The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-01 00:00:00

011entaia m/6

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1852.

After all, then, Mr. DANIEL WEBSTER—to use a
very common idiomatic expression—is " singing
small" in the matter of the Lobos Islands, as he had
already been compelled to do in the matter of the Bri-
tish North American Fisheries. It is the way of all
braggarts—whether in questions of domestic policy, or
of international government. Your true blusterer,
generally, in the end, concedes. Braggadocios are, in
the majority of instances, followed up by apologies
not always dignified, or by endeavours, anything but
well considered, rather it should be said precipitate,
and it may be, now and then, even weak and perhaps
grovelling, to effect something approaching the re-
semblance of a reconciliation. So far, at any rate,
the loud-spoken Perolles of Administration are con
sistent in their inconsistency. They bow to the rule
of their " order." If they are in the outset systema-
tically violent, they are ultimately no less systemati-
'WV obsequious. Instead of beginning with mode-
ration and rising to a grand and solemn crescendo of
official indignation—they commence with an affected
burst of passion and dwindle down, rapidly and ludi-
crously, to the veriest diminuendo of political peni-
tence. In this manner, it must be confessed, they
play upon their expediency almost as wondrously as
ever did PAGANINI upon his violin—jumping as
abruptly from the mood in which
" —nobly now he emote the exalting strings,
And bade them march before his stately will"
to another in which he seemed to crowd every tone
with " whinings thin" and " palsied nods"--the
tokens of the most debilitated and degenerated senility.
In testimony of all this, it is only necessary to glance
for a moment at the document penned on the 16th of
June, 1852, and at the other penned on the 21st of
August, 1852—both emanating from Mr. DANIEL
WEBSTER in his capacity as Secretary of State at
Washington. 'Never were two papers upon the same
subject, from the same hand, within the same year, so
glstiug in their contradiction. In the first Mr.
WußSTme, was eating fire as the JACK PUDDING
of Dr. JONATHAN—in the second he is simply
eating his own wcle:e—!he former, of the two,
decidedly the pleasanter operation ! If we were to
have believed the Order of tho 167 h of June, the
guano of the Lobos Idands wl aid have been thence-
forth "quite at the service" of :he United States'
egriculterists under
the Protection of the banners
of the United States' Republic the banner all
" stars" for the white men, and (will Mrs. GRUNDY,
and, if not Mrs. GRUNDY, will Mts. STOWEallow UP
to add ?) all "stripes" for the niggers ! Under
cover of the stripes and the stars—[non sic, non sic itur
ad asira IJ—Uncle Sam was to have fattened his
fields with the guano purloined from the Peruvians—
and to have done this to any amount and for any
length of time with impunity. Such, at least, was
realty intimated, if anything at all was intimated, by
the notorious paper signed on the 16th of June
by the Secretary of State at Washington. A week
passed, and then a month, and then a quarter—and
lo I that abonlina'Je mountain of the Roman poet
which (the inountaita not the poet) appears to be
everlastingly pasturient in some quarter of the globe
or another, gave birth on the 25th of August to the
little mouse of a document addressed to J. C
Jaw-Err, Esquire, the originator of the projected
expeditiou I hereupon it turns out that the "sound
and fury" of the summer "signifies nothing" in the
atrumn. This, moreover, on the strength of Mr.
DANIEL WER3TER's onn declaration. Virtually his
letter of the 25th of August acknowledges that he was
"in the wrong"in his previous communication, but very
ad.ittoitly, we cannot say very magnanimously, he
throws the blame of all this, by implication, upon
tloe shoulders of the unfortunate Mr. JEWETT,
Briefly, it is confessed by Mr. WansTaa, that since
the occasion of his last letter " inforuestion" has
:roadbed his department, setting forth, on behalf of the
.Peruvian Government, its claims of
jurisdiction over
the Lobos Islands, and stating that in
1842 it "issued