The Press. — London, England, 1854-04-01 00:00:00

MIN 292 of Bedford a revenue of 200,0001. ? and the moment the aforesaid. "public " declares itself the rightful heir of the Wykehams and the Waynfletes, their testamentary dispositions notwithstanding, why not of the Gowers and the Russells? This branch of the subject, however, may be safely left in the hands of Mr. Locke King. Your faithful servant, S. R. DEATH OF THE DUKE OF PORTLAND. THIS nobleman died at Welbeck, his family seat, on Wednesday last, in the 80th year of his age. William Henry Cavendish Scott Bentinck, fourth Duke of Portland, was educated at Westminster School, and Christ Church, Oxford, and succeeded to the title in 1809, on the death of his father, who was twice Prime Minister during the reign of George 111. The late Duke, when Marquis of Titcbfield, sat in the House of Commons for four teen years as member for the county of Bucks, and in 1807 was appointed a Junior Lord of the Treasury. As a member of the Upper House, he was twice a Cabinet Minister, having in 1827 held the office of Lord Privy Seal in Mr. Canning's Administra tion, and in 1827-28 that of Lord President of the Council in Lord Goderich's Administration. After the death of Mr. Canning, who was his brother-in law, and whose opinions seem to have coincided with his own, the duke took but little part in politics. At first he inclined to the Whigs, and voted for the Reform Bill of 1832, but he withdrew his support from the Grey and Melbourne Governments, and joined the great party that raised Sir R. Peel to power in 1844. After the betrayal of the Conservative party in 1845-8, the Duke formed a very unfavourable opinion of Sir R. Peel and the free trade measures then brought forward ; and on the death of his son, the late Lord George Bentinck, in 1848, he he came a supporter of Lord Derby's Government, both in and out of power. The Duke was a man of very considerable ability, and employed the greater por tions of his time in improvin; his property and in bettering the condition of his tenantry. Numerous, indeed, were the works he executed—the experi ments he successfully tried. The harbour at Troon, in Scotland, and the water-meadows at Clip stone, in Notts, will remain as lasting monuments of his genius and energy. For the last twenty-five years the Duke led, comparatively speaking, a very retired life ; and though from his extensive in formation, powers of conversation, and natural humour, he was eminently fitted to shine in society, the visitors at Welbeck were confined to the mem bers of his own family and a few intimate friends. Notwithstanding that the hospitality of his house, except as regards the poor, was, from this cause, somewhat limited, there never lived a man more universally respected. His neighbours, whether gentry, yeomanry, or labourers, one and all concur in feeling that his death has caused an irre parable loss to the district of their common resi dence. The Duke was born on the 24th of June, 1788; he married on the 9th of August, 1795, Henrietta Scott (daughter of General Scott, and sister of the late Viscountess Canning). His successor, John, the present and fifth duke, was born in 1800. The Emperor of the French passed in review oe Thursday on the Carrousel the 6th battalion of th Chasseurs de Vincennes and the 19th Regiment of the Line, on the eve of departure for the East. Marshal de St. Arnaud, the commander-in chief of the French expedition to the East, is certainly to take his departure on the 4th of April. Thursday's Moniteur contains a notice about the seizure of enemy's property in neutral vessels, identical with the English notification. It also an • nounces that the French Government will not at present grant letters of marque. The Sampson has returned to Constantinople from her cruise, with information that the Russians were abandoning their forts on the east coast of the Black Sea. Souchum Kaleh was in flames, and the Circas sians were plundering it. The Furious has left to gather further information. In Berlin the following bulletins have been issued of his Majesty's state of health :—" 25th. Erysipelas .(rose) commences spreading from the wound, accom panied by febrile symptoms." "28th. The King has had a good night, and slept well. The wound sup purates favourably : the rose has not spread further, and the fever has passed off." " 27th. The Bing slept calmly the whole night. State of wound satis factory. Although the rose has spread further down wards towards the throat, the fever has entirely disap peared." The Queen of Spain has amnestied all the convicts now undergoing terms of imprisonment for being im plicated in the Lopes invasion of Cuba. THE PRESS. Vrotabings in arliammt. ROYAL MESSAGE—THE WAR. Both Houses of Legislature presented on Monday evening a scene of unwonted excitement. It was known that a royal message would be sent down pre paratory to the immediate proclamation of war, and the solemnity of the incident, recurring after an in terval of more than fifty years, gave rise to varied emotions on the part of the assistants and spectators of every class. In the Lords' House an unusual attendance of peers, a throng of ladies in the "peer esses' gallery," and the crowded state of the sections set apart to privileged visitors and miscellaneous " strangers," attested the interest which the forth coming event had attracted both among the noble members of that house and the public out of doors. The Commons also assembled in great numbers, and waited with evident impatience for the anticipated announcement. Yet neither in the upper nor the lower branch of the Legislature was the forthcoming event, important as it might be, allowed to interfere with the ordinary formalities of the house, or delay the transaction of the most routine business ap pointed for the sitting. The peers listened while the purport of several petitions was explained, and were detained for some time over one presented by the Lord Chrincell'or from Sir Culling Eardley, pray ing for the admission of dissenters to the universi ties. In the other house something more than the customary amount of private business was got through, and the proposal to utilise the accumula tive capital and unemployed organisation of the South Sea Company, for the purpose of undertaking a great corporate business of trusteeship, was dis cussed with most deliberate prolixity, and settled at length upon a division in the affirmative. Even when the "message" was at length brought in and read, the ceremony transpired in a manner as little ceremonious as possible. It seems to be the custom of Englishmen to do business with nothing but a business-like air. A staid routine gravity is main tained during the transaction of the most trifling affairs, and nothing more accorded even to the most momentous. Accordingly the royal intimation that a new page of history was turned, and a war com menced which may change before it closes the desti nies of the civilised world, was read with the same clear, unimpassioned delivery, and received with the same outward token of respect, and no more, than if it had related to the most every-day occurrence. The members of the Legislature listened, as in duty bound, fixed a day for " considering " the message, and then proceeded with the night's business as if , nothing had happened. The message ran as foi -1 lows:— " VICTORIA R. "Her Majesty thinks it proper to acquaint the house that the negotiations in which her Majesty, in concert with her allies, has for some time past been engaged with his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, have terminated, and that her Majesty feels bound to afford active assistance to her ally the Sultan against unprovoked aggression. " Her Majesty has given directions for laying before the house copies of such papers, in addition to those already communicated to Parliament, as will afford the fullest information with regard to the subject of these negotiations. It is a consolation to her Mejesty to reflect that no endeavours have been wanting on her part to preserve to her subjects the blessings of peace. " Her Majesty's just expectations have been dis appointed, and her Majesty relies with confidence on the zeal and devotion of the House of Lords (or her faithful Commons), and on the exertions of her brave and loyal subjects, to support her in her determina• tion to employ the power and resources of the nation for protecting the dominions of the Sultan against the encroachments of Russia." By the Commons the motion proposed by Lord Jour; RUSSELL that the message should be considered on the following Friday (yesterday) was agreed to without remark. In the Peers a brief conversation ensued. The Earl of DERBY said : " My lords, I only rise for the purpose of saying that, as the noble earl has given notice of hie intention to move that her Majesty's message be taken into consideration on Friday next, I am quite sure your lordships will be unani mously of opinion that this is not the time to say a single word on the great and important subject to which it relates. On Friday I presume that the noble earl, or the noble earl at the head of the Government, will take the opportunity of stating fully not only the causes which have led to this un fortunate rupture of our amicable relations with Russia — for with those we are partially acquainted—but that he will also state the precise objects that we have in view in entering upon this war, the objects that we seek to obtain by it, and whether there are any conventions or any other engage- SATIIRDAY, ments into which we have entered with France or the Porte binding us to any specific object. If there are any such I have no doubt they will be found among the papers which her Majesty holds out the expectation of laying be fore the house; and I will only express my earnest anxiety that ender these considerations the Government will state whether or not there is any truth in the report that has been circulated during the last few days, that in this con• vention there are articles between us, France, and Turkey which will be of a nature to establish a protectorate on our part as objectionable at least as that which, on the part of Russia, we have protested against. I will not say a single word more, as on Friday, of course, the noble earl will be prepared with such a statement as will induce us to coimr in the address in answer to the gracious message of her Majesty, and with regard to which it is not necessary for me to say that her Majesty will not rely in vain upon the support of all classes and denominations of her subjects for the maintenance of the honour and dignity of this country in a just, necessary, and honourable war, and in taking such vigorous 'measures as may be necessary to bring that war to a speedy and honourable termination. (Cheers.)" Earl GREY : I will only add that I trust that in the address in answer to her Majesty's message the Govern• went will take care so to draw that address that there will be no difficulty in its being unanimously adopted by your lordships. (Cheers.) Because, whatever our opinions may be as to the past, we must all concur in the desire that this address should be unanimously adopted—( Hear, hear) —and I hope that it will be so framed as not to express any opinion that any noble lords may find a difficulty in concurring in, either on the grounds that the war might have been avoided by abstaining from all interference, or by more vigorous steps having been taken at an earlier period. I hope that no difficulty will be interposed in the way of those who are not altogether satisfied with the course which has been pursued upon either of those grounds so as to prevent them from concurring in the ad- dress on Friday. (Hear, hear.) The motion for considering the message in the Peers also on the day named was then agreed to, and thus the event terminated. MOVEMENTS IN THE BLACK SEA. In the Peers, on Thursday, the Earl of MsucEs- BURY referred to the reports received that day from Odessa and Constantinople stating that the Russian fleet bad sailed from Sebastopol and gone with rein forcements to Circassia. He wished to know what foundation there was for these rumours, and what the position of the combined fleets?— " The letters do not appear to agree as to the object of the Russian movement, some stating that the ships had gone out with Russian troops to reinforce the garrisons on the coast of Circassia, while others think the object is to bring away the garrisons from such ports. Your lordships are aware that the line of fortresses which run along that coast are all that the Russians possess in that country, and it is supposed to be one of the moat vulnerable points and easiest of attack. Whatever the object may have been, it was of considerable importance that the movement should have been prevented by her Majesty's ships. But it is said that the Russian fleet was not impeded, but that her Majesty's fleet is still at Beicos Bay. I, therefore, wish to ask the noble earl whet her there is an y truth in the rumour that the Russian fleet left Sebastopol unim peded by our fleet, and what is now the position held by the combined fleets in the Euxine, and whether they are prevent still lyin g the sudden at Beicos Bay op , erations s where thupey posed would to hav be useless to e taken place on the part of the Russians ?" The Earl of CLARENDON: In answer to my noble Mend, I have to state that I have seen in the public newspapers the rumours to which he refers, but I have received no official information of the kind. Such information as we have is rather of a contrary character as far as Circassia is concerned. That information was a telegraphic despatch from Constantinople, stating that it was reported that ten Russian ships-ofthe•line bad left Sebastopol, and were be tween that place and Perekop, on the northern coast, and not near Circassia. With regard to the position of the fleets, by the last accounts they were at Beicos Bay. Sir Edmund Lyons had just returned from a cruise in the Black Sea with the steam portion of the fleet, and, having visited those parts of the Black Sea to which my noble friend refers, stated that he had not seen a single Russian ship-of-war. INCOME TAX. The third reading of the Income Tax Bill was moved on Thursday night. Sir J. Psalm;Tom, pursuant to notice, called atten tion to the circumstances which had led to the proposed increase in this tax. He traced the necessity for de manding im increase to the impost to the ?mismanage ment of the public finances by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. We had this year to commence an expensive war with an empty treasury, becauselast year the Finance Minister had dealt unskilfully with the public funds, and had based the revenue of the coun try on a peace budget- To show the rashness of that proceeding the right hon. baronet cited extracts from the earlier despatches in the recently-issued blue books, from which he showed that, while the budget was not proposed until the 18th of April, the Govern. went had received on the 15th of that month ample warning to prepare f war. If a that time the house and country h ad known how the negotiations stood, as the Ministry knew it, they would neverhave passed the finance scheme, nor sanctioned the pro jects for converting the public debt. Summing up the sacrifices of revenue from indirect taxation in curred last year, and dwelling upon the soap and tea 'a -. JIMINIIIIII lihi