The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-25 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 1854.

April the Tenth will assuredly be regarded as a
day somewhat memorable in the History of
NAPOLEON 111., as a date not the least interesting
among those which will be commemorated in the
record of his Imperial MAJESTY'S extraordinary
vicissitudes.
April the Tenth, 1848, found him, as an exiled
Prince in London, walking the streets of that
capital, in common with so many other private
citizens, in defence of public order as a Special
Constable.
April the Tenth, 1854, found him, as a power-
ful monarch, ratifying, in his palace of the
Tuileries, a convention of alliance between his
own and the British Government.
Between those two dates, six years complete
the interval connecting together incidents so won-
derfully contrasting each other in the career of this
remarkable personage. It is something, surely, to
have passed through those six years—six years,
moreover, marked by a succession of such mar-
vellous perils, and occasionally impeded, too, by
apparently insurmountable difficulties—it is some-
thing, we say, to have passed through those six
years in a manner so entirely triumphant that
animosity is disarmed, that hatred is Silenced,
that courtly panegyrics are heard in quarters
from which formerly one was only accustomed to
listen to calumny, scurrility, and vituperation.
Superficial observers would sometimes appear
to have imagined that a retrospect from the im-
perial sceptre to the police staff had in its con-
trast something like a resemblance to the
one step from the sublime to the ridi-
culous. It is scarcely possible, however, that
any cue can seriously review the history of the
present EMPEROR of the French without deducing
from ita annals a conviction that between events
like those just particularised there is at once re-
cognisable a Perfectly harmonious consistency.
The 10th of
1848, not one jot less
than the 10th of April, 1854, attested the cor-
diality of the friend], disposition with which the
Prince Lours Nar.or,zoN has throughout regarded
the English Government. On the former occasion
when his capacities for good or evil were restricted
r
—when he stood in our capital a, a Private citizen
amenable to the laws affording him shelter, as it
were, within the sanctuary of tho Constitution
the exile testified, by his participation in the
popular movement in defence of the outraged
majesty of those benign laws, the depth of
his gratitude and the cordiality of his friend-
ship. On the latter occasion, the sincerity
of that token of goodwill towards England has
been somewhat strikingly and certainly quite con-
clusively demonstrated. The EMPEROI has pro-
claimed through a solemn decree, published in the
aleititettr, what the Prince by his personal acts,
six years ago, could only suggest to the popular
understanding, so to speak, inferentially. The
result of all which is, that under the reign of his
Imperial MAJESTY, a complete and cordial alliance
has been established between the French and Eng-
lish Governments. That alliance has, under his
auspices, been formally asserted through the
medium of a Royal and Imperial Convention.
It is an alliance so solid and practical, that
it hss accomplished an union between the

two peoples such as the world has no record
of since the period of the Crusades—blending
together, for the first time, the maritime power
of the two countries, and conducting their soldiers,
side by side, under the allied banners of the
union-jack and the tricolour, against the common
enemy of Europe, the barbarian foe of its peace,
its liberties, and its civilisation. It is something,
we repeat, to have passed through six years of
extraordinary peril, and at the end of those six
years to be grasping not simply a constable's
staff, but an imperial sceptre—and a sceptre
wielded, too, with such consummate skill that it
has come at last, at the end of those six
years, to be regarded with respect even by ,
the most virulent of the EMPEROR'S foreign
traducers, while within the boundaries of the
French empire it continues to be obeyed with
loyal devotion by a vast, a valiant, a religious, an
enlightened, and a highly-civilised population.
Others might be accused of adulation in speaking
thus in his hour of supreme success of the reign-
ing French SOVEREIGN. The charge, however,
cannot in any way be directed against ourselves.
It cannot for an instant be whispered against cur-
selves, because in speaking of this extraordinary
onlyman a
ass w
wee do now in his day of triumph, Ice speak
did of him in his day of danger and
difficulty. Our opinions are in this matter not
opinions of yesterday, they are not opinions won
suspiciously by a success that sets at defiance all
opposition. They are only avowed now as they
were avowed long since, when to give them
utterance merely gained for the unprejudieed and
independent journalist the odium of being what
was termed at the time a " base exception," in
the midst of the prevailing storm of furious and
scurrilo personality. Therefore, we maintain, our
opinions upon this subject have at least the value
of not being extorted from our judgment by the
mere violence of victory, but of being, on the
contrary, the result of perfectly logical deductions,
the fruit of calm thought, and of careful and con-
tinuous observation.

At any period there is a moral discoverable in
the contrasts presented by these wonderful viz's-
situdes. At a juncture like the present, it can-
not but be more than ever deserving of the
popular consideration. Hence have we deemed it
reasonable at this moment to direct the attention
of the English public to the marvel of those six
years which have elapsed since the 10th of April,
1848, when the Prince Lours NAPOLEON acted as
a Special Constable in the streets of London fur
the defence of Order and Law in England, and the
10th of April, 1854, on which the Emperor
NAPOLEON 111. arranged the Convention of
Alliance between France and England—a Con-
vention by which it is proposed that the two con-
tracting Governments shall restore Peace, and
Law, and Order to entire Christendom.

The drain of bullion still continues. The stock
in both departments of the Bank was, during the
week ending the 15th instant, reduced by no less
than 629,7261., leaving only 13,510,873/. on
band, and that a further diminution will be per-
ceptible on the next return is unfortunately but ,
too well known. The Times tells us, in its City
Article, that "the whole of the recent Australian
arrivals have proved inadequate to meet the de-
mand for gold. for the Continent, and a further
considerable sum has been taken to-day from the
Bank of England." It also states, in another
paragraph, that " the bar silver brought by the
last West India steamer was sold to-day for the
Continent." But how could it be otherwise ?
What reasonable expectation could be entertained
that other nations would abstain from provid-
ing themselves at our expense, or resist the
temptation to which they are subjected? We
expose the glittering prize ! We place no
restriction, no difficulty, in the way of
its acquisition ! And then we wonder that stran-
gers should avail themselves of the opportunities
afforded by the culpable apathy and indifference
of those charged with the control and manage-
ment of the national finances. It required not
the confirmation afforded by this untoward state
of affairs. Any person of ordinary experience
must have foreseen that such would be the case,
and might have foretold it without the slightest
fear of failure. Long since, we called upon the
Chancellor of the Exchequer earnestly and em-
phatically to adopt adequate precautions, either
to arrest the current or to provide an adequate
substitute, before a monetary panic, more disas-
trous even than that of 1847, shall set iu to
paralyse the trade and commerce of the country,
and to bring distress and difficulty home to every
family who depend on their daily labour for their
daily bread.
Unfortunately, however, not the slightest re-
gard has as yet been paid to these salutary warn-
ings. Mr. GLADSTONE still exhibits a perverse
obstinacy worthy of Sir CHARLES WOOD, and
either cannot or will not see the formidable shoals
and quicksands towards which he is recklessly
steering the vessel of the State. The iniquitous
Act of 1844, although never intended to be kept
in operation during a state of warfare, is still
maintained without modification or alteration of
any kind. And even now that a loan is about to
be contracted—for that is the plain and unequi-
vocal meaning of his recent announcement--he
does not ask even for the full amount of what he
has abstracted from the exchequer for the liquida-
tion of old liabilities, but permits the public
balance to be reduced by more than two millions
sterling—aye, and practically undertakes to pay
off one million per annum of that amount, in ad-
dition to bearing the entire weight of the war
expenditure !
Can we wonder if every class of security, public
and private, are seriously depressed, when a
course so impolitic and calculated to inflict
such serious injury is recklessly pursued ?
Can we feel surprised if the Directors of
the Bank of England should resolutely oppose
his plans ? Hitherto they have succeeded
in baffling him at every point, and it looks as if
similar success would attend their future efforts
in the same direction. By depressing the money-
market and raising the rate of interest at the
critical time, they completely overthrew his con-
version project, and rendered it a melancholy and
humiliating abortion. By protesting (and very
properly so) against a financial policy based on a
system of deficiency bills, and rendering tile
Government dependent on the accommodation
which the Bank might be able to afford, they
drove him into the market as a borrower, so
that the full extent of his failure might
be perceptible ; and now that they have done so,
they are making the arrangement more difficult
and costly to the country, for we find the
Bank lending a large amount of Consols, more
than a million sterling, to the " Bears" of the
Stock Exchange, and sustaining the speculators
for a fall in their unpatriotic efforts to depreciate
the value of the public funds. We also find
large quantities of money stock thrown on the
market through the gentleman who generally acts
for the Bank, and, as it is universally believed,
on
thesaeepeorunocetedoinf gtshheasßabenenk ialtrsecat
En
aTnhiefeseteffz tanodf
it only requires that the minimum rate of dis-
count should be increased. at the "Parlour"
complete the discomfiture
on Thursday, to
of the Financial Minister, and to greatly preju-
dice his already damaged reputation as a financier.
But will Mr. GLADSTONE bear these matters
patiently ? Will he still "turn his cheek to the
smiter" without any effort at a return ? If '„
does so he must be of a singularly patient
without
rament. Ho has now an opportuniA temps_ ,
0-%trying a great
even waiting for August, 1855, c
experiment.
If he merely cauflio the proposed issue of
Exchequerßills to be %nada in small denominations,
in 10/. and 20/., in 'place of 500/. and 1,000/., he
will, Mad that they will reculily and freely p& from