The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 22, 1861.

We may trust the Southern papers, we think, when
they describe slavery as increasing greatly the
military strength of the South. At first it was
thought that the slaves would be an element of
weakness only. It was supposed that so many
whites must be detained at home to watch them,
that the whites of the South could not spare men for
an army in proportion to their own numbers. But
this would be the case only on the supposition that
the slaves were made restless by the hope of free-
dom; otherwise things would be reversed. In the
North where every white man works for his living
he can ill afford his time for soldiering. In the
South where slaves do the 'work, and where, if they
have no chance of escape, a few whites can super-
intend them, the rest of the white population can
enlist more freely while their slaves support them.

This has turned out to be the fact—on the fron-
tier of the Slave States the Southern armies were
sufficient to keep the slaves hopeless of liberty.
Further south the prospect was even more hopeless ;
worst of all, the Northerns gave them no encou-
ragement; worse, perhaps, even than that, the Go-
vernment has taken all possible pains to show that
the war was not one of liberty for the slave. The
slaves, if they know all that was going on, can
do no better than toil on, and leave their masters
and the North to fight it out. Worse their con-
dition could not be. But what should they rise
for P Why should they be Unionists? The
Union has been a bitter curse to them. If it
shattered itself into its thirty-four fragments,
they would probably be benefited rather than
not by the change.
If in Massachusetts—Mr. SUMNER'S State—
resolutions pointing to emancipation could only
be laid on the table, and the attempt to take them
from it defeated, what can we expect of the greater
part of the Northern States. It becomes more dif-
ficult to blame LINCOLN; it is the most Puritan part
of the North which is in fault. It is " Like PRESI-
DENT, like people." There is nothing to choose be-
tween them. But we may predict, if it be possible
to predict at all, that the North will never now sub-
jugate the South—never, we mean, unless it repents
of its cold-blooded aversion to giving the coloured
race its due. The Northern Americans have made
a great fuss about English want of sympathy with
their cause. We may justly wonder far more at
their cruel want of sympathy with a far better
cause. What is a monster Union as an object of
sympathy, compared with abolition of the most
oppressive slavery ever known on the face of the
earth. The men who show no sympathy with
negro rights, though to fight for those rights is their
only sure means of victory, are the men who de-
mand our sympathy with a Union built on slavery,
and fenced by atrocious fugitive slave laws ! It
cannot be. The unfeeling selfishness of the
Free North chills us, as much as the avowed
pro-slavery principles of the South disgust
us. At present the cause of both North
and South is bad, utterly bad ; and while we
should be sorry to hear of Southern triumphs,
we are at a loss to know why we should rejoice
in Northern victories. Let the South succeed, and
slavery is fixed there for generations. Let the North
restore the Union even, and it would be to lend the
whole strength of the North, as well as of the South,
to the perpetuation of slavery. When we look at
both sides, the ejaculation of the Patriarch will
recur to us—:" Oh my soul come not thou into their
secret; unto their assembly mine honour, be not
thou united !"

The noble lord the member for Woodstock
summed up, on Wednesday last, down at
Birmingham, the many extraordinary advan-
tages that might be reasonably looked for
as the almost inevitable result of the exten-
sion of our Consular establishments in Africa.
Lord ALFRED CHURCHILL'S remarks upon this oc
casion were apropos to the recent appointment by
her MAJESTY'S Government of an accredited agent
at Abbeokuta, in that continent. The meeting held
on Wednesday at Birmingham was one convened
by the members of the African Society, for the pur-
pose of considering the effect of the Cotton Famine (!)
upon great seats of industry in this country, such
as Manchester and Birmingham. The resolution
entrusted to Lord A. CHURCHILL ran to the fol-
lowing effect :—" That this meeting emphatically
expresses its approval of the appointment by the
British Government of an accredited agent at Ab-
beokuta, and trusts that the policy which dictated
this appointment may be extended to the town of
Rabba, on the Niger, and to other important places
as facilities arise." And it was in the course of the

little address during the delivery of which the
member for Woodstock proposed the above resolu-
tion to the meeting at Birmingham, that there oc-
curred the very striking epitome already alluded to
—the epitome, that is, of the advantages certain (or,
at any rate, very likely) to accrue to Africa
from the extension there of our Consular establish-
meats.

The mere circumstance of that extension, said
Lord. ALFRED CHURCHILL, " would place the coun-
try under the protection of Great Britain, and, so
protected, all its cotton, sugar, tobacco, and indigo
fields would thrive under British enterprise; a
deadly blow would be struck at the slave-
grown produce of Cuba, Virginia, and New
Orleans; the supply of slaves from the Afri-
; the Africans would be
can coast would be cut off
brought up to their true position in the human
race, and the whole world would soon reap the
benefit." Now, the picture thus rapidly sketched
many will probably be set
may be pronounced by
down at once by many—as very highly-coloured,
or rather over-coloured, the prevailing colour in it
being, of course, the couleur de rose. At the same
time, however, who amongst us all will have the
temerity to gainsay the probability (not merely,
observe, the possibility, but the probability) of any
one among all those same halcyon anticipations
being, sooner or later, realized? Whether sooner
or later, is, of course, another question, but that
they would eventually, that they must eventually,
be realized, we for one entertain no particle of
doubt whatever. The simple preliminary condi-
tion for them all being—as intimated—the exten-
sion in Africa of our English Consular establish-
ments. Provided only that b© secured—it is
obvious in the first place that the country would
gradually and in the natural and inevitable course
of things come under the protection of the British
Government. And, so protected, it would be our
own fault if the cultivatioa there of cotton, sugar,
tobacco, and indigo did not thrive ! By the mere
fact of those crops thriving under the YEgis of our
protection, the deadliest blow that could be struck
at the slave-grown produce of Cuba, of Now Orleans,
and of Virginia, would be struck at it ! We should by
all this obtain the best security that could possibly be
acquired that the supply of slaves to the southern
part of the North American continent would be cut
off rigidly and inexorably. A better security by
far than all the squadrons that could possibly be
pliced there along the western shores of Africa to
impede that hellish traffic! And as to the benefit
of all these happy results upon the poor Africans
themselves—well, hardly can one syllable require
to be penned here upon that head ! So that exa-
mining Lord ALFRED CHURCHILL'S summary of
advantages, clause by clause, we find it literally to