The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-15 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCT. 15, 1861.

Some of the Americans are already becoming dis-
satisfied with their PRESIDENT. It is not that they
have got a King Log when they expected a King
Stork, but that he is a King Log in regard to the
South, and a King Stork on his own side the
Potomac. He is immovable, and afraid to act
against slavery in Missouri or anywhere else, but
he is active, where all lies in his power, in arresting
men and women, in haling them to prison without
warrants, and keeping them untried as long as he
likes. After seven months his only success has been
to govern Maryland by martial law. One of the
leaders of his party now says that " LINCOLN is the
greatest failure in history !" It is, however, but
just to apportion blame equally. And we think it
must be confessed that those who blame LIN-
COLN are the cause of his failure. They will
let him do anything but the one thing
more efficient than all besides. The great
body of his supporters are only less hostile to negro
emancipation than the Southerners themselves.
The fairest view of the case, therefore, is—that
" LINCOLN and his Republican supporters are the
greatest failure in history."
Earl RUSSELL, so far as he expressed his opinion
at Newcastle, yesterday, took very much the view
which has long seemed to us the only possible one.
"We now see," he said, " two parties contending
together, not upon the question of slavery, though
that I believe is the original cause of the conflict—
not contending with respect to free trade and pro-
tection, but contending as so many States of the
Old World hare contended, the one Bide for empire,
and the other for power. Far be it from us to
set ourselves up as judges in this matter, but
I cannot help asking myself, as affairs progress
in the contest, to what good end can it lead."
Mr. LINCOLN and his party have debased the
contest to this vulgar and useless one, when a
nobler one was both open to them, and far more
sure to be successful. LINCOLN has aimed to be
a President of slave States as well as free States
—aimed to govern through a fugitive slave law
—and is by no means unlikely to lose the Pre-
sidency of the 'Southern States, because he refused
to initiate an Emancipation policy.

The PRESIDENT'S weakness and the ignoble
temper of his party on the subject of slavery
and coloured men, has placed them in the most
hopless dilemma possible. Earl RUSSELL de-
scribed it to a certain extent correctly when he
said last night—" Supposing this contest ended
by the reunion of its different parts, that the South
should agree to enter again with all the rights of
the constitution, should we not again have that
fatal subject of slavery brought in along with
them. That subject of slavery which caused, no
doubt, the disruption, we all agree, must sooner or
later cease from the face of the earth. Well, then,
gentlemen, es you will see, if this quarrel could
be made up, should we not have those who dif-
fered with Mr. LINCOLN at the last election
carried, and thus the quarrel would recommence,
and perhaps a long civil war follow. On the
other hand, supposing the United States completely
to conquer and subdue the Southern States—sup-
posing that should be the result of a long military
conflict, supposing that that should be the result of
some years of civil war, should we not have the
material prosperity of that country in a great de-
gree destroyed ?—should we see that respect for
liberty which has so long distinguished our North
American brethren, and should we not see those
Northern men yielding to a force, and would not
the North be necessitated to keep in subjection
those who had been conquered ; and would not
that very materially interfere with the free-
dom of nations ?" LINCOLN and the Republicans
acknowledge that slavery is at the bottom of the
present struggle, and yet refuse to attack the re-
bellion in its cause and root. They can neve there-
fore, escape from the conclusion that if they suc-
ceed in their present course, they will ;succeed
in re-establishing a Union which must at
some future time be plunged again into
a civil war ; and that, so long as the Union is
maintained by their present policy, it can be so only
by an enormous and costly army which count prove
utterly fatal to Republican liberty. Indeed., their
government of the South will be a thorough
despotism. If, however, LINCOLN could enforce and
purchase emancipation at a far less cost than that
of this fearful war, he could make the Southern
States but too glad, for their own safety, to com-
bine with the North.

It is too early yet to conjecture the military
result, but as yet nothing has occurred to NvEtrrant
the hope of anything like speedy success on the part
of the North. If the doubtful telegram respecting
Fort Monroe be correct in its fullest sense, the case
would be bad indeed, Western Missouri is already
is there withdrawn from the war,
gone, a small army
and altogether it is said that £2,000,000 'will not

I replace the loss in stores, guns, ammunition, &c., at
Lexington. But, it is hard to say what could replace
the loss of Fort Monroe, commanding as it does the
entrance to the Bay of Chesapeake—while the
rebels have also batteries on the Potomac, which
are a serious obstruction to its navigation. The
defeat in Missouri turns out to be a more serious
military disaster than even that at Bull's Run, and
it seems highly doubtful whether FREMONT is in
a position to retrieve the misfortune. At the best
he must lay aside his grand project of moving down
the Mississippi.
What the object of the retreat of the Confederates
from Munson's-hill was, remains as much a mystery
as ever. Whether it was to allure the Northerns
from their line of strong defences, and induce them
again to attack the well-entrenched Southern
army, or to make an attack themselves under more
favourable circumstances, it is impossible to say.
We had always been told that the hill was fortified ;
we are now informed that the defences were of the
slightest possible character, in greet part logs of
wood, and.what looked through a telescope like guns
were nothing but logs with the ends painted like
muzzles. The condition of the encampments was
very wretched—indeed it is quite evident that the
whole affair was intended for show, not for any
determined resistance. Perhaps, therefore, having
served its purpose long enough, the post was merely
abandoned, as intended from the beginning, when
the probable time for a Northern movement arrived.
Some other things do not look very pleasant for
the North. Mr. RUSSELL tells us that he met with
many individuals, even in the loyal Northwest,
who resent increased taxation, and talk of refusing
to pay it, while trade necessarily suffers ; as, in-
deed, the returns of exports and imports abun-
dantly show. A few jobbers in army and navy
contracts, of course, make fortunes, but the majority
find their occupation, if not gone, seriously dimi-
nished. At present the loans make all pleasant,
but the Secretary of State himself acknowledges
that they are spending at the rate £90,000,000 a
year—and spending it on the destruction, not the
creation, of permanent sources of revenue. It re-
mains to be seen how long a people, whose taxa-
tion has hitherto been so light—who have, indeed,
been chiefly burdened by the cost of their own
selfish folly of a protection to native industry—will
bear the heavy burden of protected manufactures
and war taxes together. The people of Illinois
must soon understand that they have as much in-
terest in getting rid of the disgraceful MORRILL
Tariff as the South has. Hence, we should not be
surprised at heartburnings, on the subject of taxa-
tion, between the North-western corn-growing
States, and those Eastern States which tax them
so heavily by their bad and dear manufactures.
Altogether the prospect is anything but cheering.
A Southern army, apparently poorly equipped,
yet not only holds its ground against the North,
but has obtained two very:important successes over
it. The Northern army, better provided for, is not
yet in a condition to move. The South is fighting
for the worst of causes, while the North refuses to
avail itself of the best of causes and the best of
weapons. All is moral depravity, meanness, or
littleness—having nothing of those nobler moral
grounds which interest all Englishmen so deeply
in the struggles of Italy, Hungary, and Poland.
The contest is too great, and between those too
nearly allied to us, to permit us to re-
main indifferent, but the best we can
discover in the whole affair is bad. A struggle for
objects disgraceful on one aide and not honourable
on the other ; and little prospect of any result on
which a lover of his race can look with satisfaction;

Again—who is for Canada? It was only the
other evening that we had occasion to glance at
some of the many remarkable attractions held out

to emigrants by this great colony. To-day we

would revert to those attractions; for the theme
is fruitful, almost inexhaustible, in its suggestive-
ness. In this resembling in truth the soil of the
Canadian territory itself, or rather a vast portion
of it. Of course a possession so very considerable
in its dimensions as the country of the Two Canad as
necessarily comprises within it almost every variety
of climate. Between the Great American Lakes to
the south, that is Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron,
Michigan, and Superior, and the shores of James'
Bay to the north—between the western bounda-
ries of the Hudson's Bay territory upon one hand,
the borders of Labrador on the other, any amount
of cold or heat, of fecundity or of sterility, may be
found with the greatest ease. There is an extra-
ordinary difference of climate of course, and of
almost every kind of geographical peculiarity, one
might say, discernible upon a comparison of
Western or Upper Canada, and Eastern or Lower
Canada. There is a sort of a delusion prevalent
about the severity of the winter season, especially
in the latter division of this great colony, namely,
in Lower Canada. The fact being in reality that
whensoever the Canadian winter is most rigorous,
the next year's crops are most abundant, and, vise
versa, whensoever the Canadian winter is milder
than usual, the crops of the following season are
more or less unsatisfactory.
DOUGLAS JERROLD said wittily of the soil in
many parts of Australia that you had only to tickle
it witA a hoc and it laughed into harvest. Some
humorous traveller, moreover, once upon a time
facetiously illustrated, by the record of a single
incident which he had witnessed on • the western
coast of Africa, the tropical heat prevailing there,
the primitive habits of the savage but luxurious
inhabitants, and the magnitude of the scale of vege-
tation in that particular part of the globe—namely,
whore the wandering and wondering Englishman
described his having one day seen an Epicurean
Negro (clad, if we may so express it, in the costutfte
of ADAM) cutting in twain an enormous gourd, and,
while he cooled himself by sitting in one half of it,
scooping out the other half for his breakfast ! Some-
thing of the same kind, so far at least is affects the
gourds and the harvests, may be said for the soil
and climate of Canada—something of the same kind
that was said about those of Australia by JERROLD,
and about those of Africa by the anonymous tra-
veller.

If not throughout the Canadian territory, at any
rate in very many parts of it, the pumpkins and
squashes are known to attain dimensions of really
extraordinary magnitude. In the vicinity of
Toronto a single pumpkin often weighs more
than 3001bs. ! Melons and tomatas again ripen
completely there in the open air, obtaining an
enormous size without the necessity for any forcing
frames—without any need whatever for those
noisome processes so wonderfully, almost we had
said so deliciously, described by COWPER, where,
in that favoured nook of his garden, he sass--
" The stable yields a stercoraceous heap,
Impregnated with quick fermenting salts,
And potent to resist the freezing blast :

There lightly shaking in with agile hand
From the full fork, the saturated straw.
Till the warmth
(Well overlaid with clear translucent glass)
slow gathering in tho midst, through the square mass
Diffused, attain the surface : when, behold I
A pestilent and most corrosive steam
Like a gross fog, Boeotian, rising fast,
And fast condensed upon the dewy sash
Asks egress;" &c. ,
Nothing of all this is requisite, there, in Canada,