French judgment compared with Enge lish foresight at to call its attention, or, better, the attention of your readers, to the following brief summary of facts:-Whilst our gallant allies, the French, were successfully approaching the redoubtable Malakoff with the assistance of 4,000 sappers and miners, the English were trying to approach the equally formidable Redan with but 250 sappers and miners. The French leaped into the Sebasta pol. Malakoff and victory, from their ten yards distant entrenchment, without the loss of a single man. The English, in attempting a similar feat, from their two hundred yards distant cover, only realised death or ignominious defeat. Thanks to the Philo-Russians at home, who, instead of emulating the French in forwarding to the Crimca a quantum sufficit of engineers, of whom no country in the world could have furnished a more ample supply than England, had our rulers willed it. But these preferred rather to devote the funds which my fellowcountrymen cheerfully contributed towards the vigorous proOffcial mis- secution of the war, to the buying of pictures!-and such application pictures! to the paying, for the first time, one thousand per ple's money annum to a National Gallery Director-and such a director! to the paying, for the first time, some seven or eight hundred a-year to the Director's Secretary to draw up a Catalogue Raisonnée! (shades of mutilated Claudes and Canalettis!) to the appointing and paying, God knows how much, to a foreigu collector of pictures, that he might buy up such "vamped up" Paul Veroneses as the newly-installed "Adoration of the Magi," at the price of blood, £1,977. For who would deny that, had this one thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven pounds, in addition to the foreign collector's commission, added to the slight shade worse than useless National Gallery directors' £1,000 per annum, added to the £800 a year of the suspicious Gol ery Di Catalogue Raisonnée, been offered, in the shape of increased pay, to some two or three hundred able-bodied and intelligent shade worse mechanics, a sufficient number of sappers and miners could of the peo in purchas ing worthless pic tures. Services of the National rectors, &c., a sight than use less. have been improvised in six weeks to have enabled our brave SHAMIFUL TREATMENT OF THE AMERICANS, ETC. 371 It will bo the people's fault if he "It is England's own fault if she commits her armies, her men, her treasure, and her honour to men, whom even experience will not make wiser, and who, while alone responsible present for their calamities, seem alone unconcerned.” NEMESIS. mis rovernment con tinues. SHAMEFUL TREATMENT OF THE AMERICANS BY To the Editor of The Times. S of Pearce i SIR,-The country is, I have reason to believe, deeply indebted to you for having hitherto exercised a wise and statesmanlike forbearance by withholding from publication any document which, in your opinion, might revive the memory of grievances now happily forgotten, or in any way exacerbate the ill feeling which is already but too prevalent against England in the United States. But, as you have now published the President's Mes- Ancble onssage, in which, under the title of "Recruitment," he has delibe- sied res rately promulgated to mankind in every region of the globe President alleged misconduct on the part of Great Britain, "infringing the municipal law, derogatory to the sovereignty of the United States, and requiring not only a cessation of the wrong, but its reparation." I trust you will see no objection to my submitting, through your columns, to the judgment of the advocates of peace, to the great and good men of all nations, a few facts, which I resuscitate, not for the purpose of proving that in the act complained of we have committed no wrong, nor for the mean object of recrimination, but to convince the enlightened classes of the United States that, as our Christian brethren, it is their bounden duty to terminate the trilling question in dispute by magnanimously forgiving us our trespasses, as we forgave them when, as I will briefly show, they trespassed against us. President Pierce in his able Message rests, or rather constructs his complaint against Britain, on the following basis :-" It is," he declares, "The traditional and settled policy of the United States to maintain impartial neutrality during the wars which from time to time occur among the great Powers of the world. Performing all the duties of neutrality towards the respective belligerent deception apou the American brigands in an unwil purpose. States, we may reasonably expect them not to interfere with "Our municipal law, in accordance with the law of nations, "While the laws of the Union are thus peremptory in their prohibition of the equipment or armament of belligerent cruisers in our ports, they provide not less absolutely that no person shall, within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States, enlist, or enter himself, or hire or retain another person to enlist, or enter himself, or to go beyond the limits of jurisdiction of the United States with intent to be enlisted in the service of any foreign State, either as a soldier or a marine, or seaman on board of any vessel of war, letter of marque, or privateer.” Now, with a desire to convince the people of the United States that they have not always fulfilled this doctrine, I beg leave simply to recall to their recollection the following historical facts, which took place when their present Minister of War, Mr. Marcy, was Governor of the very State (New York) in which these facts occurred. 1. Previous to 1837, in a time of profound peace between Great Britain and the United States, the Government of the latter country, who, like everybody else, clearly foresaw that, sooner or later, there would be an outbreak in Canada, deposited on that frontier a quantity of United States' artillery and of new muskets, for which they had no ostensible use, and which, to say the least, they took no precautions to guard. 2. In the year 1837, after the three days' insignificant but vade British long expected rebellion in Upper Canada had, without the aid territory or of troops, been effectually suppressed, two American citizens, self-styled, in large printed placards,-" General Van Rausalaer, commanding 1st Division of the Patriot Army," and "MajorGeneral T. S. Sutherland, commanding 2nd Division of the Patriot Army,"-which army, by public advertisements and at public meetings had been openly levied in the United Statestook possession of these unguarded cannon and muskets, the property of the Government of the United States. 3. Major-General Sutherland, sailing with a part of his : "Division" on board an American vessel, directed a heavy f of the cannon he had thus seized upon the inhabitants (wome and children) of Her Majesty's town of Sandwich, under the pretence, explained in his placarded "Proclamation" of liberating them, instead of which the people of Sandwich made nim and the whole of his sympathizing force prisoners. murder States mer. 4. The remainder of Major-General Sutherland's division Rapine and landing on another part of Canada, after killing and wounding peperated thirty of her Majesty's soldiers, under the command of Colonel by I nited the Hon. S. Maitland, maltreated and robbed the British inha- cenaries bitants of Point Pelé Island of horses, hogs, sheep, cattle, and tish terri poultry, valued at above £1000. sterling, the whole of which tory. they carried off to the United States. 5. Another portion of this "Patriot Army" took foreible possession of, and then burnt, a large British steamer, named the Sir Robert Peel. 6. In the harbour of Buffalo, in the United States, in broad daylight, in the presence of the United States' Marshal and of other high authorities of the Federal Government, of the Government of the State of New York, and of a militia regiment quartered in the immediate neighbourhood, 1,000 men were set to work by the American General Van Ransalaer to saw the Caroline steamer out of the ice, in which she was firmly imbedded. Seventeen American citizens openly and publicly Americans signed a bond to indemnify the proprietors in case of her loss. legalize The American collector of customs gave her a license, under against the authority of which, and amid acclamations of triumph, she British subsailed for Navy Island, Her Majesty's territory, where, acting as a passage boat, she assisted in conveying American-born citizens and twenty-two pieces of artillery, belonging to the United States Government, which for a fortnight were fired from Her Majesty's territory upon her unoffending subjects in Canada! piracy jects. The United Vernet biza dio When the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, and Mr. Fox, Her Majesty's Minister at Washington, called upon Governor Marcy in particular, and the several American autho- Fink at the rities in general, in deference to the laws of nations, to recover of its subfrom General Van Ransalaer the United States' artillery which jects was waging war against Great Britain, Colonel Sir Allan M'Nab received in reply an official letter, laid before Congress, from the American Commissary-General Arcularius, reporting and confessing, as Governor Marcy had previously reported and confessed, his utter inability to do so. Now, for all these violations of those laws of neutrality, the strict maintenance of which Presti... Pierce is framing this complaint, has just declared to be the coal and settled England disgraced by her res per Avoc bri daro to 87 punished. The United tage of the policy of the United States," no offence was taken by the British Government, no "apology" was required. England has had dark pages in her domestic histroy-cruelties and follies not a few to answer for; but in all her annals, from the beginning of what may deserve to be called her intercourse with foreign nations, from the day she had a foreign policy and a national character to support, she never tamely submitted to so much insult-was never so degraded and disgraced -as she was in 1837 and 1838, by the outrages which she suf-fered to be committed against her subjects in Canada, not only without chastisement but without anything like a spirited remonstrance. But after having excrcised this extraordinary forbearance, vernment after having practically shown to the citizens of the United take advan States that England preferred patiently to endure almost any forbearance insult rather than commit the sin of embarking in a fratricidal of England. war with them, would it, I submit, be creditable to them, at a moment when England's right hand is engaged in fighting the world's battle of "liberty against despotism," to add to her difficulties and to increase her sorrows, by insisting on taking offence at the British Minister at Washington having made arrangements for enlisting, not in the United States, but in the territory of Her Majesty's Colonies, whoever might voluntarily repair there with a desire to join the British army nobly fighting Yankee insolenco will not always in the Crimea for the freedom of mankind? The American people before they resolve to call England to account for an alleged "violation of the laws of neutrality," so be endured minute that the solar microscope of their sharpest-sighted by Britons! lawyer can but barely perceive it, ought surely, per contrà, to remember the good temper with which the old country has submitted to a repudiation by the State of Florida of about 2,000,000 dollars, by the State of Arkansas of all their debts, by the State of Mississippi of 5,000,000 dollars of their debt. They should also remember the unpaid debts to this country of the States of Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Hoping that the good sense which characterizes the people of the United States will induce them to feel, from the foregoing facts, that it is their duty and our duty, their interest and our interest, to forgive whatever injuries we may intentionally or unintentionally commit against each other. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Oxendon, Northampton, January 17th, 1856. F. B. HEAD. |