The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-11 00:00:00

assuring this large assembly of the citizens of Lon- '
don, that the army is proud of the handsome
and flattering manner in which its Lame is
always received by the citizens of London (Hear,
hear.) It is a high compliment tl any p:cfession to
be appreciated by their fellow-country men, and I
am persuaded that no body of our countrymen gives
the true meed of praise to the army more readily
and freely than the citizens of London. (Hear, hear.)
Gentlemen, we are considered not a warlike people,
and 1 am reminded by the Lord Mayor and the
architect of the City of London on this occasion that
peace is an emblem that is most desired and looked
upon. (Cheers.) I cordially enter into the senti-
ment thus expressed, but at the same time I ob-
served on entering this hall, at the other end, the
words "Defence, not defiance. (Hear, hear.) That,
gentleman, I believe is exactly what the people of
England always desire, and it is with this feeling
that the citizens of London, in combination with the
people of England, desire to see the various services
efficiently maintained. (Hear.) And, my lord mayor
and gentlemen, though we may not be what, in the
common acceptation of the term, is called a military
nation, we are on that account not less true
to the military spirit than any other nation, On the
contrary, I think of late years we have seen evinced
among us a noble spirit such as no country certainly
has surpassed, and few if any have equalled,
(Cheers.) The Lord Mayor has alluded to the volun-
teers. That is part of the toast which will be re-
sponded to by a noble friend ; but I cannot help re-
marking the noble spirit in which the citizens of
London have come forward in this great national
movement. (Cheers.) I have seen it lately observed
that the volunteers may take the place of the regular
army. Ido not for one moment believe that either
the volunteers themselves or the people of England
have any such idea. The ordinary sentiment ex-
pressed is, that the volunteers of England form the
most admirable auxiliary force to the army that
any country in the world could produce ; but if you
were to attempt to allow the volunteers to take the
place of the army the whole volunteer system would,
in my opinion, break down. That is the sentiment
entertained by the volunteers themselves, and I am
sure it is participated in by the people of England
generally. (Cheers.) On the part of the army, I
can only say we have been highly flattered by the
distinguished compliment which has been paid to
us on this andso many other occasions, and I beg to
assure you that it is my earnest and anxious desire,
with the concurrence of the Government, which has
so liberally supported me on every occasion, to
maintain the service I am connected with in that
high state of efficiency, wLich will enable it to do
its duty to the country if, unfortunately, it should
again be called upon to take the field. (Cheers.)
The Duke of SOMERSET said that in returning
thanks on the part of the Navy, he felt he was
spedking on behalf of a body whose services were
required in every sea to which British commerce
extended. The labours and difficulties of that noble
service were now considerably increased, because
an Englishman wherever he was settled—and
Englishmen were to be found in every part of the
globe, from Vancouver's Island to Van Diemen's
Land, and from Japan to Peru—expected to enjoy
the protection of the British flag. Last year when
he had to thank his lordship for proposing the same
toast, the British fleet had then, in conjunction
with the army, just brought to a successful close
the operations in China. Now the services of the
navy were likely again to be called in requisition
in conjunction with that of other maritime powers
in the Gulf of Mexico, not for the purpose of oppres-
sion or conquest, but in order to vindicate our
rights, to obtain reparation for the wrongs inflicted
upon British subjects, and to secure the due per-
formance of those engagements which had been
solemnly made but repeatedly violated. For that
object the British navy was again likely to be called
into action, and he was satisfied that whatever might
be the result, the navy would continue to deserve
the confidence and support of Englishmen. (Cheers.)
Lord COLVILLE said that having had the honour
to command the Honourable Artillery Company of
London—a volunteer corps which had existed up-
wards of three hundred years—he had great plea-
sure in returning thanks on behalf of the Volun-
teers. They ought, indeed, to feel proud they had
a volunteer force of 160,000 men ; but he trusted
the day was very far distant when the existence of
such a force might be considered as 'a pretext for
the reduction of a single man of the standing army
of this country.

The LORD MAYOR then proposed " Prosperity to
the City of London and its Trade," observing that
as the City was the great mart of the commerce of
the country the toast was rather a national than a
local one, and he should therefore not call upon
any one to respond.
The toast having been drunk,
The LORD MAYOR again rose, and said he had to
propose the health of a distinguished body, whose
mission was the most exalted which could be com-
mitted to man. To those gentlemen was committed
the- charge of preserving the peace of the world.
He alluded to the diplomatic body. But for their
exertions, their talents, their ability, and their tact,
there hadbeen hundreds of occasions during the last
50 years in which we might have been involved in
war. They were honoured that night by the pre•
sence of several gentlemen, the elite of their respec-
tive countries, chosen for their great ability and
learning and their knowledge of history and of
human nature, who were sent there to represent
their respective countries, to negotiate all questions,
difficult or easy, and to save us from that resource
which would land us in great calamities. He was
about to associate the toast with the name of a gen-
tleman whose mind must necessarily, under the
circumstances, be occupied much with the affairs of
his own country, which unhappily at that moment
was in a condition to require the sympathies of the
whole world. There was no country in which that
sympathy would be more readily felt for the coun-
try to which he alluded than this. (Hear, hear.)
He referred to America, and he would associate the
toast with the name of the American Minister•
He could assure him—taking upon himself for the
moment to be the exponent of the feelings and the
sentiments of that great city, over which he had the
honour to preside—he could assure him of the entire
sympathy of the citizens of London, and he thought
he might say the whole of the British people. He
felt satisfied that it was their most earnest desire to
see the 'day when the difficulties which now beset
that great and free country should be entirely era-
dicated from the soil.

His Excellency the AMERICAN MINISTER (Mr.
Adams), who wore a dark blue iuit richly trimmed
with gold lace, resembling the Windsor uniform,
and was loudly cheered on rising, replied as fol-
lows :—ln responding to the toasts in behalf of the
body with which I am connected, I have to express
their thanks for the high compliment which has
been paid to them by the Lord Mayor. I am proud
of being one of that body, nut from any trifling
personal distinction, but because I believe it to be
strictly what the Lord Mayor described it—follow-
ing a noble mission of peace. (Cheers.) Diplomacy
is an invention of comparatively modern times. In
antiquity, when nations quarrelled their practice
was to go at once to war, and the sword was the
only negotiator, the victorious general as a rule
dictating his terms of peace to the conquered. But
in modern times this has been entirely
changed, and war always follows rather
than precedes negotiation. The vocation of
the diplomatic minister is to prevent war, and the
System of exchanging
vari-
ous nations of the earth
has representativesgive n to
eaamongch, when
h enmisunderstandings take place, means to prevent
their coming to a head, and it
enables them, when
mischief-makers are abroad to try to irritate the
people of one country against another, to be always
at hand to explain matters, to rectify misinterpre-
tations, and to smooth the waves of contention when
they threaten even to break out into open violence.
(Cheers.) There is also another feature of di-
plomacy, which is rather the feature of the present
than of past times. It has been often charged upon
the former schools of diplomacy that they were in
reality schools of duplicity, and that diplomacy was
the channel through which individuals might carry
on intrigue in order to disseminate mischief, and it
was urged that the chief talent of a diplomatist was
to tell falsehoods in such a manner that they should
seem to be truths, Those sentiments were often !

(Cheers.) We have the story of Grace Darling
adorning the walls of public buildings in America,
and I assure you that the name of Florence Night-
ingale is held in as high honour in the United States
as it possibly can be here. (Cheers.) To allude to
a still higher name, I will, in conclusion, say that
the name of her Majesty the Queen of England is
honoured in the remotest hamlets of America ; not
because she is Queen of England—for there have
been a great many queens whose names we do not
honour—but she is honoured in America as a
pattern daughter, as a pattern of a mother and wife,
and, above all, as the Christian sovereign of a noble
people. (Cheers.) lam sure I echo the common
sentiment of all in my country and in England
when I say, Peace here, peace there, peace every-
where. (Loud cheers.)
The LORD MAYOR said the citizens of London

felt it was always a high honour to be allowed to
entertain any of her Majesty's Ministers, but they
had great reason to rejoice when amongst those
distinguished persons who administered the govern-
ment of the country they included as a guest her
Majesty's Prime Minister. (Hear, hear.) The name
of Lord Palmerston could never be uttered in that
hall without eliciting such a burst of applause,
and all of them rejoiced in the knowledge that
he possessed the excellent health which he now
exhibited. Long might he continue to enjoy that
health. (Hear.) Her Majesty's Ministers were
at all times charged with duties involving great re-
sponsibilities, great anxieties, and great labour.
So long as things went on smoothly a Minister
might be happy, but woe betide him if they went
wrong. (Laughter.) The anxious days and nights
which they must necessarily endure were but poorly
compensated for by the honours of office and the
applause they received. He, therefore, thought
that in proposing "Her Majesty's Ministers,"
coupled with the name of Lord Palmerston, he did
what would meet with a general response. (Loud
cheers.)
The toast having been responded to with muoh
enthusiasm,

Lord PALMERSTON, who on rising was greeted
with loud and prolonged cheering, said—My Lord
Mayor, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen, for myself
and my colleagues, I beg you to accept our most
heartfelt thanks for the honour you have done us
by so accepting the health which the Lord Mayor
has proposed. I can assure you, gentlemen, that it
is always a matter of sincere pleasure to those who
are engaged, as we are, in the turmoils and labours
of public life, to mix here with those who are en-
gaged in laying the foundations for the wealth and
prosperity and happiness of the country, by carry-
ing on, in the way in which the citizens of this
great commercial metropolis of the world do carry
on, those commercial transactions, of which their
fellow-countrymen are so justly proud. It is also
a great pleasure to those who are engaged in the
strife of political life occasionally to be invited to
these social boards, where they meet in friendly
association those to whom they may be opposed in
the active scenes of their public occupation. And
this is, indeed, more easy at the present time than
it might have been in former periods of our political
history. There were periods, not now so long dis-
tant, when those who were engaged on opposite
sides in public life, Combined with political anta-
gonism the strongest personal antipathies. Those
days are happily over. Those who differ in pub-
lic life may sometimes differ in regard to
the principles of action ; they may sometimes
differ as to the way in which the common principles
professed by both are to be carried into action ; but
their differences, though they may tend to political
antagonism, never lead to personal enmity or dislike.
(Cheers.) Indeed, amongst those who are most dis-
tinguished on each side of those tables which are
spread—not in this convivial manner—in the Houses
of Parliament, with materials for mental consump-
tion—(laughter)—those, I say, who sit upon oppo-

site sides of those tables are men who, at different
periods of their lives, have been united by personal
friendship, and whose regard has outlived their po-
litical separation. (Cheers.) Therefore, I say, gen-
tlemen, that it is far more easy, and far more agree-
able now than it might have been in former periods
of our history, for men of different political senti-
ments to meet, as we are meeting to-night, in the
association of social harmony, to enjoy the festivity
which the magnificence of this great city affords.
You have, my Lord Mayor, alluded to the decora-
tions which adorn these walls. I may say that these
walls may be assumed as an emblem of the state of
feeling of the country. (Cheers.) You have pointed
out that this interior abounds with emblems of
peace, indicative of the anxious desire of the coun-
try to preserve to itself the blessings of peace. But,
as we entered these walls we saw at the portals
armed men—volunteers. (Cheers.) Aye, volunteers,
who are the emblems of the resolution of the coun-
try, to bar the entrance of the land to any who
might wish, with rude and profane steps, to disturb
the
( C h e peaceers . Naonwa
t h attranquillityban a o f
volunteers which
emblematical of the feelingreignsw as within.no t less
of the country because
it consisted of men of mature age and of boys hardly
yet able to wield the musket which they had upon
their shoulders. A proof,
therefore, that young and
old combine in this country in a firm determination
to guard the entrance to the land and to preserve
that peace which we all so anxicialy desire to main-