The Daily Dispatch: December 24, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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The Mason-Slidell affair,
comments of the European press.
the outrage Denounced.
&c., &, &,

The European files by the ‘"Jura,"’ which left Liverpool on the 6th December, have been received at New York. The Herald, of the 19th instant, copies copiously from foreign journals their editorial comments on the outrage perpetrated upon the British flag by the United States steam-frigate San Jacinto in boarding the Royal mail steamer ‘"Trent,"’ and taking forcibly from her decks our Commissioners, Messrs. Mason and Shdell. The London Times, of the 5th inst., has another strong article on the outrage, and calls upon the Government to demand prompt and full reparation. We copy the following from other journals:

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What the French press think of the outrage.
[from the Paris Pays of the 2 Nov.]

We yesterday received the most serious intelligence. A Confederate vessel-of war the Nashville, entered Southampton, after having sacked and burnt, at the very gates of England, a merchant brig carrying the Federal flag, and the British Government, in allowing her to be armed and repaired in one of her ports, seemed on the eve of breaking through her neutrality.

In view of a fact of such a nature, we abstained from all comment, and awaited how details before counselling England not to interfere in family quarrels.

To-day it is too late! We learn by the telegraph that an insult so grave has been committed on the British flag by an American steamer that we do not feel any longer deposed to preach of tolerance.

The Federal war vessel, the San Jacinto, has taken Messrs. Mason and Shdell by force from on board the English mail steamer Trent.

We know, without the necessity of going any further, all the gravity of this violation of the rights of nations. England has manifested her sympathies, more or less lively for the South; but, until the affair of the Nashville, there was no reason to suppose that she would decide. It must be that the Cabinet at Washington has been struck with vertigo to dare a power which has only observed neutrality to the injury of its material interests.

Was the arrest of these Confederate Ambassadors of such great importance to the North that they should risk everything to obtain it?

Did Mr. Lincoln believe that the Southern envoys constituted what international law call contraband of war, and that, therefore, he would be permitted to seize them on board of a foreign vessel?

We do not know in what fashion the Federal Government will explain this unqualified act committed by the San Jacinto, but we believe we are able to assign as the first cause the exaggerated gentleness which England has always manifested towards the United States of America.

On all occasions this England, so proud, haughty before the constitutional power trembles and becomes small before her transatlantic brethren. There is no sort of insults which the Federal Government has not inflicted on her, and yet these insults have always been accepted by her with perfect resignation.

This conduct has exalted the pride of the Cabinet at Washington, which has come to believe that it can dare everything.

But the United States are mistaken. In England has undergone so much humiliation it was because she dreaded a war which would close the American ports against the exportation of cotton; it was because the exportation of cotton; it was because she feared the disturbances and interior revolutions which would be the fatal consequences of a prolonged stoppage of her manufactories; it was because she feared the ruin of her commerce.

But now the question has changed its face. The North has nothing more to give; but on the contrary, everything to receive. It is the South that possesses cotton; it is the South that will have the right of dictating conditions to England; and the United States will do well to correct their error if they have believed for one moment that their military force and naval power could frighten Europe.

In outraging the British flag, the Federals have perhaps not reflected on this — that the material interests of England impel her to an alliance with the Confederate States.

We hope, notwithstanding, that this regrettable affair will not bring about a conflict which we would be first to deplore. We hope also that the American ministers, Mr. Seward included, will learn, but not at then expense, that in politics as in diplomacy, decency and respect for the rights of nation are very useful things.

We have already the opinions of the English journals, which are not of a nature a calm the fears we have entertained.

The Morning Post asserts that no reparation will be complete without the restitution of the passengers violently forced from the protection of the British flag.

While wisely reserving the question of right, the English press in general expresses a profound resentment at the affront which England has just suffered.

[From the Paris Constitutional, Nov. 29.]

The arrest of an English mail steamer by an American vessel of war is so serious a fact that we may be justified in believing that the officer who committed the act did so upon his own responsibility, so that, if he was obeying instructions from the Cabinet of Washington, the latter had not sufficiently weighed the consequences.

In either case we hope that the American government will make a reparation and satisfy the claims of England. We count upon it doing so in its own interests, which have always served as a guide to its policy.

In fact, it is impossible that the Americans should not understand how irregular is the arrest of Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board the Trent; how contrary it is to the law of nations, and how prejudicial the consequences of this act would be to themselves.

It would be the consecration of the ‘"right of search,"’ against which they have always protested, and which was one of the chief causes of the war they themselves waged with England in 1812--a right of search exercised not only on commercial vessels, but on ships-of war, for the mall steamers are royal vessels, having on board a lieutenant of the royal navy, and their officers wear the uniform of the British navy.

By declaring contraband of war simple passengers, with or without a diplomatic mission, the Americans strike a mortal blow against the privileges of neutral States which it is to their interest more than any one else to see respected. Neutrality has been up to the present time their invariable rule of conduct, and that egotistical though wise policy (because wisdom has become the synonym for egotism in the affairs of the world) has made of nearly all wars of other nations the occasion of fortune for them. If the flag does not cover passengers as it covers goods, the American marine, which is engaged principally as transports, loses its revenues with the loss of its inviolability. It is, therefore, a sort of suicide which it commits in laying its hands on this privilege which it has violated under circumstances in no way excusable. If they had arrested men going from Europe to America and carrying succor of any kind to their opponents of the South, this might perhaps be understood, looking into the circumstances of time and place. But Messrs. Mason and Slidell were leaving America, and it was in a neutral country that they took their passage upon a neutral vessel. If they could be arrested there, they could as well be arrested in Liverpool or in Havre.

They were going to Europe, it is said, to plead the cause of the South at the tribunal of diplomacy; but that is not an act of direct aggression, and the Cabinet at Washington had the least right to give it that character when they themselves had caused the departure, almost at the same moment, on the steamer Arago, of Mr. Thurlow Weed, charged, it is said, with a similar mission.

In short — and this is not the least decisive consideration — the United States preserve enough of prudence at the bottom of their temerity, enough of wisdom, even in their passions, not to cast themselves voluntarily.