The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-18 00:00:00

BOROUGH HOP.

Our market is fairly supplied with new hops, which move
off slowly at fr3m £7 7s to £l3 13s per cwt. Yearling and
old qualities are a dull inquiry. Duty about £120,000.

WHITECHAPEL.
The trade is in a sluggish state, as follows :

Beef from 2s 10d to 480 d ; mutton, 3s Od to 4s Od ; lamb,
Os Od to Os Od ; veal, Ps 4d to 4s 4d ; and pork, 38 10d to
4s 10d per 81bs. by the carcase.

DUNDEE.—GOOD NEWS FROM THE WHALERS.--
A telegram was received in Dundee on Saturday evening
from Peterhead, where the Polar Star had arrived " full,"
from the whale fishing. The following is the report of the
Dundee vessels :—Camperdown, 14 fish; Tay, 14 (75 tuns);
Polynia, 13; Alexander, 4; Dundee, 13; Narwhal, 24;
Jumna, 18 ; and Wildfire, 15. A telegrara received by
another person is somewhat different. It gives the following
report : —Tay, bumper ship; Narwhal, 14; Jumna, 24;
and the other vessels as in the first telegram. If the vessels
and cargoes all arrive safe, this will be, we believe, tLe most
successful whale fishing semi= The Dundee ships have ever
had,

M.BETING OF ER.ENCII AMBASSeiDOR°.

A letter from Paris says :—There will be quite a
rendezvous of French Ambassadots in Paris this
week, previous to their going to their posts—M. do
Lavalette coming from England, M. de Moustier
from Vienna, M. de Grammont returning from
Rome, and probably M. Benedetti, who has gone to
Trouville to fetch Madame Benedetti. It looks
almost like a conclave, especially if one remembers
that the Emperor himself is expected back from
Biarritz during the week.

This meeting of the French representatives at
Rome, Vienna, Turin, and Constantinople may be,
of course, quite fortuitous ; but under the present
circumstances this fortunate chance, which coin-
cides at the same time with the return of the Em-
peror, may be used to bring about a certain har-
mony of action among them all. Complicated as
the situation is in every one of the four countries to
which the ambassadors have to go, and connected
as the political questions agitated in them are, unity
of action is more necessary than ever.
As in many other things, there is a great differ-
ence between the political action of England abroad
and the system of French diplomacy. England.
goes on the principle so often enunciated by Lord.
Palmerston, of judging each question which arises
on its proper merits, while following certain tra-
ditional principles of action with respect to each.
Government—such for instance, as the maintenance
of the Ottoman Empire, or the necessity of Austria
as a great Power for the political equilibrium of
Europe. As each political question arises in aucces-
, sion the first consideration always is to see if and
how these traditional principles are affected by
it. In order to arrive at the just appreciation of
each question great liberty must be left, and is left
to the representatives, and not only to those in the
higher spheres, but likewise to those lower down
in the diplomatic and consular hierarchy.
In France, on the contrary, a general system of
policy is followed abroad as at home, and every-
question which arises is studied and used to further
this general policy. As the single representatives
have not all the threads of this policy in their hands,
liberty of action might be dangerous. Hence they
are tied down by formal instructions, and whenever
the slightest doubt arises they refer to their Govern-
ment, avoiding, as much as possible, all responsi-
bility of free action. This makes the position qf
French diplomatists rather awkward now and then,
for they can often not even guess what part they
are playing in this general policy ; but it has cer-
tainly the advantage of bringing about a unity of
action almost unparalleled, even by Russia.
This system, which has always more or less ex--
isted, has been brought to greater perfection by the
present Emperor; nor could it be otherwise.
Foreign policy is an engine for home and dynastic
policy, he alone has the key of it, and he must have
pliant instruments to work it out. To do so he has
an advantage to which is duo in great measure the
undeniable superiority which he has shown on so
many o:casions. In other countries crowned heads
and statemen have bad small or no opportu-
nity of judging of the movement of the popular
spirit which agitates more or less all Europe. Either
overlooking it altogether or looking down upon it
with prejudice and ill-will, they make light of it in
the beginning and lose their heads in the end. The
Emperor Napoleon, on the contrary, has lived in the
midst of this rising popular spirit for 20 years, fol-
lowing it step by step in all its branches and rami-
fications, and knowing it in all its strength and
weakness, not in France alone,but all over Europe.
He indulged in no illusions about' temporary aber-
rations," but recognised an inevitable reality, and.
took account of it in his policy as one of the most
powerful agents. Having once done so, he could
not but see that this new element was sure sooner
or later to modify and upset a great many diploma-
tic and powerful " axioms," that there were a great
number of political prejudices which would be
swept away, and that the two broad principles of
nationality and popular sovereignty were tending
to change the political surface of Europe.
To follow movements of the popular spirit abroad,
to judge of their importance and bring them in as
one of the factors in diplomacy, requires rather dif-
ferent qualities from those that were wanted when
diplomacy consisted in hunting out Court intrigues.
It might require a little of the statesman, which can
scarcely be always expected in diplomatists, how-
ever clever they might be otherwise. Hence the
new system requires a new school, as it were, and.
diplomatists must be better kept in hand than
before, Whether the ambassadors are to have a
lesson in the new school I cannot tell, but it looks
almost like it.

SIR TV; AR3ISTRoNG AND CAPTAIN
BLAKELY.

TO THE EDITOR. OF THE TIMES.
Sir,----During the debate on the Patent Laws at
the meeting of the British Association last week,
Sir W. Armstrong related how he and Mr. Brunel
were in 1855 constructing a cannon, when they dis-
covered that the method they had hit upon had been
patented a few weeks before, whereupon they put
aside their half•made gun. I, sir, was the patentee,
and I have accordingly been held up to the readers
of the provincial papers as a complete dog in the
manger. In one paragraph I find myself figuring
as one who, " through mere caprice or obstinacy,
withholds from practical application a discovery,
neither using it himself nor allowing it to be used
by others."

In another I see that on me is thrown the ,‘ re-
sponsibility of depriving the country of an inven-
tion which might have been to its advantage."
As these papers totally ignore the reply I made
at the meeting, I trust you will allow me to set
myself right with my friends and the public
through the columns of the Times.

The facts are exactly the reverse of those sup-
posed by the writers I have quoted. I both made
many guns myself and allowed others to make
them. To Sir W. Armstrong I gave especial per-
mission to make experimental guns free of all
licence, and offered a licence on all guns for Eng-
land at a merely nominal rent. I even asked him
to build one gun at my expense, and he actually
did bore one for Mr. J. Longridge, who discovered
the plan just after me, but before Sir William and
Mr. Brunel. I have always been quite ready to
admit that the second and third, and indeed all in-
dependent discoverers have equal merit with the
first, if there be any merit in discovery. I confess
I see none, but I do think Mr. Longridge and my-
self deserve thanks for giving up much time and
labour to developing the discovery, and—what
is far more difficult, far more trying—persuading
others of its value. We have left no stone unturned
to induce Government to try our plan fairly. I have
even offered three times within the last 18 months
to construct and place at the disposal of Govern-
ment, entirely at my own expense, a 600-pounder
gun.
Sir Wm. Armstrong confesses that he finds
difficulty in constructing even a 300-po ander, and
that against iron-plated ships huge shot must be
thrown to crush in their sides. If he will neither
himself build a gun capable of projecting such
shot, nor let us do so, I cannot see that he is jus-
tified in throwing on us " the responsibility of de-
priving the country of an invention which might
have been to its advantage." I am no advocate of
the present patent laws—l believe in most cases
they are injurious to inventors, and in few indeed
necessary to foster discoveries—but the present
case they do not affect, for both Mr.Lon,gridge and
I are and always have been ready to sacrifice
any and all our rights which clash with the
public interest.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,
T. A. BLAKELY.