Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1861-09-06
British Estimate of the London
Times.
from the London Morning Star. 14th inst /

all the secret sympathizers with despotism
are on the alert to catch the first CLEAN O
good fortune that lights on the dark ban
ners Of wicked cause. The rebellion tha
aims TO enlarge and perpetuate slavery il
the only rebellion to which the Londor
Times and its tributary streamlets of al
un-English opinion ever waited encourage
ment. AS oft as an oppressed people
snatched at the sword IN the desperate
hope of cutting its way to freedom, they
poured deris ion and censure on the gallant
effort.
If Frenchmen essayed to establish a
French Governmental Germans passed
in a moment of energetic inspiration from
dreaming to working-if Hungarians re-
nounced an allegiance that had become a
national death-if Poles or Italians with
ed from PROSTATE subjcction into erect and
sublime resistance-the Times and its en-
ulative followers hissed forth their scorn of
ouch romantic courage. their hatred OF
such irreyerent boldness. They maligned
the motives, DETAINED the characters per-
verted the principles and objects of the
leaders in such adventures for freedom
Men of mild and noble natures were por-
trayed as bloodthirsty ruffians. Men of
the most practical sagacity were painted
as reckless enthusiasts. Men whose first
acts were the abolition of capital punish
ment and the institution of legal relief for
deStltution, were branded as enemies of
| life and property. Nations whose humble
hopes were bounded by the expectation of
just and equal laws, were confounded with
few half-crazed philosophers, in whom
| imprisonment or exile had bred an excess
| Of philanthropy. Yet even Red Republi-
cans were extrolled. if they chanced to
gain victory at the barricades and the
conspirator who, by superior craft, obtain
ed crown, was lauded as an example of
laudable ambition. When the tide turned
again-when deposed Kings and proscrib-
ed Revelutionists were thrown on the
strand, fragments of successive wrecks,
victims Of a storm that uplifted only to
abase-when the reign Of force was re-es-
tablished and order was vindicated by the
| crowd of captiyes and fugitiyes that looked
and longed in vain through the bars Of ad-
verse fate, or across the waters that mock
ed their change of fortunes-the Times vas
ready again with its parable for the day
ready, as before, to fatter the successful,
to faWn on the powerful, to insult the fall
en-, to libel human nature, and to outrage
the generous sympathies of Englishmen,
with freedom in arms or with freedom
trodden underfoot
As with the European people, so with
the American. E1g@What paeans to the
honor of the Jupiter in the Capitol at
Washington should we have heard resound
ing frC N the Olympus in the blacktriars,
if the battle Of Bull r IN had filed Manas-
sas Gap with the corpses Of the Confede-
rates !.gQ Then would the swelling
strain have rolled across the Atlantic in
tones outpealing the leudest New York
thunder. Then would history and imag-
ination have been stretched for parallels to
the greatness Of the conflict and the glory
of the victors.
Then would the Confederate cause have
been denounced as abhorrent to gods and
men--,treason of the utmost turpitude, re-
bellion of parrieidal wickedness. Then
should we have been told that Beauregard
had chosen his own ground, the strongest
between the Potomac and Richmond, had
strengthened it with all military strength,
concealed within a cincture of wood and
bill, ninety thousand men, and been driven
from his entrenchment by twenty or thirty
thousand undisciplined volunteers, fred
with the ardor of conscious rectitude and
made invincible by the heroism of disin-
terested valor. The battle has gone the
other way-and, behold the laureis that
had bean woven for President Lincoln are
proffered to President Davis.
1t is thus the Times seems to have ta-
ken counsel with itself, after the perusal
of its special correspondents graphic mar
rative Of the panic that followed OF we'll
sustained fight. The fight he did not see.
The panic naturally shocked and enraged
an historian who has seen as much of war
as Xenophon. The special correspondents
WILL doubtless, be able to make good his
story against the reclamations of men who
saw less and felt differently. axgH But
what can We expect from the American
press when it finds a leading English jour
nal deliberately and recklessly pouring
vinegar and vitriol into the wounds of the
National pride and ssnsibility? How can
we expect our kinsmen of the North to be-
lieve in our friendship and good wishes
when our newspapers 60 out laden with
columns of scornful comment upon disas-
ter that might prove fatal to people less
high-sprited and resolute? What can they
think of our anti-slavery sentiment, or even
of our international neutrality, when they
see the slave holding rebellion treated with
far greater respect than the Government
elected by millions of freedom loving free
men. and the atrocious rhapsodies of the
New York Herald quoted as the utterance
of settled transatlantic policy =S9a
If there were not sin or shame in exag-
gerating and ridiculing an event fraught
with poignant suffering to a friendly and
consanguineous nation-if decency did not
restrain us from laughing aloud at the fears
of the brave and the errors of the great
surely prudence should teach US not to
provoke bitter resentment Of people OF
eighteen millions by scofing at their mo-
mentary humiliation. Must we make enc
mics on both sides the Atlantic, in both
hemispberes of the globe and of govern
ment? Are we to provoke beyond bear
ing Imperial France and Republican Amer
lea? Ought we not rather to guard oul
speech by the friendly wisdom that errs, il
at all, on the side of the frieudless? If il