The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-19 00:00:00

LONDON,
TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 19, 1830.

His Majesty's packet, Pelhanz, has arrived
with a mail from Mexico. She sailed from
Vera Cruz on the 20th November and from the
Havannah on the 29th. By a letter received at
the North and South American Coffee-house,
from Falmouth, dated the 17th inst., upon the
arrival of the packet we learn that the Pelham
has brought 55,000 dollars on merchants'
account, and only one passenger. The country
was in a state of tranquillity at the time of her
departure.
Mexican Papers to die 12th Nov., and Vera
Cruz Papers to the 20th Nov., have also been
received at the above Coffee-house, but they do
not contain any information of consequence,
except that the garrison of Campeachy had de-
manded a Central Government.

We understand by the private letters from
Mexico, that the Mines are in great prosperity.
The next Packet will bring a further supply of
dollars.

According to letters from Mons, in the Ne-
therlan&, by the French Mail, it appears that
the garrison of that town has been under arms
for several nights, fearing that a disturbance
would take place.

The Prefect of Toulon has given notice to
the Commissary of Marseilles, stating that he
has received information that some armaments
are going forward at Algiers, and recommending
to double the convoy of the shipping under
sailing orders.

By the Essex Herald of this clay we per-
ceive that Mr. WESTERN has addressed another
long letter to his Constituents, from which we
have only room for the following extract :

" I am confident that neither manufacturer nor mer-
chant will make any profit till manufactures return a high
money price ; nor will workmen and labourers of any de-
scription have comfort and plenty till their labour bears a
high money price ; nor will any trade prosper till
all products of industry from the plough, the
loom, and the sail, bear a high money price. This
seeming paradox grows out of our peculiar situation. A
rise in the money price would be in effect no advance in
the real price, either of commodities or labour, but would
operate in a direct contrary manner. It would be a di-
minution of taxes, by diminishing the value of the money
in which taxes are paid."

We have given in another column extracts
from the French, Dutch, and German Papers•
The following, from our Paris Correspondent,
has reference to the Ministry and the Army :

" PARIS, JAN. 16.

" I am aware that much of what is passing
at this moment in France, although deeply inte-
resting to Frenchmen from its tendency, to them
so obvious, towards a great national crisis, is
only calculated to arrest the attention of fo-
lreigners by its results. One of the measures,
however, ascribed to the present Ministry appears
to me to deserve some consideration from the
importance of the interests involved in it, as
well as from the analogy it bears to our own
manners and institutions. I allude to a question
which has lately been agitated as to the proposal
of a law for an alteration in the mode of raising the
annual contingent for the service of the army. You
are probably aware that according to the present
system the number of men required are obtained
by means of a personal levy, not materially dif-
ferent in principle from the manner in which the
deficiencies in the English militia force are an-
nually supplied ; the individual on whom the
ballot happens to fall being entitled, as with us,
to provide a substitute in all respects equal to
to himself, if he can find the means of paying
the premium or bounty, which amounts, I
understand, on the average, to 1,0001., or about
401. By the new regulations it is proposed to
abolish the privilege of serving by substitute,
and to introduce in its stead an immunity from
personal service on the payment of a sum of
15,0001., which, when all chances are taken into
consideration, may perhaps be no disadvantage
to the party concerned ; as, according to the
present law, the principal is not absolutely re-
leased by the acceptance of his substitute, but
continues to he in many respects responsible for
him, and particularly, in case of desertion, may be
' called upon either to serve himself, or provide
a second substitute. This part of the law,
' as well as that which relates to the voluntary

renewal of the soldier's engagement after the
expiring of his limited time of service, has always
been liable to a variety of abuses, and has given rise
to numerous exactions which it is the object of the

proposed amendment to remedy or remove. At
present it is a well known fact, so much has the
military spirit in this country declined, that a
French soldier who has finished his legal term of
service, 'can scarcely be bribed by any considera-
tion of a pecuniary nature to renew his engage-
ment even for a limited period. In England I
have reason to believe that the case is materially
different ; and I do not think we have any rea-
son to congratulate ourselves on the comparison.
With us the militia force has always been regarded
as a great nursery for the regular service ; and
can remember the period when there was a sys-
tematic gradation from the ranks of the volun-
teer corps and the local militia, who were only
called upon for a few days' training and exercise,
in what was regarded as a sort of holiday suit,
who were seldom on duty, excepting in the long
days of summer, and were scarcely ever moved
beyond a day's march from their own homes—
to the ordinary militia and fencible regiments, who
were only engaged for limited periods and could
not be called out upon foreign service ; and from
them to the permanent and unlimited engagement
of the troops of the line. It is true that our young
men have never sustained the rigours of a na-
tional conscription, to inspire them with a deep-
seated disgust for the life of a soldier : the mi-
litia ballot, like the system of impressment, is
not perhaps capable of being defended, con-
sistently with the first principles of the British
Constitution ; but in practice the ballot has never
pressed heavily on any dais of the community,
as is proved by the very moderate sum demanded
as the bounty for a substitute to serve in the
militia.

" In France it has been a constant subject of
complaint with every individual who has filled
the office of Minister of War since the period
of the restoration, that there was a decided dis-
inclination among the troops to renew their mili-
tary engagements, after the expiry of the period
prescribed by law. By the letter of the law it
is declared, that no premium or bounty of any
kind shall be given to the troops as an induce-
ment either to enlist in the first instance, or after-
wards to renew their engagement ; but a method
has been adopted for the purpose of overcoming
the repugnance of the soldier to prolong his
term of service, which is in fact a manifest in-
fraction of the spirit, as well as an evasion of
the letter of the la v. This is effected by the
establishment of two rates of pay, substantially
different in amount, the lower rate being given

to those who enter the service in virtue of the
compulsory effect of the ballot, or as the sub-
stitutes of those who are thus compelled to
enter ; while the higher rate is reserved for
those who voluntarily renew their engage-
ment. Even this inducement, however, was
found to be almost utterly ineffectual, and a more
daring infraction of the law has been resorted to,
authorized by royal Ordonnance, for the purpose
of attaining the object in view. This is accom-
plished by estimating the present value of the
additional pay which is given to the re-engaged
soldier, and advancing him the half of the
amount at the moment of his renewing his en-
gagement, while the other half is continued to
him in the form of pay. After all, however,
the desire of maintaining a large body of troops
distinct and apart from the great mass of the
citizens, has signally failed in its operation ; and
in practice it is known to be only the mauvais
sr jets of the army, who are tempted by the pro-
spect of a few days indulgence in drunkenness,
to accede to the terms held out to them by the
existing regulations. During the angry discus-
sions which have taken place since the accession
of the present Ministry, as to their probable sta-
bility in power, and the grounds on which they
relied for maintaining it, the feelings of the army
have been repeatedly alluded to by both parties,
and it has been broadly insinuated by the sup-
porters of the Cabinet that the troops were
deeply imbued with royalist and monarchical
principles. To favour this impression, public
dinners have of late been repeatedly given in
Paris by the Colonels of the household troops
to the officers of corresponding rank in the regi-
ments of the line, and again by the latter in
return—at which toasts have been given, and
sentiments 'delivered, as decidedly favourable to
the existing order of things as Prince Polignac
himself could desire. The prudence or expe-
pediency of such a display of political feeling on
the part of the field officers of the army I con-
ceive to be more than questionable, especially as
it is well known that such sentiments are far
from being entertained either by the subaltern
and other inferior officers, or even by a large
proportion of the Marshals of France and other
General Officers, whose influence on any emer-
gency must be so great over those branches of
the service which are to be regarded as the
standing army of France. And if the feelings
of the private soldier are to be taken into ac-
count, some idea may be formed of them from
the anxiety he evinces to abandon his military
character, and return to the duties of a private
station.

" I ought to have mentioned that on every levy
of 60,000 men there is on the average a fifth
part or 12,000 who serve by substitute. These
substitutes are procured by individuals who make
a trade of going into Alsace, Dauphiny, and Lor-
raine, for the purpose of engaging the number
required to supply the deficiencies of Paris and
the districts on this side the Loire, where the
dislike to the military service is greater, or where
perhaps the superior wealth of the inhabitants
enables them to purchase the services of their
poorer countrymen in the more distant pro-
vinces, in the same way that Ireland at present
furnishes more than its regular numerical pro-
portion of recruits to the ranks of the British
army. This is a subject which is far from being
exhausted ; and 1 shall probably return to it on
some early opportunity."

Prince LEOPOLD left his residence, at Clare-
mont, yesterday, on a visit to the Earl of DARNLEY, at
his seat, at Sandgate, near Folkestone, Kent.
The Marquis of CIIA NDOS had an interview
yesterday, at the Treasury, with the Duke of WELLINGTON.

The Marquis WELLESLEY and Mr. Serjeanl
BOSANCWEW transacted business yesterday at the Treasury,