If we are in turmoil
on the western side of the Atlantic, they are not much better off on this
eastern side. The King of Prussia has just said to his general officers in
Berlin: “The aspect of the times is very serious, and menaces great dangers.
Gentlemen, there is a distinct prospect of struggles in which I shall need the
entire devotion of your hearts. If I and those other sovereigns wishing for
peace do not succeed in dissipating beforehand the coming thunder-storm, we
shall want the whole of our strength in order to stand our ground. You will
have to strain every nerve if you wish to render the army adequate to the
future calls of the country. Gentlemen, do not allow yourselves to be subject
to any self-delusion respecting the magnitude of coming struggles. If I do not
succeed in obviating war, the war will be one in which we shall have either to
conquer or be lost to our position in the world!” What convulsion is it that
thus thunders in the index? We hear the cry of “Peace, peace,” in every
direction, but we see specially dark clouds in various quarters. Hungary is on
the eve of revolt, Denmark is arming to maintain her rights in Schleswig and
Holstein, Italy, under the magical inspiration of Garibaldi, will insist upon
having, as parts of the temporal sovereignty of Victor Emmanuel, both Rome and
Venice. War upon Austria then would seem inevitable, and it cannot fail to draw
into its vortex Russia, Prussia, Germany, and, not impossibly, Turkey. But the
words of solemnity used by the monarch involve a deeper meaning. They refer to
the military avalanche which a breath from Louis Napoleon may precipitate
across the Rhine,—his vast force of six or eight hundred thousand, his numerous
and formidable ships of war, and his actual position as the chief of the
revolutionary movement. The language is portentous, infinitely more so than the
address of Baron Hubner on 1st of January, 1859. Where on the face of the earth
can the stranger, Peace, take up her permanent abode?
The news from home
during this week has been deplorable. On the 10th inst. the President sent a
message to Congress which depicts the state of things in the gloomiest colours.
South Carolina, at Charleston, has fired repeated volleys at a United States
transport carrying troops for Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, and has compelled
her to retire. The Brooklyn, a second-class screw steamer of fourteen guns, and
the revenue cutter Harriet Lane are about to convoy the troops back again to
Charleston on board the Star of the West, and we may expect our next news to
announce a bloody fight, possibly a bombardment of the city. Seward has made a
speech in the Senate which the Times calls “grand and conciliatory,” but which
obviously asserts a determination to enforce the laws. Servile insurrection,
too, seems. contemplated in Virginia, some twenty-five barrels of gunpowder
having been disinterred from secret hiding places.
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