The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-20 00:00:00

• 1101407.7 Ga IItOPMIZET.
Our market continues arm, at fully the late a,ivanc9 in
the quotations. The plantation accounts are untuvour-
able. Sussex pncl:, ts, 2/ lOs to 3/ lOs; Weald of Kent
ditto, 2/ 15s to 4l 4s; Mid and East Kent ditto, 3/ 102
to 71 103 per cwt.

MI
VtiTEC ITAPEL.
We had a slow tr:2cle here this morning, on the
lowing terms;—Beef; from 2s 2d to 3s 2d; Murtoo,
2s 8,1 to as 8d; Lamb, 4s Bfl to 5s 811; Veal, 3s Od to
3s 81; and Pork, as 4d to 4= p r 813 s,

PRESENTATION OF A TESTIMO-
NIAL. TO MR. MITCHELL OF 'THE ST.
JAMES'S TiIEATRE.
The subscribers to the St. tj4MPS'S Theatre, and others
of the nobility and gentry, and dilettanti, have for some
tine past had it in contemplation to testify their sense
of the exertions which Mr. Mitchell has wade to con-
tribute to their amusement, and of the admirable manner
in which he has presentrd to the English pubic tte
chef d'auvres of the French stage, both dramatic
and lyrical, by presenting hirn with a testimonial.
The subscription list was rapidly fil:etl, and this
afternoon the presentation took place on the stage of
the St. James's Theatre. The testimonial consists of a
richly chased diver salver, with beautifully engraved
portraits of Racine, Corneille, Moliere, and Voltaire;
and subjects of their plays from Rhedre, Les Horaces,
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. and Tancrede ; and a cande-
labrum, in silver gilt, of Lt.uis XV. style, for ten lights,
with inscription. These artistical proluctions were
manufactured by Messrs. Hunt and Ro,kell, who had
yesterday the honour of submitting them to the inspection
of her Majesty and Prince Albert. His Grace the Duke
of Beaufort presented the testimonial to Mr. Mitchell in
the name of the subscribers.

MILTON A TRUE fletto.—Blind Milton approaches
nearly to my conception of a true hero. What a picture
have we of that sublime old man, as—sick, poor, blind,
and abandoned of his friends—he still held fast his heroic
integrity; rebuking with his unbending republicanism the
treachery. cowardice, and servility of his old associates !
He had outlived the hopes and beatific visions of his
youth ; he had seen the loud mouthed advocates
of liberty throwing down a nation's freedom at the foot
of the shameless, debauched, and perjured Charles the
Second—crouching to the harlot-thronged court of the
tyrant, and forswearing at once their religion and
their republicanism. The executioner's axe bad been
busy among his friends. Vane and Hampden slept in
their bloody graves, Cromwell's ashes had been dragged
from their resting-place ; for, even in death, the
effeminate monarch bated and fared the conqueror of
Naseby and Marston-moor. He was left alone in a4e,
and penury, and blindness, oppressed with the knowledge
that all which his free soul abhorred had returned upon
his beloved country. Yet the spirit of the stern old re.
publican remained to the last unbroken, realising the
truth of the language of his own Samson Agonistes
"Patience is the exercise
Of saints, the trial of their fortitude,
Making them each their own deliverer,
And victor over all
That tyranny or fortune can infect."
True, the overwhelming curse had gone over his
country. Harlotry and atheism sate in the high
places, and the curses of wantons and the jests of buf-
foons regulated the measures of a Government which
had just ability enough to deceive, just religion enough
to persecute. But while Milton mourned over this
disastrous change, no self-reproach mingled with his
sorrow. To the last he had striven against the op,
pressor, and when confined to his narrow alley, a pri-
soner in his own mean dwelling, like another Prome-
theus on his rock, he still turned upon him an eye of
unsubdu(d defiance.—People'e Journal.
THE GREAT BRITAIN.—We understand that this
vessel has been purchased by Mr. Collins, of London, for
20,0001., and that he has contracted, at a further expense
of 22,0001., to have her fitted out for sea. She is to ply
between this port and New York.—Liverpeel Mail.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COJIMONS, June 19.
VANCOUVER'S ISLAND,
(Continued from our Third Edition of last night.)
The Earl of LINCOLN (in continuation) said,
that their system of monopoly prevented the mer
chants of Great Britain and of other countries from
trading with the natives for their furs and other articles
of commerce, thereby reducing those natives to the ne-
cessity of selling at any prico that they wished to give
them.—(Hear.) When he read the evidence of Mr, G.
Thompson, which states that the people of Canada, on
the frontiers of this company's territory, carry on a
free commerce, and ob'ain tenfold greater prices than
those who are under the company, he asked the House
did not such proceedings strongly savour of robbery ?
He admitted that it might be necessary for the corn-
pany on some occasions to try men for petty crimes,
though against the law, but for capital ones to send
them to Canada. Yet he did not thank tbat the excuse,
on the part of the company's servants, that they put
those natives to death in self-defence, vas sufficient or
satisfactory. They had never complied with the articles
of their charter, because by that they were bound to
exert themselves to find the north-west passage, to pro-
pagate religion by the introduction of missiona-
ries, and to advance the interests of the na-
tives by every just and legitimate means, such
as colonization, instruction in religion and morality,
and to give a fair price for their article of com-
merce, none of which they ever acted up to.—(Hear.)
He would observe incidentally, that it was proposed by
the Government to establish proper tribunals for the due
administration of the law. Ever since the transfer of
the Red River settlement the greatest dissatisfaction had
prevailed. The enormous freights which were charged
to the colonists stood materially in the way of improve-
ment, and prevented the spread of anything like com-
merce. In page 45 of the last papers would be found
the copy of a land deed, which every colonist, except
those of the Red River, were required to sign, before he
could enter into any farm, notwithstanding the extrava-
gant prico he waa obliged to pay for it. He would say
no more of that deed, except that its operation was to
make the colonists as completely the serfs of the
Hudson's Bay Company as any process could
render them, and the company itself totally unfit to
be entrusted with any operations of colonization. It
was impossible to ansa'er this, and many other charges
agairst the company, whose proceedings he was con•
fident the House would never sanction. The Hudson's
Bay Company actually levied an arbitrary, and, as
he maintained, an illegal taxation. From a work writ-
ten by one of the company's servants, and entitled
the Life and Travels of Thomas Simpson, he would
point to a letter from the author to his brother, which
stated, in broad terms, the nature of the authority
exercised by the company over the lasd colonist..
Lord Elgin, in speakieg of this subject, after making
inquiry into the fact-, said he thought it was a matter
much to be regrette d that a jurisdiction so larev, and
exercised by British saki, cts at so great a distance,
should be totally removed from the surveillance of the
home Goverament, and that public °pillion should be
altegether excluded from_ it.. That report of Lord Elgin
might be taken as establishing conclusively these com-
plaints against the Hudson's Bay Company. The re-
port of Colonel Colwell had been promised for some
time, but it did not appear amongst the papers, and Earl
Grey stated thet he had not thought it necessary to await
the report of that Gallant Officer. With regard to the
means of knowledge possessed by Colonel Crofton, as
much weight would no doubt be pieced upon his report,
he would ask the House how it woe poseible that that gen.
tleman, quartered for a short time on the outskirts of a ter-
ritory exceeding in magnitude the whole of Europe, could
form an accurate opinion upon charges which extended not
only over the whole territorial possessions of the Hudson's
Bay, Company, but also in the vast country to the west
of the Rocky Mountains, over which they reigned su-
prune. At the risk of wearying the House, he would
show bow many arid how great were the discrepancies
between the opinions of Colonel Crofton, Major Griffiths,
and other officers, upon the very same questions, arising,
no doubt, from the circumstances which he had just de-
scribed to be those under which these observations were
made. To point out a few of these discrepancies, Le would
mention that the first of these officers had described seve-
ral rigid regulations of the Hudson's Bay Company for-
bidding the sale or barter of ardent spirits; whilst the
second stated that the company had very liberally allowed
their introduction. With regard to the increase of the
tribes. Colonel Crofton inferred from the ordinary
trading lists of the company, prepared for the purpose
of regulating the supply of commodi ies to the popula-
tion, that because the number of natives that traded
with the company was greater than it was when the
North- west Company was incorporated, therefore the
population must have increased since that event. The
fact was the reverse. Then on the subject of religious
instruction, whilst one of these authorities de-
clared that there were places of religious wor-
ship and instruction in the setilement, it was expressly
stated by an American missionary, and also by the other,
that there was not a single Protestant missionary to be
found westward of the Rocky Mountains. There might
be Hon. Gentlemen in that House who would say that
religion in the island was not confined to the Church of
England. He deeply regretted that the Church of
England had not received due facility for encouraging
the spread of the Christian religion in the colony and
throughout the whole of the vast continent. There was
at that moment but one Wesleyan missionary. With
respect to education, let them refer to the work of Sir
George Simpson, and they would find that of the
charges for its promotion four-firths were borne by the
religious and charitable, and the remaining filth by poor
persons, having 15s. a week ; but not one penny, ac-
cording to Sir George Sunpsote's book, was paid
towards those charges by the Hudson's Bay Company
—not one penny was paid by the company for the
' purpose of education throughout the whole of the vast
continent, in which they had so great an interest.
He thought, on referring to the chargers he had
made, that there were many Members in the
who would concur with him, that the return
the Noble Lord at the head of the Colonial. madeDe a Depart-
ment (Lord Grey) were far from sat isinta,,:t oerya.g.
against
tp did
the
not mean to say
company would
He thought he
bethsautsiet:ienrsYd• chiUrtg eftiis he would say,
that as yet they were not disproved..
had shown in a clear and conclusive
a uutumn r that the
oi
Hudson's Bay Company was et on, y an ntt•colo
IT zing company, and that t would be west ineeise to
hand over to that company the entire coati-, 1 tend inte-
rest in Vancouver's Island. The Noble Lord then re at do-
cuments in support of his assertion, that the Hudson's
Bay Company was an anti-colon zing company, with the
exception, perhaps, of the efforts to colonize at the
settlement of the Red River. Such he continued, was
the desire of the company to maintain secrecy with
respect to their affairs and proceedings, that, according
to the papers from which he was now quoting, they car-
ried their tyranny to an imposition on their servants not
to keep any journal of their transactions, and in one of
the wee to rrhiclA he hAcl referred, that of Mr. Dunne,