The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-14 00:00:00

THE BRITISI

RY LEGION.

" I have, under this day's date, communicated to the
Military Intendant-General the following :
" I have submitted to the Queen Regent your letter
bearing date the Bth of the current month, relative to the
claims of the officers and other individuals of the disbanded
British Legion, some of whom are resident in England,
and others in the fortified town of St. Sebastian. Her
Majesty, having well considered your letter, decrees the
following :
" 1. By a royal decree of the 11th of the present month,
she has been pleased to accept the resignation of Don An-
tonio de Mores, appointed by a royal order of the 18th of
September last, •to act in conjunction with her Majesty's
Minister in London, for the purpose of regulating and
paying off all claims of officers and other persons of the
disbanded British Auxiliary Legion.' In consequence of
which Don Eusebio Xialines, Commissary of War, will
proceed to that capital for the purpose of executing that
important commission, with an addition to hispay of 12,000
rials annually. During his absence his place will be filled
by the principal Minister to the new British Legion, Don
Baldomer Martin Lopez, as acting Commissary of War.
" 2. It being indispensable for the examination of the
accounts of the creditors of the Legion, as also for the
purpose of granting the necessary certificates of pensions
awarded to those disabled in the service, to the widows
and orphans of those killed in action during the campaign,
4c., the whole of the accounts and documents now in
Vassessibn of the—English Commissaries, Anthony Fax-
hardo, Robert Grindly, and Charles Black, I direct you
will compel to be given over to the above-named Commis-
sary Ximines, with an inventory of the same, for the pur-
pose of arranging the accounts so sacredly entrusted to
the above-named English Commissaries.
" 3. If Commissary Ximines is opposed by the English
Commissaries in complying with the above order, he 'is
authorised to apply and get resources from the General
commanding the coast of Cantabria, to enforce this Royal
Decree by military authority, this being not only to do
justice to the individuals of the old Legion, but also to
insure a speedy and immediate payment.
" 4. It being of the greatest urgency to proceed with the
embarkation of such officers of the said legion as remain in
St. Sebastian awaiting the settlement of their claims, you
are hereby directed to place in the military chest of St.
Sebastian the necessary funds, giving to each officer a suf-
ficient sum to procure a passage ; the remainder of their
arrears will be paid in London _by the Commission there as-
sembled for the satisfaction of all claims upon the govern-
ment on account of the Legion.
"sth and last, the General Commanding the army of ope
rations on the coast of Cantabria will place himself in com-
munication with the Minister of Finance in St. Sebastian,
for the purpose of compelling all officers and individuals, by
military authority, to embar without delay.
" I communicate this to you by order of her Majesty ;
and you are hereby directed rigorously to comply with the
3d and sth articles particularly of this her royal order.
" God preserve you for many years:
(Signed) " RAMONT, Minister of War.
" Madrid, Nov. 20, 1837."
" To the General Commanding the Army of
operations, coast of Cantabria."

LAW OF LIBEL.

Mr. O'Connell has given notice of a motion for to-night,
for the amendment of the present Law of Libel. We ap-
prehend that the Bill about to be proposed by the Ho-
nourable and Learned Gentleman is a resumption of the
measure he brought into the House last year, and which
he carried to a division. There is no man living whose
qualifications are better adapted for accomplishing the im-
portant object thus announced than the Learned Mem-
ber for Dublin—and that whether we look to his legal ex-
perience, to the influence of his position, or to the constant
association of his great and splendid talents with the cause
of popular liberty, wherever it is endangered or infringed
—" in whatever battle," as Grattan said, "it is cloven
down, or On whatever high place its standard of redress of
grievance is to be installed." The absurdity of the present
law is not greater than the extent of individual and social
wrong which it inflicts. It is bottomed in falsehood.
In that respect it resembles a similar invention engen-
dered by the boasted " wisdom of our ancestors"—arrest
on mesne process ; it being requisite to make a per-
jured, and false allegation of criminal violence, in order
that a barbarous statute law might not too obviously
violate the provisions of Magna Charta, and the com-
mon law of the land, of which Magna Charta is a merely
written incorporation. There is scarcely a declaratory
preamble in the criminal law which is not false. A similar
enthronement of falsehood characterises the libel law. No
doubt the half-civilised barbarians who invented these legal
encroachments on the inalienable privileges of the subject
—freedom of speech and freedom of person—and couched
them in a barbarous jargon, as if to degrade language as
well as liberty, cared as little for the moral evils of making
law a public lie, and of basing it on perjury as they cared
for the rights and comforts of the serfs and vassals whom
they trampled upon by right of conquest, and whose limbs
and labours they deemed their property. Our law de-
nounces truth as a libel. Not satisfied with this startling
proposition, some of our judicial functionaries have gone
farther, and asserted that " the greater the truth, the
greater is the libel." All the evil consequences flow-
ing from the present law of libel may be traced to this
polluted source. What a legislation must that be which
proclaims its vital essence to be falsehood? What benefi-
cial system of general education could be coupled with the
authorative inculcation of such a axiom? What respect
for the tuition of useful truths could be maintained in the
face of this legal abomination ? Far different was it with
;he legislator of one of the best conducted empires of an-
cient times ; whose sole axiom and basis of government
was " Truth." Teach truth, was his doctrine,-to your chil-
dren—imbue them with it from their cradle—make them
hate a lie above all things as the greatest of social evils.
This was the whole of that ancient legislator's " national
system of education." But our legislators assert that you
must not speak truth, except under such ridiculous and
frustrative exceptions as remind us of the exception to plain
speaking enjoined to Voltaire's Candide on his arrival in
Spain. You may use liberty of speech, said his infor-
mant. Liberty for ever ! It is here like the air you breathe ;
only you must not breathe a word about the King's mis-
tresses, or your body may lose the capital excresence which
you now wear on your shoulders. The libel law ex-
ception to free speaking in England, is much the same.
We believe Mr. O'Conmcll, in the Bill brought forward
last year for reforming that libel law, introduced a clause
for allowing truth to be pleaded in justification. But
there were exceptions to the invariable application of this
principle. We do not see the necessity for the exceptions.
No good ever ultimately came from falsehood ; no ultimate
evil ever came from truth. That it prompts to a breach
of the peace is a mere forensic evasion, like the lying pre-
amble of vi et arniis alleged against a defendant arrested
on mesne proCess. No man was ever injured by having
the truth spoken of him ; or, perhaps, we might add, with
Godwin, to him. If a. man's past life will not bear sifting,
why should he not stand in his own shoes ? But we believe
the entire truth told of every man's past life (taking it with
all its accompanying and qualifying circumstances, either
of a defective education which be could not controul ; or
of a subsequent self-reform, which he could controul),
would be beneficial to him. It is not the entire truth which
would injure any man. It is the garbled, detached, suppressed,
mutilated, or distorted truth alone which injures. So much
for the abstract principle which we say ought to govern,
and might safely govern, a radical reform of the law of
libel. We might proceed (if we had space) from gene-
ralities to specialities, in order to show how the parent
falsehoood infects the whole framework of the law. But
we will conclude with an especial example of too common
occurrence, in which the absurd anomaly of the present
law of libel is not more conspicuous than its disastrous
effects upon society and upon individuals. Every one
must recollect the case of Probert, Hunt, and Thur-
tell, threatening the press with actions for libel after
the commission of their appalling crime. If we, in this
journal, under the present law of libel, were to say of
a notorious robber at a police-office, that he was so—
confining ourselves to the unembellished truth—if by so do-
ing we were by publicity to prevent burglary, robbery, or
murder, there can be no question that we should be liable
to an action. It is true that a jury might net give
either to the plaintiff or to the lawyer who might be prompted
to farm his case by managing it, more than a farthing da-
mages. They might, however, give forty shillings. In one
instance we can state that they did give forty shillings to a
subsequently convicted burglar. But whether a farthing
or forty shillings—the result would be the same ;we should
have to pay costs for doing a common duty of honest citi-
zens in frustrating crime and in warning or protecting so-
ciety. We should probably have to pay one hundred and
fifty pounds for being declared innocent. So much for
the present libel law I We apprehend we need not add an-
other word !—Morning Advertiser.

Mr. H. Phillips transfers his ser.ices from Cove
garden to Drury-lano after Christmas,