The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-09 00:00:00

LONDON :
MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 9, 1838.

On the 31st ult. we reminded the Standard that it had
neglected to inform the public of the source of that fabri-
cated evidence which in its columns had been attributed
to Mr. O'CONNELL. Ten days since then have passed,
and the Standard has observed an ominous silence. It has
shown that insensibility to disgrace which is implied in sub-
mitting to the charge of having falsified Mr. O'CoNsteu.'s
evidence for a base and a malicious purpose. The first ap-
peal made by the Standard for a few days' grace was on
the 21st ult., twenty days ago, and the Standard has
not made the slightest effort to relieve itself from the
charge. On a previous occasion we hinted that its
character was open to much suspicion, and we warned
it by an extract from the Manchester Guardian, that it
was suspected, by its prayer for a few days' grace, of only
endeavouring, by another trick, to turn public attention
from its delinquency. We must now conclude, then, that
the Standard has no explanation to give of the fabrication,
that it cannot trace the forgery, as was charitably supposed,
to some obscure Orange journal, and that it alone is re-
sponsible for it. We boldly say, therefore, that the forgery
originated with the Standard, and that knowingly and wil-
fully did that journal first publish it, and knowingly and
wilfully did it, time after time, suffer its best friends and
patrons to quote its forgeries in the Houses of Parliament
as the genuine evidence of Mr. O'CONNELL. As yet all
its friends are not awakened, like the Earl of WlN-
crimsEa, to the heinousness of its conduct ; it has
not made the whole of them look foolish, as it would
have made the Noble Earl look but for the man-
liness of his bearing, by having to make a sort of
apology to the man they most hate and most despise,
and being yet confided in by those whom it has only de-
ceived, it becomes a duty to make its real character as
widely known as possible.
Our own experience coincides with that of the Man-
chester Guardian ; and from the first, knowing the Stan-
dard, we anticipated the result, and than that no other
parent would be found for the forgery. We remembered
its whole career, including the incidents of asserting that
Mr. FINN, a friend of Mr. O'CoNNELL's, had denounced
him as unworthy of trust, because another Mr. FINN, a
fanatic, and probably a friend of the Standard's, had so
denounced him ; and of inserting a proclamation for ap-
pointing the meeting of Parliament, which had not been
issued. And we knew that from the very first day of its
appearance, it was sufficient, in the minds of those who
marked its career, to throw discredit on any statement,
whether it concerned foreign or domestic policy, that it had
appeared only in the columns of the Standard. This has
been, and is, a public calamity. The Standard for several
years has been the chief organ for conveying to the ultra-
Protestants of England all the information that they have
received concerning Ireland. They are blinded by their
own passions, and to them the Standard has pandered by
its fabrications. There is no want of charity in supposing,
after that journal has been convicted of haring forged some-
thing which it had the audacity to call Mr. O'CoNNELL's
evidence, for the purpose of creating a false opinion con-
cerning him, that nine-tenths of the faults and crimes it has
attributed to him and to the Irish Government, and nine-
tenths of the tales it has published of outrages committed
by the Catholics, have been exaggerated, false, or
forged. In fact, labouring most assiduously, in conjunction
$N ith its Orange co-operators on the other side of the water, it
and they have, by a tissue of false and calumnious misre-
presentations, kept alive and extended those feelings of na-
tional and religious hostility between the Protestant

English and the Catholic Irish, which the public welfare
requires should be allayed. The unbrotherly and almost
bloody strife thus fostered is, and has been, a great public
injury. The animosity nourished by the Standard in
the minds of Protestant lay and ecclesiastical Peers, and

in the bulk of the clergy, has prevented the rational legis-
' Litive settlement of many questions, to the delay of other
phlic business, and to the nourishment of much discontent.
This unhappy effect is quite Ivorthy of the immoral means
employed, and both smack of that evil Power which the
Standard continually reminds the world, is the father of lies
The bigotry of those fcr whom the Standard has written, has
made them lend a willing ear to the imposture ; and it does
no credit. to a great mass of the nobility, gentry, and
clergy of the Protestant part of the empire, that their own
stupid and blind passions have made them for several years
the victims of the lies fabricated by the Orange journals.
We now hope, however, that the deceit which led the Earl
of WiNcitit.sEA into a hobble, and has served to open his
eyes, will have the same effect on a multitude of
other noblemen and gentlemen, for the Protestants of
this part of the empire cannot continue to believe
the daily fabdcations of the Orange journals, without
having their hearts and minds imbued with false opinions of
their Catholic countrymen, and without making them as
shameless and unjust as are the literary forgers who im•
pose upon them. The ultra-Protestants of this pert of the
empire we assert have been deceived by a tissue of fabri-

cations by the Orange journals, the only journals they
read, of which the forgery of Mr. O'CoNNELL's evidence is
the illustration ; and we deplore this deceit, with the
anti-national and sectarian animosity and hatred which those
fabrications have nourished, as a great public calamity.

Dr. LUSIIINGTON intends, we understand, to put some
questions to Lord PALMERSTON this evecing, relative to the
present state of our negotiations with France, concerning the
interruption that country has th rown in the way of our trade to
the western coast of Africa, which we regret to learn is not
satisfactory. The case, as we understand by a pamphlet,ent it _
led " The French in Africa," just published by RinGwAy, is
this. Since the first establishment of the gum trade on the wes-
tern coast of Africa, considerable jealousy and a spirit of ri-
valry have existed between the English and French traders.
In time of war our naval superiority has generally secured
the advantages of the trade for our people ; but, in times of
peace, the French, by one scheme or another, have endea.
voured to make themselves exclusively masters of it. The
trade is principally carried on with the Moors at Pontendic,
and we took care both by the Treaties of 1783 and 1814, in
restoring to France her possessions on the western coast of
Africa, to secure for our own merchants the right and li-
berty of trading with Portendic. Since 1832, however,
the French have been carrying on a war with a native
tribe, called Trazars, who are the principal owners of the
gum forests ; and in the prosecution of their hostility they
aro charged with having committed several outrages on
English vessels trading to Portendic. In 1834, they
ordered away out of that bay the Governor 'Pelvic and
t!•ie Industry, and on the Captain's refusing to obey the
order, they fired on the Moors, with whom the English were
trading, and fired on the English flag that was hoisted over
English property. They. also took possession of the two
vessels, carried them both to Senegal, and did not restore
them until much injury had been done to the merchants
who chartered the vessels, and to their owners. In
1835 the French placed the coast under a blockade,
without any previous notice, and in fact contrary to ,
what the French Ministry had stated to our Ambas-
sador at Paris, and immediately expelled the Eliza, an i