The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 13 1849.

A sigh for CHARLBS ALBERT ! Lovers of liberty,
of heroism, of generosity, have nothing more to
offer that kingly fugitive in his misfortunes. He
has nothing more to receive. History will be his
recompense. At this moment when the rabble-
cries of execration follow him into his compulsory
banishment, when the curses of an ungrateful race
are hounding after him in the exile which he is suffer-
ing through his championship of their cause, when
Lombardy preserves an ignoble attitude of lethargy,
and Piedmont can only afford sufficient enthu •
siasm to vote to the glory of her de-
parted SOVEREIGN the souvenir of a com-
memorative monument, that Royal unfortunate
if he be only as far-seeing as he is unquestion-
ably courageous, will hear even through the din of
adversity the voice of the future annalist, the voice of
a second Grtriccumntrii, telling to after ages the
touching story of his daring and his misery.
According to the latest intelligence of his where-
about the ex-King of SARDINIA was passing through
the Spanish Peninsula on his road to Oporto, whence,
if rumour speaks truly, he purposes to cross the
Atlantic, with the intention of burying in the American
forests the recollection of his sorrowful destinies.
Some few glimpses of ancient attachment are said
to have gleamed across his path at Valladolid,
where he is reported to have received an invitation to
the Court of ISABELLA, and whither the Sardinian
ambassador had hastened from the capital.

Imagine to yourself an attenuated man, of tall
stature and of a bearing somewhat martial, notwith-
standing the weakness of his proportions—his body
enveloped in an olive-green coat reaching almost to
his ancles, and buttoned to the throat—his hair
silvered, his attitude dejected, his features deadly pale
and overspread with a profound melancholy : that
is CHARLES ALBERT. That is his appearance, given
with miuute exactitude by those who have seen
him since the moment of his last catastrophe ; that
is the monarch who in 1848 drew his sword against
the German oppressors of Italy, and drove the
veteran soldiers of Austria almost back to the slope
of the Carpathians. It is the man so long vilified as
the Prince DE CARIGNANO—so passionately applauded
as tl e vindicator and champion of Italian indepen-
donce—so basely and atrociously forsaken in the ex-
tretnity of his chequered career by the men in
whose behalf he had staked his crown, his life,
and his reputation. A twofold sadness at-
taches i:self to the fate of this illustrious
victim of patriotism. Wearing, as he does, the
phantom of the Crown of England—the shadowy
successor of the Plantagenets—the last descendant of
the chivalrous and once puissant dynasty of the
Stuarts—his own individual sorrows seems to be'en-
haneed by the remembrance of his ancestral calami-
ties, and now, in the days of his flight and misfortune,
the darkness of his own personal exile appears (by its
association with the past) to be deepened into the
gloom surrounding the representative of many gene-
rations of suffering. There is in the case of CHARLES
ALBERT not one alleviative circumstance—not one
circumstance which can cast a ray of consolation
across the blackness of his catastrophe. His destiny
accomplished. The sands of his public life have
run out to the last bitter grain. He has drained the
cupof his sovereignty to the dregs. His remembrance
of the bygone is not cheered by one gleam of hope—
however transitory as to the future. In
the ripeness of his manhood he is isolated from all
power, from all pomp, from all obedience—from
7erything but sympathy. He is like a man who,
while yet alive, has gone down into the tomb. And to
adi to the solemnity of his fall, he remains in doubt
may
as to the light in which his nameay b
hereafter. lie sees himself the opprobrium regardedof his
coternperaries at the very time he knows that all his
adversities have originated in a sublime effort to drag
his country out of the abysses of political servitude
a. 41 intellectual stagnation. His fate is the
common target against which all the shafts of
malignity and misrepresentation are directed, both
From the right side and from the left, both from
the aristocrats and the peoples, both from Democracy
end from Absolutism. All the vices that have ever
been distributed over a succession of demagogues and
despots have been imputed to the once lauded victor
of Goito. He is as rash as RIENZI; he is as hypocri-
tical as FRANCIS ; he is as vain as PHILIP, as unscru-
pulous as CORTES, as sinister as BORGIA, as treacher-
ous as Jolla', and as unforgiving as TAMERLANE.
Every one has visited.upon him the consequences of
their own folly, of their own sins, of their own atro-
cities. The Lombards have charged him with the de-

struction of all their brightening ahticipat'ons,
that ,l.struer n • t-,
lessness, their ingratitude, and their pusillanimity.
The Austrians have accused him of a perfidious
and insidious ambition, although his recent pro-
ceedings were forced upon him by the grinding in-
fluence of their unnatural and repressive government.
Between the two assailants, CHARLES ALBERT re-
mains the ruin and the execration, the victim and the
opprobrium, of the glorious cause of Italian in-
dependence.
Let us at least, let England at least—the land
whose historical souvenirs cast a halo over
the catastrophe of the Royal fugitive—let England
at least be just in the midst of this general injustice,
let her sympathy for the unfortunate render her
generous in the midst of this universal ingratitude.
Let her acknowledge this at least of the discrowned
Sovereign of Sardinia, that when the courage of the
most valorous appeared to be quenched by a succession:of
adverse occurrences ; that when the more southern
principalities of the Roman peninsula were rendered
incapable of Sghting for their emancipation ; that
when even WILLIAM PEPE was pausing in doubt
within the Venetian territories ; when JOSEPH
MAZZINI was diminishing the earnestness of
his cry to arms ; when VINCENZO GIOBERTI seemed
for the moment to waver as to his ultimate decision.—.
CHARLES ALBERT had the courage to draw his sword
from his scabbard, and the disinterestedness to place
his all in jeopardy for the salvation of the fortunes of
Lombardy, and for the conquest of the freedom of
the Italians.

Should the ex-King of SARDINIA by any accident
seek refuge on the shores of Great Britain, English-
men will know bow to receive him with the honour
deserved by his heroism, and with the respect due to
his misfortunes.

The strongest arguments that have been advanced
in favour of a continuance of the navigation-laws,
have been based upon their effect with reference to the
manning of the Navy. It has been asserted that our
commercial acts as a nursery for our military
marine, and that if the regulations which give a prac-
tical monopoly to British shipping, manned by crews
three-fourths of whom, at least, must be
British subjects, should be in any degree
dispensed with, that naval supremacy upon
which we have so justly prided ourselves,
and which we have maintained untarnished through
so many successive generations, would be seriously
endangered, if not absolutely lost. The authority
of ADAM SMITH has been relied on as fully bearing
out this view of the question. That great man,
whose opinions are entitled to the utmost respect, has
undoubtedly justified the existence of that restrictive
code—the only instance probably in which he can be
found among the champions of monopoly. He fully
' recognised the injurious consequences of these laws
to our trade and commerce, and their de-
teriorating influences on the national wealth,
but he believed them to be essential to
he security of the British empire, that they af-
forded the best protection against foreign invasion,
and he therefore declared that " They were as wise
as if they had all been dictated by the most deliberate
wisdom." He added, and most truly—
" The Act of Navigation is not favourable tofureign com-
merce or to the growth of that opulence which can arise from
it. The interest of a nation in its commercial relations to
kreign nations is like that of a merchant with regard to
the different people with whom he deals; to buy as
cheap, and to sell as dear as possible. But the Act 01
Navigation, by diminishing the numbers of sellers, must
necessarily diminish that of buyers, and we are thus
likely not only to ouy foreign goods dearer, but tosell our
own cheaper than if there were more perfect freedom of
trade. As defence, however, is of much more importance
than opulence, the Act of Navigation is perhaps the
wisest of all the commercial regulations of England."

Here, then, is the distinct and only ground upon
which the law can be defended, and that authority
shouli not be lost sight of by those who desire to see
the principles of free trade carried to the utmost
extent. As "defence is of more importance than
opulence," we must see that the manning of the
Royal Navy is fully provided for; and if the supply
of able seamen cannot be obtained for the national
service without a continuance of those stringent regu-
lations, and the sacrifice of the countless millions of
pounds sterling that are annually wasted in conse-
quence thereof, we must, undoubtedly, submit to the
loss, and remain contented in our present condition.
If, however, we consider the manner in which our
able-bodied seamen are dealt with—by their " not
very grateful Country"—we must imagine that there
is some grievous mistake in supposing that any
difficulty could exist in obtaining an inexhaustible
supply of well-qualified volunteers. It would
appear as if thousands would flock to our
Standard at the first signal, and hasten
to enrol themselves in the service of their Country,
whenever occasion might require. Within the last few
months no less than six thousand experienced and well-
disciplined men have been discarded from our naval
service, and permitted to suffer all the miseries and
privations incidental to want of employment ; and this
very day, or to-morrow, the crew of the St. Vincent,
trained and disciplined by the gallant N APIER, and
prepared for service under his very eye, are to
share the same fate. These are the men " arought
up to the service, and who wish to remain
in it," whose sufferings the late Secretary of the Navy
so feelingly deplored when bringing forward the es-
timates, which consigned no less than six thousand
nine hundred and sixty-nine of their number to dis-
tress and destitution, in order that a paltry saving
might be effected of 69,9601. for wages, and 115,041/.
for victuals, a considerable portion of the latter being
ascribable " to the fall in the price of provisions dur-
ing the present year." The total saving to the coun-
try is probably less than 140,0001., and for that
we not only commit an act of gross and
heartless injustice to these gallant men, we not only
evince a total disregard of the commonest principles
of equity and humanity in our dealings with them,
but we reduce our naval establishment beneath the
level of that at the disposal of the CZAR, we sacrifice
that maritime supremacy of which our ancestors
were so justly proud, and we endanger that " security"
which ADAM SMITH believed to be of " much more
importance than opulence."
Is this wise ? Is it prudent ? Is it that true economy
so urgently required by the nation ? or is it a re-
currence to the "penny wise, pound foolish " system,
that financial rock on which Whig statesmen have so
frequently cast the vessel of the State. We fear
there can be no second opinion as to the answers that
must be returned to these inquiries. Gigantic abuses
are still tolerated. His Grace of GRAFTON still
receives his hereditary pensions charged on
the Excise and Post-office departments. The
heirs of SCHONLIMIG still rejoice, while expending in
Holland the large sums drawn from the British treasury.
Nay, in the very navy itself, there is an increase on
the non-effective branch of the service. Admirals or
post-captains are not turned adrift to starve
about our seaport towns, or to offer their services to
our maritime rivals. No, it would be unjust to lessen
their number. A post-captain could not properly be
deprived of his chances of a" flag." Promotion cannot be
arrested, or we shall not find so many juvenile mem-
bers of the aristocracy prepared to enter the service,
but 6,969 men may be cast off without shame or re-
morse, save the indulgence of a passing expression of
regret for their unmerited sufferings.
What can they complain of? Are they not
certain of employment in other nations, where
their skill and intrepidity, their discipline and
enterprise, will be duly appreciated? Their
acquirements have cost the country much, they
are now permitted to carry those acquirements
to other navies, and should be grateful ; or, if they
should not possess the means of proceeding to those
shores where their services are in request, are not the
union workhouses open to receive them--that is to say,
if they can prove their settlements ! The condition of
such persons is beneath the notice of their country •
men, none below the rank of officers can reason-
ably look for recompense for past services,
or if complain
dismissed, at a moment'sth ey are unceremoniously
notice, to seek out the means
of livelihood as they best canWe rejoice to find that a .morni
has, at length, even at the eleventh
hthwehgioch uer,
natiermeowe epteodrairtys
attention to this absurd conduct
long and so energetically denounced. An
able have
so
ar-
ticle on the subject will be found in another
part
of our impression, to which we would earnestly in-
vite the public attention. If the press should generally
take up the subject—if it should advocate the
cause f the neglected and ill-used seamen, I

rs

.ti f V • .
turn adrift so many disciplined men ‘‘ brougia up to
the service, and who wish to remain in it," in order
to effect a saving of a few thousand pounds, or to
divert the attention of the Financial Reformers from
the monster abuses that have so justly excited their
indignation.

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