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ferred inestimable blessings on the mercan- promotion, talk nonsense about the "opintile and shipping interests of Great Britain. ion of honest men being the best guide to To say that our Government will listen to the law, and tell their readers at once that none of these topics of reclamation, or that England will not complain, and that her it will disregard, without confuting, any rea- complaints will be wholly bravado. If we sonable arguments or suggestions that may are to go to war with the North because her be founded on them, would be to impute to journals are vulgar, we shall never need lawit a levity and recklessness which none of the yers to discuss the causes of quarrel, and eminent men composing it would willingly never be at a loss for a wholly unanswerable confess. We conclude as we began, by ex-case. But under all this parade of bad taste, pressing our conviction that the answer to our question will not be lightly given, and by repeating our earnest desire that neither it nor our rejoinder, whatever that may be, should be other than dispassionate and noble.

there is this time a very obvious dread, a disposition to condemn Captain Wilkes for recklessness, even while he is exalted for pluck. The worst papers admit that the Cabinet may have to make an apology. Even the New York Herald, which obviously wishes for war, advises that Captain Wilkes should not be made an admiral till he is first dismissed. The organ of the commercial classes, as strong at Washington as the equivocally condemns the act; and the pacountry gentlemen are at Westminster, unthey believe England will pass over the outpers which strongly approve, do so, because rage. The people in America are always more moderate than their journals, and could this temper last, the Government would be left free to do us substantial justice. The politicians, too, do not, as we half feared they would, assert any right to Messrs. Mason and Slidell, simply as rebels, or denounce the right of asylum when invoked against Americans instead of in their behalf. They do, certainly, talk odd nonsense about the two Southerners being "ambassadors," France into the war as earnestly and hotly an argument which, were it true, would bring as England. But though they do deny the right of asylum to Nicaragua, and in so doing betray the ultimate tendency of their land, ventured to raise the one point on own minds, they have not as yet, with Engwhich discussion is not permissible. The case is argued throughout as one of contraband of war, and, although the Americans The latest accounts from New York would quote only the precedents they approve, and appear at first sight to afford some faint seem not to understand the difference begrounds of hope. There is a hesitation ap- tween their rights on their own soil and parent in all the journals, a doubt of the their rights on a British ship, still, the man English mode of receiving the news, which who appeals to the law, even when he misaugurs favorably for the chances of concilia- understands it, is not supposed to be anxtion. There is the usual amount of lunatic ious to send an immediate challenge. Morewriting with which the friends of America over, it seems almost certain that the act of have long since learned to put up, as they the San Jacinto was not ordered direct from put up with a friend addicted to whistling or home. Captain Wilkes may have had genhumming bars in bad tu. Ing is an in-eral instructions to search every vessel for stinct, as well as a policy, with all uneducated men, and a cabman is to be treated fairly, though he begins a dispute by personal criticism, and considers that blasphemy strengthens his defence of his rights. Of course the half-taught compositors who own most of the city journals recommend Captain Wilkes'

From The Spectator, 7 Dec.
WAR OR PEACE.

THE chances of peace, though they still exist, cannot be said to improve. So many and so various are the influences which directly affect the settlement of this American quarrel, so manifold seem the conditions essential to sound opinion, that society is slightly bewildered, and half inclined to believe in that modern version of Providence, the "something" which is to "turn up," and to keep the world in its groove. It is not an unnatural impression, but the more grave and careful the survey, the fainter, we fear, will it become. Though the sense of insult diminishes as the time of the outrage recedes, and the national temper has become more cheerful, it is not on the tone of the British public that the alternatives of peace and war can now be said to depend. Numerous and conflicting as the elements of decision appear to be, they may be really reduced to two: the temper in which Earl Russell's despatch finds the American people, and the nature of the demand in the despatch itself.

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despatches, but there appears no proof that the seizure of men was contemplated, far less distinctly ordered. If this is the case, the Government is, at all events, not bound to support its agent in the specific act, however much it may deem itself right in exempting him from all penalties. A solution other

than war would appear, therefore, when the last mail left New York, to be at least one of the possibilities.

The secrets of the Foreign Office are well kept, but unless the public are greatly deceived, the restoration of Messrs. Slidell and Unfortunately, there is no chance of per- Mason has been made the condition, not of manence in this approximation to reason. continued peace, but of continued negotiaHad the evil genius of America arranged the tion. The American Government, whether sequence of events in the single hope of a convinced of right or insolent in wrong, war, it could not have been more unlucky. must yield at once, and without discussion, On the 2nd instant, just as excitement began to the power whom it is almost certain they to cool, the Americans would receive the will, six days before, have defied with all the news of the burning of the Harvey Birch, national grandiloquence. Is it reasonable and the shelter afforded to the Nashville in to expect such a humiliation from a people, the port of Southampton,-news which, un- penetrated with the feeling of national pride, less civil war has developed a new self-re- as vindictive as the race they have supstraint, will be received with a scream of planted, and whatever the ruin entailed by rage. The British Government, in allowing the war, sure at least of their independence? the Nashville to remain unmolested, was of We do not know that in itself the surrender course blameless, for it is bound to act by of Messrs. Mason and Slidell would 'seem so the advice of its own law officers, and they very obnoxious. The mob yells over their held that prisoners not being prize, the Nash- capture, of course, and hates them individville had not infringed the Queen's procla-ually, just as the English soldiery in India mation. But we can scarcely expect Amer- hated the half-dozen leading mutineers it icans—filled as they are with a notion of the was their fortune to seize. But statesmen, absolute power of the British Governmentto perceive such a fetter as that, or to understand why a Foreign Secretary cannot compel local magistrates to grant a searchwarrant, which they have pronounced illegal. They will argue, and not illogically, that the right of burning their ships is as hurtful to them as the right of seizing them; that the Nashville was never searched to see if she had prize on board or not, and probably that she was never asked to produce her papers. The last argument will be a blunder, every belligerent having, by international law, a right without papers to attack the national enemy; the letter of marque being his justification, not for that, but for putting his prize up to sale; but the mistake is one which half England is always making, and into which Americans are certain to fall. Then, as if to make extrication hopeless, before the despatch on the San Jacinto affair can reach him, but after he has heard of the burning of the Harvey Birch, the President must send in his annual message to Congress. He must allude to the Harvey Birch; and it would tax the self-restraint of a man born to the etiquettes of a throne not to make such an allusion as will touch the North to the quick, and arouse a fever of national pride. He may even commit himself personally too deeply to recede; and, at all events, he will indefinitely increase the difficulty of the task which Mr. Webster called almost impossible-that of conducting negotiations in the presence of twenty millions. The despatch on the San Jacinto will therefore be read to a people already furious with anger against Great Britain, and the demand it contains is, we fear, not one which will allow time for sober reflection.

even in America, must be beyond all this, and a convenient contempt for the prisoners would delight the mass almost as much as their execution. But their cession as an act of obedience to an external power, without discussion or delay, is an act which only a very self-restrained or an intensely lawfearing nation could do, which the British people alone, perhaps, among nations could be trusted to stand and see. There is, it is true, a form of pride which has once or twice been seen in history, which calmly suppresses all pride rather than yield its end, but it has been confined hitherto to the Romam patricians and Papal ecclesiastics. We do not give the American people credit for any such quality, and without it there remains, we fear, but one poor hope of peace.

It is just barely possible that the American Government, aware of the terrible conse'quences of war, and dreading the dismemberment of the country even more than a popular outcry, may discover in their extremity some device which, in spite of despatches, may yet compel us to consider what is due to the right, as well as what is essential to our own honor. If, unmoved by the menace of immediate war, and unaffected by fear of their own people, they offer as their ultimatum to abide by a decision of the British Conrt of Admiralty, England, would be compelled to pause. War, to avoid a decision of our own courts, of whose rigid impartiality Englishmen at least have no kind of doubt, would shock the moral sense of the people, and send us into the conflict uncertain of the justice of our cause. We could not submit to a neutral court, or even to neutral arbitration, for the

dispute involves morally, though not, we frankly admit, legally, that right of asylum, on which we can listen to the award of no Areopagus on earth. If we allow such a precedent, the next passenger we defend may be Kossuth, with Russia to decide whether he is a political fugitive or an envoy from Hungary, and the right of asylum would be reduced to nothing. But we could listen to our own court, or perhaps to the one court of the United States which is beyond the menaces of the mob and the pressure of official remonstrance. In some such suggestion, bold enough to excite the instinctive English respect for an appeal to law, lies, we fear, the solitary chance of a continued peace. But if the Americans make it, their genius and their organization are of a different temper from anything which Europe has been yet allowed to per

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ing liberty-liberty that loves and respects
law. He takes pains, indeed, even in his
preliminary review of the last ten years, to
mark the confusion which pervades his
He
thought between liberty and license.
reiterates his conviction that the Russian
war was a blunder of which the English na-
tion are now heartily ashamed. The victory
gained in that war was simply a victory of
law over lawless aggression, and, therefore,
he despises it. England and France refused
to let Russia plead the right of mere might
for her invasion of Turkey, and Europe
learned a lesson without which European
Be-
civilization would speedily retrograde.
cause the gain was only one of invisible law,
-not a material acquisition,-because the
sacrifice by which it was obtained was ma-
terial as well as mighty, Mr. Bright holds up
the whole struggle to derision, and falls back
on even a less manly authority than his own
-Sir James Graham's-for support. Again,
in his reference to the Indian mutiny, he
shows the same undiscriminating mind.
That contest was not one between oppression
and liberty, but between law and license, and
yet his sympathy seems to have been with
the native soldiers, who, except in the North-
West, could find no trace of popular feeling
in their support.

MR. BRIGHT has made another of those magnificent orations which puzzle England whether to wonder most at the discriminating force of his language, or at the undis- With such a bias it is not strange that his criminating turbidness of his thought. Much discussion of the American question is little as there is in this speech which we heartily likely to win new friends to the North. He recognize as expressing principles with which feels no repugnance-nay, he seems to feel all true Englishmen ought to sympathize, we sincere admiration-for that vile tyranny of believe that like most of Mr. Bright's other ignorant popular opinion which has so long efforts it will injure rather than serve the driven and still drives the statesmen of the cause he has at heart. The truth is, that Union into a foreign policy that is simply liwhile there is a deep hatred of despotism at centious, and that necessarily forces English the bottom of his heart, there is no spark of opinion into hostile attitudes. It is quite that reverence for law which is the only safe-true-and had he insisted more strongly on guard against despotism; and hence his really masterly defence of the Northern cause as against the South is totally unrelieved by any of that true insight into the short-comings of its boastful and licentious democracy, without which Englishmen feel that the American question can never be impartially judged. In short, Mr. Bright speaks-we do not mean in language, which would be unjust, indeed, to his noble and vigorous Saxon eloquence, but in thought-like a Yankee defending Yankees, rather than like an Englishman choosing between two rivals -neither of them commanding our full sympathy-the one who is fighting in the nobler cause. And feeling as he does in this respect, we do not expect or hope that he will make many converts. Earnestly as we sympathize with all that he says on the great slavery issue between North and South, we cannot view his speech, as a whole, as showing any true sympathy with the only endur

that point we should have gone with him entirely-that hitherto it has been Southern politicians chiefly who have flattered and pampered the licentious democracy of the Union. But if we admit this, we are bound to admit also that Northern politicians are tainted, if less deeply, with the same inherent vice; that they, too, speak as if the mere appetite of a hungry mob for dominion could never be too much pampered; that they too rant about the Monroe principle, threaten Canada and the Isthmus, and do their best to give the impression that so great a people as the Americans may guiltlessly trample all law beneath their feet.

Let us not be mistaken: we hold, as we have always done, that the Northern cause in this war with the secessionists is sound to the core; we hold, as we have always done, that English sympathy should be given heartily to that policy which holds out "hope to the bondsmen of the South;" but we also

hold, as we have always done, that the Northern statesmen can only prove themselves worthy of the great task of vindicating the violated law of the Union by themselves respecting public law wherever they find it, and holding in the ungovernable license of a people who seem to claim all the moral exemptions of Omnipotence while exercising none of its powers.

ought to restrain us from vindicating a right which has so long made England the home of exiles, even though the exiles now in question can expect neither sympathy nor pity at our hands.

From The Spectator, 7 Dec. THE ATTITUDE OF FRANCE ON THE SAN JACINTO AFFAIR.

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IF the French press were free, its tone on the San Jacinto affair might be accepted as eminently satisfactory, for its arguments, compliments, and invectives, all lead to the same conclusion: the public law of Europe must be maintained, whatever the exigencies under cover of which a new state may endeavor to set it aside. Indeed, the French journalists, in their anxiety lest we should permit our honor to suffer, are actually just to England, and allow, with a natural sigh of regret, that magnanimous self-restraint is compatible with a free and vigorous national life. Unfortunately, every journal in France is either "official," or demi-official," or "officious," or "inspired," or "quasi-inspired," or deserves some other one of the hundred epithets by which Frenchmen strive to conceal from themselves that in France free thought is an imperial prerogative. Englishmen are therefore compelled to ask what this sudden amity may mean. Louis Napoleon is not a man to be moved by the spectacle of popular self-restraint, nor is he in any marked degree a fanatic for international law, yet with a great loan still to raise, and a great deficit yet to fill up, he seems to be eager for a war, which, for a time, at least, will shake every Bourse in Europe. Sovereigns think of their own states first, and for the hour the first need of France would seem to be a high price for Rentes. Yet the Emperor obviously urges war, and the "inspired" papers shrewdly enough call on England to resist an outrage which France would ere this have avenged.

When, therefore, Mr. Bright comes to discuss the question now at issue between America and England, we find it already prejudged in his mind. He argues for forbearance, not only as if the North had a great and noble cause on its hands-which we admit and maintain-but as if it had never evinced any sign of that licentious and insolent spirit which might render forbearance on our part equivalent to weakness. The truth is, that England is really unwilling to enter upon this war. If the Government launches us into it with needless haste, and peremptorily rejects any sincerely peaceful and apologetic overtures from the American Government, couched in such a spirit as General Scott's letter, without considering them, there will be a very large party in the English nation to deplore and condemn its policy. But no one can deny that there is danger-we fear far greater danger-of a different result; of an arrogant and irritating reply from the United States, in accordance with the indecent display of popular exultation at the violation of the English flag which we have already seen there. And if this should be the case, we do not see that we have any choice in the matter. A war for a great principle may be, and often is, a war for a slight material gain. Not the less are we bound to vindicate that principle, even in the face of the terrible consequences to the anti-slavery cause. The war will then not be of our seeking. It will be as much forced upon us in the direct discharge of national duty, as the war with the South has been forced on the Northern States. There is no liberty-in spite of Mr. Bright's worship of We believe that a war between England democratic will-without law. And those and the North would delight the Emperor who would crush the unscrupulous absolu- for the same reason that it would please tism of the Southern slave-owners must learn some of the cotton-spinners-it would make that they can only do so by first curbing the cotton cheap. The failure of the cotton supalmost equally unscrupulous aggressiveness ply presses on France even more heavily than of an inflated national self-esteem. Had we on England, so heavily, indeed, that the been the aggressor and America the sufferer, French Embassy has been suspected at the voice of the North would have cried out Washington of an actual wish to produce a for instant war. We hope our statesmen war, or such a suspension of intercourse as may prove themselves as inclined to meet should excuse them in breaking the blockany honest profession of willingness to abide ade. The discontent of the workmen affects by the strict law as the English nation itself, the Cabinet even more than the deficit, . which has never shown more moderation. for the latter only menaces France, while Bnt if no such disposition is evinced, we the former threatens the throne. At the have no choice. Nor will Mr. Bright's elo- same time the Emperor, unwilling to engage quence prove to us that any consideration in maritime war, until secure of British sup

port, is only too glad to see us engage in a correspondence which may solve his difficulty and set cotton free, yet throw on him none of the odium of breaking the general peace. There may be a side glance, too, at the diminished part which England, hampered by war in the West, must play in the politics of Europe, a thought that, the financial difficulty once removed, the spring might be the hour for the Rhine. Nor do we deny that the wrath of France against America is in part a genuine feeling. France unless misled by her own interests, seldom approves of high-handed breaches of law, and is by no means inclined to violate those rules which conduce to the self-respect of neutrals. But beneath and beyond all these motives there exists a delighted conviction that England must take on herself the responsibility which the Emperor knows neither how to accept or avoid.

We believe, therefore, all the assurances reiterated by the French press, so far as they indicate that the Emperor approves our action. If Louis Napoleon be, as he professes, the armed protector of civilization, the cause is one which, as it stands, may well enlist him on our side. If, on the other hand, he is simply a despot, a little abler than most of his class, he has selfish reasons enough to engage his strongest support. But while willing to recognize any amount of approval, and grateful for any cessation of groundless attacks, we deprecate attempts to carry good feeling further than the expressions of friendly concern. We protest in limine against any attempt to devise a plan of joint action against America. England cannot, with any due regard to her interests, consent to a joint interpretation of her right to the freedom of the seas. Still less can she suffer France to decide on the limit or mode of the reparation to be exacted from the United States. There are questions on which joint action is possible, and some few, as for example the Mexican one, on which it is beneficial. But no American quarrel can ever be reckoned among them. The American traditions of the two powers are too widely distinct to admit of coherent action. The French still believe, with a pardonable national pride, that the people who over half Canada still retain their language, long for the country they have lost for a century, and contrast freedom and Cæsarism to the praise of the modern Cæsar. Canada may yet be invaded, and the efforts England would make to defend her dependency would not be those most highly appreciated in France. Then -though if the war once begins, England may break the blockade-she has no genuine sympathy with slaveholders, no tolera

tion for the extension of slavery, no wish to see President Davis ruling from the White House. France though we believe her sentiment is strong against slavery-makes every principle bow to the passion for military success. Then England has frontiers to guard on the American continent, and France, when tired of the war, would scarcely fight on in order that British boundaries might not be exposed to a menace. It might be difficult, too, in joint operations, absolutely to forbid the landing of French brigades within our colonial borders; and the French army is not precisely the body which Lord Monck desires or expects in Lower Canada. Above all, our commercial interests are not identical, and it is when the terms of peace come to be settled that alliances are so onerous. The North is certain in such a contingency to look to France as the mediator, and the Emperor-as the Crimean war showed-can placably play that part. "Codlin's your friend, not Short," said the showman to Little Nell, and we know no speech in fiction more irresistibly moving to laughter. But the part, when played by an emperor to a State just thinking of making peace, would cease, we fear, to be comic. We are strong enough to do our own work, and bear our own burden; and we must, in this instance, do and endure alone. To unite with France is to weaken our right to make war in our own way, to destroy our right to make peace at our own time, and to place our interests at the mercy of an ally who looks to ends other than the tranquil and regulated friendliness, which is the only relation to America this country desires to bear. We cannot protest, or even complain, at any action of France on her own behalf. If she breaks the blockade, or follows our steps in breaking it, or makes alliances with the South, or presses her own complaints, it is no part of our duty to interfere; but any alliance to help us to maintain our rights might be as injurious to our interests as it would certainly be derogatory to our honor.

From The Economist, 7 Dec. WILL THERE BE AN AMERICAN WAR? LEAVING to others the discussion as to the precise limits of belligerent rights, the degree to which they have been overstepped by the Federal commander in this instance, and the instances, real or supposed, in which our own proceedings in former days may have afforded precedents somewhat embarrassing to our demand for reparation,-we will address a few words to the practical question which more immediately interests us all.

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