The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-01 00:00:00

stien the most intimate relations with our Sardinian
saic Even upon the lowest and most selfish
given • its it is a matter of no little importance that
,
oar chief dealings should be with freemen rather
than with slaves. If the masters of millions think
mper to permit their vassals for a time to buy and
with us, well and good; but we never can
forget that such permission may in any moment
of caprice be withdrawn, and that commerce'
Iva sufferance is commerce berett of half
its value and worth. Let any one consider how dif-
krent the commercial pulse of England would at
this moment beat, if an amount of exports and itn-
perts similar to that which constitutes our trade with
Ain,rica, were liable to interruption at the caprice
of the Emperor of Itusst.t. But there is in fact a
&cyst truth in this policy of commerce between
pitmen, and it is this—that despotism, however
pesslikil, and serfs, however carefully lodged, and
c!„thid, and fad, make but poor customers after all.
It is the active and creative life of free communities—
eteuw;auui:i.s where, under equal laws, the growth
d numerous and intelligent middle classes is de-
veluped—that supplies the enterprise of other face
milieus with permanently good customers.

LI N VAST, last night, made an admirable
spttch on Parliamentary Oaths. It was a
rtfitshiog :pectin:to to view an octogenarian Peer,
ho had fought all his life in the Tory
ranks, coming forward to express, in clear and
precise language, correct and liberal opinions
on a point about which all his friends, and some
even of his opponents, were hopelessly ignorant.
'lie mantle of prophecy seemed to be adapting itself
to the shoulders of him who sf, hen acting in the rash
confidence of youth, would have jerked it contemp-
tuously. away. It was scarcely possible to listen to Lord
Lis Pit ts RS r discoursing eloquently on smatter which
has hitherto found but few advocates, and those few
solely on the Liberal side of the House of Peers,
without thinking of C.oirunt's lines:

'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And comics events cut their shadows before.
Lord LYNDHURST is—at all events, on this point—
too wise for his party, and he has no reason now to
restrain him from telling the truth. Ilis speech
on oaths might have been delivered, so far as the
mere argument is concerned, by the must well-in-
formed Liberal. Lord LYNDHURST has taken
op Oaths, as Sir ROBERT PEEL took up Corn Laws,
or as Lord CHESTERFIELD took up Dr. JOHNSON.

There was no other alternative. At the same time,
although the claim of originality may be denied to
the Ex-Chancellor, it must not bo forgotten eat
his accession to the right cause is most serviceable.
and that his treatment of the subject was masterly,
although much of the argument was old. In fact
the oration itself is most noticeable as a convincing
instance of the thorough acquaintance the orator pos-
sessed of tho temper of the house which he addressed,
and of the style of reasoning most likely to be ap-
preciated there. Take one example. Addressing
himself to that portion of the argument which de-
rives its force from the confessed impiety of useless
invocations of the Deity, he did not dream of quot-
ing to a Christian House of Peers, that command.
runt of the Decalogue expressly directed against the
sin, still less did he allude to the command " Swear
not at all." He knew that quotations from the
Old and the New Testament would be re-
ceived by his audience with decorous respect and no
more. Knowing the education of their lordships in
the great public schools, he knew that they would
appreciate a quotation from a Pagan poet, although
they might yawn over a precept from the symbolical
books of their religion. He therefore quoted the
advice of HORACE to dramatists—
Nee Deus iaterait, aisi divas tiadito nodes.
o Don't bring a God upon the scene unless the occa-
sion is worthy of the intervention." How accurately
he understood the temper of the House, might be
seen by the way the quotation was received.
As has been observed, and may be supposed, there
could be no novelty in the mere reasoning. His
Lordship, who limited himself to the expunging from
the oaths, which were the subject of his attention,
everything that was "inoperative, idle, or absurd,,
mw nothing in the oath of allegiance to require alto.
ration. With respect to the oath of supremacy, he
showed in a brief historical notice that this oath was
expressly directed against Roman Catholics, and that
at present no Roman Catholics were bound to take it.
Ile pointed out very forcibly the absurdity of requiring
Protestants to swear that they "abhor and abjure as
impious and heretical that damnable doctrine of
Popish error that a prince excommunicated by the
Port may be deposed or murdered by his subjects,'
and that no foreign prince or prelate ought to have
jurisdiction in this realm. It was, however, on the
oath of abjuration that his Lordship was most fluent,
and to many, who were ignorant of the real facto of
the ease, most instructive. In his account of
this oath be showed that it bore date from
the thirteenth year of WILLIAM 111., and was
framed on the model of an oath of allegiance passed
in the third year of JAMES 1., after the discovery of
the Gunpowder Plot. And hereby hangs • tale.
The model oath would almost necessarily, directly or
indirectly, contain some allusion to the Roman
Catholics. One of these allusions has not been
hitherto understood by the majority. After the de-
tection of the plot, search being made in the
hoax of FRANCIS Taunus, a manuscript was
found, containing many marginal notes in the
handwriting of Father Ossism, the Jesuit. This
manuscript was made use of in the trial, and was
lately reprinted with annotations that had been
made in it by Sir EDWARD COKE, the Attorney-
General for the prosecution. In this manuscript the
doctrine of mental reservation was laid down in its
broadest shape. For instance, if a person were asked
whether he were in Londonon a certain day, then, if in
his conscience he thought he was not bound to answer
the questioner, he might—although he had been in
London—reply, "I have not been in London," if,
at the same time, ho added, mentally, "for any im-
proper purpose." The reserve, it was said, eased
the truth of the proposition. This, as Lord Lusts-
nur,t remarked, is the precise doctrine of which the
Jesuits were accused by PASCAL, and the manuscript
le a remarkable proof of the truth of the accusa-
tion. In the very year when the plot was dis-
covered the oath of allegiance was framed,
and then for the first time were introduced the words
"without equivocation, evasion, or secret reservation,
and on the true faith of • Christian." There could
be no doubt, said Lord LYNDHURST, that the oath
was framed while the document in question was is
the possession of Sir E. Coss, and that the words were
then carefully suited to the occasion, and so guarded
as to prevent Roman Catholics from taking it eva-
sively. And yet these words introduced into an oath
for the express purpose of holding a tight rein over
Boman Catholics, and copied into another oath in the