The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-10 00:00:00

The Corporation State Carriage,
drawn by Si: bay Hones
containing --
The Right Hon. Lord Mayor,
attended by
The Chaplain, Swordbearer, Common Crier, and the
Water Bailiff.
Detachment of the 12th Lancers.
Mounted City Police,
&c.,

THE PEACE SOCIETY.

TO TR* EDITOR OF THE EXPRESS.
Peace Society Office, New Broad-street, Nov. S.
Sir,—l am instructed by the committee of tho
Peace S wiety, to request the favour of your inserting the
accompanying document in your paper of Monday.—l am,
sir, yours respectfully,
HENRY RICHARD, Secretary.
" ADDRESS FROM THE COMMITTEE OF THE
PEACE SOCIETY, TO THEIR FRIENDS AND
SUBSCRIBERS.
" Dear Friends,—There are conjunc turn in the history
of every great moral reform, which require special vigilance
on the part of its friends, lest they should be insensibly kd
into compromising their principles and betraying their trust.
These times of peril are not when their CREW if violently
assailed with abuse and ridicule, for it is the impulse of all
conscientious and earnest minds, to cleave the more tena-
ciously to their convictions when they arc made the objects
of unjust aspersion and scorn. But the chief danger is,
when the temptation approaches them on the side of those
ardent and generous syrapathies of their own nature, which
have so much power to beguile the understanding
and mislead the judgments. Perhaps there is some
reason to apprehend that through such a season of
trial, the friends of peace are now being called to pees. A
distinguished foreigner, whose name is associated with the
aspirations and struggles of a brave and ancient people fee
the maintenance of their liberty and independence, has
recently appeared amongst us, and stirred the heart el
the nation to its depths, by his thrilling and eloquent
appeals on behalf of his oppressed countrymen. Few tea
resist the contagion of that enthusiaam which glows in this
lofty and earnest soul. But amid all this tumult of excited
feeline, it does not behove the friend* of peace to laugt
whatever admiration they may feel for his char GNI
whatever sympathy for the cause he advocates, the' die
means by which this illustrious patriot sought in they'l*.
and proposes for Ot_ future, to effect the liberation at his
country, are such as they cannot approve or sanction,
without implicitly surrendering the fundamental principle
of their faith. Leder these circumstances, we respectfully
but earnestly entreat our friends to abide firmly and faith-
fully at whatever sacrifice of feeling, by their own
deliberate convictions, and boldly to bear testimony to their
truth, whenever an opportunity occurs. The gratification
of indulging a momentary impulse of generous emotion will
be dearly purchased by that lasting sense of shame and
weabness which will result from the consciousness of a
public inconsistency.
The principle we hold is, that an appeal to the sword for
deciding questions of disputed right is as irrational as it is
unchristian, and that no permanent advantage eau accrue
to real freedom, or to any of the great interests of humanity,
from the debasing conflicts of brute force. That is a wea-
pon which ilespstism knows how to wield with far more
dexterity, as well as with a more ruthless and unscrupulous
purpose, than liberty can, until it is degraded to its own
level.
11 we needed any practical illustrations of thesoundness of
our principle, are they not abundantly furnished by the recent
history andpreeent aspect of Europe ? After the revolu-
tions of 1517 and ISIS, the friends of liberty everywhere
committed the decision of their cause to the wager of battle.
Anti with what results ? In every caw they have hew
worsted and crushed. Germany has seen her charters of
constitutional freedom snatched back from her grasp with
insult sad contempt. Italy lies writhing in deeper and mere
degraded thraldom than before the strife. Hungary be-
trayed into the handle of her enemies by the military chaser
pion to w ow sword she hail trusted for deliverance. bd.
it may be said, if men are not to take arms to conquer tie
berty, by what means is the power of the oppressor to be
broken and Enslaved cations to achieve their liberation ?
Do you counsel that a people should lie mute and moveless
beneath the incubus of despotism until all life it crushed
out of them ? God forbid that we should bo guilty of such
treason against the dignity of our common nature, the
loftiest hopes of humanity, and the declared purpose of
heaven.
What agency then do we propose to use? In one word
we answer—ideas Ideas that have proved themselves ever
mightier than swords—ideas which have already achieved
all the greatest and most enduring victories on which hu-
manity re/ewes—ideas which are even now slowly and
silently effecting revolutions on the earth, in comparison
with which the stormy career of the greatest conqueror that
hook the earth beneath the tramp of his armed heel,
if but as the momentary sweep of the hurricane, compared
with the calm and majestic processes of nature when it gra-
dually upheave' contauents, or patiently elaborates throu,;h
ages "the chief things of the ancient mountains and the
precious things of the lasting hills." Surely we as Chris-
tians need no proof that truth and right can prevail without
the support of physical force—for were not the noblest tri-
umphs of Christianity won, when it had nothing to oppose
to the power of the whole world armed for its extinction
but its conscious possession of truth, its heroic might of en-
durance
and its unclouded faith in God.
Shou!d you, dear friends, be invited to sustain measures
the object of which will be to promote on the part of this
country an armed inte:vention on behalf of the struggling
nationalities of Europe, we entreat you to abstain and to
protest. The only principle on which such au intervention
can be grounded is pregnant with terrible contingencies,
or rather with terrible certainties for the future. And were
there no other cause for hesitation we may well ask, what
security have we that such an armed intervention will
really profit the cause of liberty? All experience proves,
that the most probable issue of political emancipation
effected by physical force is not guaranteed freedom, but a
militievelepoftm. The history of England's past interven-
tion by ken of arras in the affairs of continental nations,
whether for the defence of legitimacy, or constitu-
tional freedom, is so melancholy a record of rash counsels,
as Quixotic" enterprises and disgraceful or abortive issues,
M ought surely to deter us from a repetition of this experi-
sent. There is scarcely a country in Europe on which we
have not at one time or another inflicted our martial protec-
tion, and there is scarcely a country in Europe where that
intervention has not eventually failed in the accomplish-
ment of its professed objects, or where its memory is not
regarded with bitterness and resentnient by the very people
whom it was meant to serve, while of the consequences to
ourselves a melancholy monument still remains in our
crushing and enormous national debt.
Should the cause of peace have to bear deeper oppro-
brium than ever from the course which we thus advise
you to pursue—even then wo still say, " Falter not for a
moment." We have the must absolute and unshaken con-
fidence, because resting we believe on divine and everlut-
ing principles, that the course of events will vindicate the
wisdom and rectitude of our counsel. The bitter experi-
ence which the friends of freedom arc yet destined to reap,
should they insist upon committing once more their great
and holy cause to the hazards of war's unequal game,
" will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your
judgment as the noon-day."
JOSEPII STUROE, Chairman.
HENRY RICHARD, Secretary.

THE C APE MAILS.- -The General Screw Steam
Shipping Company's mail-packet Sir Robert Peel, Captain
Boxer, came into Plymouth on Saturday morning. She
left the Cape of Good Hope the 24th of Sept., six days before
the Bosphorus, which arrived on Wednesday last, and her
intelligence from the seat of war is, of course, anticipated.
The Sir Robert Peel left Plymouth July the 15th, arrived
es the 27th at St. Vincent, left the 29th, and reached Sierra
Leese on the 4th of August, sailed therefrom on the 18th,
red mode the Cape en the 15th of September; departed for
Naglimai 111111 the 21th, touched at Sierra Leone the 14th of
Onsiber, reached St. Vincent the 20th, and left it on the
22nd of October. Major Rill, governor of the Gold Coast,
arrived at Sierra Leone on the 2nd of October, at 8 p.m.,
in the mail-packet Propootis. He left the next day, the
3rd, in her Majesty's brig Waterwiteh, for the seat of his
government, and was to call at Liberia on his way down
The Sir Robert Peel brings passengers only from Sierra
Leon?, via.. Captain Cafe, 94th Regiment, from the Gold
Coast, second-c4n staff-surgeon Dickson, Mr. Ritchie. Mrs.
Priaulx, widow of Surgeon Priaulx, R.N.. and Mrs. Take.
It will be recollected that the Sir Robert Peel broke down
on her outward passage, by which she lost 14 days.
REPRESENTATION OF CANDRIDGESHIRF..—Mr.G.F.
Young has not abandoned the honour of representing Cam-
bridg.shirc in parliament. Ile says, in a letter to one of
the electors, he regards himself as only the temporary repre-
sentative of Scarborough, elected upon an emergency and
under peculiar circumstances, sethaCwith the, present parlia-
ment his connection with the borough in question will, in
all_probability, mac.
ELECTION OF LORD PROVOST:GLASGOW, NOV.
7.—The election of a gentleman to fill the office of lord pro-
vost for the next three years, vacant by the retirement of
Sir James .I.ndersou, tool place this day. The only point
on which a division existed was the means and substance,
Of income-tax versus the rental mode of rating for the sup-
port of the poor—a question which has agitated the citizens
Meet bitterly during the last two or three years. and pro-
duced something like a civic rebellion. Mr. Robert Stewart
was proposed as the rental, and Mr. Archibald BPLellan as
the income-tax candidate. The council then went to the
vote, when 29 voted for Mr. Stewart and 17 voted for Mr.
M•Lellan. Mr. Stewart wu accordingly declared Lord
Provost of Glasgow for the ensuing three years.
FIRE AT VI ALIIER BARRACKS.—TAte on Thurs-
day night considerable excitement was created in the vici-
nity of Weimer by the sudden outbreak of a destructive
fire at the barracks at that place. The lames, when dis-
covered, were found raging in the north central building,
which, at present, is occupied by the staff of the 30th Re-
giment. The troops belonging to the 11th and 30th depots
were speedily on the spot, and the engines from the naval yard
and barracks were got to the scene withal expedition, but,
owing to their state, they were of little service in subduing
the conflagration, which by this tiros had reached en alarm.
lug ascendancy, and threatened the destruction of the entire
property. However, the soldiers and civilians worked with
much energy, and after several hours exertion, the progress
of the tire was stayed. Of tho central building :Cc:Ariel;
remains but the blackened walls, the whole of the interior
having been consumed. The lon will prove considerable;
but we understand that a quantity of the valuable furniture
was preserved. Captain Pakenhans sad Lieutenant Green
ars seers sauna.