The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-04 00:00:00

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, DECEMBER 4, 1861,
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
41—'.ighest:since noon yesterday.
29—lowest this morning and during the night.
39—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-30.13 ; falling rapidly.
WlND—Southerly ; light, with fine seasonable weather.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4, 1861.

Tvvo considerations may have sufficient weight
with the American Government to prevent war—

European opinion and the English Navy. We do feel
for the PRESIDENT as not being a free agent ; we
may well suppose that with the responsibilities
pressing on him, and the interests of the North-
western States, to which he belongs, he must per-
sonally shrink from an additional war, and with
so different an adversary to the one which now is
too much for him. But only the strongest case can
enable Mm to overcome both SEWARD and the mob.
As to the law of the case that will not avail him.
American lawyers will pronounce any insult to
England quite lawful, and legal promotion will be
their reward. Mr. LINCOLN must be able to point
to more powerful arguments than those of the first
Non-American lawyers if he would quiet the mob.
Ono, as we learn from Mr. RUSSELL will be, the
unanimous opinion of all the Representatives at
Washirrjton of Foreign Powers. These all, he
tells us, have called on Lord LYONS and expressed
their opinion that the "outrage," for it seems that
is the term in vogue among the diplomatic body there,
cannot be submitted to by England. The French
Princes now at Washington, and Prince JOINVILLE
himself, express the deepest regret at what has
occurred, and there does not seem to be an excep-
tion to the general opinion that England must
insist on reparation for the dishonour done to
her flag. France and Russia have received
adulation enough from the Americans; but
their representatives are as decided as any
that the insult may not be submitted to; and
that, if it were, it would compromise the flag of
every maritime nation, placing
it at the mercy of
the caprice of any American lieutenant. When,
moreover, Mr. LINCOLN receives the European
papers, he will find that these opinions of resident
foreigners are but the reflex of those of their coun-
trymen at home, The French press he must surely
position of impartiality, yet
acknowledge to be in a
their language is often stronger than that of our
own. It will show him, too, that an almost imme-
diate consequence of the war will be the recognition
of the independence of the Southern States, and
the raising of the blockade. Mr. LINCOLN may
point his mob masters to the fact, that he shall be
isolated in the community of nations, unless justice
is done to England. Perhaps even they will feel
that this would be both an unpleasant and a dan

gerous situation.
But what will weigh most of all with those who
are not utterly demented, will be the hard facts of
the relative position of the navies of the two coun-
tries; and that both in regard to ships and to men.
Never did the hope of peace more depend on pre-
Pration% for war. We owe little to the Emperor of
___re:s'Faretneh• so far as motives are concerned, for our
P rcadines3 to chastise any insult which
might be offered us—bat we have certainly to thank
him that it is now in our Power to send forth a fleet
at a few days notice so equipped and manned, as

to make American resistance hopeless. Steam has
made all the difference between the navies of the
present day and those of the last war, and in naval
steam power we have an immeasurable superiority.
Steam also has very much lessened the American
advantage in regard to privateering. There is no
denying the cleverness of the Americans in building
fast sailers; but a fast sailing privateer has no chance
with a fast war steamer, and steam privateers could
never venture far from their coal depots, and hence
could be but little employed. The American pri-
vateers would have no depots except on their
own blockaded coasts, and other Powers could
not furnish them with coal without giv-
ing up their character of neutrals. We,
on the other hand, have depots already all over the
world; coal is, in fact, become one of the most im-
portant munitions of naval warfare. This circum-
stance alone will quite change the American posi-
tion in regard to privateering, and though our
losses would no doubt be serious, they would be as
nothing compared with those of the last war.
Their coasting trade would, on the other hand, be
at our mercy, and the South would take good care
that they derived no advantage from the Missis-
sippi.

What the spirit of our sailors is, they will see from
the prompt and spontaneous letters of the men
composing our Naval Reserve, These men
know nothing of the niceties of law,
but they quite understand what it is
for a British mail steamer to lie at the mercy of
every bullying commander of an American man-of-
war, and, though not liable by the terms of their
enlistment to serve, except our shores be attacked
or the emergency extreme, they proffer themselves
at once for Transatlantic service on behalf of their
flag and their QUEEN. This is the more remark-
able since, through some oversight in the arrange-
ments, they would be pecuniary losers if on actual
service. These men are all of them picked men,
such men as are only needed to form part of a ship's
crew, and are all, of course, skilled in
gunnery ; and there are already 8,000 of thom,
certain to amount in the spring to 12,000
or 13,000, and, if war be threatened, to
very many more. No casus belli could possibly
have appealed to our sailors like that which the
Americans have now given us. It will be a sailors
war completely ; and assuredly if it should be begun
the naval enthusiasm will be unanimous and irre-
sistible. Every English sailor will expect every
English sailor to do his duty. Ours will also be a
battle for defence, the American, one for the right
of attack.

If the Americans inspect their own naval list,
and compare it with ours, they will find little com-
fort in the prospect of a war. All their large ships
nearly, are old and worthless. They are all wooden
ships also, and it wouid for long be utterly
impossible for them to overtake us in
iron-plated vessels. The Warrior alone would
be more than a match for a little fleet of their
best ships. Invulnerable to their shot and shell she
could smash and burn them with ease and at leisure.
The Americans have, indeed, a long list of large
ships on paper, but they are known to be of a
kind, or in a state little adapted to meet any
of our own well equipped and well found
ships. It seems that they have about half
a dozen very efficient frigates which no sailor could
despise, with a ship of only equal force, their arma-
ment being very powerful—such as the Niagara
and the Wabash ; but their number is small, and
could not be increased as the army can on the banks
of the Potomac. As our readers have already seen,
we could in a few daye mod to sea a reserve fleet
whose guns would outnumber theirs four to one.
Indeed, the whole American navy is, at the present
time, hardly able to maintain the blockade of the
comparatively few Southern ports. In fact, it does
not maintain it effectively; it would certainly be
little able to undertake offensive work, and have
more than enough to do to protect its own
shores. If Mr. LINCOLN will take the pains to
understand his own naval position and ours, and
will remember that this time we should not be
fighting all the world, he may find it will answer
better to Keep the Peace with England than to
fight for the custody of the men he has kidnapped
from beneath her flag.

Durham is not ungrateful to the late gallant and
chivalrous Marquess of LONDONDERRY. It has
ample reason to regard his memory with gratitude
—and that gratitude it has now signally attested.
The demonstration made on Monday last in the
old county town, upon the occasion of the uncover-
ing of the memorial statue of Lord LONDONDERRY,
showed in a very notable manner the affection and
admiration with which the noble Marquess's name is
still cherished in that part of the country, among
those who for so many years enjoyed the privilege of
being his neighbours. Nothing in the shape of
posthumous praise, we do honestly believe,
Was ever more thoroughly genuine than the
tribute thus offered in Lord LONDONDERRY'S
remembrance. Certainly we cannot readily re-
call to mind any more graceful or, in some re-
spects, more splendid panegyric than the one pro-
nounced by Mr. DISRAELI upon the fair fame of the
deceased Patrician, Soldier, and Diplomatist, at the
banquet which took place in the Town-hall of Dur-
ham on Monday evening. The right hon. gentle-
man spoke no doubt, as he himself intimated during
the course of his very eloquent remarks, with the
very natural fervour and partiality of one who had
for more than a quarter of a century enjoyed the in-
timate personal friendship of Lord LONDONDERRY;
But, while he spoke thus with a generous bias in
every syllable he uttered, he spoke also in the
vivid recollection, not only of every one
who listened to him on Monday, but of every
one who may read afterwards what is reported
of his speech in the public newspapers. We refer
any one, in fact, who glances at what we are here
writing, to that other portion of our impression of
this evening in which Mr. DISRAELI'S speech is
given as accurately as possibly verbatim. And
having done so, we appe tl to the honest memory of
each, whether everything that is there said by the
member for Bucks, the Leader of her MAJESTY'S
Opposition, in regard to Lord LONDONDERRY, is
not strictly and absolutely borne out by the records
of European History.
Lord LoNDoNDERP.Y's career was, from first
to last, familiar to his fellow - countrymen.
In writing his
his famous brother, the
history, and the history of
previous
had to qu marquess,
Annalist of Europe, indeed, has
relateess ,v
et he
r y
m
' recently a something more than Twice-Told Tale.
In truth, Sir ARCHIBALD ALT3OII himself has had
in his time to recount much of that heroic story inci-
de -.ltally in the course of his voluminous masterpiece.
Who among those in any way acquainted with the
narrative of the Great Napoleonian Wars, has not
long since made himself intimately acquainted with
the resplendent feats of arms, and the almost in-
estimable diplomatic achievements for ever asso-
f
ciated, with the name of the third Marquess of
LONDONDERRY—first of all as Sir CHARLES
STEWART, and afterwards as Lord STEWART ? It
may be deemed extravagant by those not yet thus
intimately acquainted with the annals of the Great
Wars of the Empire, to hear Mr. DISR.tELI speak-
. ...
, ing in the terms of unsta ed eulogium in which

he did certainly speak on Monday last down at
Durham, in reference to Lord LONDONDERRY'S
doings, both as a Diplomatist and as a Soldier. But
who shall say that those encomiums were other
than strictly and literally within:the mark, who
knows what those achievements really were ? Why,
it is almost impossible to exaggerate the import-
ance of the effect produced by Lord STEWART'S
diplomatic negotiations with the King of SWEDEN
—those ever-memorable negotiations which kept
BERNADOTTE true to the cause of the Allies !
While as to the personal heroism of Sir CHARLES
STEWART, it may be quite confidently assorted that
the two renowned Paladins with whom Lord LON-
DONDERRY was on Thursday brought into direct
comparison by the right hon• member for Bucking-
hamshire, that neither MURAT himself nor the
dashing Marquess of ANGLESEA ever performed a
more brilliant feat of arms than that which was
achieved by the Marquess of LONDONDERRY, when,
as Sir CHARLES STEWART, in the midst of a grand
cavalry charge in the Peninsula he with his own
hand took prisoner the French Colonel DELAMOTTE.
But simple justice they has been done to the
memory of this dauntless and noble heart—by
everything that occurred, by every syllable of
panegyric that was uttered, upon the 2d instant in
the city of Durham, upon the occasion of this grate-
ful Demonstration in honour of the late Marquess
of LONDONDERRY.

A retrospective glance at the changes which have
taken place within the present twelvemonth in the
two houses of the Legislature, has recently brought
out vividly to view the unusual number, and in
some respects the really extraordinary diversity of
those changes. To epitomise the whole, at the out-
set, we may say, then, that within the eleven
months of 1861 that have already elapsed, no less
than FIFTEEN Peers have disappeared from the
scene of the House of Lords ! While as many as
TWENTY Two Members of the Lower House have
either died within the year or have resigned their
seats in that popular branch of the Legislature.
FOUR new Peerages have been bestowed : namely a
barony upon Admiral Sir MAURICE BERKELEY,
now Lord FITZHARDINGE—another barony pre-
viously upon Sir RICHARD BETHELL, now Lord
Chancellor WESTBURY—another upon the Right
Hon. SIDNEY HERBERT, since deceased, as Lord
HERBERT of LEA—and an earl's coronet upon Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, henceforth to be known more
tersely as Lord RUSSELL. Conspicuous among the
Peers who have departed this life during 1861,
were, it will be remembered, three well-known
Dukes—one of them lamentably distinguished
in the later years of his life by the magni-
tude of his misfortunes, to wit, his Grac3 the Duke
of BUCKINGHAM—the other two notable in a very
different way as the wealthiest landowners in all
England, namely their Graces the Dukes of BED-
FORD and SUTHERLAND. Lord HERBERT'S pre-
mature demise has already been adverted to. But
another demise, almost equally premature, was that
of the high-spirited and generous-hearted Earl of
EGLlNTON—famous in his time as the giver of the
fantastic revels still remembered under the title of
the Eglinton Tournament. Early in the year, on
the 21st of February, expired one, whose title will
henceforth be associated with the discovery and
editing of SAMUEL PEPYS'S renowned Diary—i. e.
Lord BRAYBROOKE. Perhaps of all the deaths
among the particular class within the year the
most affecting to the public at large, certainly the
most startling from its suddenness, was that (on
the 23d of June) of the Lord Chancellor CAMPBELL.
As to the changes that have taken place in the
of Commons during IRAl—two of them have
resulted, it is true, from what were vacancies
at the commencement of the year : meaning the
vacancies in the representation of Pembrokeshire
and Aberdeenshire—the former being filled up by
the election of Mr. G. PHILLIPS, and the latter by
the election of Mr. W. LESLIE. Several of the
vacancies have been caused by death, but the ma-
jority by resignation, some of these latter upon pro-
motions, others by the pro forma acceptance of the
Chiltern Hundreds. There was the death of the
Hon. THOMAS MOSTYN, for example, that led to the
election of Lord RICHARD GROSVENOR for Flint-
shire. There was the death again of Dr. NOBLE,
that led to the return of Mr. W. HEYGATE for
Leicester. There was the demise of Mr. DAVID
PUGH, introducing a relative of his own in his
stead into the House of Commons as member
for Montgomeryshire. How constituencies pass
quietly from one member of a family to an-
other was illustrated yet more directly down
at Pembroke district by the substitution of Sir
HUGH OWEN for Sir JOHN OWEN upon the death
of the last baronet. Mr. FOLEY'S recent demise

has yet to result in the return of a new M.P. for
East Worcestershire. The two most familiar
figures to the habitues of the House of Commons
that have disappeared since the close of the last
session of Parliament—the two who will be most
missed from their accustomed places in the House
when the Legislature shall meet for the next ses-
sion, early in February—are beyond all doubt the
late hon. member for Finsbury, and the right hon.

baronet the late member for Carlisle. Sir JAMES

GRAHAM has already been succeeded by Mr. E•
POTTER. But as to who will be the successor of
Mr. THOMAS BUNCOMBE in the representation of
the metropolitan borough of Finsbury, the
constituency itself has yet to know its
own mind. That excellent old Tory
joke-master to the House of Commons, Colonel
SunHoRP, has been soon enough followed it will
be remembered, by his son, Major SIBTHORP ; so
that the Lincoln constituency has had to look
elsewhere than to the SIBTHORP family for their
newly chosen representative. During the past
twelvemonth, beyond the instances already given,
there are three changes that have already taken
place in the House of Commons—each of these three
changes of a somewhat peculiar character. There
was the generous self-abnegation evidenced by Mr.
Rica for many years past, the well known M.P. for
Richmond in Yorkshire—Mr. RICH promptly mak_
ing way for Sir ROUNDELL PALMER immediately
upon that hon. and learned gentleman's nomination
by the Premier to the Solicitor-Generalship. There
was, moreover, that unlucky resignation of his old
constituency down at Andover, byAlderman CUBITT,
now twice Lord Mayor of London—the Lord Mayor
aspiring (in vain) to represent the City of London
upon Lord JOHN'S promotion to his Earldom—
thus making way very comfortably for Mr. HENRY
COLES, who thereupon quietly slipped into the
House as M.P. for Andover. Besides which there
was the return (pursuant to the Act passed last

session) of Mr. CHARLES TURNER, as the third

member for South Lancashire. Under the same
act—the Appropriation of Seats Act—there is the
return also to be voted of the first member for the
new seat of Birkenhead. Altogether, we may
repeat, there have been no less than about a quarter
of a hundred distinct changes that have swept
(within the present year of grace), th rough the
British House of Commons.

Viscount Palmerston arrived in town yesterday
from a visit to the Queen, at Windsor Castle.
The Earl Russell left his residence, Pembroke
Lodge, Richmond Park, yesterday, for Windsor Castle.
The Earl and Countess of Derby leave Know
sley to•morrow, on a visit to her Majesty, at Windsor
Castle,