Year: 1865

BY The China we learn that the English
authorities have for a time gotten the knotty
question of the Shenandoah off their hands
in Characteristic way. They have handed
set free the piratical captain and crew. In
this the English government has once more
shown its settled determination to do the
least that it is possible to render us the small
est measure of justice that circumstances
will permit. Not even an Englishman could
expect us to thank Great Britain for the sur
render OF this ship; for a government even
more resolutely bent upon injustice to US
than the English government, if there could
be one, could not have refused it. That sur
render Lord Russell could not avoid by any
conceivable quibble. What he could not
help doing he did, and he stopped there
More than that, he has taken the RESPONSE
bility as against us OF attempting to varnish
downright piracy, and he places the govern
ment of Great Britain between our outraged
laws and the wretch whom the whole British
press has denounced as pirate, and whom
English officers signifed their readiness to
assist in capturing This is an outrage that
this country cannot stand from such a source;
and unless England repudiates, in the most
unqualified way this act of her pigmy Min
lister, it will so complicate the present dis
turbed relations of the two countries that
their peaceful settlement will not be possible.
If we have got to fight we had better do it
right here.


| Doubtless the case of the Stonewall was
relied upon by the English governmentas a
fit precedent to govern their action in respect
to the Shenandoah; but the cases are abso-
lutely and entirely dissimilar. The Shenan-
doah was in the hands of the government
that was to blame for her origin, and that
ought to have been equally eager with us to
give the world striking evidence of its dis.
appreciation of her acts; that ought, indeed,
to have desired by its strict Justice againsl
her TO purge itself of the evil it had unques
tionably done to us by her origin. Her pO
sitIon in the hands of such q government


alone points the striking difference between
the case OF the Shenandoah and the case o
the Stonewall in the hands of Spain. Blu
the different footing of the two ships is ye


more clearly seen, when we consider tina
the captain and crew of the Shenandoah ART
tainted by series of inhuman outrage


against our commerce that not only do no


occur in the other case, but that have nj
parallel in the history of war or peace. Fo


six months after his pretended governmen


had ceased to exist-for six months afte
even the shadow Of right was gone-thi


pirate burned our ships. He can set up in hi


justification only the impudent subterfug
, that he did not know the war was over. ii


is properly compared in this respect by tn
British papers to n man who shuts his eye


and complains that he cannotsee. Hewou
not believe American captains-they wer


all liars; and it was six months before h
= could find an Englishman, the only perso


who can tell the truth. In all that time h
) continued his outrages, and Lord Russo
4 tells the world that he has done no harm.


The case of the Shenandoah stands alon'
4 and its justice must be determined by rul
II that the common sense of the world will n
o cognize as a natural correlative OF the il


postliminii. There are no personal rights
y assert; but we must assert the right of oil


laws. The criminals must be restored to I'll
u Jurisdiction of the laws to which their crimt
S have made them amenable, and they mu
L be held as coming within our reach, as con
y ing into the hands of an ally, when they al
s. in the possession of nation with which "


have an extradition treaty. This is the spir
l. of the law of postliminy, and is the natur
r. justice OF the case. England, by acceptir
= the surrender OF Waddell and the custody


his ship, has become responsible to us f
u all; and the surrender OF the whole ere
10 must be demanded under the extraditiC


treaty, and insisted upon in the most positi'
n terms. If Waddell and his fellow pirat
y are TO go free, maritime law y mere moo


shine, and the whole pTetence that justice
at to be maintained on the high seas ride
a lous farce.-N Y, Herald.