The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The late tremendous philippic of Arguelles against
France, accusing her as the betrayer of Spanish free-
dom, and of having as deliberately plotted zand ma-
noeuvred to destroy the constitutional s',;-stem -of the
Cortes from 1830 to 1836, as she had done formerly

-from 1820 to 1823, has been loudly applauded by the
Liberals of Madrid, and as indignantly repelled by the
Ministerial Press of Paris. We perfectly understand
the reasoning and the indignation of Arguelles, and
although we may not go his length i❑ condemning, yet
it cannot be denied that his conclusions are fairly and

logically deduced from potent facts. In our own cen-
sures of th:• French system •of Government we have
always r.ssigned two causes as capable of accounting
for its extraordinary conduct : these are perfidy e.nd
pusillanimity. Each observer may take his choice,
since to one or the other must be attributed that series

of humiliations and cringings before the Powers of ab-
solutist Europe, which has allowed these potentates to
reign uncontrolled all round the French frontier from
Strasburg to Bayonne. • We were once inclined to
suppose that per ady ,was predominant, and that the
apparent humiAlty of France was but a price paid for
the real friendship of the absolutist potentates, and
for the solid consequences of such friendship, which
must soon become apparent in family alliance, in trea-
ties of peace and commerce, in short, in some signal
advantage for France. Not one of these things, how-
ever, has come to pass. France and her Government
have smiled, flattered, and cringed in vain ; nor has she
received anything in return, save the most cold and in-
• suiting politeness. As to a marriage, the preference
of a widowed sovereign of petty and discontented ter-
ritories, a widower, too, with an heir living—the pre--
ference of such a Prince as this to the heir of the
French empire is alone a proof at what value the
wise rulers of the East estimate the dynasty raised
to their throne by the choice of the French. Then
there has been the death of Charles X., an event
so well calculated to throw light upon the feelings
and intentions of Courts. A royal demise is one
of the few events on which a Court cannot con-
ceal its sentiments. On this occasion the French
Carlists must have looked, to the Courts of Vienna
and of Germany, to see whether the cause of
legitimacy and of the elder branch had been aban-
doned, or was still to be upheld. What have they
learned in answer? That Carlism and its principle is
still upheld. Every honour Ilas been paid to it. The
same Ambassadors, to 'whose menaces the French
Government showed -itself obsequious in abandoning,
Spain, were not rd.:iowed to repay this mighty conces-
sion by even the petty one of not wearing mourning
for Charles X. When One remarks these and other
symptotris, which tell as plainly as print or speech that
the Emperors of Austria and Russia do not consider
the: present Monarch of France as any more than a
lucre Lieutenant of the kingdom, than as , a consul a
vie, why then, indeed, one is obliged to admit that
the policy of the French Government has been not so
much owing to perfidy, as it has hitherto appeared, but
that it has sprung from downright, blind, and miser-
able pusillanimity. It is impossible to remark this, or to
reflect upon it for a moment, without being instantly
forced back to regard the events and the men of our
own great revolution—of that revolution which was
analagous to the French movement of 1830. Both
revolutions had for their inveterate foe a despotic prin-
ciple, represented by a league of tyrants. The revo-
lution of 1830 was accomplished in the teeth of the
Holy Alliance ; that of 1688 in the teeth of the
Popish League. Both were redoubtable and impla-
cable enemies. Mark the difference, and how the
two conntries met their adversaries :—England defiant,
proud, nay often insolent ; France cringing, flattering,
and going on her knees for favours, which were refused
her on account of her servility. But we are wrong,
perhaps, to put the countries themselves, or the words
France and England, in contrast, as if France herself
were wanting in spirit. All the difference' proceeds
from the character of the men who led and represented
the revolutions in the two countries. This 'is seen
in domestic as well as in foreign policy. In both
countries the men who presided over the revolution
chose themselves a King, and both Kings were men
of high character and eminent to Tents. Never
was Prince better endowed than. William with
the character, and the qualities, and the wisdom
adapted to govern by his own will, and to di-
rect State affairs according to his fantasy. But
for all this superiority did the Statesmen and Govern-
, • ment of England permit William to rule them as lie
listed, or to employ the resources of the country in
the furtherance of the King's peculiar ideas or family
interests ? No," said the great and truly English-
men ; "your Majesty is here the constitutional King
of England, and no more. So away with your Dutch
guards and your exclusively Orange interests. We
will not suffer them. We are Englishmen, and we
made our revolution for England, for its freedom and
its greatness, not for you." King William talked of
abdicating. He did but talk of it however. And
both the cause and the principle of the revolution
triumphed, instead of terminating, disgraced and
humbled, in a second restoration. Let us turn to
France since 1830, and what a wretched contrast do
we behold! A Prince whom we will acquit, if you
will, of any other motive than that of sincerely wishing
to render triumphant and stable the cause and the
principle upon which his throne is based ; but who,
abandoned to his own individual wisdom by the
mere shadows of Statesmen around him, and left
to the unsupported force of .his own will by a
representative assembly, which seems totally with-
out spirit, party, or political system, has thought
it best to strengthen his throne by conciliating
his absolutist enemi r;, instead of holding aloof
in independent' pride and defying them. As to what
might be called a great statesman in the Cabinet or in
Parliament, we see none. Casimir Perier, indeed,
gave noble promise, and might have proved the great
vindicator of France and French pride. Thiers, also,
ere he fell, took the same bold position ; and could he
muster a Parliamentary patty behind him, and infuse
spirit into a majority, lie might accomplish what Pc-
. rier wanted time, as well as genius perhaps, though
certainly not spirit, to effect. But as to Guizot, the
rhetorician, who accepts place on the condition of
leaving Spain to her fate, what is he but the clever, the
restless, the ambitious Bolingbroke—the Tory who,
for a time, wore the thin varnish of Liberalism ? And
Count Mole, what has he beyond Harley's address,
except the total want' of Harley's Parliamentary
talents ? The most melancholy reflection connected
with this nullity of French policy and French states-
men, this neutralising of even the great moral
power of France in Europe, is, that never, during
the last civilized centuries, was there an epoch --„11,-u
France might do so much towards the fur
`..'',ierance of
the great object of European liberty so little risk.
Ministerial and Court people in Paris ask, " Will you
secure us on the Rhine., inovided we pass the Py-
rennees ?" Secure thr:in on the Rhine ! and from
whom ? Is it iron) Russia, the rage of whose Impe-
rial despot, uno)7.enched and unallayed in the blood of
Poland, has -already fevered into insanity ? There, on
the cont':ary, is displayed one of the precious fruits of
desrtie rule and d• • right; where, when Provi-
Lyme
knee, in mercy to menaceenations, or in retribution
for thousands oppressed and destroyed, has touched one
head with folly, the entire political machine is power-
less and at a stand. Or is it from Austria that France
fears invasion,? But who that knows the Austrian
Court does not know that there, too, the power of an
empire is completely enchained ? French statesmen
are not unaware of the cause which renders the rivalry
of Metternich and Kollowrath powerless to prevail one
over the other, and which makes it difficult for both to
conduct the current affairs of the empire in peace,
Tien less in war. Of war, indeed, it is fully known
they dare not even think. Yet this is the moment
'when the powers of absolutism and 'of Eastern Eu-
rope are stricken with paralysis—this is the moment
when France abandons the cause of liberty in Spain,
when she passively stands by, and sees Bilboa, within
sight of her shores, fall beneath the blow of a pen-
sioner of Russia, for Don Carlos is no other. This is
the moment when France persists in crying peccavi,
in humbling herself and her dynasty, depriving the
latter of its moral force abroad, ,as well as its popula-
rity at home, and of going on fearfully to preserve a
factitious amity at all price, as if the sole object of
Government were to allow Louis Philippe to reign in

peace for life, leaving a war of succession 'as the heti=
tage of hit This is the time when the Arnbassa-
dorsof these hostile and absolutist Powers arc allowed

to beard in his ow❑ capital and court the chosen Atli.

narch of the French nation,oy Aviaritig ter
the ex-absolutist and defunct Monarch of `ranee,

thereby giving patent and great entooraa°ement to
Carlist disafection in the conntty. Why, to reed •
again to England, what would have been the (e;Onte-
pence here if a foreign Ambassador had paraded the
streets of London itt mourning fOt -.Tallies It.; oir the
Pretender ? We can ons Wen the mob *mild have
flung the audacious envoy and his carriage into the
Thames, or, if tie had escaped their just resentment,
Walpole would have sent the proudest of them,out df
the country within four-and-twenty hours, tut in
Paris,. in 1836, his Sardinian Eltcellency puts on
black, forsooth, having the respect of Henry V. before
his eyes, instead of the respect for Louis Philippe,
We shall sincerely regret should the warmth or bold-
ness of these remarks excite any feelings of atthOy-
hum in the King of the French, or itt his partisans.
They are not meant to insult] hot ttten to hurt, but to
warn. We permit ourselves to use this language, be-
cause we are the friends of the present dynasty on the
throne of France, and the uncompromising enemies of
that rival branch which we see allowed to grow in
power and in hope.—Morning Chronicle.
The Radicals, to do them justice, do not want
pluck, although their business is sometimes of a dis-
couraging nature—viz., to make speeches before slen-
der audiences, and to pay for dinners which it is phy-
sically impossible that in the present state of politics
throughout this country they should have any stomach
to eat. It is now considerably too late in the day to
set about proving to the satisfaction of reasonable
Englishmen, that an extensive change of feeling with
regard to certain favourite measures of the movement
party, and concerning likewise the merits and preten-
sions of certain men who hold a conspicuous rank as
Whigs or Radicals (or both as occasion suits them),
has occurred in almost every quarter of the kingdom.
Here and there the spirit of headlong demOcracy, which
tolerates no dominion but that of the mob, may per-
haps show fight a little longer, and even in conse-
quence of, and in proportion to, the general pressure of
' Conservatism upon the revolutionary power, may act
in particular spots of the country with increased extra-
vagance and desperation. But the dissolution of Par-
liament, which under any Minister cannot be very dis-
tant, will make manifest to the most incredulous of the
movement faction the truth of what we have now put
forth, arrd will exhibit as a cruel set-off against some
isolated instance of rallying republicanism, a steady
revival of attachment to the Constitution throughout

the average surface of society. We apprehend that
Preston, in Lancashire, is one of those corners into
which the off-scourings of Radicalism have been swept
in the process of cleansing the wider and nobler ave-
nues of national sentiment: - It has long been a re-
ceptacle for movement rubbish. Its constituency, as
well under the old system of election as the new, ,has
been among the worst in England, and its, Represen-
tatives, with doubtlesS some distinguished exceptions,
have been for the most part on the outside of consti-
tutional hostility to the established principles of the
monarchy. The ultra-Radicals of Preston, then, have
been getting up a meeting and a dinner, to which were
invited Colonel Thompson, a political economist and
theoretical Destructive of the deadliest hue, and Mr.
John Craufurd, of London, a gentleman better known,
we believe, by his successful historiei or works on
Eastern commerce, and his (not successful) attempts
to push his way into Parliament, than by any figure
he has ever made, as either an effective partisan, or an
enlightened Statesman. The report says nothing as
to the quality of the other persons assembled at this
reputable muster. But, for the quality of the speeches,
we are compelled to acknowledge that those of the two
above-named gentlemen were such as could not have
much overpaid the charge for the dinner, or the trouble
of attending to them. In one characteristic both orators
were preeminent--namely, in that conceited assump-
tion observable among men of shallow thought and cir-
cumscribed vision, which treats as a first principle'never
to be changed or questioned, each and every conclusion
which the speaker himself, whether through argument,
prejudice or ignorance, may have arrived at, and whieh
exclaims at the folly- or wickedness of all other men
who hesitate to declare their partnership in his visions,
and their readiness to cram his nostrums down the
throats of the whole community. If it were worth
while to strike a balance between things of such small
intrinsic value, we should say that there was more of
the composed arrogance which we have referred to in the
discourse of the gallant lecturer from Hull than in that
of the probationary candidate for Preston, the office, it
seems, assigned to Mr. Craufurd, which latter perso-
nage descanted awfully upon the precedents for an or-
ganic change of the House of Lords, and joked with
the solemn levity of an undertaker upon the number of
mortal wounds which the Constitution had survived,- and
the improvement it had exhibited after every such re-
suscitation. As for Col. Thomson, he was far too high-
minded to demonstrate any of the numerous odd things
that he asserted, or to do more upon any subject than
as became a professor laying down laws cx cathedra, to
dogmatise, call names, denounce, and dictate. He
attempted, for instance, to describe the three parties in
Great Britain—and began by classing the Conservatives
as men who held " extreme" opinions, with a total
forgetfulness that the leader of those Conservatives had
not pledged himself, but proved himself, to be a sound
and bold Reformer. He called the Whigs the mode.:
rate party, whose opinions formed the medium be-
tween Conservative and Radical--quite overlooking
the plain fact, that the single opinion firmly entertained
by the Whigs, is as to the paramount necessity of
themselves continuing in office. With respect to the
'ballot, the House of Lords, and universal suffrage, the
gallant colonel was as great, as all great drivellers are,
upon such inspiring topics: his notion of the legitimate
limit to the suffrage was this—to wit, that it would be
inexpedient to grant it to any man who could not say
" ay or no !" After thus fooling the -Prestonians to the
top of their bent, the gallant professor seriously advised
them to look out for a candidate who should emulate
himself in wisdom, however hopeless such a search
might prove. Mr. Craufurd was not .less sanguine
- than his predecessor in the triumphant destinies of the
Destructive principle, and hardly less edifying in his
history of its progress, or of the evils which it was to
remedy. The truth is, that the whole affair was a dull
and dismal farce.— Times.
It will not requite much practice in political divina-
tion to predict that the approaching Glasgow festival
will throw little additional light on the intended Par-
liame:iiary tactics of the Conservatives. The habitual
,caution of the Right Honourable Baronet who is to be
the lion of the evening, would seem sufficiently to gua-
rantee so much ; but in order to render assurance
doubly sure on this very sensitive point, an active nego-
ciation has been for some time in progress, and has
we are informed, terminated in an express stipulation,
that all debateable topics are, as much as possible, to
be avoided, as it is intended to call into action upon
this momentous occasion the whole disposable force
of the Tories, or at lenst so many of them as can sug-
gest any decent pretext for their presense : it was in-
dispensable that the leaders of sections in the motley
array should present some appearance of external uni-
formity, and that could only be effected by a resolution
to adopt a diScreet taciturnity on all questionable sub-
jects. Sir Robert Peel, as the mouthpiece of the
faction, will be left to express himself in those plausible
common-places and ambiguous generalities of which
he is, so consummate a master' while his noble and
learned friend Lord Lyndhurst has consented (like
the notorious Doctor Duigenan, on one of the debates
on the Catholic question) to be " muzzled" on this
particular question. We have stated in the pre-
ceding paragraph what has come to our know-
ledge from certain accredited depositories of Tory
intelligence. That they have correctly described
the difficulties which :impeded the late Tory nego-
tiations, and the convenient stipulation by which
they were obviated, we are entirely satisfied ; but
when .they wish us to take it for granted that Lord
Lyndhurst will grace the festivities of. the Northern
Academicians with his presence, we must acknowledge
we are on that point a little sceptical. Some extensive
changes in the domestic establishment of the Learned
Pensioner, to which we lately alluded, would seem to
imply that his return to England was indefinitely
postponed ; and, if we are not egregiously mis-