The Sun. — 1863-06-25 (London, England)

HERALD.—The case of the Alexandra has termi• nated in a much more signal defeat to the prosecution than could have been anticipated. Without quitting the box the jury gave a verdict for the defendants—a verdict which releases the ship, and will saddle the Crown with heavy damages for a detention which is thus pronounced illegal. We do not pretend to know in what light the Government will regard this decision. It condemns their proceedings in the case; it will mulct them in costs; it convicts them of injustice to British subjects and of servility to the American embassy ; but, on the other hand, it may be said to clear them from blame in regard to the escape of the Alabama. They were blamed for not seizing that vessel upon the first information ; and it was argued that the amount of evidence subsequently collected being clearly sufficient to condemn her, she ought in the meantime to have been arrested on suspicion. In the present case, however, the Government have taken the course which it is said they then ought to have taken ; and although the evidence is certainly quite as complete as it was against the Alabama, the consequence has been a defeat, which will entail great annoyance and expense on the Government, and give encour. argement to all who may be disposed to it embark in similar speculations; for when a jury gives a verdict without quitting the box is pretty certain that the verdict is not accidental; that any other jury would take a substantially similar view in a similar case. The verdict of the defendants, then, may possibly not be altogether disagreeable to the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues, however mortifying .to. the professional pride of the Attorney and Solicitor-General, by whose advice the prosecution i was undertaken. To the American Government t will, of course, be exceedingly unwelcome. They cannot quarrel with the Minister who has done all in his power to oblige them—who is convicted by a jury of his countrymen of having outstepped the law in order to oblige them ; and a jury is not amenable to diplomatic reproaches or to  menaces of future retribution. The Northern people will likely regard the verdict with angry exasperation, as another proof of the bitter and malignant hatred with which they are regarded by the British aristocracy ; and it will be in vain to assure them that our jurors are chosen from the people; that no Government whatever can pack a jury—especially in London; and that the Courts of Great Britain do not decide at the bidding of a military commander or in accordance with the directions of a Minister, but in obedience to written law and established precedent. But we have nothing to do with the irritation of Mr. Seward, or the probable clamours of the New Yolk Tribune and Times. Dr, Cheever and his brother preachers of arson, murder, end pillage, may say what they please, and we shall not care to vindicate against their complaints the justice of England towards the Northern States. We do not intend to discuss the propriety of fitting out in England vessels destined to serve under the Confederate flag without ever haying seen a Confederate port. It may or may not he that in this matter we have done the North less than justice, as in so many other rtspects we have done grievous wrong to the South in order to keep well with the North. This matters little ; for had we acted on the letter of the law, not a few Southern cruisers, but the whole navy of England would now be engaged in harassing American commerce and driving from the seas the flag under which Admiral Wilkes is still allowed to insult our ports and plunder our merchantmen. What concerned the jury, and what now concerns us, is not whether there is a breach of neutrality to be feared, but whether a breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act has been committed. And we agree with the jury that this latter point is "not proven." The Alexandra was not fitted out as a ship of war or transport. and she was not armed, though it may be—though we believe it is—the fact that she was intended to have the guns and fittings of a gunboat. This being so, we hold with the jury that she was not equipped according to the act for the service of the Confederate States, and therefore that her condemnation would have been an abuse of a law which was intended not to interfere with commerce in contraband, but to prevent private war.