The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-13 00:00:00

[THE PUBLIC LEDGER.]

The new loan of two millions for the Brazils,
contracted for by Messrs. Rothschild and Baring,
will be paid over, it is said, to Portugal, as a
douceur for her acknowledging the independence
of her late Colony. This would be a good bar-
gain for both parties—as asingle armament would
cost Brazil twice that sum, without reckoning the
waste of life and property ; and Portugal has
certainly no cause to complain, seeing that she
gets out of a very awkward dilemma, as a gainer,
and not as a loser. It will also be the means of
preserving friendly relations between the two
nations, speaking the same language, and boast-
ing a common origin. There is said to be a pecu-
liarity about this arrangement, which if true would
contribute much to settle the question respecting,
the other new States, in a manner equally satifac-
factory.lt is generally understood ,for example,that
it has been made with the sanction, nay, under the
auspices, of a leading member of the Holy Alli-
ance ; and if the Court of Vienna has really
take!) this part, she cannot, without the grossest
inconsistency, oppose any measure of a similar
character in favour of the other American States.
The other members of the league, whatever
might be their feelings, would be obliged to put
the best face they could upon the matter, after
the separation of Austria ; and as to one of them
(Prussia), so far from having the least inclination
to play the part of a Knight Errant upon this
question, she has already made it subservient to
her commercial interests, 14 encouraging the
Rhenish Company to open a trade with several of
the New States. Russia alone could offer no
effectual resistance ; and her Government is much
too wise to expose its inability. What could she
do to injure England that w'ould not recoil With
tenfold force upon herself? She might 'as well
publish a declaration of war against the Moon
as against this country, with a view to
conquest; and to make hostilities on our

trade, would be to cut up her own, root and
branch. Such extravagance does not enter into
the calculations of that Power; and her ambition,
towering as it may be, never contemplated, even
in_ one. of its most feverish dreams, a single-
handed contest with England. But where would
he the pretext in the present instance, supposing
the inclination to exist ? Our Government has
done ❑othing to provoke Russia ? and for what it
has done, it can plead the example of that
Power, who did not scruple, when her interests
required it, to enter into treaties with Govern-
ment, whose titles were far more illegitimate than
those of the States whose independence we have
just recognised. We respected Ferdinand's so-
vereignty over his late colonies as long as there
was the faintest hope that he could make it
good ; but to carry this respect farther, would
be Quixotism, and not magnanimity. However
Russia, who sanctioned the kidnapping scene,
which transferred Ferdinand from the Throne
of-his ancestors to the horrors of a French dun-
geon, and afterwards recognised the usurped au-
thority of King Joseph, should be the very last
to take umbrage at our conduct upon this occa-
sion. Yet the French Papers speak of porten-
tous signs, which this proceeding has already
raised. These portents have no other reality but
in their columns ; and they may rest assured, that
they do not haunt the Cabinet of the Tuileries.
The doting Politicians of the capital, who judge
the present by fhe past, and whose ideas have been
stationary for the last five-and-thirty years, may
be amused with these portents, and see in
them the approaching decline of English power.
But any man, who has really mixed in the world
for the last quarter of a century, will laugh at
them, for he knows well that we have not only
the 'vantage ground of the argument, but also the
means of carrying us triumphantly through,
should argument fail. The most enlightened
men in Fr-ance- are those who best know
how unequal her Government is to-enter into
a contest with this country ; whilst we will
do that Government the justice to suppose
that such an- idea trever entered into its contem-
plation. If Buonaparte, with his master-mind,
as a soldier and politician, and with the uncon-
troulled disposal of the armies and treasures of
three-fourths of the Continent, was obliged at
last to bend to British courage and perseverance,
it would be downright nonsense to try to raise
alarm about the hostility of any other Power, or
'combination of Powers ! Such actions may
frighten old women, or amuse an Ultra-Coterce
in the French capital; but, with these excep-
tions, they afford only matter for ridicule, or
furnish the subject of a broad caricature. So
much for the portents of the Paris Journals.

[THE TIMES.]
We have received from a correspondent a copy
of the National Intelligencer of the United States,
containing a curious, and, it appears, a rare in-
sight, into the proceedings of the American Se-
nate last May, on the subject of the Slave-trade
Convention with Great Britain, ratified by his
Majesty, but essentially altered by the Senate of
the United States, after the President had affix-
ed to it his unqualified approbation. The seal of
secrecy being withdraw n from the sitting of
the Senate, we find that great and strenuous
opposition was made to almost every article
of the treaty, and that even in the state
to which various and important changes had
reduced it, the instrument was ratified by only
three votes beyond the number which the
Constitution requires. The arguments employed
by the opponents of the measure, or of those
parts against which exceptions were more parti-
culaoy taken, show a distrust and jealousy of
Great Britain, which, without feeling ourselves
authorized to pronounce it unreasonable, we
cannot help regarding as extreme. The soreness
evinced by the Senators on the question of con-
ceding a mutual right of search, seemed to de-
rive a large share of its activity rather from
indirect associations and remembrances, than
from any cause immediately belonging to
that class of contingencies in which the
right was likely to be exercised under the pend-
ing treaty. We admit, however, as a fair subject
of remark, that there may not be a substantial
reciprocity, although there is a full reciprocity in
principle, between the two Powers respecting,
the practical operation of this right. The mer-
chantmen of America almost equal those of Great
Britain, while the British cruizers exceed the
American in the proportion of eight or ten to one,
so that the number of searches by English men-
of-war upon American vessls would probably
much out-number those experienced by the mer-
chantmen of England from the cruisers of the
United States. We feel pleasure in pointing at-
tention to this circumstance, because the Senators
of the Union were aware of it, and their agreeing
to even a very restricted search is, in fact, the
surrender not only of a prejudice, but of a plau-
sible objection,to the great object of advancing the
general interests of humanity. On the other hand,
they have destroyed the equilibrium of the treaty,
by including the West India islands among those
places where its provisions are to be enforced,
and excluding the coasts 44 of America," which
the treaty originally comprehended ; thus au-
thorizing the approach of American men-of-war
for this particular service to the British posses-
sions, while the forbid that of British men-of-war
to their own. This is the ground on which Mr.
Canning appears to have made his principal stand
against the Convention as modified by the Senate ;
and we confess that we see not how he can well
recede.

FN ENV TIMES.]
In the sitting of Saturday last, in the French
Chamber of Deputies, a very curious question
arose on the law for indemnifying the plundered
and persecuted Emigrants. The law is, as all
tl►e world knows, a law of absolute justice ; and
the only defect in it is that it does not and can-
not go far enough. The faithful subjects of their
King who dragged out so many long years in
misery and exile can never be compensated for
their sufferings, nor will the proposed law give
them uny thing like a complete indemnity even
for the loss of their property. Still so far as
it goes, every man of sound judgment and good
moral feeling must approve of the law) which has

nevertheless been much abused by the base and
selfish part of the French Press. The question
discussed on Saturday was probably concerted to
throw some disfavour on the law. It arose on the
petition of an Acquereur to he allowed to share in
the indemnity which might be granted to the
Emigrant whose property he had purchased. The
Acqu&eurs, as they are called, bought from the
Revolutionary Government, generally at a very
low price, the estates of Emigrants. When the
Emigrants returned many of the Acquereurs name
to a compromise with them, and paid them some-
thing to confirm their title. The petitioner had
done so, and upon this ground it is that he now
prays to share in the indemnity. The demand
appears to us to be absurd. This man has cer-
tainly not given more than its value for the estate;
probably much less. What he states may be a
reason why the nation should diminish the indem-
nity of the Emigrant; but it can be no reason for
giving any thing to the Acquereur.

[MORNING tiEttAt.n.]
One might almost as well attempt to stop the
tide in-its course as to arrest the ruinous thirst of
speculation which now possesses the minds of so
many of our countrymen. No one can look on
soberly at such a conflict of bad passions as this
mania gives rise to, without a fearful foreboding of
the effects which a reflux must produce. This
mischievous and insane propensity is not confined,
it would seem, to the town-bred dealers in bubbles,
but has extended itself to the country ; and every
post is reported to bring orders to a large
amount for the investment of money in some
or other of the new Mining concerns, or other
foreign speculations. We should dignify many
of these projects much too highly, were we to
admit that they have, in fact, any actual exist-
ence. A name is all, we believe, that most of
them possess. Their locality is more than doubt-
ful. A share in a project for transmuting the
lava of Etna or Vesuvius into gold would be as
wise and feasible a speculation as some of those
which now occupy so much of the attention and
actual wealth of Englishmen. This feverish and
unnatural state of things augurs badly both of
individual and national character. To see
men, most of them, it is presumed, persons of
some education ; many of them with wives and
families dependent upon them for support, em-
barking their property in a species of gambling
more insane and hopeless than those which oc-
cupy the nightly orgies of the lowest hells, is a
fearful and appalling spectacle to those who
talk of our advancement in civilization, and
would have us believe that we excel all
the nations of the earth in good sense, pru-
dence, and right feeling. We look with fearful
expectation not only to the individual ruin, but to
the crimes which are but too likely to be the re-
sult of all this. Let those who have their stock
or other securities within the reach of persons
bitten be this mania, look wel' to their safety.
A powerful and speedy re-action must inevitably
take place ; the consequences of which must fall
somewhere. It is the duty of every man not in-
volved in it himself, to do all in his power to de-
ter others from embarking in it. The Press, at
least, has done its duty ; and those who have to
date the ruin of themselves and their families from
this maddening crisis, will not have to say that
they did so without its warning voice having been
lifted up to save them from destruction.

[MORNING CI RONICLEI
The sort of language used by the Magistrates
at Horsemonger-lane, who opposed the motion of
Mr. 'Moberly, for an inquiry to ascertain whether
it be expedient to introduce heated air into the
prisons of the county of Surrey, is not over and
above calculated to prepossess the public in fa-
vour of the unpaid Magistracy. Mr. Maberly
stated, that Horseinonger-lane Gaol was one mass
of brickwork, paved with stone, and consequently
damp and unwholesome. The statement of Mr.
Maberly was confirmed by another Magistrate, Mr.
Palmer, who observed, " that the prisoners slept
on iron bedsteads, certalely well provided with
blankets, but in a room which had no glazed win-
dows, and which was in a constant state of hu-
midity, from the washing employed to keep the
prison clean." Now that prisons and houses of
correction may be considered as the occasional
residence if not the home of so considerable a
portion of our population, the state in which they
are with respect to healthiness or unhealthiness
becomes a question of no slight importance. If
commitment were a rare occurrence, the state of
the prisons might be of the less consequence, but
the time seems fast approaching, when it will be
a rarity to find a mall who has not been once at
least in a prison. Now, it may be all very true,
as Mr. Trower considerately observed, that
'C prisons were intended to be places of punish-
ment not of pleasure," and it may be beneath so
great a personage as himself to distinguish be-
tween prisoners committed for trial and prisoners
committed in execution, or to consider " the
comforts of the prisoners." But though it may
be of little consequence, as far as prisoners them-
selves are concerned, how they are treated,
it is of some consequence that they should
not be thrown back on society, physically
unable to earn their living, from diseases caught
in a prison. The old system obviated all
difficulty ; for between the gaol distemper and
the executioner, the most of the prisoners were
tolerably well accounted for ; but the relaxation
of the penal laws, and the improved construction
of prisons, have involved us in a new difficulty.
Mr._Holme Sumner, who always speaks as much
in character as any of Shakspeare's personages,
did not deem himself authorised to infer that hu-
midity would occasion disease, but conceived
cases of disease ought first to be brought forward.
We trust, if any cause should hereafter be in-
stanced, it will not be sufficient to prove that the
prisoners were diseased on leaving the prison, but
that in justice to the reputation of the prison,
which is now at issue,a proof will also be insisted on
that the prisoner should prove the absence of all
disease, or seeds of disease, in his system, previ-
ous to commitment: We were glad to see the
Worthy Magistrate so gay on the subject of Mr.
O'Callaghan. It is a comfort for men of warm
tempers to know where they can have the be-
nefit of a coolling. regimen. But who is to

physic, the physicians ? It is for Sir Thomas
Turton,•" who bas always (he says) looked with
triumphant satisfaction on his fellow Magistrates
when he considered that not one of them was a
stipendiary," to reflect, that though the explo-
sions on the Bench have hitherto been harmless,
yet that they may net always be so. The cele-
brated John Hunter dropped down dead in a fit
of passion—a finale to which we should conceive
unpaid Magistrates peculiarly exposed.

^~

[BRITISH PRESS.]

We regret to say, that the accounts from
Greece state. that very serious dissensions had
again broke out among the Greek Chiefs. Two
of Colocotroni's sons had been killed, and their
father had in consequence openly declared.
against the Executive Government. In this
state of the struggle, much more is to be feared
from the jealousies of rival factions, than from the
attacks of the foreign enemy ; and it is distress-
ing to observe this interesting cause retarded in
its progress by the ambitious disputes of its well-
intentioned but most dangerous friends. We are
not apprehensive that the independence of Greece
is exposed to much peril by these intesti.►e quar-
rels, highly mischievous as they undoubtedly
are; but there can be no question that the
Turks are encouraged to prolong the ruinous and
sanguinary contest ; and the Powers of Europe,
reluctant, we fear, under any circumstances, to
countenance successful insurrection, even though
against barbarians and infidels, readily avail
themselves of these dissentious, to defer their in-
terference with the Ottoman Government for the
termination of the war. As to the present
schism, we feel no immediate alarm. Twelve
months ago, Colocotroni would perhaps have
been a rebel not to be despised ; he was one
of the boldest and ablest of the Greek Chieftains,
and had a large body of attached and admiring
followers; but, since the organisation of the re-
gular army under the general Government, his
influence must have decayed considerably; and
at this moment we should not augur so ill of the
patriotism or prudence of the Greeks, as to sup-
pose they would espouse the quarrel of a discon-
tented leader, to the imminent hazard of the
public cause. We shall regret the fate of Colo-
cotroni, because, whatever may be his faults, he
was one of the earliest and bravest assertera of
the freedom and independence of his country.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

COURT OF CHANCERY, JAN. 12.
MILLER V. ELKINS.

This case may be considered as a perfect instance of the effect
to which the abuses of a jurisdiction '• the most refined in its
whole economy" may lead. The question was (that is to say,
12 years ago, when the proceedings had their origin) of and
concerning a portiel..of property, in value between 7,0001. and
8,0001., and whether it, being in the condition of real property,
should or should not be converted into personality for the bene-
fit of the plaintiff, a widow who was to have taken some such
interest in it under a will. The will, however, was too ambi-
guously worded by the testator to escape that almost universal
law of attraction which inclines property of every kind, in its
changes, to seek repose in the funds of the Accountant-General.
The Vice-Chancellor had decreed, a long time ago, that there
should be no conversion to personalty, but that the legattee
should take in settlement of her claim, whatever that might he,
the benefit of the leases for her own life. Upon appeal,that decree
was affirmed ; but between reports from the Master, and ex-
ceptions to the reports, and varying and confirming thereof, the
poor lady, now 63 years of age, and verging upon the borders
of the tomb, still struggles with poverty, and sighs for the
advantages of that affluence which, but for Chancery, might
be her's. Such is the general complexion and character of
this case as given by her counsel, Messrs. Shadwell and Bar-
ber—the latter of whom declared himself ashamed of the con,
tinual trouble to which he had been obliged to put the Court on
account of it.
Mr. HART stated the immediate motion to be for an order to
vary the minutes of the order under which the report of the Mas-
ter, for so many years pending, is to come forth. He deprecated
the heated and discoloured statement which had been made by
the Counsel for the plaintiff:
The LORD CHANCELLOR, in compliance with the request
of the widow's Counsel, undertook to dispose of the question,
if, upon inspecting the papers, it should be by him deemed
practicable, without waiting longer for the Master's report.