Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1858-07-31


dred and fifty l,ues. The steamboat Pennsylvania,
bound from New Orleans to st. Louis, exploded
her boilers on Sunday, about seventy miles below
Memphis, and was burned to the waters edge.
There were three hundred and fifty passengers on
board, OF whom, at last accounts, it was Judged
that two hundred and fifty were lost
The bill providing for a mail across the conti-
nent from st. Joseph, Missouri, to Placerville,
California, was not signed by the President.
Extra Session of the Senate.
The President convened an extra session of the
Senate Immediately after the adjournment of Con-
gress 1t did nothing but pass the resolutions of
the Committee on Foreign Affairs in relation to
the British outrages in the Gufand confirm nume-
rous appointments. The resolutions are as fol-
lows:
ResOlUed, (as the judgment of the Senate,) that
American vessels on the high seas, in time of
peace, bearing the American flag, remain under
the jurisdiction of the country to which they be-
long, and therefore any visitation, molestaton, or
detention of such vessels by force, or by the ex-
hibiton of force, on the part of foreign Power,
Is IN derogation of the sovereignty of the United
States.
ReSOlred, That the recent and repeated viola
tions of this immunity, committed by vessels-of-
war belonging to the navy of Great Britain in the
Gulf of Mexico, and the adjacent seas, by firing
into, interruptng, and otherwise forcibly detain-
ing them on their voyage, requires, in the judg-
ment of the Senate, such unequivocal and final
disposition of the subject, by the governments of
Great Britain and the United States, touching the
rights involved, as shall preclude hereafter the
currence of like aggressions.
ReSOlUed That the Senate fully approves the ac-
ton of the Executive in sending a naval force into
the infested with orders '' to protect all
sells of the United States on the high seas from
search or detention by the vessel-of-war of any
oil nation - And ic tba Of tho
ate that, if it become necessary, such additional
legislation shall be supplied in aid of the Execu-
tive power as will make such protection effectual.
The following is the principal part of the Lon
don Times last leader upon the subject of the
"British outrages."
sis it necessary to add to what we have said
before on the obvious certainty that this Ani-Sla-
very crusade must come to an end? IL might 90
on for this year, or the next year, for ten or
twenty years, but any one who thinks for
ment on the character of the Power with which
we have principally 10 deal must see not only that
the end will come at some time other, but that
the longer that end is STAYED off the worse it will
be. 1t is the fast-growng son, or younger brother,
rather lubberly we may please to think at present,
very saucy, sefwilled, and more free for physical
developments than bound by moral ties. Let US
not quarrel over much with this dlsagreeable stage
of existence, for it belongs TO the youth of men
and of nations. But this same Power must one
day have fifty times our territory and ten times
our people. Besides receiving year by year from
the Old World the population of an English coun-
ty, it is more thrifty of its born citizens than we
are. 1t has no armies in India, no fifty colonies
to be garrisOned, no immense navy in commission,
scarcely even the pretence of an Anti Slave
Trade squadron. The time must come when, in
vincible as may be on our own soil, our own
shores, our own seas, and anywhere on equal terms,
we should have to contend with the United States
on very unequal terms on their soil, their Shores
their seas, and generally in the New World.
To this must be added the great peculiarity of
their political constitution. 1t is by no means
settled out there what the Union may undertake
and promise, and in this particular affair the
Anti-Slave-Trade Treaty is against the conscience
of many of the States and against the interest of
nearly all, it is vain to expect that thing of pa
per and ink will either compel the Union to sac
rifices or the several States to compliance. We
see not whence the virtue of fidelity and constancy
is to come; or where are to look for the pa
trots who shall stem any tide of popular exaspera-
ton at alledged s. British outrages." That those
outrages are very got-up affairs, that our cruisers
have plenty of work to do, if the treaty is to be
more than waste paper, and that every Yankee
skipper has an interest in making mountain out
of molehi, we grant to those who argue from
these considerations against being bullied out of
noble cause. But if it was necessary there should
be a treaty-if in order to successful operations OF
our cruisers it was necessary there should be any
understanding with the States,-thcn, we say, 1t
is quite obvious that this necessary condition fails
altogether. The ground sinks beneath our feet.
1t is not that shippers are pouring IN complaints
and demanding damages, or that ship owners and
the public generally are getting up breeze, but
that there is no power in the Federal Government
of the Union to stand by its own treaties and do
70 itoa allia tha all 10
between British enthusiasm and American decency.
We may all now see what that decency has done,
Sc not one capture against fifty of ours, and
what is likely to do against the combined passion
of Southern planters, Northern Merchants, the
ship owners of the whole seaboard, and the anti
Britishers of the whole Union
But what is now to be done, and what is the
danger that presses 1t is simply the danger Of
that official us nl0meRH which goes on with
whatever it has begun. Great as is the power of
office not to do thing, its power to 90 on
doing it is still greater. At this very moment, it
would seem. from the answer given the other
night in the Commons, a mischief IS operating,
ripening, coming to a head, and producing,
rightly or not, a serious grievance across the At
lantic, without word of communication with the
British Government, and without any knowledge
of the matter, except through the American pa
pers. Will our Government wait TILL the griev-
ance has festered to the regulation soreness?
Will it do nothing TILL in the course OF month or
two, there arrive simultaneously dry report of
operations from the squadron, and angry de-
mand for damages from the American Govern
ment 4? Something might be done now with grace
and dignity. Six months hence we may find the
two Governments irretrievably engaged in n cor
respondence which, after producing the angriest |
feelings on both sides, will end in a sulky permis-
sion to our saucy young cousin to do what he
pleases on the other side of the Atlantic. We |
wish to act with better foresight than that. What
is Government doing? II had best at once init |