The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-29 00:00:00

PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Lord Durham having by this time landed on the soil of
England, people will be asking each other, " What is likely
to be dome by the Noble Lord, or with him !" There is one
thing clear enough—namely, that the manifesto of the late
Governor-General was a Godsend to the Ministers, with
whom he quarrelled, by placing at their absolute mercy a
man whom they had previously aggrieved and exasperated,
and provoked to declare ophn war against them. We sus-
pect, moreover, that the precipitate fury of the Lord High
Commissioner has conferred a second Godsend on the
Queen's Ministers by his abrupt, unauthorized, and there-
fore, if not illegal, his unconstitutional and criminal—per-
haps it might be said substantially treasonable—desertion
of the post intrusted to him—a post of such import-
ance, and so fearfully circumstanced, that for its preserva-
tion, Parliament, on the suggestion of the Ministers, deemed
it necessary to create a new office, annexing to it functions
and duties of an equally novel character, in the avowed
belief that without the exercise of them by the officer so
appointed the Canadas could not be preserved. Very
well, then ; Lord Durham had clearly no right to abandon,
without authority from the Crown, those duties, whether
administrative or otherwise, which it had been judged by
the Imperial Legislature that the security of our North
American possessions required somebody, vested with com-
petent powers, to perform. Sir John Colborne had not
such powers, inasmuch as the Queen, by her high
" commission," had vested them specifically in the Earl of
Durham, and in none but him. To quit, therefore, the
post which had been given to his guardianship, and run
away from Canada without providing in his absence for the
acknowledged exigencies of the case, by leaving what he
could not leave in the hands of a successor not appointed b 3
the same high authority whence he (Lord Durham) had re-
ceived his own commission—the means of acting as exten-
sively and vigorously as he himself had been enabled to do
under his own commission—was a sacrifice of the security of
North America to his own selfish and unruly resentment,
andin our judg,ment,therefore, a high crime against the State.
Lord Durham attempts to palliate his own misconduct by
alleging to the people of Canada that the Bill of Indemnity,
which merely declared what was the law of England, had vir-
tually deprived him of all real power ; that the " useful-
ness of his delegated authority had ceased with the sup-
port of the Government, which could alone sustain it ;"
that "if the peace of Lower Canada was to be again
menaced, it was necessary that its Government should
reckon on a more cordial and vigorous support at home
than had been accorded to him ;" and " that no good which
might not be expected from any other Government in
Lower Canada, could be obtained by his continuing to
wield extraordinary legal powers, of which the moral force
and consideration were gone." Now, passing by the gross
impropriety of language such as this, addressed to a people
disaffected towards the supreme Government of the em-
pire, and so lately in arms against it, let us ask any
reasonable man to inform us whether, putting morality
out of the question, Lord Durham or any public
functionary could be justified, on mere political
and constitutional principles, in taking upon himself
to proclaim that the sovereign power of Great Britain, by
its disapproval of one of his official acts out of many, had
left him without the means of exercising his function in
other instances usefully or effectively for the kingdom ?
Who had a right to judge upon this question—the Queen's
Government, and the nation's Parliament, bound to de-
clare and to enforce the law of England, or Lord Durham,
by whom that the law had been violated, and whose volun-
tary act, under a misapprehension of the nature and ex-
tent of his own authority, had rendered the judgment
passed upon him by Parliament an inevitable con-
sequence of his error ? There is not a Governor of any
British possession in the world who might not plead, with
as much plausibility as Lord Durham, the Royal disapproval
of any single exercise of power on his part, or of any as-
sumption of power which he had not, as his justification for
an unauthorised abandonment of his post, and for leaving a
Colony or other possession of the Crown deprived of an
executive Government suitable to the exigencies which
surrounded it. Lord Durham was at liberty to seed
home for leave to resign, and to have a successor
appointed ; and such, in fact, was the mode of
self-dismissal which it appeared to us from the first
that he would of nesessity have adopted, when we pro-
nounced that " he or the Ministers must resign," knowing
well that he was not of that nerve, or temper, or trans-
cendent reputation, which would have enabled such a man
as the Duke of Wellington, for instance, to stand calm
and unmoved on the pedestal of his own greatness, and let
partial censure, not involving reproach to his principles or
motives, pass by him unresented. It was open to Lord
Durham to request permission to resign ; but neither Lord
Durham nor any other British subject can throw up the
government of a disturbed and rebellious colony without
being guilty of a high misdemeanour. The late Lord High
Commissioner professes to have thought that powers co-ex-
tensive with those vested in himself were essential to the tran-
quillity of Canada, and to the maintenance of British sove-
reignty therein. He must also have been perfectly conscious
that Sir J. Colborne, upon whom would devolve the Govern-
ment of the colonies in his absence, was possessed of no
such powers, and therefore that in deserting North Ame-
rica he (Lord Durham) left its tranquillity and connexion
with Great Britain, upon his own showing, unprotected.
We do not require to be told, that in case of fresh disturb-
ances, or of continued danger, Sir J. Colborne might exert
a portion of the prerogative indispensable when the existence
of the Government is at stake, and well known in practice
to the Constitution of England—viz. that of suspending the
Habeas Corpus Act, and thus meeting the machinations of
high treason. But even here the evil genius of the flying ex-
commisioner blights the spring of any better prospect which
his absence might produce. He says, " I cannot by a need-
less suspension of the Habeas Corpus put the personal li-
berty of every man at the mercy of the Government, and
declare a whole province in immediate danger of rebellion,
merely in order to exercise the influence of a vague terror
over a few individuals." Thus, under the cloak of con-
stitutional forbearance, he denounces beforehand the only
rational precaution left at the disposal of Sir J.
Colborne for averting the dangers which have been so
dreadfully aggravated by Lord Durham's own misconduct,
and as he sets out in the first passage of his proclama-
tion by slandering the memory of all preceding Gover-
nors, he follows it up by this mischievous expedient for
defeating the best efforts of those who are to succeed
him. We know that Sir J. Colborne is not given to
the tawdry arts of popularity-hunting ; that he feels
it his paramount duty to preserve the State ; and that,
whatever may be the nature of the peril which surrounds
him, whether that of preparatory or of ripe and actual in-
surrection, he will be man enough to despise the affected
scruples of Lord Durham as to the placing the lives of
subjects at the mercy of the Government, when the alter-
native is, that the Government itself would be at the mercy
of every traitor. With regard to Lord Durham, there are
two destinies before him, and which turns up it matters not
a great deal. The Ultra-Radicals will take him on any
terms, as appears from the London Review. But he has
behaved himself with such childishness and folly ton ards
Ministers, that they may have him on their own terms ; and
such, we suspect, will be the issue of all this fuss.—Tinies,
The Indian intelligence received yesterday seems to
countenance the idea that Runjeet Sing's alliance is not to
be depended on. The interview of the Governor-General
with that Potentate is at all events given up ; for those
corps which were to have formed his escort are now des-
tined to form a portion of the Commander-in-Chief's
forces. We have extracted a long communication from
a correspondent of the Calcutta Englishman, who makes
the several forces about to be employed on our north-
western Indian frontier amount to 70,000 men ; and who
infers that the presence of a British force in Caboul could
not possibly have the assent of Runjeet Sing, for this would
be lending his hand to the sure extinction of the independ-
ence of his country. " Surrounded," says the writer,
s. as the Punjaub would be on three sides by our forces
and those of our allies, resistance to our wishes,
whatever they might be, would be madness ; the Pesha-
wour would shortly be restored to Caboul, and his now
powerful kingdom would sink to the same insignificance as
that of Oude." He thinks that Runjeet Sing, as the last
resource, will try conclusions with us in the field ; in which
• case, from all that we can learn, he will assuredly be
beaten. Indeed, this writer shows that if he oppose us he
must inevitably be crushed. We confess, however, though
this communication is evidently from a clever man, we are
inmewhat disposed to distrust some of his conclusions
from the very sweeping nature of them. " Let this mad-
man," he says, " but draw his sword against us, and our
astonished Government will behold war let loose through-
out India, from our north-western frontier to Cape Co-
morin. Let our forces march to Nepaul, and mark even
what the rabble Coles would dare. The seeds of disaffec-
and thecoznstquer
e ceksnoof Rtuhna-
tion have been widely sown,
feet's defection will fan India into a
ble
it is the character of Indian Princes toa be rash, an.dweasilyt
moved to and fro, and the memory of former chastisements
becomes fainiliar by time ; but then they know what our
At my is, and the latent disposition to rise may bde checked
In
by- ,the ease by which Runjeet Sing may be pave contrived
ut own.
this- communication Russia is supposed to h
work for us in India, that she may be at liberty to occupy
Persia. But we suspect Russia would soon have something
else to occupy her, were she to attempt to give effect to
any such schemes in Persia.—Morning Chronicle.
Every man who feels as a Briton ought to feel, must
le indignant at the present state of our navy. Consider-
' the position of affairs in Europe at the present mo-
ment, it seems almost incredible that even fatuous imbe-
cility, or any thing short of a deliberate and traitorous
iesilco to make our country an easy prey to its enemies,
cools' base led to such a state of feebleness as our navy
mow pr,aorts, compared with the great occasions which