The Sun.
London, England, 1822-02-15 00:00:00

SPAIN.

We have received papers and letters from Ma-
drid to the Ist ult. The former contain no news
of importance; and the only acts of any interest
contained in the latter are found in the following

extracts and statements:-
4C It appears that the conspiracy of Navarre
had many ramifications, for at the same time
there was discovered at Alcarria (a district si..
tuate only a few miles from Madrid) a party of
malcontents plotting against the constitutional
system : but what lends a character more grave
to this, concurrence of circumstances is, the fact
that a carriage was discovered conveying from
Madrid to Burgos 2,000 dollars in gold, money
recently coined, which had only hitherto been
employed in paying the Royal Hotisehold. The
proprietor of the carriage has since been found,
and there is every reason to believe that the
money came from the Palace.
" There haS been a secret sitting of the Cortes,
the proceedings of which are found in the follow-
ing statement :—A proposition was made for an
address to the King, expressive of the dissatisfac-
tion with which the legislative body learnt that
his Majesty had displaced three Ministers, while
he retained two others who had produced such
exasperation over the kingdom. Senor Sancho
rose on this occasion, and said that something
more was necessary than what had been done to
vindicate the honour of the Cortes in the eyes of
the nation ; that this only could take place by
subduing the disposition favourable to despotism,
and that in its late proceedings the Congress had
shewn more docility than foresight. We have,
said he, only a few days more of the session to
pass, and we ought to take advantage of them to
wipe off the stains with which we are covered.
We have done much mischief to the cause of
liberty; we have been deceived by the ministry ;
we have lent it the support of our sanction while
committing those iniquities which acquired for it
its fatal celebrity. We shall soon disappear
from the political stage. In a few days we may
do much—let us do it. Let us repair the evil
whidt we have done : still it is time."
The Commission appointed by the Cortes to
examine the project of law on the liberty of the
Press, the right of Petition, and the formation of
Popular Societies, has made its Report. On the
first point it proposes some modifications, which
will not affect the fundamental principle of the
freedom of the Press, nor the basis of the law
of October, 1820. As to the right of Petition,
the Commission recognizes it as incontestable ;
but in a well-constituted society, it adds, its
exercise does not consist in the power of propa-
gating the doctrines of anarchy--in blackening
the Government and its agents—in defaming pri-
vate individuals--in outraging the Authorities—
or in dissolving the most sacred ties ; and yet
all those disorders have more than once been
practised under the pretence of petitioning.—
The Commission proposes a project of organic
law, which contains eleven articles, among which
is a restriction of the right of petition to indivi-
duals, and a. prohibition to the military and civil
Authorities to exercise it beyond the strict concerns
of their offices. Patriotic societies,in which speeches
are delivered, or harangues made to the people,
or in which political subjects are publicly dis-
cussed, are suspended; citizens who may be in-
clined to form an association of this kind, must
address themselves to the Political Chief to ob-
tain his permission, and must deposit with him a
list of the members who compose it, and the code
of regulations under which it acts. The Pont;

cal Chief may then authorize such societies as
appear to him useful, and having a tendency to
promote the general good, but always under the
following restrictions :
" 1. That their meetings shall be held in the day, and not in
the night.

" 2. That they shall not be held in coffee-houses, taverns,
or other establishments of this kind.

" 3. That the orators shall never speak extempore, but read
their speeches, which, when signed by them, shall be preserved
in their archives, and render their authors responsible as if they

were printed.

" 4. That these meetings or associations shall not lat consid.
ered as legal corporations for any purpose, civil or political.

" Finally, the Political Chief, and in his absence the local
authorities, shall be responsible for any disorders that may take
place at these meetings, if they do not apply an immediate re-

medy. For this purpose they have the right of suspending, or
even of dissolving, the association. It has been officially an-
nounced to the Cortes, that the Ministers of State, Santa Cruz and
Ballasteros, having requested and obtained leave to resign, Sr.

Pelerin had accepted provisionally the portefeuille of Foreign

Affairs, and Sr. Louis that of Finance."

The Government has just received a dispatch
from General Latre, at Corunna, stating, that
the Regiment of Seville, destined to form part of
the Expedition to the Canaries, has refused to
em bark.

The 26th of November is observed as a ho-

liday in New York, under the odd name of
" Evacuation Day," not on account of any me-
dicdl practices, but because it is the Anniversary
of the evacuation of that city by the Britisti,now
38 years ago.

FOR THE SUN.

AMELIORATION OF IRELAND.

MR. EDlTOR—Various are the causes assigned
for the unhappy state of the SOUTH-WEST portion
of Ireland—may I beg leave to offer a new ()O-
nion ?—to hint that an HIATUS is the principal
cause of Irish discontent ! Sir, I nm.not in kst--Ig-
and thus I explain.
In ENGLAND, if you take the lowest of the
very low, and give him a few ideas above his
situation in life, he instantly becomes discon-
tented with his lot, and aspires at something
higher. Nor does he aspire in vain; for here
•the social ranks rise in such easy gradations, that
he soon gains his first step, if honest and indus-
trious. Then new ideas produce new discon-
tent and new ambition ; and he rises another
step, and so on seriatim, until by degrees he
reaches a rank in society, which, if it had been
contemplated as one jump, would have stamped
Hope as Frenzy, and changed Wishes in to Despair!
But how is it in that immense agricultural and
pastoral range of mountain population in the West
and South-west of the Sister Island ? There it is
well known that the whole mass, from the holder
of a one acre potatoe garden to the more opulent
but equally uncivilized farmer of 50 or 100, are
upon a par in all respects, except in absolute
extent of holding; upon an equality of manners,
knowledge, information, and desire of improve-
ment, without any visible gradations, mental,
moral, or political : so that he who feels discon-
tented with his situation sees not any other rank
or rise in life open to him, until he throws his
eyes across an immense lllATus—a gulph of im-
mense breadth and depth, on the opposite side of
which he sees the " middle man," to reach whom
he knows would be as vain as the labour of
SISYPHUS.

Let me add to this that the Irish Peasant, for
hat applies indiscriminately, is a being of quick
conception and of a romantic turn of mind; he
prides himself, almost invariably, on being some-
thing of a lawyer—he is litigious, but vindictive
only when his worst passions are roused—he is a
good deal of a genealogist, and knows all the
lines of blood of the ancient Septs ; he is some-
thing of an historian too, and can trace back
to the ancient and more modern confisca-
tions : and all these points form the subject
of his cogitations and conversations through
long summer days on the mountain side, and
through long winter nights over his blazing
turf. He has leisure too for this; for, living as
he does, a few days' labour in the year are suffi-
cient for the cultivation of his potatoes and the
cutting and gathering of his turf ; whilst the edu-
cation of his pig, on which he prides himself al-
most as much as on the education of his children,
is a solace and amusement, affording the supreme
enjoyment of " laying a-bed in a morning to hear
him cry !"
But, strange as it may appear, the education of
his children is not neglected. The services of
their Church require some knowledge of Latin,
which many a curly-pated ragged boy is taught
on the sunny side of many a mountain. The pe-
ripatetic teachers are also professors of mathe-
matics, a very favourite study there; and to
these we must add the Dancing Master! Now,
Sir, I am aware that few of them are likely
to rival BENTLEY or PORSON yin classical re-'
finement that the Newtonian Principia can-
not, from them, expect any great improve-
ments—and that not one in a hundred has,
a right to complain that he is not Ballet-
master at the Opera House but, minds
thus constituted and thus Stimulated, must be
hot-beds of discontent, wherein the love of
change, and even a spirit of revenge, though
without any precise object, will flourish like the
most noxious and pernicious weeds.
I might say something on the effects of their
Religion ; but I wish to avoid giving offence to
party or to prejudice—liberal minds, Protestant
or Catholic, will think for themselves—there is
enough, however, already specified to shew that
until Society shall be broken into progressive
gradations, with fair prospects and means of ris-
ing, that portion of Ireland must be the. seat of
discontent and riot!

The love of, and hopes from, change, will
always induce them to listen to any seditious
orator; the very secresy of organization, the
solemnity of secret oaths, and the masonic imi-
tations, which we see in " Captain Rock's"
Creed, will always have charms for their ardent
minds; and thousands will always be ready to
start at night upon a frolic, without reflecting
that they may return home in the morning with
their hands embrued in blood !
I may be asked, have I a panacea to offer ?
I answer, let resident Landlords do away, as
speedily as possible, with middle men ; at least
let them encourage, as much as possible, the re-
sidence of the middle men in the midst of their
tenantry. Let the Tythes be changed into a
redeemable Land Tax, securing the property of
the Church still on the land, but drawing it
from the Landlord; instead of the Tenant, in
the first instance. An Irish Catholic peasant
would rather pay five shillings additional rent to
his Landlord than three shillings to a Protestant
Tythe Proctor ! Let Fisheries be encouraged ;
small fishing towns built ; roads led through the
most unfrequented regions; let manufactures be
introduced; small shops encouraged; and let va-

rious means be adopted to extend the wants
and wishes of the peasantry; to induce them to
make a better outward appearance in their per-
sons and in their habitations, which will, of itself,
create a speedy gradation in apparent rank ; and,
above all things, let that horrible demoralizing
process, of making freeholders just previous to
elections,
.be checked, even by legal enactment,
If necessary. These things, I confess, cannot be
done in a day ; but until they are fairly set
agoing, together with such other improvements as
a resident proprietorship would soon find easy
and beneficial, I fear we cannot hope for perrna.
nest tranquillity. Your's,
IG NO TVS.