The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-28 00:00:00

WARD and the American Cabinet do not wish for a
quarrel with Great Britain. That very vain stump-

orator has done his utmost in this way already.
He has pointed to Canada, and urged the Governors
of the States to fortify against us, as if he expected
to bring us into hostile collision with his country;
and now this last act seems the most defiant of
all. It should be remembered that the business
might have been managed quite otherwise if there
had been a desire not to irritate. Amongst other
courses, the American commander might have been
instructed to demand the extradition, and if it
were refused by the captain, to have retired under
protest, and to have sailed at once for Englund
and demanded it of our Government. There was
no imperative necessity to violate our flag in order
to attain their object. If one of our captains had
refused to give up what the Americans had a right
to claim, our Government would certainly have
made the surrender.

But we can hardly believe the law to be with the
Americans, even if we overlook the outrage itself.
It is acknowledged that a neutral nation has no
right to convey contraband of war to either belli-
gerent; it is also acknowledged that military and
naval officers are included under that category,
since an officer of ability is the most efficient in-
strument of war. But we do not yet remember a
case of civilians being so treated. These civilians,
moreover, were being conveyed by the Trent from
one neutral port to another. They were not
taken from American soil. They were found at
Havannah—owing, therefore, temporary allegiance
to the Queen of SPAlN—where the San
Jacinto did not dare to meddle with them.
They came on board the Trent, and were
from that moment answerable to British law
and therefore entitled to British protection. The
commander of the vessel would have known that he
was not entitled to carry the fighting men in uni-
form of either party, for the QUEEN'S proclamation
warned him against " carrying officers, soldiers,
despatches, arms, military stores, or materials for
the use or service of either of the contending parties."
But he could not know, as we are friendly with
North and South, that he was not entitled to carry
as a passenger any civilian from either country who
offered himself. We must think that he had. If
he had not, when the Nashville has refitted
she might, if able, stop any of our trans-
atlantic steamers, and take from them all
the passengers to the North who were
citizens there. Indeed should the Americans sus-
tain their point legally, we hope the Cunard
steamers will deem it a point of honour to surrender
at once all the native Americans on board whom any
Southern privateer may demand. If they can be
legally demanded the Canard steamer would be
wrong in firing a single gun in their defence.

Somehow the Americans appear to have put
themselves as much as possible in the wrong w hat-
ever be the law of the case. Their servant did his
part as rudely as he could, firing shot and shell at
first instead of blank cartridge, entering our ship
with a needless display of force, placing his own in
a position to sink her, demanding that our Captain
should come on board his vessel, and after
all requiring provisions for the two men
whom he taken from the ship in which they were
provided for. And then for whom did this rude
officer make his rude demands—for a people who
have always been so touchy on this question of the
right of search; the people to whose criminal perver-
sity it is due that Cuba is now full of slaves brought
in under the American flag—the people who insist,
therefore, that their flag shall be inviolate for the
protection of the slave pirate—this, of all others is
the people who demand that the British flag shall not
protect a Southern American passing from one
neutral port to another! We cannot forget that
while they thus seize deserters from the Federal Go-
vernment on hoard a British mail ship, they them-
selves went to war with us on the question whether
we might take deserters from our navy out of their
ships. Nor is it inapposite to recall the fact that
the commander cf the American ship who refused
to surrender the Hungarian KOSTA, who had placed
himself at Smyrna under the American flag, was
applauded and rightly enough, most rapturously,
by his own people on his return home.
We can hardly doubt, however, that Lord
PALAIERSTON may be trusted to sustain our national
honour. We none of us wish him to violate inter-
national law, but we hope he will find himself in
the position to demand the two men, and an
apology also. Should the law be against us, we trust
that he will insist on suitable reparation for
the insulting behaviour of the American officials ;
and, whatever be the issue, we fear we must regard
all prospect of good will between England and the
Northern States as at an end. It will be impossible
to regard them with any other feeling than con-
tempt, although contempt will not be a motive
strong enough to provoke to bloodshed. We
should not, however, regret to hear of the recal of
Lord LYONS.

The last month of 1861 being now close upon us,
we begin to look forward, of course, as to something
not so very remote, to the Groat International
Exhibition of 1862. Besides the reminder afforded
to us by the mere date upon the almanack, there is
that very substantial and conspicuous reminder
rising day after day higher and higher down at
South Kensington. Already the Building there is
ugly enough to startle even the most tolerant and
unobservant passer-by into attention. The gigantic
iron girders, the millions of pale-baked bricks, the
unnumbered waggon-loads of timber—all the con-
fusion, and jumble, and chaos, both of sights and
sounds, noticeable about the immediate precincts of j
Captain FowxEs's architectural masterpiece, con-
strain anyone who goes thither in hopes of seeing
how matters are getting on, to understand tho-
roughly well that there is not much time to spare
left. But one note is audible there from sunrise to
sundown—the note, of course, of preparation. The
spectacle is rapidly assuming to itself a
resemblance to that which immediately preceded
the completion of Sir JOSEPH ParroN's first
exquisite Crystal Palace—meaning not the perma-
nent one at Sydenham, but the purely temporary
one in Hyde Park. That lovely vista of glass and
iron extended along the green sward from east to
west upon the margin of Kensington Gore. Who
does not still bear it in vivid recollection ? Who
does not yet remember how, even towards the close
of April, 1851, it seemed almost matter of despair
' to think seriously of Mayday as the day fixed for
the solemn inauguration of the Exhibition by the
QUEEN herself ? And yet, how, in spite of every
sinister prognostic—all the difficulties were scat.
tered to the winds by the steady perseverance of
those entrusted with the conduct of the whole en-
terprise. How sang 11r. TI ACKERA.Y with a lyric
eloquence worthy not alone of the great Satirist-
Humorist of the Age, but of a sort of _,,
EL fficial \
Laureate into the bargain ?