The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-18 00:00:00

—that they had broken no law. They had not weak-
ened a good cause by one unseemly act of intem-
perance. When they said that " they loved their
country—they loved tbeir Queen"—that " there is not
in the wide circle of her Maji,sty'sdominions a people
more grateful for benefit:, or more patient under
ordinary errors incidental to all human institutions,"
we telt that they uttered no more than the truth.
Their past conduct had entitled them to be heard, and
we believed that all their future movements would be
governed by the same love of peace and order. Our
lest intelligence, however, from the disturbed colony
proves that we have somewhat overestimated the
patience and forbearance of the inhabitants of Cape
Town. We regret that even one blow should have
been struck—that the slightest act of violence should
have been committed, under any kind of provocation.
Up to a certain point nothing could have been more
dignified and decorous than the conflict of the Cape
colonists. The means to which they resorted in
the first instance, to enforce the withdrawal of the
noxious order, whch had so excitfd tla•ir indigna•
tion, were likely to be far more effectual than any
demonstrations of physical force. They petitioned
the Crown, and they petitioned the Parliament of
Gra at Britain. The Governor, Eke an old soldier,
declared his fixed resolution to obey orders. e a they
had nothing, therefore, to look fur in th:.t direction,
they determined, so long as the offensive order re-
mained in force, to co-operate in various ways to
render it inop,rative. They bound themselves to
employ no convict labour; and to taboo any man who
did. lie who lent himself directly or indirectly to
the furtherance of the great iniquity was thencetorth
to be a marked man. He was to be avoided as a moral
leper—as one who had contracted a noisome disease

—who was to be pointed at as a f ul thing with which
no clean and healthy man would come in contact,
Evitundus eat! He was to be placed beyond the
reach of human sympathy. Buyers and sellers would
have nothing to do with him. The banks closed their
coffers against him. The insurance offices agreed to
regard him as one tainted, and to deny their policies
to him. Employment of convict labour was thus pub-
licly declared the one unpardonable social offence of
the colony, and all classes of men combined to shoot
their arrows at the offender. In this crisis Govern-
mt,nt came forward to throw the wgis of its protec-
tion over the social culprit. It promised aid to those
who could get no aid from their fellows. The public
treasury was opened to those to whom the banks
denied accotninodation. Provision contractors were
encounged to supply food to the convicts by advances
from the Colonial. Treasury. The war was thus
c'::mmenced in earnest, and there could have been no
doubt of the issue of the contest. The Cape Govern-
ment could not gain a victory over such a combina-
tion as that to which it was opposed. Already, in-
deed, had it given way. Sir Harry Smith had
determined that when the convicts arrived they should
not come ashore upon the main land, but be unshipped
at Robben Island, or placed on board a hulk in
Simon's Bay, and remain there until the pleasure of
her Majesty should be known. In this position we
hoped that affairs would continue pending the
rescission of the noxious order. So far the colonists
had defended their rights without resorting to one
act of physical violence. But the last accounts
exhibit a different state of things. The movement
has assumed a more dangerous and less dignified
aspect. The new Members of Council, who hid been
called in by the Governor upon the resignation of his
old colleagues, have been mobbed, outraged, and
assaulted. The property of one of them has been
violently destroyed ; another has been reduced by
the combination of his townsmen to the very verge
of starvation ; and it was at one time in contempla-
tion to cut off the supplies of .the Governor himself.
Thus threatened, Sir Harry Smith has issued a pro-
clamation of no very conciliatory character. He bas
declared his determination—and situated as he is we
may pity, but cannot blame him—to uphold the
majesty of the law ; and so the case stands at present,
or so it stood when the last advices left the Cape.
Heaven knows to what extremities, in the interim,

•
the contending parties may have proceeded. We
regret that mutters should have reached this pass—we
regret that the smallest act of violence should have
weakened the cause of the Cape colonists. Still, we
cannot wonder at—we are scarcely preFared to blame
their conduct. There has been nothing of factious

opposition in the present movement. None of those
lower motives which impel men to place themselves
in an attitude of antagonism with constituted autho-
rities have been at work among them. The Cape
c,_lonists are lovers of peace and order.
They would fain have preserved all the re-
lations of society in th=eir most settled and
organized condition, and maintained the political
institution of their country with all loyalty and
re-pect. But there was a point beyond which their
forbearance could not carry them. All they df-
manded was, that the convicted crime of Great Britain
should not be poured out upon their hitherto unpol-
luted colony. This they have asked in vain, and now
they are enforcing the compliance which it would
have been wisdom to have granted in the first instance
under the influence of something nobler than fear.
What her 111.jesty will be pleased to decree under
such circumstances no person can seriously doubt.
However disagreeable such retractation may be, the
responsible advisers of the Crown have now nothing
in the world to do but to slide out of their present

difficulty with what grace they may, and bow to the
force of public opinion as it exists alike in the colons
and in the mother country. It is very plain the Cape
will have nothing to do with convict labour—
that it will not suffer itself, without a desperate
struggle, to be converted into a penal settle-
ment. The condition of our colonies all over the
world is not such as to encourage Ministers to
trifle with, or to attempt forcibly to suppress, such
a state of public feeling as now exists at the Cape.
Wherever we turn our eyes, it we have no recent
outburst to contemplate, there are symptoms of
feverish unrest—of latent disorder, which may, we
know not how soon, develope itself in fierce and
alarming paroxysms, which must be suffered to take
their course. There is no other path open to
Ministers but concession. The convict experiment
must be manfully declared a blunder; and the crimi-
nals intended for the Cape must find an asylum else-
where. It is well that the present difficulty should
be got over without any loss of time—that an attempt
should be made to conciliate the Cape before new
dangers threaten us more alarmingly from all quar-
ters. It is to be feared that this outburst in South
Africa will prove in the sequel but a faint reflection
of a far more portentous storm in some of the Austra
•lian colonies. We have been threatened with such a
tempest for some time; the next arrivals may report
that it has burst over us.

DEATH OF AN CHARTIST
Yesterday an inquest was held before Mr. Lang
ham, deputy-coroner for Westminster, upon the body,
of Alexander Sharpe, one ref the Chartist leaders, who
died of cholera in Tothill- fields Prison, on Friday last,
under circumstances similar to those attendant upon
the death of Williams, the Chartist convict, ss hose
death from cholera we recently announced. Sharpe
was concerned with 'Williams, Fussell, and other
Chartist leaders, and was sentenced to two years'
imprisonment; at the end of that time to enter into
his own recognizances in 1001. and to find two sure-
ties in 501. each to keep the peace fi r three years.
The de ceased was in good health w hen he entered
the gaol on the 12th of July, 1848, and, as in the ease
of his friend Williams, a sum of ss. per week
was paid by his relatives to the governor of
the prison for his exemption from doing
any work, such as picking oakum. The money
was paid regularly until the 11th ulr., when it was
stopped, and work was offered to Sharpe, who re-
fused to do any. On the 20th ult. Mr. T. Cue, the
deputy governor, gave the deceased some oakum, and
ordered him to pick the usual quantity. The de-
ceased declined doing so. On the 20th of August he
was taken before the visiting magistrates, who ordered
him to suffer six days' solitary confinement, and to
receive bread and water; the amount of bread allowed
him being 141 b. per diem. On the evening of the
Bth inst. the deceased was taken ill, having been seized
with bowel complaint. He was attended in his cell
that night, and the next morning removed to the
infirmary, but pain in the bowels and purging
came on occasionally, with cramps, until Friday
evening, when he died. He was generally restless,
and impatient of being kept in bed, saying that
the doctor wanted to try his constitution, and that
it was an infernal shame. Before his death he
told his wife that he had never been well since he
had been locked up and kept on bread and water.
Mr. Atkinson, the barrister, attended on behalf of
the relatives of the deceased, who expressed great
dissatisfaction at the treatment he had received.
Several of the warders and sub warders of the prison
were examined, and afterwards cross-examined,
by Mr. Atkinson, with a view to show that
the sudden change from full diet and plenty
of exercise to solitary confinement and bread and
water, whilst cholera existed in the prison, had caused
the death of the deceased. One of the jurors wished
to know how it happened that the deceased had either
to work or pay for his exemption, when his sentence
did not include hard labour, and also that he had been
confined to his cell and put upon bread and water upon
the authority of the governor only, unsupported by
that of the visiting magistrates? Captain Williams,
one of the inspectors of prisons, referred to the Act
4th George IV., chap. 64, section 38, to show that
even where no sentence of hard labour was passed,
the country was not to maintain the prisoner unless
he was either incapable of labour or of paying for his
exemption. The 42d section of the same Act specified
certain breaches of discipline for which the Governor
might, of his own authority, commit any prisoner,
not exceeding three days, to solitary confinement and
bread and water. The inquiry having lasted three
hours, Mr. Atkinson suggested an adjournment,
which was ultimately agreed to and the inquiry was
adjourned to this day.