The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-27 00:00:00

who take an interest in this great project, the fol-
lowing passages, from page 5 of that work, will be
acceptable. Mr. Andrews himself extracts them
from an author unknown to me, whom he calls " a
recent and able writer :"
" In this country, ever since the first exploration of the
Valley of the Euphrates, by Gen. Chesney, the advantages
of such a route to railway or steam communication has not
ceased to press itself upon all thoughtful and intelligent
, minds. Indian railways, which were brought to the notice
of Lord Fitzgerald, the President of the Board of Contro
in 1842; seem, however, to have been the basis of legiti-
mate projects of overland routes, as contra-distinguished
from mere visionary schemes.
" The first edition of Mr. W. P.:Andrews's work, ' Indian
Railways, as connected with the Power and Stability of
the British Empire in the East, the Development of its
Resources, and the Civilisation of its People, with an An-
alysis of the Projects now claiming Public Confidence,' ap-
peared early in 1864. This was the first great step which
finally led to the project of establishing a communication
between the railways of India and those of Europe. The
line of Rajmahal, and by the valley of the Ganges, in Ben-
gal, which was orginally recommended by Mr. Andrews,
was, it is true, for a time suspended by the Mirzapore
direct project of Mr. R. M. Stephenson ; but it (the Rajma-
hal line) was that which ;was ultimately adopted by the
authorities, and Mr. R. M. Stephenson was ordered to carry
it out. Mr. Andrews's energy was, however, only thrown
thereby into a new and more important channel, and he
was enabled to carry out a favourite project of a Scinde
railway, from whence has arisen the still more recent
scheme of a connection between that railway, the Valley
of the Euphrates, and the Mediterranean.
" Not that there was any want of projectors at home
Mr. William Pare, of the Seville Iron Works, in 3:Malin,
elaborated a scheme of a Calais, Constantinople, and Cal -
cutta Railway, 1842 ; and this was afterwards; in 1845,
prolonged to Pekin, under the designation of ' The Atlas
Railway.' Mr. Alexander F. Campbell ' proposed a rail-

way from England to India' to the Honourable Board of

Directors of the East India Company, in letters and maps.
of the 6th September, 1840, 25th March, 1845, and 25th
April, 1845 ; and in 1851 Mr. James Wyld published a map
with the railways laid down as proposed by Mr. Campbell,
♦iz., from Ostend, via Vienna, Belgrade, Constantinople,
across Asia Minor to Aleppo, and along the Valley of the
Euphrates, skirting the seaboard of Persia, and Beloochis-
tan to Kurrachee, and thence to Calcutta."

And now, sir, although, so far as I am aware, the
paragraph above extracted in which my name occurs
is the earliest in type in which I am mentioned in
connection with this great project, it will be evident
from what I have herein stated that I by no means
hid my candle under a bushel. The first publica-
tion I ever saw or heard of on the subject was in
1845 or 1846, in the shape of a small pamphlet by
a Mr. Baldwin, of Nant y Glo, in South Wales,
which I regret I have not now at hand.
In Mr. Sankey's letter, which has called forth
this, I perceive great earnestness, and I shall be
happy to join with him and any others who have
made the subject a study, in a vigorous attempt to
complete the intervening links in the vast chain of
direct railway communication between London and
Calcutta and Canton. When I first thought on
this subject, there was not a single mile of railway
constructed on the continents of Europe or Asia.
Now we have lines stretching to not a great dis-
tance from Constantinople on the European side ;
from Calcutta to the north of India on the other. I
believe that Sir R. M. Stephenson is now 'engaged
on a projected line between Calcutta and Canton.
I know that lines through Asia Minor have been
surveyed, and I have reason to think that the
Shah of Persia is desirous of having them extended
through his dominions. Surely by a judicious and
concentrated effort we may achieve the grand pro-
ject in its integrity.

WILLIAM PARE.
Datchet Lodge, Windsor, Jan. 25, 1865.

The Portuguese Ambassador at Rome, Field
Marshal Duke de Saldanha•

TO THE EDITOR OF THE WEEKLY REGISTER.
Sir,—ln you paper of the 28th ult., I read in the article
of news headed " Rome," the following passage :
"On the 16th inst. a grand reception took place at the
Farnese Palace, on the part of the Royal Family of Naples.
On the same evening his Excellency the Field Marshal the
Duke of Saldanha, Ambassador of his Faithful Majesty,
near the Holy See, opened the noble rooms of the Torlonia
Palace in Borgo, by a splendid feast. The chief dignitaries
of the Church, the members of the diplomatic corps, the
Roman princes and nobles, &c., filled the rooms, of which
the Duchess of Saldanha, !as well as her husband, did the
honours in the most amiable and hospitable manner. The
duke is said to be on the point of leaving Rome to proceed
to London, to fill there also the post of Portuguese Ambas-
sador. 'He will leave,' says a letter in the Unita Cattolica,
a most lasting rec)llection of himself as a grand seigneur,
and a zealous and distinguished Catholic."' (The italics are
mine.)
This extract suggests to me (as it will suggest to any
Portuguese acquainted with the chequered and eventful
antecedents of the Ambassador) most curious and not over-
edifying reflections. The first thought that offers itself to
everyone is the oddity of the juxtaposition of the two re-
ceptions ; one by the legitimate and revolutionary despoiled
Royal Family of Naples; the other by the revolutionary
representative of a usurping Government, imposed on my
reluctant country, through the instrumentality of the
same revolutionary Duke, by the most revolutionary, and
most scandalous quadruple alliance. No doubt, the chief
dignitaries of the Church, the Diplomatic Corps, the Roman
princes and nobles passed, with the greatest composure,
from presenting to the betrayed Royal Family their re-
spects amidst expressions of sympathy, to sipping the ices
of the revolutionary Ambassador, amidst floods of light
and flattery. I wonder, however, whether any of the com-
pany reflected that in those ices, and cakes, and sweet-
meats, and splendour, they were enjoying the fruits of the
spoil of Convents, Monasteries, Cathedrals, Churches, Con-
fraternities, most impiously confiscated and robbed by the
Ambassador himself and his freemasonic party ?
Yes, whilst the few remaining old religious men, expel-
led by Saldanha and his friends from their convents and
property, are living in poverty and misery ; while the few
old nuns still existing in some convents are almost starv-
ing, having been plundered by the most liberal thieves
whom Saldanha has helped into domination, and now re-
presents at Rome ; he is spending sums and exacting sala-
ries (from a court and Government that wished to keep
him away at any price) out of all proportion with the
means of the country ; has, notwithstanding that the revo-
lutionists have swallowed all the riches and possessions of
the Portuguese Church, in Portugal itself and her colonies,
they are making loans upon loans on the most ruinous
terms, every year or every six months (vide Times of the
day before yesterday, where a new one of theso loans is
spoken of).
How has this " great duke" ofyesterdayrisen to his duke-
dom ? Why, by his services as a good soldier (which he un-
doubtedly is), to the revolutionary party, under the wings of
Lord Palmerston and Louis Philippe and their perfidious
quadruple alliance. Without him Don Pedro and his Free-
masons would not have been able to abolish the religious
orders, to plunder the Church and the State in Portugal, to
open the doors of the kingdom to the Protestant propa-
ganda, to bring the country to the present fearful condition
of infidelity, demoralisation, and ruin.
Saldanha was merely a cadet son, having only his pay
and no other, or hardly any other property, being at the
same time the most lavish spendthrift, to whom no money
is ever sufficient. I really think that the first real property
he possessed was that of a convent and its land, which he
shared, or bought for a song, in the scramble for the Church
plunder in 1834. He had not, it is true, been so well ap-
portioned as his fellow-revolutionists Palmella and Car-
valho, for instance, who got some of the most splendid
estates in the country, belonging to the Augustinian
Monasteries of Lisbon and Coimbra, but he had one of the
convents at least, which I do not know whether he still
possesses or not. His brother-in-law, Mr. John Smith—
whom he made a sort of secretary of his, and took with
him to Portugal in 1831 or thereabouts (after having been
lodging at his father's house, as a refugee then in England,
which led to the marriage of the duke with his present
wife)—has also got a convent at Alenquen, where he re-
sides, and where the duke has been staying with him for
some time. Now Mr. John Smith had not, it seems, much
money out of which to buy a Convent, were it not under
the fostering influence of his now brother-in-law, the
"distinguished and zealous Catholic" Ambassador at Rome,
who gives splendid feasts to the Cardinals and' Roman
Princes, &c., at the expense of the despoiled Portuguese
Church and nation.
It is notorious in Portugal that Saldanha consented in
going to Rome as Ambassador, at the supplication of the
other preciou'S masonic Duke Louie, and of the two revo-
lutionary Kings, father and son, on condition of having his
numerous debts paid off by the Government, a good sum
of money given him for preparation and the voyage, and a
large salary, for those feasts he is giving, attended by the
principal English Catholics at Rome, who have such short
memories as not to remember that the present Duke, _
be-
sides having been the main instrument for the triumph
the masonic revolution and usurpation in Portugal, has
f
made three or four revolutions afterwards, under • eren!
banners and pretexts, being now Ambassador at Rome be