The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-20 00:00:00

GIVEN THAT NO STEP WOULD BE TAKEN BY THE

WESTERN GOVERNMENTS THAT COULD TEND TO

INTERRUPT THE NEGOTIATIONS WHICH HAD SO
RECENTLY BEEN RESUMED. This important point
being settled, the ominous despatch was pub-
lished here." Have we not reason, after
these shameful and degrading accounts in
the Ministerial organ—remembering, at the
same time the massacre of the Turks at Sinope,
while our maritime armaments is lying at anchor
in the Bosphorus—have we not reason over-
much to ask, Are we living in England, or in
some petty German principality ?

" Who shall I make my executor ?" There is
no question more puzzling to the man who is
about to arrange his affairs, to set his house in
order, in contemplation of the last great change
that awaits every human being I " Who shall I
make my executor ?" To whose care shall I con-
fide the future welfare and prosperity of my
family, in whose integrity and efficiency can I re-
pose such implioit reliance, such unbounded con-
fidence as to render me perfectly easy with respect
to the future management of my affairs, and con-
vince me that the accumulations and savings of my
life will be disposed of to the best advantage, and
in strict accordance with my latest earthly act of
volition—the directions contained in my last will and
testament? How many persons w,lao have maintained
fair and unimpeachable characters 'have even-
tually been " found out," and discovered
to be " traitors" of the deepest dye, heartlessly
and deliberately violating the trust that had been
confided to their hands—the duties they had un-
dertaken to perform. How frequently have widows
and orphans been plundered by the specious arts
of deceitful hypocrites, who left them exposed to
all the sufferings which poverty inflicts, sufferings
from which the dying husband and father had
vainly hoped he had preserved them by providing
adequate funds for their maintenance in the sta-
tion to which they haC been born. If the fearful
destitution, the awful misery, occasioned by simple
" breaches of trust" on the part of executors or
trustees could be brought to light, innumer-
able volumes would be filled with heartrending
narratives, and we mould be compelled to ad-
, mit that " truth is inleed stranger than fiction."

"Who shall I make my executor ?" It is indeed
a momentous question ; a problem, the due solu-
tion whereof would remove the bitterest cares
from the mind of the sick man, and take at least
a portion of the sting from Death. For how
many different elements must enter into the cal-
()illation How many links are there in the chain,
any one of which, if defective, would not merely
endanger but completely destroy the stability of
the whole ? Will the man I select be faithful and
vigilant in the discharge of his duties ? Am I
certain that he can resist the temptations to which
I am about to expose him ?—that an alteration in
his own circumstances may not induce him to
make free with the trust fund—to use for his own
purposes the provision I have set aside for
the support of my family. He may suppose
that he can speedily supply the deficiency, that
he can restore the money with which lie is
about to make free. There may not be any de-
liberate intention of doing wrong, but even an
error is fraught with the most dangerous conse-
quences, and the mind speedily becomes familiar
with what it could not previously have contem-
plated without horror. It is, indeed, a perilous
experiment to tempt a needy or a speculative man
with money for which he can not or may not be
called to account for a considerable period ; until
infants of tender years have attained their majori-
ties, and the executors are required, as JOHN
WESTLOCK termed it, "to book up." If once he
enters on the road to ruin, if once he ventures to
tamper for any purpose with the assets of his de-
parted friend, it is impossible to say when or
where lie will stop, or to what fearful depths of