Lord Lyons and the Yankees.
The Yankee papers are raising a great outcry over the reported plot of the "rebel" sympathizers in
Canada to capture
Buffalo, release the
Confederate prisoners, and burn the city.
For our own part, we do not believe one word of the story, although attested by Lord Lyons in his official capacity, and taken for granted by
Stanton.
We believe it to be a mare's nest, existing only in the weak fancy of the
British ambassador and his informants in
Canada.
It afforded a rare opportunity, however for
Lyons to manifest his zeal for the cause of
Yankee Doodle, and his hatred of the "
so-called"
Confederate States of America.
The tool of
Seward, as
Russell himself is the tool of
Adams, there was every temptation for him to give easy faith to, if he did not actually
invent, the whole story.
Our opinion is, that he
invented it for his own purposes, and those of his Government, which just now is completely under the control of the
Government at
Washington.
The existence of such a plot is an improbability so monstrous that scarcely any degree of proof would be sufficient to establish it, and as yet we have seen no proof worthy of the name.
Johnson's Island is in
Lake Erie. Lake Eric is navigated by a vast number of armed Yankee vessels.
If such a plot actually existed, and should succeed in liberating the captives, the States of New York,
Pennsylvania, and
Maryland--a crowded and hostile country swarming with soldiers — lie between them and the nearest State of the
Confederacy.
How could they possibly make their way through such a country?
Should they, in despair of reaching their own country, turn to
Canada, they know well enough that they would not be protected there.
Far from it, the
British Government would make a merit of delivering them up, let the law upon the subject be what it might.
It would be a most acceptable offering to
Seward, and would probably have the effect of diminishing the number of distributes in which the
Yankee papers habitually indulge with regard to
Great Britain and her Government.
The whole story is incredible, and is, we firmly believe, a mere figment of
Lyons and his correspondents.
The English Foreign
Secretary could not have fallen upon a man better suited to his purposes than the present
Minister Plenipotentiary at
Washington.
His hatred of the
Confederacy is on a level with his sycophancy to
Lincoln and
Seward.
A narrow understanding and a cold heart peculiarly fit him to play the tool of a despotism, and he plays it with a zest which shows that he is in his element, and feels it. By this pretended exposure of a plot he aggravates immeasurably the hardships which our unfortunate countrymen are enduring in their terrible captivity.
He knows that well enough, but he does not shrink from the task before him. Had the case been reversed — had the prisoners been Yankees, and the prison a Confederate prison — doubtless his ears would not have been so acute, or his tongue so ready to denounce.
But the prisoners are mere rebels in his eyes — his Government, or the head of it, or the
Minister who writes the
Queen's speeches, has already called it a "civil war, " in spite of all the information furnished by
Mr. Yancey and
Mr. Slidell, thus taking the decision of the question into its own hands — and therefore no mercy was to be expected.
It may have been his miserable duty to denounce the plot and the plotters.
But would it not have been a little more consistent with humanity to have first ascertained its existence?
In the meantime, we do not maintain that a plot laid by Confederate prisoners in the middle of
Lake Erie, surrounded by Yankee ships of war, in conjunction with persons in
Canada — disclosed by Lord Lyons, and punished by
Lincoln — has more the air of an ill-gotten up farce than anything that even the unassisted genius of Yankeedom has yet brought out.
