The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-15 00:00:00

calumniating and assailing the Reformers to the best of his
poor ability, within a few yards of the place in which Sir
Thomas held him up to public scorn. The Rev. Mr.
Angus spoke briefly, but with much sound feeling and
great effect, on the sub‘ret of the interference of ministers
of religion in political mAtters. He stated that in so far
as politics bore on the great interests of the humari race,
the ministers of religion were justified in taking a part in
them. This is the right view of the matter. Several
other gentlemen addressed the company at considerable
length and with much ff,ct ; but we must content our-
selves with referring our readers to the report of their
speeches, our space being already exhausted.—Morning
Advertiser..

We are by no me ins dspesed to be alarmists. More-
over, we are perfectly satisfied, that in spite of modern im-
provements, there is still (maigh of British spirit left in the
country to defend the " sicred soil" from foreign invasion,
should suck an event ever oc, ur—

" If ever breath of British gale
Should fan the Tri-color,
Or foov_.:ep of invader rude,
With rapine fool, and red with blood,
Molest this haply shore"—
we are quite sure that, whether under the tri-color, or any
other colour, an enemy would always meet a proper recep-
tion here. But it is nevertheless our duty to inform our
readers of any eircurnstar-c, s of a threatening nature, espe-
ciallywhen we find them in a Ministerial Newspaper, without
a word of editorial or official contradiction. The following
paragraph from the 117tilel;aren Herald, appears in the
Globe of last evening, tmaccompauied by note or comment:—
Colonel Ward, of the Hoy,l Engineers, and other survey-
ors, are now visiting tie- ports of Cumberland, and reconoiter-
ing their capabilities of defence, with a view to erect batteries
and make other prepratichs of d. fence and precaution in the
event of a foreign war.
We confess we do not quire see what danger is to bo
apprehended on the Curnb.:rlend coast, unless, indeed, a
Russian fleet should tome there north-about—a demarehe,
of which, perhaps, we ough. not to be sceptical, after an
announcement we lately saw in a private letter from a po-
litician at Paris, that. the sa:cl Ru:-,sians had just been so
clever as to land 6,003 men is the Persian Gulf. Still we
have thought it. ri4lo to give the news as we find it.
And while on the subject of foreign invasion, it may not
be out of place to add th.t some week or ten days since
we received the subjoin ,l intrination—which, as we were
not sure of the authority on which it rested, we declined
then to publish :
It is currently reported that the Martello Towers on the
caFtern coast are initntai,itely to be put into a state of
defence.

We print it now, liowevrr, as warlike preparations are

the order of the day, with a request that the Globe will
have the goodness to say if there be any truth in it ; and
as the East would seem more open to invasion than the
West coast, whether other defences than Martello Towers
—men-of-war, for inseince—have suggested themselves to
the collective wisdom of her Majesty's Government ?
Morning Post.
Our relations with foreign Powers have seldom proved
capable of exciting any general or warm interest among
the people of England before that critical period of a na-
tional controversy which seemed Rely to result in an appeal
to arms. Commercial qui•slions, in their earlier stages,
are not of a nature to rouse the fears or resentments of the
non-trading classes, or even ca those among our merchants
who have no immediate concern in the branch of traffic
which has been encroached upon, obstructed, or threat-
ened. Territorial questions—viz., those which involve
the right of sovereignty over an isolated possession, or a
disputed boundary between contiguous States, are more
definite and tangible to the popular apprehension than
commercial quarrels, but are rarely thought of by the
people at large, save only under the supposed contingency
of approaching war, when they are felt with great keen-
ness, and eagerly contested as vital to the honour of the
country. A third division of international questions is that
which embraces considerations of a more abstract policy,
affecting the political influence, ascendancy, and pre-emi-
nence of a realm, amongst the wide community of civi-
lized states. These questions, although they may be fre-
quently raised by a single circumstance, and may ostensibly
be directed to a specific object, are often of more intrinsic
and extensive importance tle,n either of the others, or than
both united : yet are their attributes and bearings far less
discernible to the public eye than such as involve mainly
the rights of commerce or of positive dominion, and the Mi-
nisters of a representative Government have often, conse-
quently, the most difficult of all tasks before them when
they attempt to frustrate hostile designs, and to provide,
by demonstrations of physical power, for emergencies
arising out of them in those cases where the principles
or purposes to be maintained are of the most
immeasurable, although the least obvious moment.
The chief pressure upon the attention of the people
of England—and, indeed, upon that of the world gene-
rally—proceeding from the state of our relations with
foreign Powers, has been caused by a series of aggressive
and domineering acts, as well as indications, on the part of
Russia, insulting to public opinion throughout Chris-
tendom, but justifying a more determined and long-
sighted jealousy in the Councils of Great Britain than
of any other State (Turkey and Austria excepted), be-
cause England, through her Colonies, her distant depend-
encies, and universal commerce, spreading over the four
quarters of the globe—England lives everywheie, breathes
everywhere, is everywhera vulnerable, and, on the first
principle of self-defence, is bound to be everywhere
watchful, nay, to be everywhere, in case of necessity,
armed. We admit at once, that of the three classes of
dispute to which we have above adverted, one of them—
to wit, a mutual claim to the possession of the same ter-
ritory, does not at present constitute a specific ground of
quarrel. But unfortunately even that exists between the
two Governments, under a different form. England, in-
deed, lays claim for herself to no territorial acquisition—
not an acre ; but Russia has put forth many such, rea-
lizing some of the most formidable and important, to the
grevious detriment of England and her allies,to the alarm-
ing aggrandizement of her own relative strength, and in
contemptuous violation of the faith of treaties. At the
same time, if the encroachments of Russia on the Danube,
on the Euxine, in Circassia, in Persia, and on the Caspian,
were not manifestly pregnant with the most fatal conse-
quences to the peaceful industry of Great Britain, and to
that political reputation on which her moral influence with
other powers must depend, we should be among the first to cry
let Russia alone—" watch her," but do not interfere with
her. The question, therefore, 'is not precisely free from
all territorial character ; although England seeks to ac-
quire nothing, she struggles to prevent Russia from grasp-
ing much. It is absolutely and in the first instance terri-
torial on the side of Russia, who aims at the seizure of
every inch of ground between the Danube and the Darda-
nelles. It is a negative territorial war for England, who
seeks but to protect the owners of that fine territory in their
ancient rights. The commercial and political character of
the contest, however, is as direct and positive on the part
of England as ever war was by land or ocean. Her vitality
is at once invaded where armed interdicts are placed upon
the free trade of her subjects and upon the access of her
councils and her influence to foreign States. The appropria-
tion of the whole Caspian Sea by Russia has been an aggres-
sion upon the free intercourse of this commercial people with
Persia and the ne,ghbouring inhabitants of Asia. The
war against the Circassians, carried on by means of frau-
dulent and forcible obstructions to the free inter-
course of European commerce, heretofore unmolested in
its dealings with the eastern shores of the Euxine, is an
armed aggression upon the sovereign rights of England.
The villainous treaty of Unkiar 'Skelessi, crammed down
the throat of the helpless Mahmoud, was an aggression
upon the sovereign rights of the British empire, which this
Government, having seasonably protested against by words,
may, on the very first favourable occasion, lawfully and
wisely resist by arms. Tile menacing position assumed by
Nicholas towards Turkey, the march of armies towards
the frontier, the increase of his fleet in the Euxine, the
incessant and hostile preparations in each of his ports and
military and naval depots (we say nothing now of his pro-
ceedings in the East, which belong to another chapter)—one
and all of these are aggressions upon England, and must
be repelled by political %slalom if possible ; if otherwise, at
the cannon's mouth. The English people generally, notwith-
standing numerous warnings from the press—the Continen-
tal press, as well as that o England—have looked on with
much seeming, and rather stupid, indifference, at the
progress of those evils, and were actually more taken up
with wretched municipal or village faction, with the bray-
ings of O'Connell, and the b llowings of MS Hale, than with
the systematic and insidious approaches of a foreign enemy
to the citadels of our national industry and power. The
first political events which appeared to rouse and encourage
them, to prove that much was to be done, and that some-
thinghad already rea anddy
disgracebe e been done,
against towards
our
arrestingnotthe inconsiderablemarc h
o f
misfortune
foreign greatness, were the two treaties not long since ne-
gotiated by Lord Palrucr,ton with the friendly powers of
• Austria and Turkey, c.n which no jealous or factious
spirit ought to prevent a British subject, whatever may
I be his politics, fro bestowing the approbation fairly
earned by theMinisterh t0,,0 whom we are indebted for
them. The treaty
wotit fhro ughot ey gives England a direct
interest and right
self-assertionthroughout
against Russian in-
trigue or violence
The treaty with whole
minuteand
establish
es
the Turkish Empire. Austria opens
movementt
to us the whole course of the yDanube,
England in close observation of every
executed by Russia a'ong the northern frontier of the
oft :•quity, and honour, may
dominions of Mahmoud. The treaties are prudent, and
efficient measures of defence and precaution adopted under
difficulties of no coning,,; iald well managed, though it,
Turkey without spilling
quash a
projectedspiiritaof
drop of blood. Should, however, the Autocrat despise the
Perftct