The Express.
London, England, 1850-01-23 00:00:00

giving iron contracts to third parties at figures above
the market pricessting otf on his constituents, in
the names of those parties, iron of his own, whereby
large profits accrued to him, at the expense of his
companforing secretly on the corporation oyes
which be presided shares in a dock company,. which,
for political purposes, he had affected to relieve the
electors of Sunderland of—falsifying accounts—
mixing up capital and revenue so as to produce con-
tusion worse confounded—and, in the midst of such
practices, " making things pleasant" to his dupes—
these acts, which most men regard as offences, me-
riting the most condign punishment, are, in the esti-
mation of Mr. Owens HUDSON, the member for
Sunderland, the friend of the late Lord demean I
BENTINCK, the ally of Mr. DISRAELI, a chief of thel
protectionists, merely occurrences necessary to pro- I
mote and successfully execute great public works.
They are ramalities and rogueries of the highest
order; and though they may, from their very enor-
mity, be too great foe the grasp of the laws, the very
insensibility of their perpetrator to their immorality
and criminality, demands that society, and, if posub:e,
parliament, should take some steps to vindicate them-
selves from the outrage he has committed by ven-
turing on a defence of such
allowed
misdeeds. t
cents reckless,
mares, insensible, and bad man mushe
to escape from the consequences of
.hts misconduct,
Arlie has ruined hundreds, has enured thousands,
NA has dan aged the national character itself, by
hefting audacity. If, amidst the wreck and devas-
tation of other people'd for.unes, he cannot ye-
cognise or won't feel the immorality of his acts,
he ought to be taught in a manner palpable
and patent, even to his dull senses, that the country
feels the disgrace he has inflicted on it. And the
only way in which he can be so taught is by expul-
sion from the House of Commons. It is not enough
that he be exposed, rebuked, and denounced, by the
press; it is not enough that he be shunned by, and
drivon from, society ; it is not enough that his name
descend to posterity as a bye-word and a reproach ;
there requires, what Lord C'IIATUA would have
termed, some public lustration, some authorised wt,
by which to mark the national sense of offences like
his, by which to save the country from the stigma of
apathy and indifference to such frauds. If Sunder-
land can endure such a representative, parliament
ought not to tolerate such a member.
It is idle nonsense—worse than nonsense, it is
hurtful misreptenntation—to say that other rail-
way directors are as bad in their way as Mr.
Honsos. Injurious to railway property as the
investigations into the affairs of other companies
have been, and destructive of the judgment and
reputation for ability of other railway re and
promoters as they have proved, there 11iii:loloten no
such criminal deeds discovered as in Mr. Henson's
ease. Want ofjudgment, want of prudence want of
economy, want of foresight, are apparent in almost
every such investigation ; but fur want of the com-
monest honesty, for want of every principle of
honour, for want of every vestige of good faith, we must I
turn to Mr. HUDSON and to his companies only. It is
the wantonest insult added to the rankest injustice to
classify Mr. HOPE JOHNSTONE and the Caledonian or
Mr. CHAPLIN and the South Western will Mr.
HUDSON and the York, Newcastle, and Berwick ; for
these gentlemen have erred in good faith and in-
tegrity, without a stain on their moral characters ;
ured in fortune and judgment they may be, but in
moral and social reputation they can look the most
aggrieved of their fellow-sufferers calmly and serenely I
In the face. They have not trafficked at the expense
of constituents who reposed the most absolute trust
in them; they have not bought estates out of the
profits of shares they allotted themselves, or out
of scrip which they manufactured as prices rose ; they
have not sold their companies iron dear which they
bought, or allege they bought cheap ; they have not
" cooked " accounts; they have not brought capital
and revenue into hotch-pot ; they have not been
caught in jragranti delicto.
It is necessary, then, in this melancholy history of
railway disorders and mismanagement, to mark
strongly the difference between railway managers and
directors who have simply erred in judgment, and a
director who has betrayed and wronged his con-
stituents. Want of judgment and prudence are
serious and disastrous misfortunes to shareholders;
but they are not crimes against society. This is a
distinction which, in these discussions, has been far
too much forgotten. But it is one which Mr. Hon-
ox's letter now renders only too apparent : for in
moral dt linquency he stands alone.
But though guilty in his own estimation and is the
opinion of the super-subtle Newcastle attorney who
has prepared this indecent letter, of no offence against
morals or honesty, nay, thcugh in the judgment of
his counsel free from all legal responsibility in respect
of the acts we have enumerated, Mr. HUDSON has
nevertheless repaid the constituents to whom, by his
account, he owed nothing, a good round 100,0001.
And why ? On what ground ? A horror of the Court
of Chancery, an unwillingness to be involved in years
of hticatioo, which he was nevertheless convinced
and advised must end in his own success. Was there
ever so inadequate a motive for so large a payment?
Was there ever so worthless and flimsy an excuse put
on record for so marked an act of self-condemnation? I
Can the miserable pretence delude or deceive even al
Sunderland elector? Chancery is, no doubt, a dialled'
place for honest men ; but it is the very paradise of
rogues. And when a HUDSON pays 100,0001. to avoid
its tender mercies, the conclusion that he was liable
to refund a much larger sum is the inevitable
inference of his conduct. The man who sold for his
own profit and advantage everything belonging to hie
constituents on which be could lay his greedy unscru-
lous hands, who secs no wrong in vending iron to
himself as their chairman, who " c Joked " accounts
and "made things pleasant," is not exactly the per-
I son to refund 100,0001. merely to avoid a chancery
snit in which he was certain to be successful. No,
no. Mr. HUDSON prepaid that large sum to avoid
paying a still larger amount, and for no other earthly
reason.
And the man who thus writes and records his own
condemnation has the shameless audacity to offer his
victims his advice in railway policy generally. He,
forsooth, is of opinion that time, and economy, and
attention, and carcord, will yet bring the York, New-
castle, and Berwick C enpany through—will yet rescue
it. And from whet? From the melancholy and
ruinous consequences of his selfish, corrupt mismanage-
ment—a mismanagement which, though redoing
Ihundreds, yet leaves him a member for Sunderland.
and

the principalities notified to tirs:dahinet et Bt.
Pe'rasher, its intention to evasnate the senntiy, sad
'lnvited Reside to follow the example.
Asada refused but does not deny the rights of the
Torte. It declares that the moment isinotiperesesee
thus constituting itself the sole arbiter, to tile win:
lion of the
Porte, in a question which the liitorasses;el
to be the only party to decide. This refusal
the Poets to prolong its occupation, . in order not to
leave Russia Owlet* master of the field; and
the miserable condition of the principalities woe thus
aggravated day by day.
At length, on the lit May, 1849, the convention
of Balta-Liman intervened. The grave attack upon
the prerogatives of the Porte, as well as the privileges
of the principalities contained in the convention,
well known, and must not be considered as a portion
of the national law of Europe. It recognised the
right which had always been denied to Russia of
military occupation of the two principalities and of
interference in their internal administration. The
privileges which the Moldo-Wallachian principalities
acquired from their capitulations with the Turks, and
which were recognised by subsequent treaties, are
the following :
1. The right of electing their Hospodars ;
2. Administrative and legislative independence;
3. Inviolability of their territories.
The following are the rights of sovereignty apper-
taining to the Porte :
1. The purely honorary right of confirming the
Hoepodars elected by the nation.
2. An annual tribute of three millions of Turkish
piastres from the two principalities.
The right of Russia is confined to preventing the
Porte from trespassing on the privileges accorded to
the Yfoldo-Wallachians, and which the latter had gua-
ranteed by the Treaty of Adrianople.
The Convention of lialta-Liman maintains the fol-
lowing principles:
Two committees will be appointed to revive the ergsais
laws, whom labours are to be submitted to the esamidatiew
of the Oftman government, which, atter coming to as
undentandng on the subject with the court of Russia, win
promulgate them In the form of a f' hattimberiff."—(Art. I
of the Convention 1 Each of the two governments will main-
tain in the principalities armies numbering from 20,000 to
30.000 men, until the entire pacification of the country ; sub-
sequently to the pacification, and until the completion of the
constitution, for the principalities, each of the two poeen is
to reduce its army to 10,000 men ; immediately afterward,
the two powers will a mpletely and eimultaneoasly evacuee
the principalities.—(lhid., Art. 4.)
It is evident then that the convention of Bath-1
Liman not only violates all the privileges of the
Moldo-Wallachians, but also gives: to Russia equal
rights of sovereignty with those possessed by the
Porte. But at the same time that Russia acknow-
ledged these two principles, it made use of the one in
order to dispense with the necessity of regarding the
other. The organic law of 1831 was revised and pro-
mulgated with the assistance of a hundred thousand
bayonets. Was it not too much then to revise this
same law by an army. ot 30,000 men, above ell at the
very moment when insurrection was triumphant on
the frontier. of Hungary ? But after the pacification
of the neighbouring countries, this number was to be
I reduced to 10,000.
This pacification has been effected, and Turkey,
faithful to its engagements, having partially evacuated
the provinces, has a right to expect that Russia will
follow its example. Nothing of the kind. Russia
has always some pretext or other for prolonging the
occupation, and M. de Titoff replied at the beginning
of last month to the representation made by the
Porte, " That the Porte had been too hasty in re-
ducing its army in Wallachia to 10,000 men, and that
Russia could not fulfil the stipulations of the Baits-
Liman convention in this respect until the differences
respecting the refugees were settled and diplomatic
negotiations resumed."
What was there in this new pretension raised by
Russia? What had the refugees to do with the oc-
cupation of the principalities? Is this the mode in
which Russia keeps its engagements, or the em-
phatic pledge contained in the manifesto of the 19-311
July, "That the past would show the pre,ent,
that on more than one previous occasion Russia had
occupied either the whole or a part of the principali-
ties, and, true to the pledges it bad previously given,
had evacuated them on the accomplishment of
the objects it had desired to effect before
withdrawing ?" It is true that Russia eva-
cuated the principalities on all the occasions on
which it had occupied them, but only after having
held them for several years, and after taking care to
keep them in a continual flame ; thus, in 1812, Rus-
sia took possession of Bessarabia, an integral portion
of Moldavia ; and, in 1829, of another portion of this
principality ; while at the commencement of each of
the wars Russia guaranteed to the Moldaviane the in-
tegrity of their territnrier. What else are its preten-
sions then but a new snare for the good faith and cre-
dulity of Europe?
At this moment the difficulty respecting the
refugees has been terminated ; but I do not believe
that Russia will evacuate the principalities. The
number of Russian troops actually within the princi-
palities amounts to 46,000 men, and letters which I
have received from Moldavia assure me that the ar-
rival of another army is momentarily expected.
But as Russia continues its troops in the principali-
ties, notwithstanding its engagements, and the inces-
sant reclamationa of the Porte, let us see what has
been accomplished with regard to the reforms which
were considered so urgent by the Russian authorities.
Russia commenced by suspending the general
assemblies, to which alone, in virtue of the capita-
lation and of the right of the principalities, apper-
tained the right of the internal administration of the
country. Russia appointed two committees for the
revision of the orsanic laws; but these committees,
instead of being the legal and rightful representa-
tives of the country, were composed solely of Bay-
ards devoted to Rossi', who were appointed by
that power in the same manner as it had dealt with
the assembly of 1831; and if the past is to be taken
in this case as a pledge for the present, one can already
foresee that the new constitution in course of pre_pa-1
ration will be even worse than the organic law. The
first act of these committees affords a sufficient proof
of this. They hare just declared that the peasantry
shall remain attached to the soil, and that not one of
the enormous burdens which oppress this unhappy
class will be removed. If reforms had been seriously
intended, reforms corresponding to the wishes and
necessities of the population, and likely to prevent
future revolutions, ought they to have been entrusted
to committees, such as the present, instead of to a
National Amenthly, voluntarily elected and represent-
ing the interests of all classes?
Meanwhile the Russian occupation costs Wallachia
a million of piastres per month ; and during the year
which has just expired, the debt has increased to 20
millions of piastres.
The misery of the population grows day by day
under the present H. spodar, M. Stirbein, who, in-
stead of endeavouring to obliterate in the eyes of the
national party the illegality of his election, seems to
consider it his peculiar task to increase the discontent
of all parties in the population.
And now the cabinet of St. Petersburg, whose
policy place the double occupation has always tended
to compromise the Turks with the Wallachians by
shifting upon them the apparent blame of all the
Of pismire measures which it had itself secretly pro-
voked or stimulated, is spreading a report that his
Majesty the Emperor is ready to require from the
Porte the union of the two principalities and their
independence under the protectorate of Russia: a
project long ago favoured by Russia, as a sure means
of obtaining its end, and on the subject of which its
agents were charged to sound the disposition of the
chuff of the liberal party in 1848, a few days
previous to the movement of June. And in order
to be in readiness for any event Russia organised free
corps of Wallachians, commanded by Russian offloers
and using the Russian language.
The question of the principalities has thus again
been raised at Constantinople. Ru sit peeks to gain
in this question what it has log in that of the re-
fugees. And the Porte, notwithstanding that it fully
feels the importance of this question, on which its
future existence must depend, will give way to all the
demands of Russia, if it should again be abandoned
by England and France, as it was at the time of the
convention of Balta Liman.
It is time that the people and the cabinets of Europe
should have their eyes opened to this encroaching
policy and to the secret menaces of Russia. It is
not the mere interest of humanity which is in crea-
tion now ; the existence of the Ottoman empire is at
stake. It is not sufficient to have closed the narrow
gorges; if Turkey is to be preserved entire, it is in-
dispensable to cover its northern frontier, and compel
the flood of Russian inundation to return to its proper
bed. The existence ot the Turkish empire is inoem-

patiblo with the pregame of a Russian array on the
Danube. I am, air, your
BAL obedient servant,
CESCO,
Member of the Provisional exigovernment
Wallachia.

Loudon, Jan. 19, 1850.

FRANCE.

PAM, TOISDAT, 610 P.M.
The debate in the Chamber yesterday on the bill
for transporting the June insurgents to Algeria via',
as usual, a most turbulent affair; but the Mountain
were jockeyed out of a division by a manceuvre of
the president, which was unworthy his high office
and squally high reputation. M. Jules Fevre made a
long speech, in which he advocated the cause of the
488 insurgents who are now at Belle Isle, and pro-
posed that the pardon which had been granted to the
other insurgents should be extended to them. No
sooner had ha concluded his speech than the presi-
dent declared the general discussion closed, and that
the Chamber should praised to discuss the articles.
M. Fevre and his friends applied for a division, but
the president declined, as he said the application came
too late.
After this unworthy manoeuvre, M. Santeyra pro-
posed, as an amendment, that all the insurgents now
at Belle Isle should be pardoned at once, or be tried
by a jury of their countrymen ; but this amendment
was negatived by a majority of 382 to 205.
To-day the President of the Assembly read a letter
from M. Dufaure, in which the hon. member excuses
himself, on the wore of illness, for not taking part in
the discussion on the Transportation of Insurgents
Bill, in favour of which, he says, he should have voted.
The Assembly then resumed the discussion on Art. 1
of the bill, which decides that those transported to
Belle Isle in virtue of the decree of Jane 27,1848,
shall be transferred to Algeria. M. Pelletier opposed
the bill, as giving a bad precedent, and as only
worthy of RUMS. The speaker gave rise to much
excitement, by alluding to some slighting expression
used by M. Montalembert with regard to the effects
of universal suffrage.
M. Leon Faucher Paid that never had a more auda-
cious attempt to obtain the re-establishment of the
deplorable days of June been made than that made on
the previous day. For himself, he was not a repub-
lican de la vein... " But," said the speaker, turning to
the Left, "I will &fond the republic against
you." Those days of June bad been pro-
duced by the men of the Luxembourg, by those
circulars which had everywhere excited the most
detectible passions. These passions had not, as re-
presented, been excited by the royalists. He main-
tained (amidst the the applause of the Assembly)
that it was impossible, without danger to the moral
ideas which formed the foundation of society, to show
more clemency than had already been testified to
men wt.° had at once shed the blood of their fellow
citizens, and struggled—arms in hand—against the
principle of national sovereignty. The speaker pro-
seeded eloquently to develope this last position. He
then went on to examine the law, reminding his
bearers that more than 3,000 insurgents had succes-
sively been liberated by the President of the Republic.
[The discussion bad not terminated when the re-
port was dispatched.]
At the Academy of Sciences, yesterday, the interest
of the Bitting centred in Lord Brougham, who, in his
quality of foreign associate, made some iuttresting
experiments on the polarization of light, explaining
them, as he proceeded, by the help of diagrams and
algebraical calculations.
BOURSE.

PARIS. Jan. 22. Ter
taro•
- ---, .
1

For Account.

.1. Opening 11IOW. Lewitt. Closing
—I -----
3 per Cents.
5 per Cents« . . 94 23 94 20 94 SO 94 15 94 23
S do. New Loan.. . n n 91 sr
44 per Cent 5,........... 52.23 I „ „ n ss
4 per Cents 73 35 9, OP .9 09
txtbunge on Loudon: 30 d 25 45; 911 days, 25 321
Belgisz, 5, BO
De. 3, 1542
Do. 44
o. n “ Treasury Benda 3 nDo. 3
Piedmont S per Cent 87"73 „
Bovass.-81. Germain, 413; Votaallks fright bank), 202 SO; do. (let
bank), ; Orleans, 530; Paris and Rouen, 562 50; Rouen and
11.,vre, 217 30 ; Avignon and Marseilles, 215 ; Strasbourg and Bale,
11 i ; Centre (Vierson), 330; Boulogne and Am —; Orleans
and Boraeauz, 416 15; North, 460 ; Pans and non , 538 75;
Tours and Nantes, a 75 ; Montereau and Troyes, 11l 23.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

BITTING OF MONDAY.
The discussion opened on the bill relative to the
transportation of the insurgents of June to Algeria.
The urgency having been demanded,
M. Licoaexon opposed it, and insisted on a proposition he
made on the 12,h inst., to the effect of instituting an inquiry
into the condition of those insurgents and their families, be-
ing previously examined.
11l tie Ceousaitues asked that the government bill be first
discussed.
N. Pizazz LoROVX concurred in the motion of M. La-
grange, but the Assembly, on being consulted, gave the pri-
ority to the bill. The urgency was similarly pronounced.
M. LeORLNOZ then rose and said that the numerous
checks ex eerienced by his proposition, not only in the present
Assembly, bat also in the Assembly that prec,ded it, proved
that his perseverance nulled his conviction of the injustice
of the Draconian decree, which bad plunged so many of his
fellow creatures into the most atrocious misery. The Assem-
bly itself had been moved by their wretched fate, when
it ordered 14,500 of the 15,000 prisoners, condemn, d
without judge or jury, to be restored to liberty.
He never supposed that the Republic would re-open
the dungeons elosed by the revolution of February.
Nose of the men about to be transported had been sen-
tenced by • civil or military tribunal. They had been
arrested on the denunciation of individuals who had re-
mained concealed in cellars during the collision, and been
detained because they were well known for their republi-
can principles previous to the 24th of February. lie was
personally acquainted with four of the transported, and he
nelied the Minister of the Interior to adduce a single act of
theirs to tarnish their characters of honesty and patriotism.
Yet, M. nature himself had not been ashamed to propose
their transoortation to Bathna. He defied the cabinet to insert
in the Moniteur the names of the insurgents and the mo.
tives of their confinement, for the public could roe that they
were honest citizens sad honourable workmen, and fathers
of families. In conclusion, M. Lagrange reminded the
Assembly that on this day the head of Louis XVI., the
victim ot reaction, had fallen on the scaffold, and added,
that a period would come when the country would ask
the Assembly what it had done with its brethren.
M. F. BLROOT, Minister of the Interior, contended that
the decree of the 27th June, 1848, had been a measure of
public safety and of nationel juitice. It had been i.sued on
the motion of M. Pascal Duprat, whose republicanism was
not suspicious. That decree enacted that th se men who
were arrested with arms in their hands, and still covered
with the blood of their fellow citizens, should be transported
to the transatlantic possessions of France. Those men were
the same who had overturned the monarchy, to the cry of
rive /a Republiqu el who in June attempted to overthrow
the republic, in the name of socialism, and who, if socialism
should triumph for the destruction of France, would take
arms against it in the name of some other folly. Of the
15,000 individuals arrested, not more than 460 were now
confined at Belle Isle, Brest, or Cherbourg, and these were
either convicts or men who had manifested their horility to
all social state. The government had displayed the
utmost clemency towards those culprits. A few days
after the insurrection 6,000 men were set at liberty.
On the 9th of July eight military commission?,
assisted by the most respectable magistrates, were instituted
to examine the charges directed against the remainder. At
their suggestions 6,374 men wen restored to liberty, and 255
sent for trial before the courts-martial. On the llth No-
vember following, a committee of revision had been ap-
pointed, on whose decision Gen. Cavaignec had set at liberty
822 others. Finally, the President of the Republic, since
the 20th of December, 1848, had extended his clemency to
2,372 insurgents, the immense majority of whom, he was
happy to state, bad proved themselves worthy by their good
conduct of the pinion they had obtained.
M. Joese Feet's said that he was a member of the
committee at whose recommendation the decree et the 27th
of June had been enacted. The general opinion then was
that the insurrection had been specially tires ted against
entire society, and the committee was under that common
impression when it prepared the decree. Now, for the
honour of his country, he felt justified in declaring
that the charge was unfounded, and that in June,
1848, there had been no conspiracy against society.
The events of June were actually brought about by the
miserable advisers of monarchy, who refused all satisfaction
to the jest claims of the people, end they had been the conies
coup of the revolution of February. (Murmurs.) N. Jules
Fevre then proceeded to desciibe the sufferings of the insur-
gents after their arrest, and the injustice of the summary
manner in which they had been disposed of, in violation of
all divine and human laws. It wee necessary, he admitted,
to strike at the time a enclave blow, but society, if really
attacked, could have as effectually saved itself by r maining
within the limits of legality. The philosophers of the 19th
century were all unanimous in branding the justice ot
',Oormasheirmas N. Fevre would all the government, is By
esegeslns Yu trial of the insurgents of June by 0011.111il-
I visas
yy:RU
ribrardsZtaster.ther
etlitariss.a,pd
They
humanthe
victims immolated to political vengeance. He then dis-
owned various clauses of the bill, and particularly re-
pined the paragraph added by the commit..., which 1
I offoillsalet the transported to imprisonment in a Cortina ea
the land of exile. He could sot conceive the state reason
that commended such an abandonment of all the sentiments
ahhomily and of all legal saarentase amidst the profound
peace the country now enjoyed. Not a mingle vaaralser bad
inscribed his name to defend the bill. The majority, be
knew, wished to tees it, sad sot to Woad it. Year was the