The Express.
London, England, 1855-01-12 00:00:00

ALLIANCE OF SARDINIA WITH THE
WESTERN POWERS.

It has been already stated in oar columns that the
Sardinian government and the governments of
England and France, were negotiating • treaty of
alliance offensive and defensive. The result is given
as follows by the Time* of this day :
" We are happy to have it in our power to state
that the Sardinian government has signed the proto-
col of April last, and thereby joined the alliance of
the Western Powers.
" This important step is taken in virtue of the fifth
article of the Convention between her Majesty and
the Emperor of the French, signed at London on the
10th of April, 1854. The fifth article runs as follows :
" Their Majesties the Queen of the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Emperor
of the French will readily admit into their alliance, in
order to co-operate for the proposed object, such of
the other Powers of Europe as may be desirous of
becoming parties to it:
" General Dabormida has resigned, and Count
^,ivour has accepted the office of Minister foe
`•• •-" Affairs."

ROBERThox.--00, Wedneaday
DRAITI OT LOLL. whits at hi. own hove fa
this loomed judp woo Wow.. Mob proved fatal.harsh, with an npopimotio w.

THE NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE.
WITS reference to the negotiations strifinna, the
indeposdano Bilge, a journal notorious foe lb
Russian leanings, remarks :—" It teat Sens that
the negotiations about to open Are bet to ieterreit
the progress of hostilities in lb Milli. On the
contrary, the Western Powers appear determined to
push them with increased vigour; and this, in our
eptssion, tionstitides the danger of the situation; this
is the circumstance most likely to compromise the
result of these- negotlatiesas." It seareely rettaire&
this acknowledgment from a Russian organ to we.
vineo the public of the wisdom of the resolution
adopted by the Western Powers not to intermit for
a moment •their warlike operations in the Crimea.
The chirp of squadron and thunder of millisey ila
front of Bebsatopol will not be heard at Vienna; the
delicate nerves of the diplomatists sissesbied be
that capital will not be disturbed by the din of mar,
or their deliberations interrupted. But the Rumba
Minister will have a powerful motive for cutting
short his rigmarole speeches and protocols, whoa he
knows that every minute he spins out by .tbs•
enables the Allies to work additional havoc in the
Muscovite ranks. The Russian Government and its
partisans flattered themselves that they had seine
an important point when they once more entangled
France and England in negotiations; but their hopes
begin to abate since they have seen that these powese
can fight and negotiate at the same time. Undoubtedly
their resolution so to do " constitutes the danger et
the situation ; " but the danger is all for Russia, ad
for the cause of national independence and EntifillS
tranquillity.
The groan wrung from the Russian organ in the
Belgian press, by the bellicose propensities of the
Western Powers, betrays the arriere-penses with
which Russia hu consented to entertain proposals
for peace on the basis of the Four Points. Russia
still hopes to gain back by diplomacy what it has
lost by arms. There is only one way of meeting
and foiling its finesse ; and that is to propose, in
brief and explicit terms, such conditions of pesos
as will give lasting security to Europe against Masao-
vite aggression, and to call upon the Russian Govern-
ment to accept or decline them without higgling or
chaffering. The CZAR ought to be told in plain
unequivocal language—" Remonstrance is in vain;
you must do so and so, or the war goes on." Oa
this head the weighty words with which an artisb
on • The Conduct of the War," in the new amber
of the Quarterly Review, is wound up, will be Or
cloned by the great body of the nation :
Jest as these sheets were befog printed off, we NNW
the intelligence that Russia had accepted the Fourieliata
If our article had been written with a knowledge of Ws
circumstance, we shoed have endeavoured MINIM the
same views we have already uprooted, and shoal' we the
lea have urged the propriety of some change Ilesthelth
set. We believe indeed that there will he greater weelii
than ever for vigilance and firmness. We dread the dials•
essay of Itensis more thus her arms. We are apprehensive
that her suntimion is a device for detaching Austria from
the slams, angler parwlysisg our preparations for the
11421 eeratleiwe, goethieles, it is affirmed, are not to be inter.
espied ; led we are olarseed lest the geownsisent aimed
repeat their firmer snore, and. lulled into foils sour*
by the wegetistiwas, should relax Vs their efforts Mpreete
aressments against the spring. Any such suspension is air
If bees world be the height of folly andfotse economy. The
mum weepier, met of preparing for war is vastly less *se
that of war itself, and should Russia really yield in ow dr
swede, it will only be because we held ourselves in ramli•
isms to exact what she refuses. In ignorance of the goose-
Ws that will be asked of her, an., the amount of em
indemnity which will be required for the expeneli.
sere we have incurred, we can give no opiates
apes the conditions of puce proposed by our Mt
sisters. We trusted them to provide for the conies
gouda, of war, and found ourselves deceived. if, taw
advantage of the secrecy with which the negotiations Mid
Messedreted, they should again disappoint the ressonslois
sweetathuis of the public, and assent to inadequate tonn
they will not, we venture to predict, be able to withstand the
stwinof reprobation which is justly au* to men who, through
worlasese msdisempaeity, have betrayed their country.
In this warning one important condition to be
exacted from the CZAR is touched upon—" the amount
of the indemnity which will be required for the
expenditure we have incurred." It is not to be endured
that the people of France and England should ulti-
mately pay the expenses of a war forced upon them
by the arrogant injustice of the Russian Autocrat.
Compelling him to refund our outlay out of his own
exehequer will be an act of simple justice, and et
the same time our best guarantee against a repent
don of the offence. To allow him to escape witherl
this mulct would be, on the part of our Government,
Woe generosity. It would be to affect being gew-
gaw at the expense of their own people. It would
be to fine the innocent and let the criminal escape

scot-free. Russia ought, by every principle of law
and equity, ultimately to bear the whole expenses of
the war. The cession of the Crimea is as much a
sins qua non as the payment of an indemnity by
Russia; and the cession of the Aland Isles as the
cession of the Crimea. It is taking too narrow •
view of the causes and objects of the war, to confine
our attention exclusively to the diminution of the
power of Russia in the Black See. England, at
least, has a more direct and immediate interest
in the diminution of the power of Russia in
the Baltic. We have a trade to make in the
Euxine, but we have a trade to lose in the Baltic.
Had not the breaking out of the war cat short the
operations required to effect that purpose, Bomar-
sand would have been made as formidable a
fortress as Sebastopol; and assuredly it will
be made so, if Russia is allowed to re-
tain possession of it. Were Bomarmind made
the Sebastopol of the Baltic, it would constantly
threaten Stockholm in exactly the same way that
the latter does Constantinople. Sebastopol, with a
strong Russian fleet, made for a time a Russian lake
of the Black Sea : Bomarsund, with a strong Russian
fleet, would in like manner make a Russian lake of
the Baltic. Thee* pen feathers—the Aland Isles
and the Crimea—must be plucked from the northern
and southern wings of the Russian eagle, or that
insatiate bird of prey will soon be flying about
again, as mischievous and as great • nuisance as ever.
We do not say that the three conditions we have
enumerated above are all that can or ought to be
exacted from Russia, but our Government should be
satisfied with nothing short of them.—Deily News.

LEMY CASE.-COMPROMIS-
IND FRAUD.

WE wish to call attention to two events connected
with the administration ofj entice. The first is vol. y well

known to most of our readers—it is the

dation to mercy by the jury in the cue of the
murderer BARTHY.LMIL The second hoe been

noticed by very few of us—it is a decision of
Alderman SIDNEY'S, that a person is precluded
from prosecuting another for embezzlement because
the latter had inserted the name of the former u a
creditor to the amount of the monies embezzled in
his schedule when passing through the Insolvent
Court without any objection being made to such loser-
tioo, or any opposition to the passing of the insolvent.
As to BAITIIIILIDIY, the infamous hero of what has
been called "the double murder in Warren-street,"
hie trial for one murder, his conviction, and titer re-
commendation to mercy, took place this day week ;
and we did not notice the cue at the time simply &e-
-mu the recommendation of the jury seemed so pre•
postermady noreeemohle that we could not conceive'

its producing any effect. It is said, however, that
petition' in. favour 4 the mordant ars being name-
rawly Blond t we !bailors think it teomenry to
'thrive ti soars the comnben smite them who we
anis:his thii; names to such docurasate. Sock
ppbeoas .as petition for mercy oa sum wounds
than those - upon which the jury „apteit mbst
bring forward such new facts as they have. and until
they bars done so we need my nothing. To those
who, with no fresh evidenis to Widow, merely add
their names to the recommendation of the jury, we
have a word or two to say. Those whose only ground
for petitioning is that they think all capital punish-
meat useless or wrong mast use their bast endeavours

to get the law altered; but while by the law of
England an offence is punishable by death, to mar
one who has committed the offence to escape the
penalty is to have murdered all those who have
paid it. To those who tell us that the culprit
i. a foreigner, and that by his nation's laws
be would escape death, we my that his offence
was committed here, and has come under the cog.
alma of our courts, and that by our law death is
his due. To those who urge that he is a Frenchman,
that we wish to stand well with France, and that
therefore he should be pardoned—and we fear there
are some such; we say that their ground of action is
as insulting to the morality of France as it is de-
grading to the courage of England. We are to
abstain from punishing a most ruffianly assassin
because France would look leniently upon his offence!
It is rumoured that the verdict was the result of a
compromise between the jurymen; the foreigners
(who formed half of the jury) refusing to con-
vict unless the English agreed to a recommendation
to mercy. In France we know that juries find •
prisoner guilty, but " with extenuating circum-
stances." But what extenuating circumstances were
there in this rose P The ruffian doubtless committed
two murders, but he was tried on that one only
which admitted of direct and easy proof. He at.
tempts to escape after the first murder, jumps over a
wall, is seized by two men, draws • pistol from his
pocket, and almost before one of his captors has
uttered the words, "He will shoot one of us," he
does shoot him. He runs away, and, after beating
about the head with the pistol another man
who seises him, he is finally overpowered.
All these men, including the murdered man, swear
to the facts. The counsel for the prisoner has pool-
, tively nothing to say, except that it was unfair that
his client was not tried for the other murder, which
was rather less easy of proof, and that perhaps the
pistol went off by accident ! The case was too clear :
even Mr. Justice MAULS could not have said that
perhaps Barraminir thought his victim was a thief
attempting to rob him, and that so he shot him in self-
defence. The jury, after three quarters of an hour,
were compelled by their consciences, however unwill-
ingly, to find him guilty, but they recommended

him to mercy.
We hope that it wu some puzzle-headedness about
"extenuating circumstances" that induced the foreign
jurymen to do so: if such be the cue, they
have a very inadequate appreciation of the in-
dulgent and anxious carefulness of the English
criminal law with regard to the accused. The exa-
mination and all the other proceedings are carried

on upon the well-known maxim of taking for granted
the innocence of the prisoner until his guilt is
proved. There is no attempt made here to force
him to prove himself guilty, as would be the
case in any other country in Europe. Had he
himself been subjected to any sifting examination,
the notion of extenuating circumstances could not
have existed for a moment. As it was, his counsel
had not a word to say for him, and the Chief Justice
could see no loophole for him, and was profoundly
astonished at the jury's recommendation, which,
though he could not refuse to forward, he did re-
fuse to sanction. As GEORGE 111, said of a similar
culprit, if this man is pardoned, COURVOISIEIt was
murdered.

The other matter we referred to is simply this. At
Guildhall Police Court, on Monday last, WILLIAM
HOLMES wu brought before Alderman SIDNEY
charged with embezzling 571. belonging to his former
employer, Mr. BEN. Rotes. Houtas's defence was
that he had gone through the Insolvent Court at
Exeter, and had entered JONES as creditor for the
571., and that JONES had not opposed his passing.
The magistrate said, as the prosecutor did not oppose
the prisoner's pestling, that "it was a sort of compro-
mise of the matter, and the prisoner's discharge from
prison by the Insolvent Court absolved him from any
further charge respecting the item of 571. entered in
his schedule. If the prosecutor had attended the
Insolvent Court and proved that the item of 571. was
not a debt but a sum embezzled, that court would
have handed the prisoner over to the authorities to
be dealt with under the criminal law." To this Mr.
HOBLER, who appeared for the prosecution, replied,
" that the court at Exeter had no jurisdiction over the
prisoner in a cue of felony, so that whatever it might
have done could not prejudice the present charge."
Alderman SIDNEY, however, stuck to his opinion,
and so the prisoner was discharged.
Now, in the first place, passing the Insolvent Court
does not extinguish a debt ; it only takes away the
particular remedy or method of recovering it. Indeed
the insolvent before his discharge executes a legal
document by which he binds himself to defray his
debts whenever he shall have the power, and any of cis
creditors can sue for the amount due to them, not as
the original debt, but upon this instrument. In
the second place, if the debt were extinguished by
passing through the court, that fact could make no
difference in the matter. The private wrong of not
k paying your debts is one thing, the wrong against,
society of having committed a fraud is another. If
a man picks your pocket of your watch, and you
! recover your watch, the thief owes you nothing, but
I he hu not the less committed a theft. We are not
i lawyers; but surely common sense would suggest
that Alderman SIDNEY is wrong.—Daily Nem.

14116.