The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-03-20 00:00:00

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sae. The Dry haehig bees informed of the arrival of these un-
fortunate persons, received them in the moat friendly manner, and
apt fur the Neapolitan Consul, to whom he said, that it was his
in order to hinder them from becom-
duty to afford them assistact:e,
in robbers and brigands. The Dry has done still more ;he has
drawn a bill of exchange for 10,0h0 ducats, on the Neapolitan fin-
'eminent, for relief afforded to these exiles; and it is believed thwi
the florernanent sill not hesitate to honour this bill, for fear the I)ey
ab 0,11,1 use te;trinas on the Neapolitan uterchanutien, to indemnify
hiruselt for the sum he has advanced.
TRITSTE, FEB. 13.
The importance of Missolonghi is now more fully apprecia.e.l
than ever. ice the raising of the blockade, a Greek corps has
emend it; and this fort, "buntlattly supplied with AMMUllitiO,
and pmeinions, has become the most important place of arms • f
New Greece. It contains a reserve of artillery, consietinF of can-
ton sent by the Provisional Greek Governntents of the K at. a••,t
these bought. in the adjacent countries, or sent by the Philbel.
Imes. Notwahntanding the bad weather, workmen are employed
in repairing and extending the fortifications, in order to secure the
place against a cosp-dr.wiaia, or a regular siege. Large sums ar:
expected for thin purpose.
BASLE, Maecu 3.
The city of Lucerne has done itself honour by a remarkable Kt
of toleration. The city is inhabited by Catholics. who alone erjoy
the public exercise of their religion ; the few Protestants do not
enjoy it, and their dead have .hitherto been buried without any
funeral attendance. Some of the Catholics disapproving of this
Intolerance, resolved to put an end to it, and the members of the
Government consented. This resolution was carried into effect CM
the death of a lace-ntaker, a Protestant born in Saxony. Matters
were arrang,,d to give him a Tory brilliant funeral, at which the
majority of the inhabitants of Lucerne, almost all Catholics, at-
teuded. .11. '.fuller. the principal Catholic clergi men of Lucerne,
one of the mom enlightened men in Switzerland, followed, and de.
Ilvered at the grave a discourse suitable to the occasion, which was
geuaaliv approved—( Dress& Parer', Mardi 16.)

Greece, we are happy to learn, is gcimg on gloriously in
her career of emancipation ; and the slaves of oppression
will ere long become die sons of fre_slom. The Holy
Allies no doubt regret that they arc withheld, by the
exigencies of the times, from sustaining the legitima le
Empire of the " turbaned Turk ;" _es they can have no
very favourable forebodings, from the establishment of a
constitutional Greek empire in the neighbourhood of the
Holy League. The rights of man, supported successfully
under the very nose of the Muscovite ! Verily, the magna-
nimous Emperor of all the Russian must look mournfully
'Aide while this scene is acting before him ! GREAT
BRITAIN, too, going onward in its own straight-forward
policy, in spite of the concert of Sovereigns !—the patron, on
a sudden, of successful inJurrectioni ! Who could have
thought it ? There is no comet that
" With fear of change perplexes Monarchs,"
is half so disastrous in its omen to the governing powers
of the Continent, as is this tinge of endiedism in the
British Councils! While the three great Powers were
establishin4 a sort of racing-hank, out of which each might
draw assistance, when either their own subjects, or tl.e
subjects of the surrounding States, should wince under op-
pression, or testify anything like a troublesome attach-
ment to constitutional freedom—that England should
not only disavow its connexion with this firm, of
ALEXANDER sad Conspus.s, but should ally itself with
hostile interests, and confetlersts with opposite views, is a
riddle which those who have not ploughed with her heifer—
and these Potentates have not—will not readily solve.
They may, howeieF, And out, ere long, that the progress
of knowledge threighout the great community of Europe
has changed thelpee of affairs, and that when Sovereigns
will not think justly for their siih'ects, their subjects will
reason a little for themselves. The time is come when
Freedom wild make itself respected. Great Britain has
given an example of this, and other states must follow it ;
the necessity may be galling, but there is no help for it.
The Russian Emperor has no very profound attachment to
the Grand Turk. Indeed we know, and from the list
authority, that the sovereignty of Greece has been offered,
in pretty direct terms, to BERNADOTTE, ,who In exchange
was to surrender the Swedish Crown to Prince GUSTA cos.
The restoration of this Prince to the Throne of his
Pothers is en object of anxious interest to his Imperial
Uncle. But Bernadotte was too wary to be caught by
such a compromise ; he was not disposed to exchange a
sceptre of S'iredish iron for any " likeness of a kingly
crown," that the acquisition of Greece might give him,
even though it should be guaranteed to him by the mighty
Monarch, who, not many years since, in adjusting the
rights of Sweden and Denmark, plandcred both litagdoms
in stow:seal. This military chieftain is quick-sighted; he
is aware of the anxiety of Russia to have a Gmek Empire,
as well as a Greek Church, and he has no inclination to re-
move into a bad neighbourhood.

We thought that Ministers were sufficiently strong
in both Houses this Session, without any fresh accession of,
numbers, and yet new auxiliaries—not of influence, but
of expected talent—have been sought out, and introduced
from Ireland, into the Lower House. Mr. North and Mr.
Dogherty, have both, within these two nights, taken their
seats, under, it is said, the fostering patronage of the Fo-
reign Minister—the first for the borough of Plymptoo
Earle, in Devonshire ; and the latter for that of New Roan,
in Ire and. Mr. Dogherty is a King's Counsel in Ireland,
and, we believe, a distant relative of Mr. Canning : Mr.
North has been always mentioned as a man of acknow-
ledged talents. His career at Trinity College, Dublin,
was a very brilliant one, and yet he never rose into any
thing like full business at the Irish Ha, where he has been
called for several years. His eloquence, though highly
cultivated and finishe.l, is rather cold and studied ; he is
to) declamatory on every subject, however trivial ; and an
ornate more than a ready or persuasive speaker. Mr.
North possesses considerable talents but no fortune ; he is
married to a sister of Mr. L-slie Forster, the Member for
Cavan, and is thus connected, also with the Count de Solis.
who has large estates both in this country and Ireland : to
them he probably owes his intro luction into Parlia-
ment. It is yet to be seen what accession of strength,
as a powerful and ready debater, he will bring to the
ministerial benches. Our own opinion is, that he will
fail ; and that, opposed to such men as Mr. Brougham,
Sir James Mackintosh, or Mr. Hume, he will be utterly
'overmatched. Mr. Dogherty has not the high repute of
Mr. North, but he possesses some talents as a ready and
sportive speaker; to use a homely exprevion, he has "more
.sea ly coin" than Mr. North. Mr. l'itt was fond of seek-
ing cut young men of distinguished talent in this way, of
whom that great Minister and splendid declaimer formed
-his body guard, and Mr. Canning is now acting his part
:n the same great theatre, with Isis great patron's example
before him. Of the numbers, however. whom ambition
or influence have introduced into the House of Commons,
• :19w few comparatively have made any figure. The
orators of their own little circle have shrunk. into insig-
niticance on the benches of the Commons Home, and
after one unhappy (Hirt or two, silence and oblivion have
ken their fate.

The debate of Thursday night afforded us, we confess,
very high gratification. The speeches of the leading Mini-
sters on the Treasury bench are now distinguished by
marked liberality and courtesy. With the soar of arms
abroad, the fierce contests of inveterate party seem also'
to have expired. A striking change has taken place, not
only in the policy of the Cabinet, but in the debates of Par-
'lament; and we think we may, in a great degree, date
both from the period of the accession to high office, of,
Mr. Canning, and his distinguished friends, the Chancellor
Of the Exchequer and Mr. Huskisson. The polished

courtesy displayed by the Foreign Secretary, during his
animated and brilliant address, on Thursday night, threw
an additional lustre round his eloquence, and was equally
worthy of his talents as a minister and his heart as a man.
Mr. Canning possesses, in the elegant language of the
pathetic Massillon, " Us art (Toast:Wafter ks Graces qui
tauchnit plus qae les Graces names." Through the most
brilliant passages of his reply to Lord John Russell, when
his rich and playful wit flashed from him at every sen-
tence, and its corruseetions threw light on all around him,
he was still kind and conciliating ; and not an expression
fell from him that could wound the feelings of those to
whom lie was politically opposed. The polished weapons
he wielded left no gangrened wound behind. The
day has passed, when it was necessary, amid the fer-
ment of domestic treason or the alarm of foreign danger,
for a powerful Minister to pour forth the torrent of fiery
indignation, or discharge the brimming cup of bitterness
on the heads of his enemies, within or without the walls of
Parliament ; personal and party antipathies have now in a
great degree passed away ; the dark feelings of gathering
discontent and faction have fled at the approach of re-
turning prosperity ; that frenzy of political fanaticism,
which originated in passing distress, and was fed by bad
men, full of the leaven of every evil passion, has left the
people's minds, and given way to better feelings of hope
and of contentmont Ministers can now afford to exercise
their natural and kindlier feelings—they can appeal to
the reason and the gratitude of the great majority of the
nation. The eloquent Minister who now leads in the
Lower !tense, can rise in his place, and, discarding all the
acerbity of party, reply to the charges of his adversaries,
without forgetting for a moment thcsconciliating courtesies
of polished life. Thus, when the storms of faction have
passed away, and peace and prosperity have risen in the
country, he is at length enabled to appear in his real cha-
racter without any disguise, and to secure by his eloquence
and his moderation that universal respect, admiration, and
approval, which could scarcely be expected amid the tur-
bulence and animosities of other days. We took the first
opportunity already to allude to Mr. Canning's marked
courtesy to Sir Robert Wilson through his whole address
on Thursday night. The Minister's gratifying example
was not lost on the house ; it was followed both by Mr.
Littleton and Mr. Gooch, and met with universal support
and approbation. Such a tribute must have been most
consoling to the wounded feelings of the gallant officer,
whom a circle of tyrants sought to insult and degrade.
Amid the respect and sympathy of the distinguished cha-
racters who sate around him, Sir Robert Wilson could feel
little for the privation of the foreign honours and baubles
won by him in many a sanguinary field, when the thrones
of the despots who conferred them were endangered, and
who, but for this country and its aid, must have been
crushed by the power that had in turn subdued them. Sir
Robert Wilson's character is peculiarly high and chival-
rous. We will not talk of him as a Bayard, " sans peer
et sans reprorhe," for he may have hail his errors, but they
were not those of the heart. His services in the cause of
general liberty, when the military dominion of Imperial
France was almost supreme, were most distinguished ; and
his last effort in the cause of fallen Spain was marked by
the greatest self-devotion and disinterestedness. When
the prejudices of the present day are forgotten, full justice
will be done to his merits. In fact we think we see that
better feeling already taking place. Let us add, that in
, an hour when he has again returned to the bosom of his
country and his friends, after his battles for liberty on a
foreign shore, and when the ungracious tyrants for whom
his arm was raised in their day of peril, have leagued with.
their satellites to insult him, it would be an act every
way worthy of Ministers to advise the restoration of his
military rank. The suggestion, we are convinced, need
only be made to insure from the kind feelings of his Ma-
, jesty its instant concession. The boon would be just now
, a kind and gracious one, and yet only an act of justice to
the gallant officer in question, who would thus possess in
, the kindness and revived confidence of the Sovereign of
this great and free country, more than a compensation for
the worthless titles, unjustly torn from him by the despots,
who can now, in their hour of security, venture to insult
the man to whom they owe so much.