The Iron rams at Nantes.
"Happy are they who expect little in this world, for most assuredly they shall not be disappointed." The six rams which were being built at Nantes for the use of the Confederate Government have been stopped by order of the Emperor. It was hoped that the French monarch would manifest some what more of an independent spirit than Russell has done; but hopes are, beyond everything else, deceitful, as to the objects of this life. Minister Dayton gave the order and the rams were suppressed. So, at least, says Seward, and we suppose it is true. We must hereafter look only to ourselves and our own interior resources for our protection. It is vain to tell us that the English people, or the French people, or any other people, are in our favor. If such be the fact, their love is of the coldest and most abstract description which it is possible to conceive. It consists not in outward symptoms, but is confined to their own bosoms. They are too bashful to afford the least tangible evidence. It is so abstruse that it would require a mathematician to calculate it.The Richmond Enquirer, some days ago, took the ground that when the English Consuls were disowned by our Government the French Consuls, and, indeed, all other Consuls, ought to have been placed in the same category. It argued that the dismission proceeded from improper motives when it was placed upon the interference of one or two of them in our domestic affairs — that the true ground was the fact of their having received their exequatur from the Government of the United States--that upon that ground all the foreign Consuls ought to be dismissed — and that it was making an invidious distinction — and one which would most assuredly give offence — to let the whole weight of the punishment fall upon one nation.--We think the Enquirer was right in this particular; but we are disposed to think, also, that the Government made the discrimination from a desire not to interfere with the French Consuls, because it was supposed that the French Government was favorable to us. We now see that this was a mistake, and we deeply regret that all were not dismissed at once. In that case England would have had no right to take offence, and we should have done at a blow what, in all probability, we shall hereafter be compelled to do piece-meal. We hope the Executive will act upon this hint — assume a new principle of action in the premises — and dismiss every Consul who has been acknowledged as such by the Federal Government.
We are alone in this war. Would that we could say that the other nations of the earth were even neutral. That they all profess to be so is true enough; but there is not one of them whose neutrality weighs not heavily upon us, while it is altogether in favor of our enemies. From Ireland and Germany the ranks of the Yankee armies are recruited as fast as they are thinned by the fire of our soldiers. Yet Great Britain and all the German States profess to be strictly and fastidiously neutral.--And so they are, so far as neutrality consists, in cautiously abstaining from the least act which can in the remotest degree be beneficial to us. But with regard to such acts as may be of benefit to the Yankees the case is very different. The British Government, for instance, knows perfectly well that the tens of thousands of Irishmen who land every month throughout the season in New York are drafted to serve in the Yankee army. They know that such is their destination before they leave home. Now, we are but indifferent lawyers, and it is many years since we have read any work on English law, even of a character so popular as Blackstone's Commentaries. Yet, if we are not very much mistaken, we remember that in Blackstone's Commentaries it is laid down that, while the King can force no subject to leave the realm — not even a convict, who can stay and be hung, if he prefers it to Botany Bay — he may prohibit, by his writ of no exert, any number he may please from doing the same thing. Lord John Russell, if he thought proper, could prevent emigration from Ireland to this country at any moment by a mere Order in Council. If the emigrants had resorted to the Confederate States instead of to the Yankee he would have done this long ago. So could the German powers have done; for they are all absolute. Instead of doing so they are furnishing recruits in vast quantities to the Yankees, and because these recruits are not mustered into service in Germany and Ireland they expect to cheat us with the mean and pitiful pretence that they are neutral. To us, we take it, it is a matter of supreme indifference whether they be drilled, armed, and uniformed in Europe or here. The consequences, at least, are all the same to us.--Would it not be more honest, then, in these Governments to proclaim at once their real character of enemies to us and friends to the Yankees?
We are, we repeat, alone in this war. The rest of the world is not only not for us, but it is positively against us. There is no port in the world into which our cruisers can conduct and dispose of a prize. There is no ship-yard in which we can build a ship.--There is no country from which we can expect a recruit. If the characteristic cupidity of English manufacturers compel their Government to permit us to buy arms and clothing at their establishments it is because it always entertains a lively hope that they may be captured before they reach our shores. Engaged in a desperate struggle for our very existence with an enemy three times as numerous as ourselves, and ten times as well provided with all the materials of war, we are cut off from all hope save in our own exertions. These have proved sufficient thus far, nor is there any prospect of failure in the future. Let us cease to hope anything from abroad, and cut ourselves off still more effectually by ignoring all powers who ignore us, and suffering none such to have their agents here.
