The Sun.
London, England, 1822-03-20 00:00:00

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warded. to the Goyernment by the Commis
siouers till March.

Our readers were presented on Monday w

' the speech delivered in 1806 'by the Marquis of
140 NDONDERRY, then Lord CASTLEREAGH, against.
the 'West India Intercourse Bill. In that ad-
dress,_Lord CASTLEIIEAG.If made strong appeals.
to- the well-founded jealousy with which English
statesmen are accustomed to regard the com-
mercial and maritime power of America. He
argued, and it may with equal justice be urged
at the present day, that to open an unre-
strained mercantile intercourse between the
United States and our West Indian Colonies,
Would be in effect to place the trade of those
islands chiefly if not entirely in the hands of
America ; that to adopt such a measure is not
merely granting a participation, or allowing a
competition, to our rivalS in that quarter, but at
once establishing. their ascendancy; and that the
ultimate effect of this policy must be to render
our West Indian possessions commercially de.!
Pendent upon the United States, in the mean
time endangering the existence of our own neigh-
bouring Colonies, and deeply injuring many great
and important interests at home.
If the power, enterprise, and ambition of..the
United States afforded grounds of apprehension,
or at least motives of caution, in 1806, has any
thing occurred to render them less formidable in
•the sixteen years that have followed ? Have not
the citizens of these States every day assumed
higher pretensions, and exhibited a more en-

croaching spirit ? and are not their prophecies of
time when the Maritime greatness of England
shall sink before that of America repeated with

increasing confidence, and even listened to
With respect on this side of the Atlantic;—

Has not a war taken place in which the nava:
Pride of England was, from whatever cause, ex•

Posed to such mortifications as at once attested
the prowess and inflamed the ambition of her ad-
versary ? How justly then may we repeat in
these days the warning which was so emphati-
cally, but with less obvious reason, addressed to
Parliament in the year 1806, that they should
not on any consideration of alleged present ex-
pediency annul those inestimable laws, so closely
interwoven with the prosperity, the glory, and
even the security of this nation !

If it is urged that the necessities of our West
India Planters should induce us to relax the
Navigation Laws, for the purpose of procuring to
our Colonists-a corresponding favour pn the part
of America, we conceive this to be a most unsound

and dangerously delusive argument. Such a con-
A:ession has sometimes been pleaded for on the
ground of liberality, and of an enlarged and con-
ciliatory policy. By giving up the point under
an acknowledged presstqe of necessity (supposing
this to exist) we of course gain no credit for liberality
in the sacrifice,' and make no advance toward con-
ciliation. But on the other hand, we admit, in
the face of all nations, that the Government
of the United States has power, even at a time of
Peace, to force us from that system which we have
hitherto so proudly maintained, and, on a few
13ecasions, so reluctantly departed froM ; and we
thus endure a direct and undeniable overthrow
in the contest of commercial regulations. To re-
'gain the ground lost under such circumstances,
:if on any future occasion it became desirable,
Would in all probability be hopeless. If the
Present restraints on intercourse between the

---
West Indies and United States are considered

as hard and oppressive by, our Colonists, how in-
tolerable would their re:iewal be, when, accord_
'rig to the natural operation of the proposed mea-
sure, America had engrossed nearly the whole
West- Indian trade ! That engine which the
Republican Government now uses for the pur-
. P°se of opening our Colonial ports, would
act With ten-fold force, if our planters had be-
"me accustomed, for a series of years,. to rely
almost exclusively on American supply and con-
,urnption. Having once suffered the Government
of the United States to acquire a purchase upon
cuir Councils through the alleged distress of our
Colonists, we should find that pui-chase become
daily more irresistible; successfully exerted upon
this point, it might perhaps be applied to other
Purposes ; and it is impossible to calculate the
disadvantage and difficulty under which the ef-
fects of our concession might place us, if any cir-
cumstances should at length throw the two na-
tions into a state of hostility.
we trust that this question, when discussed in
parliament, will not be regarded by the generality
of our countrymen with the indifference too
Often enewn by persons not immediately late-
rested' in commerce, to suit those political
Sl.lbjects which they consider as purely mercantile.
----Let it be remembered that every blow to our
Navigation system inflicts a wound upon the gene-.
1.41 maritime power and greatness of Britain; that

the interests of our :commercial are inseparable
from those of our warlike marine ; and that when

a great and ancient branch of the one is suffered
to decay, so much is irretrievably lost of those
materials by which the other is supplied
and strengthened. It is also important, deeply
important, to; reflect that the naval power
and ascendancy which depart from us
will not vanish from the system of things,
but must pass into the hands of others. If

England is weary of wielding the trident, she
cannot bury it in the ground, or sink it in the
sea : she must transfer it to' a successor ; and to
him who grasps it she must also resign her glory,
her influence, her wealth, and ultimately her in-
dependence.

Incr.:A.:sm.—At the Limerick Special Session
on the 13th inst., David Sullivan, James llickeg,
Darby Halpin, and Edward O'Laughlin, charged
with being absent from their dwellings, were
acquitted. On the 14th, Michael Connell, a very
respectable farmer, for concealing fire-arms, and
denying them to the Serjeant Major of the City
Police, was found guilty ;—zis were. also Daniel
Gleeson, a man upwards of seventy years of age,
for having arms and ammunition concealed ;
Patrick Hayes, for being found in the house of
the said Daniel Gleeson ;—and Martin Flyn and
John Darcy, for being absent from their
dwelling.--At the Cork Special Sessions, on
the same day, Robert Browne, for having fire-
arms in his house at .Togher, and refusing to
deliver them, acquitted ;—Jant es Burden, Thomas
Burden, and Jeremiah Connor, for a similar of-
fence, the two Burdens guilty, and Connor ac-
quitted,—Michael M'Carthg, John Harrington,
and IVilliam Coffee, for being out of their dwel-
lings, acquitted. On the 15th Denis Brien, Pa-
trick Heaphy, Michael Heaphy, and James Rice,
for being out of their dwellings, were acquitted;
Maurice,Mackressy, for a similar offence, guilty.
The Assize intelligence from Ennis, Armagh,
and Cavan, is not interesting, having little or
no reference to.the disturbed state of Ireland.
Notwithstanding the salutary influence of the
Insurrection Act, it appears, by accounts from
Tralee and Limerick, that the Whiteboys in that
quarter continue their outrages with great force
and activity. The names of the ruffians who
committed the outrage on the women of the Rifle
Brigade, and who have been apprehended, are
Pierce Nagle, Timothy Connor, and Patrick
Foley.—Six thousand Police are immediately to
be raised for the county of Limerick.
By a letter from Mullingar, we learn that an
atrocious murder has .been .perpetrated between
kilbeggan and llorseleap, .county Westmeath,
upon TnomAs KNOX, one of Major O'DONOGHUE'S
Police, who was dragged from a car in which a
female relative was conveying him to Moat for
the recovery of his health, and barbarously mur-
dered by five or six insurgents, some of whom
have since been apprehended.
Transportation to New South Wales having
ceased to be viewed with terror by delinquents,
it is said that the convicts under the Irish Insur-
rection Act are to be conveyed to some other
distant possession of the Crown. Some reports
say, New Zealand.

AMERICAN INTERCOURSE.—We may judge of
the probable effect of the proposed measures on
British Commerce, by the fact, that twenty
years ago in the English West Indian Islands,
a piece of China nankeen, called American
nankeen, because smuggled from that Coun-
try, could be publicly purchased for one dollar,
when the honest storekeeper must lose, if he sold
a piece of English nankeen for Two,!
WHIMSICAL APPELLATION.--MT. CREEVEY, it
seems, is now distinguished in the political circles
by the name of SmoLLETT, and the reason as-
signed for it is that he is the " continuation of
HUME."

Yesterday the Duke of YORK held a Levee as
Commander-in-Chief, at his office in the Horse.
Guards, which was attended by between 30 and
40 Officers.

The SPEAKER'S last Parliamentary Levee for
the present Session will be on Saturday, the 30th
March.

Various misrepresentations having appeared in
he public prints, relative to the retirement of
Sir B. BLOOMFIEID from his MAJESTY'S family,
we baie the satisfaction of being able to state
that his MAJESTY has shewn upon the occasion.
the highest sense of his long.and faithful services,
and that Sir BENJAMIN ‘Mtirt§ -with the approba-
tion of the Government, and a just sense of his
SOVEREIGN'S gracious favour and munificence.—
(Morning Post.)
We can state on the authority of most confi-
dential letters from St. Petersburgh of the 22d
February (the latest date of any information re-
ceived by any Minister, here,) that notwithstand-
ing the reports .so confidently circulated, things
remained at that time in the same unsettled state
between Russia and Turkey. in which they have
so long been.—(Morning Chronicle.)
The great St. Bernhard's mountain, in Swit-
zerland, which is 1278 feet above the level of the
sea, and, which always used to be covered with
deep snow, forms an exception to its wonted ap-
pearance this winter. In the month of December
there might be seen pear the Hospicium e.
house of entertainment); violets in bloom, as well
as gentian-flower, lion's-tooth, lady's-glove, &c.;
a , state of things in the vegetable world never
before remembered. In the HanoVerian country
storks and snipes, as well as May-flies, .made
their appearance towards the latter end of Fe-
bruary.