The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-04 00:00:00

THE POPE.

The following is the protest of the Pope, made at
Gaeta on the 17th ult., against the creation of a
Junta at Rome :

" Raised by Divine dispensation, in a manner almost
miraculous, in spite of our unworthiness, to the Sove-
reign Pontificate, one of my first cares was to endeavour
to establish a union between the subjects of tne tem-
poral state of the Church, to make peace between
families, to do them good in all ways, and, as far as
depended upon us, to render the state peaceable and
flourishing. But the benefits which we did all in our
power to heap upon our subjects, the wide founded insti-
tutions which we have granted to their desires, far, as we
must in all candour declare, from inspiring that acknow-
ledgment and gratitude which we had every right to ex-
pect, have occasioned to our heart only reiterated pain
and bitterness, caused by those ungrateful men whom
our paternal eye wished to see daily diminishing in
number. All the world can now tell how our benefits
have been answered, what abuse has been made of our
concessions; how, by denaturalising them, and pervert-
ing the meaning of our words, they have sought to mis-
lead the multitude, so that these very benefits and insti-
tutions have been turned by certain men into arms, with
which they have committed the most violent outrages
upon our sovereign authority, and against the tem-
poral rights of the Holy See. Our heart refuses to
repeat in detail the events which have taken place since
the 15th of November, the day on which a Minister,who
had our confidence was barbarously murdered by the
hand of an assassin, applauded with a still greater
barbarity by a troop of infuriated enemies to God, to
man, and to every just political institution. This first
crime opened the way to a series of crimes committed
the following day, with sacrilegious audacity. They
have already incurred the execration of every upright
mind in our state, in Italy and in Europe; they have
incurred execration in all the parts of the earth. This
is the reason why we can spare our heart the intense
pain of repspitulating them here. We were constrained
to withdraw from the place in which they were commit-
ted, from that place where violence prevented us from
applying any remedy, reduced to weep over and
deplore with good men those sad events, and the still
more lamentable want of power in justice to act
against the perpetrators of these abominable crimes.
Providence has conducted us to this town of Gaeta,
where, finding ourselves in full liberty, we have, against
the authors of the aforesaid) attempts and ; acts of
vielence, solemnly renewed the protests which we issued
at Rome at the first moment, in the presence of the Re-
presentatives accredited to us of the Courts of Europe,
and of other and distant nations. By the same acts,
without in any manner departing from the institutions
we had created, we took care to give temporarily to our
states a legitimate governmental representation, in
order that, in the capital and throughout the
state, provision should be made for the regu-
lar and ordinary course of public affairs, as well
as for the protection of, the persons and pro-
perty of our subjects. By us, moreover, has been pro-
rogued the session of the High Council and the Council
of Deputies, who had recently been called to resume
their interrupted sittings. But these determinations of
our authority, instead of causing the perturbators and
the authors of the acts of sacrilegious violence of which
we have spoken to return into the path of duty, have
urged them to make still greater attempts. Arrogating to
themselves the rights of sovereignty, which belong only
to us, they have, by means of the two Councils, instituted
in the capital an illegitimate govermental representation,
under the title of Provisional Supreme Junta of the
State, which they have published by an Act dated the
12th of the present month. The duties of our sove-
reignty, in which we cannot fail, the solemn oaths with
which we have, in the presence of God, promised to
preserve the patrimony of the Holy See, and to
transmit it in all integrity to our successors, obliges us
to raise our voice solemnly, and protest, before
God, and in the face of the whole universe, against this
grand and sacrilegous attempt. Therefore we declare to
oe null and of no force or effect in law all the acts which
have followed the violence committed upon us, protest-
ing above all that this Junta of State established at
Rome is a usurpation of our sovereign powers, and that
the said Junta has not and cannot have any autho-
rity. Be it known then to all our subjects, whatever
may be their rank or condition, that at Rome and
throughout the whole extent of the Pontifical State
there is not and cannot be any legitimate power which
does not emanate expressly from us, that we have, by
the sovereign motu-proprio of the 27th November, in-
stituted a temporary Commission of Government, and
that to it alone belongs exclusively the government of
the nation during our absence, and until we ourselves
shall have otherwise ordained.

" PIUS PAPA I.

THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NIVI.•
GATION COMPANY.—Tho subjoined circular has been
issued by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
COLnPany, announcing to their shareholders the completion
of a contract with the Government for continuing the con-
veyance of the India and China mails between Southamp-
ton and Alexandria, the termination of the contract en-
tered into Sept. 1, 1640, taking place this day :—" London,
Dec. 29, 18-18.-4 am instructed by the directors to
yap-
prize you that, since the presentation of their annual
report to the proprietors, on the 13th instant, the Lords
Commissioners of the Admirals have made a proposal,
and an agreement has been entered into accordingly, fur a
continuation of this company's contract for the convey-
ance of the India and China mails between Southampton
and Alexandria, on the terms of an offer made to their
Lordships by the directors, in consequence of their Lord-
ships having opened the service to public tender in May
last—namely, for a period of not less than four years,
and afterwards, until notice shall be given by either of
the contracting parties to discontinue it. Payment,
24,0001. for the first year, with an abatement of 5001.
per annum, for so long as the contract shall continue
thereafter—a condition which the directors consider the
gradual development of the company's
passenger and
commercial traffic will enable them to afford, and which
, will tend to insure the permanency of the company with
the service.—l am, &c., C. W. HOWELL, Secretary.
A GOOD HlNT.—There are thousands and thou-
sands of acres in England overrun with a plant of native
growth, the value of which as a forage crop
hypo-
thetical, but has been established by is not
experience in the
limited area to which it is cultivated for a larger sum
than the finest crop of wheat. It requires no manure
and no cultivation except during the first year; it is not
particular about soil, provided it can have a dry bed,
no mattter whether of loam, sand, 'gravel, or rubly rock,
in which to strike its roots. Tbat plant is gorse—or,
to use a name more familiar in the south of England,
where we would urge its cultivation—furze. If such a
plant were imported from the Falkland Isles or the Cape
of Good Hope, what a treasure it would be deemed! It
covers our own waste, and therefore it is despised, though
of their journal they have told us
not worth 3s. the acre yields a rent
thevtha
alutei.nln
Royal
Irelandone
land
number Agricultural Society have set their seal to its
of more than 51. as gorse ground, applied to the feeding
of young cattle. They have shown what a powerful
engine it furnishes for the improvement of better soils,
more worthy of surface cultivation. And yet, notwith-
standing all this, influential members of the Royal Agri-
cultural Society hesitate to recommend its cultivation for
fear of being laughed at. We shall, on a future occa-
sion, point out an extensive district in the south of
England, lying at present in a state of nature, large por-
tions of which are as capable of improvement as the once
poor soils of Norfolk, which have been so largely in-
creased in value by cloying and marling, and by artificial
and animal manures. Gorse flourishes on it in large
quantities, without any culture, and in the greatest
doersinmates) till the
and in preventing
water is ready to be thrown, as nothing causes a fire to
luxuriance, and only requires to be applied to the feeding
of cattle to become the motive power in improvement,
and the means of generating organic manures, which are
essential auxiliaries to improvement by claying: and
marling.—Agricultural Gaartte.
REGULATIONS OF THE LONDON BRIGADE IN CASS
or Finns.—Yesterday the London Fire. engine Estab-
lishment issued to the police a code of regulations for the
better guidance of that force and the public generally in
the event of the outbreak of a fire within the metro-
tanbfle a f
in sew
the days,e be within the hands of
and metropolitan ity
metro-
politan district. It is printed on thick cards, and a copy
everywill,inpotihieee. police-constable s
dis-
tricts. On one side of the card is printed a list of the
several fire-engine stations, and the names of the com-
panies forming the brigade. On the other side is printed
e
windows
of tthl:
the following
premisesoi :
fi—r‘
(afterl tot
keepis
hfound
shut
c esa escape
ee
ther
ofy theuseful
burn so rapidly as the admission of air. Any police-
constable who first discovers a fire without having his
attention called to it by any one, is allowed a sum not
exceeding 10s., provided no human lives are lost ; and it
will generally be more prudent for one policeman to re-
main on the spot, and tend another person to call the
engines. Any person giving the first call to a fire at
any of the engine stations, is allowed ls. for each station,
which will be paid by the engineer. Cab hire or other
expenses incurred by a police-constable, for the sake of
expedition, will be repaid, on the charge being certified
by his superintendent.—(Signed) JAMES BRAIDWOUD,
Superintendent, 67, 68, and 69, Watling-street, City,
Jan, 1, 1849."

DISASTER AT SEA.

PLYMOUTH, JAN. 2.—The schooner Cygnet, 44
tons, Captain Goss, belonging to Messrs. Parker and
Gleeson, of St. John's, Newfoundland, left that port
on the 23d of November last, bound for the Herring-
ground in Fortune Bay. She bad in all seven bands
—viz., five seamen and two coopers. When lying to
off St. Peter's, on the 4th of December, she was over-
taken by a hurricane from Jhe north-north-west,
which carried away all her rails, stancheons, covering
boards, boats, &c., swept the deck, opened her seams,
and compelled the crew to let the ship scud before
the wind under a part of her three-reefed foresail.
She leaked considerably, and it was only by ba-
ling water out of the cabin that she was kept afloat
by the crew, whose only food was biscuit soaked in
salt water. In this condition they scudded a distance
of about 1,000 miles -in seven days, The barque
Quentin Matsys, 444 tons, Captain Mitchelsen, of
and for Antwerp, left lavannah on the 15th of
Nov-ember, laden with sugar, 50 casks of
honey, and a small quantity of tobacco. On the
10th of December she experienced a tremendous
storm from the north-north-west, which carried away
her foretopmast-yard, and sails, jibboom, flying
jibboom, mizen, and all sails and rigging attached,
hove the vessel on her beam ends, and forced the
crew to throw part of her cargo overboard. While
in this act, on the 12th of December, in latitude 37
30 N., longitude 30 40 W., they providentially des-
criedthe Cygnet bearing down, and lay to for her
under close-reefed maintopsail and spencer. The
schooner got under the lee of the barque dropped her
canvass, and one of the crew hove a fishing lead and
line on board ; to this the barque's studding-sail
halliards were fastened, and the Cygnet's crew, after
throwing off their heavy clothes, fastened the halliards
round their waists, and were in succession drawn on
board the barque, with the exception of Edward Oats,
33, a cooper, who had been speechless, insensible, and
in a dying condition for three or four days previ-
ously. Great danger was incurred while the two
vessels lay so near together in a heavy sea; the
schooner's stern was once so close as to carry away
the barque's iron outrigger on the starboard quarter.
The Cygnet' crew were benumbed, frostbitten, and
unable to stand for ten days after joining the barque.
Captain Mitchelsen and his people, like true Samari-
tans, chafed their swollen limbs with brandy, anointed
their wounded feet with ointment, supplied them
with clothing and nourishing diet, and brought them
safely to this port. Senor Antonio Ferser and his
lady, who, with their two children, are passengers to
Havannah, confirm Captain Goss in his expressions
of gratitude towards the humane and kind-hearted
Belgians belonging to the Quentin Matsys.