The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 3, 1849.

,03.1'",rentn

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1849.

Yesterday a Cabinet Counci, of extraordinary im-
portance, was held at the Foreign• office, for the
consideration of the course to be pursued by the
British Government in consequence of the intelligence
received from Constantinople. The suddenness and
urgsncy of the summons issued at the instance of
Viscount'•'i'ALirEßSTON, and the alacrity with which
that summons was responded to by his colleagues,
are sufficient indications that the Administration is
aware of the necessity for vigilance and promptitude.
Indeed, the policy adventured upon by the Ambas-
sador to the Sublime Porte—a policy at once so bold, so
sagacious, so humane, and so magnanimous—left to the
Cabinet at home no other alternative. We are sanguine,
therefore, that instructions weredispatched last even-
ing from Downing street to the embassy at Constan-
tinople, authorising Sir STRATFORD CANNING to act
in full pursuance of a course which has already ex-
cited the unqualified admiration and the uncondi-
tional sympathy of the population of the United
Kingdom. Not a man amongst us but felicitates in
his heart a Government which, at a period of such
extreme emergency, is so fortunately represented at
the Ottoman Court as by the present Ambassador at
Constantinople. Throughout a ;prolonged and dis-
tinguished career as a diplomatist, it has been re-
cognised by the more scrutinizing that his Excellency
Sir STRATFORD CANNING, %bile inheriting much of the
patriotic daring of his illustrious relative, once Prime
Idinis'er of England, has added to this a calm and
serene appreciation of the responsibilities of his posi-
tion, a profound and indomitable determination when-
ever the dignity of his country has been imperilled, a
candour which has propitiated even his antagonists, a
probity of action which has disarmed intrigue, and
an experience which has commanded the respect of
his own Government-, and the confidence of the
Sovereign to whom he has been accredited. Not
only, however, in the instance of the British
Envoy at the Turkish capital have the people
of England cause for deep self-gratulation,
but a yet greater reason for: satisfaction is
diicoverable in the character of the statesman who is
now, fortunately for this country, acting as her
MAJESTY'S Foreign Secretary. Altogether, we
cannot but conceive that the circumstance of Sir
STRATFORD CANNING, being at this moment our
Ambassador at Constantinop'e, and the fact of Lord
PALMERSTON being at the same moment at the head
of the Foreign Department, afford guarantees to the
English community that the lane of the empire will
suffer no deterioration in reference to the rupture
which has taken place between the Governments of
the SULTAN and the AUTOCRAT.

Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the truth of
Sir CHARLES NAPIER'S arguments and the j ustice of
his remonstrances, in regard to the present state of the
navy, than the acknowledgment that England is re-
presented in the Mediterranean at such a crisis by
merely five sail of the line, when the immediate
presence of his fleet
_in' the Dardanelles has become
rather a matter of necessity than one of mere
prudence. Nothing could more conspicuously de-
monstrate the. folly of those wiseacres who have
latterly been crying out so loudly for a reduction in
our naval armaments than the urgent want now visible
of a powerful congregation of line of-battle ships
in the vicinity of the Golden Horn. Nothing could
by any possibility have revealed more glaringly the
absurdity of those dreams of universal peace and ever-
lasting arbitration which have of late deranged the
judgments of men hitherto regarded as persons gifted
with at least some small modicums of common sense,
than the coincidence of these sullen portents of war
exploding along the shores of the Bosphorus so im-
mediately after the chaunting of the lo Realm of
an übiquitous amity. Let the reductionists but once
obtain an irresistible influence over the war de-
partments of the Government, and then farewell
to our maritime supremacy, to our colonial strength,
to our commercial greatness, to our Indian Empire,
and to Phat potential dignity which is ever associated
with the voice of a representative of the British
SOVEREIGN. Let the Peace Lunatics once acquire a
paramount command over the Councils of the English
Monarchy, and then adieu to the power, the glory,
and the stability of the great empire of the Anglo-
SaNams. Fortunately for England, however, the
occurrences now transpiring in the. Turkish metro-
polis will po far to dissipate all the golden
illusions and t i;rial castles of the visionaries
of omnipresent 'conciliation, and of the dreamers
of human perfectability. The blow just struck at St.
Sophia has transformed the CINDERELLA of Peace
from a princess into a slip shod slattern, has changed
her steeds into mice, andlmetamorphosed the glittering
coach of arbitration into the veriest and greenest of
pumpkins. The mockery, the delusion, and the
snare stands suddenly exposed to our ridicule. And,
certainly, if all the peoples of Europe had conspired
to destroy a certain gingerbread reputation they could
not by any chance hare acted more felicitously—