The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-31 00:00:00

.7111 t

6z7s,
LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 31, 1852.

Accounts both from the Cape and the Burmese
territory have proved to a certain extent satisfactory.
It will be perceived that in the former direction the
enemies of the British flag have been so far cowed as
to be driven at last into the necessity of opening up
pacific negotiationY. In the latter quarter our suc-
cesses have been yet more signal, the opposing forces
having been routed and their boasted stronghold cap-
tured.

The arrival of Sir HARRY SMITH yesterday at
Spithead is well timed, seeing that that gal-
lant officer may now obtain an opportunity
of having his character yet further vindicated
in the Legislature before the dissolution of the exist-
ing Parliament. As a military commander it must
be allowed that he requires not one word more of
commendation. His capacity in this respect has been
sufficiently attested by the whole course of his career
in arms. Had there been at any period serious doubt
upon that subject, that doubt must assuredly have
been at once dissipated by the decisive opinion ex-
pressed not tong sin& in the House of Lords by
the Duke of WELLINGTON. His Grace, it will
be remembered, gave to the conduct of our
troops at the Cape from first to last,
both in regard to time and to individuals, the fullest
measure of approbation. The soldiers, he said, had
acted as became the members of their profession, the
officers had displayed gallantry throughout, while
the Commander-in-Chief had revealed a sagacity in
his arrangements and an intrepidity in their de-
velopment such as must tend very considerably
to enhance his already wide and elevated reputa-
tion. After declarations like those coming from
the lips of the Duke of WELLINGTON, his Excellency
the late Governor of the Cape, together with those
who acted under his orders, previously to the arrival
of Major-General CATHCART, might well dispense
with any approval from a civilian like the ex-Colonial
Secretary. But as the representative of his So-
VEREIGN, acting in a position of great importance,
and at a juncture fraught with the very weightiest
responsibilities, Sir HARRY SMITH requires that his
character, in the discharge of his most difficult and
onerous duties, should pass altogether scathless from
charges such as those of shameful incapacity or of cul-
pable precipitation. Accusations tantamount to these, it
cannot be forgotten, were addressed to his Excellency,
by Earl GREY in the notorious and intemperate dis-
patch of the 14th of January. The abrupt resigna-
tion of the Ministry in February prevented the sub-
ject of the Colonial Secretary's conduct in this par-
ticular from being brought under the consideration
of the House of Commons, as was threatened by the
motion of Mr. ADDERLEY. So unjustifiable, however
was the proceeding of Earl GREY considered to
be on all hands, that it was regarded at
the time as not at all extravagant to suppose that the
dread of the exposure consequent upon the inquiry
provoked by the Hon. Gentleman the Member for
North Staffordshire in a great measure precipitated
the downfall of the Whig Government. Supposing
this to have been the case, or not, it were clearly but
justice to a distinguished officer, like Sir HARRY
SMITH, that his character should be relieved from the
weight of these most unstatesmanlikl aspersions. No
mawkish sentiment of good nature towards Earl
GREY should influence the independent Members
of the Legislature, so as to withhold them from do-
mending the formal vindication of the general officer
who, as Governor of the Cape, was recently directing
the operations in Batlrland. The ex Colonial Secre-
tary evinced so little regard for the feelings of a
brave old captain, who had, during so many years,
and in so many quarters of the globe, done good ser-
vice to the country, that we cannot recognise the
propriety of takiug his own BO very seriously into
account. The dispatch already referred to,
moreover, has been formally printed in the
Parliamentary Blue B )ok relating to the Cape
correspondence. It demands, therefore, some
(cosily formal disavowal—or rather, we should say,
some equally formal contradiction. His Grace the
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF has virtually pronounced the
charges contained in that cruel document of the 14th
of January to be altogether unjustifiable; and surely
no sane man is going to declare a preference for
Earl GREY'S opinion upon a military question
beyond that pronounced by Field-Marshal the Duke
of WELLINGTON ! Now, therefore, that Sir HARRY
SMITH has actually arrived in this country it is to
be hoped some active efforts will be made to exonerate
him explicitly and directly from the accusations con-
tained in the Colonial Secretary's dispatch of the
14th of January. This we consider to be more
peculiarly requisite under the circumstances, seeing
that the latest accounts from the seat of war in
Southern Africa show that his Excellency the late
Governor had almost brought the negotiations for a
treaty of peece to a conclusion immediately before
the period of his departure.
Intelligence, it will be perceived, has been brought
simultaneously from the seat of war in the Burmese
dominions of ano less gratifying description. Par-
ticulars will be found elsewhere of the daring opera-
tions which during the earlier days of last April
led to the capture of Rangoon, together with the
seizure also of Matarban. So signal, indeed,
have been our victories in that quarter,
that the enemy seems to have been routed
in absolute consternation their powder ma

gazines bt-ing blown up, their walls battered
down, and no less than 120 pieces of artillery
taken after a terrible slaughter. During forty-eight
hours, according to one of the eye•witnesses of the
bomb Irdment, " the Burmese saw nothing but falling
stars and meteors. They certainly must have thought
us devils, for shells, shrapnel, carcase, and rockets
were flying, were falling all round them ; and the
place actually stinks from the dead and dying."
Notwithstanding the comparative impunity with

which all that was accomplished, our bravo so',

diers appear to have been eubiequently threatened

with a devastation no less dreadful than that car.

ried by their arras among the ranks of the
Burmese. Cholera had broken out before

:he last accounts left the vicinity of Rangoon, ani i

is to be feared that by that fatal disease the conquered
race may have been very speedily and frightfully
avenged. One reflection is irresistibly forced upon
the mind by the consideration of these particulars,
and that is the advisability cf those iu command both
Ava and Africa carrying out 113 speedily as pos-
sible their pacific negotiations with the Burmese and
theself-raulation—any
Ig°-";
-e of Kafirland. By this course alone can
our recent successes be rendered subjects for national
and money being further expenditure of blood
rendered unnecessary by the skill of
our diplomatic correspondence.

The Patinas mil. 'r---7ERB repudiation of Protection
is already taking effect
upon his supporters. It will
be remembered that we oudeclaratron of Lord DEREY
that he was altogethe ourselves referred, during the
hopeless
course:of last week, to
the
post
upon
of beipg enabled to ire-
vive the unpopular mr
Pon corn in the course
. be forgotten
of the ensuing Parliament;
already
confidence,
and it cannot
that we predicted yet worn ha
Frae-
traders than:we had, with all
of their our happily
fur
th,u,C
the
anticipated. Our assurances tr.,
'iprolpnogs—ed
allay being verified,
;or already the more active
's recent ackn:
energetic sup-
porters of the present Cabinet are
boastful—upon the attention
to the
aftert"t
constituents the PREMILLI
of the futility of the dreams of Protectiu,w ulrent
In the
course of a kind of supplementary add .rec,cso
electors of Tewkesbury, Mr. EDWARD W.
of the new candidates fcr the representation of that
one
borough in the new House of Commons,re-
minding his intended constituents of his resolute d
Watinati.;l3 to *-ithkulad all attewpta at their diafra::
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u.
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cbisement, observes—" Since the above was written
I have received a handbill contradicting my assertion
that Lord DERBY has altogether abandoned a bread-
tax, and asking me what ground I have for that as-
sertion. I repeat it. Lord DERBY has abandoned all
purpose of re-imposing a duty on corn. My autho-
rity for that assertion is himself. On Monday night
last he stated, in the House of Lords, that
he had contemplated a small fixed duty on foreign
cern, only if a decisive majority of the House
of Commons should demand it.. But he was
now satisfied that there was no probability of
such a majority." From this it wine perceived by
the Free-traders throughout the United Kingdom,
what good effect has even now been produced by the
PRIME MINISTER'S confession that it is idle to dream
of witnessing the restoration of the system of agri-
cultural monopoly. In auguring so well from the
first moment, on the utterance of the words here
alluded to as having fallen from the head of her
MAJESTY'S Government, we were obviously not
speaking with any degree of extravagance
or precipitation. What says the gentle-
man whose remarks we have already quoted,
when referring to this important declaration
of Lord DERBY, in the course of his address
to the electors of Tewkesbury ? He says--
"Now, my friends, I love plain speaking and
fair dealing; and if, as An Elector' asserts,
Lord DERBY does not mean what he says,
I, for one, will not be a party to any equivocation with
you. If, after having thus intimated that he had
abandoned a corn tax, Lord DERBY or any of his
friends should propose such a tax, I distinctly
pledge myself, not only to oppose it, but to
withdraw my support from a Government that
could be guilty of such a breach of faith. I
hope this is sufficiently explicit. I am
thoroughly independent. I intend to continue so.
I am attached to principles, but I am not
tied to party." As far as the question of Free-trade
or Protection goes, this, as Mr. Cox himself wishes,
is fair dealing and plain speaking enough, but only as
far as that particular question is concerned. The
declarations of the new candidate for Tewkesbury
illustrate, however, in a very forcible manner, the
result likely to be witnessed in multitudes of other
instances consequent upon the PRIME MINISTER'S re•
cognition of the impracticability of carrying out the
principles (if they can be so designated) of Protection.
Candidates, we feel satisfied, will speedily make
their appearance in all directions—wooing the posses-
sors of the elective franchise with an adroit blending
of Free-trade and Conservatism. In no instance,
however, it is to be hoped, will the Free-traders be
won over to their support without a repudiation of
Protectionist views as unmistakable in its explicit-
' ness as that made by Mr. Cox in his recent address
to the electors of Tewkesbury. Otherwise the more
credulous may awake on the opening of the new
Parliament', to the fact that they have been
caught in a trap very cleverly (can we
be forgiven a pun upon SHAKSPERE for the
felicity of its application ?) " with 'bated breath
and whispered humbleness." Let those among the
Free-traders who have an eccentric hankering after
what is called " Conservatism"—but what in
reality tco often means an elaborately or-
ganized system of " Do-nothing-ism"—beware
as carefully as RICHARD 111. himself of what cannot
seriously be deemed otherwise than " a shallow sub-
terfuge of the enemy." Let them remember the
penalties which may follow in spite of this palateable
gilding of Free-trade, fromtheir inadvertently swallow-
ing the bolus of ultra-Conservatism. It will be too
late to reflect upon this when once the new Parlia-
ment has been assembled. It must be borne in re-
collection at once, and acted upon with becoming
promptitude. The danger must be discussed by the
Liberal Free• traders betimes, and, as Mr. PIPER. says,
with such impressive fervour—" repeatually." What
the country has to dread now is—not ultra-Conserva-
tism without Free-trade, but Free-trade with
ultra-Conservatism.