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

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 sys-
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-o'-war after man-o'-war has
been fitted up with the screw during the last twelve
or eighteen months, 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 had 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 eco-
nomy beginning in mistaken restriction and ending
in unnecessary expenditure.
Fortunately 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 four 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 bs 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 NORTHUM.•
BERLAND.

Once more has the deeply-injured Baron DE BODE
fully and completely established the validity of his
claims on 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. Tne
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 aches 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 regret

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. It is 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 the
French Government were the original debtors. Eng-

land deliberately assumed the liability, and not gra-
tuitously, for an adequate amount was paid into the
English Exchequer to satisfy 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
restoration 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 franca 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 he 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 the
claimant was a British subject; but in answer it was
shown that he was born of an English mother, at
Lesley Park, in Staffordshire, and baptized at Ut-
toxeter in the year 1777. lle
was, therefore, to all
intents and purposes, a natural born subject
of his
Britannic MAJESTY. The objection was therefore at
once abandoned.
next proof required was, that be was possessed
Of; or entitled to, the property confiscated. It was
shown on this part of the case that CHARLES, Baron
de Bode, the father of CLEMENT, bad 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
the father, with a vested remainder to the sop, which
could not in any way be
alienateds
tstated
d that,
i n encumberedl79ih
the
the father. It was furthere
estate of the father was duly e
ceded 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
Baron Cen •
emigrants' property, by the revolutionary authorities.
Some difficulty was experienced by
mECloTnsiaeqb
ur
ei
nn
cg
e
in
g
forward formal proof of the cession
in ofthe entire destruction of the public
archives, and his muniments of title, by the
French and German armies. While, however, he was
obtaining the necessary evidence it was for the first
belonging to a h
time intimated that proof would be required, that the
property was considered as
away from him on accou Brntitis of
subject, and was taken
It has since been re-
his being a British subject.
peatedly decided that no such proof W 29 at all neces-
sary, and that, under the term 3 of the convention, all
that was required was, that the claimant was a
British subject and that the property was confiscated
on account of emigration. In consequence, 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
shown to be palpably wrong, advantage was taken of
it to injure the appellant.
It is perfectly
sickening 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 acknowledged, that the cession to
Baron CLEMENT Was bond fi
ayeverydul
legal and valid, that his propdee;tyand in u
was
con-
fiscated, and that he was a British subject, and
presented bis claim in due time ; that the value
of that property was on the Ist January, 1819,
364,266/. sterling, and that, after payment of all
claims of duly registered claimants which bad been

T 11. E SUN,

LONDON,

established, a sum of 482,7521. 6-4. 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 great 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 I
compensating the claimant, so far as money can do,
for the heartbreaking delays and bitter disappointments
which he has so long endured.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIO.

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,
Thiers, 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, Millotte.
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 papers 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 T. 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 these communications had 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 Government 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'ENGBIEN in the Castle of Vincennes.
The funeral ceremony of the late Count D'Oasar
took place on Friday at Charnbourcy, 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 beveral 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
LE,sparre, nephews 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
he death of Count D'ORSAY was communicated to

the PRINCE PRESIDENT, he 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. CLESINGEIL was formally
charged by him to terminate the marble statute of
the ex-King JEROME.
The obsequies of TONY JOHANNOT also took place
on Friday. MM. H. Monnier, E. Isabey, Diaz,
Picot, Roqueplan, Perignon, Decaisne, Laridon,
Dorval, and other artists, friends of the deceased, were
present. The funeral cortege proceeded directly to
the cemetery of Montmartre, where M. COQUEREL,
jun.,e e dthe was Protestant clergyman, officiated. The de-
asborn at Offenbach (Hesse Darmstadt),
remarkable for his scientific information,
c
and was
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, Don Quixotte,
&c., are universally known. He died in very strait-
ened circumstances.
M. OURY, ex-chef de cabinet of the Marquis DE
TUEGOT, 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 13esanqon, iii—Dutch Rhenish, 57/s—Luxem-
bourg, 65/B—Madras, 2% p.—Northern of France, 25%
Paris and Lyons, 191/4—Paris and Rouen, 34%—Paris and
Strasbourg, 2455 Sambre and Meuse, 7 Western of
France, 9%—Grand Junction of France, 5.

SPAIN.

We have received Madrid advices of the 3d inst.

The only point of interest they touch on is that a
credit has been opened to the Minister of War,
amounting to 8 millions of reals, to be applied to re-
pair of fortifications.
A Royal decree was published on the previous day,
by which a Seville paper called El Porvenir is sus-
pended for two months, for publishing an article of-
fensive to the clergy.
MADRID BOU3SE, AUG. 3.—Three per Cents.,
45 5.16 ; Exchange on London, 50 35 paper.