The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-09 00:00:00

T r,

rendered independent of wind and tide, and freed,
moreover, from the necessity of being incumbered by
the paddle-boxes required in the old steam-boat sy s -
tem. A deplorable interval elapsed without our being
enabled to witness the recognition of the value of the
screw in any manner by the official personages at the
Admiralty. What steam force was employed in the
Royal Navy continued to be employed after the old
fashion—through the medium of those floundering
paddle-wheels which are capable of being destroyed
so very readily by the enemy's marine ordnance, and
which, while thus insecurely situated, interfere in the
most effectual manner with the completeness of our
broadsides. Latterly the folly of this has been gradually
becoming more and more apparent to our maritime
administrators. Man-&-war after man• o' -war has
been fitted up with the screw during the last twelve
or eighteen monthp, until we really begin to have
some prospect of seeing the system at last generally
adopted throughout the service. But how is all this
being, accomplished? Why, in the majority of in-
stances the vessels already on the stocks have bad to
be " altered !" Here is the evidence of that false
economy to which we have been earnestly and re-
peatedly making allusion as so pernicious--an enc.-
noray beginning in mistaken restriction and ending
in unnecessary expenditure.
Fo'rtuuately we are enabled to notify from time to
time the multiplied application of the screw to the
vessels of the Royal Navy of Great Britain. As the
latest evidence of this, we observe that the screw-
propeller is ordered by the authorities at the Admi-
ralty to be adopted in three out of the few 120 gun
three-deckers now on the stocks in Portsmouth Dock-
yard. Another order of a like kind has been issued,
moreover, in
reference to her MAJESTY'S ship
-
Algiers (90 guns), 'at present building in No.
3 slip dockyard, designed by the Committee of
References. This is exactly as it should be, and we
announce the improvement thus indicated in our naval
administration with the more pleasure, because we
remember that it is an improvement we ourselves have
so long advocated.
An improvement of a different character is
manifested elsewhere in the same department—
in the circumstance of the prospective comple-
tion of the noble steam-yard, called the Key-
ham Steam-yard, at Devonport. Immediately
the works there have terminated, which, it is under-
stood, will be some time during the commencement of
the ensuing autumn, it is expected that her MA-
JESTY will in person witness their inauguration. The
event cannot but be looked forward to with
especial interest from the extent of the works,
together with • their peculiar value and
magnificence. From these and a variety of other
interesting particulars it will be apparent that some
of our more sanguine anticipations in reference to
the maritime service of England are already in a
fair way of being realised, now that the Board of
Admiralty is presided over by a professional chieftain
in the person of his Grace the Duke of NOBTLIUM-
BERLAND.

Once more has the deeply-injured Baron DE BODE
fully and completely established the validity of his
claims ou.the British Government. The report of the
Select Committee of the House of Lords is decisive
on the question. If any doubt could have been en-
tertained on the subject, it must be removed. The
most captious opponent can no longer raise an objection,
or assert that there is any flaw in the title of the
claimant, or that he has been guilty of any lathes to
justify the refusal of a prompt settlement of his just
demand.. For more than six-and-thirty years that

demand has been unceasingly urged, and we regre,
to say that it has been met by a series of paltry eva-
sions and pettifogging objections, highly derogatory
to the national character, and disgraceful to
those by whom such expedients were re-
sorted to. Xis now certain that the Baron DE BODE
is equitably, if not legally, the creditor of the British
nation, and that the application of the sponge to the
public debt, and the withholding of the dividends from
the fundholders, might as well be advocated as any
further resistance to the immediate liquidation of the
liability. It is no longer a question of convenience or
inconvenience; it signifies nothing that the specific
fund from which payment should have been made
may have been applied to other purposes, or that tha
French Government were the original debtors. Eng-
' !and deliberately assumed the liability, and not gra-
tuitously, for an adequate amount was paid into the
English Exchequer to sati§fy the claim. The honour
and integrity of the nation are at stake, and must not
be sacrificed on trivial or insufficient grounds.
The facts of the • case are very simple. On the
.restorative of the Bourbons certain treaties and
conventions were entered into between the French
and English Governments, by which the former un-
dertook to satisfy the claims of British subjects for
property, movable or immovable, unduly confiscated
by the French authorities; and a mixed Commis-
sion was appointed to investigate these claims, which
it was further provided should be put forward on or
before the 20th of February, 1816. CLEMENT, Baron
de Bode, duly preferred his claim within the pre-
scribed period, but before it was investigated a new
convention was entered into, by which, in consi-
deration of 60,000,000 of francs, paid into the English
Treasury, in addition to 70,000,000 francs paid under
the former convention, France was discharged from
all these claims, which England undertook-to satisfy.
All then that was required of Baron CLEMENT was
that he should prove that be was a British subject,
that he was possessed of property, and that that pro-
perty had been " unduly" confiscated by the French
Government.
These points were strongly contested, and strict
proof was required. It was first denied that
claimant was a British subject; but in answer it was
,bown that he • was born of an English mother, at
lAcxley Park, in Staffordshire, and baptized at lit-
tozeter in-the year 1777.- Ile was, therefore, to-all
intents and purposes, a natural born subject of his
Britannic MAJESTY. The objection was therefore at
once abandoned.
The next proof required was, that he was possessed
of, or entitled to, the property confiscated. ,It was
shown on this part Of the case that CHARLES, 'Baron
delrode; the father of CLEMENT, had duly obtained
a grant of the lordship and lands of Jultz, in Lower
Alsace, being a German male fief, and that the in-
vestiture was made to the father and son jointly.
The effect of this was to confer an estate for life on
could
'he father, with a vested remainder to the eon, which
n
torat
ihencumberedl79l,the
by
the father.o
in
I at
n was a way
a further rb:b er alienated
stated
sstate of the fuller was duly dd ce to the son ; and it
was shown that Barons CHARLES and CLEMENT left
Alsace and took refuge in-Germany in 1793, and that
the property was soon after seized and confiscated as
emigrants' property, by y the revolutionary authorities..
Some difficulty Was experienced by Baron CLE-
MENT in bringing forward formal proof of the cession
in consequence of the
ire destruction of the public
•Irchives, and his nivelenents of ti •
tle by the
French and German armies, While, however, he was
obtaining the necessary evidende it was for the first
time intimated that proof would be required, that the
considered
property was as belonging to a British
subject, and was taken away from him on account of
bj
nis being a British su ea. It has lance been re-
peatedly decided that no such proof was at
all neces-
terms of the Convention,
sary, and that, under the all
the claimant
that was required was, that was a
British subject and that the property was confiscated
on account of emigration. In cousequence, however,
of this erroneous and absurd decision the inquiry
was prematurely closed and the claim
rejected. The
Baron appealed to the Privy Council, but he was re-
stricted from bringing forward evidence that had not
been before the Commissioners, and the appeal was dis-
missed on the ground that full proof was not given
of the cession. Thus, although the decision was
asown to be palpably wrong, advantage was taken of
it to injure the appellant.
It is p-rfPctlA si,dtening to follow the course of
pettifogging- chicanery by which the claim was re-
sisted and payment evaded for no less than thirty
years since that erroneous judgment. Suffice it to
say, that it has been proved beyond the possibility of
doubt, and is now ackr 1 d d
6nw , that cession to
Baron CLEMENT was bona fide, and in every respect
legal and vab •
d. that his pr“perty was unduly con-
fiscated, and that he was a British subject, and
presented his cl • •
aim in due time ; that the value
of that property
was on the Ist January, 1819,
364,2661. sterling, and that, after payment of all
claims of dilly registered
cil vimants which bad been

established,' -A sum of 482,7521. 6i. Bd. remained on
hand ; a considerable portion whereof was paid into
the Bank of England on Government account.
Under these circumstances every right-minded
man must agree that "it is a case of g►eat hardship
and injustice," and that it is incumbent on the repre-
sentatives of the people, as guardians of the public
purse, to remove the stigma from the British name by
compensating the claimant, so far as money can do,
for the heartbreaking delays and bitter disappointments
which he has so long endured.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of Saturday
and yesterday.
The Moniteur publishes a decree permitting the
following persons to return immediately to France
MM. Creton, Duvergier de Hauranne, Chambolle,
Tillers, De Recuusat, Jules de Lasteyrie, General
LAidet, and Anthony Thouret.
Another decree revokes the decree which inter-
dicted the following gentlemen to reside in France :--
MM.. Michel Renaud, Signard, Joly, Theodore Bac,
Belin, Besse, Miliotte.
A telegraphic dispatch announces the arrival of the
French steamer the Charlemagne in the Dardanelles,
with the French ambassador on board.
The Constitutionnel contradicts the report published
by some London parrs with respect to a commercial
treaty between England and France, and the re-
duction of the duties on coal and iron entering into

France.
The Legitimist printseller JEANNE, Passage Choi
seul, was tried on Saturday for exposing in his win-
dows portraits of HENRI V. of various sizes, with de-
vices significant of the desire of the nation for the
return of their lawful sovereign. He was condemned
to fifteen days' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of
200 f., with forfeiture of the obnoxious prints.
On the subject of the pretended treaty there ap-
pears the following in the Independence of Brussels
of yesterday :
" We have received a letter from Vienna from a per-
son in a position to be well informed, and who contra-
dicts not only the authenticity of the treaty published
by the Chronicle, but the existence of any document of
the kind. Doubtless, the letter says, communications
have taken place between the Northern Courts on the
subject in question, both before and since the 10th of
May; but terse communications bad reference to even-
tualities which might happen in Europe in consequence
of any particular occurrence in France, and never to any
interference in the internal affairs of the latter power.
The Austrian G3vernment would not under any cir-
cumstances lend a hand to such an act. The document
published by the Chronicle is considered at Vienna as a
kind of pilot balloon, to ascertain the intentions of the
powers. For this very motive Austria will not give an
official contradiction to the publication; the Cabinet of
Vienna contents itself with inspiring the article in the
Lloyd's, in which the treaty is declared to be apo-
cryphal."
The Moniteur copies the Lloyd's article.
The last section of the Strasburgh railway from
Nancy to Strasburgh, inaugurated by the PRESIDENT
of the Republic on the 18th of July, will be defini-
tively opened to the public on the 20th inst. The
whole distance from Paris to Strasburgh will then be
done in less than twelve hours.
M. PRoUDHON is making quite a little fortune by
his new book, the first edition of which was entirely
exhausted on the two first days of sale.
It is said that, workmen are busy in removing the
monument erected to the memory of the unfortunate
Duke D'ENGRIEN in the Castle of Vincennes.
The funeral ceremony of the late Count DOaSAY
took place on Friday at Chambourcy, near St. Ger-
main. Amongst the persons assembled to perform
the last rights for the deceased were Prince Napoleon
Bonaparte, Count Bouffet de Montauban, Count de
Latour du Pin, the Marquis du Prat, M. Emile de
Girardin, M. Clesinger, the sculptor, M. Charles
Laffitte, M. Bixio, M. Alexander Dumas, jun., and
Mr. Hughes Ball, and several other English gentle-
men. The Duke de Grammont, brother-in-law of
the Count d'Orsay, being confined to his bed by ill-
ness, Count Alfred de Grammont and the Duke de
Lesparrearnephews of the deceased, were the chief
mourners. On leaving the church, the body was
conveyed to a tomb in the form of a pyramid, built
under the direction of the Count himself, and in
which -he had signified his desire that his remains
should be placed, near those of a person to whom he
was tenderly attached. No funeral oration was pro-
nounced over the body, but the emotion of the persons
present was great, and the sadness of the scene was
increased by the appearance of the Duchess de Gram-
mont, sister of the deceased, kneeling at his tomb,
every effort to induce her to abstain from being pre-
sent having been made in vain.
The Bulletin de Paris says—" When the news of
the death,of Count D'ORsAY was communicated to
the PRINCE PRESIDENT, be exclaimed that he had lost
his best friend." The same journal informs us that
the large model of the statue of NAPOLEON, which
Count D'ORSAY was making from the small one exe-
cuted by MoRTIMER, and which was seen at the Lon-
don Exhibition, was nearly terminated at the time of
his death, and that M. CLESINGER was formally
charged by him to terminate the marble statute of
the es-King JEROME.
The obsequies of ToNY JoiIANNOT also took place
on Friday. MM. H. Monnier, E. Isabey, Diaz,
Picot, Roqueplan, Perignon, Decaisne, Laridon,
Derval, and other artists, friends of the deceased, were
present. The funeral cortege proceeded directly to
the cemetery of Montmartre, where M.. COQUEREL,
jun., the Protestant clergyman, officiated. The de-
ceased was born at Offenbach (Hesse Darmstadt),
and was remarkable for his scientific information,
particularly in botany. He was also an excellent
musician. He became first known as a painter by a
picture which was in the exhibition of 1831, repre-
senting " A Woman giving a Soldier Drink." But
it is above all by his steel engravings that he acquired
a European reputation. His illustrations of the works
of Lord Byron, Walter Scott, Moliare' Dun Quixotte,
&c., are universally known. He died in very strait-
ened, circumstances.•
M. OUR!, ex-chef de cabinet of the Marquis DE
TURGOT, ex-. Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been
nominated Consul-General at Amsterdam.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, AUG. 7.
Dijon and Besancon, 234—Dutch Rhenish, 5 YB—Luxem-
bourg, 65/s—Madras, p.—Northern of France, 251,i—
Paris and Lyons,- 19;4—Paris and Rouen, 343/B—Paris and
Strasbourg, 247/s Sambre and Meuse, 7 Western o'
France, 9A—Grand Junction of France, 5,
he