The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-20 00:00:00

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

The English funds opened yesterday morning
without alteration, but there was soon a renewal of
heaviness. Consols were first quoted 90k, and
after having ranged between that price and 89Z
they closed at 894 to 90. For the 9th of January
there were buyers at 90. Any little activity that
the parties who assume to be exclusively the friends
of peace continue to exhibit adds to the disquiet of
the commercial community, who remember keenly
that these were the persons really responsible for
the Russian war, and who also feel that the long
series of indignities from the United States which
I have culminated in the Trent outrage have been
stimulated by a belief among the mob in that coun-
try that our Government dare not defend itself.
The merchants of London, although they make no
professions on the matter, are conscious that they
constitute the most earnest peace society in the
world, but they have yet to learn that the best
mode of securing its blessings is to submit to every
wrong rather than undergo the pain and expense
of enforcing justice. On the suggestion for arbi-
tration they find it equally difficult to understand
the propriety of allowing that there are no suffi-
ciently defined principles of right or wrong in the
world to enable Englishmen, with all their natural
desires for peace, to judge a case in which they are
interested with the same impartiality as foreigners
whose pacific tendencies are certainly less
to be relied upon, and who may yet have an interest
of their own, either in fomenting war or in ingra-
tiating themselves with one country at the expense
of the other. Moreover, as in the case for arbitra-
tion it is necessary that the referee should never
have expressed a previous opinion on its merits, it
is impossible to conceive that this essential condition
could in the present condition be complied with
since all the influential Powers,including the United
States themselves, have pertinaciously for nearly 50
years upheld one—and only one—law on the subject,
and have latterly, with France at their head, given
strong indications that they have not retrograded.
The disregard by the Federal Government of
America of the principles that through recent cen-
turies have mitigated the worst barbarities of war
has led those who are interested in private commer-
cial and pecuniary affairs with that country to
entertain some feeling of solicitude as to whether,
in the event of hostilities with England, similar
indifference would not be manifested to the example
set by European nations in dealing with such cases.

It is true the doctrines of the United States in this
respect have been hitherto in full accordance with
those of the:rest of the civilized world, and that even
so long back as 1794 they were distinctly embodied
in a treaty. Supposing any respect to be still
entertained for the motives and principles then
avowed by themselves, there can be no reason to
apprehend any dishonourable course, but the bold-
ness with which the hitherto cherished axioms of
President Madison and of all his successors on the
right of search question have just been disavowed
and contemned furnishes cause for fear that the
present career of the United States is intended to be
made remarkable, not merely by a perfect indepen-
dence of the precedents of every other nation, but
also of their own, when the purposes for the moment
can thus be better served. Annexed is the article
of the treaty referred to :

Extract of 10th Article of Treaty between Great Britain
and the United States of the 10th of November, 1794,
commonly referred to as Jay's Treaty.

" Neither the debts due from individuals of the one
nation to individuals of the other, nor shares nor meneys
which they may have in the public funds or in the public
or private banks, shall, even in any event of war or national
difference, be sequestered or:confiscated, it being unjust and
impolitic that debts and engagements contracted and made
by individuals having confidence in each other and in their
respective Governments should be destroyed or impaired
by national authority on account of national differencesand
discontents.' "
Unhappily, the Confederate States of America„

likely to show any superiority over their
opponents in their sense of what is due to private
rights. The system of confiscation of the property
of individuals and non-belligerents was commenced
on the occurrence of the present outbreak almost
simultaneously in both sections of the country, and
has been carried by the Confederates to the extent
of sequestering
all the property of neutrals—Eng-
lishmen and others—situate in the Southern States,
and held in trust for their owners by Northern eiti-
zens.—Tinies' City Article.