From Europe.
the London times on the fall of Fort Sumter.
By the arrival of the steamer Africa, at New York, we have the views of the English press on the bombardment of Sumter, one of which we subjoin.
We also find in the papers this paragraph: In the House of Commons on the 26th ult., Mr. W. E. Forster gave notice that if the honorable member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) brought forward his motion on Tuesday next, with regard to the recognition of the Southern Confederacy, which, after the intelligence received this morning, he hoped he would persist in doing, he (Mr. Forster) should withdraw the amendment of which he had given notice, and move instead the previous question.
[From the London Times, April 27.]
Nature, or something that stands in its stead, is still strong in the Americans.--They fight ‘"willing, but with un willing minds."’ They lift the hand to strike, they wing the instrument of death, but a mysterious power averts the stroke, or blunts the edge, or deadens the blow. Are they in earnest or are they playing at war, or dreaming that they strike and still strike not? It sounds more like a dangerous game than a sad reality. Seven batteries breached and bombarded Fort Sumter for forty hours, burnt down its barracks, blew up several magazines, threw shells in to it innumerable, and did a vast show of destruction. The fort replied with like spirit At length it surrendered, the garrison marched out prisoners of war, and it was then found that not a man was killed or an officer wounded on either side. Many a ‘"difficulty"’ at a bar has cost more bloodshed. Was this a preconcerted feat of conju?ing? Were the rival Presidents saluting one another in harmless fireworks to amuse the groundlings? The whole affair is ufterly inexplicable. It sounds like the battles when the coat of mall had come to its perfection, and when the only casualty, after a day's hard fighting, was a case of suffocation and a few bruises. Odin's heroes as they renew their daily warfare are really wounded, though their wounds are quickly healed. This is sparring with boxing gloves — not the loaded cæstus of modern warfare. It is a mere spectacle. The population and even the ladies of Charleston poured forth to see the sight. Ten thousand soldiers lined the works, watching the sport and contributing their share. Our own cockneys have seen as much, and done as much, at Cremorne, or the Surrey Gardens, not more unscathed, and, let us hope, in not more pacific mood. But perhaps this is only the interchange of courtesies which in olden times preceded real war. The result is utterly different from all we are accustomed to hear of the Americans. There a ‘"word and a blow"’ has been the rule. In this case the blow, when it does at last come, falls like snow and lights as gently as thistie down. Surely it cannot be a ‘"cross?"’ If it be, half the old Union is in the conspiracy, for all are arming and rushing to war as if they expected serious work.
What next? An attempt to recapture Fort Sumter? A contest at Fort Pickens? A struggle for the Capital? A diversion in Texas? A renewal of negotiation? No one knows, and, what is worse, no one credits President Lincoln for any plan. We can only compare the two sides and strike a balance. In the North there is an army, and a navy, and money, and a more numerous white population, without, too, the incubus of slavery. There is also the tradition of the Union, the Capital, and the successor of Washington. Modern warfare cannot go on without money, and the Northern States can more easily raise and spend a hundred millions of dollars a year than the Southern can raise ten millions. All that is outside and material is in favor of the North. It has the preponderance of everything that can be counted, measured and weighed; that can be bought and sold; that can be entered in ledgers and put on a balance sheet. It has the manufactories, the building-yards, the dock-yards — the whole apparatus of national wealth and strength. It has the money market, and it borrows more easily than the South, where, however, political zeal sustains a fictitious credit.--So in the North we read of numerous gatherings of State forces; of many steamers chartered, stripped of their finery, filied with soldiers, food and ammunition, and steaming south ward. So much for the North. In the South, on the contrary, there is little or nothing but that which often becomes the counterbalance to everything else. There are the men of action, who can combine, conspire, keep the secret, have a plan, and carry it out without wavering or flinching. The politicians at Washington have been vacillating between peace and war, between compromise and resistance. In the South there has been one steady, uninterrupted progress, towards secession and war. To the very last President Lincoln has been behind hand. His ships sent to relieve Fort Sumter only arrived in time to be distant spectators of the scene; they came, in fact, but to contribute to the glory of the captors, and to bring shame and distrust on themselves and their cause. If this is to be an omen of the result, the rich and unready North will be no match for the flery forwardness of the South.
But long shots are very different from close quarters. A fight of batteries across a river,watched with telescopes and quietly witnessed by a large population, affords little clue for the result of a battle hand to hand, step by step, with revolvers, knives and what not, round the very buildings of the capital. That appears to be the next thing apprehended, and?President Lincoln has summoned to his aid all the miscellaneous local corps of the several Northern States that may choose to hear him. Strange that the spot once held so sacred and so carefully insulated from local or partial associations should become the object of the first civil war ! That is, indeed, what we have come to. Many of us remember, not without a tingle of shame for our own country, the wanton attack of the British army on the Capital and the foolish injuries done there, destined soon to be more than avenged. That was but a souvenir of the older War of Independence. No British officer would have dared to insult the great shrine of American Union and liberty, had it not been felt that, besides the question then at issue, there was an account still to settle for the former war. Since the year 1813 there has been a generation of mutual respect — of even affection.--That is all gone by. Other combatants gather round Washington. The War Minister of the Southern Confederacy publicly promises that the secession flag shall float over the Capitol by the 1st of May. Any day it is expected that Virginia, whether by choice or by necessity, will join the secession, and then the sacred District of Columbia, which was to have been the common ground of the world's great brotherhood, will be the debateable border of a divided allegiance and a bloody quarrel.--Mean while time brings around anniversaries which are celebrated as of yore, but with the feeling that they are now a solemn mockery. What are the Declaration of Independence, the battle of Lexington, the birthday of Clay, and the other red-letter days in the American calendar, now that the glorious fabric is itself in the dust, and the mountain made with hands shattered to pieces. It was but the other day that all eyes were fixed on the Capital of the Old World as the single object of interest, and the expected scene of the great events that were to mark the latter years of this century. Rome occupied the attention of all men. A hundred questions were asked, but all were of Rome. Will Rome be still a capital? Will it be the head of a Confederation, or the throne of a King, or the seat of a foreign Viceroy, or the See of a Universal Bishop, or the Senate of a National Republic? Before these questions could be answered, and while they are still asked, the Capital of the New World comes to the foreground, and is the object of much the same inquiries. The two cities of Rome and Washington are not so differently situated at this moment, nor are their prospects so different as might be. For the present, indeed, we shall all think more of Washington than of Rome
