Gwin and his associates are destitute
of any sanction from the Emperor of France." De
Lhuys replies that as for Gwin it is not the busi-
ness of the French Government to enlighten
Mr. Seward ; but as to France, she remembers
that the United States has " pledged its word"
to remain strictly neutral as to Mexico, and
that France does not intend to interfere in
the questions that divide " the Union," but to be
"scrupulously neutral." This valuable assurance
was made four months after Lee's surrender.
France, however, evidently caught at the fact that
Gwin had been named ; for Gwin, recognised as an
enemy of the United States, and so denounced, was
thrown over ; but the plan was adhered to, and was
put into the hands of men as notoriously enemies
of the United States as the ex-Senator. M. F.
Maury was raised into Gwin's place, made an
honorary Councillor of State and Imperial Com-
missioner of Emigration, given powers "second only
to the Emperor," and is now engaged in the most
earnest attempt to run his immense machine and
build up a nation to make the United States dread-
fully afraid. He has even his accredited agents at
work in Southern cities, and draws on the imperial
treasury for their pay.

BRITISH WEALTH AND SPECULATION. —The
New York Times paints a glowing picture of
the advantage to America of the trade with Great
Britain. The prodigious accumulation of wealth
during the last ten years in England under the
favourable working of an almost untrammelled trade
with the whole world, and the busy industry of the
people, is producing its natural effecryt. n
the British people are poured into eve couentsaryvi. savings
sieoyf
go to construct railways in India, to build factories
in Germany, erect cotton machinesdlay railroads Turkey,rinrdsn
found villages in Australia, and
Canada ; they serve to send iron steamers for Italy.
or Austria over the Mediterranean, and to bridge
the Isthmus of Panama they are helping Russia
and Italy, and Turkey, and India, to develope their
resources. For the last two years they have been
pouring a golden tide into the United States. The
profits of " British free trade" are paying the
American national expenses for the food and cloth-
ing, and arms and wages, of their armies, by taking
their " promises to pay," or by enabling continental
people to take them. Other earnings under the
favourable system of Great Britain are now build-
ing or running American railways, or aiding to de-
velope the immense resources of the West and South.
The profits of England fertilise the world. But the
natural effect of such prosperity is a boundless spirit
of speculation. The New York Times adds that the
universal testimony of trustworthy informants is
that the importing class in New York were never
in better condition to meet their obligations than
now. A vast amount of cotton is still on hand in
American ports, ready to be exported, and the pro-
spects for the next crop are fair. , I