The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-07 00:00:00

WlND—Westerly ; light, with dull weather.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, SATURDAY, DEC. 7, 1861.

The ordinary details of Federalist and Confede-
rate movements to which we formerly looked with
so much interest seem almost trivial while we are
waiting for the President's answer to the English
demands; they are, however, of interest still though,
as hitherto nothing decisive is effected on either
side. The last from the Potomac and Washington
is not indeed much more than opinion. We are
informed that it is a mistake to suppose, as we have
thought not improbable, that the grand army will
go into winter quarters without any important
advance this year. That, neither the policy of the
Government nor the temper of the people will per-
mit this. The people, however, have been taught
by Bull's Run that temper is a bad general, and
policy must bend to military necessity.
The question of arming or emancipating the
slaves—a vital one in regard to that of final success
—still wavers in the balance. Recent intelligence
found a General speaking strongly in its favour,
and a secretary, Mr. CAMERON, endorsing his lan•
guage at Washington itself. This time we are told
that the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. SMITH, has
disavowed Mr. CAMERON'S policy, and declared that
it is not the policy of the Administration. But as
if to show that the question was passing into the
hands which control American secretaries, the
Democrats themselves are taking up the opinion
that to crush the rebellion the slaves must be made
use of, and this view is rapidly making way
amongst them. It is even said that that once om-
nipotent party sees in this policy their way to re-
gaining their lost political superiority. Mr. LIN-
COLN was forced into fighting,though preferring a
war of technical pleas. He may be obliged at last to
meet military necessities and popular demands by
consenting to emancipation.

The facts of the war are few. We read of the
reinforcement of General SHERMAN at Port Royal ;
the fitting out of fresh expeditions ; of twenty-five
Teasels prepared by
loading them with stones to
block up some Southerna harbour ; of a grand review,
though not of gran
a
the arch
of the occupationlby
Federal troops of
eastern shore of Chesa long peninsula, forming the
peake
and
anof
large
eqautaenrtpitaierst
Ba th
of which belongs to Virginia.
of cotton being " gathered" at Beaufort on
account
of the Federal Government, though :rb
lEupposed
the time for gathering cotton Was pretty
and of the bombardment of Pensacola' I
In Missouri
ztr
the Confederates still appear to be the
side. They have burnt a town to prevent their
opponents using it during the winter; and the ex-
Governor JACKSON and the Rump Missouri Legis-
lature, as we suppose it must be called, have passed
a S:,cession ordinance. General HALL ECK, successor
to FREMONT, is already reversing his predecessor's
policy, and is prohibiting any more fugitive slaves
from entering the Federal camp. The reason or
pretext assigned is, that they carry valuable infor-

mation to the enemy.
Of the state of feeling in reference to the seizure
of the Trent we have not anything which affords
any clue to what will be done by the Government.
The opinions of Messrs. EVERETT and SUMNER we
knew before ; that of the latter we know to be an
entirely mistaken one, he being in error in regard

to the facts he cites.'. The other's is also merely the
opinion of an irresponsible person, and of one little
more competent to give an opinion than any of us.
Hence, we are told that in spite of such opinions
the subject, nevertheless, causes an universally
uneasy feeling in the public mind in respect to the
relations of America with England. That the
Government itself does not feel very easy may be
inferred from the fact, if it really be one as stated,
that the Secretary of War has notifiel to the
Governor of Maine that an officer will immediately
be appointed to report on the sea-coast defences of
that State. Maine, it will be remembered, is the
State which is not only contiguous to British terri-
tory on the north-east corner of the United States,
but that in which we were completely juggled out of
territory not really needed by that State, but all
important to us, since it separates New Brunswick
from Canada, or at least makes the communication
between our provinces very circuitous. Our
neighbour would certainly think it a case for the
" rectification of boundaries." We have, however,
no Atlantic telegraphs. On Monday the PRESIDENT
must have adverted to the subject in his Message
to Congress, and we must wait till we see how he
has contrived to meet the difficulty. It ought to
have been met by liberation of the prisoners before
a word was heard from England.

Whatever the opinion at Washington, the op

nion at Richmond on the seizure of the Confederate
Commissioners was certain enough. Mr. JEFFER-
SON DATIS has, we naustoay, however, in his Mes-
sage to his Congress, made the most clever and
dignified use of it conceivable. He hardly makes
it a substantive part of his Message ; it is introdueed
as one among many violations of law and right on
the part of the Washington Government. Of these
he rehearses a list, looking at which he represents
the South as now regarding the North only with
" contemptuous astonishment," and as rendering
the aversion of the South from reunien with such
lawless wretches as more determined than ever.
Following on a long list of contemptible and cruel
violations of the laws of civilised freedom, comes
the extension of their injuries to the South even
under the jurisdiction of a neutral nation.
Mr. DAVIS does us the honour of accepting the
position we took from the first—using even the
identical illustration—" These gentlemen," he says,
" were as much under the jurisdiction of the British
Government, upon that ship and beneath its flag,
as if they had been on its soil, and a claim on the
part of the United States to seize them in the streets
of London would have been as well founded as that
to apprehend them where they were taken. Had
they been manufacturers, and citizens even of the
United States, they could not have been arrested
on a British ship or on British soil, unless under the
express provisions of a treaty, and according to the
forms therein provided for the extradition of
criminals. Bat rights the most sacred seem to

have lost all respect in their eyes." It may be
objected that Mr. DAVIS is not a more impartial
judge than Englishmen are. Thit may be so.
Still he is at least an independent thinker on
the same side.

Mr. DAVIS, with admirable dignity and tact,
abstains from any appeal to us, He merely states
the fact as one of many Northern crimes—in this

case against the saered character of an ambassador

and the rights of England ; but he does not betray
in a single word the exultation he must feel that we

should thus be converted into enemies of the North,
or at least a nation wronged by it. On the contrary,
he explicitly declares that they have asked no aid
from foreign Governments, and mean to ask
none. He affirms as fact that their army
has protected them hitherto, and in the face
of every difficulty has won a series of re-
markable victories; while with every month of
the war they are becoming more and more compe-
tent to provide their own arms, and in every-way
to depend on their own resources. If they are
debarred from intercourse with the nations, they
are at least becoming every day less dependent
on them.

Mr. DAVIS seems still to labour under the de-
lusion that " Cotton is King." He thinks the in-
tiry done to European communities fourfold greater

than that inflicted on the Southern States ! He
seems to have no idea that the wisest of us
believe it will be for the advantage of

the cotton manufacture, that the American
monopoly of raw material should cease, and
that England, at least, knows that it will
be for her permanent advantage that she and
other nations should be driven to India and to other
nations, not cursed with the hateful institution
which makes Mr. DAVIS'S State a reproaeh to
himself, to his people, and to civilisation. Mr.
DAVIS may rest assured that England has no
sympathy with him or his Ambassadors. Had they
got safe here they would kave had, perhaps, a sorry
time of it, as the Representatives of a State which
avows that slavery is its corner-stone. And most
assuredly, while we regret that our demand is for
the liberation of two slaveholders, we should have
exulted to reclaim any slaves of Messrs. SLIDELL,
MASON, or DAVIS himself, who had become freemen
by getting aboard a British ship. It is a deduction
from our interest in seeking the liberation of the
captured men, that they are themselves kidnappers
by profession, or at least buyers and sellers of their
fellow-men, who have an equal right, as all Eng-
lishmen think, to buy and sell Mr. DAVIS and his
Commissioners. We scout the Southern cause,
while we respect the naval territory of England.

In our impression of Thursday evening, we took
occasion to refer incidentally to the speech recently
delivered by the Hon. JOSEPH HOWE, down at
Ashton under-Lyne. The speaker being the Prime
Minister of Nova Scotia—and the audience an im-
mense gathering of the working classes in this
country. Those remarks of Mr. HowE's, upon
which we briefly commented only the day before
yesterday, it may be borne in mind, by those who
glanced down our leading columns of that even-
ing, bear reference, in a particular manner, to the
sentiments with which the deplorable Civil War,
now raging between the Federalists and the Confe-
derates of the American Republic are regarded by
the population of our North American Provinces.
The observations, however, which had been pre-
viously made by the same distinguished speaker,
in the course of the harangue delivered by him on
Tuesday last, at the important meeting which had
then and there assembled, for the express purpose
of welcoming him down at Ashton-under-Lyne
—the introductory remarks uttered by Mr. HOWE
immediately upon rising to address his Lancashire
audience upon the subject of the American War,
although bearing but very indirectly indeed upon
that subject, were of a character so important that
' we cannot but deem them entitled to a somewhat
more than merely passingconsideration.
hesitate, therefore, not for an instant in recalling
attention to this speech of NI II ,
We
r. oNA sat Ashton-
under-Lyne, while the vibrations of his earnest
voice are yet fresh in the recollection of those who
on the 3d instant had the satisfaction of listening
to him. They agree so entirely, those observations
of the Nova Scotian Prime Minister, with the
maragiuntaining in these
argument we ourselves have very recently been
columns—in a series of
articles, that at
•
least, with all their shortcomings,

possessed the double merit of being thoroughly

heartfelt and carefully deliberated—that we re-
joice to note this anticipative coincidence of our
own opinions with those which were articulated so
very impressively on Tuesday last, by that emi-
nent Transatlantic Statesman and Administrator.
The observations to which we would here more
particularly direct the attention of the labouring
classes in this country were uttered by Mr. HOWE,
to all appearance, in a manner perfectly unpreme-
ditated. ,They were elicited, in fact, by a chance re-
mark addressed by the Chairman to this meeting of
Lancashire labouring men at Ashton-under- Lyne,
to the effect that " when he (Mr. HUGH BROWN)
looked at the fact that during the last 10 years
upwards of 2,000 British people had left these
shores to settle in the United States of America,
and when he looked at—he would not say the pro-
bability—Gen forbid that he should even contem-
plate the possibility of that great outlet for their
redundant population being shut up, for the work-
ing people of this country it would be the greatest
calamity that could happen"—viz , any collision
between this country and the Northern Republicans.
It was in reference to what had been thus said by
the Chairman on Tuesday, that the Nova Scotian
Prime Minister at once observed—almost upon the
instant of his rising, that while the Chairman
had spoken thus of "the possibility of the English
workman being shut out from the United States
and from homes in the New World, he (Mr. HowE)
was glad to be able to inform them, that if the
United States had the power to close their frontiers
upon the people of this country to-morrow, there was
in the northern provinces of their own empire a
country larger than the United States open to them
all !" "It was a mistaken notion to suppose," the
speaker went on immediately to say,—[and really
and truly many appear to argue as though this were
the most reasonable supposition in the world !]—
" It was a mistaken notion to suppose that Repub-
lican America owned the whole continent ; for the
flag of England floated over more than one half of
that vast country ! The British subjects who
lived in that northern portion of the continent of
America," Mr. HOWE reminded his hearers, " were
3,000,000 of people now, and they had homes
for 100,000,000 if they would come !" In
testimony of which it was only necessary
to remark en passant that the northern provinces of
Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfound-
land, Prince Edward's Island, and the territory of
the Hudson's Bay Company, contain within them
in round numbers an extent of country not less al-
together than 4,000,000 square miles ! In other
words, as Mr. HOWE put it, these North American
provinces of Great Britain " are larger than the
United States before those States were divided.
And it could, therefore, be seen," he insisted, " that
there would be ample room and verge enough for
all the stray British subjects who might wander
across the Atlantic for centuries to come"—within
the limits of our transatlantic dominions! Let this
argument of the Nova Scotian Prime Minister be
laid well to heart among our industrial population.
More particularly, he said explicitly—almost in so
many words—these, our North American posses-
sions, " Could give a home and 100 acres of land to
every spare man in Lancashire, and not feel that
their territory was much diminished." Descending
to particulars, Mr. HOWE directed the attention of
his hearers in an especial manner to the temptations
to emigration held out by that province of our em-
pire—with the capabilities of which province he is
more intimately acquainted than with any other—a
province, remember, over the affairs of which, it may
be said, he presides at this moment in his respon-
sible capacity as its chief administrator ! Refer-
ring to Nova Scotia, " he might remark," he said,
"that it was 350 miles long, and nearly surrounded
Iby the ocean. The country was most like England
of any country on the face of the earth. It was
like England in possessing inexhaustible mines of
coal and iron; and where these were combined no
country could be despised. They had, besides, lime
and gypsum, and, in point of fact, every mineral
ore, and ochre was to be found in this little penin-
sula. Last spring the people began to dig gold ;
and he had brought over nuggets in the shape of
huge buttons that would not be a bad ornament for
a Court suit. The quartz had been pronounced by
the savans of England to be as promising as that
produced in the early history of the mines in Cali-
fornia and Australia; and if they should not prove
to be so rich eventually, they were less difficult to
get at, and would not entail privation and suffering
on the miners, the mines being accessible by deep
sea navigation, by navigable rivers, or by railways."
With sufficient reason might the Prime Minister of
Nova Scotia remark after this, as he did remark on
Tuesday, that " He sometimes smiled that they took
the trouble to send Englishmen to the far ends of
the earth, when they had a cheap and easy journey
to so eligible a country, where personal liberty was
secure." Where not only personal liberty was
secure, but where, although " they had their fights
and straggles for political position, they could
nevertheless show, as they had shown, that the
constitution of England could be transplanted, con-
solidated, and confirmed wherever the Anglo-Saxon
race was to be found." Again, we say, let these
'earnest and truthful and most impressive remarks
of one of the leading administrators of one of our
splendid North American provinces be laid well to
heart by the labouring population of England.

THE WARD OF ALDERSGATE.—The requisition
to Mr. Besley, the eminent type-founder, to allow himself
to be put in nomination for the vacancy in the representation
of the Ward of Aldersgate, to which we referred on Thurs-
day, has already been so numerously signed as to preclude
the possibility of any other candidate coming forward.
What we stated on Thursddy, namely, that Mr. Besley's
succeeding to the vacant alderman's gown was certain, is
now placed beyond a doubt.-2.forning Advertiser.
REINFORCEMENTS FOR CANADA.—The Cunard
steamship Persia has been chartered by Government for
the conveyance of reinforcements to Canada. She will sail,
along with the Australian, in about 10 days. The destina-
tion of both vessels will probably be the Riviere du Loup or
the Island of Bic.

The vigorous preparations which are being made
by our Government in anticipation of war with America
have produced considerable sensation. At Portsmouth and
other dockyards there is a degree of activity that has not
been witnessed for many years past. It is understood that
the Guards have volunteered for foreign service. We learn
further that Government have sent out a number of non-
commissioned officers for the purpose of immediately drilling
the Canadian Militia.

Considerable anxiety prevails as to the period
which will be allowed for mail communication with Ame-
rica in case of a declaration of war. This matter, however,
has been well provided for in a convention concluded be-
tween the two countries, dated the 15th of December, 1848,
when Mr. Polk was President of the United States and
Lord Palmerston was at our Foreign-office. By this it is
stipulated that, in case of war between the two nations, the
mail packets of the two services shall continue their navi-
gation " without impediment or molestation until six
weeks after a notification shall have been made on the part
of either of the two Governments, and delivered to the
other, that the service is to be discontinued, in which case
they should be permitted to return freely and under special
protection to their respective ports."

The bar silver brought by the Mexican packet
has been sold at 611 d. per ounce, showing an advance of id.
on the price obtained for tho last arrival. Transactions to
Rome amount have, however, taken place in the interval at
61td. The dollars are not yet sold.
The adv ices from Buenos Ayres state that a pro-
posal from GeneralUrquiza to General Mitre, offering peace
and his co-operation in the re-election of a Congress and
President, referred by General Mitre to the Buenos Ayrean
Government, had been favourably received, and that an
agent had
i been despatched to General Urquiza's head-
quarters n Entre Rios. It was believed that General
Mitre had abandoned all idea of invading the interior pro.
vines,