England and Yankeedom.
--When we fire learned essentially that
Seward had backed out, and determined to deliver up
Messrs Mason and
Slidell, although we had expected such an issue, we nevertheless felt sorry, if not disappointed.
We had just a faint spark of hope that he would be fool enough to stand up to his bluster.
We were anxious to see the
Yankee fleet sunk or burned, the
Yankee intruders at
Old Point,
Port Royal and Ship Island cut off from all succor by sea and left in our hands, New York and
Boston bombarded and burnt to the ground, the Yankee steamboats on the
Mississippi driven aground and set on fire, a heavy Confederate force thrown on shore in
Maryland by the British fleet, Yankeedom invaded from
Canada by a British army, and the whole vile race reduced to beg pardon of the civilized world for their baseness, insolence, and inhumanity.
We say we had some faint hopes of seeing this consummation, and we are not altogether sure we shall not see it before another summer shall have passed over our heads.
It is obvious that
Seward's long letter, is no answer to the demand of Lord Lyons, in at least one important particular.
Lord Lyons, in the most imperative terms, insists that the
Commissioners shall be restored to the protection of the
British flag.
That demand has been complied with.
He insists that a suitable apology shall be made for the affront.
That has not been done.
On the contrary,
Seward opens a new question, the decision of which in his favor, must deprive
Great Britain of all right to transport anybody whom he may choose to designate as a rebel, on one of her ships, as long as this war may chance to continue.
He tells the
British Minister that
Captain Wilkes had no right to take the ‘"rebels"’ out of the British steamer, but that he had a right to capture that steamer, to bring her into port, and to proceed against her as a prize, and against the
Commissioners as rebels after they had been brought to land.
If that be the case either the doctrine of the
British Law, that the deck of a British vessel is as inviolable as the soil of
Great Britain is at an end, or the soil itself is no longer inviolable.
Now
England, during the war with
Napoleon, harassed our commerce greatly, by searching our ships for deserters, and contraband goods.
But she never exercised, and never claimed the right to exercise any such power as this.
She never, as far as we know, asserted that she had a right to arrest and bring into port, any American ship which might be carrying a French passenger from one of our ports to
France.
It is pretty certain that she will not now, pass over this claim in silence.
She will protest against it, and, if it be acted on, she will do something more than protest.
It is pretty certain, too, that
Great Britain will have the apology which Lord Lyons was instructed to demand, and which, thus far,
Seward has evaded.
She is not wont to be satisfied with evasion in such a case as the present.
Where the subject is one of no great immediate interest, but only of distant and contingent advantage, she can take a hand, with anybody at diplomatic tom-foolery.
She can spin out a discussion for years, and divide and subdivide a hair, until it represents the minus side of zero.
But when she once says ‘"you shall,"’ or ‘"you shall not,"’ the answer must be as short, as positive, as decisive, and as free from quibble or equivocation as the demand.
She says now to
Lincoln, you
must apologise, and he will have to do it, or fight.
We see by the extracts from the
English papers, published by us yesterday, that the possibility of a back out on the part of the
Yankees, under the circumstances, was not even thought of.
Upon the whole, we are pleased that matters have taken the turn they have.
The
Yankees have had the ear of
Europe ever since the war began, No Southern newspaper ever finds its way to
England or
France.
Those nations have heard nothing but Yankee statements, and our readers are sufficiently familiar with them.
They now see what the
Yankees ready are, and will hereafter know better how to estimate their lies.
In the meantime they are only putting off the evil day for a short, a very short, space.
Yankee doodledom must come down, and that in less than a year from this time.
