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

Oyealina

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1852.

The Earl of DERBY has abandoned Protection in
his character of Prime Minister of England. So also
has Mr. DISRIELI, as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The example of the Leader of the Lords and
of tb ..e Leader of the Commons has, more-
over, been emulated by almost all the other
co%lspicuous members of the Administration. Be-
on d 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 t'ae RusseLe Ministry moving as naturally along
tb a grooves of reform as the successors of the MEL-
BOURNE Ministry did when Sir ROBERT PEEL as-
sumed 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
c'antrY, we should like to know, in the way of emu.
y rehensive improvements ? Little or nothing! What,
on the contrary, was not gained by the people of the
United Kingdom from the Tory Ministry, formed in
Rained , we
the September of 1841— mean, in the
form of a series of laws constituting an evidence of
grand legislative dt-velopernent ? 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
dri yen for a much more protracted interval—the old
teaomaloua 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 Adnainstra-
tion, during nearly six years of uninterrupted power,
to secure to the nation the advantage of those great
reforms, which were recognised by the masses as essen-
t ia) to the continued growth in this country of the
sacred principles of civilisation.

Notwithstanding all our indignation at the legisla-
tive short-comings of the RUSSELL Government, we
are not blind to the glory which must henceforth, in
the pages of our national history, invest the remem-
brance of that fallen, and now in some respects
despised, Administration. Neither are we deaf to
its great claims upon the popular respect in
two particulars—to those claims which will,
we believe, resound in eloquent and solemn
tones to many after generations. As we have never
been blind to that glory, as we have never been deaf
to those claims, so we shall never be dumb in pro-

claiming them again and again upon every available
opportunity—least of all shill we refrain from de-
manding for them the homage ;of the gratitude and
admiration of the nitiltitude, now that Lord Jour;
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 responsibilities 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 18,;2 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 responsible 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 shuffiers
in the Chambers of legislation, and incapables in the
offices of Government. They were traitors to the
cause 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 office, 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-
fa;rs, the DERBY Ministry was inaugurated—and in
pursuance of the Estonishing and inexplicable system
of politics to which we have before alluded, the mem-
bers of that Conservative Cabinet have no sooner found

,hemselves fairly organized into a regular Governmen

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 great 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 less 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 fur the encouragement of those
fisheries in the Atlantic which had hitherto bien
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 fur the liberality of the character of
their projected but still unannounced policy
And so the chrysalis of a Tory Cabinet
expands into the full-blown butterfly 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 DERBY 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 LIVY, 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 qusim bene
ausus cam 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 es 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.
Se 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 he 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 command 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, he added, "her father
told me that if he had an older daughter, I should have
had her." General GODWIN 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 be en 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 object almost
by
would a -de-main. So, had NAPIER commanded,
uu:(
loubtedly have been the immediate result.
"
General G -ODIWIN had some successes at starting, and
then it seet ned 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 follow red up. Like Fear, retreating
ET, 311 at the sound himself had made,"
the aged an d " Gallant" General appears to have
made it a poi nt, as if alarmed at each success, to hold
back and cm amit the impolicy of waiting. On the
Peninsula, wi I@re WELLINGTON'S small army had to
resist the atta, a.k of NAPOLEON'S
numerous and expe-
rienced soldien a Fabian policy was the ultimate
means of victor 7. In the East, on the contrary, delay
is impolicy, beca use it is our proper game to encourage
the popular bell tf in the
Preitige of British arms; to
extend the belief that we have only, like CASALE, to
come, and see, an d 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
means and the ability to conquer at once.

Naturally dissatisfied with the delay—for the eon-
test, instead of being over in a few weeks, has already
[Listed many turas—the Marquis of DALHOUSIE,

THE SUN,

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 policy (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
Ava, the terminus of the campaign), and to ascer-
tain the position and proceedings of the
enemy. " General Gomm," 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
Prome 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,—captured and destroyed between

40 and 50 boats containing warlike stores,—
landed at the abandoned works of A-kouk-toung,
and there captured 28 dismounted cannons, making
56 guns taken on the expedition. He bad 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
GODWIN was desirous of an undivided triumph, and

that he considered the advance should be made en

tirely by land, and declined the responsibility of
moving forward until the dry weather had 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 troops, with artillery, are to march
overland from Rangoon to Ave, a distance of 500
miles at least, which will occupy some weeks, 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

go-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
DALHOUSIE is said to have asked for the immediate
occupation of 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 carry on the war as he pleases, but
he actually cannot supersede the aged commander
whom he appointed, with whose conduct he has
reason to be dissatisfied —the Government at home,
it seems, alone can do this. All the accounts from
India are unanimous in the opinion that the troops
now on the spot are sufficient for the conquest of
Burmab, 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 ago of six-and-twenty►
end 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 ease 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 nasal aid actually
available on the spot ? The original error (pointed
out at the time) was the appointment of such an old
men as General GODWIN, simply because he was old,
end had served in the former Burmese war. The
way to correct that error is to recal 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 7 u.
" The Prince arrived at the terminus at half-past
twelve. He was received amidst cries, a thou-
sand times repeated, of Vive I'Empereur r
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 received by the
Bishop, at the head of his clergy. The Prince has just
entered the prefecture, where a bouquet and grapes
were offered to him amidst cries of 6 Vire l'Empereur!'
by a group of young girls dressed in white."

"Four P.M.
" The Prince has just bean present at the siege of
the citadel, He was recei►ed, as in the morning, with
unanimous cries of Vi►e l'Empereur l' The filing off
of the communes is beginning at the Peyrot "
" Oct. 2, Six A.H.

" 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 ball room saluted
by the persons present with a thousand cries of ' Vire
l'Empereurl' "

" Nine in the Morning.
"The Prince has just 'quitted Montpellier to proceed
to Narbonne. The same enthusiasm which hailed him
yesterday accompanied him during bis stay. One cry
alone was raised, namely, that of Vive I'Empereurt'
The health of the Prince is excellent."
" Pezenas, 2d, Two in the Afternoon.

" To-day throughout the whole line from Montpellier
to Pizenas, where the Prince arrived at a quarter past
twelve, the enthusiasm amounted to frenzy. On all sides
ho was hailed with cries a thousand times repeated of
Vivo l'Empereur!' Viva Napolion III!' Not another
cry was heard."

Beziers, 2d, Quarter-past Three in the Afternoon.
" The Prince entered 136ziere amidst the loudest to-
elawatione. His Highness alighted and passed along
the front of the rural populations of Beziers and of
Saint-Pons. The enthusiasm never relaxed. The cry
of Vire l'Empereur!' 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 Napolion 111 !" Vive l'Erapereur I '
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 Nigh*
" The Prince has just left the ball. Both at his en.
trance and on his leaving ho was hailed with the loudest
applause. A shower of bouquets inundated his High.
appeared much touched by this mani.
fileessts; t ownti.

" 3d, Half-past Ten in the Morning.
" The Prince has jast heard mass at the Cathedral,
which was filled with an immense crowd. The most
renewed; nperwi
need," ; a
t the everyh
presenteart
armhr is elyareaeilsaeradattoi°wl3airdasreth
when he is leaving for Carcassonne."
omfanCoarnui
m aTndheer Foßf IthsiesregiriohnasofeoHnofenroruerd tnh e
the C r oRa so
Neapolitan Envoys, Monseigneur DE SAN MAazAao
and General RoDERTI. 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 Morniseg Advertiser of to-day.
Mr. Bow. ER 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 of Mr. Bower,
so far as the facts of the case are concerned. With regard
to particular inferences which the unhappy gentleman
may have deduced from certain facts, that is a point on
which we_cwahnicehxprweasss noso opinion.violent Me,rst.oßower,in her
threaten
to
fatally every hour for several days—ex-
p so vehement a wish to see Mr. Morton, that
edtexerimirreiiuns
sametde
the physicians advised Mr. Bower, whatever his private

feelings might be on the subject, to allow her to have her
own way, thinking that Mr. M.'s presence might have
the effect of subduing the extreme violence of her
manner. Mr. Bower, under the circumstances, ac-
quiesced in the wishes of the physicians, and Mr. Morton
came to his house, entered the apartment of Mrs. 8., and
remained by her bedside, with a few brief intervals,
several days and nights; Mrs. Bower being, let it not
be forgotten, all this time in a state of dreadful de-
lirium, would receive no attentions nor nursing from
any one but Mr. Morton, except in occasional in-
tervals, when she became somewhat more calm.
Daring 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, but Mr.
Morton's. On Mr. B. remarking that he ascribed the
statement to the illness under which she was labouring,
and did not place any faith in it, Mrs. Bower reiterated
the assertion with increased emphasis, and said that, as
a dying woman, it was true. Mr. Bower observed that,
if he could believe it, either Mr. Morton or himself
should, in less than an hour, be a dead man. She again
energetically declared 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 several nights
during Mr. Bower's absence from Paris, about nine
months previously. 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, unfortunately, 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 put the question to
him, whether the horrible averment of his wife was true.
Mr. Morton made no reply—ns ither admitted nor denied
the grave charge which the question implied, but that
instant rushed out of the room. Mr. Bower, on the im-
pulse of the moment, snatched up a knife which was
lying on the table, and rushed after Mr. Morton, over-
taking him, as he had reached the fourth or fifth stair,
and making a deep wound in the neck, which cut the
jugular vein. Mr. Morton fell that instant, and never
spoke a word, or even uttered a groan. Mr. Bower,
acting on 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
affair. Mr. Bower and Mr. Morton had long been on
terms of the closest intimacy, and, being engaged in the
same pursuits, mutually assisted each other.
" With regard to Mrs. Bower, whose unhappy con-
dition every one must deeply deplore, it is right we
should say, that she is a lady of exceedingly amiable
manners, as well as of great accomplishments, while her
demeanour in society has always accorded with the
most rigid views of female propriety, in the estimation
of those who have been introduced to her.

"In the compliment which the Paris correspondent of
the Globe pays to Mr. Bower, we cordially concur. He
is a man of great and varied powers as a writer. His
information is extensive, and his style has always been
characterised by a vivacity, a pungency, and a raciness,
which have seldom been equalled. He is, too, a man of
high moral courage, as he has amply attested by the bold
and unflinching manner in which he has 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 have
much pleasure in adding, that he most readily and
heartily entered into all 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 ; 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 establish-
ment with which he was connected, and who discharged
the duties which devolved upon him with an unflinching,
fearless, and surpassing talent, well deserves the tribute
which we have paid to his services. Most deeply do we
deplore the fearful catastrophe which has occurred, and
very sincerely do wo sympathise with him in the dis-
tressing position in which he is placed."
The price of Public Securities was well main-
tained at the Bourse, without any remarkable varia-
tions. Tho Four-and-a-Half per Cents. opened at
1051. 15e., and closed at 1051., for the end of the
month; the Three per Cents. closed at 78f. 75c.;
Orleans Railway Shares, 1,490 f. ; Rouen, 900 f. ;
Havre, 4081. 75c.; Avignon, 5251.; Basle, 3321. 50c.;
Paris and Strasburg, 771 f. 25c.; Paris and Lyons,
861 f. 25c.; Lyons and Avignon, 650 f.; Western of
France, 687 f. 50c.•' St. Dizier to Gray, 545 f.
BUSINESS DUNE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, OCT. 4.
Charleroi and Erquelines, 16%—Dijon and Besanecn, 31/2
—East Indian, 27Th—Luxembourg, b—Lyons and Avignon,
1034—Madras, 71/2—Namur and Liege (with interest), 8—
Northern of France, 287/B—Paris end Lyons, 231/2—Paris
and Strasbourg, 30'4 Paris, Caen, and Cherbourg, 6%—
Sambre and Meuse, 103/6—Western of France, 123/1.