DRIFTING TO WAR. [From the London Spectator.l

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 66, 23 July 1863, Page 3

DRIFTING TO WAR. [From the London Spectator. l

The continent is becoming uneasy, not, we fear, without cause, for all the signs which in Europe precede a great war are again abroad. The chancelleries repeat, every day more hurriedly, that there is nothing at all in the wind, and "officious" journals deny with anxious audacity every incident which looks important. Financiers recount the embarrassments which bind France to remain at peace, and statesmen talk of Mexico, and think of the lesson which the Emperor learnt in Italy. Conservatives argue that Austria must in the end, for her own sake, declare against intervention, and Liberals doubt if Great Britain will permit a contest of which she cannot foresee the end. The Premier of Prussia, with all his arrogance, still abstains from fulfilling the agreement he also refuses to publish ; aud the British Ministry consents to reductions, as if it were sure of peace. The Emperor himself orders the journals to be a little more moderate in their opposition to Russia, retains M. Fould, who represents economy, rebukes Prince Jerome who represents war, and thanks M. Bonjean, Conservative orator, for the accuracy with which he has reproduced his own imperial sentiments. What can be more satisfactory ? and yet the uneasiness only increases. Parisians whisper to each other small things — how the Emperor has written an autograph letter to Vienna, how the Prefects of the Seiue allows cafh chantants to ring with songs in favour of Poland, bow M. de Seeh&ch, agent de police dv mondt, if flying from capital to capital], and

how the Russian Embassy can scarcely conceal its growing alarm and annoyance ; and draw therefrom conclusions not favourable to the peace of the world. Then stories are told identical with those which preceded the Italian campaign. The Emperor is always studying maps. Orders have been sent to put the fleet in commission. The commissariat is buying vinegar, useless unless a great fleet is about to proceed on a voyage. Troops seem to observant eyes to be collecting at the point where they would gather were their chief meditating a sudden spring on the Rhine. The Emperor deprecates all "incitements to the public mind,'' but never attempts to prohibit them, the Ultramoutanes are quiet and hopeful, Zouaves give a dinner to M. de Rochebrune, and every Pole who chooses travels to Cracrow under French protection. One half of these stories are false, mere inventions of salon and boulevard, and the other half are grossly exaggerated ; but they all increase while explaining the swell in the public mind. The truth is, the political gossips have discovered that it is possible to reach Warsaw without, as Earl Russell sneered, " sailing there," and without, as somebody said, "sending the Zouaves in balloons." For the first time since 1815 they have recognised the existence of Sweden, have remembered the Swedish army and Swedish fleet, and have recalled certain projects which were to have been carried out had the Crimean war endured. Divided from Russia only by a sea which is more like a strait, Sweden has been specially exposed to the pressure which for fifty years the Czars have exercised on all around. She has seen her richest provinces taken away, her influence in Europe destroyed, her rights in the Baltic assailed, her capital threatened by Russian fortresses not thirty miles from her Bhore. Her aspiration for union with Denmark has been persistently resisted, and her safety is menaced by the enduring thirst of Russia for the possession of Hammerfest, a port which, below the range of the ice, would seat the great empire on the Atlantic, and render the freedom of the Baltic a matter of minor importance. The relation between the Royal houses, moreover, has never been very cordial, the Roman* offs looking on the Beriiadottes as interlopers, whom they could not well put down. Add to the fretful irritation nourished in the people by the encroachments of forty years, the permanent dislike of the reigning family, and we may easily explain the enthusiastic approval with which the Swedes have welcomed the Polish revolt. The agent of Poland at Stockholm, Prince C. Czartoryski, who goes to buy arms, is received by the people with acclamations, by the nobles with dinners, and by the heir apparent with a feast at which toasts are drunk such as Kosciusko might have accepted with pleasure. Now is the time, say the Swedes. If France will but heartily assist, Poland may be emancipated and Finland restored, the Baltic enfranchised, and the Scandinavian powers relieved from a state of armed preparation which renders progress impossible. For such an end Sweden will run great risks, perhaps even furnish the army around which the Poles may rally. So loud is this talk that the Government of St. Petersburg is seriously annoyed, and the reported suspension of intercourse between the two Courts, though so sharply denied, is probably only premature. No one in England, perhaps, save Earl Russell, knows precisely how far the Swedish Government accept these views of their people. Their agreement is, however, at least possible, and that is sufficient to explain the agitation in Paris. The adhesion of Sweden would bring an otherwise impossible task within the category of merely difficult enterprises. A war with Russia, with Sweden for base, is a widely different thing from war with no base save ships' decks. King Oscar commands an army, of which, as there is no internal discontent to suppress, at least fifty thousand men must be disposable, and a mosquito fleet, Btrong in numbers, and specially adapted to warfare within the Baltic. The arsenals are fully supplied, and though the country is poor, its finances are in good order, and its credit is unimpaired. Above all, it has those advantages of position the want of which cripples the Western Powers. It is within striking distance of Russia, near enough to make the transport of armies possible, and the introduction of arms very easy ; to afford refuge for French fleets, and to simplify all difficulties of commissariat. We all remember what Piedmont accomplished for Italy, and the aid of any organized State, even of one so weak as Sweden, would change the whole aspect of the Polish insurrection, and make the eight or nine millions of men now affected by the revolt avaliable as recruits against Russia. It is the perception of these facts, of the possibility of assisting Poland, which has so greatly increased the previous excitement iv France. To jump iv after a drowning friend is one thing, to throw him a rope another, and one much more likely to be enthusiastically done. The pressure, therefore, on the Emperor increases, aud, as he yields, his concessions increase the force which he begins to obey. Nor is the excitement diminished by the diplomatic proceedings which are slowly oozing out. If the Bketch published in the Pays is accurate, and it must at least have been authorised by a Minister, the French note to St. Petersburg was unexpectedly stern. The disturbances are declared to be merely the symptoms of "an inveterate disease," they may "produce the most regrettable consequences ; " their cause must be " definitely removed." These are phrases which Governments seldom employ, except when they are prepared to support covert menace by open action, and we are not surprised at the lively sensation which they have produced in St. Petersburg, or at the statement circulated in the Globe that the Czar referred to Berlin before considering his formal reply. There is, of course, the chance that, alarmed at the attitude of Europe, fettered by his receut emancipation, and with his finance in disorder, the Czar may resolve on concession ; but what can he concede which would at once content the Poles, the West, and his own people ? He cannot give Poland her freedom, as tifeT English Liberals desire; for the Russians . jrfil not be refused a boon which their subjects have obtained. He canuot give Poland half-free-dom, as English Conservatives ask; for the insurgents would either continue the contest

or demand a national army as a guarantee, which army would be the instrument of a still deadlier strife. He can only grant Poland her independence, and what more could he lose, even if defeated after an exhausting war? Central Russia is not a laud to invade, and the border is surrounded only by weak or impotent Powers. Unless there are forces at work within Russia, of which the West knows nothing, aud which paral yze the Czar, even within the vast regions in wh eh there are no Poles. his policy must be in accord with his inclination, and both lead to a blank refusal to submit to external force. It will then be for Napoleon to decide whether or not to let France loose, and he, of all men, remembers what Paris thought of the King whose Minister announced with complacency that " order reigned in Warsaw." Bonapartes can face hatred, but not contempt, and the power which, able to free Poland and committed to diplomatic action for Poland, left Poland once more to be crushed, would be in the eyes of most Frenchmen simply contemptible It is but a sentiment, perhaps, which dictat es this feeling for Poland ; but then, French sentiment is the one thing in France which is always noble, and which no French ruler who comprehends France will venture to disregard. The Emperor can do much in France ; but it would be safer for him to send a thousand electors to Cayenne, than to call those electors " subjects." The Pope is about, it is said, to pronounce an allocution in favour of Poland, and with the Reds and the Ultramontanes, Montalembert and Louis Blanc, the Empress and the minority of the Chamber, for once in unison, it is not an Emperor who understands at once France and his epoch who can afford to resist. While the Poles, with a wisdom patient of suffering, keep up the war without meeting the troops in the field, there is ample cause for the uneasiness now stealing over every capital of the continent. Orders to journals to " moderate ** their tone will scarcely serve to reassure men who remember M. de Persigny's remark, "The Empire dreads, above all, moderate opposition."

A Lament job Ould leeland. — And why did I come here, to this out of the way, behind and before, upside down, far awaj country, where the beautiful Christmas comes right in the middle of summer, and the sun and the moon rise in the wrong places P Bare, Imvu't I to live in nothing but a bit of a dirty flab hut, with four rooms, and a roof made of leaves called tie cow, (I suppose they are good food for cattle, bj their name) ; when sure, my mud cabin with one room and a thatch, was all that a dacent gintleman required in ould Ireland ; and what's the use of earning fire shillings a day, when I could live upon one shilling? Why, honey, its wasting time to be working all day, when a few hours work would grow praties enough for six months living ; and the people are all pushing, and fretting, and struggling to get their own land and cattle, and horset, and all sorts of other agricultural implements, when a wheel-barrow and a *pade, and the borrow of a neighbour's pick-axe was all that I wanted from January to December in ould Ireland. And sure, that beautiful constellation in the wonder* ful heavens, the Great Bear, can never be seen here, and no winter with good honest frost, and snow, and ice, and proper shivering weather, like the ould country. Here you see, Fat, there's such mighty lots of timber, and close by you, that folks have always a blazing fire, and no cost; but what of that? and the grass grows in a few months when you have oat the trees down and burned them ; but what's the good of grass if I have no cow P and sure a neighbour gives me plenty of butter-milk, the only good thing I have tasted since 1 left dear ould Ireland ; don't I wish I was back. But why, Faddy darling, did I ever come, can you write and tell me, for I don't know P I suppose it was that Embrication Fever which set in amongst a lot of we young chaps. Why, I'm properly bothered with this forty acres of land ; when I could not dig my two acres at 40s a year at home, but had to get the neighbours to give me a help. The folks are dacent enough here ; but we have no fairs, no wake*, no work for shillelaghs, and shall soon forget how to use them. I have never so much as seen a broken head since I have been here. Don't come out Fat, without you wish to be working, and working, and learning, like those great folks at home, with your land and your cattle, and your carts, and hones, and pigs. Did'nt we look down upon these people in ould Ireland? and why should we come all this way to be like them ? Only fancy, Pat, the south wind blowing so keenly, that it cuts your beard offal clane as a razor, and the north wind is blazing hot. Oh ! I never seed such a country as this I but why did I come to it, and lave my own darling mother and sisters, and the pigs P Anyhow, Fat, the first chance you have to exchange my forty acres in New Zealand for one acre in the dear ould place, you may doit, and I'll apply to Government for a free passage back again. Bad luck to the place j you're do good here without you're always working and always sober. Oh, why did I leave ould Ireland P— Auckland Gazette. At present 110 mails pass through the London Pneumatic Despatch tube from the station to the district post office during the day ; and not only letters, but trucks of iron of the weight of five tons, have passed ; and adventurous visitors now and then per* form the journey, to their great delight. — Home Newt. A Concede bate Delilah. — Mr. D. A. Mabony, formerly an editor in lowa, more recently an inmate of the old Capital prison at Washington, has just pub* lished a graphio account of that pruon and of hit fellow-prisoners in it. The most interesting of them is the famous Belle Boyd, daughter of a Presbyterian, clergyman at Martiusburg, and sister of Mrs. Faulkner, whose husband was late United State*' Minister to France. She is " a young lady of about nineteen yean of age, of lithe body, and of pleasing though not beau* tiful countenance." To her " strategy," it seems, the success of Jackson's surprise of General Banks in the valley of the Shenandoah is entirely due. Belle conceived the idea of playing the part of Delilah, and in* vited him, with the other Federal officers, to a ball to come off in a few days. Meantime slie secretly started off one night on a fleet horse to the camp of General J ackson, sixty mi les dittau t, when she informed him of her plans and of the situation and number* of the Federal force. She rode back the same day — 120 wiles intw.enty-fourhours, and none knew shewasabaent. On the night of the ball Belle lavished her blandishments on General Banks especially. She bad produced an elrgant Secesh flag, with whioh she oo'tred the person of the General, and by her familiarity made him oblivious to all else than the attention* of bis fair entertainer. Meantime Jackson, with his "foot cavalry," nude suoh rapid marches that he mi enabled to pounce upon the camp of Bank*, throw it into confusion and panic, and cause • speedy retreat to Harper's Ferry. The effect of that disaster upon the whole campaign in Virginia.— paralysing McDowell's army at Frederick*burg, and preventing its reinforcement of M'Clellan, is well known. Subsequently to this Miss Boyd proceeded to Washington ami, procuring » pats, crossed the Potomac, and was detected iv the act of making * drawing of the fortifications. She was arrested and imprisoned a* • spy, and the first evening after Mahony'a arrival he heard her sing "My Maryland" in an adjoininf room. She sang at all hours, night or day, in defiauot ol the guard, who would often order her to be silent) to which her reply was "I shan't do it," and then she would repeat the line—" Huzza! she spurns the Northern scuobJ *;*•><*» suiting the aotion to the word, she would s&p^hroem and apply it to the put of the floor trodaen by the guard. According to Mr. Mrthony's account, this- prison was a frigbtAudtn of filth, disease and torture. He say* his own bed was two feet too short for him," and be is vehement in hi* denunciation* of the War Department for eonfinmf a woman toea • plat*