The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-30 00:00:00

Much may and will be done, of course, short of
actual war. Lord LYONS will be recalled if need-
ful, and Mr. ADAMS sent home. We cannot main-
tain honourable diplomatic amity with men who
insult us. Merely recalling our ambassador
will be no small encouragement to the South; the
Southerns and the Commissioners themselves will
probably think that in becoming the occasion of a
rupture with Great Britain the victims have accom-
plished far more than they could have done had they
been landed quietly on the shores of France and
England.

We cannot agree with those who argue that the
seizure was only informally wrong, and substan-
tially justifiable. International law furnishes, so
far as we have yet seen, no actual precedents on the

question. We must fall back, therefore, on the
reason of thej case. Now, as the liability of neutral
ships to search is itself an evil, it has always been
held that nothing could be seized on board of them
except first, by its directly serving the purposes of
war ; secondly, by there being fair evidence that
the contraband of war was in course of conveyance
to the enemy ; and, thirdly, the proceeding must
be completed by a decision of a Prize Court. In
the last point the illegality will hardly be denied
even in America itself: But we must maintain
that the other points are also in our favour. So
little did the Spanish or English authorities at
Havannah, or the Commissioners ~.'l,emselves, or
the English officers on board the Trent, regard the
gentlemen as obnoxious to seizure, that there was
no kind of concealment on the part of any one. The
Commissioners well knew that they were liable to
seizure while they were on board the Southern
vessel in which they had run the blockade; but
once in Cuba, it was their intention to keep on
neutral soil. The Trent in the Spanish port was,
as it were, a temporary approach of British terri-

tory to Spanish territory; Messrs. SLIDELL and
MASON stepped from the confines of one neutral
Power to within the confines of another. Captain
Mom was engaged in no traffic contravening his
Sovereign's laws and proclamations ; those laws
were paramount in his ship, and all who came on
board her were immediately as subject to those laws
as Captain Mont himself. All was donein perfect
good faith, and in reliance on the universally
understood law, that a belligerent availing himself,
unarmed, of neutral territory, must be protected
there by every Government which respected itself.
Had the Commissioners expected danger of illegal
violence, or Capt. Mom been disposed to countenance
them in what he knew to be illegal, the means were
obvious of deceiving the San Jacinto. The whole
proceeding showed that all parties regarded the
neutral ship on a legal voyage, as being as sacred
from assault as the soil of England itself.
One grave question has doubtless occurred to most
of us. No doubt the Washington men regard even
the fraudulent and roguish capturing of the two
Commissioners, as a " lucky haul." But is that all.
There seems no doubt that it was intended to take
the same men from the La Plata if they were
caught in her, A deliberate plan was formed at
Washington to seize the Commissioners, in what-
ever British ship they were. Was this without
calculation of the provocation it would give to us ?
Was that provocation not a recommendation of the
plan ? Was it not intended to chastise us for treat-
ing the Secessionists as belligerents ? And, further,
did the madmen who dominate the councils at
Washington dislike the idea of compelling us
either to a rupture, or to putting up with unbear-
able disgrace ? We have not the slightest confi-
dence in the American Chief Secretary. He has
disappointed all European hopes of him; He has
shown himself opposed to negro rights, instead of
favourable to them ; and no vulgar "stump orator"
has talked more wickedly respecting Canada. Now
it is plain that by land the game of the North is very
hopeless. An immense army encamps at Wash-
ington, and does not move on. If it can do nothing
there, can it not turn round and try on the St.
Lawrence whether it cannot retrieve the disgraces
of the Potomac ? If it cannot conquer the South,
can it not conquer the farther North ? The winter
is at hand, the St. Lawrence will be closed, British
troops cannot be thrown into it—is not now the
time for a quarrel with England, and an invasion of
a province defended by only a few regular sol-
diers and the native militia ?

We believe Mr. SEWARD fully capable of such
international disloyalty as this ; if only he can
deliberately think it will answer his purpose.
Indeed, we are not sure that his mortified vanity is
not enough to induce him to hazard a war with
England, that the Southern affair may be forgotten
in it. Of such a war England would not assuredly be
afraid, willing as she has always been to make great
sacrifices rather than be guilty of needless blood-
shed. Notw!thstanding its vast army, the Wash-
ington Government would find itself in an uncom-
fortable vice. The South, from the very cause
of the quarrel, must become our enthusiastic ally.
The ports would be opened at once by our navy.
That navy has visited the Potomac before, and
would do so again. It would be welcomed up the
Mississippi ; Southern soldiers would come forward
with fresh ardour and certainty of success, backed
by the mightiest navy in the world, and the result
would, in all human probability, be a rectification
of British borders on one side, and the Confederate
borders on the other ; while the trade of England
diverted to the South would rapidly change its
character, and perhaps abolish slavery itself by the
genial influence of enlarged intercourse with the
home of Freedom.

We may be certain, however, that our Prime
Minister and Foreign Secretary, as they are not

likely to plunge recklessly into war, so they will
not yield to fear. If the Federal Government will
not humble itself to make atonement, it will be
visited with the appropriate chastisement. There is
much which may be done short of our taking the
initiative in appealing to the last remedy, and all
that ought to be done will be.

The reasons have now been given Why the Royal
Commissioners are averse to the Embankment of
the southern or Surrey side of the River Thames.
And we undertake to assert confidently that never
were no reasons in every way more illogical, unsa-
tisfactory, and inconclusive.
Before referring to any one of these reasons, how-
ever, it is gratifying to bear in mind in the first in-
stance how very formidable is the opposition now
arrayed against this preposterous decision arrived
at last year by
the Royal Commission.
Remember, then, that the decision of the Com-
missioners is opposed, to begin with, by the whole
force of Public Opinion.

It is contrary to the view indicated last session
by the Parliamentary Committee
which sat
this very question of a Thames Embankment.
upon
It is against the wishes expressed by the impor_
tan t Deputation that only a few days since waited
upon Lord PAL3IERSTON for the purpose of urging
upon the noble Viscount's attention in his capacity
as Prime Minister the urgent necessity there is for
a Southern Embankment.
Finally, it is opposed—this preposterous decision
of the Commissioners—by the sound common-sense
view taken of the matter by the veteran Chief of
her MAJESTY'S Government.
Only let the House of Commons and the Chan-