The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-19 00:00:00

THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

The following is a copy (f a memorial addressed
to Lord Palmerston and Eni Russell by the Reli-
gious Society of Friends :---
"To VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, K.G., FIRST LORD OF THE
SURY, AND EARL RUSSELL, PRINCIPAL SECRE-
TARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

"The undersigned, acting on behalf of the Society
of Friends throughout Great Britain, request the
considerate attention of the First Lord of the Trea-
sury and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
to a few observations on the present critical aspect
of affairs between this country and the United
States of North America, offered as they are under
a strong sense of religious duty.
"We have on former occasions so fully stated our
conviction that all war is unlawful for the Christian
that it is needless now to repeat it. But there are
circumstances connected with the present difficul-
ties between the two countries of so marked and
peculiar a character as, in our apprehension, to
justify this special appeal to Government.
"There are, perhaps, no two independent nations
on the face of the earth so closely united together
as England and America, by the combined ties of
blood, of language, of religion, of constitutional
freedom, and of commercial interest, and no two
nations between whom a war would be a more open
scandal to our common Christianity, or a more seri-
ous injury to the welfare and progress of the human
race.

" The hatred of a brother when once offended is
a proverb. Nor were the feelings which existed
between England and America after the War of
Independence and the war respecting the rights of
neutrals by any means an exception to this pro-
verbial truth, By degrees, however, animosity and
mutual suspicion subsided. The reciprocal visits of
enlightened travellers, the vast increase of com-
mercial relations, and the healthy emulation in
Christian philanthropy, in science, and in literature,
were, under the Divine blessing, producing an im-
proved tone of both personal and national feeling,
when at length, in 1860, the visit of the heir appa-
rent of the British Throne to the Canadian pro-
vinces and to the United States seemed to complete
the entente cordiale between the two countrie s. It is
little than 12 months since English subjects and
American citizens were alike rejoicing in this
healthy condition of the relations between these two
great divisions of the Anglo-Saxon race.
" Now, however, with sadness of heart we see all
this sorrowfully changed, and a question of inter-
national law which, if it could be submitted to a
competent tribunal of able jurists, whether Euro-
pean or American, or to the mediation or arbitra-
ment of any independent State, might probably in
a few hours be settled to the satisfaction of all par-
ties,appears to be in imminent danger of occasioning
a vast destructien of human life, a prodigious waste
of treasure, a total interruption of trade and social
intercourse, and an incalculable amount of moral
evil ; while it is just as impossible, in the nature of
things, for the question of right or wrong to be
really cleared up by such an appeal to the sword, as
it was for the guilt or innocence of the accused in
medieval times to be settled by the wager of battle
or the passage over burning ploughshares.

" Under these circumstances we look with confi-
dence to the Government and legal advisers of cur
beloved Queen, fully believing it is their honest de-
sire that so awful and so unnecessary a calamity—
we might say so great a national sin—as a war
with America should be averted. In this confidence
we are emboldened respectfully to ask whether it
is not possible to use the interval which must neces-
sarily elapse between the transmission of the views
of the British Cabinet to Washington and the arri-
val of the reply in preparing so to meet that reply,
whatever it may be, that the next step may not be
a declaration of war, but the putting of the remain-
ing issue, if any, between the two countries in
train for a pacific decision.

" We rejoiced to see the principle of arbitration
strongly recommended by the Plenipotentiaries of
the European Powers who were parties to the treaty
of Paris. Where a prospective provision of this
kind exists in international treaties, any difficulty
which may arise would naturally take the course
thus prescribed for the settlement before the question
of right becomes merged in the storm of passion.
And though there may be no such prospective pro-
vision applicable to the present difficulty, we would
respectfully submit that it may not be too late for
our Government, strong in the consciousness of
right, to propose such a reference, should the reply
from Washington not contain the happy and peace-
ful termination of the dispute. There are many cir-
cumstances in the present position of England
which enable her to maintain a perfectly tempo-
rate and conciliatory attitude; and would it not
seem ungenerous to drive matters to extremities
with the United States at the time when they are
engaged in a struggle for their national integrity,
if not for their national existence ?

" May we, then, as Christians, appeal to the en-
lightened rulers of this highly professing Christian
country, imploring them, while commendably vigi-
lant for the interests and the character of England,
to endeavour to follow out the Gospel rule of doing
as they would be done by—a rule r.ot less binding
on nations than on individuals ? But, though we
thus address those whose counsels direct the State,
and with whom may rest the final decision for
peace or for war, we are all well aware that much
depends upon the avoidance of ad exasperated feel-
ing on the part of the public at large, often too
ready to encourage a war at the first outbreak of
difficulties ; and we greatly desire that a thoroughly
pacific temper may be maintained and increase
among us as a nation, and especially that it may
be promoted by all those who profess to preach the
Gospel of peace. There may have been words as
well as deeds on the part of the Government or the
people of the United States which have tried the
temper and the patience both of our statesmen and
of our fellow-countrymen generally ; but it is surely
more truly dignified, as well as more truly Chris-
tian, to meet provocation with a calm reference to
law, than to exhibit a retaliatory spirit.
"We would further suggest that, after the vast
sacrifices which England has made for the abolition
of the slave trade and slavery in our own posses-
sions, and by other countries, which has been an
object so consistently promoted through life by the:
statesmen whom we are now addressing, it would
be deeply humiliating if, by being involved in this
war, our country should ultimately find itself in
active co operation with the South and slavery
against the North and freedom ; though, in saying
this, we do not intend to express our approval in
all respects of the course pursued by the North in
reference to slavery.

" We may, perhaps, be permitted to mention, as
an additional reason for our strong advocacy of the
preservation of peace with America, that as the
principal founders of tso of its States, and many of
the original settlers of other States, were our bre-
thren in religious profession, between whose de-
scendants and ourselves a cordial correspondence
has been maintained for nearly two centuries, we
have a special religious as well as national interest
in the question. And though the Government of
those States has long passed into less pacific hands,
yet our brethren thEre still have a considerable in-
fluence on their State Legislatures, and their voice
has often been heard with effect in Washington.
We shall, therefore, at once apprise our American
friends of the step which we have now w taken, and
shall urge them also to use their influence i❑ fur-
therance of the cause of peace.

" May He who still ruleth in the earth by His
providence as well as by His grace grant that the
wisdom which is from above, and which is pure,
peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, may so
prevail in the councils of the two Governments and
in the hands of the people that the impending scourge
of war may be averted from the kindred nations on
each side of the Atlantic, and from the waters of that
ocean which should unite rather than divide them.

" London, the 9th of the 12th month, 1861."
(Here follow the signatures.)

The Constitution de l' Yonne states that M. Yvon,
the cure of Athie, in that department, was barbarously mur-
dered in his own house, three nights since. After perpe-
trating this crime, the murderers ransacked the house and
carried off a considerable sum of money and several articles
of plate. Some tramping pedlars who were seen in the
neighbourhood en the previous day, arc supposed to be the
guilty parties.