The Express.
London, England, 1850-04-16 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 16, 1850.

I agents in Italy. The letters of Mr. Ansicaoinst,
of Sir GEORGE HAMILTON, of Lords MINTO and
NAPIER, display fully to the world what was the
policy that actuated the British government, a policy
d on the desire to see the Italians acquire con-
stitutional rights, in wooed with their sovereigns
and by their means.
With these volumes, as well as with the conduct
and policy which they iodic ite, is strongly con-
trasted a series of papers just published, consisting of
the letters and explanations of Mr. Moan O'Fsaits
Throughout all his correspondence and his act., this
functionary, chosen for the liberal principles which
he affected in this country, evinces his horror and
aversion for those struggles, which the people of
Italy undertook for the acquirement of constitutional
rights. Every Italian liberal is in Mr. O'FannaLL's
vocabulary a rebel, or worse. The Neapolitan soldiers,
who preferred the constitutional to the despotic cause,
are stigmatised by him "as a class of persons,
for whom there can be no sympathy, who deserted
the flag of their country, and who may be pre-
, Named unfit to be at large amongst honest m n."
These very men, so stigmatised by oar liberal go-
vernor, were captured by the Neapolitan commander,
who, in consideration that they had acted from prin-
ciple and from a just respect to the constitution, sent
1 them off in a French steamer in order that they
might not be subjected to punishment. Bat Mr.
Mons O'FERRALL hid not the mercy or the consi-
deration E f the Neapolitan commander. A soldier
who refused to fight for a prince that had violated his
oath to the constitution, was nothing in his eyes but a
deserter. Civilian librale were equally an object of
horror to Mr. OTzaitaLL, who charitably hints that
the name of" political refugee was generally assumed
as a cloak to cover crime. against society." In other
words, Mr. O'FERRALL took upon him to presume,
that every political refugee was a ruffian and a robber,
and he treated them accordingly.
Mr. O'Frinitatt knew perfectly well the utter
falsehood of the calumnies that be daily uttered, as,
indeed, the self-contradictions in hie own lettere chow.
For whilst in one pap we hare him denouncing to
Lord GREY " the idle, dissolute, and unprincipled "
refugees, who, he declared, endangered the safety of
the island, we find this same veracious governor, in
another letter, writing to Mr. TEMPLI as follows:

Within the lait three months we have had 700 refugees
resident in this island. Their behaviour has been such as to
satisfy me that no government can justly apprehend any in-
convenience from allowmg them to return to their cities
country.

It was the men no described, that Mr. MORE
O'Feuitatt, pretends that there was danger of admit-
ting within the fortifications, or into contact with the
youth of the island._
_ _

Two classes of refugees repaired to Malta in 1848.
These were the Jesuit., expelled by the constitu-
tionalists, and the conatitutionalists expelled by the
Jesuits and the French. We have but to mark the
different receptions which Mr. O'FERRALL give to
each. The Jesuits be revives with open arms,
and supplies their every want. The liberals he, on
the contrary, confines on board the vessel in which
they arrive, and impitiably denies them liberty to
land, unless each possessed the thirty pounds neces-
sary to pay his passive to Southampton. The greater
part of these unfortunate liberals escaped from Rome,
and directed their course to Malta, on the filth of
passports delivered to them by the British consul.
But no ; Mr. O'FERRALL would not admit the validity
of such a passport, even to pass on the bearer. Ile would
not countersign it. He would neither let the liberals
lead at Make, nor facilitate their escaping from Malta.
He kept them lying in port, and on hoard, perishing
of confinement and heat, spending the it last pitco of
money, and so exasperated at the trick played them
that it was thought they must mutiny in their mad-
new and seize the ship. Mr. MORE O'FERRALL placed
guards round to reduce and shoot them, in case they
were driven to desperation ; whilst at the same time he
did all in hie power to drive them to that desperation.
The fact is that Mr. MORE O'FERRALL is an ultra-
catholic. He abhorred the Italian movement be-
cause it was directed against the clergy and the
Pope, and, like another I.IIILIP THE SECOND, he took
the suggestion of his confessor for the rule of his po-
litics, embraced the advent of the Jesuit., and in•
vented every calumny and persecution that he could
employ to provoke, persecute, and destroy the
unfortunate Italian liberals. Such is the repre-
sentative of the British goy, rament, such the bieot
that has disgraced the English name, and forfeited
the English character in the Levant for generosity,
hospitality, justice, and truth.
We are sorry to see that givernment has bestowed
any thing like approbation of such conduct, guarded
as that approbation be. Lord GREY tells Mr.
O'FERRALL how easy it was to 1 °ate this formidable
band of refugees outside the fortifications, if necessary.
And his lordship enjoins the governor to get rid of
the Jesuits, as guests quite as dangerous to the peace
of the island as the political refugees, against whom
Mr. OTERB.ALL, with all his desire, could impute no
crime.

Oar government, however, does not abandon or
condemn its subordinator, except in even of very
flagrant crime. But we fed confident that the
opinions of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Lord PALMERSTON,
and Earl Um; on the conduct of Mr. MORE
O'FgattALL, are much the same as the already
settled opinion of the British public, which the
parliamentary volume of his correspondence does but
corroborate, viz., that Mr. NIORE OTERRALL is a
disgrace to England, a renegade to its liberal party,
and one whose conduct cuts a heavy slur upon the
hitherto respected name of a liberal catholic.

ONCE upon a time, we are told, the lion behaved
most generously to the mouse, who, contrary to all
expectation, was enabled some time afterwards to
repay the favour by gnawing a way through the
meshes of a net, to facilitate the escape of the royal
benefactor. This fable is in process of being real:zed
in the diocese of Exeter, Mime SELLON being the
mouse and the Bishop the lion.
Few of our readers forget that some time back Mks
SELLON undertook several offices of charity in the
town of Devonport. Gifted with great zeal, energy,
good intentions, arid, last, but not least of all,
with wealth, Miss SELLON chose, nevertheless,
to imperil the thorough working of many ad-
mirable plans for the educa!ion and relief of
the poor, by an obstinate adherence to many forms
which savoured very strongly of Romaniam. The
unpleasant feature of the came, however, was that,
when attacked upon this point, Miss Sahtox defended
herself, not by making a candid sta•ement of the
facts as they existed—not by claiming the right
to act in whatever manner she thought most agree-
able to God and her conscience, but by a Jesuitical
explaining away of the charges. All England
would have approved had she met the spirit
of the charge as a noble woman vindicat-
ing her acknowledged right to do good in
her own way, but she experienced but a luke-
warm sympathy from the majority when she
cavilled at the letter of the charge with all the tortu-
osity of the Jesuit. Miss SELLON was rapidly sinking
in public estimation, when the Bishop of Ex 6TER came
forward to accord his protection to the suffering sister.
In his summing up his lordship seemed to have
warmed himself into a forgetfulness of the present
age and its prose, and to have been transported in
imagination to that golden time of the middle age
when its heroes floated in an atmosphere of unreality,
in which gallantry and devotion appeared inextricably
blended. The Bishop, in the fullness of his heart,
with a happy mixture of sentiment and piety, pro-
nounced Miss SELLON to be an angel.
Miss Sehhon, like a true woman, is not insensible
to the compliment, and is coming forward at a time
of his lordship's utmost need, to prove her gratitude.
The extent of her devotion is shown by the magnitude
of the sacrifice. The nature of that sacrifice may be
judged of by the following facts :
The institution of the " Sisters of Mercy," of which
Miss Sehhors is superintendent, is thoroughly Roman
catholic in its spirit. We do not pretend to be me-
quainted with the whole of the interior of the place, bat
we know that some portion of the inmates of the
establishment submit to a clerical surveillance as
strict as that exercised in any convent in Spain.
Many of the parishioners of au incumbent of a parish
in a western suburb of London are well acquainted
with the authority exercised by their rector over
seine of these sisters. Miss SEhhon, it is well known
by the friends of all the sisters, approves of such
superintendence. These women write to their friends
under the permission of their superintendent or their
spiritual adviser. They ate implicitly obedient to
an external power. It is clear, then, that the
line of conduct which Miss :ileum's has adopted, in
requesting the withdrawal of Lord Camenehh's name
from the list of those who assist her with their

!contributions, and in lecturing his lordship on a point
in theology, is an exception to a rale, which could
only have been necessitMed by some strong Impelling
motive. Under almost all other imaginable circum-
stances Miss Ramon would have considered it
' indecorous fa a woman to handle doctrinal questions,
and have settled all controversy b a pima reference
to her spiritual adviser. But the Bishop was in diffi-
culties, ought she not to rash to the rescue P The
high church was in want of 'adenines, would
it not grant plenary absolution for a little derelictio#
from tee ordinary mum P Would not there be
great glory in the weaker vessel affording
assistance which could be procured at no other band?
The woman meld give but one answer to those ques-
tions—the dutiful daughter of the church doubtless
had her inward prompting, encouraged by the dirge-
tors of her commence. The result is the two letters
to Lord CAMPBELL. We look upon them as a min-
gled exhibition of feMnine weakness, on the one
band, and of high-church malice on the other. The
protestant jesuits are covering the exercise of their
maligns q with a woman's garment.
Miss SELLON begs Lord CAMPBELL to withdraw
his name from her subscription lists, because he has
I assisted in a judgment " contrary to the fundamental
principles of the church of England." The cloven
foot of the evil genius of Pweyism is visible here.
From what we have said of Miss SELLONIS extrava-
gant idea of church authority, our readers cannot but
cove to the conclusion that unless backed by compe-
tent ecclesiastical advice, she would have dared
to put her judgment in avowed opposition to that
of the highest spiritual dignitaries in the ream.
Reminded of this by Lard CAMPBELL, she snubs
the archbishops with as little ceremony as the Bishop
of EXETER himself performs the like operation. She
lays down the law with the boldness of a Pope JOAN.
"Now can it heal the wounds of the church to tell ns
that her articles admit of a heresy which her creed re-
jects ? I may not believe it although such words are
sanctioned by the two archbishops. My lord, I do I
not believe it." Now we know enough of the life of
the superintendent of tke Sisters of Mercy to feel per-
suaded II
that she did not write these words without a
full conviction that in thus speaking evil, by
implication, of dignitaries, she was incurring
the censures of the church, and we also know that
few persons in this protestant community are likely
to entertain such a strong opinion of the importance of
those censures. The conclusion is obvious, that the
powerful high church spiritual "direction" which
moves the wheels in the machinery, in operation at
the " Sisterhood of Mercy," is at work, and that most
rigorously in the present instance. Miss SELLON is
the unconscious organ of a party which has taken
upon itself to carry her safely through the storms
which she Mght have dreaded as the consequence of
her contumacy. Min SELLON is, in fact, the Bishop,
of EXETER in petticoats.
Allowing, however, that the attack on the part of
the extreme section of the church has been most art-
fully made, since it connects the cause of benevolence
and sympatl-y with a high-minded wirnan with that
of a contested doctrine, we may be allowed to hint
that it is probably too bola. Will not people begin
to suspect the purity of a faith which can-
not permit its adherents to do good is company
with thole who differ a hair's breadth from the pro-
portion of constituted orthodoxy ? Is it not monstrous
to suppose that much consideration will be long
yielded to a party which refuses to benefit m inkind
except through the mirow portal of a faith which
would exclude nine-tenths of the world from the
benefit of salvation ? The corrrspondence in this
case will, we believe, do serious injury to the church
of England. It exhibits the Anglican catholic as a
blind and uncharitable puppet, moved by bigots in
the background, and the chief justice a noble.minded
Christian ready, so that ho may do good, "to row
beside all waters."

Yesterday, amid the throng of a crowded
court, judges and counsel, lords and ladies, looking
on, the bar all standing, and the offic vs of justice
doing homage, the Lord Chit f Justice of England,
the correspondent of Mies SELLON, took his seat
upon the bench as the representative of the QUEEN
herself. His oath taken in the open court recognised
' his attachment to Protestant principles, and his deter-
' munition to uphold the Church as by law established
within these realms. Singular it was that the very first
Mt offered to his hearing was the memorable one
of " the Bishop of EXETER V. GoRUAM !" He
" took time," says the report, "to look into the
cases." Lord CAMPBELL will clearly not consider the
writings of Miss SELLON on church doctrine autho-
rities?