From The Examiner, 3 Nov.

which gives force to that language? Is tunity serves, the very same cause that has there anything else to explain these dé-made us a little relax making him screw up marches? his international principles above concert pitch. But we wrong the United States by ascribing to them, in the popular impersonONE of the objections we entertained to ation, feelings and motives which belong only the Foreign Enlistment Bill was the danger to a party which has a game to play at this of its embroiling us with other nations, juncture. An excitement is wanted for the either really averse to the enlistment of end of the President's career, and, as Bacon their people under our flag, or disposed to says, there are people whose self-love is such seize a plausible pretext for quarrel. This that they will set their neighbor's house apprehension has been unhappily realized on fire to roast their own eggs in the emboth in the United States and Prussia. bers." Doubtless all care has been taken to avoid

To suppose that two nations, having the just ground of offence, but a state in need, like mutual dependencies and connected interests a man in need, finds no friends when going of the United States and England, could go begging or borrowing, and is extremely apt to war about so pitiful a cause as we have to fall under the suspicion of going stealing. alluded to, would be to imagine an insanity So her Majesty's representative at Washing- such as has never yet afflicted mankind. A ton, Mr. Crampton, is denounced as a crimp, war with America would be a war of devasand an attempt is made to fasten the same tation with ourselves, and America's war respectable character on the British Consul with England would be the same to rer. at Cologne. All this may be very unfair We live and thrive by each other. Millions and malicious, but it was to be looked for as on each side of the Atlantic are dependent a probable consequence of the Foreign En- for existence, and all that sweetens existence, listment, and the question might have been on supplies or demands from the other. A considered whether we were not likely to war with the United States would combine make more enemies than recruits by that ex- the horrors and miseries both of foreign and pedient. A rupture with any one nation civil war, of name accursed. It would be the would be a heavy price to pay for a contin- most gigantic crime the world has ever seen, gent of 5,000 men. It could not be helped, and fraught with proportionate retribution is the answer; it was a case of necessity, as to both the criminals. Both, we say, for we we want men, and cannot get them in suffi- cannot believe that either could be alone ancient numbers at home. Well, but most swerable for such a wickedness; for with cases of necessity are accompanied with such immense common interests in peace and troubles like those which now thicken about us, for it is the way of the world to become unfriendly in proportion to the want of help. We have betrayed an indigence in an essential of strength. Paradoxical as it may sound, we are so rich that we want men.

amity, the counsels of sense, moderation, forbearance, in one should sway the other, and turn it from the impulses of distempered pride and passion. Each has a mighty hold of the other for good, which must be criminally let go before they can be loose for strife.

In the attempt to supply this want, Gov- No petty point of honor should be permit ernment has questionless taken every pre- ted to stand in the way of an adjustment of caution to keep within the bounds of inter- differences. The greatness of each nation is national law; but from the very nature of above small tenacities, or paltry punctilio. the business it was too apt to wear some ap- But above all things is to be deprecated any pearance, unreal it may be, of poaching on proceeding that may bear the appearance of a friend's manor. If we commission Black defiance; and much better would it have George to go upon a certain estate, and see been to have burnt four line-of-battle ships, whether he cannot provide us with par- than to have sent them at this moment to the tridges and pheasants, observing most punc- American station. Sagely the ancient type tiliously the laws relating to the same, we of wisdom, Ulysses, counselled putting arms must not be surprised to find our intentions out of view, saying the sight of the iron construed by the general tendency of Black tempts the use. To remain at peace with George's errand, and not by its disqualifying America we should act as if war with her limitations. It is nothing to the purpose to was a thing not to be contemplated, not to say that Brother Jonathan is the last man be imagined. If we proceed on the hackwho ought to be so particular, that he should nied maxim, we shall infallibly make a war look at home, and remember his neighborly by our preparations for it. acts of commission or omission when Canada The bulk of the people of the Union must was troubled (not to mention certain annex- be for peace, the cool and long-headed north; ations which are wholesale foreign territorial and in England who north or south is not for enlistments), he is particular because oppor-peace and friendship? Yet we have our

laches too. Has each and every of us done duly susceptible and exacting; be it so, and his best, according to his opportunities, to it is simply a reason for always bearing in cultivate the good will of Americans? Have mind that they are so, and sparing their tenwe made little of their peculiarities which der places, and rendering their dues to the do not happen to be our peculiarities, and full. There are no people in the world more have we made much of their sterling quali- sensible of kindness and courtesy. They are ties, their kind, affectionate natures, their fond, over-fond it may be, of the admiration readiness, their eagerness to be pleased and of their country; but how much admiration to please, to join in the give and take of re- it deserves, and how much may be rendered spect and esteem? The amity of nations is without trenching on truth, and to the denot made by their governments, but by their light of the national pride. people. But something governments can do for the same end, and has ours done it? We do not raise the question to imply that it has not, but simply as a question. We know not, for our own parts, whether it should be answered in the negative or affirmative; but this we do know, that American diplomatists and visitors very generally complain of their feception and treatment in this country, and some of the former have returned home with feelings of resentment amounting to rancor. They say that they have not had their share of the notice and attentions of the Court, that they are slighted in comparison with There is what Bacon calls some aspersion other foreigners of the same diplomatic of philosophy in that story in the Arabian rank, that they are neglected by the aristo- Nights of the merchant who was eating nuts cracy, few of whom open their doors to and carelessly throwing away the shells, when them; and in a word, that their position in a giant appeared before him in great wrath, London is the worst in the world, as in St. commanding him to prepare to die, for havPetersburg it is the best, for the wily Rus- ing knocked out his son's brains with one of sians know whom it is worth while to con- his accursed nut-shells. The man was at a ciliate and to win. Further, they complain loss to conceive how he could have slain a that their distinguished countrymen visiting giant's son with the husk of a filbert, but this country are unrecognized and unhon- the giant was doubtless Self-love, which runs ored, and it is vain to assure them that Eng- to an immense size, and all the family are of lishmen not less distinguished prophets in a delicacy in direct proportion to their magtheir own land are equally unrecognized and unhonored. A foreign potentate some time ago asked one of our ministers about Mr. B., whose name happened to be most plebeian, but renowned in a science to all who knew aught of the science. The answer, to the astonishment of the Royal inquirer, was, that the minister had never heard of Mr. B., and could not imagine who B. could be, to be worth asking about. The American Messrs B. only share the same fate. All the great and the petty nobility of Europe are, On the other hand, perfectly well known, our Court living in a wood of the genealogical trees.

But it is our pestilent trick to fasten on peculiarities of diction and manner, and the great offence given on these small scores is not to be calculated. A kind or sensible or wise thing, couched in a diction provincial or uncouth to us, is ridiculed, as if there were no intrinsic value in a feeling or a thought, and all depended on the dress. These are little things taken separately, but they are telling in a long international account, and if we would live in amity with our neighbor, we must have regard and respect for his self-love.

nitude. Hence, when we may have in our vicinity any of that progeny, it behooves us to be cautious how we cast husks about, for serious wrath may come of light offence.

THE PREMIER'S PLAN FOR KEEPING THE

PEACE!

MAKE choice of a Neutral, if fiercest the best,
Inveigle its subjects to follow your drums,
Be sure your Ambassador's strictly impressed
To treat with contempt each remonstance that

comes.

And if 't is your ill-fated chance to be caught,
Declare you've commanded the outrage to
But stoutly refuse all apologies sought,

cease;

For that's my receipt for preserving the peace!

To show that your late countermand is sincere,

And you really feel your Ambassador's wrong, Let a fleet in the seas of the Neutral appear,

We have quoted the American complaints as we have heard them, and know them to be spread abroad, because, if there be any grounds for them, it is a duty to remove so unworthy a cause of umbrage. Between nations there is always proceeding a sowing of either good or ill will, and badly does the man acquit himself, according to his opportunities, who omits the one, and faulty al-And if he should wince at such neighborly acts, Instruct all your hacks his bad blood to increase,

most to crime is he who commits the other. We may be told, that the Americans are un

For War much too weak and for Peace far too strong.

Declare his forced silence Great Britain exacts, As the only true mode of preserving the peace!

Though his provocation no man dare deny,

Nor the right to redress that his statesmen
demand,

Be sure that the Billingsgate well you apply,
And attribute mean motives with bountiful

hand.

The "coming elections" "of conquest the

lust,"

All cries will raise cackle from war-seeking

geese;

And-haud inexpertus - my word you may trust,,

You may keep a snug place, though you don't keep the peace!

-The Press.

From the Examiner, 3 Nov.

CUBA.

to American interests, can we possibly arrive at any conclusion but that with the possession of Cuba would begin grave troubles for America?

One of the last acts of the last Whig. President was to declare that its annexation would be a measure deeply fraught with danger, inasmuch as it would incorporate into the Union a State peopled by a foreign rule, and otherwise operate prejudicially in every way to the industrial interests of the South. And here Mr. Fillmore touched a point which cannot well be avoided in discussion of the question. It is not size that constitutes the greatness of a country. The vast increase of people and of territory in the States may be fairly matter of just pride, but there must be some limit to that doctrine of expansion. Our friends have been adding to their stars and stripes as our enemy has been adding to his; and while Texas has been tacked on to one empire and Bessarabia THE leading Whig newspaper of New York to the other, the half of Mexico has been characterizes the official papers on the for- swallowed, to all appearance, as easily as the eign enlistment dispute, brought over by the half of Poland. But it is the system of last American mail, as an attempt to get up Russia to absorb what she conquers in a a difficulty with Great Britain, to influ- mode not practised by civilized States. Anence the approaching elections and the Pres-nexation with her is but another word for idential contest of 1856." If this be so, we extirpation of all that constitutes a people. appear ourselves to have followed the bad The same dark despotism overwraps whatever example, in a readiness to believe certain race or religion becomes subject to her sway, alleged designs against Ireland, as a ground Christian, Mahometan, Greek, Caucasian, or on which to build a difficulty" with America. The most extravagant credulity might well refuse to give credit to such insanity as a piratical descent upon Ireland. Former examples exist to show what chances there were for filibustering in such a direction, even when a rebellious spirit was alive and hopeful; and to try to accomplish, with the embers of dead parties, a conflagration which could not be lighted out of their utmost life and heat, were to indulge a dream more silly than presented itself to even the diseased imagination of poor Smith O'Brien.

66

Persian. Is this a model for the Americans? And if not, what will they do with Cuba when they get it? If a foreign element be introduced into the Union, and the right of citizenship given to slave-importing Spaniards, are they to be guaranteed a perfect immunity, and liberty of extension, for all their national habits and peculiarities?

The question is more full of difficulties for the Union itself, than for any other country likely to be affected by it. Let us hear what a highly intelligent American, after a residence for some time in Cuba, has to say. We find, in a clever series of sketches just The difficulty which really exists is one published by an American lawyer (Pictures that we should ourselves, by all practicable from Cuba), the result of his actual obmeans, avoid meddling with, if it be possi-servations in the island thus given : ble. Cuba is a difficulty, in all senses of the word; and the only men who can hope to get good out of the present excitement, belong to the class who originated the Lopez expedition.

ora

In spite of "manifest destiny," and the " tors of the human race," I cannot regard the annexation of Cuba to the existing American

in its lowest sense.

Union as a probable event. Cui bono? to whose But this Cuban question we are not dis-profit, indeed, would it turn? Take that word posed to treat in any other sense than as an of Cuba to gain by such a change in their conWhat have the population American question. What business have we dition? If accomplished peacefully, the negroes with it indeed as anything else? What do of Cuba, who constitute the majority of its inwe owe the Spanish government, that we habitants, lose whatever privileges they may should play the Quixote for them on behalf possess, and incur a sharper servitude. The of their worst-governed possession? Con- Creole whites liberate themselves from the opfining ourselves strictly to that point of pressive dominion of men of their own race, and view, however, and having exclusive regard tongue, and faith, to enter into an unequal alli

ance with a people who are proclaiming their determination to retrench the political rights of the Catholic and the foreigner- a people whose energetic competition and restless temper would soon thrust the islanders from their stools.

If accomplished by violence (and in this way alone is annexation at all likely to be achieved), the Cuban people will find themselves plunged into the most frightful confusion. When a Spanish minister declared that Cuba must be "Spanish or African," he did not utter a menace; he merely stated a dilemma. The servile wars which broke out simultaneously with the triumphs of Hannibal, and the civil conflicts of the Syllan age; the Jacqueries which followed the English victories in France, and the thunder of insurrection with which the Haytian slaves silenced the uproar of the revolutionary contest in '92-all teach us what we are to expect from the negroes of Cuba in the event of a great Cuban war. And the negroes of Cuba, be it remembered, are not merely formidable from their numbers, but from a nucleus of trained intelligence already existing among them.

of the Maroon war, bequeathed by the Span-
iards to the English in Jamaica-
of the suc-
cessful fugitives who so long bade defiance to the
power of Holland in Surinam - of the Indian
revolts of Central America, all bear one moral;
nor should we imagine that our energy and our
resources would enable us to win a speedy tri-
umph over our savage foes. Let us not forget
how long and how audaciously a handful of
Seminoles held at bay the allied forces of the
Republic, and of three southern States. The
everglades of Florida are not more deadly to the
white man than are the wildernesses of Cuba.
All this we must expect if the organized hostility
of the negroes should be confined to a small pro-
portion only of their number. Should the flame
of revolt spread far and wide, we might as well
throw men and money into the burning crater
of a volcano, as waste them upon the attempt to
subjugate the island.

But were the economical prospects of annexation as flattering as they are now frowning, there are other and higher considerations which should make every right-minded American res olute to withstand the current which is drifting the popular will in that fatal direction.

That any intelligent and thoughtful Cuban, reflecting upon the anomalous situation of his country upon the elements of disorder which quiver in its heart-upon the vices of its finan-am sure that there is an echo still in the heart cial system, under which the capitalists and the land-owners of the island are enclosed in a fatal circle of claims that cannot be enforced, and of obligations that cannot be discharged-that any intelligent or thoughtful Cuban should anticipate other than ruinous consequences from a sudden and violent disruption of the bonds (hateful as they may be) which bind his country to Spain, seems to me utterly incomprehensible.

The greed of gold burns in our veins; but I of republican America to the brave words of the Imperial Roman law, Neque humanum fuerit ob rei pecuniaria quæstionem libertati moram fieri"It would be unworthy of men that liberty should be delayed by pecuniary consid erations."

And what is America to gain by the acquisition of Cuba? Financially, nothing. The violent transfer of Cuba to our hands, would entail ruin upon our now flourishing commerce with the island, by cutting down the island's prosperity.

The number of small tobacco farmers in Cuba, and consequently the tobacco crop, might for a time be increased; but the great interest of the island-the sugar interest-would be sadly shaken by the overthrow of public confidence; for the general insecurity of property which must follow such a convulsion, would particularly affect enterprises which call for such heavy investments of capital, and depend for their success upon so many contingencies as do the production and manufacture of sugars. Those canny economists even, who know no Sibylline leaves but those of the ledger, must admit that no financial advantage can be expected to flow from the acquisition of Cuba to any States but Louisiana and Texas. The prostration of Cuba would give them a practical monopoly of the American sugar market.

But

It was in the interest of slavery that the project of Cuban annexation was conceived long years ago. It is in the interest of slavery that the project is now pursued. Here and there, indeed, southern men have been found far-sighted enough to perceive that, in expecting any real accession of power from the conquest of Cuba, the South sadly overrates her own force of repression, and as sadly underrates the explosive forces sleeping in the bosom of the island. the body of southern politicians will not believe this. They laugh at general laws, and doubt the unseen powers. Despairing of their northern frontiers, they have long looked to Spanish and Portuguese America as "fresh fields and pastures new,' " into which the power of the Union must force a way for slavery. The accidental defeat of their designs upon California has only stimulated their zeal in other direc tions. Mexico, Central America, the Valley of the Amazon, lie along the horizon of their hopes. Cuba and Hayti are nearer at hand.

To pursue the annexation of Cuba in the interests of slavery is to pursue the doom of the Republic. I say nothing of the possibilities of disastrous foreign war which lurk in that pursuit, for I am sure that America can take no But this is not all. The acquisition of Cuba, serious detriment at any but American hands. charged with servile war, would be for America We have nothing to fear from the world. a first step, and a serious one, in the direction have we nothing to fear from ourselves? of military extravagance. We could not pre- Slavery is an institution so essentially false serve our dominion in the island without main-and mean in principle, so thoroughly barbario taining there an army at least twice as numerous in spirit, that no man can labor in its service as that which we now possess. The histories without barbarizing his temper and his intellect.

But

If it does not find men unscrupulous, it makes | Cuba, its inhabitants will be driven perforce to the trial of whether they cannot obtain it

them so.

But an unscrupulous Republic is a despotism elsewhere. in embryo.

We have been taught to believe that our country had another mission than to repeat the piracies of Rome, or to rival the chicanery of Russia. The pages of history are full enough of successful robbery and of lucky gambling. The world's welcome to America was a tribute to the humane dignity of a Washington, and to the honest wisdom of a Franklin. When we forfeit our claim to be proud of that tribute, we fling away our best birthright—we come down from our high place—we take a vulgar station in the earth-we invite a vulgar fortune and a vulgar

fate.

TREATMENT OF THE CONVICT BANKERS. THE announcement of the conviction and sentence of the three bankers at the Central Criminal Court, on Saturday, startled the town. "But will the sentence be carried out? will it not be commuted?" The question is suggested not only by the current idea that persons so well connected must find some favor, but still more perhaps from the difficulty which the mind naturally feels in associating the habitual condition of men,

It is not yet time thus to despair of the Re-like baronets and bankers, with the costume, public.

condition, and daily life of a convict. Not less also, perhaps, from the difficulty of comPerhaps we should not ourselves go so far pleting the idea that men in the position of as this American writer, though all will be à Sir John Dean Paul can enter into courses disposed to admire his manly and honorable which involve conviction and consignment to spirit. We have less faith than he appears a convict prison. In a simple view, the very to have in the possibility of Cuba obtaining turpitude of the course adopted in the house independence for itself, and yet we are as "near Temple Bar" is scarcely made apmuch convinced as he is that it cannot go on parent to the mind, until we substantiate much longer in its present state. All this is the fact that it is of a kind which puts the for the Spanish government to consider. If offonder in a prison-costume, and classes him the island is to remain a Spanish possession, with thieves and other malefactors. It is we are convinced that there must be a com- scarcely possible to suppose that a West-end plete revision of the Spanish colonial system dignitary and a magnate of the trading world in it. At present it is governed despotically can go to lengths like that; and we stop to by a Captain-General, and for the last half see if there is not some qualifying circumcentury has had almost as many Captains- stance, some peculiarity proper to titled perGeneral as there are years in that period of sonages and monied men, calculated to draw time. The despotism has, therefore, been a distinction between them and ordinary crimconstantly varying one, with neither system inals. If we look to the evidence, we see nor policy. Material prosperity alone has that there is no such distinction. The Jury carried Cuba through such a government; found none, the Judge found none, and the but material prosperity brings with it also Executive Ministers will find none. They other consequences; and we have but to read could not at this stage introduce a distincthe experiences of this American, or any tion, because it would blast the character of other observant traveller, to see that a higher any Minister who should show favor on pergrade of general intelligence is now devel-sonal grounds; and on public grounds, any oped in the place than has existed till very kind of mitigation in favor of these men recently. No other West India island can would be a proclamation that there is a conat present compare with it in modes of culti-ventional license for practices such as they vation, in mechanical substitutes for labor, have used. in improved manufactures, roads, railways, For there can be no idea here of revenge. harbors, and ports, in amendments, luxuries, refinements, and enjoyments. We have also to remember, as we remarked some few months ago on the occasion of the disturbances at Madrid, that the greater part of the Cuban proprietary is resident; that the island is the home of the planters; that all their hopes, thoughts, interests, and families are bound up with it; that they are educated, wealthy, and really attached to the transatlantic home. In short, they are better suited for constitutional government than Spain itself is, and if what is granted at Madrid be much longer withheld from

Bitter as the feelings of individuals may be, sweet as the knowledge that the offenders will undergo some pain in return for that which they have inflicted, the Government and those who adjudged them to punishment did not act on principles of retribution, but for the sake of example, which, in a public sense, is the only purpose of punishment. That the sentence will be carried out we are convinced, although literally the law permits almost any kind of mitigation. The Crown claims, and has long exercised, an unbounded power of remitting or lessening punishments by pardon. But transportation