The Sun.
London, England, 1836-10-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Madrid journals, especially the Castellano,
begin to be most severe upon the military commanders,
and do not even spare Rodil. It gives an account of
the movements of Peon, which are certainly alarm-
ing. That General promised on the 28th at Reinosa,
that he would march the next morning, and be far
in the Asturias before Sanz, who did not appear before
Oviedo till the 4th of October. General Peon was at
fifteen leagues from Oviedo, and he took four days to
march these fifteen leagues. The citizens of Oviedo
defended the town and drove off Sanz, but it was by
miracle they did so. They counted in vain on the
support of General Peon, who nevertheless was in
hearing of the cannon. Had he even then bestirred
himself, he might have intercepted the enemy at the
bridge of Penaflor. But no ; General Peon reached
Oviedo at mid-day on the sth, and rested there

all the 6th, to recover from the fatigues of
marching four leagues a day. In vain did the de-
putation and the Minister of Armament entreat
him to march upon Grado, four leagues, where the
enemy were plundering and living at free quarters.
General Peon refused, and did not set out till the 7th.

In the meantime he levied 27,000 rations of bread,
&c., 12,000 dollars in money, and 1,000 and upwards
pairs of shoes, of which the soldiers sold what they
did not want. On the 7th General Peon marched
four leagues, and halted at Grado to take more rations.
After such campaigning as this, are we to be surprised
if the Carlists get the better of a cause defended by
the late army of General Cordova ? Are we to be
surprised if the liberal population, which have made
such sacrifices, become indignant when they see them-
selves thus openly betrayed ? It was reported in
Madrid that the people of Malaga had risen in in-
surrection, and that General Quiroga had been com-
pelled to return thither with all the cavalry of
Granada ; and the Madrid people themselves cannot
fail to show impatience. We fear that more successes
on the part of the Carlists, through the neglect of
the Christino Generals, may beget another and a more
fearful insurrection. Rodil, we have heard on credi-

ble authority, has been snug within his house at Ma.
drill all the time that Gomez has been in the moun
tains. After the French revolution it was unfortu
nately discovered that nothing less than fear of the
scaffold could make the officers do their duty and re-
main true to the Revolution. The example is fearful.
But the excesses of revolution are imputable as much
to the cowards and traitors who create distrust, as to
the infuriated zealots who actually perpetrate the
crimes. We regret to see, whilst under the influence
of such facts and thoughts, that General Cordova has
been received by the Kiu,?-, of the French. We would
not condemn the man unheard, but we consider him
on his trial. The traitorous temper of the Queen's
army in Navarre is owing much to the machinations
of him and his party.—Morning Chronicle.
We have a few more words to say about the con-
duct of the Bank, as exposed in the letter of Messrs.
T. Wiggin and Co. Messrs. Wiggin and Co., it
appears, never hesitated about the matter ; they per-
ceived at once, as every good practical merchant would
do, the bearings of the measure, and instructed their
correspondents accordingly not to send any order;; for
English manufactured goods until the storm had blown
over. The house referred to is one of great emi-
nence, as is well-known in the city, but the public
hive a right to inquire how it happens that mercantile
knowledge to this extent is riot to be found in any
pert of the Bank direction ? We are not now dis-
cussing the policy of the measure itself ; there was a
necessity for a contraction somewhere, but that it
s;tould be done by a plunge in the dark, with an ut-
ter ignorance of consequences, does really astonish us.
Some reform in the constitution of that important
body, the Directors of the Bank of England, has been
repeatedly urged, but its necessity must now be appa-
rent to the most superficial observer, and if not spee-
dily accomplished by their own constituents, must be
done by a pressure from without, and at the risk of
all their corporate privileges. We are not unfriendly,
and never have been, to this institution, but its posi-
tion becomes every day more critical, and its duties
mote urgent ; so that purity, energy, and wisdom, in
the performance- of them, have become equally indis-
pensable to its own safety arid the public good. An
evening paper, which takes up the cause of the Bank
Directors, but in a manner calculated to drag them
deeper into the mire, speaks in a tone of reprehension
of the " extent to which the sale of American canal,
railroad, hank shares, and other stocks, have been
pusbed in this market," and thence justifies the course
taken with respect to the commercial bills, which has
paralysed the trade of Yorkshire and Lancashire ; but
who ever heard of such commodities on sale here ?
L'he canals of the Union are the work of the separate
states through which they pass, and are not repre-
sented by shares at all ; an AmeriCan railroad
share has never been heard of in the London mar-
ket, and, with the exception of United States Bank
shares, which are no novelty, but have been held
as investment by English capital ever since it be-
came the Government Bank, they are equally un-
known. The practice has been for the separate states
to form loans and make the requisite advances to the
banks ; and such stocks, though they may be carried
to a dangerous extent, it is riot surprising to find
people willing to invest in, after the payment in full
of the whole public debt of the Union, and consider-
ing the higher rate of interest they pay compared with
our own public securities. Between these tran-
sactions, however, and the drawing of the bills in
question, there has been no connexion. The draughts
were made by American houses on their corre-
snondents in London, and remitted to Lancashire and
Yorkshire in payment for goods ordered to be shipped
for America. The produce of such bills could not,
under the circumstances, be sent out of the country,
but they were held by the wiseacres of the Bank " to
be suspected of being suspicious," and they, and our
trade, were stopped by one and the same operation.
It appears to us, we confess, that the course adopted
by the Bank apologist in the evening paper above
alluded to is not extremely creditable to his employers.
This advocate has permitted his zeal to overleap his
discretion, where he brings forward in excuse for the
sudden refusal of discounts, an attack upon the parties
proffering the bills so untenable and immoral as that
included in the following sentence—it being necessary
to premise that one serious ground of censure upon the
Bank is, that the rejection of the English acceptances
affixed to draughts from America goes to the detri-
men of " bills arising out of ordinary mercantile trans-
actions, no less than those originating in the sale of
securities ;" to which the Bank apologist replies by
this indefensible assumption---,, But- if parties- engaged
in commercial transactions choose also to become stock
and canal brokers, and to deal, not to say gamble, in
foreign funds, they must not, and need riot, expect
that any attempt, which indeed would be quite useless,
will be made to discriminate amongst their bills." Now
here is a direct and pointed accusation against the par-
ties whose bills had been rejected by the Bank, of their
having turned " stock-brokers, &c., and of their
eramblino. in foreign funds." We want to know
whether the writer employed by the Bank of England
is, or is not, on the part of his principals, prepared to
support and prove this heavy charge against the con-
duct of houses, whose commercial business the pro-
ceedings of the Bank have already impeded, and to
make good this grave imputation upon their credit as
merchants. The charge must be either true or false ;
if true, it ought to be substantiated by the Directors
of the Bank of England for their own justification ;
if false, it ought to be exposed by the houses them-
selves, as among the most malicious and profligate
manoeuvres that ever were attempted for the disparage-
ment of commercial men, whose only crime has been,
the having complained of usage which appeared to
them harsh from its necessary effect upon their trans-
actions, and which was unexpected from being equally
%ithout notice and example. We regret to see such
offensive as well as vindictive language used in such a
f
quarter, nor does its evident soreness tend to invali-
date, but the reverse, the justice of the animadversions
ch produced it.—Times.
Ole Tory journals tell us that one of the most ex-
tilnary signs of the times, is the number of Con-
, TrAtive dinners which are getting up in all parts of
11,4, :country. In one sense, this is do doubt extraor-
etialel. It is extraordinary—or rather it would have
lAnneVep at any former period—that the Tories should