The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-23 00:00:00

responding vigour.
In the West the Federals have been also successful.
They have seized just in time a place, which,judging
from the way it is spoken of, appears to be an
important one on the Mississippi, named Paducah,
in Kentucky. It was a favouritee rendezvous of
the Secessionists ; the Secession flags were already
flying, and 4,800 rebel troops were only sixteen
miles off. Kentucky, however, wants to keep
out of the:trouble. Federals enter her territory on
one side, Confederates on the other, while its
Government warns both of them to quit her soil.
Neither will probably pay any attention to her
injunctions unless she calls out her militia against
them, and then she will probably be dealt with as
a foe. How, indeed, can Mr. LINCOLN, who is
such a constitutional nan, forget that neutrality,
when called on to arm for the Republic, is itself
rebellion. Hitherto he has from policy winked at
this fact. It will not be easy for him to do so much
longer. The Governor of the State—MACGOFFIN
—expects that the President will if requested with-
draw his troops. He certainly cannot do so unless
tie Confederates withdraw theirs. And, since the
Governor distinctly declares that the State's
strongest sympathies are with the Slave States, the
President can hardly forego the advantage of his
position.

The CZAR'S affectionate despatch appears to have
received a brief answer from Mr. SEWARD, the pur-
port of which we are left to guess. It is hardly to
be hoped that the North will listen to recommenda-
tions of peace. It begins to see the dawn of better
days in regard to military and naval matters, and
will certainly not forego the chance of proving ifs
power at the expense of the South. The CZAR
seems to contemplate a pacific reunion ; if so, and
if the courtesy of diplomacy permits, his arguments
ought to be addressed to the South, which cer-
tainly, without a single actual grievance,
origina'ted the disruption. He should appeal to
Messrs. DAVIS, STEPHENS, and BEAUREGARD to re-
nounce their ambition to be the President, Vice--
Presidents, and Commander-in• Chief of .3 union of
their own.

y•
While the House of Commons is equally divided
on the subject of Church Rates, and the Speaker
has, according to our friend Punch, to throw his
wig into the scale in which the Bishop sits balanced
against the popular young Non-Con. of the Metro-
politan Tabernacle, the friends of Church Rates
are exhibiting to the country the real cause of
their hatefulness. Here is a specimen of their
procedure, and that at the very time when all per-
sons who have brought in Church Rate Bills of
late, Mr. WALroLE himself not excepted, propose
to exempt Dissenters, bona file Dissenters at
least, from the rate. We give the passage as we
find it in the West Surrey :Times :

"SEIZURES AT DORKING FOR CHURCH-RATES.-0/1
Friday Superintendent PAGE, armed with a warrant bear-
ing the signatures of J. LABOUCHERE, C. F. ROBINSON,
and C. H. CALVERT, Justices of the Peace, entered the
dwelling of the Rev. J. 0. WHITEHOUSE, and took there-
from the following articles for a Church-rate made last
year, amounting to 6s. 3d., and expenses 15s. 6d.:—An
eight-day clock, a passage lamp, a portrait of Mr. Edward
Miall, and another of the Rev. T. Binney. A visit was
afterwards paid by the same officer to the shop of Mr. T.
MATCHES, chemist, the seizure in his case being for a
Church-rate of 3s. 6d., and expenses 16s. 6d. The articles
taken from Mr. MATCHES' shop comprised a quantity of
tea and coffee, and sundry bottles of pomade, capers, and
other pickles. The sale of the articles seized from both
dwellings, will, we understand, take place on Wednesday

next."

Mr. WHITEHOUSE, we must suppose to be a Dis-
senting minister, and the chemist possibly one of
his flock, perhaps a deacon or an active Sunday
school teacher—a Dissenter anyhow. The Dissent-
ing clergyman would seem to be a thoroughgoing
anti-State-Churchman; which, of course, he has as
good a right to be as the patron of Dowß to be an
opponent of the Free Church in Scotland. We
judge so because, among Mr. WHITEHOUSE'S
Penates were pictures of the Bev. T. BINNEY, who
declared that" the Church of England destroyed
more souls than it saved"—and of that redoubt-
able foo to Establishments, the Editor of
the Nonconformist, and ex-representative of
Rochdale. Five shillings and three pence was the
sum demanded of the Dissenting
minister to wash
the surplice, and to provide sacramental wine and
bread for the rival minister. The demand was of
course
,augmented by treble expenses twenty
shillings and nine pence being the total sum
demanded; and, this, by the usual process of
geometrical progression in the affair of mulcting
heretics, was swelled again, we suppose, to many
times the amount, by the plundering of the offigiPplo,

tail], that such is the cruel negro-hatred of the
North, that if it can conquer without emancipation,
it will prefer to do it. If it hates slavery, it hates
free negroes yet more.
Just now the ripples, we can hardly say the tide,
of war have turned in favour of the North—the suc-
cess at Fort Hatteras was altogether creditable. It
is not fair to smile at its being a bloodless victory.
Had Sir CHAS. NAPIER been able to occupy Swea-
borg by the process which both he and General
BUTLER employed, the triumph would not have
been thought the less, because no English family
was put into mourning. Mr. Secretary WELLES
appears to have planned in all respects well, He
employed capable commanders and a sufficient force,
and the consequence is, that he is now at leisure
to send a second expedition thoroughly to
ransack with gunboats the rivers and creeks of
Pamlico Sound, and to give by landing soldiers
on the coast the superiority to the Union party,
which equals the Seeession party in numbers, in
that part of North Carolina. Fort Macon, com-
manding Beaufort harbour, at the southern ex-
tremity of the Sound, is as yet not captured, It is
said to be strong, and to have been reinforced,
but it is not supposed to be able to resist the
national fleet, should it be attacked as Fort Hat-
teras was. Already the result has been felt in
the Confederate lines, for they have had to send
ten regiments to North Carolina; they will, how-
ever, find that State politically disorganised, for
the account now is that the governor is a Unionist,
and that eight members have been elected to the
national Congress.

The navy administration, which has suffered
vituperation enough, seems to have been guilty of
the unpardonable offence, in America, of not brag-
ging of what it was doing. We all remember
how it was denuded of strength in all respects by
the conspirators under BUCHANAN. There were
but four ships of war, mounting just twenty-five
guns at the President's disposal when he entered on
office, amidst secession and threats of further se-
cession—now, there are 84 vessels on blockade duty,
carrying nearly 700 guns, and manned by nearly
ten thousand seamen. Indeed, from the interrup-
tion of commerce, seamen are plentiful, and
M'CLELLAN has actually employed them to work
heavy ship guns in some of his forts. We can re-
member what seamen did ashore in the Indian
Mutiny. Doubtless American seamen will astonish
the landsmen, as gunners, as much as Capt. PEEL'S
men astonished Lord CLYDE. From the building de-
partment our Admiralty might learn a lesson. A
gun-boat of five hundred tons, for instance, has
jast been turned out in less than eight weeks; and
the Ordnance Department is working with cor-