The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-03 00:00:00

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THE SUN.

LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 3, 1861.

" We have got the men, and we'll keep them,"
seems to be the sum of American opinion. If
an apology would content the British, say some,
then let them have an apology if they like, for
the informality, but no surrender of the men.
To this extent opinion does seem divided in Ame-
rica. It is impossible to deny that the captain
of the San Jacinto had no right to make prize
of the men without the adjudication of a Prize
Court ; this much is therefore conceded by nearly
all, but the gains of illegality are sweet, and
must be firmly clutched. Nothing, therefore, is
to induce the American Government to part
with them.

We may now say that the decision for peace
or war lies entirely with the Cabinet at Wash-
ington; that is, of course, subject to its respon-
bility to the mob and its orators. It is beyond
doubt now that Captain WILKES did not act by
direct orders from Washington, and it is therefore
open to the Government to decline the responsi-
bility for his actions, if they choose. It looks
badly, indeed, that they did not do so at once. On
that point we need not press too hardly on them.
Precipitate submission to reason and justice in a
case in which England was the injured party, might
be more than any administration might even seem
to be guilty of. Time might permit the Sovereign
people to cool down a little, and it would be hard
to refase the President the benefit of a few days'
grace. By the time our messenger reaches Wash-
ington all the injustice of the deed, and all the
consequences of a war with England, and with the
South at the same time, may have become apparent.
And, the extreme inconvenience of the last may
make it extremely convenient to acknowledge the
first.

We are informed that the representatives of other
foreign Powers in Washington all sympathise with
the views of England. They all called, Mr. Rus-
SELL tells us, on Lord LYONS. Their opinion,
though the friendship of Russia and of France is
paraded much by the Americans themselves, is
unanimous that England cannot submit to the in-
sult—that to do so would be to concede the mari-
time rights of all civilised nations to the caprice of
Americans. The French Orleans Princes who are
there share in the regret of foreign countries for
what has been done; and when the Americans re-
ceive the French papers they will see that our
neighbours who in a dispute with America can have no
traditional leanings towards us, are all as unani-
mous as we can be on the illegality of the seizure
and on the necessity laid on us of demanding re-
dress. It is very plain that had it been a French
packet which was molested, a French fleet would
have carried over an ultimatum. They will also
see that the French perceive that they will almost
inevitably be compelled to unite with us, in political
action at least; that England, if resisted, must
acknowledge the Confederate Government; that
this could not be an isolated act; France would not
put up with losing the trade of the South, while
England was taking advantage of it; and hence
France would be compelled, in self-defence, to an
identity of policy with England, although she could
not insult us by offering her aid in a war which we
were abundantly competent to carry on for our-
selves.

It is curious to see how completely the Washing.
ton Government are caught in their own net. Their
only colourable defence is that the commissioners
were ambassadors of a belligerent. Even this is
founded on a misconception of one text writer,
precedents not being at command ; but the awk-
wardness for them is, that while this may be truly
said to be their only plausible ground, they have
deprived themselves of the right to use it. Not only
do they not acknowledge the South as belligerents,
but they are very wroth with us for doing it, and
even pretend that we seduced France into doing
the same. How, therefore, could they have pleaded
in their own prize courts that they seized the two
gentlemen in a capacity they did not acknowledge ?
If, on the other hand, they are admitted to be but
rebels—political offenders—then, by all the laws of
Christian, and even of Mahometan civilisation,
they could not be claimed. America would have
enough on her hands if all the potentates of Europe
were to seize on her territory—and a ship is con-
fessedly a count's territory—every rebel who
sought her shores. K OSSUTH left a neutral coun-
try, England, for a neutral country, the United
States; he went avowedly to solicit both Govern-
mental and popular aid against Austria. Suppose
he had been taken on his voyage from an American
mail steamer by an Austrian frigate and carried
straight to Trieste, how long would it have been
before every available American ship of war had
followed him thither ? The cases, so far as America
is concerned, are exactly parallel. The case of
KOSTA, to which we have before adverted, is in
some respects even stronger, since a mail packet,
from which the Commissioners were taken, is one
specially exempted by all the authorities who
advert to the subject.
Nothing is more apparent in all the American
press than the intense pleasure afforded to the
Northerns by the capture of these two men. To use
the language of one journal, " The American heart
never thrilled with more genuine delight than it
did yesterday at the intelligence of the cap-
ture of Messrs. SLIDELL and MASON." It
is contrasted with the capture of Beaufort, but that
though so important, did not give " satisfaction
equal tothat experienced when base and treacherous
knaves meet with their desert." Our New York
contemporary. seems to feel no twinge on the ques-
tion whether the capture itself was not " base and
treacherous." He has cause he says for his delight
since "if we were to search the whole of rebeldom
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and MASON are compared with JEFF. DAVIS, and the
latter declared to have some redeeming qualities, the
former none. It is even supposed, of course hypo-
critically, that England herself " will applaud the
gallant act !"

There seems to be no doubt that the two gentle-
men are really two very clever fellows, and that it
is of importance to detach their brains from the
service of the South. We may conjecture, there-
fore, what Mr. LINCOLN would have to face in mak-
ing up his mind to surrender the men to our de-
mand. He would do so for no other reason than the
most urgent necessity. The list of ships ready for

immediate or speedy service, the calm unanimity
of our press, with the most paltry exceptions, the
offers of our Naval Reserve to her MAJESTY, the
coocurrence of other foreign countries, these are the
arguments which alone will weigh with Mr. LIN-
COLN. Yet these arguments he dares not rehearse
to the mob. They may, however, induce him to
back out by obtaining from his own advisers an
opinion hostile to the wrong done by Captain
WILKs. In that case he could make a display of
magnanimity and scrupulous love of international
justice.

While we are yet waiting to learn the result
of the peremptory demand addressed by us to
the Federal Government at Washington,
our demand, that is, of instant and com-
plete reparation for a most wanton and un-
justifiable outrage—it is satisfactory to know
that a similar requisition, addressed very recently
to the Mexican Government, has been most readily
acceded to. That it should have been, is certainly
not so very surprising under the circumstances.
However—surprising or not surprising—it is, we
repeat, in the highest possible degree satisfactory.
The recognised organ of Lord PALMERSTON'S
Cabinet tells us point blank, and without a show
even of ambiguity or circumlocution in the telling
of it, that the capitulation of the Mexican Govern-
ment is " complete and unequivocal." And that
it is so, is all the more remarkable, when it is
borne in mind, as has been observed, that it is the
result not of actual military interference but of the
mere apprehension of it ! The naval expedition
fitted out for the enforcement of the diplomatic re-
quisition alluded, to would consequently under ordi-
nary circumstances find the work " done to hand"
by anticipation—without any necessity whatever
for the employment of physical force in the doing
of it! Common sense having thrust upon the in-
stant recognition of the " powers that be" in
Mexico, the utter futility of withstanding any de-
mand so backed by the combined armaments of
England, France and Spain ! And this immediate
appreciation of the folly of further persistence in the
refusal of reparation, when thus demanded, has
happily gone far to prevent that lamentable effu-
sion of blood that must otherwise inevitably have
desolated the Mexican shores.

Our plenipotentiary, Sir CHARLES WYKE, has
been enabled, in fact, by a few strokes of the pen,
and a few oral communications to the Mexican Go-
vernment, to compel the agreement of that Govern-
ment to a convention conceding one by one the
whole of our requirements. Stolen money repaid !
Flagrant outrages unconditionally compensated !
Forgotten or despised engagements at length ful-
filled, and fulfilled to the very letter ! Altogether
our Mexican Bondholders having no longer reason
to lament, as they have so long had reason to
lament, the neglect of treaty stipulations.
Yet is it, after all this, hardly necessary to add
that the swords of England, France, and Spain are
not immediately sheathed in consequence of this
prompt and seemingly most satisfactory compliance.
We have been so often deceived, before now, that we
cannot easily be so very credulous of the sincerity
of the good intentions avowed by the Mexican Go-
vernment. The Allies are consequently about to
take the security for those good intentions into their
own hands. The satisfaction, therefore, which is
now so eagerly offered to us is not quite so eagerly
accepted. We want guarantees—to adopt a favourite
phrase of the late Czar NICHOLAS—We want " mate-
rial guarantees," of the truth and honesty for once
of those who at length express themselves to be so
profoundly actuated by feelings of com-
punction. Oar maritime armament, toge-
ther with the united armaments of France
and Spain, will consequently, immediately
upon their reaching their Transatlantic destination,
seize upon the Ports, and, with the ports, upon the
Customs Duties likewise of Mexico. We are going,
in point of fact, simply to pay ourselves instead of
consenting (with egregious credulity) to their pay-
ing us ! For the truth is, the European Govern-
ments cannot possibly any longer put faith in even
the most solemn engagements entered into by the
Mexicans. As Lord PALMERSTON'S organ, not very
originally, but quite truthfully, remarks-=We can-
not trust them " even when they bring
peace-offerings." It is that old dreadful
Timeo Danaos that by reason of its sickening
repetition, we are long since almost fain to regret,
cannot forcibly be expunged from VIRGIL'S
master-piece. Our armed intervention, then,
in the midst of the present confused do-
ings of the Mexican Government, will, in
spite of their timorous readiness to comply
with our demands in every particular, be still per-
sisted in. This time England—and with it France
and Spain also as Allies—will make certain that
there cannot be any further mistakes whatever. If
any justification were needed for our perseverance
in this enterprise, it might be adduced in only too
ample abundance from the records of the Past be-
tween the Mexicans and ourselves. Instances of
the insincerity of those transatlantic republicans
might be cited from the chaotic and nefarious annals
of Mexico usque ad nauseurn. In effect it is only
necessary to remember what a byeword a
"Mexican Bond" has become to perceive
at once that our rulers, in the instance
now under notice, had really and truly in
this matter no alternative whatever. The Mexi-
can Republic, in other words, is altogether too old
an offender to be let off so very easily at the first
moment when it comes whimpering to our Ambas-
sador, avowing a suspicious readiness to yield every-
thing we ask—if only we will stay our hands—if
only we will consent to believe in their veracity
once more ! To do so—recollecting how often be-
fore now we have been deceived in this way—were
indeed the very height of folly, the very depth of
stupidity. Things will therefore, so far, be allowed
to take their course yonder in Mexico, that we
shall for once make certain by force of arms of the
complete success already achieved by our diplo-
macy.

Although we are most of us pretty well tired to
death of getting up Testimonials, there is one en-
terprise of this kind now a-foot, in the promotion
of which, who will not be interested ? The HER-
BERT Testimonial to wit—that Testimonial which
is to perpetuate the memory, not so much of
Lord HERBERT himself, as of the recognition of his
great services by the bulk of his own appreciative
contemporaries.
We venture to say that never has the proposal
for any Testimonial to a distinguished Public
Character awakened a more genial interest in its
regard than the one we are now reverting to. And
yet—is it not strange, too, while saying this, that
we should have to remember at the same moment
the apparently irreconcileable fact that it is
but a very few years since that the de-
ceased statesman was the target of public ob-
loquy. He it was who shared with his Grace the
Duke Or NEWCASTLE the popular indignation
roused by the memorable and deplorable disasters
of the Crimea. The old bungling, blundering,
fatuous system so long in vogue at the Horse
Guards,ut the Admiralty, and at the Ordnance•office,
had them abruptly broken down under the weight
of
a The responsibility of up-
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old,
eenffe-te,
idiotic system appeared
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first blush, with the majority of the public at
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large, to devolve in right and in reason on the then
holders of office. Though—strictly in right and
in reason—they were really and truly no more
responsible for its continuance than the crossing-
sweeper at the corner of Downing-street, or one of
the one-armed Commissionaires of St. James's. It
was the old story all over again of mistaken respon-
sibility—the same old, old story, one of the last and
most flagrant illustrations of the cruel injustice
of which, had been the onslaught made several
years previously upon the Right Hon. Sir JAMES
GRAHAM—because he, forsooth, had done again
what so many illustrious statesmen had done before
him with perfect impunity, great Liberal statesmen
like CHARLES Fox, Or men like GEORGE CANNING,
Precisely as Sir JAMES GRAHAM was pronounced
guilty beyond all other men for having peeped into
Signor MAZZINI'S correspondence—tile Duke of
SOMERSET and SIDNEY HERBERT were for a long
while deemed to be heinously guilty, in regard to the
whole dreadful system which came to grief at
last in that Slough of Despond, extending to the
length of seven appalling miles between the
Camp before Sebastopol and the land-locked
harbour of Balaklava.

Yet, all the while those very two men
who were, so to speak, the scapegoats of the
Aberdeen Ministry at that time of trial,
were, in truth, the least guilty, the least to be
condemned of the whole Administration. When
the noble lord, the late member for the City of
London, now Earl RUSSELL, was suddenly
leaving his colleagues in the lurch to enveigh
from the safe seclusion of the back benches
against the " horrible and heart-rending " news
received at that warlike period, mail after mail, from
the seat of war in the Crimea—who of all the Go-
vernment were labouring the most strenuously and
devotedly and unremittingly, were toiling:day and
night, heart and soul, for the honour of England,
and for the comfort and welfare of England's
warriors by sea and land ? Indirectly, it may be
for our sailors, but directly and most effectually for
our gallant, but hitherto, neglected soldiers. Why,
the very men who were then by the great majority
the most loudly reprobated ! The Duke of NEW-
CASTLE, that is to say, and his high-minded and
large-hearted colleague, SIDNEY HERBERT. During
the whole of that dreadful winter, while England's
heart was torn with grief by reason of the lamen-
table tidings pouring in upon us perpetually from
the seat of war—those two reviled statesmen were
labouring to the utmost stretch of their intellectual
and physical energies, were drudging as assiduously
as the humblest office clerk in all London and
Westminster, to extricate the army from its
perillous plight, and to assuage in the most
speedy and practical way possible the woful
sufferings to which the vast bulk of that army was
then being subjected, And the fruits of their
noble and glorious labours—are they not now
sufficiently apparent to us all ? Were they not
rendered visible in a resplendent manner to the
whole world by the (almost)perfection of the arrange-
ment whioh carried our military and maritime ex-
pedition through the last Chinese war to the very
gates of the Imperial capital of Pekin ? For
the rehabilitation of our whole warlike system we
are in a great measure indebted (the fact is noto-
rious and undeniable) to the illustrious statesman
whose premature demise we are now regretting,
to whose honoured memory we are now about to
raise so fitting a memorial. Who does not know it ?
Who is not perfectly familiar with the scope, the
variety, and the permanence of the great services
performed, for the glory and the safety of his
Fatherland, by SIDNEY HERBERT ? He assuredly
has won an enduring title to the gratitude hence-
forth of the British Soldier. lie unquestionably—
though he died in the prime and flower of his man-
hood—has taken his place among our English
Worthies in the national Walhalla. In doing the
deeds he has done—this fact likewise is patent to
the knowledge of all—he literally sacrificed his life.
His devotion to the task he had deliberately and
earnestly set himself to accomplish, undermined his
health, and, in the end, utterly destroyed his con-
stitution. He fell fighting the good fight—a
Martyr to Patriotism—as visibly and recognisably
as though he had yielded up his life sword in hand in
the " imminent, deadly breach." Peace to his
manes ! Honour to his stainless memory ! It is
the prayer of England, now that he has passed
suddenly from the midst of us. And hence,
simply—this generous project of a HERBERT
Testimonial.

As to the nature of that Testimonial, not
another syllable of explanation needs to be said
now, after the ample discussion of it which took
place on Thursday last, at Willis's Rooms, St. James's.
That meeting, which was in itself a magnificent
Testimonial ! The meeting presided over by H R.H.
the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, the Commander-in-Chief—
and addressed, among others, by Viscount PALMER-
STON, Mr. GLADSTONE, the Bishop of OXFORD, Sir
JOHN BURGOYNE, General PEEL, the Earl DE GREY,
and the Duke of NEWCASTLE ! After which superb
demonstration there could not (if, indeed, there
ever could) be any doubt as to the early and
worthy completion of the HERBERT Testimonial.
That Testimonial, it is now known, comprising
within it a statue of the deceased States-
man, gold medals struck in his honour for
periodical distribution as prizes at the Chatham
Army Medical School, and—to complete all—a noble
Hospital for the alleviation of the sufferings of
Future English Soldiers. Miss NIGHTINGALE has
the satisfaction at least—while mourning for the
loss of her loved and honoured Chief—of know-
ing that his great and good services are not for-
gotten by the mass of his fellow•countrymen.