Attitude of England towards the United States.
The London Post (the organ of the British Government) has the following editorial:‘ The intelligence brought from America by the last mail bears a complexion so perplexed and confused as almost to defy explanation and commentary. We know as a fact that the North and the South have large armies in the field, and we inter from existing circumstances that a natural and excusable desire to avoid the inevitable and desolating evils of civil war has, up to the present time, kept the two contending parties completely at bay.
The British Government will not permit American men of-war or privateers to bring their captures into British ports. The government of his Majesty, the Emperor of the French, acting under an old ordinance of 1861, is prepared to enforce the same prohibition, and therefore both countries are unanimous in their determination to give practical effect to the declaration annexed to the treaty of Paris, that ‘"privateering is and remains abolished."’ Mr. Lincoln professes his intention to adhere to the same declaration; but how he can, without the assistance of privateers, maintain a blockade from Chesapeake. Bay to the Rio Grande del Norte, is a matter which must appear more than ever doubtful. But if we revert to the question of interference, which the New York papers and Messrs. Cassius M. Clay and Burimgame so incorrectly assert is about to take place on the part of England, we are naturally led to examine the American doctrine with regard to the recognition of de facto government.
We all know as a matter of history that the independence of the thirteen States was secured by the aid and assistance of France. If England and France should now apply precisely the same rule to the Southern Confederation, the North would certainly have no right to complain. But these threats on the part of a Government which has rebellion and civil war to quell, are utterly idle and fertile. It is the policy of this country to abstain from interference, and if the declaration of centrality recently issued by the British Government is misinterpreted by the jealous irritability of the Northern States, we in this country can afford to laugh and despise the folly of a Government which, at such a time, would strive to supplement the horrors of civil war by the disasters of foreign contest. Mr. Seward may think that the loss of the mouth of the Mississippi may be compensated by the annexation of Canada and the command of the St. Lawrence.
We regret to see, amongst the items of news brought by the last mail, that Mr. Lincoln has accepted the services of a Canadian volunteer regiment. During the Russian war, when the sympathies of the Cabinet at Washington were all with the enemy of England and France, the enlistment of a few wretched Germans within the territory of the United States was considered an offence so grave as to justify the severance of all diplomatic relations between this country and the United States. So, in the present instance, if Mr. Lincoln should carry out the wrong-headed policy expressed by Mr. Cassius M. Clay and Mr. Burlingame at Paris, the same result of the cessation of diplomatic intercourse might again occur. But who would suffer? The sympathies of this country would be alternated from the North, the evils of Southern slavery would be forgotten, and any inconvenience to British commerce would speedily be remedied by the presence of a British fleet which would sweep every American armed ship, whether cruiser or privateer, from the seas. In the present condition of the Federal Government, Spain can even afford to laugh at the threats which Mr. Lincoln is said to have uttered with respect to St. Domingo; but that the President or his satellites, now for the first time embarking in diplomacy should endeavor to insult and outrage England, is an act of folly to which even the history of the United States affords us no parallel.
We have hitherto been silent on the possibility of Lord Lyons being ordered to depart as Lord Napier received notice to quit a few years ago. But if the Federal Government should provoke war, Canada, in spite of the few discontented who have volunteered for the service of a foreign State, would remain staunch and true. She would not only maintain her own, but she would paralyze the action of the North with regard to the Secession States. Mr. Seward, who at one time stated that Canada ought not to be interfered with, because the time of annexation would surely come, may possibly imagine that by subserviently courting the assistance of France, the inhabitants of the Lower Province may be seduced to disloyalty and insurrection. He will find himself egregiously deceived; for as far as observation extends, the Canadian people, without distinction of race, are devoted to the British crown, and it may be said that to their hands is now destined to be transferred that balance of power on the American continent which both the democratic North and the South have so wailfully and so needlessly surrendered to England, and happy, contented, prosperous and monarchical Canada.
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