The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-26 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

THIS DAY.—Morning, 4h. 38m.—Afternoon, 4h. 56m
To-moßnow.-Morning, sh. 14m.—Afternoon, sh. 29m

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, JULY 26,' 1561.
THEEMoICETER, IN THE SHADE.
o—highest since noon yesterday.
59—lowest this morning and during the night.
70—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.59; still falling.
WIND—South-Westerly ; rather fresh, with dull cloudy
weather, and occasional glimpses of sunshine.

- e
1-44-'
• -:.t•-.374c,,,4:;2.. m_(,)

THE SUN.

LOAIDO/i, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 1861.

We hope the lire-eating Americans are now
heartily ashamed of themselves for their impertinent
lecturing of Great Britain.
Oar greatest crime
was that we determined to treat the Southern Se-
cession as belligerents ; that was the technical word
we selected from the vague code of international law
in accordance with precedent, and in ob •
edi ence to the
most reasonable instincts of humanity. or doing
so no motive was too mean to be ascribed to us.
Cotton to save Lancashire from starvation or in-
,
surrection was the most charitable one imputed
that we did
to us. Another crime was,
not at once declare against the South and
for the North; it was even hinted, to the extent that
our affection for the latter should have called forth
substantial aid in some way. The Northerns, how-
ever, soon perceived that to ask this of us, was to
ask us to become judges in a national affair, and
we were soon released from any other demand than
that of perfect neutrality. Only, of course, our
_press was to write up the North as engaged in a pure,
patriotic, and noble cause, and to write down the
South as the guiltiest and most unreasonable of Re-
bels. The latter view was never quite clear to us ;
that is, taking the standpoint of both North and
South in regard to slavery. For while the South
had not one illegal or hostile act to complain of, it
bad the Republican avowal that the institution
which both had patronised, was henceforth to be
limited. No extension of slavery, was the
motto on the Northern Flag, and both•
aides held that this would ultimately depreciate
enormously the value of slave property ; perhaps
lead in the issue to its extinction. The South,
therefore, would not await an active attack ; it
took the usual precaution of being beforehand with
an avowed foe. However, we are not asked now
material aid. It ia seen that we have nothing to do
With the quarrel.

liro, should think the Northerns must now also
blush to have reproached
uswith acknowledging the
South as belligerents, with treating them as a body
of meg too large, and acting with too much order
and general conformity to law, to be treated as
a mo b or as pirates ; to be shot down as ais_
turheirs of the
peace, or to be hung
at the
yard-t,rm as " enemies of the human race"

Happily, now, our instincts prove them better
than their first passions. Lord DERBY said

in the House of Peers, that if FRANCIS 11. could

have caught General GARIBALDI, he might have
hung him on the spot. He has not said, he proba-
bly does not think that Mr. LINCOLN, or any of his
Generals, might serve JEFFERSON DAVIS, or Gen.
BEAUREGARD in this style. Certain it is the Fede-
ralists have captured numerous prisoners, some of

whom have been released on their engaging not to

fight again against the Federal Government. Others
are still, we believe, in some kind of confinement.
And even the privateers' crews have as yet been
dealt with according to the laws of war. To the
credit of the American people, they have not been
such savages as in their first hot and proud anger
they expected us to assume them to be. They
themselves have in all things treated the

Southerns as "belligerents." They have shown, so
far, that they were far more generous-minded when
they came to deal with facts, than they had sup-
posed themselves to be. We should hope, there-
fore,
we shall soon find them praising England to
the skies for having anticipated from them, conduct
so much better than their own language implied.
We do not know, also, that on second thoughts
they may not begin to feel a little natural pride
even in their Southern priavateers. Sad and bad
as the whole business of the war may be, it
is not in human nature —we are sure it
it is not in Anglo-Saxon nature, here or
in America, to refuse the praise due to courage
and skill. English sailors gave to the bold pri-
vateer, PAUL JONES, his share of the feeling they
cherished
wards a DRAKE or a NELSON. And,
to
when we read of the bravery and adroitness
of the commander of the Jefferson Davis,
we are quite sure that any Northern crew who
captured the vessel would rather subscribe to a
sword for her captain, than grasp the rope which
should hoist him to the yard-arm. This brave little
craft has not only contrived to get out of a
Southern port, she has sailed up, we are
told, a hundred miles north of Nantucket
shoals, that is, she has bearded the two largest
ports in the Union, New York and Boston ! Half
a dozen revenue cutters are in search of her, and
they had need be ; but who can say where the
Jeff. Davis is now cruising. She may be much farther
off on the broad Atlantic—watching the grand
highway of American vessels to Europe—than
those New York and Boston cutters may care to
follow her ; and by the time the latter are attend-
ing to revenue matters again, she may take
another peep at what is going on in the
American seas, " north of Nantucket Shoals."
We noticed yesterday that the Federal Generals
were fighting with the press, and pulling down
journals that defended secession. Congress, we
observe, is also pursuing the silencing policy. The
Senate has hitherto been the stronghold of the
slaveholder. The population of the Free,States gives
them, when they vote together, a considerable majo-
rity over the South in the House of Representatives,
notwithstanding that three-fifths of the slaves are
counted electorally as population. But in the
Senate each State, however small, is represented by
two Senators. Hence, as the two classes of States
are so nearly in point of numbers on an equality,
and as the South, through the Democratic party,
and by aid of the wealthy classes in the North,
could always secure many pro-slavery senators ;
the American Senate has proved the strength of the
" Domestic Institution." In this point of view the
Senate, numerous able men as there are in it,
has been the curse of the Union and of
humanity itself. However, as our House
of Commons once had a " PRIDE'S purge," so the
Senate is to have a " CLARK'S purge." A senator
of that name has carried a resolution to
expel from the Senate seven senators mentioned
by name and others from the seceded States, because
they were engaged in the rebellion, and did not advise
the Government of its progress. The resolution was
carried by thirty-two to ten ; the ten appearing
to be chiefly representatives of the Border
States. Thus the North will have everything
its own way. in the Lower House one member
said it was high time to abolish it, since the
House bad become a mere machine to re-
gister the President's edicts. But it is even
more than this, for it gave him a hundred thousand
more men, and twenty millions sterling more money
than he asked. indeed, unless the North practi-
cally makes a dictator of its President, it cannot
ask him to carry on a war successfully. The truth
is, that the settled and serious feeling of the North
now is, that it will crush rebellion.

The report has at length been published by the
Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the
various schemes proposed for the construction of
the Thames Embankment. The document complete
—minus the Appendices—will be found elsewhere
in our impression of this evening. It is as brief
and as lucid as well could be. And for these rea-
sons it will be none the less acceptable. Altogether,
the Commissioners state, that somewhere about
fifty distinct designs were submitted by various
projectors, architects, and engineers to their consi-
deration. Several of these plans embraced within
them the construction not only of a roadway and
footpaths, but some of them of docks also for the
preservation of the existing wharves, and
others also, besides all these advantages, a line
of railway even—all this along the north bank of
the Thames. A select few, however—avoiding the
complications incidental to the schemes involving
the construction of the docks and railway—re-
stricted, less
their designs exclusively to the formation
f solid. embankment with a roadway, and !no-
thing „Aso ,
nut a roadway; that is without either
docks or
_wasrimdspslpeecited expensive, railways, For reasons immediately after-
, this particular kind of proposition
in every respect more fea-
sible than the others—secured,
upon calm and cau-
tious consideration, the deliberate preference of the
Royal Commissioners. And
conspicuous among
the favour
these chosen plans, one plan especially—the plan
proposed by Mr. SHElLDs—obtaiuea
and approval of the Commission. it afforded,
at
least in the estimation of the Commissioners, the
best basis for a scheme at once the most efficient
and the most economical. While commend-
ing Mr. SHEILDS'S
the Commissioners
plan especially and peel.liarly above all the others,
add, "We desire, however, to expi•ess
sokuiiilhaignhd
appreciation of the great engineering
ability that has been displayed in many of those
designs which contemplated the construction of
docks and railways." They prefer the avoidance at
once of the expense and the confusion inevitable
from the construction of either docks or railways,
for reasons the validity of which any rational obser-
ver may upon the instant, upon the first blush,
readily enough appreciate. Premising that " the
wharf property between Westminster-bridge and
the Temple-gardens is for the most part devoted to
the coal trade :" the Commissioners observe,
"We find that great facilities are now afforded
for the distribution of coal by the new system of
unshipping in the docks into railway waggons,
and by various depots on the railways in and
near the metropolis." Adding to this "We are of
opinion that public convenience no longer necessi-
. to.tes the continuance either of coal or any other

421,
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