English and other European news.
From the New York Herald, of the 21st, we are able to gather some few European items of interest:
"unto God that which is God's, and unto CæSar that which is CæSar's."
At the Diplomatic Reception of Napoleon in Paris, on New Year's day, the Archbishop of Paris complimented his Majesty, when the Emperor replied:‘ "I am always much moved by the prayers which you address to Heaven for the Empress, for my son, and for me. The French clergy, so eminent for its piety and virtues', who know that they must render unto God that which is God's, and to Cæsar that which is Cæsar's, may count, you may assure them, upon my protection and my lively sympathy."
’ Upon which words the correspondent of the London News thus comments:
‘ "When the Emperor tells the Archbishop of Paris that the clergy knows the difference between what belongs to God and what to Cæsar, it is difficult to avoid the inference that Cæsar is thinking of asserting rights which the priests would not admit if they had any choice in the matter. This interpretation coincides with rumors that a serious attempt is about to be made to settle terms for the evacuation of Rome."
’
Rebel Hoax on a Yankee Consul.
A Frankfort letter states that Mr. Murphy, the American Consul in that city, recently received a letter, apparently from the two Burgomasters, informing him that his passport was ready, as the Germanic Confederation had recognized the Confederation of the Southern States. Mr. Murphy, suspecting some trick, sent the document to the Burgomasters, who at once declared that their signatures had been rather cleverly imitated.
Nature of the English demand for Mason and Slidell.
The London correspondence of the Independence Bells, of January 2d, gives the following statement of the nature of the English demand upon Lincoln and his Government in the Trent affair:‘ Lord Lyons's instructions enjoin on him not to send in his ultimatum until three days after he shall have received it. During these three days he is to see Mr. Lincoln and his Ministers, and to endeavor to make plain to them the motives which have caused the demand of Messrs. Mason and Slidell; to prepare them for the tenor of the ultimatum itself, and to bring to their notice the consequences of a refusal. If these preliminary counsels are not regarded, he will send in his ultimatum, after three-full days passed in negotiations, like those I have referred to, and he will add that his government has instructed him to demand his passports seven days after the transmission of the ultimatum, if the demands therein specified are not complied with.
It is, therefore, evident that the ultimatum was not sent on the 20th, when the Africa left.
A grave circumstance hitherto unknown to the public will operate strongly in our favor at Washington. It is now known that in the month of June last the French Government proposed to ours to recognize the Southern States. M. Fould himself was made the organ in London of this policy, which was repelled by the British Cabinet.
It is to be presumed that, before coming to a final determination, Mr. Lincoln will submit the question to the law officers of the Government. It is almost certain that the decision of the lawyers will be in our favor. I repeat, that everything leads to the hope that peace will prevail; if the Government of Washington is inspired by the counsels of justice and wisdom, and not by the rash demands of the people.
’
English Politics.
From the London Chronicle, of January 4, we have some interesting facts concerning the ‘"Peace-at-Price"’ party in England, who it appears, were quite willing to pocket the insult offered their country by the Yankees. The Chronicle says:‘ "In Birmingham itself, six thousand men have declared, by a majority of ten to one, against the scheme of arbitration in the affair of the Trent. Where was the genius that should have guided them, mellowed their intellects into a starry condition, and taught them that the English flag is a worthless bit of bunting?"
’ The meeting was gotten up, it should be observed, by the Capitulationists; every conceivable effort was made to pack the Town Hall with anti-national secretaries; the management, the first speeches and the leading resolutions were monopolized by those whom we must term our Anglo-Chinese. When a vote was taken, however, and the hands rose in forests, and the shouts followed them in thunder, the Quakers, with characteristic honesty, turned up their eyes and claimed a triumph. Whereupon a local magistrate insisted upon a second vote, and the hands that went up in forests, and the shouts that followed them in thunder, were proved to have been in favor of Lord Palmerston's Government, and hostile to the peace-at-any-price faction. We presume that Mr. Bright will have to go down and ascertain how he stands with his constituents, for they have decidedly snubbed him and the unfortunate party to which he belongs. After this we shall hear nothing more of the romantic demonstrations at Brighton; but it is amusing to observe that the organs of the anti-English cabal contained no record of their Birmingham defeat.
This is precisely what might have been expected. The event, however, is too remarkable and too important as an evidence of public opinion to be left in the obscurity of a paragraph. It is espeaially significant just now, when the naval rights of Great Britain are proposed to be subjected to a species of diplomatic thimblerig, in which, of courss, the deluded country which puts its trust in a foreign arbitrator would be effectually shaped. And it is useful to contemplate this revolt of Birmingham against the peace party, when we have before us the endless illustrations of American political controversy and civil war. General McClellan's army hesitates to fight, but Gen. McClellan's agents are not incapable of setting fire to cities and towns in the South.
It is now perfectly understood that the horrible conflagration at Charleston, which rendered hundreds of poor families homeless, and endangered thousands of lives, was the work of a Northern incendiary. Indeed, seven attempts were made immediately afterwards, within two days, to set Montgomery in flames; and it has been openly boasted that other rebel centres are to perish like the Cities of the Plain. Here is a Government professing to be civilized, which makes war at sea by dispatching cargoes of granite to choke forever the entrances of commercial ports, and by land employs worse than assassins to burn down peaceful habitations, and risk the lives of women and children, of the aged and the helpless, indiscriminately. These are the clients of our ultra-pacific pleaders, and their savage brutality, worthy only of the red Indian, is that probably which qualifies them to be approved by fanatics who can detect no crime and no barbarism, except when charged against an Englishman.
We must continue, while anticipating further intelligence, to scrutinize closely the statements brought from America. In the first place, the conciliatory remark attributed to Gen. McClellan rests upon no authority whatever, beyond that of a New York penny-a-liner. From the game source originated a fictitious report of a conversation at the table of the French Minister.--Again, as will be seen by the later information we give to-day, there was not a shadow of truth in the statement with respect to a Cabinet Council at which the English question was said to have been discussed. If we look for absolute facts; we find considerable preparations for a maritime war; a bill voted by Congress for the construction of 20 iron-clad vessels, and more significantly still, a grant of nearly five millions of dollars to erect gigantic works of defence at New York harbor, and other points of the coast from the lakes to San Francisco. We also discover frequent testimonials to the inefficiency of the blockade.
Turning to another subject, we have to recommend for the perusal of those credulous beings who fancy that Mr. Lincoln desires to promote emancipation, the narrative of what took place after General Phelps had issued his proclamation to the southwest. There was almost a mutiny in the camps. Both men and officers declared that they were come to fight for the integrity of the Union, and not for the abolition of slavery; a large proportion of officers threatened to resign; and we may now think what we please about the Federal heroes as Abolitionists. They are not more Abolitionist than President Jefferson himself, and they never made use of the cry with any other object than that of cheating the English public into a false sympathy.
We are far from blaming President Lincoln for refusing to comply with the demand of his hot-headed colleague, Secretary Cameron, by exciting a servile war. Such a power, once out in motion, might drench the land in blood, and redden over the prospect with a confusion of burning cities; it might avenge a thousand personal wrongs, and retaliate upon the master an exaggeration of his own bad passions in the madness of the slave, but it would be a crusade which human nature would condemn, and which would render no aid to the real progress of liberty. It may be
that a check upon the recklessness of the Cabinet has been discovered in the known confidence of the slave party in the loyalty of the black population. However far this loyalty may extend, it is certain that a strong exemplification of it was given at Charleston, where at first the North attempted to fix upon the blacks the stigma of that monstrous incen-as afraid of them. But he is too sound and consistent a liberal to hesitate on which side to bestow his sympathy in that unhappy struggle between a people and a Government fighting for their free institutions against an oligarchy of slaveholders. And in a case where the honor of an old nation is engaged on the one side, and the pride of a growing and ambitious people on the other, the member for Bradford is cautious and deliberate in seeking to elucidate the facts of an international question, to determine the principles which should govern its adjustment without sacrifice of honor on either side, and, without insisting off hand and dogmatically on the resort to arbitration before he has ascertained whether the opportunity for arbitration has arrived, he urges that the possibility and propriety of appealing to some better decision than that of the sword should be kept in view. This, in truth, is all that can be advanced with any show of reason or prudence at the present moment in favor of a principle which may not, after all, whether fortunately or unfortunately, be susceptible of application to the present case.
It is not in these columns that our readers will-look for a word against a principle to which we cleave as a pledge of a happier future for the Old World and the New. But in such a crisis as we are now passing through it is impossible for us to be quite cosmopolitan as to forget that England is our country, and that English rights and interests are the nearest and dearest to English public writers, as to the rest of their fellow-countrymen ashore or afloat.
It is in this spirit that we earnestly condemn the policy of dividing English opinion on the previous question of national honor, or representing it as divided. Our Government has addressed a demand to the Cabinet of Washington as moderate and conciliatory in form as it is decided in substance; and having done this, it has a right to count for something on the strength and imposing appearance of strength which comes of national union even more than of vast material resources, in supreme emergencies, when the hand is on the sword hilt, but the heart is still for peace.
