Further from Europe.
the recent Confederate Reverses discussion in Parliament upon the
Foreign Enlistment law &c.
We have received files of English papers as late as the 26th ult. They contain some further comments on the
fall of Vicksburg and the
battle of Gettysburg.
The following are some extracts from their editorials:
[from the London Times, July 21.]
At this moment, if the news from
Vicksburg be true,
Port Hudson is the only remaining obstacle to the entire command of the
Mississippi, from its source, at the very northern boundary of the
United States, to the
Gulf of Mexico.
But that command must still depend on the good will of the river States, and that good will must depend either on the entire subjection of the
Southern States, or, at all events on the perfectly secure character of the relations to be established between the
Northern and Southern.
Whatever makes the
Southern States the subjects and servants and tributaries of the
Northern will have much the same effect on the
Northwestern.
The instant the bargain is struck with the
South there comes in the still more importunate creditor, or still more insolent debtor, or still more impracticable partner, in the far interior.
The difficulty, then, ever increases, and will only be the greater for every year the war lasts.
Immigration disturbed the balance of the North and South; immigration disturbed still more seriously the balance of the
Northeast and Northwest.
Yet there are no means of taking the sense of those growing and still loosely organized States.
There is no one to answer for them; no one to hold them to any compact; no one even to foresee how interest or opinion will develop in those regions.
So, if the
Union is no longer possible, disunion, on the basis of two Federations, is at least as much beyond the power of immediate arrangement.
Such is the result of those mighty pretensions and that arrogant spirit which have been elevated into a religion and a virtue in the
United States, and which, failing their first object, find nothing else to rest upon.
The idol is broken, and there the superstition ends.
The fragments can neither be joined nor worshiped separately, and all we can do is to wait and see what Heaven will ordain out of earth's failure.
[from the London Times.]
The real lesson that should be drawn from the political failure of those repeated and mutual invasions is that the issues sought are not to be gained by war at all. From the first the conflict was one of questions and principles, which can only be settled by statesmanship.
National madness has given them over for decision by the sword, and it is now evident to the world that fighting brings that decision no nearer.
Opinion has marked out a frontier which armies cross in vain to compel submission.
Whichever side attacks seems destined always to fail.
The South, constantly victorious in
Virginia, is baffled when it passes north of the
Potomac.
Even the alternating successes of the war, in the waste of life by which they are purchased, prove it desperate; and the repeated failures on both sides, for any purpose larger than a destructive incursion, point as clearly as any human events can do to a settlement of another kind.
The war may be continued to mutual exhaustion, but it will never mutually convince.
Statesmen, if they can be found, will have to take the whole question out of the hands of the soldiers at last, even if the 300,000 troops called for by the
Northern conscription are enrolled, armed, and slaughtered in another two years of miserable conflict.
[from the London Herald July, 20.]
Another episode in the
American war is over.
The second invasion of the
Northern States by a Confederate army has terminated, like the first, without result, and the combatants are once more confronting each other on the banks of the
Potomac.
After two years of slaughter — after the sacrifice of at least two hundred thousand men in
Virginia,
Maryland, and
Pennsylvania, the position of affairs is unchanged.
The South is still too weak for successful aggression; the
North finds each fresh effort at invasion a more disastrous failure; and yet there is not the fainest prospect of the end of the struggle.
For aught we can see it may last twenty yards.
Mr. Seward is beginning to renew his ninety days promises.
The
fall of Vicksburg has given him a new lease of power.
He is evidently forecasting the date at which the fighting material of the
South will have become exhausted at the rate of a million or a million and half of Northerners for five hundred thousand Confederates.
And as
Washington is safe, as
Philadelphia is not in flames, and the guns of
Fort McHenry still repress secession in
Baltimore, he is confident the day of exhaustion is not far distant.
The news which he will receive from this country by the next mail will strengthen his hopes.
He will learn that the word which might have given peace to a continent, and possibly save the lives of 50,000 men, has not been spoken.
He will hear that the
English Government, which is prepared to accept any issue in behalf of a people of alien race, language and faith waging war not so much by native valor as by foreign all, shrinks from acknowledging the independence of a nation which asks from it absolutely nothing beyond a formal recognition, and which after two years of in fighting over half a continent, maintains an unimpeached authority and a magnificent army, such as no other people striving for freedom has ever attained in the first or last year of its struggle for national rights, We can understand
Mr. Boward's feeling and objects.
If the
Union to exist he is nothing.
He is worse than nothing, for the of millions will brand him as the tool of the most corrupt and bl Administration the world has every soon.
But what we full to comprehend is the absolute of our owe ministry.
It seems that things have come to this point with us that the of and the meet of issue are only by of view, that of party interests.
The radical vase in the House of Commons determines if not the fate of nation ob the deaths of thousands of our fellow-men.
The exigencies of the coalition are the key note in
England's foreign policy.
Lancashire starver that East Russell may retain his place, and in America Federals and Confederates slaughter each either that our Government — at war in
China and
Japan, aggressive in
Brazil, and m in
Poland — may prats of non-intervention in
America.
France offers mediation and recognition.
The Emperor Napoleon, to whom Earl Howell is over ready to impute the men-bellicose intentions, wants peace across the
French English worthmen, Belgian workmen, ar and starving, American by thousands are dying, but our Government will not say the word that would put an and to this terrible state of things.
And while
Mr. Seward excite at the postponement of his crowning humiliation, Earl Russell chuckles over the assurance that his place is safe, and that
Mr. Adams can supply him a new argument for refusing to accord to a gallant people the rights they claim and have abundantly vindicated.
[from the London Star, July 20.]
With deep, devout, and grateful joy, we publish to-day the news of viceries that are the heralds of a happy peace.
Seldom, if ever, has it been the lot of the journalist to announce on the same sheet two events of such transcendent importance as the
fall of Vicksburg and the retreat of
Lee. The glorious Fourth of July has indeed tion.
How thankful may the House of Commons be that
Mr. Roebuck was silenced in time.
For although he had never a chance of carrying his motion, what reputations might he not have dragged into the mile.
It is had enough that even the glare of temporary success should have reduced any of free woman born into sympathy with the treason of slaveholders.--How much worse that men of political mark among us should be committed to the recognition of a rebellion as hopeless as it is infamous in object and spirit.
In the House of Commons, on the 22d, the subject of the
Foreign Enlistment act was introduced by
Mr. Cobden, who referred to the proceedings of the steamers
Alabama,
Florida, and
Virginia, all of which were built in British ports for the Southern Confederacy.
He said it was well known that two iron clad ships were being built at
Liverpool for the same purpose, and he believed that if they were allowed to leave
England the result would be a declaration of war on the part of the
American Government.
American shipping had become valueless in consequence of the seizures made by the Confederate cruisers
He implored the
Government to take the proper steps to prevent the departure of these vessels.
He had been informed that the
American Government took note of the value of every vessel captured by the
Southern privateers, and debited it to her Majesty's Government.
Mr. Laird, in response, taunted
Mr. Cobden with pursuing a course which, while it would enable his friends in the
North to get all they wanted, would put a stop in
England to a legitimate branch of industry.
He accused the
Americans of having built ships of war for
Russia during the Crimean war, and with raising recruits in
Ireland since the outbreak of the percent conflict.
Lord Palmerson defended the course which the
Government had taken, and said he could see no distinction of principle between the selling of arms to the
Federals and the shipping of ships to the
Confederates.
Letters from
Hon. Gidson Welles,
Secretary of the Navy, to
Hon. Charles Somser, are published in the
English journals.
They refer to
Mr. Laird's statement in Parliament, that his firm had been approached in 1861 by the agents of the
Federal Government relative to the building of war vessels for the
North.
Mr. Laird asserts neither directly nor indirectly that any application was made by his (
Mr. Welles) authority to the
Messrs. Lord, or any other foreign ship-builders, for the construction of vessels for the
American Government.
Advances had been made to him, however, on behalf of numerous English and other foreign ship builders, but in every instance the proposition to build, or procure to be built, vessels for the
Federal navy abroad, was declined.
Mr. Laird asserts that he is prepared to maintain the truth of his former statement, and offers to place the proof in Lord Palmerston's hands.
