From the London Times, Jan 1st

The impression produced by the message of the President of the United States upon the continent of Europe is not without interest to ourselves at the present juncture; for although England asks no assistance, and requires no support, from any foreign nations for the maintenance of her territorial rights, yet she acknowledges the weight of public opinion in the world, and she appeals with more sincerity than Mr. Polk to the judgment other States may form of her policy in this dispute. The conduct of the American government in the course of the Oregon negotiation may be summed up in very few words. They have thought fit to extend the principle of self-government at home beyond the limits of their own frontiers. The moment Texas and Oregon were believed, or declared, by the people of the United States, to belong to their territories, they were treated as if they had already been annexed, and the Union began to talk of defending its rights, without recollecting for one instant the right of other people. In the course of these extraordinary proceedings no considerations of good faith, or conflicting claims, have had the least weight with them.-They may be said most emphatically to covet their neighbor's goods and every thing that is his! for, according to Mr. Polk, a brief interval is all that separates the conception of this illicit passion from its complete gratification.-Hence they not only assail the particular rights or possessions of their neighbors, upon which at one time or another they chance to have cast their furtive eyes; but they violate the whole system of the pacific economy of the world, and proclaim a direct hostility to all the principles of civilized nations.

Mr. Polk declares in the most implicit language, that, as far as the continent of North America extends, the United States are determined to warn off all intruders. The President at Washington is lord of the manor; all the other American powers are copy-holders under him, and whenever a fresh enclosure bill is passed, the sovereign republic is to secure the lion's share-or, rather these other powers are mere tenants by sufferance, whose claims will be quashed upon the first dispute, and who will infallibly be ejected in the end.

We are not now pleading our own cause in the question of Oregon, or writing with reference to the encroachments which must, ere long, be directed against the oldest British settlements in America, if such a principle as this be allowed to prevail. For the maintenance of these rights we look confidently to the strength of England, which inspires a secret dread even to those who have ceased to acknowledge the obligations of good faith and justice. If we are ourselves, after Mexico, the most open to these attacks we are also by far the best prepared to repel them. But it cannot be too often repeated that, be the issue of this country what it may, all Europe is more or less interested in the duty of moral and political resistance to this assumption of universal dominion on the part of the United States, which can only be compared to the arrogant pretensions of a successful conqueror, when his triumph over the independence of the world is all but complete. If such principles as these are to regulate the policy of America, and the relations of States on the continent, how long will they be excluded from Europe? The fashion of attacking the weak and plundering the helpless, and exalting dubious claims into absolute rights, would soon find its application here. It is the spirit of the factious which deliberates about war and national honor in the French chambers; it is the motive of unscrupulous politicians all over the world. In Europe we see it happily crushed and imprisoned; but in the United States it speaks with the voice of the Executive Government and threatens to wield the power of a nation.

The language of the principal organ of the French Government upon the President's message, is of the greatest importance, because, without entering into the merits of the Oregon question, it clearly establishes how the policy of France is with reference to the general relations of France and America. Mr. Polk has applied language to the conduct of the French Government in the affair of Texas which is more unmeasured, because it was uncalled for, than his declarations against ourselves. We are persuaded that the Cabinet of the Tuilleries will take the earliest opportunity of answering these aspersions and attacks as they deserve. There is not one conservative policy in Europe and another in America. The cause of peace and the principles of order are every where the same. They cannot, under any circumstances, be sacrificed with impunity to local interests or to political theories. The consistency and the integrity of the leading statesmen of Europe require that the pretensions of the United States should be explicitly denied; and the Cabinet of Washington will ere long perceive that we have taken our stand, not upon a mere question of territorial right, though that is one not easily to be shaken, but upon

the general and fundamental laws of nations; and that on this ground we have with us the consent of all conservative powers and statesmen who stand opposed to war and to aggression in every part of the globe.

-The joint occupation of the Oregon by British and American settlers is no longer judged expedient. Partition is recommended and desired. On what principles ought that partition to be made? Evidently on those of equal benefit and advantage. In our view of the question the Americans, having no exclusive right of sovereignty, cannot treat our fellow subjects as mere tenants at-will, nor drive them to whatever corner of the Oregon they choose, at the same time claiming for themselves great credit for forbearance. They have both an equal right to the disputed territory-a right arising from occupation nearly identical in time and similar in purpose. And if a greater share of land is to be accorded to one than the other, this award must be made, not as a recognition of right, but to those considerations which the proximity numbers, and the past labors of American settlers introduce as necessary elements in the adjustment of the dispute, considerations which, in all such important matters, it is impossible to merge in the technicalities of law or the minutiae of title.

But if the award of territorial district may be modified by these considerations, care must be taken that no such modification be carried to the extent of positive deprivation, and that though the British settlers may lose in the superficial measurement of their area, yet they shall not lose any of those collateral advantages which are absolutely indispensable for the prosecution of their trade-such as the great water privilege of the Colombia and the harbor at its mouth.

We think that every purpose both of honor and interest would be answered, if the British minister, on whom now devolves the duty of making fresh proposals to the Government of the United States, were to renew on his part the offer made to England by Mr. Gallatin in the Presidency and under the direction of Mr. Adams. That proposal was to take the 49th degree of north latitude as far as the sea, as the boundary line, reserving to Great Britain, Vancouver's Island, the harbor of St. Juan de Fuca, and the free navigation of the Columbia.-This would be a concession as far as superficial area of ground is concerned. It would leave the United States masters of the greater part of the Oregon. But it would secure the principal advantage of the country, the free navigation of the Columbia, to the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, as well as harborage, anchorage, and settlements for English vessels trading with China and our possessions in Australia and New Zealand. It would concede all that the most successful war could acquire, a sovereign but barren dominion; but it would secure all the commercial blessings of an honorable compromise and a rational peace. It would not deprive the native Americans of any equitable advantage, but it would retain for the Englishmen that privilege to which they are justly entitled-the privilege of sharing in the traffic between North America and the English settlements in the Pacific. No impartial man can expect that an English minister would ever consent to transfer to the United States the monopoly of the carrying trade between Hudson's Bay and English colonies in that sea.

We hope that no rules of diplomatic etiquette will prevent our representative at Washington from making some proposal of this kind. We hope, also, that no false pride, or more ignoble sentiment, will preclude the ministry of Washington from accepting it. And if they do reject it as coming from us, we do not see how, after such a rejection, they can refuse to submit the question of miles still left in dispute to the arbitration of some neutral power. To reject an offer conceived in the spirit of peace and moderation, and at the same time to demur to the suggestion of a reference, would be to deserve, not less than to provoke, the imputation of the most reprehensible obstinacy or the most insolent injustice.

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