The Sun. — 1861-07-12 (London, England)

ARMY PROMOTION.  PRIVATEERING.  ow Dickens' All the Year _Round.) Can we wonder at the general exclamation of horror which arose in England when it was reported that the Southern States of America were about to let fly their privateers at the North, and all without even a special protest from England on the folly and inhumanity of the act P Any attempt to partly blockade a Southern port, and keep in her cotton, England would not allow; but to let a swarm of pirate ships, many of them chartered by the scum of the North—men who would dive into an Atlantic full of blood, to pick out a dollar —is not even to be protested against. We no longer poison bullets or stab prisoners, yet we allow legalised pirates to pursue their devilish calling, merely because those pirates choose to hoist a Southern flag and call themselves Southern privateers. Yet do not think that in future wars the toleration of such inhumanity will not recoil on us. Who is there who can sow the wind and yet refuse to reap the whirlwind ? Yet, that statesmen should tolerate such things is no wonder. Those great-minded helmsman are too busy in keeping their legs to trouble themselves about ideals. They have to laugh away popular wrath, to smile away oppsition, to scoff away attacks, to badinage away reforms they do not themselves originate. • They do not want vexatious debates on abstract subjects. Wars are bad things, but they employ officers and encourage promotion ; they keep the opposition quiet, and are excuses for taxes ; they postpone reform, and increase ministerial popularity. But the bayoneting, the shooting, the burning, the ruining of women, the defacing God's image ? Yes, all inconveniences—undeniable inconveniences, but not to be thought of when national welfare requires war to express its anger, to assert its right, to retrieve its honour, to extend its territory, or to augment its glory; and of this justifiable war, in a good cause, privateering is a necessary volun teer adjunct. _ evils resulting from this determination of the South But let me sketch the probable to let loose her privateering murderers. As soon as this news is telegraped from Montgomery the rich rowdies, and old t to the Southern seaports, that instant the worst of the bankrupt merchants, slave dealers, will rake up every possible old schooner and raking clipper they can find to scour the seas, for rapine and plunder. .ey will buy some old dram-shops, and collect will get rifted • theywill lay in guns, ay in grape-shot shot and iwnhtiheehbtarhe-yrooms and d. 50d round , then put up placardsget ? The patriot—the honest—the merciful—tha brave ? N • the thievingo . drunkard—the sailors. And whom will they homicide—the gang-driver-the slave-hunter —the runaway-convict.— the swindler—the murderer—the Seven Deadly Sins for for officers, all the Passions for crew, and Apollyon himself for sailin master._ And what will they (lg. first ? These men are mere midnight murderers o . • they will steal up creeks, and float withmuffled 'round seize free negroes, and send them to die in the rice swamps round Savannah River; they vill cut brave men's throats in their sleep, and beim unsuspecting fishing-boats, burn quiet seaside villages, seize outlying barques, do the devil's wor'it in God's name, and go home and exult over their patriotic labours, and thank Heaven for making them other men than those proud Pharisees of the 3gorth. The motive of a privateersman is pleader. He comes out to steal—to fight and steal—?but not to fight if he canngt steal. The privateersn lan is the common enemfbf mankind, as the pirate is, and he should be treated as such, and hanged by whomsoever can get a rope on his neck. Ti to laws of God and man are against him.  FREE LIBRARY IN THE ClTY.—Yesterda y, a re' solution to carry out Mr. Ewart's Free Library Act was 'agreed to at a numerous meeting held in the Chuii ihall.