The Sun.
London, England, 1831-08-04 00:00:00

-‘r r,ry,r

enemies had hitherto given him credit. In speaking
of schedule C, Sir R. Peel exclaimed, that he for
one would agree to "no enfranchisement which
should make disfranchisement a necessary conse-
quence." But what bas that to do with the present
case, where, the disfranchisement having already
been effected, enfranchisement itself becomes a con-
sequence, not a cause ? Again : Sir R. Peel, who
had before refused to enfranchise Manchester from
an apprehension that the great anxiety of the
people for Reform would almost render them dissa-
tisfied unless they got something more, now de-
clares himself convinced that Manchester has a right
to be enfranchised—now that the very evil has been
perpetrated, the prospect of which he had professed
as his reason for previously refusing to acknowledge
that right. As a second motive for consenting to
enfranchise Manchester, Birmingham, &c., the
Right Hon. Baronet alleges the " strong feel-
ing of the country,"—that feeling, the eager-
ness and force of which he before pretended
was his justification for positively refusing
to grant them representatives ! Does this make Sir
Robert Peel appear ridiculous ? Surely if so, the
blame does not rest with us. But the Right Hon.
Baronet, who has just above pronounced the impos-
sibility of withholding the franchise from great
towns, because of the vehemence with which the
whole nation demanded it, adds, in the next line,
that he would not have disfranchised the boroughs
—not have disfranchised the rotten boroughs !—the
nomination boroughs !—the sinks of every selfish
and sordid abomination !—those bated nuisances
which were the original, universal, and inexplicable
causes of all the public outcry for Reform ! Why,
many even of the most ardent Reformers scarcely
eared a straw for giving representatives, in compa-
rison with the taking them away,—they scarcely
cared a straw about Manchester but as contrasted
with Old Sarum. If Sir R. Peel be sincere in this his
estimate of the public feeling of- England, when he
speaks of her desire to see Manchester enfranchised,
as more intense and irrepressible than that of seeing
Gatton, abolished, he betrays an ignorance of the
English mind and spirit, which makes the exclusion of
such men from office as necessary as their long con-
tinuance there was surprising. Again : Sir R. Peel
objects to the enfranchisement of metropolitan dis-
tricts, although he subjoins immediately afterwards
—and we can scarcely .believe our eyes while we
read—that " the proper principle upon which to give
representatives was population." Well,—is there
uo population in " the metropolitan districts ?" But
" population," according to Sir R. Peel, is the
" proper" principle of representation—and this from
a Tory Baronet ! Now the true principle of popu-
lation—and its only consistent principle—is " uni-
versal suffrage." What !—as extremes are said to
meet—has Sir Robert, in despair, turned Radical?
It gives us no further pleasure than as an amusement,
to point out the vagaries of a grave and respectable
man, thus " friglited from his propriety" by the
miserable cause to %%Melt he has been forced to lend
himself,—not as a prop, but as an adjunct. Sir
Robert Peel had better retreat from public life for a
time, and come out again with the soils brushed off
from him. After being cleansed of his Anti-Re-
form leprosy, he may some day form part of a liberal
Administration : a Tory one, the Right Hon, Ba-
ronet well knows, can never again exist in this
country.—Times.

IThe official correspondence between the Com-
mander of the French squadron in the Tagus and
1
the Government of Don Miguel, together with the
convention by which it was terminated, are ex-
tremely humiliating to the Portuguese despot. The
convention, which .consists of twenty articles, to
each of which the Portuguese Minister was obliged
to submit, can only be regarded in tl:e light of a
capitulation, or a surrender at the discretion of the
victor. Never was chastisement more summary, or
humiliation more complete, than that of the -van-
quished upon this occasion; and never was a Sove-
reign or a Government more disgraced in the eyes
of their own subjects, or of the world, than that of
Lisbon has been in the recent transactions, The
Portuguese authorities first sent away the French
Consul, on his demand of redress for wrongs, real or
alleged, inflicted on French subjects without a suf,
ticient legal cause. They refused even to treat with
the Consul, and relaxed none of the rigour exercised
towards the French citizens aggrieved. 4 French
squadron was sent to support the representations of
the French Government. This squadron captured
Portuguese merchantmen, and threatened de-
ctruction to the scanty commercial navy of the
despot. .Still there
was no offer of redress.
larger squadron was therefore equipped, at conside4-
rable expense, and after considerable delay. Still
the Ministers of Don Miguel defied the power of
the French Government, arid Wiped to make any
reasonable concession. After exhausting, therefore,
having terrified the Portuguese Government,
every means of bringing the Portuguese despot to
an acknowledgement of his injustice, the French
the fortresses of Se. Julian and
isluugaidor,ofioj'redeedsptliising
e bar of the Tagus on the 11th ult.
and ,
obtained the full extent of its original demands. The
French have thus obtained the liberation instantly of
M. Bonhemtne and of M. Sativirret, who 110 been
punished with imprisonment, and were destined for
transportationereertidemnity to them for the injustice'
to which they had been subjected and the losses
h citieerie who had been unjustly cone'
which they had sustained,—compensation to several
imprisoned;`—an equivalent for the lees
reEydreaex""pdeense occasioned by the equipment of the
otherrdueninian
expedition; and, lastly, the temporarvs if not the
.
final, possession of the Portoggese ships of wav,
which appeared disposed to qbstrpet the enhance
of
fthie krerich into the Tagus. As the French
A,lm ral, after he had -entered the Tagus on tile
11 th ult., pretended to observe the same terms
which he had offered before the commencement
. of hostilities on the Bth ult., we fairly eorifese that
the Admiral speaks on the 11th and 12th,
we ott sea no justification 'of the altered tone in
14th. Even a barbarous government may
i.‘l:3illsiihscthoere the observation of treaties whip') it break
itself, and may feel; oi aqect to fez.., indignation at
suing awes violated. The French Government
have acted at Lisbon as they would have done at
Tunis or Algiers, and probably with the same sense
and reason. The faithless and cruel despotism of
, , - i
Miguel—the " monster,' as 4ie. is °rifled by one
and
.
DMoirniieer in the French (harnber of Deputies,
the.. base and perjured wretch," as I;e is called by
another in the British Parliament,—is not entitled
to be treated as a civilized power, though 4 happeo
to be in Feirope, an;! gat' i'e ij,ftlea ; .or though it
happens to profess the religion of peace, instead of
Portuguese
t Lt.:,
,11;oeautedsae,)s r'gretdietihos
despot.
ooactr
.101
consider
thehsloied,:repert
the persecuting maxims of the Koran. We must
ltare
ritie:Pheamoi
ercet
anfurigtii
le.
inflictedds
o of nation,i.rip 000rr:tti
thegge. eaa' ell
personified in a paltry usurper, whir, having been lire .
advertently placed on the throne by ow forbearance,
has taken every method since of insulting our ho-
nom; and opposing our interests.—Tinese
Last night four of the places in seltedgle 0 were
disposed of, On one of them,--Greenwich, Sec.,—
there was a division, when the majority was 107.
Sir Robert Peel said, "to prevent unnecessary
delay, he was willing to take the discussion upon
all the metropolitan districts ;" so that we may rule i
ticipate a muchgeeater prograee thia day. The
(-11)PosiOon affect to be exceedingly indignant at
the opinion of their conduct generally entertained
by the people. Lord Valletort denounced the pro-
ceedings of the private meeting of the Liverymen,
of which an account appeared in the Clronicle of
yesterday, and
q challenged any man to assert
justly, either of himself, or of those with whom he
aeted; as far as he knew their metives from constant
intercourse, that they hqd caused a frivolpns or
vexatious delay." Not in the least factious. No
opposition
Member
has ever allowed the secret to
escape hitn, that all their hopes centered in the con-
tingencies which, -if the Bill could only be delayed,
might defeat it ! None of the Qaarterly, Monthly,
arid Weekly Journals have ever hinted that' the
object of the Opposition ought to be delay--