the United States to the rights of belligerents under the law of nations.

these laws, a pirate who is licensed to plunder and murder by Jefferson Davis' letters Nò ingenuity can blind us to these facts: of marque, now endorsed by the sovereigns Before the proclamation, to support our Gov- of England and France, it will be regarded ernment was an honorable office for the sub- as an outrage by the civilized world; and jects of Great Britain, and the rebels were this gentle intimation comes to us from a insurgents with no rights save under the nation who are hardly recovered from the American Constitution. After the procla- | effects of a rebellion, to end which, without mation, for an Englishman to serve the United staying to ask the opinion of the world, they States is a crime, and the rebels are elevated blew their rebels from the guns. into a belligerent power; and this intervention of England, depriving us of a support which her practice permitted, and giving the rebels a status and right they did not possess, we are coolly told is neutrality. Dr. Johnson, in his famous letter, gave us a sketch of a Chesterfieldean patron seeing a man struggling for life in the water, and when he reached ground incumbering him with help. Lord John has taught us the meaning of British neutrality toward a nation supposed to be in like condition. Let us trust that the English people will not endorse the definition.

What would England have said to such a proclamation of neutrality from us in her domestic troubles in Canada, in Ireland, or in India? What would the English people have thought of a state paper from Washington, declaring it the sovereign will of the people of the United States to remain perfectly neutral in the contest being waged in Hindostan between the British Government on the one side and the Mogul dynasty on the other, and forbidding American citizens to enter the service of either of the said belligerents? What would they have thought of the American President intimating with cold etiquette that it was a matter of profound indifference to this Government which of the belligerents should be victorious, the King of Oude and Nana Sahib, or Lord Canning and the immortal Havelock? Or is it that the British have become so enamored of rebellion, ay, and of treachery, too, among their Sepoys, that they thus court our Great Mogul and his fellow-traitors of Montgomery?

The queen's proclamation strikes not simply at the moral position of our Government, but according to the English press, it strikes also at our right to execute our own laws against piracy; and we are told by the London Times that if we venture to hang, under

It was intimated that the British Cabinet were puzzled how to act in regard to the United States on the one hand, and her rebel conspirators on the other, and that after a careful search for precedents, one was found in the royal proclamation touching the war between Greece and Turkey, and that on that was based the proclamation which has so displeased and wounded the American people.

AMERICAN NEUTRALITY IN CANADA.

It could not have escaped the Cabinet in their search for precedents, for we know with what thoroughness such searches are made, that a very similar state of things existed but a few years since between Great Britain and the United States, when the integrity and honor of the British empire were assailed by her Canadian colonists, and she had occasion to learn what in the opinion of the United States constitutes the duties of neutrality toward a friendly nation. Unsuccessful rebellions are soon forgotten, and perhaps many Englishmen may be surprised on being told that the Canadian rebellion was so deeply seated and so widely spread, as seriously to threaten the crown with the loss of the Canadas. Mr. Leader declared in Parliament that all the English Government could do, would be to subjugate and hold the principal cities, leaving the country occupied by rebels. The number of British troops under Sir John Colbourne was only twenty thousand, while the rebels are said to have had fourteen thousand at Montreal, four thousand at Napiersville, and thousands more in arms in different parts of the Canadas, fierce with indignation at the murder of a party of patriots by Indians in the employ of the British Government.

In November '37, two battles were fought between the British and the rebels, the one at St. Dennis, and the other at St. Charles,

which was taken from a force of three thou- | Van Buren issued a second proclamation, sand Canadians, of whom two hundred were killed, and thirty wounded.

In December, Mackenzie, the head rebel, who seems to have been the prototype of Davis, organized a provisional Government, and assuming the right to dispose of "ten millions of acres of land, fair and fertile," took possession of Montgomery House, near Toronto, with a band of insurgents, and sent a demand to Sir Francis B. Head to dissolve the Provincial Parliament, and to leave Toronto within fifteen days.

calling upon the misguided and deluded persons to abandon projects dangerous to their own country, fatal to those whom they profess a desire to relieve, impracticable of execution without foreign aid, which they cannot rationally expect to obtain, and giving rise to imputations, however unfounded, against the honor and good faith of their own Government.

The proclamation further called upon "every officer, civil and military, and upon every citizen, by the veneration due by all freemen to the laws which they have assisted to enact for their own Government, by his regard for the honor and good faith of his country, by his love of honor, and respect for that sacred code of laws by which national intercourse is regulated, to use every power to arrest for trial and punishment every offender against the laws providing for the performance of our obligations to the other powers of the world."

Then came Lord Gosford's proclamation at Quebec, declaring martial law, and denouncing the conspiracy and rebellion, and on the 8th of January, 1838, came the first proclamation from President Van Buren. After reciting the efforts made by him and by the governors of New York and Vermont to prevent any unlawful interference on the part of our citizens in the contest unfortunately commenced in the British provinces, and notwithstanding the presence of the civil officers of the United States who, by his direction, had visited the scenes of commotion," If an insurrection existed in Canada, the arms and ammunition have been procured by the insurgents, in the United States, the proclamation proceeded :

On the 4th of December, 1838, the President, in his message to Congress, declared,

amicable disposition of the United States, as well as their duty to themselves, would lead them to maintain a strict neutrality, and to restrain its citizens from all violation of the laws which have been passed for its enforcement. But the Government recognizes a still higher obligation to repress all attempts on the part of its citizens to disturb the peace of a country where order prevails or has been re-established."

"Now, therefore, to the end that the authority of the laws may be maintained and the faith of treaties observed, I, Martin Van Buren, do most earnestly exhort all citizens of the United States who have violated their duties to return peaceably to their respective homes, and I hereby warn them that any persons who shall compromise the neutrality Such was the neutrality on the part of the of this Government by interfering in an un- United States towards Great Britain. lawful manner with the affairs of the neigh-recognized the rebels of Canada not as belboring British provinces, will render themselves liable to arrest and punishment under ligerents, but as insurgents, and it enforced the laws of the United States," etc., etc. its neutrality not by forbidding its citizens to assist Great Britain to maintain its authority against the insurgents, but by forbidding them to interfere in an unlawful manner with the affairs of the Provinces.

At the request of Lord Durham, Mr. Van Buren had directed our commanding officer on Lake Ontario to co-operate in any measures which might be suggested by Lord Durham for rooting out the band of pirates who had their quarters among "the thousand isles," without the slightest regard to the official proclamation of their chief, Mr. William Johnson, holding a commission from the patriot Government, that the patriots would carefully respect neutral waters and the rights of all citizens of the United States.

On the 21st November, 1838, President

It

It needs no intimate knowledge of international law, no study of Grotius, or Puffendorf, or Vattel, or Wheaten, no definitions of the rights of belligerents and privateers from the Consolato del Mare, from Lampredi, Galiani, Moser, or Huebner, to enable us to appreciate the wide difference between the neutrality we practised toward England and her rebels, and that which England has inaugurated against us; and no refinement of

reasoning, nor subtle glosses indulged in by the English press, have at all blinded the American people to the unfriendly character of this royal proclamation.

France has adopted; and those two great powers who recently declared in the Congress at Paris that privateering is and shall remain abolished, by royal and imperial proclamation have countersigned letters of marque for the destruction of American ships, and which threaten with spoliation the commerce of the world. The aim and effect of the British proclamation seems to us so clearly unfriendly and injurious, that it is hardly worth while to note the discourtesy of adopting such a policy, and giving it

of the arrival of Mr. Adams, without allowing us the opportunity to offer a word of explanation or remonstrance. Mr. Adams reached Liverpool the 13th of May-the next day the proclamation was printed in London.

The recognition of the independence of the Southern Confederacy is a matter in the discretion of England, and of all foreign nations. When this independence is established as a matter of fact, we expect it to be recognized; but England does not so recognize it. She recognizes the Confederacy as simply struggling for independence as were the insurgents in Canada, and pending the struggle a definite and irreversible shape in advance she volunteers under professions of neutrality to ignore our constitutional right to subdue them, and to recognize their rebellion as lawful war. Bound to us by treaty stipulations, she elevates them to an equality of position as regards belligerent rights under The United States, by their neutrality, the law of nations. She places their usurped broke the back of the Canadian rebellion, government, based on treachery and slavery, dashed the hopes cherished by the rebels of on a par with that founded by Washington effective American sympathy, in good faith and his associates on the broad consent of assisted the British Government in mainthe American people. She introduces Jef- taining its authority and restoring order, and ferson Davis and his confederates to a lim- thus materially diminished the cost of treasited extent into the family of nations, en-ure and of life at which alone their subjecdorses the licenses given by them to pirates tion could have been accomplished. whose brutal cupidity is stimulated by bribes of blood-money-twenty dollars for every murdered American! and transforms them into letters of marque, which the ships of all nations are bound to recognize, respect, and obey.

The British Government by their neutrality, have made our task far more difficult, apart from the injury we may anticipate from the fleet of privateers whose letters are so respectably countersigned. But we learn from this proclamation one lesson that will be perhaps worth all that it shall cost us: we learn the treatment we may expect if we fail to maintain our national integrity and the honor of our flag.

Had she treated them as insurgents, they would have had no other rights on the sea than had Bill Johnson, the pirate of the St. Lawrence. Having proclaimed them belligerents, she has given them a commission If a mere supposition that the rebels at not simply to capture American property in Montgomery are likely to be successful, can American vessels, but to capture on the high in a moment dash from the memory of the seas American property on board of what- English Government all recollection of past ever vessel it may be found, and to carry the friendship, and induce her in our moment of neutral vessel and cargo into a belligerent trial to condescend to a course so different port for further examination.. She recog- from that we had pursued towards her what nizes the right of the men who have robbed treatment may we not expect from her, and our treasury, betrayed our forts, and filched from every other European Cabinet, if we our navy-yards and arsenals to establish ourselves by our conduct admit that we are prize-courts to decide upon the lawfulness powerless at home? How will we be treated of captures made by their commissioned abroad if we yield to the threats of a fraccruisers, and brought into court for adjudi- tion of our own population? What will be cation, and the title to be given by Davis' our standing among nations if, consenting courts is to be held valid by the law of nations. to separation, we lose nearly half of our terThat is what the proclamation of neutral-ritory and two-thirds of our Atlantic seaity really means. This is the neutrality board, and descend to the position of a thirdwhich England has inaugurated and which rate power? Or what respect will be paid

us if, to maintain our territory, we compro- ment of a slave empire, is not based on mise with rebellion-if we yield at the cannon's mouth what the people have deliberately refused at the polls-if we teach the world by such an example that we may be bullied with success, and that when we resist on principle unreasonable demands, it is only necessary to humble our flag and to threaten Washington to induce us ignominiously to submit?

Let us discard all reliance upon other help than that of God, a right cause and a strong arm, and let us recognize the stubborn fact that "the government or nation that fails to protect itself against foes, whether foreign or domestic, deserves to perish ingloriously." *

any evanescent burst of enthusiasm, but on the most sober calculations of honor, duty, safety, and economy; and that it is the true interest of England, her pecuniary, her political, and her moral interest, that the war should be as brief as possible, that the rebels may no longer be deluded into the belief that any true Englishman who understands the history and the object of their rebellion can regard it with other feelings than those naturally aroused by a policy of fraud, treachery, and oppression.

That the restoration of the integrity of our Union is to be accomplished without a vast expenditure of treasure, and perhaps of blood, no one anticipates. We all know something of the cost of European wars, but we know

THE RIGHT SYMPATHIES OF THE ENGLISH also our own resources and the immense stake

PEOPLE.

Before leaving the question of England's neutrality, I think we should distinguish between the hasty action of the British Cabinet and the deliberate conviction of the British people.

for which we will be fighting. Our fathers fought for seven years for our national freedom, and the spirit abroad throughout our land indicates that their sons, if necessary, will fight seven years more to save it from destruction and disgrace. Whether the debt incurred for its preservation shall be hun

That the heart of that great nation is sound, and that as soon as they understand the mo-dreds or thousands of millions, it will be a tives and manner of this rebellion as you understand them, they will appreciate our position, approve our resolution, and wish us God-speed in our great work of restoring the Federal Union to its integrity and its great original principles of freedom, I cannot, I will not doubt.

sacred legacy to future generations. A debt of five hundred millions, as remarked by an English journalist, would leave this nation less severely taxed than any nation of Europe.

OUR COUNTRY ONE.

Already their Cabinet has partially atoned If any man supposes that this republic can for the first proclamation by an order that be advantageously sundered into two, let him will prevent the privateers of Davis from en-cast his eye upon the map, and endeavor to tering British ports, and both the Govern- find a natural line to separate the two conment and the people must soon recognize the fact that we have the ability and the will to crush this rebellion and maintain our integrity, however long the struggle, however great the cost and that we no more recognize the right of England nor of Europe to dictate to us in this matter, than England would have recognized our right to interfere between her and Nana Sahib. The material interests based on cotton must yield to the national and moral duties that to-day devolve upon the American people, in determining, perhaps for untold ages, the destiny of the American continent.

federacies. The geographical formation of our country indicates that it is one: nature has provided no boundary line between the North and the South: no river like the Mississippi, no mountain chain like the Alleghanies or the Rocky Mountains, running from the West to the Atlantic, and forming an Alpine boundary to divide the sections. On the contrary, the Father of Waters stretches out his great arms to the East and to the West, bearing on his bosom to the Gulf the generous products of the valleys which they fertilize, and carrying back in their place the cotton, rice, and sugar of our Southern bor

The English people will see that our re-ders, and imports from foreign climes. solve to crush the conspiracy for the establish

*Guetano Filangieri.

The Mississippi, source and channel of prosperity to North and South, alike in every

mile of its progress; on the West to Minne- dicted that in the first place France would sota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louis- retake Louisiana, according to ancient treaiana; on the East to Wisconsin, Illinois, ties, that Spain would reclaim Florida, that Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, pro- England perhaps would seek to appropriate claims to the citizens of the immense region Oregon, and that Mexico, under foreign prowhich it waters through thousands of miles in tection, would retake New Mexico, Texas, extent, from North to South, and East to and California; or supposing that we should West, that our country is one and indivisible. consent to the establishment of the so-called Our duty to the South forbids our acqui- Southern Confederacy, which we know to be escence in this rebellion, for it would reverse a mere military despotism, what possible the American policy for the last half century, guarantee can we have for peace in the and reconsign to foreign invasion, to anarchy future, when each state reserves the right to and ruin, the immense territories which we secede at pleasure and enter at will into forhave rescued from European sway, and eign alliances, inaugurating universal chaos united as parts of our great nation. and chronic dissolution? Even now, while Look back to the olden time, and see what the struggle is being waged, the leading men the Southern country would again become. of South Carolina, already sick of their inTrace the history of Florida from the days dependence before it is accomplished, repuof Charles V., from the adventures of De diate republican institutions and sigh for a Leon and De Soto, the persecution of Prot- British prince to lend the odor of royalty to estants from France, and the retaliation on the aristocracy which they boast-an aristhe murderous Spaniards; the capture of St. tocracy based not upon historic deeds and Augustine by Sir Francis Drake, the buc- noble heroism, but simply upon the color of caneering inroads of the English, the transfer their skins and their despotic dominion over of Florida to the British crown; its partial helpless slaves-an aristocracy whose wealth settlement from Italy and Greece, the pri- is invested in human flesh, and whose reve vateering exploits in our Revolution, the cap-nues are collected in the fleld by the lash, ture of Baton Rouge and Pensacola, until its purchase by our Government in 1819.

and on the auction-block by the hammer!

Let our Union be divided with the view of accomplishing present peace, and not only would the United States fall from her position of a first-class power to that of a minor republic, with a contracted sea-board and a defenceless border; but the act of separation would inaugurate an exposure to hostilities,

Remember that the Spaniards navigated the Gulf of Mexico for two centuries without discovering that it was the outlet of the great river of the North, a fact which perhaps induces the Southern confederates to imagine that we also may be persuaded to forget its existence. Look at Louisiana from the days first from our new and unfriendly neighof Law and the Mississippi bubble to its ces- bor, and then from every foreign power with sion to Spain in 1762, and its retrocession to which one or all of the Southern States France in 1800, when we hastened to buy it might choose to form an alliance. Either from the First Consul, and you will find contingency would necessarily change our nothing in Florida, in Louisiana, nor indeed national policy, require the maintenance of in Texas, to indicate even the first beginning a standing army, and complicate endlessly of the prosperity which has been so rapidly our commercial relations. Now, we stand developed under the fostering protection of the Federal Government.

FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS

FROM DISUNION.

aloof from the quarrels of the rest of the world, and can devote our energies to the development of our marvellous resources INSEPARABLE and the extension of civilization and freedom over the American continent; then we should be compelled to an attitude of perpetual self-defence to save us from constant entanglement in the web of European politics. Already have we had a foretaste of the sort of treatment which Europe will accord to the severed fragments of the American Republic.

Let the American Union be dismembered, and what is to prevent foreign powers from re-entering upon our national domain, from which at such great cost and labor they have

been ousted?

An old officer of the French empire, writing to the Courrier des Etats-Unis, has pre