The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-28 00:00:00

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THE SUN.
LONDON, SATURDAY, DEC. 28, 1861.

Most persons smiled when . they heard that
the United States' Government, after the twelfth
hour, proposed to accede to the treaty of Paris,
and to abolish privateering. It seemed very doubt-
ful whether the secession of the Confederate States
had brought any accession of humanity to the old
Government. Still it was not very clear, just at
first, what was the object of the move. It was
always represented that the South had not the
means to fit out privateers, and it was not thought
likely that any of the States of Europe would per-
mit them to be furnished from their harbours.
Generally, we supposed that as the North was the
greater trader, and alone had a navy, the South
had no maritime resource but privateering, and
would d o its best to avail itself of it. Hence the
North, for the present gain of getting rid of the
Southern privateers, was willing to give up, itself,
the use of them for the future.

This supposition, ungenerous as it appeared, is
however correct to the letter ; from the correspon-
dence now published between Lord JOHN RUSSELL
and Mr. SEWARD, the cunning and meanness of the
American Government is self-evident, Indeed,
with that hardness peculiar to Yankeedom, there
appears scarcely any wish to conceal the true cha-
racter of the transaction, when it began to be seen
through. Mr. SEWARD says almost openly, "We
now desire to adhere to the Paris treaty; but we
do so from no conviction of the barbarism of the
practice of privateering, but because if the powers
of Europe accept our adhesion, they will be bound
to hang all Southern privateers wherever they may
meet them ; and we, moreover, shall be backed up
by their respectable authority in doing the same."
The fact is that the negotiations went on swim-
mingly till it came to this point, and then they fell
through. Lord JOHN wished the American Govern-
ment to sign the treaty just as all other honest
Governments had done. Oh, said Mr. SEWARD,
it is a point of form; our foreign transactions are
conducted under the approval of the Senate, and a
convention will be the easiest form for that body to
take cognisance of the business. Anything to
please you to that extent, says Lord JOHN, and the
convention was drafted ; it was, however, so drafted
as to enable the Federals to claim of Great Bri-
tain that she should treat the Southern privateers
es pirates, but here Lord JOHN demurred.
Seeing the drift of the convention, he
proposed to sign it on the part cf the Queen with
this declaration,—" In affixing his signature to the
convention of this day, between her Majesty the
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the United
States of America, the Earl RUSSELL declares, by
order of her Majesty, that her Majesty does not
intend to undertake any engagement which shall
have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal
differences now prevailing in the United States."

Mr. SEWARD at once calls off—he had no thought
of humane considerations, not he; in abolishing pri-
vateering, he wanted merely to use abolition of
this barbarous practice as the means of
putting down Southern privateering against
the North. Now England had recogt:ised
the South as a belligerent, to the great annoyance
no doubt of Mr. SEWARD, but in so doing we
had treated the South as a temporarily, and for
warlike Purposes, an independent ow
SEWARD wanted us to regard the whole thirty-four
States as still a political unit; the consequencet
being that the acts of the Northern Government
would be binding on the South. Hence the Northl
would be able to declare privateering piracy fortho
Confederates as well as for itself ! 10 this, ofcourse,
Lord JOHN RUSSELL refused to accede. We deny
that the two great ho.--Aile confederations are still a
unit. They arc to us separated de facto ; they are
hostile ; they are belligerents. The North cannot
now be allowed tc take advantage of the Paris
treaty which it refused at the time, as a weapon
against the South which then shared with it in its

refusal. The North, in conjunction with the eleven
seceded States, refuse to give up privateering.
Now in the great game of the eleven of the
South, against the thirteen of the old Union,
the former cannot be deprived by the latter, without
their consent, of one of the political conditions on
which the game began.
It is impossible to put the result of the policy
demanded by the United States, and that on which
France and England is acting more clearly,
than is done by our Foreign Secretary.
"It would be folly," he says, in his letter
of the 28th of August, " logically and con•
sistently, from lithe attitude taken by her MA-
JESTY'S Government, that the so-called Confede-
rate States, being acknowledged as a belligerent,
might, by the law of nations, arm privateers, and
that their privateers must be regarded as the armed
vessels of a belligerent. With equal logic and
consistency it would follow, from the position
taken by the United States, that the privateers
of the Southern States might be decreed to be
pirates, and it might be further argued by the Go-
vernment of the United States that a European
Power signing a convention with the United States,
declaring that privateering was and remains
abolished, would be bound to treat the privateers
of the so-called Confederate States as pirates.
Hence, instead of an agreement, charges of bad
faith and violation of a convention might be
brought in the United States against the pc wer
signing such a convention, and treating the priva-
teers of the so-called Confederate States as thee°
of a belligerent power."
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, however, concludes with
reciprocating all the friendly sentiments expressed
by Mr. ADAMS—wishes to maintain the most
friendly relations between the two Governments,
but firmly adds, "It is in this spirit that her
MAJESTY'S Government decline to bind themselves,
without a clear explanation on their part, to a con-
vention which, seemingly confined to an adoption
of the declaration of Paris of 1856, might be con-
strued as an engagement to interfere in the un-
happy dissensions now prevailing in the United
States—an interference which would be contrary
to her MAJESTY'S public declarations, and would
be a reversal of the policy which her MAJESTY has
deliberately sanctioned."
It is among the too many sad proofs of the per-
version of men's tempers in the States—even of men
high in office—that such a paltry piece of political
jugglery as this is published by Mr. SEWARD with-
out a blush. He is not ashamed of higgling over
the price of humanity.

At this Christmas season we cannot but wonder
sometimes what can possibly have become of a very
benevolent and promising movement set on foot a
twelvemonth or so back by W. D. B. Is it in any
way lost altogether to public recollection ? We can
hardly induce ourselves to believe this possible.
The enterprise was so eminently humane itself, it
was so rapid in its growth, it was taken up with
such very general cordiality—that we feel per-
suaded at any rate of this, that it is with very many
yet held in agreeable remembrance. The rise of the
incipient association—for an association, to all in-
tents and purposes, it eventually became, though
one merely incipient, so to speak, even to the very
last, in its character—the rise of the scheme was in
the first instance as modest and unostentatious as
could well be. One or two anonymous
letters—some of them so brief as to be
little better than mere notes—in the columns of
our leading morning contemporary—prepared the
way, almost imperceptibly, for what followed.
W. D. B. struck the key-note. Several other
letters of the alphabet took up the same theme—
with variations. A chord (in the public heart)
touched here and there carelessly it seemed, and
quite at random, gradually swelled most harmo-
neously in a choral symphony. One excellent sug-
gestion followed another. Funds dropped in, in
guineas and banknotes, until one or two hundreds
had quickly multiplied into as many thou-
sands. A meeting was at last convened by
the generous-hearted gentleman who, somewhat
doubtless to his own surprise, found himself to
have become the originator of a really popular
and wholly unpremeditated movement. This as-
semblage was holden one evening in an excessively
over-crowded room upon the ground-floor of the
Old Thatched House Tavern in St. James's street.
W. D. B. appeared there in propria persona as Mr.
W. DAVENPORT BROMLEY—who explained to a
sympathising audience the circumstances in which
the whole of this kindly project had originated. A
Duke was in the chair—was it not his grace the
Duke of MARLBOROUGH ? Several speeches—ex-
tremely to the purpose—were delivered haphazard
by this person and by that. More moneys showered
in upon the hon. secretary or pro. tent. treasurer.
All the contributions then and previously col-
lected were, to the uttermost farthing, afterwards
most carefully and with the utmost possible dis-
cretion distributed. But—there really and truly, so
far as we can in any way learn, the whole of this
most humane enterprize appears to have terminated.
Its aim will still, of course, be very well remem-
bered. It was designed to supplement all the asso-
ciations previously in existence for the relief of ex-
treme destitution. It was to interfere with none of
the old benevolent institutions. It was rather to be
a pendant to them all. Its promoters aspired to be-
come not simply the relievers of distress, when
applied to for assistance. They designed to go in
search of the direst miseries hiding away in the
squalid courts and back sums of the metropolis,an d—
with their own hand, not vicariously but personally
and individually—to carry relief in kind to the most
afflicted. Associations of this kind there have long
been in active operation in other countries, particu-
larly in France. But in England the mere sugges-
tion came to the public ear with all the charm in-
herent in novelty. A lay association of exactly this
very eleemosynary character has but very recently,
for political reasons, been suppressed on the opposite
shores of the channel by a decree of the Imperial
Government. No jealousies of a similar description
could be anticipated among ourselves, or dreamt of
for one moment as likely to nip a project of this
generous description in the bud prematurely.
Everything looked propitious for the scheme
set agoing by W. D. 8., by Mr. W.
DAVENPORT BROMLEY and his sympathisers.
Yet—in spite of all this, What has become of it ?
The population all this while is steadily increas-
ing. And miseries are quite as certainly increas-
ing with it. The reasons there were for organis-
ing an enterprise of the nature but just now
explained, instead of being less, are more
numerous. What was recognised as eminently
undesirable then—must certainly be recognised as
yet more urgently desirable now. If the present
winter is milder than the last—as evidenced not
merely by the more moderate fluctuations of the
t,everities
thermometer, but by such signs of the season
d e hoell 83s
as the total absence of the scarlet berries
upont that theat h
boughs—wethemwainytreersatrpe rveetrtyy
mcoanlyfil-
,of them only delayed. Much wretchedness, and
many privations, are in store for the very poor
and the very humble, particularly
in our large cities,
above all in our vast and densely peopled capital.
And experience still continues to
evidence,
what it