The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-24 00:00:00

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THE SUN.
LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 24, 1861.

The despatch of the French Government, which
appeared in the late edition of The S'un yesterday,
and which we therefore repeat to-day, will be read
with unmixed satisfaction. We heard of :t first
from Berne, and when we see that it is dated Dec.
3, we feel half disappointed that it should not have
" leaked out" before. The contents of it are so
satisfactory, and the result of its transmission so
likely to be yet more so, that we seemed to have
missed a hopeful fact which we might long ago
have known. The Emperor of the FRENCH, if the
Americans are just, and even true to their own inte-
rrsts—will certain ly win golden opinions there, for he
offers them the golden bridge for their retreat which it
was so difficult for England to build them. But
here there can be but one opinion of this well timed
act. He appears in the honourable, the divinely
bless ed character of peacemaker, and that without
sacrificing in any way the hon our of either party,
or the all-important principles of international
justice. P robably not one single act of the EM-
PEROR'S reign can be pointed to which will appear
in the review more disinterested and more worthy
of a great power friendly to both parties. Ambition
could not object to seeing two such strong naval
powers weakening and wearying each other;
domestic circumstances could not make him unwill-
ing to see a war begin, one of the first results of
which would be to open the cotton ports, and enable
600,000 of his subjects to resume their industry;
but the EMPEROR has honourably thrown aside
every consideration in favour of loyalty to the
interests of peace between two powers with which
he desires to bo friendly. Of course, this is a high
and dignified position, but it is one obtained in the
right way—in the way of influence for good.
We can hardly conceive of the American Govern-
ment being so insensate as to reject this disinterested
mediation—if they do, we shall have even Mr.
COBDEN and Mr. &Limn. giving them up, and pro-
nouncing them not only drunk but mad. • The peace-
at-any-price men will become war-at-any-cost men,
if they see a nation so demented es to refuse the
friendly aid of their oldest national friend—when,
too, his advice is offered on the
ground of the
universal interests of maritime nations.

The law is argued, though briefly, yet with
Fiench clearness, whether the Commissioners be
regarded as rebels or enemies. "If," says M.
TIIOUVENEL, " to our regret, the Washington
Cabinet should be disposed to approve the conduct
of the commander of the San Jacinto, they must
consider MM. SLIDELL and MASON either as ene-
mies or as rebels. In either case there would be an
extremely regretable forgetfulness of principle on
which we have always found the United States

agreed with us." And having disposed of both
views of the case, ho adds, on what has always
seemed to us the all-important point, that
"The Trent was not bound to a port
belonging to either of the belligerents. It was
carrying its cargo and passengers to a neutral
country, and moreover, it was at a neutral
port that it had taken them up. If it were admix•
Bible that under such circumstances the neutral flag
did not completely cover the persons and goods
transported under it, the immunities of that flag
would be a vain word ; the commerce and naviga-
tion of third Powers would be liable to suffer at
any moment for their innocent or even indirect
relations with either of the belligerents. The latter
would not have a right to require from the ven-
tral the most complete impartiality, and to inter-
dict him from being mixed up in any way with
acts of hostility, but they would inflict restric-
tions upon the liberty of commerce and naviga-
tion which modern international law refuses to
acknowledge as legitimate. There would be a re-
turn, in a word, to those vexatious practices against
which in former times no Power protested more
energetically than the United States." This com-
mon sense, and at the same time, legal view of the
subject ought to be conclusive, with the Cabinet at
Washington. We hope it will not tempt Mr.
SEWARD to display his subtlety in attempting to
show that the reasons may be evaded. No doubt a
lawyer can make a long story out of any case, but
if it were discussed for twelve months, the state-
ment of M. TECOUVENEL would be that to which all
must at last return. The neutral vessel sailing
between neutral ports can by no legal legerdemain
in the world be liable to do more than prove her cha-
racter, and ports of departure and arrival. Com-
merce of neutrals must otherwise be at the mercy
of every two nations who see fit to quarrel.
The French Foreign Secretary, in conclusion,
makes the act of our Government so far the basis
of the action his own, and proffers to the Cabinet
of Washington the final advice, which it can hardly,
we trust, venture to think of rejecting.
" Lord LYONS," he says, "is already charged to present
' the demand for satisfaction which the English Cabinet is
under the necessity of making, and which cons'sts in the
immediate release of the persons taken from the Trent, and
explanations which shall relieve the act of the captain of
the San Jacinto of its offensive character to the British flag.
The Federal Government would be inspired by a just and
elevated sentiment in yielding to these demands. It is im-
possible to conceive any object or any interest that it could
have to run the risk of provoking a rupture with Great
Britain by assuming a different attitude.

" For ourselves, who would see in such a rupture a com-
plication in every way deplorable of the difficulties with
which the Cabinet at Washington has already to struggle,
and a proceeding calculated to occasion serious uneasiness
to all the Powers not parties to the present conflict, we
think we are giving a testimony of loyal friendship to the
Cabinet of Washington in not concealing from it our

opinion."

The American Ministers, if they go wrong, will
certainly not do so without ample warning. A
weekly contemporary says :

" Mr. Adams, the American Minister in London, des-
patched a fast-sailing steamer, which would outstrip Lord
Russell's despatches, to Washington, warning Mr. Seward
of the storm produced in England by the outrage on the
Trent, and of the necessity of voluntary concessions, before
the delivery of the formal demand for the restoration of the

prisoners."

Another tells us, as if from authentic informa-
tion, that Lord LYONS is to furnish Mr. SEWARD,
unofficially, with the English despatch two or
three days before it is communicated officially•
This makes it all the more likely that the French
despatch which, is dated only the day after own
message to Lord LYONS, will also arrive in time to
influence the decision. Under all these circum-
stances, a sinister decision at Washington now
would show a determination to provoke a war a
foregone conclusion, which we can hardly think
probable. It might be very pleasant in one re
spect for America to get clear of the Southern diffi-
culty by a greater one with England, but it would
surely be in the phrase of her greatest philosopher,
" paying too much for the whistle."

If anything could by possibility endear the Roya
Family more than ever to the hearts of the English
people, it would be the manner in which her MA-
JESTY and her MAJESTY'S children have met and
endured their late most bitter aflicticn. It is just
simply impossible to read the account of yesterday's
ceremonial in St. George's Chapel, at Windsor,
without being touched to the soul by it. The clos-
ing words of the description which will be found in
another part of our impression of this evening, we
believe to be in no syllable exaggerated. A more
real grief, a more universal sorrow, we do feel per-
fectly convinced never attended any other prince to
the tomb within the memory of living man. The
expressions used by the narrator are not for one
single instant to be regarded in their ordinary and
purely conventional aspect. Whenever anything
is remarked to the effect that all were moved to
tears, that there was not an eye but was dimmed—
the words are to be taken literally. Nor can it be
considered in any way remarkable that it should be
so. - It would only have been remarkable could
the result by possibility have been otherwise. For
even under ordinary circumstances, in the instance,
let us say, of one who disappears from the scene
without the snapping asunder of many dear familiar
domestic ties, or, let us say again, in the instance
of another who bunks into the grave full of years
and honours, having long passed the allotted age
of man—it is in no way surprising that the sub-
lime and everlasting truths articulated in that
Wondrous Burial Service should move the
very souls of those who are standing and listen-
ing to those Great Truths beside the Open Tomb.
It was thus visibly and appreciably when the
remains of Lord MACAULAY—dying though he had
died grey-headed in his bachelor-home at Holly
Lodge, upon Campden-hill, Kensington—were con-
signed to the earth with the same solemn rites
under the roof-beams of Westminster Abbey. It
was so profoundly, and almost without an exception,
when, with a yet grander Pageant of Death, about
the sublimest that could ever have been accorded
to mortal man, the body of the Great Duke of
WELLINGTON, octogenarian though he had been
two or three years before his demise, was lowered
to its last resting place beside NELSON, under the
dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. Tears were shed
upon both of those occasions, not merely by the
immediate relatives of the deceased—and they were
shed too, in each instance, not stintingly. Any
one who chanced to notice the emotion manifested
at MACAULAY'S funeral by the gentle-hearted
Earl, now Lord-Lieutenant of. Ireland, will
know that, saying this, we are rot talking
at random. While in the instance of the Funeral
of the Duke of WELLINGTON, at St. Paul's, the
pathos of that sublime spectacle is matter of
notoriety—is matter, one may say, of history. It
is remerahered that among those who were then
present while the old Duke's coffin was being
caor)o
lowered into the crypt beneath the pavement of
the
whose t erdiase l,
w the
yesterdayas belved
ianndtex r ed illustrious
in t
the
ePrince,Royal
oya
1
Vault at Windsor, shed tears as the awful cere-
mont drew to its close, or, it might be said, to its
climax, But in regard to yesterday's most
affeccing Interment, the appeal to the semi-

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