Year: 1863

NEW YORK HERALD,
Richmond can adopt for further resistance, ex-
cept the abandonment of Virginia and North
Carolina, and the concentration of all their avail
able troops for Southern confederacy reduced
to the limits of South Carolina, Georgia and
Alabama. In any event this Southern con-
fcderacy may now be speedily reduced to
South Carolina. and be finally extinguisbed at
Charleston, where the bubble was inflated and
where the war began.


The rebellion, in word, is SO terribly
crippled; its materials from which armies are
recruited, and its resources from which armies
are equipped and subsisted, are 80 near the
point of exhaustion. that President Lincoln may
very properly-and We think may very advan-
tageously, with the inal defeat of Lees army
proclaim liberal amnesty, upon the condition
of the return of all or any of the rebellious
States to their allegiance to the Union; and
we believe that this final defeat of Lee is now
but aquestion of two or three days.


ENGLISH PERvERsrONs OF INTERNATIoNAI.
LAw-THE CASE OF THE ALExANDRA-The
ruling of the Chief Baron of the English Court
of Exchequer, in the case submitted for the de-
cision of a jury, involving the condemnation of
the Alexandra, is one that will excite good
deal of surprise. That it has created no little
uneasiness on the other side will be seen by
the labored justifcations Of it which we extract
from the London Times and Post. In one part
of its article the former journal states that the
decision is founded upon the dictum Of the great
American jurist, Judge Story, whilst in another
it congratulates the Court upon having "estab
lished q precedent to which, when Great
Britain is at war, neutral nations may success
fully appeal" Without pausing to dwell upon
this Inconsistency of assertion, let us just exa-
mine the consequences of the decision ITSELF
The learned judge holds that British
subject may equip ship-of-war, with the view
of selling it to either belligerent, without in
fringing the provisions Of the Foreign Enlist
ment act English shipbuilders, he says, have
as much right to sell armed ships to either
belligerent as they have to sell gunpowder or
cannon or other munitions Of wa1l1lf this be
as true as it is new, there is nothing to prevent
English ports being made recognized nests for
pirates of all kinds. Privateers can be built
to order, and the transfers legalized by bills Of
sale, fixing the date of the transaction at their
completion.


The best answer to the assertion that Ameri-
can jurisprudence has ever favored such loose
interpretations of international obligations is
furnished by case which occurred during the
Crimean war. On complaint being made by
the British Consul to the authorities here that
clipper ship belonging to Mr.. Low, which
was ostensibly being fitted out for Canton, was
in reality destined to act as privateer in the
Russian service, the vessel was at once seized
and held until the owner was able to satisfy the
government as to the real character of its in
tended voyage. We might cite number of
other cases to show that neither in theory nor
in practice does American law furnish any pre-
oedent for this English decision; but our object
s not to impugn the latter. On the contrary,
we are better satisfied that matters should re-
main as they are. We are quite content to
allow England and France to frame new prin-
ciples Of international law for the rest Of the
world. We have always been and always will
be gamers by these assumptions on their part
Now that We are presumed to be weak and


likely to be permanently divided, these
two Powers do not hesitate to strain
every point Of the international code
that tends to still further cripple us and insure
their grand object Of breaking up the Union.
To this end the energies Of all who are supposed
to exercise induence-statesmen, jurists and
journalists-are bent with malevolent peril
nacity But that they believe US hopelessly
ruined they rould shrink from the logical con-
sequences of their own acts. Had, for instance,
the news Of the surrender Of Vicksburg and of
the defeat Of Lee reached London before this
decision was rendered, I'VE should never have
heard of it. The probable speedy application
Of its principles by the government which it Is
intended to hamper would have enlightened
the learned Judge who delivered it as to their
inpolicy and inapplicability. Patience little
longer. Our turn will come next.


The IMPOssIBILrTY OF RAISING ANOTHER REBEL.
ARMY.-The rebels staked their all upon the
invasion Of the North, and in losing the battle
of Gettysburg they have lost all. II will be
impossible for them to raise another army. In
the West they are so thoroughly exhausted
that, after getting together twenty five thousand
men under Johnston for the relief Of vicksburg,
they could not count up more than ten thousand
unoccupied troops in the whole confederacy.
Colonel Grierson, who explored that region
from Memphis to Baton Rouge with his caval-
ry, declared that the rebellion was a mere
she'll, and that no able-bodied men were left
outside the rebel armies. In the East the facts
are the same. Stoneman and Fitzpatrick
found no rebels it to serve as soldiers behind
the lines of Lees army, and could have taken
| Richmond if they had only known that it was