The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-04 00:00:00

England's Debt to America.

In reply to a letter on the above subject a writer
in a contemporary says :
Both your correspondents in reply to Mr. Rawlings
take exception to statements in his letter, but leave the
real question untouched. It only shows the tendency to
drift away from the point at issue. Mr. Rawlings wrote
to raise the claim of the United States against England for
damage done against the commerce of the former country
by certain piratical cruisers built and fitted up in the latter.
From this issue the question has drifted to " whether
France offered to join England during the war in recog-
nising the South," which both your correspondents indig-
nantly deny, and further insinuate that it was all the other
way. I must say for,Americans that it is impossible for
England to act so as to satisfy them, and it is almost
equally impossible for France to offend them. During the
civil war wo managed to make both North and k3ontil
equally our enemies. Whatever step this country talk
seemed only to raise a storm of indignation on the other
side. When she took no step at all, but declared she would
remain strictly neutral, she was almost equally assailed.
From your correspondent T. S. we have a sample il(Yvr
America would receive the concession Mr. Rawlings ue-
mauds, if made by England ; " Though England," he
says, " has refused to refer the demands, and a°
ignores the claim, it will nevertheless be paid
in
full, and I think without any objection ,being made ill -
hostile way." This result your correspondent evidently
considers will be due to what he calls "a stunner, 6
little iron fighting machine which sent wooden walls to 3
great discount, and made England cry peace and strict
neutrality. Once let the idea get abroad in England that
America intends to enforce these claims from the turrets
of the Monitors, and the question will very soon be re-
moved from the domain of arbitration to that of force'
Your correspondent T. S. also considers that Canadacould
not be held by this Empire for a fortnight against a rowdy
Irish mob. We have had a good many samples of what
Irish mobs are, and that organisation of the Feniens in
the States appears to be no exception to the general rule.
A contemptible gang that cannot hold together with every
advantage of circumstances and position, but plunders its
members and splits into the fiercest domestic contentions,
is scarcely a community calculated to make war successfully
against a powerful Government. Had England permitted
such an organisation in its territory against the United
States, this country would be denounced in every journal
in the Union. We have heard a great deal of the loyalty
of America in partially preventing the inroad of this gang
of plunderers into a neighbouring country while at peace'
but we have heard nothing of the dignified silence of this
nation under a provocation which, had it been directed
against the States, would have made the Great Republic
wild with indignation. There are two sides, Mr. Editor'
to every question. But no exception can be taken to /Sr'
Rawlings' able and temperate letter, and his proposition
that the question of compensation should be referred to
arbitration is the honest, straightforward .solution of 6
difficulty that is as much the interest of England to ham
thus settled amicably as it is that of the United States.