The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-12 00:00:00

ITAL Y.

Accounts have been received from Rome of the
4th. GARIBALDI arrived there on the 31st and took
part in the action of the 4th with the French.
made three sorties on that day, drove the French
from their positions at the Villa Pampinli, and took
three companies prisoners. The Spanish forces
under CORDOVA. landed at Gaeta on the 29th ult.
The Tuscan Moniteur publishes a circular of the
Ministry to the chiefs of departments, that the form
of government in Tuscany is to be a monarchy,
limited by a constitution.

The Mercantile Courier of Genoa, of the 6th inst.,
contains a correspondence from Ancona, to the effect
that the AuArians had failed in an attempt to effect a
landii.g; and that an Austria 2.1 corvette, which ap-
proached the ramparts, was so much damaged as to
have to be towed sway by a steamer.
RA DETZICY was at Verona according to the last
accounts.

SICILY.
FILANGIERI has published a manifesto, announcing
that the KING has appointed his eldest son the Duke
of CALABRIA (a youth of fourteen) to be his repre-
sentative at Palermo.

The Opinione of Turin of the 6th mentions an
order issued by General FILANGIERI on the 19th ult.,
directing that all the arms in possession of the inhabi-
tants of Palermo, National Guards excepted, should
be given up within lOrty-eight hours.

THE TREASURY AND THE DIS-
SOLUTION OF THE LATE BOARD OF
STANIPS.

A pamphlet is now lying before us, which we read
at the time of its appearance with great interest. It
is entitled, "Letters addressed to the Right Hon.
Lord Granville Somerset, the Right Lion. the Earl
of Ripon, the Right Hon. Frankland Lewis, and the
Right Hon. Henry Goulburn: on the Ex►raordinary
Proceedings connected with the sudden and hitherto
unexplained Dissolution of the late Board of Stamps."
The correspondence between the Lords of the Trea-
sury and Mr. Sedgwick, the ex-chairman of that.
Board, which has recently appeared in the Liverpool
Mercury, and which has attracted much public at-
tention, recalled this pamphlet to our mind. Its
contents are fresh in our memory, for they are not
of a kind to be soon forgotten, hut the correspondence
redoubled the interest we took in it, and we now
again turn to it with the intention of recording in our
Columns the remarks which we made as we went on
upon the conduct of the Lords of the Treasury in dis-
solving a revenue Board, remarkable for the satisfac-
tion it had always given in the dispatch of the public
business, and against which no complaint had ever
been made. We remember well that its sudden dis-
solution caused the greatest surprise, and until the
letters of Mr. Sedgwick to Mr. Wallace appeared in
the Morning Chronicle, which we read at the time
with great interest, and a copy of which we have by
us, no one could get at the cause of it. But the pam-
phlet, the title of which we have here given, furnishes a
clue to the whole matter. A tran-action more scandalous,
or brought about by means more disgraceful to the
Treasury, never yet came before us. It would not
be credited, were it not attested by facts that admitted
of no dispute. Their Lordships, it appeared, had
long been aware, from the great defalcation in the
legacy and probate duties in Scotland, and that this
defalcation was owing to the negligence, or some-
thing worse, of the solicitor, Mr. Bremner, under
whose collection they were, and had been for nearly
forty years; and having had full experience of Mr.
Sedgwick's great activity of mind and talent for
business, their Lordships required him, about three
months after he had taken h►s seat as chairman of the
Stamp Board, to repair to Edinburgh, and there to
investigate the mode in which the management_ of
those important duties was conducted in the solicitor's
office, and to report to their Lord-hips fully thereon.
He accordingly, under their special Treasury war-
rant, proceeded to execute the arduous duty imposed
upon him. How he found matters on his arrival is
thus graphically related in his letter to the Treasury
of the Bth of February last, which makes part of the
recent correspondence :
" In obedience to the above direction I immediately
repaired to Edinburgh. I had not proceeded far in my
investigation whea I found the system of collusion and
mismanagement to be flagrant beyond all conception.
Not only was ne register kept by the solicitor of
wills and probates (Mr. Bremner), bat no entry-book of
any kind, showing either the duties payable upon them,
or the duties received. In every other branch of this de-
partment the same absence of all check upon fraud pre-
vailed. No record had ever been kept of the prosecu-
tions instituted for offences against the stamp laws, nor
of the penalties recovered."
lie then goes on to state the mode of conducting
the proceedings, which will be read with astonish-
ment.

" The mode of conducting the proceedings was of
the most extriordinary kind ; it was thus :—A prose-
cution was commenced, and a brief given to the Lord
Advocate ; but when the case came on for trial, inste,ad
of being heard and decided by the Court, it was referred,
at the suggestion of the solicitor, to th, Lord Advocate,
who thus became at once the public prosecutor and the
private referee, and proceeded to award whatever amount
of penalty he thought prop.-r without hearing either the
party or his witoesses 1 H ,ving rue ived his tee as COUN -
SEL F ,R THE CROWN, he received a second fee es AR.
BITRATOR, on putting his initials to his award. And
this was done not in one case only, but in every case.
Those pr, duced before me had the initials of Mr. Col-
quhoun, the then Lord Advocate. Such a course of
proceeding, which in England would be deemed in-
credible, was in Scotland the regular and recognised
practice."

- So monstrous were the abuses which the Chair-
man's investigations brought to light, that the Board
of Stamps thought their duty to the public required
that they should suspend him with the view to his
ultimate removal, which they did, and appointed an
interim solicitor, a Mr. Renny, under whose dili-
gence and activity the stamp revenue in Scotland
began to double and treble its former return.
The Lord Advocate, and the other official autho•
rities in Edinburgh, soon began to miss Mr. Bremner
and the profitable system of abuse to which they had
been so long accustomed, and out of which they had
such pretty pickings, and they immediately set all
their influence in motion to get his suspension re-
moved, and to procure his re instwennent in office.
The nurnh.r arid value of Scotch votes are calculated
to a nicety in Downing-street; a general election
was approaching ;no time was to be 10-. t; and a
Treasury Minute was accordingly prepared and
forwarded to the Board of Stamps, removing Mr.
Bremner's suspension and ordering his immediate
restoration.

As the appointed guardians of the public purse,
" my Lords" claim the privilege of applying to their
own political purposes the property of the nation at
large. We shall show how lavishly they have exercised
this privilege, not only in this particular instance, but
on al occasions Inhere electioneering influence is to
he maintained Scotch j,,bs are proverbial: it any
one ask, through what agency they are managed, the
letters we adverted to in the outset will furnish the
best materials for an answer. In the present instance
the subject is so curious a one as to be well worth a
detailed examination; and it is'our intention to sift
it thoroughly. The result will well reward the public
attention.