The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-21 00:00:00

test renowned among all our great contests in
Hindostan as a Soldiers' Battle ! As much a
soldiers' battle as the Battle of Inkerman
Why, at Chillianwallah there was what is
called no generalship—meaning
,literally very'
bad generalship. It -Was a sanguinary Struggle,
won in the end by sheer btute force—at the edge
of the sword—at the point of the - bayonet ! A
horrible hand-to-hand encounter, in which be it
said, so far to his glory, our dauntless Com-
mander-in-Chief, the Lord GOUGH, then Sir HUGH
GOUGH, bodily participated ! But in the midst
of that battle—terrible and bloody though it was
—General ASHBURNHAM maintained the command
of his brigade with serene composure. And
for this discretion be is now entrusted with the
responsibility of conducting our troops against the
Chinese ! He quits England invested with this
magnificent appointment. The very first place
he lands at, on his way to the seat of war—he is
incapacitated. Of course, in this he is obviously
the victim of unforeseen circumstances. A war-
like genius of the very first kind can protect
obviously no one out of all the infirm
race of man from the accident of being
seized with fever immediately on reaching Malta.
We are not arguing, of course, in favour of an
absurdity. All we are maintaining is—that
Amiability and Discretion are really ani truly,
after all, not by any means the qualities we ought
to look for first of all as among the principal
merits and conspicuous characteristics of a Com-
mander-in-Chief.

The Russian Railway scheme has been duly in-
troduced to the English market. Messrs. BAR-
ING; Brothers, and Co., are its Stock Exchange
sponsors'. Like the redoubted MONTAGUE Tiaa,
they have reduced their demands to the ridicu-
lously small sum of only Two Millions Sterling
"Two Millions !" Why, the BARINGS can do it
themselves without letting any of the of roXXot
into so good a thing ; and it would seem as if, so
far as the management were concerned, that was
the case, for no other English name beside that of
the Messrs. BARING is to be found in the direc-
tion. It must, however, be borne in mind that
Two Millions is but an instalment. It forms part
of the original twelve millions intended to be
raised in the first instance, and is to be followed
by other demands,. until the full amount of
43,000,000/., or such ether sum as may be required
during the progress of the works, shall be duly paid
up and satisfied. Messrs. BARING have a right
to do as they will with their own. We should,
however, have been better pleased had they ap-
plied their well-established credit and vast re-
sources to some more patriotic project, which
would at the same time have proved beneficial to
the interests of their own country, and more
likely to render a remunerative return for the
capital that may be invested therein.
At present our duty is merely to persuade the
community at large, and more especially the spe-
culators of the Stock Exchange, to inves-
tigate closely the position and prospects
of the concern before they permit them-
selves to undertake any responsibilities in
relation thereto. We believe that under any
circumstances it never will become a favourite in-
vestment with the public generally. The reasons
we have repeatedly and fully put forward will pre-
vent a result that must be regarded as a national
calamity of no ordinary magnitude. The money
subscribed will all be taken out of the country
in. hard cash. It is one of the means by which
other nations may be enabled to pay a handsome
premium, far exceeding 6f. per mille, for English
gold, and realise considerable profits by the irre.
gular operation. An adequate remedy must, as
we explained in our impression of yesterday, be
applied to the flagrant grievance, and that of a
nature that might press very severely on parties
who had contracted to supply large sums
to be sent abroad. But were it even
otherwise, should Parliament still continue
insensible to the legitimate demands of
our own industrial population, no return to
cheap money can be anticipated for several years.
The Russian scheme must, then, necessarily par-
ticipate in the depression of securities, better cal-
culated to find favour in the sight of true-hearted
Englishmen, and even of capitalists who look
solely in the £. a. d. point of view. When a
minimum rate of 6i or 7 per cent. can be ob-
tained in England, it is not likely that men will
seek anxiously after investments in Russia at 4/
per cent., subject to all the contingencies of forfeit-
ure for the non-completion of the contract, or reduc-
tion from more being required than the Russian
Government have guaranteed. If the increase

were but 30 per cent., and those who have had

any experience in the difference between estimates

men have been asking for shares to be paid
for, not with their own money-, but with that
of wealthy capitalists, who are pleased, for reasons
best known to themselves, to keep in the back-
ground. It is impossible to adduce a stronger
proof of the estimation in which the concern is
held by these " sleeping partners." It may
have suited Mr. REDPATH to keep his stock in
other names, and it was stated in evidence on
his trial that other persons adopted a similar
course. But, when it appears it seems to indicate
in our judgment, at least, that the parties are
desirous of having the opportunity of disposing
of their stock before the bursting of the bubble.
It may glitter for the moment, but it will as-
suredly fall to the ground sooner or later, and
leave the unfortunate speculators ample grounds
to deplore the undue credulity which induced them
to part with their money in such a scheme, where
they can have nothing to console them for the serious
loss. Messrs. BARING are very influential gen-
tlemen, but we hope that their influence will, in
the present instance, be insufficient to lead JOHN
BULL into the trap so skilfully laid for his

reception.

The enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law con-
verted the Free States into hunting grounds for
slaveholders ; but the late decision in the case
of DRED SCOTT has converted them into slave
States. There is nothing now to hinder the
Slaveholder from setting up a slave factory, or
commencing a slave auction-room in the centre
of New York, or of Philadelphia ! No legal
hindrance, we mean, for probably though is
person bristled with bowie knives and revolvers
he would find the cities of the north too hot for
him ; and betake himself, after a very short trial,
to his beloved " Yintuck" or " Old Virginny."
The decision is one which almost takes away
our breath in a land of thorough personal
freedom. This " DRED" is, indeed, a tale of a
Dismal Court, or we might as well retain the
epithet Dismal Swamp perhaps, with only the
difference of its meaning a moral or judicial
swamp, instead of a natural one. Never certainly,
in Christendom, has justice been so completely
swamped as in the Supreme Court of the United
States. There in the broad daylight of the nine-
teenth century, and in the face of the whole world,
five Judges, if they deserve that name, have de-
cided that a man of African descent, although his
American ancestors may date almost from the
commencement of colonisation in the States, can
never become a citizen of the Union, and can
never sue in its Courts ! Not content with this,
they have declared in their judgment that an ori-
ginal compact between Virginia and the other
States, one entered into before the Union was
completed, as well as the lately repealed Missouri
compromise, were both of them null and void ab
initio I That, in fact, every restriction on the exten-
sion of slave territory is unconstitutional, and
therefore illegal; and that Congress has no rightful
power to hinder the infernal pest of slavery
from blighting all the territory which the consti-
tution places under its control I
The smooth-tongued President well knew what
he was saying when in his inaugural speech he
told his hearers that he expected in a few days
the decision of the Supreme Court, before which
he should meekly bow himself ; and hoped all
good subjects would do the same. Of course he
was quite aware what that decision would be, and
had he spoken out he would have told his au-
dience that in a few days the ',names of FitEz
STATES AND SLAVE STATES must be dropped.
That the law would render all the-States, Slave
States; that the Union was to become, in law, one
vast SnAvsltnpunnic, and that henceforth the stars
must disappear from their banner, and the sig-
nificant stripes alone remain. Our readers may
have noticed, also, his declarations about fair
dealing with Kansas, and his determination to
secure the free expression of their sentiments for
the residents in that territory. This he has done
by appointing as Governor there a man thoroughly
after his own heart, a Mr. J. R. WALKER, whose
antecedents are but too well known. He belongs
to the class who, like Mr. BUCHANAN, know how
to combine inflexibility on all questions respect-
ing slavery with a certain respectability of charac-
ter and propriety of manner.
We had learned during the discussions on the
SUMNEI outrage, that the Supreme Court of the
United States had become a packed pro slavery
court. Same persons had thought--influenced
doubtless by the fact that the warmest politicians
in England prove upright judges when elevated
from the bar to the bench—that a packed bench,
in the present stage of civilisation, was almost an
impossibility. They are undeceived now. Five
judges against two have concurred in the decision
which has disgraced themselves and their country,
and which has consigned, so far as in them lies,
the unhappy negro to slavery through all genera-
tions Five judges, professing to be Christian
judges, have pronounced that their dark-coloured
, brethren, the creation of their common MAKER,
and for whom their common SAVIOUR died, must
remain mere goods and chattels, both they and
their descendants, to the end of time I
Can this moral enormity, thia blasphemy against
Christianity, this perversion of the highest powers
of the law to political domination, this insult on
the common sense of civilisation—can it be
allowed to stand ? True there appear to
be no recognised means of setting aside the
judgment. The Supreme Court is the revisor
not only of all decisions involving constitu-
tional questions, but of all laws affecting
them. Congress is powerless in its hands.
Its judges are appointed for life, and they
can declare any Act of Congress null and
void. And assuredly these men of Belial, who
could declare that a dark-skinned human being
in the United States could never have civil rights,
but must be a chattel for ever, ate not the meu
who would shrink from anything necessary to sus-
tain their revolting and brutal judgment. The
more intelligent journals in America totally deny
the conformity of the judgment to law, but tl-sey
are perplexed as to the means of getting rid of it.
There seems no power but that of Revolution
which could redress this wrong. Public meetings,
and even the decisions of the Legislatures of indi-
vidual States, are of no logal force. The judg-
ment of the Supreme Court overrides all. Were
HEAVEN itself to sua4,fe two of the un-
just judges with drsath this year, unless
it smite the hea rt of Mr. BUCHANAN
also with dread of the Free State?, or with dread
of the murdered righi.s of man, two more prc.
slavery judges would. fill the seats of those who
bad gone to their .own place. In the ordinary
course of things, -twenty or thirty years at least
might elapse before just judges could possibly occupy
the places of those who now disgrace the judg-
ment-seat. But in this tame slavery might be
carried by the bowie knife, and revolver into all
the territories of the far ‘-iirest

We confess, then, aat the prospect is most dis-
couraging from the It a 1 and constitutional point
of view. The only hope for America seems
to be that of all despot-ridden countries, Revolu-
tion. It is in t' position of Hungary, Lombardy,
or Naples. 2,1A2 oligarchy of slaveholders contiot
everything.. They occupy the Senate, the Presi-