The Sun.
London, England, 1836-09-15 00:00:00

There has been neither abandoument of principle, nor vio-
lation of engagements, in what has taken place. The French
Government may limit its action with regard to the Peninsula,
without derogating from the treaty--without proving false to
either its sympathies for the Queen and Constitutional cause,
or to the obligation under which it lies to facilitate their
triumph. The Quadruple Treaty imposed conditions upon
England and France, which neither have ceased to observe,
with the same end and aim: Their engagements subsist in
their full force, and it has been recently allowed that the
French Government is still more vigilant in performing its
stipulations. Nothing is changed in this respect, and the
more Government is compelled to refrain from direct co-opera-
tion, the more it wiil make it its duty to accomplish the only
obligations imposed on it by the Quadruple Alliance."
Our only comment upon this passage shall be an extract
from a letter dated " Bayonne, September 8," addressed
to a Liberal Morning Contemporary, and taken from his
columns of this day. We pray our readers, as well as the
writers in the Debats, to contrast the respective state-
- 1 ments

"' In a former communication I alluded to the well-received
fact that but for the assistance France bas given to the faction
in Spain, in supplying it, large menu, with provisions of
every description, the whole of the northern provinces of that
country would ere this have been in possession of the Christi-
nos, and the war, through that means, rapidly approached to
a conclusion. Being desirous of ascertaining the exact extent
to which that assistance was dealt out, I determined upon tra-
versing that part of the French frontier which, from its vicinity
to the Carlist positions, afforded the best means of transmit.
ting the supplies. My first visit was to Biobi (a frontier town
situated on the banks of the Bidassoa), which I approached
from San Jean de Luz. Befere quitting San Jean de Luz, I
was struck at observing the number of waggons which every
hour passed through that village, all heavily laden with
provisions of almost every description. From the moment
that I entered upon the Biobi Road, all room for doubt—
as to the ultimate destination of the waggons I allude
to,—was removed. Having no conception that the
French market was opened to the Carlists to such an extent,
I was a good deal surprised at this circumstance; but when
on approaching the town I found it, as well as the environs,
literally crammed with provisions, the open streets being piled
with wine, brandy, corn, &c., while the fields were crowded
with cattle of all descriptions, my surprise was converted into
absolute astonishment. It appears that on the resignation of
M. Thiers it was intimated, from some quarter or other, to
the principal Carlist agent residing in Paris, that in pursu-
ance of a strict non-intervention principle it would be neces-
sary, ere long, to close the frontier of France in regard to the
transmission of provisions, whether intended for Carlists or
Christinos. This hint was forthwith acted upon by
the agent in question, as well as his deputies in the
provinces, and the result was the scene which pre-
sented itself, and still continues to present itself, at
Biobi. From the inquiries I have made I believe
that, within the last three weeks, provisions for the rations
of the Carlist force in the north of Spain, for the next
six months, have passed through Biobi. There is not an
acre of ground throughout the district of France, south of Bor-
deaux, which has not contributed its quota, and it has been in-
variably Frenchmen, and some, I am assured, holding autho-
rity, who have conducted the purchases. The Christine party
not having had the advantage of the intimation given to the
Carlist agents, have not taken the same precautions, and, con-
sequently, the closing of the French market will materially em-
barrass them. That this is the real object in view, I, for my part,
have no doubt. It required not the appointment of Mol6 for
Minister to convince me that in the long run the existing
Government of Spain would find France, or rather—the
King of the French—that worst of foes, a hollow friend.
It is to England, and to England alone, that those most
interested in Spanish politics, with whom I have had an op-
portunity of conversing, turn their eyes for assistance. This
feeling is daily spreading, and spreading solely from the fact
that the French, even while publicly professing intervention,
have done all in their power to assist the opponents of the
Constitutional cause. Of what avail is it to have all the pomp
and circumstances of war enacted at Pau and Tarbes, if at
Biobi we find the daily and hourly transmission of provisions
to that very camp which we aro told the French Government
are so anxious to destroy ? Had the frontier been closed to
the Carlisle, as it was understood it would be, and as it was
thought it was, there would now be no faction to oppose in
Spain. This, and this alone, is the secret of the Carlists'
existence ; and I do maintain it is a point on which England,
as well as Spain, has good reason to complain.
So much for the boasted " vigilance" of the French Go-
vernment in performing its stipulations!
We can barely make room for another brief extract from
the article in Labels. Its tone is very different from the
articles on the generous sympathy of England, which
appeared in that Journal immediately after the accession of
the Citizen KING :
" The solicitude of the English Journals for our liberties is
certainly very laudable. But France itself is first interested
in its own liberties, and is in consequence their best guardian.
And France knows that neither its honour, nor its constitu-
tion, nor the guarantees conquered by its revolution, can be in
any danger in the hands of a King, when it chooses to defend
its liberties, and in the hands of a Cabinet composed of men
who always defended those liberties All the absurd phantas-
magoria of despotism, of holy alliance, of conspiring with
absolute Sovereigns against the liberties of the country, vanish
before facts ; and it is really too much to ask impartiality or
justice from people who cannot see these things as we do."
We shall draw our comment upon this extract from the
French journals themselves. Hear the Courricr Fkincais
description of the new Cabinet :
" At to the Ministry of Messrs. Mole and Guizot," it says
" we perhap's may be permitted, in conjunction with the Eng-
lish, to declare that it is Russian in heart; Russian by its an-
tipathy to European liberty; and, moreover, Russian by the
necessities of its position. It durst not indeed admit this ; and
in reply to the pressing accusations of the London press, it
states the demi-resolutions and demi-measures which it has
adopted in order to betray with less barefacedness the cause of
the Spanish Constitutionalists."
These are the unbought opinions of an honest, indepen-
dent journal, which has never sold itself to defend the
policy of any Government. The Constitutionnel, in refe-
rence to the article in tile Debats, observes with equal

explicitness :
" The English journals may reply to the Journal des De-
bats, that if, as it says, France is the sole judge of the conduct
which it is to pursue towards Spain, this amounts to the de-
claration that there is no longer a Quadruple Alliance. The
English journals may insist with reason that the reinforcements
prepared for the Foreign Legion were completely within the
letter, and still more comprised in the spirit, of the treaty ;
that the dissolution of the corps at Pau is the first step to-
wards that system of absolute neutrality which would allow
Carlos to procure arms, provisions, and ammunition in France ;
and finally, that the retro-active step of depriving the Queen of
svccours, already promised, prepared, and expected, strikes a
blow materially and morally against the Constitutional cause,
and is calculated greatly to encourage the factious."
To these refutations of the doctrine of the Debats, we
shall add our own quota as early as we may have an op-
portunity. We shall only here observe that in binding
herself to observe the stipulations of a definite treaty,
France voluntarily deprived herself of the right of acting
as the sole judge of her own conduct. But tear away the
veil, and what do we discover behind this verbiage of the
Debats?—The strongest desire on the part of a renegade
KING, and an apostate Ministry, to forswear the Quadruple
Treaty, and to place DON CARLOS or his son on the
Spanish Throne. This is the simple fact, and neither
more nor less than the fact.

Day after day the Conservatives are dining in all direc
tions. It is the only sensible occupation left them in this
their hour of affliction, and we wish them much joy of
But why talk nonsense over their cups ? Why not let well
alone, and enjoy their wine in decorous tranquillity, with.
out endangering their digestion by superfluous oratory ?
Political phillippics are apt to play strange tricks with the
gastric juice, as we perceive by the speech of Earl JER-
MYN, at a late Suffolk Conservative dinner, who put forth
his common-places with a spleen and irritability, evidently
the result of a disordered digestion. This bright Peer,
among other equally eccentric remarks, talked of the
" parricidal axe of self-seeking, but all-else-desolating Re-
form," in a style, and with an emphasis, that verifies the
old adage, that " when the wine is in, the wit is out." A
Mr. BEVAN, too, was far from unamusing, though his was
a less advanced stage of post-prandial oratory, for he
merely praised grandiloquently, " a venerable lady of the
olden school ;" and laughed to scorn the Reformers, for
daring to assert that kings were fond of power. " Kings
fond of power,' indeed," said this sprightly Conserva-
tive ! And well may the funny fellow ridicule such
a supposition ; for who does not know that one-half
the miseries of modern Europe have arisen from the exces-
sive moderation of her monarchs ? What lost us America,
but the meek forbearance of GEORGE the Third ? What
partitioned Poland, but the utter absence of all thirst for
dominion in the person of that chaste monarch, CATHE-
RINE the Second ? What hurled NAPOLEON from his
throne, but his mild and equitable disposition towards
Russia ? What brought the troops of NICHOLAS within
sight of Constantinople, but the same tolerant qualities in
NICK himself ? Mr. BEVAN, you arc right. Kings never
have been, and, from the peculiarity of their position,
never can be, fond of power. They are the meekest
of the meek—most forbearing of the forbearing—as we
see daily in the cases of Louis PHILIPPE and the Holy
Alliance, not one member of which but would proclaim
" universal suffrage" to-morrow, did he imagine that his
subjects would sanction such a dereliction of duty on the
part of the " Heaven descended"—as monarchs unqu 3s-
tionably are—who, it is notorious, combine in their august