The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-13 00:00:00

TE-:E SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY E'VENIN6,

armaments were simultaneously to at tack the vital
parts of the Celestial Empire—its bead and its heart
—Nankin and Pekin, at the very timei when the
thunderbolts of our artillery. are being: hurled at
Canton, as it were, against its broad front or
breastplate.

Fifteen or twenty thousand men tly, us simul-
taneously assaulting, in three bodies, the three
principal cities of China Proper, must £nevitably
bring the war to a close immediately.
A thoroughly energetic campaign like this, is of
all campaigns, we maintain, the very one sug-
gested both by Humanity and by Pruden e. It is
the course of proceeding calculated to prove in the
end the most economical. It is the one most
probable to insure the speediest settlement of
existing differences ; and therefore, by reason, the
very one most likely to insure the smallest effusion
of human blood, and the least expenditure of the
lives and treasures of the belligerents.
Therefore it is that we are solicitous at once
and without any further delay whatever to urge
upon the Government the absolutely imperative
necessity of prosecuting, with the utmost energy,
the New War originated by the Chinese—provoked
by their faithlessness, precipitated by their inso-
lence, and aggravated by their inhuman bar-
barities, their incendiarisms, poisonings, and
assassinations.
An insulated attack upon Canton must, if per-
sisted in, be simply cruel, because wholly ineffec-
tual. Tacta fuisset alea---but it would be alto-
gether wide of the mark aimed at. If we want
the blow to " tell" we must take care, above all
things, that it is properly directed—that it is
directed judiciously, energetically, and sagaciously.
Remember the old war-Song of our forefathers,—
" Britons, Strike Home 1" When driven to the
necessity of waging war against an enemy, nc t
merely strike—but Strike Home ! Undertake no
Little War, of course, under any circumstances.
Against that evil have we not been solemnly
warned by the greatest of all our warriors, or, at
least, of all our Military leaders, our NELSON of
the Land, ARTHUR Duke of Wellington ? But in
remembering, and not only remembering, but
acting upon, that recommendation, let us not do
so merely by halves! In making Great Wars
rather than Little Ones, let us always, if we can,
make Great Wars Wisely. To which most desir-
able end, in the present instance, we would here
most earnestly insist upon the advisability, on
every account, of our forthwith assailing China,
not simply at Canton, but at Canton and
Pekin and Nankin simultaneously. Directing
against the enemy not merely some five thousand
of our soldiers—but, at the very least, some
fifteen or twenty thousand 1 Not only sending
against our old antagonists of the Flowery Land
a solitary squadrpn, but a grand and over-
whelming fleet—and a fleet aided by our already
well-prepared, and at present wholly idle and use-
less, armament of gun-boats and floating-batteries.
Supposing we really and without any further
delay, and with the utmost possible energy and
determination, act according to this programme.
Supposing we despatch forthwith from home,
from Bombay, from Calcutta, by way of Pulo
Penang, through the Straits of Malacca, round
by Singapore—a really efficient and sufficient ex-
pedition. Supposing we direct one portion of it,
as we are actually doing at present, against Can-
ton, sending our war vessels with their freight of
soldiers up the Bocca Tigris, the estuary
of the Pearl River, or Choo-Kiang, to the
scene of the attack conducted, by Admiral SEY-
MOUR. Supposing we direct another portion of it
against Nankin, sending it thither along the
broad current of the Mississippi of China—the
great river-of the Yang-tsze-Kiang. Supposing
we despatch yet another at the very same
time against Pekin, up the Pei-ho River,
after traversing the Ea-Aetna Sea and the
Yellow Sea and Gulf of Pe-tope-li. Supposing
this bold and triple blow to be struck simultane-
ously. The Chinese war—with the least procras-
tination, and the least bloodshed In the end, and
the least expenditure at all practicable—would be
very soon terminated 1 And England has only to
will all this, to do it 1 She has a heroic army at
her command, in a perfect state of efficiency. She
has.a fully equipped flotilla of gun-boats. She
has steam-power at her command to any amount
that may be required. She has a maritime force
such as never before floated upon the deep. She
has every conceivable requirement. She has the
disposition at home to carry on the war energeti-
cally—a disposition at the present moment ani-
mating, even to enthusiasm, the whole of the
past
majority of her population. And at the
Head her Affairs, directing the machinery
of her Executive, presiding over the Councils of
her Government—she has, happily, at this moment,
the most resolute, the most • energetic, and the
most patriotic of her Statesmen. We look con-
fidently therefore, be it said, for the immediate
adoption of a policy in regard to this new War
with China consistent with the course we have
already indicated.

It were preposterous to argue for an instant
that it is a course wanting in any way either in
humanity, in economy, in prudence, or in mode-
ration. It on the contrary, to our mind,
as we have before insisted, of all projects the one
most obviously dictated by each of those very
considerations. Recollect the empire whose want
of faith, whose unprovoked insolence, and whose
wholly wanton brutality, have kindled anew the
flames of another great war in Asia, is not by
any means " unworthy of our steel" by its insigni-
ficance. It is an Empire whose sway extends
over 4,500,000 square miles—in other words,
over more than a quarter of the whole area of
the Asiatic continent, or more than a twelfth of
the whole of the known land in both hemispheres !

It is an empire having a population of some
350,000,000—0 r otherwise to express it, at the
very least, a third part (if it be not actually more)

of the entire human family ! It is an Empire
beyond all other empires—considered in relation
to the compact vastness and the prevailing fertility
of its gigantic dimensions ! For, although the
British Empire and the Russian Empire are really
larger than the Chinese Empire, which is the
third power in the world in territorial extent—

Russia comprises among its dominions frozen

plains and barren steppes of enormous magnitude I
England having her vast colonial possessions

scattered far and wide over the whole habitable

globe—over Europe, Asia, Africi, America, Aus-
tralia, Polynesia I While China, on the contrary,
besides being the most fertile and populous coun-
try in the world, is bounded solely by her own
natural geographical boundaries—by the frontiers
of the, Burmese Empire and Tonquin, by the Yu
chain of mountains and the mountains of Thibet,
by the Desert of Gobi and the waters of the
Pacific I

As we have been long-suffering and moderate
in our conduct hitherto towards the Government
of China, in spite of all its irritating obduracy,
its barbaric arrogance, and its consistent and sys-
tematic turpitude—let us, at least, now that we
have at length drawn the sword in vindica-
tion of the Honour of the National Flag, of
the rights of the property, and, above all,
of the security of the lives of our remote fellow-