The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-03 00:00:00

1853

clockmaker would call one streak of nonsense. A
farragd, even to the acknowledgment of its writer,
beyond the reach of explanation. It might have
been produced, he remarks, " by a madman equally
with a scholar"--or rather, as we have heard it
suggested, by both, i.e., by a scholar who has be-
come demented. Seeing the article, here particu-
larised, in Fraser, as Pope did with regard to the
flies in amber—

"One wonders how the devil it got there."
As an admirer of Regina we cannot but regret
the circumstance of this preposterous paper's
insertion. Happily, the credit of the ma-
gazine is redeemed, in the current number,
by several other contributions, some of them
distinguished by particular excellence. " A Ger-
man First of September" is a capital piece of plea-
santry. " Emily Orford" is continued. Dr. Bow-
ring makes his re-appearance as a poetical transla-
tor this time from the Cingalese. Under the
title of " By Land and Sea," we have a sort of
omnium gatherum review of some works by mo-
dern travellers. Besides this there is a tragedy,
in one act, on the legend of " Madonna Pia," a
charming little lyric on the theme " Apres Moi,"
and an agreeable anecdotal memoir of Mademoiselle
Clairon, the Rachel of the reign of Louis XV.
The September number of Fraser includes other
contributions of a less noteable character, and
closes with a resume of the labours of the session
highly complimentary to the preKent Government.

EXCLUSION OF THE "TIMIES" FROM

SPAIN.

(Front the Times.)

A telegraphic dispatch was received yesterday in
Paris, announcing that the Gazette of Madrid, of
the 29th ult., contains a Royal decree
prohibiting
the introduction and circulation of the Times in
the whole extent of the Spanish territories. We
acknowledge that we do not receive with indiffer-
ence this homage on the part of the Queen of Spain's
Government to the truth and the severity of the
remarks we have had occasion to make on some ,of
the recent acts of the Spanish authorities • and, as
it is not in the power of the Camarillo of Madrid to
affect in any perceptible degree the influence or the
independence of this journal, the formal proscrip-
tion which the Royal Gazette of Spain has deigned
to confer upon us, is precisely the most flattering
distinction it could have bestowed. It has not yet
reached us for which of our attempts to expose
those base, bigoted, and dishonest actions, which
are always so painful to the feelings of a high-
minded and enlightened Government, this honour
has been especially reserved. But several cases
have recently occurred which may have been thought
to deserve it. One day we had occasion to com-
ment on a report of the British House of Com-
mons, containing, in a condensed official statement
the sums received by Spain, and the promises she
has broken in her zealous and successful pursuit
of the slave trade ; and we showed that the
largest share of the profit, and the guilt aris-
ing from these infamous transactions may be
distinctly traced to some of the highest persons in
the kingdom, who feed their insatiable avarice with
the blood-money of kidnapped negroes. Another
day NI- e met the same persons, or their instruments
and associates, in another capacity. They arrived
cap in hand to practise on the inexhaustible credu-

lit of our countrymen, who persist in believing
mankind, and even Spanish Ministers, to be honest,
and are willing, with a little encouragement, to
swell the account of Spanish bonds with a few ad-
ditional millions for Spanish railroads. That im-
posture, too, we endeavoured to unmask, and we
should not wonder if this turns out to be our
gravest offence, for the Spanish Government is
much more sensitive to our interference with its
speculations than to our criticisms on its humanity
or its honour. Next came Mr. Soule's mission and

the correspondence which has taken place with
reference to the threatened annexation of Cuba by
the United States ; for we are alternately amazed
at the degradation of the Court of Madrid in
consenting to receive a Minister who has been
selected only to menace and insult it, and at the
inconsistency with which Spain still invokes the
assistance of England and France to perpetuate her
possession of an island which is now the last refuge
of the slave trade. Lastly, we learn by Lord
Howden's correspondence with the present Spanish
Ministers, that when Englishmen have been
tempted to Spain to defend her independence by
their valour, or to enrichher by their industry, it'

is her settled policy and determination to aeny
them Christian burial, and to inflict a last insult
on their graves. Practices of intolerant supersti-
tion have been disclosed by this correspondence
which no other Roman Catholic country would
now avow, and which even the provincial towns of
Spain, appear in many instances, to have over-
come. At Rome, under the direct authority of
the Pope, a suitable place of burial has long since
been set apart for Protestants, and the obsequies
of the dead may be decently performed. In Spaik
alone those offices are rigorously denied, and
though the Government of Isabella 11. began by
plundering the Church of its property, it sanctions
the full exercise of the rights of bigotry over the
remains of fellow-Christians.

It can matter but little to the Spanish Govern-
ment in what phraseology their conduct has been
described by this journal, and it matters not at all
to us whether our opinions are circulated in the
Spanish territories. But we will undertake to
assert that the terms we have applied to these
revolting cases are but a weak expression of
what is thought of them by the great mass
of the English public, or, at least, by such part
of the English public as have thought at all on
the subject. The generous enthuisiasm, the con-
fiding delusions, the terrible struggle, the pro-
longed sacrifices of long-past years, the reviving
hopes of another period, and the triumph of the
constitutional cause in Spain, are still not entirely
forgotten by us, though they are so, apparently, by
those who were supposed to be most interested in

the events to whichw-e refer. But it is infinitely more
grievous that Spain should have betrayed her own
cause, and failed in the work of her own regenera-
tion, than that she should have added the fault of
ingratitude to the long catalogue of her errors and
her crimes. She has often had violent, arbitrary,
and bad Governments,rbut even their offences were
in some degree dignified by the spirit she displayed
under adverse fortunes, and the pride which still
concealed as far as possible the ruin of that old and
stately house. The balance of parties, the rise or
fall of a st ttesman or a general, and the romantic
incidents of the revolution still kept alive for some
years the interest so deeply felt. But gradually
every light has gone out, every liberty has been
extinguished, every man who had served the Crown
with honour has been dismissed, and the country
remains passive in the hands of a profligate Court
and a nameless Government. All national energy,
as applied to the political condition of the country,
has for a considerable time seemed to be suspended,
and the obscure persons who affect to carry on the
business of the State are neither respected in their
own country nor heard of in any other. The exist-
-1 ence of such an administration depends on the
total absence of discussion, for, if public opinion
were either enlightened or consulted as to its
merits, the humiliation would be too great to be
endured.
By one of the abrupt changes which
whicharesuit th
not un-
commone in Spanish history, and
genius of the people better than a tenagceivoeurus perse-
verance in the arduous duties of free
beod it i
one day
no part of our followed by the
chastisementstatf things
it
will
deserves, and
duty to anticipate that event. Possibly in Spain,
as well as in other countries, the revolution has
still to run out its long unprofitable course, which
has as yet founded nothing stable or dignified in
the seat of government, and conferred little free-
dom or real advancement cn the people. At
some future day the elder branch of the
Royal family may be found to have gained some
experience by its misfortunes, or the exhausted
race of Bourbon Kings will be driven from the
soil ; but, as long as Spain remains what she is,
these questions have a very faint interest for other
countries. She has ceased to throw the slightest
weight into the balance of power, or to act upon
the general politics of the world, either in America
or in Europe. The transient energy which Gene-
ral Narvaez had given to the Administration, and
the reforms introduced by Senor Mon into the
finances, are at an end ;—a people once the wealthi-
est in the world have ceased to pay interest on
their debts, and an empire once the widest on the
globe is reduced to a couple of islands, which will
probably one day be wrested from it by a party of
bucaniers. It is not because these things may be
said of... Spain by foreign journals that her credit is
extinct, and her last possessions menaced. She
suffers not because they are said, but because they
are true. It was long the ardent hope of this
country, and the constant policy of the British
Government, to see the Peninsula reassert all its
independence and regain all its power,, for no
country is better fitted by nature and by position

to maintain a close and advantageous Connexion
with ourselves. But in an age of rapid progress
Spain has chosen to remain almost stationary ; in
an age of toleration she retains the bigotry of Philip
11. ; in an age when public opinion forces its way
through all the barriers of despotic power she does
what she can to arrest its progress. We know not
how far the attempt may succeed, but the more it
succeeds the more it cuts off the Spanish people
from the intercourse and sympathy they might re-
tain with the rest of Europe ; and we shall not
be surprised ere long to see the country in a con-
dition which may cause it to regret the alienation
of its oldest friends.