The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-05 00:00:00

Ott L.OIIIII-41 2111 L

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1862.

The Earl of Danny has abandoned Protection in
his character of Prime Minister of England. So also
has Mr. DISRAELI, as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The example of the Leader of the Lords and
of the Leader of the Commons has, more-
over, been emulated by almost all the other
conspicuous members of the Administration. Be-
yond this—the Government has already sig -
nificantly declared itself in favour of an extraor-
dinary variety of very important innovations—inno-
vations of a most liberal tendency, and indicative of
genuine enlightenment. There can no longer be
any doubt in these particulars. They are obvious
beyond the reach of contradiction. They force them-
selves, however unwillingly, upon the recognition of
the most resolute opponents of the Cabinet. What is,
if possible, yet more remarkable, is the fact, that in all
these changes there is no hocus-pocus—the successors
of the RUSSELL Ministry moving as naturally along
the grooves of reform as the successors of the KIEL'
BOURNE Ministry did when Sir ROBERT PEEL CS-
mimed the reins of the British Government. It
would appear, in sooth—judging from our last
quarter of a century's experience—that it is no less
the prerogative of the Tories when in office to
turn Reformers than of the Whigs when
in office to become Conservatives. Look
at the results of the last six Administrations in tes-
timony of this, and see whether such has not actually
been the fashion of these amazing official transforma-
tions. What was gained, we should like to know,
from the Whig Ministry, formed in the April of
1835—what was gained from that Cabinet to the
country, we should like to know, in the way of com-
prehensive improvements ? Little or nothing ! What,
on the contrary, was not gained by the people of the
United Kingdom from the Tory Ministry, formed in
the September of 1841—gained, we mean, in the
form of a series of laws constituting an evidence of
grand legislative developement ? When the ever-
memorable Government of Sir ROBERT PEEL, after
being shaken in 1845, was overturned in 1846, and
when the Whigs again occupied the places of autho-
rity from which, in 1841, they appeared to have been
driven for a much more protracted interval—the old
anomalous changes once more descended upon their
counsels, and the community was doomed to witness
the indefinite postponement of reforms which they had
been led to count upon as certainties so soon as the fair-
spoken leaders of the Opposition were once installed
in the offices of the Imperial Government. Our allu.
sions must be understood as having especial and
almost exclusive reference to the unwillingness
evinced by the statesmen of the RUSSELL Admiostra-
tion, during nearly f,iX years of uninterrupted power,
to secure to the nation the advantage of those great
reforms, which were recognised by the masses ssessen-
tial to the continued growth in this country of the
sacred principles of civilization.

Notwithstanding all our indignation at the legisla-
tive short-comings of the RINSELL Government, we
are not blind to the glory which must henceforth, in
the pages of our nmional history, invest the remem-
brance of that fallen, and no'.if in some respects
despised, Adminiitretion. Neither are we deaf to
its great claims upon the popular respect in
two particulars—to those claims which will,
we believr., resound in elcquerzt and solemn
tones to many after generation!. As we have never
been blind to that glory, as we have never been deaf
to those claims, so we slidl never be dumb in pro-

claiming them again and again upon every available
opportunity—least of all shall wo refrain from de-
manding for them the homage :of the gratitude and
admiration of the multitude, now that Lord JOHN
RUSSELL is no longer in the proud position of First
Minister of the Crown of England, now that that
eminent man and his colleagues are denied the prero-
gatives and relieved from the respo;sibilitics of go-
vernment. Henceforth, therefore, as we have already
repeatedly insisted, and as we still at this moment
insist with no less than all our former emotions of
earnestness—henceforth it will be remembered by the
people, and asserted by the historians of Great Britain,
that the RUSSELL Cabinet was great in 1847, when
resisting the simultaneous advance of the twin
demons of Famine and Pestilence, and in 1848
when opposing its energies to the wiles of Anarchy
and the frenzy of Revolution. The recollection of
those times will never fade from the remembrance of
the population so long as moral courage and Minis-
terial skill can be in the smallest degree appreciated.
It can never be forgotten that in those terrible junc-
tures the political outcasts of 1852 where in undis-
puted ascendancy—and, whatever may be said in his
disparagement under other considerations, either by
ourselves or by those who sympathise with us in
opinion, Lord JOHN RUSSELL can never be deprived
of the very enviable renown of having occupied at that
crisis the lofty and responsi'ele post of Prime Minister
of England, in which capacity upon each of those
specified occasions he acquitted himself—the world
knows it, and history will attest it—as became the
Leader of the British Government !

Yet, apart from 1847 and the Famine, apart from

1848 and the Revolution, justice compels us to speak
no less decidedly of the legislative short-comings, and
of the administrative incapacity of the RUSSELL Ca-
binet, in the most stern and uncompromising language
of indignation. Vigorous administrators though the
members of that Cabinet showed themselves to be
when confronted with a dread and awful calamity, or
when threatened by a sinister and menacing insurrec-
tion, they proved themselves for the most part, at
other times and under circumstances, to be shuffins

in the Chambers of legislation, and incapables in the
offices of Government. They were traitors to the
cruse to which they had pledged themselves while
still numbered amongst the ranks of the Opposi-
tion. The friends of Reform out of power—in
power they were its most bitter and systema-
tic antagonists. _Hansard from 1846 to 1851
inclusively yields unfortunate evidence of this in a
thousand particulars. It was in consequence of the
disgust inspired by this shameless treason to those who
had been hitherto their most devoted supporters that
the ex-Ministers found themselves at last, after nearly
six years barren tenure of cffice, thrust out of place,
pension, and prerogative, and compelled to make room
for more worthy successors to the pomps and respon-
sibilities of Administration. Under this aspect of af-
fairs, the DERBY Ministry was inaugurated—and in
pursuance of the astonishing and inexplicable system
of politics to which we have before alluded, the mem-
bers of that Conservative Cabinet have no sooner found
themselves fairly organized into a regular Government
than they reveal their readiness to forward, one after
another in rapid succession, a series of liberal and
comprehensive innovations. Having virtually placed
themselves at the outset of their administrative efforts
in accord with the groat mass of the Free-traders con-
stituting the majority of the inhabitants of Great
Britain, the DERBY Ministers have already frankly
intimated their willingness to carry a variety of re-
markable reforms through Parliament. They have
declared themselves in favour of reforms in regard
to national education, of reforms in regard to sani-
tary improvements, of reforms in regard to the better
equalization of the taxes, of reforms in regard to the
abuses of Chancery, in regard to those of the Ecclesi-
astical Courts, and in regard to the evils militating
against the existing system of colonial and financial
organization. Scarcely half a year has :elapsed
since their names were gazetted in February,
and they have already contrived to break
down some of the venerable and destructive mechanism
of the Court of Chancery—to secure a new and more
effective Extramural Interments Bill to the metro-

polis—to prepare an extended scheme of militia,
whereby these islands might be leas perilously placed
in the event of any invasion—to direct the commercial

energies of the nation into the fruitful, but hitherto
almost unpenetrated, regions of South America—to
adopt active measures for the encouragement of those
fisheries in the Atlantic which had hitherto been
abandoned to the most shameful and uninterrupted
depredations—and to bring about a variety of changes
in other and not less scattered directions, auguring
well for the liberality of tha character of
their projected but still unannounced policy !
And so the chrysalis of a Tory Cabinet
expands into the full-blown buttezily of a reforming
and enlightened Administration ! It is well. The
country still as ever awards its confidence to the
Men, according to the satisfaction inspired by the
nature of the Measures. And thus the jealousy
with which the Earl of DEBBY and his colleagues
were not unnaturally regarded in February is al-

ready giving way in October to eager and, in some
directions, confiding expectation.
It was remarked by LIVT, after all the malignant
aspersions that had been indulged in upon the same
subject by preceding annalists, that ALEXANDER, in
his Asiatic expedition, did nothing more than per-
servere in his noble and well-conceived enterprise,
despite of idle remonstrances—" Nil aliud guam bene
ausus vana contemnere!" Let the PRIME MINISTER SO
act that the future historian may speak in like terms
of his enterprise—an enterprise not of spoliation, but
of good government—and his advent to power will
be remembered not as a curse, but as a blessing, not
as a barrier in the path of the national progress, but
as an appreciable impulse to the great onward move-
ment of civilization.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
So in peace, so in war. But the utterly absurd and
traditional rules of military etiquette interfere, in the
present Burmese war, with the fulfilment of this
eminently sensible aphorism. General GODWIN,
chief in command of the Anglo-Indian forces, ap.
pears, at this moment, to be the chief impediment to
the almost immediate and successful termination of
the contest. .He, it must be stated, was placed first
in command, not from any very super-eminent merit,
but simply because be happened to be the oldest
General in India at the time when the war commenced.
Seniority—which, in such case, should often be
written senility—seems to have been his principal, if
not his only claim, to the chief oommand in this in.
stance. It reminds one of the Irish adventurer, who
boasted that, of eleven sisters, he had been favoured
with the hand of the oldest, and, be added, "her father
told me that if he had an older daughter, I should have
had bar." General GonwlN was the senior officer,
and therefore, though very far advanced in years and
hitherto quite unknown to fame, he was put at the
head of the military expedition against the Burmese
empire.

As hesitation and delay are the characteristics of
Old Age, nobody was surprised--nobody could be
surprised at the manner in which the Burmese war
has been carried on. With the aid of steam, which
we did not employ in the former successful contest,
there was every reason to expect and hope that the
expedition would have accomplished its objeot almost
by a coup•de•main. So, had NAPIER commanded,
would undoubtedly have been the immediate result.
General GODWIN had some successes at starting, and
then it seemed good to him to wait for further rein-
forcements. Some heavy blows were struck at
the power of the Burmese ruler, yet none of them
were followed up. Like Fear, retreating
Even at the sound himself bad made,"
the aged and " Galladt" Geocral appears to have
made it a point, as if alarmed at each success, to hold
back and commit the inapolicy of waiting. On the
Peninsula, where WELLINGTON's small army had to
resist the attack of NAPOLEOIfB numerous and expe-
rienced soldiers, a Fabian policy was the ultimate
means of victory. In the East, on the contrary, delay
is impolicy, because it is our proper game to encourage
the popular belief in the prestige of-British arms; to
extend the belief that we have only, like CXSAR, to
come, and see, and conquer. When India sees us so
long over the defeat of the Burmese, it must (and
it will) believe that we paused because we lacked the
meana and the ability to conquer at once.
Naturally dissatisfied with the delay—for the con•
test, instead of being over in a few weeks, has already
lasted mane months—the Marquis of DALROU9LF,

Governor-General of India, actually went to the seat
of war to spur on the slow and dilatory General. His
opinion, as we shall presently show, was against the
wait-a-while polioy (or impolicy) of General
GODWIN.

The commander commanding the naval forces dis-
patched a flotilla of five light steamers, commanded
by Captain TARLETON, to survey the river Irrawaddy
as far as the city of Prome (which is half-way to
Ave, the terminus of the campaign), and to ascer-
tain the position and proceedings , of the
enemy. " General GODWIN," continues the dispatch,
" appears to have been opposed to the proceeding."
The Friend of India remarks on the want of cor-
diality and co-operation between the naval and mili-
tary commanders, and says that, therefore, the com-
modore was " obliged to undertake this enterprise,
not only without any co-operation, but amid much
disapprobation." But what was the result ?—Cap-
tain TARLETON advanced to A-kouk-toung, the
point where the Burmese force for the defence of
Promo was posted (originally 40,000 men, with 35 heavy
guns, commanding the channel, which is there 400
or 500 yards wide),—slipped past this dangerous posi-
tion, through a channel pointed out by a friendly
native (the bulk of the natives are friendly), went on
to Prome, and there captured 23 pieces of ordnance,
and might uninterruptedly have gone on to Ave,—
returned to A-kouk-toung, when he found the
Burmese army confusedly advancing to the

rescue of Prome,—ciptured and destroyed between
40 end 50 boats containing warlike stores,—
landed at the abandoned works of A-kouk-tong,
and there captured 28 dismounted cannons, making
56 guns taken on the expedition. He had been ex-
pressly forbidden to ascend to Ava—a place then
utterly defenceless, and the capital of the empire !
The Commodore (and the result shows that he was
right) had guaranteed to land 5,000 men at Prome,
within five days, " but it is understood that General
Gonwm was desirous of an undivided triumph, and
that he considered the advance should be made en-

tirely by lend, and declined the responsibility of
moving forward until the dry weather bad set in, and
the force under his command had been trebled." And
so, that this old man may have "an undivided tri-
umph," 20,000 troop., with artillery, are to march
overland from Rangoon b Ava, a distance of 500
miles at least, which will occupy some week•, proba-
bly leaving a third of this force on the way (whereas
the steamers could easily convey them in a few days,
without the slightest interruption from the enemy),
and must await dry weather and triple increase in
numbers.
The Governor- General is stated to have adopted the
tro-ahead views of the Commodore (so well borne out
by the success of Captain TARLETON'S expedition) in
preference to the wait-awhile policy of the aged
General. The question is, what will he do ? Lord
DALetouFte is said to have esked for the immediate
occupation cf Prome ; General GODWIN to have
declined being responsible for any movement until
December. It appears doubtful which will be
determined on—advance or delay. It might be
thought that Lord DALHOUSIE, as Governor-General,
should be able to carey on the war as he pleases, but
he actually cannot supersede the aged commander
whom he appointed, with whose conduct be has
reason to be dissatisfied—the Government at home,
it seems, alone can do this. ./A 11 the accounts from
India are unanimous in the opinion that the troops
now on the spot are sufficient fur the conquest of
Burma), provided the dash be made at once. We
trust, if victory is to crown our arms in the East,
that the great obstacle—the aged GODWIN--May
forthwith be put upon the shelf.

The conquests of NAPOLEON were achieved by
young leaders, taken, for merit, out of the line of
.seniority. When he himself was appointed General
of the Army of Italy, at the age of six-and-twenty,
and one of the Directory commented on his youth,
the reply was, " In six months I shall be a dead man
or an old general." Even in the case of our own
WELLINGTON, had seniority alone been the rule, he
would not have commanded in India, over the heads
of senior officers, nor have been trusted to lead the
army of the Peninsula. Where seniority forms the
chief, if not the only qualification, it ought to be set
aside, and command entrusted to more vigorous,
more youthful, and more determined men. Is it
likely that a General of the NAPIER or HARDINGE
stamp would have determined, after a first defeat of
the enemy, to wait calmly for four or five months
(from August to December), in order to obtain " an
undivided triumph" by means of an accession of
military force, declining the naval aid actually
available on the spot ? The original error (pointed
out at the time) was the appointment of such an old
man as General GODWIN, simply because he was old,
and had served in the former Burmese war. The
way to correct that error is to renal him, and place
the command in the hands of a soldier better fitted,
by years and temperament, to lead our troops to im-
mediate contest and triumph.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The Government has received the following tele
graphic dispatches :--

" Montpellier, Oct. 1, Half-past Two P.M.
" The Prince arrived at the terminus at hr.ll-past
twelve. He was received amidst cries, a thou-
sand times repeated, of " Viva l'Enpereur !"
The crowd was immense on his passage, and
the people were animated with an indescribable
enthusiasm. From the railway the Prince went
to the cathedral, where he was recaived by the
Bishop, at the head of his clergy. The Prince has just
entered th© prefecture, where a bouquet end grapes
were offered to him amidst cries of Vivo l'Empereurr
by a group of young girls dresacd in white."

" Four P.M.
" The Princ© has just been present at the siege of
the citadel. Ho was recei►ed, as in the morning, with
unanimous cries of Vivo I'Empereur!' The filing off
cf the communes is beginning at the Peyrou."
" Oct. 2, Six A.M.
" The Prince, after the dinner at the Prefecture, went
to the ball at the theatre, where his Highness was greeted
with enthusiasm. He went round the bsll rocm saluted
by the persons present with a thousand cries of Vive
l'Empereurr

" Nine in the Morning.
'The Prince has just -quitted Montpellier to proceed
Narbonne. The same enthusiasm which hailed him
yesterday accompanied him during his stay. One cry
alone was raised, namely, that of Vive l'Empereurr
The health of the Prince is excellent."
" Pazenas, 2d, Two in the Afternoon.
" To-day throughout the whole line from Montpellier
to Phenas, where the Prince arrived Qt a quarter past
twelve, the enthusiasm amounted to frenzy. On all sides
he was hailed with cries a thousand times repeated of
Vive l'Empereur I" Vire Napoltian III!' Not another
cry was heard."

Beziers. 2a, Quarter-past Three in the Afternoon.
" The rrince entered Eeziere amidst the loudest ac-
clamations. His Highness alighted and passed along
the front of the rural populations of Bezters and of
Saint-Pons. The enthusiasm never relaxed. The cry
of " Vive l'Empereur 1" was raised by 40,000 voices.
The Prince has just started for Narbonne in excellent
health."

" Narbonne, 2d, Ten at Night.
"His Highness has just entered Narbonne; the same
acclamations, which have greeted him during all his
tour, accompany him with the same enthusiasm. It is
with cries of Vive Napoleon 111 !" Vivo l'Empereur! '
that an immense people hail him on his passage. On
the inhabitants of the communes marching past him the
enthusiasm was at its height.
" Half-past Ten at Night.
" The Prince has just left the ball. Both at his en-
trance and on his leaving he was hailed with the loudest
applause. A shower of bouquets inundated his High-
ness, who appeared much touched by this mani-
festation."

" 3d, Half.past Ten in the Morning.
The Prince has just beard mass at the Cathedral,
which was filled with an immense crowd. The most
lively acclamations are renewed; every heart and every
arm is raised towards the Prince at the present moment,
when he is leaving for Carcassonne."
The PRESIDENT has conferred the Cross of Com-
mander of the Legion of Honour on the Roman and
Neapolitan Envoys, Monseigneur DE SAN MAnzANo
and General ROBERTI. He has also decorated with
the Cross of Officer of the Legion of Honour the
Spanish aide. de-camp who had been sent to compli-
ment him at Marseilles.
With regard to the tragical event which has oc-
curred in Paris, depriving one literary gentleman of
life by the hand of a brother journalist, we extract
the following from the Morning Advertiser of to-day.
Mr. BOWER is known to be the Paris correspondent
of that journal, and an account of the sad affair has
been supplied by himself for the private information
of the editor of the Morning Advertiser:—
" Let us commence by remarking that we have every
faith in the truthfulness of the statements ot Mr. Bower,
so far as the facts of the ease are ecncerned. With regard
to particular
uiretrefnrocems
certain‘l.hich tfbacetst:
nthhaat" ins gentleman
on
%I.c'haiychbway: cd,:nd express no opir.ion. Mrs. Bower, in her
delirium —which was so violent as to threaten to
terminate fatally every hear for several days—ex.
expressed so vehement a wish to see Mr. Morton, that
the physicians advised Mr. Bawer, whatever his private

feelings might be on the subject, to allow her to have bet'
own way, thinidng that Mr. M.'s presence might have
the effect of aibduing the extreme violent) of her
manner. Mr. Bower, under the circumstances, ens
quiesced in the wishes of the physicians, and Mr. Morton
came to his hotse, entered the rpatteneut of Mrs. 8., and
remained by ter betide, with a few brief intervals,
several days aid nights; Mrs. Bower being, let it not
be forgotten, all this time in a state of dreadful de-
lirium, would 7cceive no attentions nor nursing from
any one but Mr. Morten, except in occasional in-
tervals, when she became somewhat more calm.
During one of the brief periods of Mr. Morton's
absence, Mrs. Bower stated that her last child, born
four weeks previously, was not Mr. Bower's, hut Mr.
Morton's. On Mr. B. remarking that he ascribed the
statement to tie illness under which she was laboaring,
and did not Waco any faith in it, Mrs. Bower reiterated
the assertion vith increased emphasis, and said that, as
a dying woman, it was true. Mr. Bower observed that,
if he could lelieve it, either Mr. Morton or himself
should, in less than an hour, boa deed man. She again
energetically belated that the child was Mr. Morton's,
not Mr. Bower's, and appealed to the housemaid who
happened to be present, whether it was not true, that
Mr. Morton had slept in the house severel nights
dating Mr. Bower's absence from Paris, about nine
months Frevioasly. The housemaid said that such was
the fact. Mr. Bower then retired into the dining-room,
where arrangements' had been made for a hurried
meal, when, uefortunately, while Mr. Bower's brain,
according to his own statement to us, was mad-
dened by what he had heard, Mr. Morton entered
the room. Mr. Bower immediately pat the question to
him, whether fee horrible averment of his wife was true.
Mr. Morton made no reply—neither admitted nor denied
the grave charge which the question implied, but that
instant rushed out of the room. Mr. Bower, on the im-
putt° of the moment, snatched up a knife which was
tying on the table, and rushed after Mr. Morton, over-
taking him, as No had reached the fourth or fifth stair,
and making a deep wound in the neck, which cut the
jugular vein. Mr. Morton fell tilt:A instant, and never
spoke a word, or even uttered a groan. Mr. Bower,
acting en the advice of a relative who was in the house
at the time, hurriedly put on an overcoat which was
lying beside him, and, through the aid of a female ser-
vant, escaped by a back passage.
" Such are the correct details of this most horrible
effAr. Mr. Bower and Mr. Merton had long been on
terms of the closest intimacy, and, being engaged in the
.cane pursuits, mutually assisted each other.
" With regard to Mrs. Bower, whose unhappy con-
eliedon every ono roust deeply deplore, it is right we
' should este that she is a lady of Exceedingly amiable
manners, as well as of great accomplishments, while her
demeanour in society hes alaays eccerded wiih the
ft/.
liGonsloetbhewe hpeoaoymhsa2tvioLl‘bi, nt
which the
her.tuhwe:edieridsi
aclol
most rigid views of female propriety, in the estimation
r.
yrreescpvoenuElnentHoef
tho"
is a man of great and varied powers rts a writer. His
information is extensive, and his style has always been
characterised by a vivacity, a pungency, and a raciness,
nhi ch have seldom been equalled. Be is, too, a man of
high moral courage, as ho has ample attested by the bold
and tudiinching manner in which- he hiss braved the
Government of France, notwithstanding the threats of
immediate expulsion from that country which have for
some time past been hanging over his head. We hove
much pleasure in adding, that ho moat readily and
heartily entered into ell our views, as to the course
which we have on various occasions instructed him to
take. He was for a long time on terms of personal inti-
macy with Louis Napoleon, and was a frequent guest at
the Ely: 4:; but in his zeal to act up to the wishes of the
editor of this journal, he became, after the events of
December, one of the most decided and most formidable
foes of the President.

"A, man so devoted in his attachment to the establihh-
ment with which he was connected, and who discharged
the duties which devolved upon him with en unflinching,
tearles, and surpassing talent, wail deserves the tribute
which we have paid to his serviccrt. Most deeply do we
deplore the fearful catastrophe which has occurred, and
very sincerely do we sympathise willa him is the dis-
tressing position in which he is phcod,"
Tho price of Public Securities was well main-
tained ac the Bourse, Without any remarkable varia-
tions. The Four-anl.e.-Half per Cents, opened at
105 f. 15e., anti closed at 105 f., for the end of the
month; the Three per Ceuta. cl-ised at 78 75c.;
Orleans Railway Shares, 1,490:. ; Rouen, 900 f. ;
Havre, 408 f. 75c.; Avignon, 525 f.; Basle, 3321. 50c.;
Paris and Strasburg, 7711. 25e.; Paris and Lyons,
861 f. 25e.; Lyons and Avignon, 6:30F.; Western of
France, 687 f. 50c.; St. Dizier to Gray, 545 f.
11 t;BI.INESS DONE IN IitIKEIOI.,, E.AILR V.ti AT ME
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, Ocr. 4.
Charleroi and Erquelines, 16%—Dijon and Besancon, 31/,
—East Indian, 27 Yk 3—Luxembourg, s—Lyons and Avignon,
10,,,';—Madrap, 7;A—Namur and Liege (with interest), 8—
Northern of France, 2878—Paris and Lve4s, 23,A—Paris
and Strasbourg, 301 A —Faris, Caen, and Cherbourg,
Sambre and Mouse, 10%—Western of France, 123.