Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-11-20 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES.---LIVERPOOL, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1857

The lef .t and right centrals, though by no means
always, agreeing, even on important questions with ,
Countz Cavour, are ncvea-theless compelled by '
inutr.sl jealousy to support him, while the Con-
sery atives, the clericals, and ulta Liberals, are ao
wio,ely divergent, that a permanent coalition of
th, am is impossible. The trial of the Genoa irtsur-
g( nits has ended with many acquittals, amongst
w hich is to be recorded, that of Miss nite who
seems to b 6 destined, not to become a martyr. As
yet no complete light is thrown on the conspiracy
just discovered in Spain, the Menternolinist ,
character of which, however, seems certain, and
in which French legitimists are likewise said to be
implicated. The man named Montserrat, who
is now under examination at Barcelona, having
procured a temporary postponement of his execution
by promising important revelations, is well known
as an old Monternolinist agent; and he has
been condemned and amnested before. The Swiss,
whom nobody can reproach with not being jealous
of their national honour and standing, have never-
theless just -resolved, in their Federal Council,
neither to send consular agents to Turkey, nor to
claim the protection of any other Government for
Swiss citizens residing there.
We supply our readers with an ample summary
of the more striking news from Australia.

THE Lordon Times reminds us of the promise
to pay all contracts in gold most opportunely.
The'Bank-of England and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer are• as firmly bound by this compact
as the humblest huxster in trade, and if the
former will lead the way, the commercial public
will follow their laudable example. This they
cannot do, and thus arises the all vital question,.
whether, when " every thing has been brought to
chaos," as in the present instance, " a master in
the shape either of a Finance Minister or a Bank
Commissioner should be allowed to interpose
and say, This confusion must be stopped. I
will now adjust your relative claims so as to give
relief 'to , one side ,against the other. You are
unfit to be left to yourselves, and it is time for
me to step in""—as the advocates of national
bankruptcy say we have—or whether Parliament
will, at once, abolish one of the greatest frauds
ever directed against the labour and accumulated
wealth of a credulous people. It is the last
excess of folly to talk of a " creditor interest"
which only exists in the imagination of the
wildest theorist, or a " bullion currency" which,
after nearly forty years of unprecedented industry
and enterprise in 'every -civilised" pursuit, is not
• now worth more than eighteen pence in the pound.
We write in this strain merely to show our
respect for the " intent and meaning of the law,"
and not to throw discredit on the most valuable
of our social institutions—namely, our Banks.
The Bank of England is an institution of which
any nation might well be proud. Its manage-
ment, as the chief depositdry of the moriey-means
of this great commercial country, is without a
blemish, and its Directors are worthy of any
amount of' credit they may think proper to ask
from the State and its subjects.
Up to 1819, the Bank of England was allowed
to issue any amount of " credit notes" the
Directors thought, proper. :But this right was
taken away by PEEL'S Bill of that year ; and in
1844 the London Times ventures to assert that,
"England was'placed upon the footing of having
an enth ely metallic currency." And in the same
paragraph it alleges that—" It made no difference
that the 36,000,000/. of' paper in circulation" at
the latter date, " comprised certain existing notes,
namely, 14,000,0001. of those of the Bank of
England, and 8,000,000/. of those of country
bankers, and that these, instead of being actually
representatives of gold is hand, merely repre-
seated credit." Such monstrous contradictions
at a crisis such as this, are most unpardonable.
But mark what our enlightened cotemporary
considers a proper basis for the note-issues of a
commercial country. "It was enough that an
assurance was given that this element of credit
wouldremain at the point fixed, and would never
hence.forth be allowed co fluctuate." No increase
of shipping, improvements of land, additions to
our productive powers, in the numbers of
our house 3, factories, mills, and machinery--
no enlargement of oar commerce by Free
Trade or any other means, was to entitle us to
more credit. " The movements of gold for
the future," says this oracle, " would
" exclusively regulate every transaction." It
would be treason towards the State, and destruc-
tion to the citizen, to respond to these Charla-
tans by saying.'" We will hold to your word.
You say that the element of credit, is to redmuin
at a point fixed- That has now been reached,
if not passed over, and now discharge all your
contracts in gold, and show us that England has
an entirely metallic currency. The value of the
bullion note is worth only a fraction more or less
than eighteen pence in the pound according to your
,statement, and as the movements of gold ex-
clusively regulate every transaction, give the
debtor the full benefit of the enhanced value of
his sovereign —cash--as compared with the
feather like promise to pay on demand," Hap-
pily for E lgland, there is no such destructive
desire lurking in the bosom of her people.

The commercial honour of Great Britain is
safe in the Hands of her beleaguered merchants,
and the stability of our Banks is guaranteed by
the prudence and integrity of our suffering tra-
ders. Political knaves, and a London hireling
preys. may destroy all confidence between man
and man, prostrate commerce. plunder trade,
and starve, labour; but their employers cannot
pay their own contracts in gold, and there is still.
morality and geniu3 enough left, in the country
to preserve Erv;flond from p ,rishing in the pursuit
of impo:,sibilities. Tne Bank Note of England
is a mighty national instrument, and the people
must cling to it as a drowning man holds
on to the last fragment of a wreck. its value
is decided by the tangible and immoveable
wealth which surrounds the people who
US2 it, by the square miles of slated roofs and

•all they cover, by our broad acres of rich lands. 1
and millions of cubic feet of steam and can-
vass, which are daily carrying away the produce
of our labour, and bringing back the world's
substance in return ; and not by the possession of
a foreign product—gold—which has but very
limited, and, therefore, less necessary functions
to discharge in the commerce and other trans-
actions of civilised lite. Let those who will
have gold pay for it, and give for the sovereign
what it is really worth. It is useless to say
that the " chosen metal" is only worth 3/. 17s.
9d. per ounce, when one hundred sovereigns
can be leaned for twelve months at ten per
cent. The ounce of standard gold fetches just
as much now as when the rate of interest is
two or two-and-a-half per cent. The Bullionist
claims this as his right, and let him have it

where the transaction is confined to bullion ;
but when we require an enlargement of bank-
ing credit, what right has he to ten per cent ?
If we had an "entirely metallic currency," we
could understand rthe honesty and consistency
of the Bullionist's demands ; but where he has
only eighteen-pence in cash risked in his trans-
actions, we cannot see what right he has to ask
a bullion rate of discount for his earial " promise
to pay on demand." The average amount of
authorised issues of Bank notes is 36,000,0001.,
of which 14,000,0001. represents nothing but
paper; and 8,000,000/.lof country notes, which
very rarely represent more than 6s. Bd. of cash to
the pound, and yet we are made to pay ten per
cent. for the use of this paper, when the demand
is confined exclusively to gold, and when we arc
required to pay all contracts in that metal ! Ars
est celare artem ; but we defy the London Times
to gull the commercial public to submit much
longer to such an odious system of chicanery.

ONE of the most singular, but most important
documents, connected with the Indian mutiny,
has at length made its appearance in the public
prints. We have on several occasions alluded to
it, but being now before us in, extenso, a further
reference to the extraordinarylrevelations which it
contains will not be out of place. The document
in question is the memorial of the Christian inha-
bitants of Calcutta, and of the Presidency of
Fort William, in Bengal. Its object was to
obtain the recall of Lord CANNING. Contrary to
political etiquette, the memorialists did not deem
it their duty to memorialise the East India Corn.
pony or her Majesty's Government on the sub-
ject, but at once addressed themselves to the
QUEEN. Long bofore this document was spoken
of, we took occasion to censure Lord CANNING'S
Administration, and contended that he was not
the nobleman to rule the destinies of our Indian
Empire in Its present crisis. Had we no other
proof to sustain --this position than the Cal-
cutta memorial to the QUEEN, our case would be
complete and unanswerable.
The Christian inhabitants of Calcutta and Fort
William, in the Presidency of Bengal, after briefly
alluding to the outbreak of the mutiny, and its
direful consequences—placing all the British and
Christian population in mourning, lowering the
English name and reputation ; paralysing trade
and commerce, interrupting agriculture, whilst
ruin and famine threaten all those who have
escaped the massacre. " The treasures of the
East India Company," says the memorial, ' are
pillaged and exhausted—their credit is wholly
gone, and their securities are so depreciated as
be almost unsaleable at any rate of diScount."
This is a sad tale ; but all late events connected
with Inlia. clearly demonstrate that it is not
overdrawn or too highly coloured. After making
the statements above alluded to, the memorialists
assign a cause for the disastrous effects which
they so graphically pourtrayed. It is their deli-
berate conviction that the calamities and the
results of the spread of the mutiny are "attribu-
table to the incapacity of the local Government of
India, of which the present Governer-General is
the responsible head." Such is the nature of the
charge which the memorialists preferred against
Lord CANNING and his &Interne Council. And
now for the proof by which they sustain the
charge. In the first place, indyerence to
repeated warning as to the mutinous spirit which
manifested itself amongst the four regiments of
I Sepoys stationed at Barrackpore, in January and
February last. The Governor-General was made
aware of this by various sources, still he
unheeded the warning, and some of the officers
who ventured to give it received a reprimand for
their then timely information. Barrackpere is
only sixteen miles from Calcutta; and it appears
that the original intention of the mutineers was
to march upon it, and take the city by surprise,
massacre all the Christians, and aftewards pillage
the treasuries. At this time Calcutta was only
I defended by a wing of the Queen's 53rd Regi-
ment, stationed in Fort William—" a fort," says
the memorialists, " which requires upwards of
10,000 men for its full garrison." Had this plan
been successful, the British troops would have
been obliged to contend with rebels from without,
and the treachery of the native garrison within,
and thus been overpowered and slaughtered to a
man. One can well imagine what must have
resulted from the capture of Calcutta, particu-
larly if in possession of Fort William. All these
villianous designs were made known to Lord CAN-
NING in due time. Nevertheless, he despised the
intimation, and studiously refused to make
the slightest preparations for the approaching
and foretold irruption. The inhabitants of Cal-
cutta were thus left in a state of insecurity and'
danger. Indeed, we find by the papers laid
before Parliament, that Lord CANNING wrote 1

home to the Government that there was no
danger, even while the mutineers were hatching
their schemes. Indeed, he reported that the emute
had been suppressed, while every hour gave fresh
evidence of its extension and increasing firmness.
From the time of the rupture at Barrackpore
until the seizure of Delhi, which took place on
the 11th of May, we find that Lord CANNING
confined his exertions to the issuing of certain
proclamations, which resulted in aiding the
rebellion instead of supressing it, inasmuch as it
only served to convince the Indian Sepoys of the
blindness and weakness of the Government.
After narrating the several occurrences which
took place from the capture of Delhi until the
commencement of the siege of Cawnpore, the
memorial appeals, and very justly too, to her
Majesty if such a state of things should have
been permitted to exist, The horrible massacre
which ended that memorable siege, we need not
now dwell upon; suffice it to say, that not only
the Calcutta memorial, but unimpeachable cor-
roborative evidence clearly demonstrate that it
was owing to the supineness of the Indian
Government that all this took place. The
" energy " and " promptitude " which their
quandam friend, and late Cabinet colleague, so
lavishly heaps upon Lord CANNING, were non est
juveniles. Instead of these he showed a peculiar
aptitude for putting confidence in regiments
which, iwhile he was extolling them, massacred
their officers. He next disarmed the English as
well as the native—Degraded and imposed
uncalled for penalties upon the conductors of the
press, who made it a constant study to stimulate
the people to loyalty. In a word, the vast
majority of European residents, officers, planters,
merchants, and even ". politicals" attribute 'to
his Lordship's pur-blind policy the numerous and
aggravated disasters which have occurred in
many—nay, almost every part of rebellious
India. Who that reads the Calcutta memorial,
can doubt for a single moment the appalling
statements which that document contains, or
deny that indescribable bloodshed and ruin,
misery and shame, have been the better fruits of
the egotism, incapacity, and obstinacy of the
Governor-General? It may suit the purpose of
Lords PALMERSTON and GRANVILLE to defend
Lord CANNING, and to hold him up as the model
of all that•is truly great—as a statesman and a
soldier—but any one who reads• the Calcutta
memorial, will dispute the premises, and charac-
terise him as the' most unsuited of men to rule
the destinies of India. It was an easy task to
pursue the argument of Lord CANNING'S incom-
petency much further, but that would only be a
work of supererogation. Seeing that the voice of
the nation regards the memorial from Calcutta
as a true Bill, and one that Parliament must
sooner or later adjudicate upon. What that
verdict will be, there is little room to doubt—the
peremptory demand for Lord CANNING'S instant
dismissal.

TIIE PROPOSED D9CEI WORNS.—It may bewail to direct
the attention of the commercial public to the fact, that
plans have been prepared by -the Dock Serveyce, o
the woks proposed to be executed under tba notices issued
within the last few days. The plans lie at pre,7ent on the
table of the Dock Committee, and may be inspected by any
one who feels interested in the subject. We believe the
D ,ek Committee have also given instructions to their
offices to afford the fullest information in reference to there
plans. It need hardly be stated, that the notices isen.d
will not bind the new Dock 'frost, which comes into
existence in January next, to carry out the whole or any
portion of those proposed works. The notices now given
will merely enable the new committee to proceed with the
bills necessary for the construction of the works, or any
port of them, in the coming Session of Parliament, if it
should be deemed advisable.

THE RUN or Tx z SIMLA.—The extraordinary run of this
powerful steamer is highly creditable t) Captain Cooper,
her respected commander. She arrived at Port Philip on
Wed ausday night, Sept. 2, having maeTe the passage from
Suez in thirty-seven days, bringing English intelligence to
the 17:1 July—the shlrtest time on record. The following
are the dates of :arrival and departure :—From Suez 26th
July, at 11 p.m. ; arrived at Aden Ist August 8 a.m. ;
salted 2 al August, 6 a.m. ; arrived at Galle 10th, at 7 a.m.;
sailed again l at 2 p.m.; arrived at Melbourne 2ad
Sept., at 11 p.m. We were favoured by Mr. Smith, the
purser, with files of the latest papers, also our correspon-
dent's despatches, which were promptly handed to us by
Captain Walker, of the Wunga Wonga. The intelligence
by the Simla has thus been received four days in advance.
She sailed from Melbourne Heads at 9 p.m , on Friday,
the 4th, and hove to for a pilot off the Sydney Lighthouse
on Sunday night, at nide o'clock, thus making the passage
in forty-eight hours. Captain Cooper states that he
expe.ieneed strong S.E. wi:;ds all the way fr.:na Galle to
the Lcuwen, or his time would have been shortened con-
siderably. Tee royal mai steam-ship European arrived at
Point de Gallo on the 21st, and sailed again on 3rU July.
Sydney Morning Herald.

DEATH OF Ma. ALIGUEITUEI , STAFFORD, M.P.—lt was
with deep regret we yesterday announced Vie death of Mr
Augustus Stafford, the accomplished and amiable member
for North Northamptonshire. This melancholy event
to k place on Moiday morning, at MOrrison's Hotel,
Dublin, to which Mr. Stafford ha `l been brought from his
seat in the connty of Limerick, a few days ago. Since his
visits to the Crimea during the late war, Mr. Stafford had
been liable to attacks of spasms in the chest, occasioned by
the anxious and arduous duties which he had undertaken
in attending and administering to the wants of our soldiers
in the hospitals at Scutari and Balaclava. " On a late
occasion," says the Herald. " while suffering under one of
these attacks, a large dose of laudanum was given to him,
t' e usual remedy in such cases, after which, we understand,
he was bled. In the course of the night the bandage is
said to have come off, and before he became aware of it a
further and profuse b'eeding took place. The exhaustion
consequent upon this appears to have given the laudanum
previously taken such power over the constitution that its
usual poisonous effects became manifest in the drowsiness
which precedes death. With the resolution which belonged
to his charac!er, he insisted on the strongest means being
taken to restore animation ; and he caused his labourers to
bastinado his feet in order to keep him awake. This had
the efflct desired, and his medical attendants were enabled
to have lain removed to Dublin, but his constitution
proved unequal to the shock; he gradually sank, and
expired in the arms of his friend, Dr. .Todd." As a
politician, the late Mr. Stafford was a consistent, conserva-
tive, and was Secretary to the Admiralty during the short

administration of Lord Derby; His conduct during the
Crimean war was above all praise. Day after day and
night after night he went from bedside to bedside in the
hospitals, amidst scenes of misery and suffering and exposed
to the danger of cholera and fever, from both of which he
suffered. He made it his business net only to alleviate the
wants, but to write letters on the part of our wounded
soldiers to their friends and relatives at home ; and many
an anxious wife or parent derived a solace or satisfaction in
hearing from husband or son through the considerate
kindness of Mr. Stafford. The reader will not forget
the touching address presented to him from the officers
and soldiers a a French transport ship in which he
happened to be present when the cholera 'broke ant, and
the proof which that address afforded of the Christian
heroism he displayed.

AMUSEMENTS, &c.