The Sun.
London, England, 1822-11-23 00:00:00

PROVINCIAL JO UIINA LS.

(From the Bury- Gazette, Nov. 20.)
At every Radical Assembly it has of late been
k. the fashion to tell the gullible auditors, that England is a de-
graded nation ; that, once the refuge of a suffering world,
she is now sunk, debased, anti powerlesss ; and all this because
her councils,have not been guided by those who thus traduce her,.
because she has not abandoned a system which led her to
glory and secured the peace of Europe. But a few dayS. are-
passed since the Red Lions of Cambridge re-iterated the
lamentable tale of England's degradation, and now we
find this debased.! wretched ! powerless ! country dictating 'in
the Congress of Empires the line of policy that shall be adopt-
ed by her Potent allies ; alone protecting Spain and Portugal
from the aggressions of less conscientious powers, and deciding
singly the important question of peace Or war to all the States
of Europe. If this be debasement; we should wish to be told in
what national honour consists. If to be the arbitress of the fate
of empires be degradation, will the people who luxuriate in
their country's imaginary shame condescend to make known
their ideas of a nation's glory. Madbrained reformers of una
existing ills would have plunged England into a war of bar-
barism, solely because it was a war of rebellion : Sovereigns who
rule unrestrained by laws would have involved her and them,
selves in blood and homicide, to check the march of the lin:.
man mind ; but Britain is 'too high-minded, too generous, too
free, to be made the tool of traitors or despots. Her go.,
vernment will neither engage her in a mad crusade to fight
the battles of half.:cl-reistian Greeks, at the will of unchristian
demagogues ; nor, suffer her glory to be sullied, by preventing
neighbouring natioUS from achieving that liberty she loves and
prizes so highly.—That the civil dissentions in Spain should
'excite much solicitude in the several Governments of Europe is
not at all matter of surprise. With the fearful example of
Prance in their .recollection, who bat must view with awe the',
internal convulsions of a mighty empire, rent by contending.
factions, and - suffering under the united horrors of war, want,
superstition, and misrule—the slave alternately of a weak King
and a blood-stained cligarchv. But, whilst the. Cortes and their
adherents confine their deadly doings to their own soil ; ,whilst
in working their own deliverance, however unjustifiable their
means, they seek net to make pro-selytes and disturb the .secu-
rity- of happier nations,,as Prance did' in ber hour of madness,
there can be no just reason for other countries to combine and
sweep her iron the earth. The law of nations should be the
law of reason, like the laiv between man and man ; and no
man can be justified in interfering with the acts of his neigh-
hour but where those acts are prejudicial to others; then indeed.
' and then only,'it is the common duty of all to declare open hos 7
tility to, purposes openly injurious. The war of Europe against
revolutionary Prance was a war of necessity, for France sought
to revolutionize the world. The peace of,Spain in the changes
of her goverrmient is preserved by England, because those
changes trench not upon the 'eights of others—exceed not the
limits of her own domain. And shall ive be told that our coun-
try, possessed of power and
.guided by principle, is degraded?
—that, in alliance with the mighty, yet protecting the weak,
Britain is a dis=graced nation ? les the absurd falsehood will
be repeated, and there will be found 'fools to believe and applaud
the slander; let such men pursue their course of error; re-
form in them is hopeless, fur they close their senses against ,
conviction.