The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-11 00:00:00

THE 0 X F O RD,
6, OXFORD-STREET.

EVERY EVENING.

Selections from " LA CIRCASSIENNE," " Simon BMA-
negra," and " Ernani," by Miss Russell, Miss Ernst, and
Madame Enderssohn ; Messrs. Albert, W. Morley, Greene,
and Greville. Full Band and Chorus.—Conductor, Mr. F.
Jonghmans. Balfe's new ballads by Miss Russell and
Madame Enderssohn (composed expressly for them). And
Varied Comic Entertainments by Miss Harriet Coveney,
Messrs. W. Randall, Sam Collins, Harvey and French
(The Nerves), E. Marshall, and SAM COWELL. Hall, 6d. ;
Balcony and Stalls, is ; Private Boxes, 10s. 6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 9h. sm.—Afternoon, 9h. 34m.
To-MORROW. -Morning, 10h. Bm.—Afternoon, 10h. 38m.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, DECEMBER, 11,1.1861.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
52—highest since noon yesterday.
40—lowest this morning and during the:night.
47—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-30.15 ; rising.
WIND—S.-Westerly ; light, with fine warm weather for
the season.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 11, 1861.

Mr. RANDOLPH CLAY has rushed into English
print again. Not quite in so haughty a tone as
before, but still with the air of putting us all right
in the matter of the Trent. Of the two questions to
which he reduces the whole .affair-Ist, whether
the commander of the San Jacinto was justi-
fied in visiting the Trent on the high seas;
and 2dly, whether the persons taken out of the
Trent can be legitimately considered contraband of
war—we do not know that the former has ever been
answered otherwise than affirmatively. We mean
that strict law justified him in stopping her. We
deny, however, that common courtesy did justify
him. He knew the ship well. He knew her des-
tination well. He knew that it was from a neutral
port to a neutral port—in fact he did not stop her
to inquire, but because he knew that she had per-
sons on board who would be very acceptable to his
employers. The Nashville has just as good a right
to search any vessel leaving English ports, and to
take out of them Northern Americans having any
official character, as Captain WILKES had to seize
Messrs. SLIDELL and MASON on board the Trent.

The second question we answer decidedly in the
negative. We have contended from the beginning
that it was contrary to public expediency, on which
the law of nations must be founded, to prevent
diplomatic intercourse of belligerents with neutral
countries. On this point an authority to which all
civilised nations appeal—Lord STOWELL—says ;
" The neutral country has a right to preserve its rela-
tions with the enemy, and you are not at liberty to
conclude that any communication between them
can partake, in any degree, of the nature of hostility
against you. The enemy may have his hostile pro-
jects to be attempted with the neutral State; but
your reliance is on the integrity of the neutral Slats,
that it will not favour nor participate in their
designs, but, as far as its own councils and actions
ar© concerned, will oppose them."

Lord STOWELL also shows:atlengththe advantage
and convenience of free diplomatic intercourse be-
tween belligerents and a neutral state, he says :
" It is to be considered, also, with regard to this
question, what may be due to the convenience of
the neutral State ; for its interests may require
that the intercourse of correspondence with the
enemy's country should not be altogether inter-
dicted. It might be thought to amount almost
to a declaration that an Ambassador from the enemy
shall not reside in the neutral State if he is declared
to be debarred from the only means of communi-
cating with his own. For to what useful purpose
can he reside there without the opportunities of
such a communication It is toe much to say that
all the business of the two States shall be trans-
acted by the Minister of the neutral State resident
in the enemy's country. The practice of nations
has allowed to neutral states the privilege of re-
ceiving Ministers from belligerent States, and the
use and convenience of an immediate negotiation
with them." The Government may be quite
right in taking their stand OR the undis-
puted illegality of seizing the prisoners with-
out condemnation of the ship in a prize court;
but we also think that the seizure of ambassadors
to a neutral State, instead of relying on the integ-
rity and honour of that State, is itself an outrage
—on public policy certainly,,and, if Lord STOWELL
be a competent publicist, on international law also.

As each mail arrives we look almost impatiently
for something like a decisive movement on the part
of the North. Our readers know how continually
we are disappointed. We try in vain by our maps
and Gazetteers to trace something like a real ad-
vance, but we find none. All the way from the
extreme west of Missouri to Fort Monroe, the ac-
counts are only of resultless petty battles and skir-
mishes, the advantage being generally on the side
of the rebels. The only advantage, by land, that
we remember of late is, that the Federals occupied
the small part of Virginia which lies in the long
peninsula forming the eastern side of the Bay of
Chesapeake. The naval efforts have hitherto bee".
successful ; that is, Cape Hatteras and Port Royal
have been successfully attacked and occupied.
Seizures and occupations of this kind appear likely to
be repeated, but it remains to be seen whether they
will be successful in what was understood to be
their main object—that of affording a rallying
point to a large portion of the Southern population,
supposed to be favourable to the Union. No whites
have yet come in, and even the negroes do not
appear to welcome the Northerns. This is not sur
prising. The North dislikes negroes, and would
rather ship them all off to the old world, if it could,
than endeavour, as we do in the West Indies, to
elevate them in the social scale.

The whole position is certainly one which none
of us -would have predicted, when on the 15th of
April, the war proclamation of the PRESIDENT was
published. Then
avenge th
it seemed to be thought that
75,000 Militia might hopefully settle
Southerners, and.lea
rg
inesau l tt
this
sd
offeredem
demand
de
Twoday obrefotrhereeto
monthsthe enlarged
and
ntarsthe
Congress Stripes.
indeed, and the first week in July
voted five hundred thousand men and five hundred
million dollars, but this was to crush the rebellion.
In Washington not a soul doubted that the men
who had trampled on the Union flag would be them-
selves trampled on by the overwhelming legions of
the North. Only let the cool weather come, and
the Northern legions would walk the course. Little
was it then thought that the first grand battle of
the grand army of rebel-crushers would be known
in history as a Bull's Run. And here, after seven

or eight months' enlisting, drilling, and parading,
here still are the Northern legions, not daring to
venture a second attack on the old position. We
all know the excuses and the military reasons
alleged, but it mast be confessed these excuses
seem:likely to last a long while. If M'CLELLAN
is using his time to improve the training and
discipline of his troops, we cannot suppose that
BEAUREGARD is not doing the same—and when-
ever the Northern army puts itself in motion, if
it ever does so, nothing indicates that those who
are standing on the defensive will not be found to
have improved their position as much as those who
will make the attack. The conquest of Virginia
will hardly be easier in the spring than in the
autumn. By that time M'CLELLAN may have
become very strong in artillery, but the South does
not seem to have been deficient in that arm of late,
and there seem to be strong grounds for believing
that it is either buying or manufacturing guns in
considerable numbers.

If the South, therefore, is content to purchase
independence at the cost of sacrificing, for a time,
half the luxuries of civilised life, it is not possible
to foresee any end to the struggle. It may last
for an indefinite period as a doubly civil war in
the two great border States, Missouri and Ken-
tucky ; and elsewhere, by sea and by land as a
war on the confines of the South, the North being
unable to penetrate far from the coast or from the
Potomac. No political prophet would venture to
predict how such a struggle will end. It would
seem as if it must be by negotiation and compro-
mise; and perhaps even the President now thinks
so, and may be only desirous of placing himself
in the position to exact the most favourable terms.
The result, thus far, need not be regretted.
Had the struggle been one for the abolition of
slavery, all England would have mourned over
a vast failure like that which we now behold ;
but in that case there would have been no failure.
The watchword of emancipation would have de-
livered over the South unconditionally to the North.
Whenwe all believed that the North must speedily
triumph, that belief was founded on the supposition
that they would not meanly fight for empire merely,
when freedom and empire were so plainly in their
case associated. The liberty of the slave was the
obvious condition of the vast empire remaining
one. While the Southern half was allowed to re-
tain one-third of its population in the condition of
Helots, it could never be one empire with the free-
men of the North—on the other hand make all free
in the South also, and the latter would then need
and crave the protective and profitable connection
with the North.

The policy of the North, to Englishmen,
looking on impartially from a distance,
was very plain—slavery, as was truly remarked,
lay at the bottom of the rebellion ; slavery
was the true "contraband" of war, its nurturing
and inflaming motive, They should have seized
on that from the beginning, as a notorious prompter
and helper to war. Messrs. SLIDELL and MASON
were nothing compared with the domestic institu-
tion, for which the Commissioners and their friends
were fighting. If the North must seize on any-
thing here was something worth seizing; but the
Arch-Rebel, the foolish selfish Government at Wash-
ington left quite untouched. It did not mind an
insult to and a quarrel with England, but it would
offer none, and tolerate none towards slavery. By its
declarations, proclamations, and acts it said
as plainly as it could say it—We do not war with
slavery—we war to be a great Empire, with
slavery dominant in one half of it, and protected in
the other. Great we must be—great in territory,
great in population—great in everything but per-
sonal freedom for all. We do not deny that Em-
pire is worth fighting for, certainly nine-tenths of
the fighting in the world has been for that object
--but we do deny that a slave Empire is worth the
blood which the North is shedding for it. We
cannot, therefore, regret the failure, thus far, of a
people who preferred Empire with slavery, to
Empire through the Abolition of Slavery.

JOHN HOWARD'S benevolent heart would have
been gladdened could he only have read by antici-
pation—after the manner, let us say, of MARGRAVE
—the recently published report of the Newgate
Ordinary. Could a glimpse of it, however, have
been afforded thus mysteriously a good many years
later than the time of the Arch-Philanthropist—
even Mrs, FRY might have appeared to look upon
it incredulously. Yet—there the thing is actually
before us now, accomplished. We are not merely
talking of doing it—we have done it. We are not
aspiring before much longer to get pretty well on
the way : we have actually already, so to speak,
reached a specific goal in the development of our
system of prison reforms. In saying this we are
not simply turning our sentences at random. We
write upon the subject referred to, deliberately.
We write upon competent authority and upon reli-
able evidence. The witness in this matter, whose
testimony is most to be relied upon, perhaps, of very
many in the United Kingdom, has pronounced
his opinion to this effect very recently,
indeed, and without the smallest possible
ambiguity. We allude, of course, to what
we have here already mentioned incidentally—to
wit, the latest report as to the condition of things
within the walls of Newgate Gaol, penned by the
Rev. Mr. DAVIS, the benevolent and respected Ordi-
nary of that establishment. What is the authori-
tative declaration of that rev. gentleman as to what
has now been done—not projected, but done—
within these grimly walls of Newgate ? We give
the following ipgissima verba :—" As much," writes
Mr. DAVIS, "as, under ordinary circumstances, can
be expected to be done for the benefit or punish-
ment of offenders, is now done in Newgate." He
has just previously remarked that " When we
look at what Newgate is and what it was three
years ago, we cannot but feel thankful that so much
has been done and applied to such good purpose."
And recollect —" what has been done," Mr.
DAVIS has defined as being equivalent to ,what
could reasonably be looked for—at any rate, as he
expresses it, " under ordinary circumstances."
According to the new scheme of things " the old
offenders, whom neither kindness nor severity can
reform, are deprived of their long-practised habits
of corrupting and demoralising less experienced
delinquents by their conversations and recitals;
none of these sad scenes, both by night and day,
which gave so much uneasiness and regret, can now
be witnessed." ',Why, this is precisely what we
have been striving and yearning to accomplish
time out of mind. Again, the reverend gentleman
adds—" The giddy spirit of lightness is subdued,
and even the depraved become serious and appa-
rently thoughtful. As a rule," he continues, " these
men behave with regularity and order in separate
confinement. They are glad to get active em-
ployment, and the necessary duties of the pri-
son are willingly discharged by them when they
are permitted to follow them. Their constant
was
tnoadrk of
ute
loyr r
and
pickingnetai
,correctlyatl
d oakum
theo
obeyed:'
ireuyl rules
performed
thNay,ep prison
eopunna cret ucaol
Ordinarylny-
of Newgate goes on to startle us by the following
singular results of his own official experiences, of
the deductions drawn from his own protracted
and ever-vigilant observation. He can tell us, in
the first instance, that "there are among these

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THE SUN.