The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-18 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 18, 1861.

Some Americans here tell us that there will be
no war now. They are aware that their country
is too weak to fight a first-rate Power while all
their energies can make no sensible impression on
a civil enemy at home. They will therefore, we are
told, make their submissicn this time, but with a
purpose in reserve. The war of Secession is to be
settled, and then will be the time to insult England,
pick a quarrel with her, and show that the stripes
and stars can flog all the world. When we thus
write we give not mere rumour, but the lan-
guage which has been held by Americans
of high social position and extensive practical
knowledge, within the circle of our acquaintance.
We may regret it. We may endeavour to shew
the unreasonableness of such feelings and determi-
nations on their part, but we fear it is a fact not
to be doubted that they exist—that the gentle-
men whom we have in view but too accurately
represent a common feeling in the North at this
moment.

Happily, if the present clouds blow over, there
will be little danger from fresh ones. The fully
prepared state of England is the conductor which
conveys harmlessly away the present wrath of Ameri-
cans, and when the next threatening occasion comes
the Canadian boundaries will also be in a state
safely to conduct a second gathering of anti-English
wrath to the earth. We are little concerned about
the future, that will take care of itself, nor,indeed,
about the present, except that, in common With all
the civilized world, we must regard it as an atrocious
crime should the Americans force on a war, simply
to keep possession of two persons whom they have
illegally captured. Never had we less reason to
fear a war so far as confidence in our resources to
meet it is concerned, but if war there be, never
surely would so much blood be shed for a cause, on
the other side, so wholly unjustifiable. Our readers
will have sun day by day, bow energetically our
Government is preparing for the worst—most
wisely—should it coma, all will say so; should it
not come, we may deem it certain that the cheaper
and more really humane course of adequate prepara-
tion, has prevented the more costly and painful one
of tempting the other party to attack by our want
of prepP.ration.

So far as it goes the news of this morning is a
little more peaceful. We are not told in the tele-
gram how, when, and where the declaration was
made by the PRESIDENT that he meant to be pru
i -
dent n his foreign policy, and that there Ras no

fear otsiar with Great Britain except, in the very I
unlikely case of her seeking a pretext for it. Assum-
ing that he has thus expressed himself, it shows that
he feels for himself, what all the world must
know of his case, that he has as much work on his
hands of the belligerent kiad as he can attend to.
The slight fling at us of supposed absurd, or undig•
nified conduct may be tolerated under the necessity
which a comparatively illiterate and ill-bred man
feels of saying something with a little bounce in it,
when he has been expressing himself with un-
familiar moderation. It means nothing. It is
wholly intended for the ears of New York, and we
must now add, Boston: When it is added that no
anxieties are felt by the administration on the sub-
ject, we suppose we are to understand, that they
contemplate no conduct on their part, which could
give rise to a war:
There are other matters of some interest. The
question of the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia is referred to a committee. No fact is
more disgraceful to the free States than their having
so long winked at the abomination of retaining
slavery and even a slave mart, in the little territory'
ten miles square originally, which was placed under
the absolute control of Congress. It was the
brand of the slave-power on the whole admini-
stration of the States, and was justly resented
by all the opponents of slavery. There
seems also, unless some special circumstances
qualify the act—something much bolder than we
have yet read of in the liberation of a fugitive slave
at Washington by the Federal Government itself.
Some Federal successes are spoken of—one in
eastern Tennessee, in which many Confederates
were killed ; another, of the retreat of the Con-
federates in Missouri ; but we have learned to
receive such accounts with caution, nor would they
be of any value unless they really support the
PRESIDENT'S assertion, that all the border
States are secured for the Union. At Port Royal
the troops appear to be making reconnaisaaces, and
are even said to have approached within 20 miles of
Charleston—to have captured some batteries and
spiked the guns. The Confederates were destroy-
ing the cotton, but already much of it has been
seized. The slaves appear to be waiting the time
when they can join the North with safety. Other
points near Charleston and Savannah are threatened.
It is even said that General WOOL at Fort
Monroe, has demanded troops for an advance on
Richmond. If this movement, which was one of
the,first expected here, could be effectively executed,
General BEAUREGARD must retreat or have M'CLEL-
LAN in his front and WOOL in his rear.

A few days more, and we shall have buried
our Dead. Monday, the twenty-third instant, is
the date fixed for the solemn sepulture of the
remains of his Royal Highness at Windsor. The
Prince Consort breathed his last, it appears, in
the King's Chamber—the very same apartment
in which the two last sovereigns, GEORGE IV.,
and WILLIAM IV. expired. The remains of his
Royal Highness will, at noon on Monday, be
interred among all that is mortal of the later
Kings of England. In compliance with a wish to
that effect expressed by the Prince himself, the
Funeral ceremony will be conducted as privately
as may be in any way compatible with the re-
spect due to the memory of the august position
of the deceased. It is but fitting that the dead
body of the Husband of Queen VICTORIA should be
conducted to its last resting place with a certain
awful pomp and ceremonial. There will be no
Lying in State, however, no Torchlight Proces-
sion. The inner coffins have already been sealed
or soldered up, by which means, almost more effec-
tually than by the old aromatic system of embalm-
ing, the ravages of decomposition are for a long
while repelled. In testimony of which we have
only to recall to mind the extraordinary revelation
of NAPOLEON'S remains, twenty-one years ago, at
the period of their disinterment. When, upon the
innermost coffin being opened for a few instants'
inspection of all that might be left to view of the
world's great " Conqueror and Captive," his re-
mains, after nineteen years' repose in the tomb,
were found to be yet in a perfect state of preserva-
tion. As was sung at the time by the northern
lyrist—
" Tranquilly there Napoleon lay revealed,
Like a king sleeping on his own proud shield."
Beyond all the pomp proffered to the memory of the
departed Prince by the religious rites and the
courtly pageantswith whichhis inanimated form will
on Monday next, be conveyed to the Royal Vault,
at Windsor, there is the prolongation and perman-
ence of that universal sympathy for his Royal
Highness's QUEEN-RELICT which has already been
lavished upon her great grief, and which will
never be wanting to her MAJESTY in the abound-
ing sensitiveness of the popular remembrance.
Whenever those pass away from the public scene
whom we all recognise as having done their part
nobly in the general interests, the instinctive
yearning is, with the multitude at large,
to attest to after times by some fitting Testimo-
nial—not so much the fame that is independent
of all merely perishable monuments, as the grateful
appreciation of that fame by the contemporaries
of the great or good man gone. This instinctive
eagerness on the part of every generous-hearted
community will not fail in due course to lead to
the suggestion of more than one appropriate evi-
dence of the estimation in which the illustrious
Consort of our Gracious Sovereign was held
throughout his not merely brilliant but eminently
useful career, among the people.whose affections he
had secured during more than one entire half of his
existence, during the chief part of one quarter of a
century of his—in literal truth—most exemplary
life. The Poet Laureate may possibly, a little later
on, be enabled to exclaim, with a less egoistic
exultation than did HORACE—Exegi nzonumentum
(ere perelmitts. Certainly up to this moment the
Court Elegiast has never had so profoundly affecting
and therefore, in one sense, so resplendent an op-
portunity for the manifestation of his splendid
powers as a perfect master of his art and of our
emotions, and as the latest, and far from the least of
the glories of our national literature. A tribute
from the hand of ALFRED TENNYSON to the
memory of the gifted and gracious Prince, whose
irreparable loss to the Crown and the Country, the
whole nation is now lamenting—a memorial Poem
from the hand of the Laureate is what the English
People will look for confidently. It is m hat alone
might be reasonably counted upon, as the natural
effusion of the loyalty of one who has impressively
inscribed the choicest outpourings of his genius to
that beloved and honoured SOVEREIGN whom he
apostrophises at the outset of his Dedication as—
" Revered VICTORIA !"

Bronze and marble likewise,
secls a matter of
for
absolute certainty willperpetuate
after.
times the memory of the grateful admiration of the
PRINCE CONSORT'S own immediate contemporaries.
Oar public places will not—we may rest assured—
lack evidence that his name, and his great powers,
and even his comely form and features, are still trea-
sured up in the national remembrance. If we were
to look about us, here in the capital, for some con-
spicuous site upon which to erect in his honour,
let us say,
a bronze equestrian effigy of
his Royal Highness, we should be disposed
to point to that empty pedestal which has been so

long standing unoccupied in the north-west corner
of Trafalgar-square ! Only that such a suggestion, if
seriously made, might be construed into anything
rather than a wholly respectful compliment,
seeing that whatever statue may be placed
upon that vacant pedestal will stand there
in companionship with the effigy of King GEORGE
the Fourth, the soi-disant First Gentleman—
(save the mark !) in Europe ! Supposing an
equestrian statue of His Royal Highness the
PRINCE CONSORT to be eventually placed upon
the pedestal we are now suggesting as its site—
it would stand there, however, more, let us say,
in scornful and lofty contrast to than in anything
at all like companionship, with CHANTREY'S statue
of the Heartless Voluptuary. Posterity might
then draw a vivid and impressive moral enough
upon looking alternately on this effigy and on this !
Here the pure-soulad, gentle-hearted, gifted, re-
fined, laboriously energetic and Constitutional
PRINCE! There—we lack epithets sufficiently
emphatic, within anything like courtly limits, to
express our mingled contempt and loathing for the
vile qualities combined to make up the selfish and
self-complacent idiosyncrasy of that " Adonis of
Sixty," who aspired, after the most bathetic way pos-
sible, to obtain the repute of the First Gentleman of his
age in all Christendom. Brighter,then,by the contrast
if possible would shine forth the memory of the august
Prince whose premature demise we are all of us
now mourning from our very hearts, and whose not
only inoffensive but benignant and noble life will
form one of the most charming episodes to be recorded
upon the national annals by some future MACAULAY.
Apart from all other Testimonials, however, there
is one of an immediate—and though to a certain
extent of a comparatively fugitive, still of a
very signal and resplendent kind, that may
within the next few months evidence, if
we care to avail ourselves of it, in a re-
markable manner, and to the whole world, the
depth of feeling with which England now pours
forth upon the memory of the deceased Prince—
her admiration, her affection, and her gratitude.
The forthcoming International Exhibition, that is,
of 1862 down at South Kensington ! It was a scheme
dear to the heart of the dead Prince. It will
be a grateful tribute to his memory if that project,
in the furtherance of which he himself personally
took so profound an interest, be carried into com-
pletion to the utmost extent of our powers. To be
inaugurated we will hope, when completed, by the
eldest son of its chief promoter, and it may even be
said its actual originator, by his Royal Highness the
Prince of WALES—now more than ever the Hope
of England.

The Austrian Government has published its own
financial account, and a pretty one it is. Whether,
like the Emperor of the FRENCH, FRANCIS JOSEPH
has made a clean breast of it, may well be doubted,
but the best face put upon it is a sorry one. It is
deficit year after year, apparently hopeless deficit,
and that while it is proposed to increase the army
expenses by about one-half. The means of cover-
ing these deficits is of course the old one—" credits."
In English, borrowing. One consolation is men-
tioned; the deficit for 1861 was expected
to be about six ' millions and a-half ster-
ling—it is now expected to be about four
millions. To this, however, is appended the re-
mark which, if we understand it, quite destroys the
consolation to be derived from the other, that
" The excess of expenditure not fully provided for
is close upon six millions." The estimated loss in
Hungary, owing to its unsettled condition, is said
to be a million and a half—it is doubtless, all things
taken into account, more than quadruple of
that sum. Another fact slated is rather a dark
one—that the tofal decrease of revenue in the
year 1861 is within a fraction of £11,000,000 !
What will Mr. JOHN ORRELL LEVER say to this
after his pamphlet on the resources of Austria ? We
confess our inability to reconcile all these state-
ments; but we may be quite sure that the
worst of them are the most to be relied on. In
the face of all this, such is the condition of
Hungary and Venetia, that five millions
and a quarter more are asked for the army !—an
army which already beggars the State by requiring
about eleven millions. To help out of all these
difficulties the National Bank is to pay £8,000,000
for a renewal of its charter, as a loan, with-
out interest, to be repaid by instalments,
which we wish it may ever get. The Lottery loan
was to dolts part, but it seems it is not taken up ;
we are sorry to see figuring among the receipts of
the financial administration, £300,000,000 of the
English loan. Who are the Englishmen, and what
is their security ? Perhaps Mr. LEVER can tell us.
The State domains, we read, are to be sold, not as
in India to cancel State debt, and so lighten the pub-
lic burdens, but to meet current expenses. This
seems to us too much like what we express by
the very humble phrase—" going to the dogs."
The Rump Reichsrath mean while is doing things
in grand style. It is passing all kinds of measures,
so that our very liberal contemporary, the Herald,
is, in extecies with the improvement in Austria.
The half of the Deputies are to legislate actually
as if all were assembled, for every part of
the Empire, but the obstinate Hungarian pro-
vinces. It is blessing the empire with such fran-
chises, as even France knows not in regard
to the press and personal liberty, which is
not saying much, some will think, for
their value. The independence also of the judges
is to be secured, and the budget voted by the
loyal Reichsrath—in fact Hungary's perversity is
to be shown up, in preferring franchises, laws,
and institutions a thousand years old, to the new
liberties bestowed on Austria by a hand which
can at any time withdraw them.

We are authorised to state that the funeral of his
late Royal Highness the Prince Consort will take place in
St. George's Chapel, Windsor, on Monday next, at twelve
o'clock, and that, in accordance with the understood wishes
of his late royal highness, the funeral will be a private one.

The Secretary of the British Legation at Brussels
has requested us to contradict the statement which has ap-
peared in a telegram published in the London journals that
he had loft Brussels for London on a political mission. The
statement is totally devoid of foundation, •

The King of Hanover's intended visit to this
country is postponed.

The Countess of Sefton and Lady Cecilia Moly-
ileum will leave town to-morrow.

Lord Churston has left Farranee's Hotel for
Lup4on, near Torquay.

Sir Cornwallis and Lady Caroline Ricketts have
arrived at their residence in Grosvenor-place.
The Right Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P., and Mrs.
Disraeli have left Grosvenor-gate for Torquay.
Mr. and Mrs. Washington Hibbert and the
Misses Washington Hibbert have arrived at their residence,
34, Dover-street.
Mr. and Mrs. Scott have arrived at Farrance's
Hotel, from Mi(lcalder, Lanarkshire.
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.—We are authorised to
state that the meeting of the Geological Society this even-
ing, and the meetings of the Royal and Linnrean Societies
to-morrow evening, will not take place, in consequence of
the lamented death of the Prince Consort.
The mildness of the temperature both in Paris
and in other parts of France continues extraordinary at this
seasonmorninogf
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ttliegr(a4cl:7s(46 Fahrenheit)Fa Fahrenheit); he;i t )a
Montpelier,t;
matarleailal,3
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1195 t-; lgiOor tatlhdr sse
(55 50
ti-
centi-
grade (62.75 Fahrenheit) ;
Fahrenheit); Algiers, 14 3. 10ths centigrade (58.75 Fah-
renheit) ; and Brussels, 17 7-10ths centigrade (63.50 Fah-
renheit) . At Moscow the glass stood at 5 6-10ths below
zero centigrade (22.50 Fahrenheit), and at Nicolaiew, 16
4-10tb.s centigrade (2.75 Fahrenheit).