The Express.
London, England, 1858-02-05 00:00:00

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TO OUR READERS.

A DOUBLE NUMBER of the EXPRESS will
be published TO-MORROW, and motioned on
welt Saturdays as the length of the 'Parliamentary
Debates shall render desirable.

WHORTZR may be disposed to think lightly otths
present circumstances of the country, it is evident,
from what took place last night in the House of
Lords, that the Upper House of Parliament is in as
sanguine or presumptuous mood. Every speaker
who took part in the somewhat desultory, but not
unimportant, discussion on the general state of
affairs, gave utterance, more or less candid, to feel-
ings of anxiety on one or more of our existing rela-
tions. Th. very circumstantiality with which Lord
PANNtitt endeavoured to prove that extensive
means of 000tinuously reinforcing our army in
India were is active progress amounts to a
ininfession that all is taw which has been
said out of doors about the probable protraction of
the war in Onde and elsewhere.

Os the subject of the contemplated Bill for the
annexation of the patronage of India to the Trea-
sury, much was not said; but what was said was fall
of meaning. Lord OILET having given notice that
on Thursday next he wculd present the petition of the
Company, it was probably felt that it would be better
to reserve opinions on the policy of the meditated
change until the opportunity should be afforded for
their full discussion. But neither Lord Baoconast,
Lord DLIBT. nor Lord MuJiILBIII.7IT appear to have
ben disposed to postpone even for a day the
utterance of their strong disapproval of the intro-
denim of any measure of legislative change, before
the termination of the war. It is manifest that it is
in the direction indicated by these noble lords that
mm's thoughts are steadily tending. Those who differ
meet widely in other matters find themselves agreed
in this—that it would be the height of folly and
rashness, in the midst of • sanguinary straggle for
the military possession of the country, to set about
the infinitely hazardous and difficult task at re-
modelling the whole =wheal •m of permanent rale.
But the sat ject which abm e all others fixed the
attention of the Peers whenever it was touched on,
was that of the demands made by the French
Emmen, that we should adjust our criminal code
to his viewg of what would be best and safest, not
for as or ours, but for him. Nothing could be clearer,
Cr more emphatic, than the enunciation of the law
as it now stands by the Lord Chief Justice of the
Queen'. Beach. There cannot be a doubt, said Lord
Carreat t, that to conspire with others or alone
to seek to compass the death of a Foreign
Prince in amity with this country is an offence
cognisable by our ordinary tribunals, and liable to
severe punishment. The law as it now exists is
stfficient, exclaimed the noble and learned lord, and
no further powers ought to be given to the Execu-
tive Government, for none others are required. This
is an epitome of all that need be urged on the legal
portion of the cue ; it is complete, and we think
ought to be conclusive. Lord IinOVOHAIII fully cor-
roborated all that was said by the Chief Justice,
and we are very much mistaken if the venerable
Lord LTPDHVIthr will be found to differ
from his veteran compeers. Something, indeed,
fell from both the learned persons we have
alluded to about being willing to consider
any amendment of the law that might be shown to be
desirable in order to its more effectual enforcement,
and the curing of anomalies which is the lane of
time might possibly be found to exist. We need
hardly may that in the abstract we have no objection
to criminal law amendment, any more than to the
amendment of any other branch of our national
jurisprudence. Bat we entertain a fixed and insu-
perable objection to the adoption of any measure;
whatever be its character or ■im, which is
presented to us on the point of foreign
bayonets. The sense of national dignity, and
the duty of maintaining it, are paramount
to all other considerations. At any other
time, when the excitement and excess caused
by late occurrences have subsided, we shall raise
no petty cavil as to the re-constructing or re-editing
of this perticular section of our criminal code ; but,
after the audacious language of armed menace, used
under the specific sanction of the French Imperial
Government, it is idle to talk of discussing diaper
sionatey the moditications which an proposed.

The first meeting of the House of Commons after
the recess has passed off with an absence of excite-
meat which is not neeessarily the presage of a tran-
quil session. Then are centurions, and this was
one of them, when men's minds are so seriously
occupied by a variety of important subjects and
agitating emotions, that they are not reluctant to
defer the moment when they most grapple in earnest
with the difficulties of their position. It is no holi-
day work which lies before the British Legislature ia
the present Session of the Imperial Parliament.
To maintain unimpaired the honour of England, not
tem against those who violate the rights of her
eitimpss beiGad the limits of this realm than against
those who menace the sanctity of that asylum which
ski has fur are asserted to foreigners within them;
to attempt the settlement of our future polity in