The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-23 00:00:00

'TON TRALE.I THE POPE AND COU.A.7 CAVOUES
CONFESSOR.

The following important report has been just
issued by Messrs. Neill Brothers, of Manchester :-
11, Cross-street, Manchester, Aug. 21.
Dear Sir,—Since the date of our circular of 22d
ult., the stock of cotton at Liverpool has shown a
steady decline. The quantity of American then
held in warehouse and afloat was 860,000 bales.
It is now 639,000 bales. For one week it increased by

about 30,000 bales. This was about used up in the
succeeding three weeks. They are again, therefore,
buying more freely. During the past four weeks
and four days, the takings from Liverpool for con-
sumption have been 180,000 bales, or about 39,000
per week. Adding 2,000 per week for Glasgow,
&c., would make the total consumption of Ameri-
can cotton for the kingdom 41,000 per week, which
was precisely our estimate. Taking consumption
and export together, the figures have been 210,000
bales, against 216,000—a very slight discrepancy.
In the remaining months of last year (24th August
till 28th December) consumption absorbed 775,000
bales, and export 68,000 bales, in all 843,000
bales. It is impossible that the same rate of
absorption should be maintained this year, for the
whole available supply is only 639,000 bales, with-
out any prospect of its being replenished before the
close of the year. Yet, the supply of American
cotton will, no doubt, be sufficiently economised bo
enable it to last till that date, or longer, by the
gradual advance in price throwing a larger
proportion of the consumption on Surat, of NI, hich
the supply is happily unusually large ; and by a
limitation of the hours of labour, there being, we
understand, a pretty general resolve on the part of
the trade not to " light up" at all this winter, or, at
least, so long as the deficiency in the supply of cot-

ton continues.l
With regard to the probable continuance of the
war we have merely to confirm what we said in our
last. Many thought then that the North was not
in earnest, and others that their immense pre-
parations would ensure them an easy victory. The
opinion which we ventured to give, that " the Go-
vernment and people of the North vastly under-rate
the difficulties before them, and equally over-rate
their own strength and endurance," has had a very
emphatic confirmation in the result of the first great
battle. The believers in an early conclusion of the
war, however, still cling to the same idea, but upon
the very opposite grounds. The general idea now
is that the North will be forced to yield by the de-
moralisation of her army, the impossibility of raising
money, and the evident futility of the attempt to
conquer the South. We beg to caution our friends
against being led away by this kind of argument
into any hope of an early peace. Money never was
so abundant in the States as it is at present. The
deposits held by the New York bankers at last ac-
counts amounted to 93,687,000 dols. against an
average of 77,721,000 dols. at the corresponding
dates for the past five years ; and the specie or bullion
to 46,900,000 dole., against an average of 21,249,000
dols. The difficulty is to employ the money in safe
securities, and, as this difficulty is increasing, it is
probable that the high terms which the Govern-
ment will be ready to pay will tempt capitalists
to take the earlier loans. We have no doubt
that the reasons now urged for an immediate peace
will ultimately bring it about. The North will
have to learn the limited extent of her powers as
compared with the gigantic task she has under-
taken. One, and perhaps two, defeats will be in-
sufficient to reverse the false education of a life-
time. Many lessons will probably be necessary,
and, meantime, any success the Northern troops
may obtain will again inflame the national vanity,
and the lessons of adversity will need to be learned
over again. More effect will probably be produced
by sufferings at home—by the ruin of the higher
classes, and pauperisation of the lower, and by the
general absorption of the floating capital of the
country. But this will take time to show itself,
and to work its effect in the creation of a peace
party strong enough to have weight with the Go-
vernment. In the meantime the war must go on,
as there is not the smallest chance of the South sub-
mitting.
That the latter is preparing for a protracted war
is evidenced by the following documents :
" A CARD TO COTTON PLANTERS.
" The undersigned cotton planters in the city of
New Orleans, in view of the interest of all parties,
recommend to their various customers and corre-
spondents tot to ship any portion of their crops of
cotton to this city, or to remove it from their plan-
tations, until the blockade is fully and entirely
abandoned, of which due notice will be given."
This is signed by 141 firms, said to be all the
cotton factories in New Orleans, and who control
considerably more than one-half of the entire
cotton crop.

" Office Board of Underwriters,
" New Orleans, July 23, 1861.
" At a meeting of this board held to-day, the fol-
zwing resolution was adopted, and ordered to be
published :
" Resolved, That no river insurance on cotton
bound to this port, nor fire insurance on cotton in
the city of New Orleans be taken until the blockade
of the port is raised, and its free navigation resumed.
Cotton on plantations may be insured against fire to
the extent of three-fourths of its value, provided it is
stored in lots of not exceeding 150 bales, and the
lots at least 300 feet apart.'
"JAMES H. WHEELER, Secretary."
In the face of these decisions it need hardly be
expected that much cotton will come through New
Orleans during the continuance of the blockade,
whether efficient or not, and it is quite probable
that the same course will be taken at the other
ports. To prevent cotton being sent to the North
overland, the following order has been published, in
addition to the stringent law already published
against any transport of cotton into the Free States:
" Headquarters Department, No. 1.
"New Orleans, La., June 26, 1861.
" GENERAL ORDERS, No. 13.
" Communications of any kind, and on any pre-
tence, with the black Republicans is positively and
peremptorily forbidden. Any citizen detected in
communicating with them will be arrested and pro-
secuted.
" By command of Major-General Twiggy,
"D. BELTZHOOYER, Major La. Artillery,
A.A.A.G.C.S.A."
Strange and almost incredible as it may appear,
it is nevertheless the fact that it is the deliberate
intention of the American Gevernments—both
North and South—to seal up the new cotton crop,
so that not a bale of it (which they can prevent)
shall leave the plantations during the continuance
of the war. The North believes that the need of
money will bring the South to terms; the South is
just as firm in the faith that the need of cotton will
bring the North to terms, or lead the European
Governments to interfere. How long these efforts
will be successful it is impossible to say. No doubt
some cotton will reach the ports, creeks, and bays
along the coast—notwithstanding all the recoil'
mendations of patriotic factors—and escape the
blockade in spite of the vigilance of the whole
United States fleet. But it is clear that any supply
that can thus reach us will be of very trifling im•
portance. A week hence the time will have arrived
(Ist September) when, under ordinary circum-
stances, the new shipping season should commence.
What we wish our friends to understand and fully
realise is that there is abselutely no prospect of its
commencing then, or for months to come.
Ordinarily we view the high prices of cotton as
injurious to our customers and to the trade, and we
condemn speculation which is so frequently un-
founded, and not required to attract a supply
which would be certain to come in the natural
course of trade. But we now beg our friends to
understand that the only means of even slightly
mitigating the fearful evils incident to a co; on
famine are a great and timely advance in price,
which will prove to merchants and growers
in India and other distant countries that the
scarcity is a real one, and induce them to gather
up and ship cotton hither rather than leave it to
be manufactured by the natives of those countries.
Thus our distress may be mitigated, the wheels of
trade may be kept in motion, even though at low
speed, and partial employment may give food to
thousands who would otherwise be destitute. A
national benefit would also be conferred by all
spinners who, by running their mills at half time,
should reduce by so much their consumption of cot-
ton. If this were universally adopted, the present
stock, instead of being exhausted in December,
would last till May, and before then it is possible
that peace may be restored.—Very respectfully
yours, NEILL BROTHERS.

_
According to the Prase the subscription to the
Piedmontese loan has already produced more thrn a milliard
(X 40,000,000).
On the mobilisation of the Prussian army, two
years ago, the fortress of Hohenzollern. was completely
armed, but, as it is not of any importan removed strategi
Cob-
c
point of view, the cannon are now being to
lentz.
FATAL ACCIDENT AT STIOREDITCII.—On Wed-
nesday morning inquiry was gone into before Mr. H
Rages Walthew, the deputy-coroner, at the London Hos-
pital, on view of the body of Charles Waller, aged eight
years. The deceased and another boy were amusing them-
selves by playing on a large piece of granite, weighing half
a ton, in front of the premises of Mr. Spencer, the stone-
mason, of Danston•streei, Kingsland-road, Shoreditcb ,
)oping the pon-
tremoved the
ideemed
which
above-namedit
insti-
tution, tution, where
whe nh
thee
haddropped, former got down
aiad to
while pick
he u p his companion's cap,
was s t
derous mass fell upon hid', crushing the bones of his left
i
leg and arm.
onen of h
He
was
esenior
surgeons
to
neces-
sary to amputate the leg, but deceased gradually became
I exhausted, and died on Sunday mor • Lung, the day after the
accident. Verdict, accidental death.

The Court of Rome has just experienced a severe
disappointment. It is much given to working by
terror. Heretics, or other offenders against the
Romish Church, are invariably represented as
smitten with remorse and consternation at the ap-

proach of death, and the last hours of life are
described as opening to the deluded sinner a clear
perception of the truth which he had denied. We
are not without glimpses of the practice even herE.
Every now and then names of eminence are quoted
as testifying to the power of the Romish faith by
the confessions which were made and the " recon-

ciliations" which were sought at the moment when
the world and its vanities were disappearing from
view. Abroad, however, this machinery is worked
to much greater purpose. We islanders must be
pretty well given up even by the tenacious Church
of Rome as a reprobate people, but it is very diffe-
rent when the offenders are actually within the
fold—or?hodox Catholics and loyal liegeinen. Such
an one was Count Cavour, who, though no heretic
or dissenter, had dared to attack the Pope's tem-
poral power, and to inflict, for the sake of Italy,
the most terrible mortifications on the Holy See.
Cavour, however, in the midst of his projects and
his successes, was overtaken by death ; and, if the
expiring statesman could but be represented as
having recanted his errors and deplored his sins,
what a triumph would it be for Rome! At the very

moment when all the capitals of Europe were re-
sounding with panegyrics on the departed patriot,
the Papal Court could tell a different story, and
could show that the unhappy Minister—a better
judge of the truth than his ignorant eulogists
—had died in repentance so deep and over-
whelming as might well deter any successor from
following in his steps. Such a chance was not to
be lost. Cavour in his last moments had been at-

tended by a confessor, and had received the sacra-
ments. That confessor was a parish priest and a
Franciscan friar, and in both capacities bound to
canonical obedience. What if he were summoned

to Rome and there dealt with ? Might not a good
story be got out of him ?
This idea was carried into execution. Shortly
after the Minister's death Father Giacomo, the
priest in question, received an invitation to repair
to Rome, and there confer with no less a personage
than his Holiness himself. The communication was
couched in terms calculated to dispel anything like
apprehension, and to convey, indeed, the impres-
sion of a compliment. So to Rome Father Giacomo
went, and was at once presented to the Pope, from
whom he presently gathered the nature of the de-
sign in hand. Nobody at Rome was under the
least mistake as to the truth of the case. Nobody
imagined that Cavour had made any kind of re-
cantation, or that any knowledge of such a fact
was concealed in the breast of his confessor, or
of any one else ; but a device had been conceived
of terrifying the poor friar into some admissions,
either by the authority of the Pontiff or the
machinery of the Inquisition. Accordingly, the
Pope, at his first presentation, accosted him
angrily and abruptly with a demand for an imagi-
nary document. " Well, have you brought that
recantation ? Before confessing the Count it was
your duty to exact from him a formal retrae•
tation of all that his hostility had conceived
against the Holy See, and I wish therefore to have
the account of that retractation in writing."
Father Giacomo, though somewhat startled at this
reception, replied with great sincerity that he had no
such account to give and no such document to pro-
duce; that Count Caveur had died like a good Catho-
lic, to the edification of all around him ; and that,
though he had confessed his sins, as all Catholics do,
there was nothing in the occasion to take it out of
the ordinary category, or to suggest that the seal
of the confessional should be broken. To this simple
statement he adhered. In vain the Pope fulminated
his behests as the Vicar of Christ upon earth ; the
good friar was proof against even this adjuration,
and at last the Pontiff descended to a demand of
another kind. " If," said he, " you have not got
that recantation, you are bound to declare in writing
that you have been false to your sacred duties." As
Father Giacomo, however, was conscious of no
offence, he was not disposed to indict himself as an
offender, and the Pope was foiled at this point also.
The Holy Office then took its turn of persuasion,
but with as little success ; and after some days of
moral torture and as much coercion as it was safe
to apply, the friar was allowed to depart with a
menace of ecclesiastical deprivation hanging over
his head.
' These details, which we publish from an authentic
source of information, carry instructive evidence both
of the policy still practised at the Court of Rome and
of the position to which that Court is at length re-
duced. As it is, no harm has been don© either to
Cavour or his confessor ; but if Father Giacomo
had been less hohest. or the Holy See less
impotent, we might have had a noble cha-
racter defamed or a poor priest doomed to
misery. Cavour would have been made his own
traducer, and his own words, as uttered at a
moment when no self-delusion was practicable,
would have been quoted to show that all the work
of Italian patriots was mere wickedness, and that
nothing but a belief in Merode and Antonelli could
be relied on to bring a man peace at the last. The
Papal Court would never have been tired of " im-
proving" that death-bed scene. No arguments
would have counterbalanced the confession of the
chief actor. The assailants of the Pope's temporal
authority would have been told, by aid of this
example, that their proceedings were leading them
to perdition, and that no man could oppose the
Papal Government except at the peril of his soul:
If the priest engaged in the affair had refused his
co operation, little more, in the days of Papal
power, would have been heard of him. As it was,
Father Giacomo, though naturally alarmed when
he found himself within the walls of Rome and in
the clutches of the Inquisition, was too well pro-
tected to be in much danger. With a French gar-
rison in the city, and the eyes of Europe fixed upon
the convulsions of the Holy See, even the Ministers
of Pius IX, durst not venture upon violence, though
we are told that the energetic intervention of the
Sardinian consul was required before the good friar
was permitted to return to Turin. The threat of
deprivation has been executed, and Father Giacomo
has lost his cure, but that will be of little account
to him in a country where his conduct is appre-
ciated, and the vindictive act will recoil upon its
authors.

The marvel of the story is that such an attempt
as this should hare been made at the present day-
Whatever may be the infatuation of the Pope's ad-
visers, they can hardly have been at a loss to dis-
cern the folly of the game they were playing. They
knew perfectly well that Cavour had made no re-
cantation, and that no evidence of such an occur-
rence was to be procured. They must have had it
strong presumption that a Piedmontese priest would
not be likely to libel the idol of the Piedmontese
nation, and they must have been perfectly aware
that in case of his obduracy they were powerless to
coerce him. All the world knew that Cavour's
confessor had been summoned to Rome, and every-
body was on the alert to watch the transaction.
The good priest could neither be driven to submis-
sion nor spirited away. The only machinery avail-
able against him was that of official pomp and pre-
tension. He might, perhaps, be overawed by the
actual presence of the Pontiff, or cowed by the au-
thority of the General of his Order, or terrified by
the forms of the Holy Office. If he resisted this
species of pressure, the Court of Rome was power-
less; and yet it acted as if the rack and the dun-
geon could be still employed for the attainment of
its will. The design, from first to last, was so trans-
parent in its purpose and so hopeless in its charac-
ter that we can hardly imagine how men of ordi-
reason
show
ordi-
nary prudence could ever have entertained it. True,
the object was one of high importance, but itwas
in all probability unattainable, whereas
tory t
o
failure
the
could only be attended by exposure and shame.
rnous with
one more
Rome has has not succeeded in blackening the reputa-
tion of Cavour, or in getting hold of
a
that Italian patriotism is synon
yas it was, and that
lee gs
seo;n but
tt hp wp e
o eorryl dr
()hula
as i
nbse
je been s tta u y
gh. t b
its pretensions are as likely to outrage
of mankind in this
days when not a State had emerged from the stag
nant depths of supers
19thtit centuryion.yi meass they were in
.