The Sun.
London, England, 1839-04-13 00:00:00

the country, and we call on the Members of the
House of Commons to look at the present disposi-
tion of the people, and inquire how the country
can be governed by the Tories, before they break
up an Administration of which the very feebleness
with which it is reproached is not, in our present
state of transition, a public disadvantage.

by Lord JOHN RUSSELL on Monday, Sir
ROBERT'S amendment goes on as follows :
" Resolved, that it appears to this House that the
appointment of a Committee of Inquiry by the
House of Lords, under the circumstances and for
the purposes above mentioned, does not justify her
Majesty's Ministers in calling upon this House,
without previous inquiry, or even the production of
the information which this House has required, to
make a declaration of opinion with respect to one
branch of the public policy of the Executive Go-
vernment, still less a declaration of opinion which is
neither explicit as to the principles which it pro-
fesses to approve, nor definite as to the period to
which it refers ; and that it is not fitting that this
House should adopt a proceeding which has the
appearance of calling in question the undoubted
right of the House of Lords to inquire into the
state of Ireland in respect to crime and outrage,
more especially when the exercise of that right by
the House of Lords does not interfere with any
previous proceeding or resolution of the House of
Commons, nor with the progress of any Legislative
measure assented to by the House of Commons, or
at present under its consideration."
We admit that this is very cunningly contrived.
It impugns not the conduct of the Government as
to Ireland, it pledges Sir ROBERT and his friends
to no future line of conduct. It turns altogether
on a matter of form, hurts no party feeling, and
invades no political principle. It is calculated
to catch as many votes as possible, without seem-
ing the least desirous to turn out the Ministry and
seize the Government. Under this fair outside,
however, there lurks much guile, and not a little
hypocrisy. Sir ROBERT PEEL is fully aware
that neither Mr. SHAW'S nor Lord RODEN'S
motion, had for its
.object to procure information,
but both were intended as mere pegs on which
to hang the speeches the Orangemen were pre-
pared to fire off against the Government. No
opposition whatever was made to Mr. SHAW'S
motion, and the contents of all the papers he
asked for are as well known to him and his friends
as if they had been printed for a month. If Lord
RODEN had really required any information, or had
there been anything to investigate, there would pro-
bably have been no objection to grant a Committee,
but the multitude of details contained in his speech,
each of which he magnified into a charge against
the Government, proved that he and his friends
have nothing whatever to learn. Both Mr.
SHAW'S and Lord RODEN'S motions were
mere pieces of technical hypocrisy, and Sir ROBERT
PEEL carries out their scheme to its appro-
priate concluslon by his Amendment. Why had
they not, and why has he not, the manliness to
avow that the whole affair is a mere attack of one
faction or party on the other ? Why does he
not submit a motion of substantial censure on
the Ministers, instead of attempting to turn them
out on a barren technicality ? We never gave
him much credit for inventive genius, or ascribed a
spirit of lion-hearted independence to WELLING-
TON'S cad, but we did not suppose that he would de-
grade himself to be the cunning and subservient instru-
ment of odious Orange hypocrisy. It is useless for
him and his friends to blink the question, and will
be disgraceful to them to bring on the community
all the evils of a change in an administration on no
other grounds than that the mock inquiries of
Messrs. RODEN and SHAW are still pending. If
Sir ROBERT have nothing better to offer to the
House and the country but a resolution that it is
premature to pronounce an opinion on the mode in
which the Irish Government has been adminis-
tered, after that Government has been hotly perse-
cuted and condemned, lie should refrain from voting
at all.

The public will read with great satisfaction the
explanation which Lord PALMERSTON gave last
night in the House of Commons, on laying some
papers on the table, of the eonduct of the French
Government in reference to the insult offered to
the British -flag off Vera Cruz. The apology,
Lord PALMERSTON said, was alike honour-
able to the Government offering it, and
the Government receiving it. Count SEBAS-
TIANI said he was ordered by the King of
the FRENCH to make known to the British Go-
vernment the deep regret which her MAJESTY
felt at the removal of a Mexican pilot from the
Express packet. We rejoice at this honourable
termination of an unpleasant affair; and can but
feel satisfied that the Minister did not act on the
high-flown and hasty advice of my Lord LYND-
IIURST.

We noticed yesterday that Lord MELBOURNE
had stated in the House of Peers that the Emperor ,
of Russr.A. had given satisfactory explanations on
the subject of the Russian, who had instigated the
Prince of CABOOL against the English Govern-
ment of India. We have since heard that
a dispatch has recently been received from Count
NESSELRODE, disavowing, in the name of ,
his master, the Russian intriguer, who has been
endeavouring to excite the hostility of the Asiatic
Princes to our Indian Government. Such a circum-
stance makes us hope that there may be no
necessity to prosecute the war in the East, or if
prosecuted that it may be of short duration. At
any rate, it is creditable to the Ministers that they
have obtained such an explicit disavowal from the
Prime Minister of the Emperor NICHOLAS.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL is about, we hear, to pub-
lish a letter he has written to his Constituents at
Stroud, with reference to the present state of poli-
tical parties. We trust that his Lordship will take
this opportunity of explaining what he has been
misunderstood to have said on the principle of fina-
lity, and will return to the use of that strong
and hearty language which formerly obtained for
him the cordial support of the Liberals. We shall
look for this pamphlet with great interest, and so will
the public, as an exposition of the political princi-
ples of Lord JOHN RUSSELL under the new cir-
cumstances in which political parties are placed.

We request the attention of our readers to a re-
port of the proceedings which took place at the
Hackney Petty Sessions, on Thursday last. The
Church-rate war, it is evident, has, as the report
states, commenced in earnest, and will, we trust, be
vigorously carried on. There are symptoms of more
than ordinary activity among the objectors to this
" nefarious exaction"—we thank the Times for that
happy definition—which lead us to hope that the
time is fast approaching when that culpable partici-
pation on the part of Dissenters, in a system of re-
ligious compromise which has been but too com-
mon, will be exchanged for a general and determined
resistance, at all hazards, to claims which cannot be
submitted to without a violation of the highest and
holiest principles implanted in the breast of man by
the hand of his Creator.

Hitherto many opponents of Church-rates have
satisfied themselves with a verbal protest against
the injustice of compelling those who not only de-
rive no benefit from the State Church, but who
hold such a Church to be altogether at variance
with the tenor and spirit of Christianity, to
assist in keeping it up ; but at the same time they
have handed over the amount of the unrighteous im-
post to the collector, taking no active steps to get
rid of it, and, perhaps, hardly thinking about the
matter at all until the next rate was called for. A
more manly and energetic spirit—thanks to the ran-
corous persecution resorted to by the endowed
Priesthood—is now diffusing itself throughout the
Dissenting community. When it becomes general,
there is an end to Church-rates, and to everybther
ecclesiastical grievance.
A very decisive proof of the spread of this feel-
ing may be gathered from the report of the Hack-
ney transactions. It thence appears that some of
the leading Dissenting Ministers of the metropolis
have felt it a duty to come forward and publicly
bear their testimony against the iniquity of levying,
contributions on Dissenters to support the Esta-
blished Church. The Rev. Dr. Cox and the Rev.
Dr. PRICE, the one representing the Baptists, the
other the Independents, appeared to the summonses
issued against them by the Church authorities. The
former gentleman stated that he had been a resident
in the parish for upwards of twenty-seven years,during
all which time he had carefully abstained from in-
terfering in parochial matters, and that he would
not have come forward at this time had not
religion been involved in the question at is-
sue. This was the reason,' said the Re-
verend Gentleman, " why he, a minister of
of the Gospel came forward to denounce those
rates as iniquitous and illegal. It was iniquitous
for a Church, calling itself the Church of CHRIST,
to demand support from those who conscientiously
objected to its tenets. The Church of CHRIST had
nothing to do with Acts of Parliament. It did not
authorise the violation of men's consciences. In
former times they burnt the heretics, but now they
were content to rob them." The crowded Court
responded to these sentiments by loud and irre-
pressible cheers at the close of every sentence,
until at last one of the Magistrates was under the
necessity of requesting the Rev. Gentleman to pursue
a less excitinc, line of defence; to which he very pro-
perly replied, that those who had instituted these op-
pressive proceedings must be answerable for the ex-
citement which they occasioned.
There are other important points arising out of
these transactions which we should have noticed
could we have afforded the space, but we have no
doubt they will suggest themselves to those readers
who take an interest in this question. The conduct
of the Churchwardens must meet with universal re-
probation. It was not only manifestly illegal, but
full of trickery and partiality.

If he, however, thinks it indecent to pronounce
an opinion, his friends do not. Those whom
his resolution is to support have already con-
demned the Irish Government, and his resolution
administers to them a severe reproof for their
haste. How can the dull Mr. Sergeant JACK-
sox, or the vivacious Recorder of Dublin, or
the slow Dr. LEFROY, except from mere party
motives, join him in declaring that the
Ministers are not justified on calling on the House
for an opinion with respect to the policy of the Irish
Executive, when they have, over and over again,
with much less information than at present, called
on the House for such au opinion? In fact, they
[ have bored the House and the country with their
complaints and eliminations. Perhaps they mo-
destly think that complaints and charges only are to
be made, and that the instant a defence is offered
and a judgment required, they are to vote
that it is not right to hear. This may be
Irish fair play, but we hope the English Members
will not assent to it. They like impartiality, and
will not say, when Ministers are condemned by the
vote of the Lords, that they are not justified in
asking the Commons to give a different or a similar
verdict. Mr. SHAW would, in fact, on the 13th
of March, have asked the House of Com-
mons for a verdict against the Ministers, but
both he and Sir ROBERT PEEL knew that it
could not have been obtained. It is impu-
dent as well as hypocritical, therefore, when
both were ready to pronounce a condemnation two
months ago, to declare that the Ministers are now
not justified in asking an opinion of the House of
Commons. We shall see next week whether this
cunning contrivance of the crafty PEEL does not
stultify both himself and his friends.

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1839

possible approach which can be made to the
line of boundary described in the fifth article of t
the treaty of Ghent, or to any part thereof, '
which yet remains to be decided, commencing
their survey at that point between the degrees 46 and 47
North Latitude, and 70 and 71 West Longitude of Green-
wich, or in any other spot, where the boundary first ap-
pears unfixed and indefinite.
" And it is hereby farther agreed, that in the event of the
two Commissioners differing at any point upon the directions
of the boundary line, which will afford the nearest possible
approach to that line described in the fifth article of the
treaty of Ghent, they shall immediately draw up a re-
port, or reports, jointly, or separately, of the point of dif-
ference between them, and shall lay the same before the
umpire, hereinafter named and appointed ; and immediately
that the said umpire shall have notified his decision upon the
point of difference between the two Commissioners, and not
till then, the two Commissioners shall proceed upon their sur-
vey, adopting at once and without reply, the decision of the
said umpire, to all intents and purposes as if it had been
made by themselves on mutual consent, and shall draw
and mark out the line of boundary accordingly ; and on
any flesh difference of opinion upon any point of the
said boundary line, or upon the question of what
is the nearest possible approach to the line de-
scribed in the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent,
the same couro of reference to the umpire shall be pur-
sued, and his decision shall be considered as final by the
said Commissioners; and upon all, and each, and every
point of difference they shall adopt the decision of
the umpire as if made by themselves, and instantly
and without hesitation proceed to mark out and fix
the line of boundary accordingly, till the whole
shall be completed. And her Britannic Majesty,
and the Government of the United States hereby
agree to regard the line of boundary thus drawn out, to be
to all intents and purposes the real and true limits of their
respective dominions, according to the intent of all pre-
ceding treaties, conventions, &c."
The appointment of the umpire, and the method of mark.
ing the limits, when determined, would be easily provided
for by the other articles ; but it is necessary never
to lose sight of the fact that before the survey is com-
menced, the treaty which is to insure its finality, must be
sanctioned by Congress, or we again begin to fight with
shadows.

Madrid Journals of the 4th inst. have been re-
ceived, but their contents are politically unimpor-
tant. A change of Ministers is still talked of, but
nothing positive is known upon the subject.
The courier who quitted Badajoz on the 23d
March was stopped by the Carlists. The de-
spatches were burnt at Jamicejo ; all the escort were
shot. The Captain-General, by way of reprisal,
took 12 Carlist prisoners by lot, and sent them to
the place where the escort had been shot, they ex-
perienced the same fate.
" The official account of the re-capture of Melilla
has been at last received and published in the
despatch of ALVAREZ,. the Captain-General of
Granada, to the Minister of War. This impor-
tant penal settlement on the coast of Africa was
re-taken on the 25th ult. by Don SANTIAGO
DE SORIA, Captain of the Royal Navy com-
manding the expedition, consisting of the guarda-
costas Soberano, Isabel 11., Christina, Proserpina,
Neptune, and the Carmeno and Santa Ana packets,
which conquered all the obstacles of want of pro-
visions, of the elements, the unfavourable season,
and geographical position.
" The Governor, ad interim, writes that at seven
A.M., on the 22d of March, the troops commenced
landing, but that about noon a storm arose (a
Levantei), and blew off the vessels, with part of
the troops for disembarkation and about three hun-
dred of the mutineers ; that in this state of things
he occupied the first, second, and third lines, sta-
tioning 150 of those that remained in the place in
a building, garrisoning the whole fortress by the
Queen's troops. Thus natters continued. till the
25th, when, on the arrival of a felucca of war, the
rebels were put on board the vessels in the bay, and
conducted to Charafinas, where the Spanish vessels
of war were stationed.
" At Valencia some fresh and seriousdisturbances
are said to have broken out. General INFANTES,
a Deputy of high repute, has been named second
in command of that city and province, for which he
set out on Monday in the diligence. He is a man
of great discretion and talent, and may do good if
he reaches it safely, as La Mancha is again overrun
by facciosos, who, on the 26th, took four passen-
gers in the Andalusian mail-coach and cruelly ill-
treated them. The Estremadura mail was also
taken and burnt by the Carlists in the mountains
on this side of Truxillo."

We have received from our Paris Correspondent
an account of a public dinner got up in the French
metropolis in honour of Lord BROUGAM and Mr.
LEADER. The dinner took place on Wednesday
in the Great Saloon of the Feres Provencaux ;
above fifty good Reformers were present, and but
for the shortness of the notice the number would
have been five hundred. Unfortunately Lord
BROUGHAM had been attacked with rather severe
indisposition in the course of the day, and was
unable to attend. Mr. LEADER, however, was
present, and was placed with M. ARAGO on his
right, and M. CORMENIN on his left ; MM. MAR-
TIN, of Strasburg, GARNIER PAGES, CORALLY,
BACHELU LARABIT, and a considerable number
of Deputies, were present, and M. LAFFITTE,
JOLY, and CARNOT, sent letters expressing their
great regret that unavoidable engagements pre-
sented them from having the honour of dining with
the illustrious strangers. The report of their
speeches made on this occasion, however, we must
defer till Monday.

The French Government is doomed to encounter
a series of mortifications. On Wednesday an action
was brought against the National, the Europe, and
the Echo Francais, the first for publishing, and the
others for copying an article in the form of an ad-
dress to the army against the Treaty of the twenty-
four Articles. The prosecution was conducted by
the Advocate-General, and though the most
strenuous supporters of the liberty of the Press
could not deny that there was ample grounds for it,
the jury returned a verdict of acquittal in favour of
all the Journals. This clearly proves the bad
odour in which the Government is in with the
people. When in the clearest cases of guilt
Julies cannot be found to bring in a verdict of con-
demnation, authority is shorn of that moral influ-
ence without which it becomes powerless for all the
great purposes of good government. Such are the
fruits of the September laws—those puny conco2-
tions of short-sighted despotism I
The Moniteur of Thursday publishes a tele-
graphic despatch from the French Ambassador in
London to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, an-
nouncing the signing of a treaty of peace between
France and Mexico. It is conceived as follows :
" A treaty of peace has been signed at Vera Cruz be-
tween Admiral Baudin and the Mexican Plenipotentia-
ries, Gorostiza and Pictoria."

There is not a syllable of original comment upon
this important announcement in any of the Paris
evening papers of Thursday ! •
Only twelve individuals of the hundreds recently
arrested in Paris have been detained for trial. All
the rest have been set at liberty.
On Thursday M. DUPIN was to entertain at
dinner Lord BROUGHAM, Mr. HUME, Dr. Bow-
RING, and Mr. ELLICE. Several Members of
both Chambers were invited to meet them.