The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-20 00:00:00

Helena, where, for six dreadful years, he was sub- '
jected to every imaginable indignity, denied even the '
empty solace of that august title which had been re-
cognized as valid by all the sovereigns of Christendom,
and which has again been accorded to his m mory by
the grand voice of history, and by the unimpassioned
judgment of a new but unforgetting generation. It
is with no feeble emotions, therefore, we repeat,
that England now receives intelligence of the
heroic ABD•EL•KADER'S liberation. The incident
however accomplished, is in itself one eminently cal-
culated to command the popular admiration. Con-
trived, however, as it was, at a moment ofiny
peculiaralarl
interest, and under circumstances of a singularly
graceful character, the event
feelings of an nature.eunqttehsutimonablyone
which appeals to the noblest
It will be long and honourably remembered. It will
be recounted in terms of cordial and unaffected eulo-
glum by the future annalists of Europe. It will be
said by after historians—it may even be said by Sir
ARCHIBALD ALISON in the course of his great work
now preparing for publication—that the simple event
of ABD•EL•KADER'S liberation was noble, but that
the manner in which it was first announced to
the prisoner, enhanced the grace and grandeur
of the act as one of distinguished magnanimity.
The announcement it will have been seen from
our impression of yesterday, was, according to
the official narrative of the Moniteur, person-
ally conveyed to the captive of the Chateau d'Am-
boise in those touching words : "ABD•ELJEADER—I
come to inform you of your liberation." The EMIR
was "deeply moved," says the narrative : and no
wonder—for the address throughout was ono emi-
nently calculated to touch the fibres of his hero-heart.
" You are to be taken to Broussa, in the States of the
SULTAN," said his liberator, "as soon as the necessary
preparations shall have been made ; and you will re-
ceive there from the French Government an allow-
ance worthy of your former rank." The preparations
alluded to are evidently those undertaken by M.
Bicciocru in his present mission—manifestly from
the first, one of an extraordinary kind—to the city of
Constantinople. " You are aware," were the generous
words addressed, in continuation, to the Arabian cap-
tive—" you are aware that for a length of time
your captivity has caused me a real affliction,
for it incessantly reminded me that the Government
which preceded me had not observed the engage-
ments entered into towards an unfortunate enemy ;
and nothing in my eyes is more humiliating for the
Government of a great nation than to misunderstand
its force to such a point, or to fail in its promise."
A bitter but deserved judgment pronounced upon the
Government of France by the ORLEANS' dynasty—a
judgment expressed in language of solemn and memo-
rable condemnation. "Generosity is always the best
counsellor," were the words that thrilled next in
the ears and to the heart of ABD-EL.KADER, "and I
am convinced that your residence in Turkey will not
prove injurious to the tranquillity of our possessions
in Africa :" to which the Em' subsequently re-
sponded by swearing upon the Koran that be would
never again trouble French rule in Algeria, adding
that he would submit unreservedly, without any
concealed design, to the will of the French Govern-
ment. " Your religion, like ours," added the lofty
address announcing to ADD •EL•KADER the fact
of his liberation, "your religion, like ours, enjoins
submission to the decrees of PROVIDENCE—but if
France is mistress of Algeria, the reason is, that GOD
willed it to be so, and the French nation will never
give up that conquest. You have been the enemy of
France," were the concluding words addressed to the
prisoner of Amboise by his liberator, " but I not the
less render justice to your courage, to your character,
and to your resignation in misfortune. That is the
reason, why I consider it a point of honour to put an
end to your captivity, having full confidence in your
word." A noble act, nobly accomplished—and one
which will redound to the glory of France, when the
memory of ABD-EL-KADER shall be but one of the
hero-names of antiquity; and when the Chateau
d'Amboise may be pointed out as the picturesque
ruins, in which, long ago, in the nineteenth century,
the falsehood of au Orleans' Sovereign was in this
historical and affecting interview, expiated by an
act of princely j ustice and imperial magnanimity.

All friends of civil and religious liberty, of a good
government, and an active commerce, must desire the
heartiest union between England and her transatlantic
offspring. One in origin, in language, in literature,
in our common law, and substantially, also, in our
common capacity for municipal and constitutional
government—one in the souvenirs even of the past,
save the great quarrel in which half of England's best
and greatest men wished success to the Colonists; one,
we may truly say, even in our religion itself, accord-
ing to Lord Bacon, " the great bond of human life,"
—for their sects are nearly all offsets of our own :
no two great nations of the world have so many
points of union, or are so capable of acting together
for their own common good and the good of the
human race. In capacity for self-government the
French are obviously a century behind us both, and
whatever the refinement and civilization of our vola-
tile neighbours, it is not of a kind to blend easily with
the more practical and steady energy of the English
character. JONATHAN indeed differs from us in man-
ners. If Mr. DIsRAELI wants, as we hope he will, an
enlarged staff of Income-tax collectors, America
could supply us with any number, who would
ask us without a blush how many dollars we
were worth ; nor will our genuine Yankee fail to
instruct you in the great superiority of every
" States' man" to every Englishman ; while the
Frenchman will indulge any amount of vanity with-
out lowering you. JONATHAN is both rude and
proud—the Frenchman only vain, but polite withal.
JONATHAN affronts us twenty times, and seals our lips
in haughty silence, or, at best, opens them in curt
replies, where Monsieur would only amuse us ; and
yet we like Jonathan best. There is true English
blood in him, after all; we can trust him better.
We can sympathize with him more easily. He is
❑ot prouder at heart than Germans and Frenchmen
chink half their English visitors; but he is just
foreigner enough to treat us with a little of our own
self-importance. The chief difference is, that he, not
being yet out of his national teens, though over-
topping in stature so many of the older nations, feels
obliged to tell us that he is the man he is, while we as
his parent can take our manhood for granted. We
love him heartily notwithstanding these little things;
and being got now far too big for the cane, we must
wait patiently for his mature age to cure him of all
his nonsense.

There is, however, one vice—an inherited one,
alas I—which in many ways does more to destroy unity
of sentiment between England and America than all
other minor faults or follies on either side. Slavery
is the malady, the cherished malady, which can never
be otherwise than loathsome to English feeling. From
the times of WILBERFORCE and CLARKSON, with their
noble band of coadjutors, all but a few interested men
have imbibed an ineradicable hatred of slavery. Ever
since the question has been mooted in English courts
of justice, the Bench and an applauding nation have
argued that a man could not set his foot on the Bri-
tish shores, and remain a slave. We glory in British soil,
as possessing a nobler treasure than California, or than
any portion of the United Sta!ei—every foot of it can
turn a slave into a man. Nor is this mere national '
vanity. The great body of the people fought a long
and hard battle with a powerful and wealthy interest,
mighty in Parliament by boroughmongering and bri-
bery, and rather than retain a slave in the least island
of our dominions, it added 20,000,000/. to its already
enormous debt ! Americans must allow that we have
shown, by the best of all tests, self-sacrifice, an inex
tinguishable hatred of slavery. The United States,
however, cling to and that, too, under many
dameatory circumstances. It flies in the face of th ei r
celebrated Deed of Independence, which declares the t
all men are born free and equal. It convicts their at• •
laehment to that deed of the grossest hypocrisy an d
selfishness. Slavery is attended in the Southern State s
with its worst and most revolting cruelties and evils..
We need not recount the horrors of the whip, the chain,,
and all kinds of bodily punishment ; of the unbridled
licentiousness of masters, and their selling their own
offspring, perhaps most readily. Of the cruel separa-
tions of husbands, wives, and families. Of the impos-
ththesee
sibma inl i tiys oref
jreecdtereds.3 wAhleln evidencetales
nf hoof r
rt
nhres
th colourednugh
but too true, make up but one-half the mischief.
What we most deeply deplore, is its working in the
they do, the
free States themselves, Idolizing, as