The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-16 00:00:00

Average Amount
Wilts and Dorset Banking Company, Salisbury 63,405
West Riding Union Banking Company, Ilud-
dersfield
Whitehurch and Ellesmere Banking Company,

29,577

Whitchurch
Worcester City and County Banking Company,
Worcester
York Union Banking Company, York 70,385
York City and County Banking Company, York 91,144
Yorkshire Banking Company, Leeds
P. DEANS, Registrar of Bank Returns.
Stamps and Taxes, July 10, 1847.

5,315

SPANISH BONDHOLDERS' A SSO-

- - -
CIATION.
A meeting of the Spanish bondholders convened by
this association was held yesterday at the London Tavern
to receive a communication from the association's agent
at Madrid, Mr. James Henderson, respecting the settle-
ment of the claims of the bondholders.
DEMPSTER HEMMING, Esq , the chairman of the asso •
ciation, was voted to the chair, and said that under
ordinary circumstances he should have felt groat reluc-
tance in taking the chair, but he considered himself then
before the meeting in a double capacity, not only as the
present chairman, but as the chairman of the Spanish Bond-
holders' Association. In the latter capacity he was
delighted to have an opportunity of affording the share-
holders some explanation how that association originated,
and why it was subjected to the imputation of being self-
constituted. In last July this association was constituted.
Before that association was formed a committee existed,
but no sooner did the horizon in Spanish politics clear
and the affairs of the bondholders begin to amend, than
that committee began to relax its efforts and retrograde,
and it at last became effete. They (the association)
had communications with several influential merchants
in the City, and the expediency of having a body of
gentlemen who might communicate with the Spanish
Government, and give the result of such communication
to the bondholders, was admitted, and the present as-
sociation was then formed. It was then deemed
necessary to send an agent to Madrid. They
had sent a memorial to Senor Mon, but no re-
sponse having been received to that communication, in
order to give greater effect to their efforts they had
united with the bondholders of Belgium and France, and
they had an interview with M. Guizot, who gave them a
recommendation to M. Bresson. Fortified with that
letter, Mr. Henderson proceeded to Madrid, and it was
only justice to him to state that he had done all in his
power to adjust the affairs of the bondholders. The
Government of Spain, he was satisfied, were anxious to
revive the credit of the country by settling with foreign
creditors. He was sure they wanted the power, and not
the will, to carry out their wishes ; and it was to that
they must attribute the debts of the bondholders not
being liquidated before.
Mr. CAPEL here stated that one of the committee had
expended no less than 1,0001 in endeavours to arrange
the affairs of the company.
The SECRETARY then read the letter from Mr. Hen-
derson of the 2d of July, which has already been pub-

lished.
Mr. E. LUDO proposed that the committee be const
tuted as the representatives of the bondholders.
Mr. Manor/ seconded the resolution, which was car
ried unanimously.
Thanks having been voted to the chairman and the
other members of the committee,
Mr. W. HENDERSON read a letter from Lord George
Bentinck, and in an eloquent speech proposed a vote of
thanks to his Lordship, which was seconded, and carried
unanimously.
The letter was as follows:—
"Harcourt House, July 13, 1847.
"Dear Sir,—You are at perfect liberty to declare any
where in my name, that if Lord Palmerston fails or pro-
crastinates in demanding and procuring redress for the
British holders of Spanish bonds, I will again, if I live,
bring the matter before the House of Commons. I think
it, however, only justice to Lord Palmerston to say that
all his previous conduct in forcing redress from Portugal.
New Granada, and Venezuela point him out, of all the
statesmen who have ever held the seals of the Foreign-
office, as the man in whom the British holders of foreign
bonds have the best right to place confidence that he will
fearlessly and firmly seek and obtain payment of their
just debts.
"Lord Palmerston's heart is evidently with the British
creditors of foreign repudiating and non-paying states ;
and it is cleat that Lord Palmerston only requires to be
properly backed up by the representatives of the empire,
to take effectual measures to obtain for all British holders
of foreign bonds punctual payment of their interest by
all nations who have not the excuse of poverty, insol-
vency, and bond fide inability to pay.
" Practically, then, it rests with the British holders
of Spanish and other bonds now, when on the eve of a
general election, to rouse constituencies from the north
of Scotland to the Land's End, and from Harwich to
Galway, to call upon their representatives, or rather
upon the candidates on the hustings, to pledge themselves
to support Lord Palmerston, in demanding' and securing
the immediate and punctual payment of the interest upon
all the debts due by solvent national Governments to the
subjects of Great Britain.
" Lord Palmerston has stated the aggregate principal
of the Foreign Debt due to British subjects at one
hundred and fifty millions sterling ; at three and a half
per cent. interest this would give upwards of five mil-
lions a year of interest due by foreign nations, and un-
paid to British subjects.
" This is a sum nearly equal to the property and
income-tax ; it is an annual sum to be paid to England
in 'foreign gold,' nearly equal to that drain of English
gold,' in payment for foreign grain, which, in the months
of April and May last, created such a panic and such a
pressure on the money-market.
" Had these BASE foreign National Debtors, as
Lord Palmerston has justly designated them, been
'HONEST' instead of ' BASE,' the DRAIN Of SIX
MILLIONS of GOLD in payment for foreign grain,
would have been within ONE MILLION STERLING COUN-
TERVAILED by the cash payments in discharge of the
annual interest of these foreign debts, and there could
have been no pressure in the money-market, no obstacles
to the liberal discounts of the bank—no distress amongst
fair, honest, enterprising English merchants and manu-
facturers.
'‘ Let the people of England remember that they to
whom these' Spanish thieves' owe an annual interest of
upwards of one million six hundred thousand pounds
sterling, pay every year for the slave-grown sugars and
coffee, and slave-raised copper of Cuba and Porto Rico,
a sum fully greater than this, mostly in English gold,
the hard-earnings of honest English industry, to
these very Spaniards ; and then let them ask
the candidates for their suffrages, whether, if
returned to Parliament, they will suffer any longer
this barefaced robbery to continue ; let the people of
England ask the candidates for their votes, if they will
tamely and basely connive at the longer continuance of
this Spanish freebooting, at the expense of the hard
horny hands, and exhausted sweat of English labour
and English honesty.
" Will they suffer this, in order that the Queen of
Portugal and her profligate Court, and et more profli-
gate Ministers, may continue to revel in a lavish extra-
vagance, and a wasteful expenditure, greater by one-half
than that which contents the wants, and maintains the
dignity of our own Queen, the greatest Sovereign of the
earth ?
" Will the people of England be content any longer
to look quietly upon Cuba and Porto Rico, producing in
value upwards of ten millions sterling of produce an-
nually on the one side—and on the unpaid debt of
forty-six millions due by Spain to British subjects
on the other side—Cuba and Porto Rico, AT ONCE SO
RICH and SO EASY A PRIZE, and FORBEAR LONGER TO
DISTRAIN UPON THE GOODS OF THEIR WEALTHY, their
faithless, their unprincipled Spanish debtors ?
" Finally, I repeat that the battle rests now with the
British bondholders, to be fought by them on the hust-
ings. Though my political opponent, I think they
ought to have confidence in Lord Palmerston ; but if
the British bondholders do their duty to themselves and
to Lord Palmerston, and Lord Palmerston should never-
theless disappoint their just expectations, then, I say,
you will know where to look for one who, in what he
knows to be a just cause, will neither flatter nor flinch,
deceive, desert, or betray, in your faithful servant,
" G. BENTINCK.

" To Wm. Henderson, Esq."
Thanks were then voted to Lord Palmerston and
Lord Brougham, after which the meeting separated.

- - - -
IRISH WASTE LAND IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY.—
Yesterday there was a general meeting of this society at
the King's Head Tavern, Poultry, to consider the pre-
sent state of the company's affairs. The Right Hon. the
Earl of Devon presided. Colonel Robinson read a de-
tailed statement of the objects and progress of the society,
from which it appeared that the number of the tenantry
had greatly increased, as well as the amount of the so-
ciety's rental, and that the tenants' property had more
than trebled itself during the course of the last three
years, up to the time of the late disastrous failure in Ire-
land. The society had employed all its tenantry in the
bad season in permanent and reproductive works. No
one had died of famine on their estates during that pe-
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the
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dis-
trict. The Government had given its sanction and sup-
port to the undertaking. After some discussion, in
which the Noble Chairman and several proprietors took
part, a vote of confidence was unanimously passed to the
directors, and another for supporting them in prosecut-
ing the objects of the society. A vote of thanks was
passed to the Noble Chairman and directors, when the
meeting adjourned.
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPIL—One day last week
a lady took a first-class ticket, at the Exeter station of
the South Devon Railway, for Starcross, and on arriving
her journey's end, she fonnd, to her great chagrin,
that she had somewhere or other mislaid it. After
searching the carriage in v4in, she made up her mind to
pay her fare again, and went towards the office for the
purpose : meeting the station-master by the way, she
mentioned her loss to him, and found, to her great sur-
prise, that he was already informed of it. " Ile knew it
Exeterhal f a n
stationhour ag. ;she
T h hadelady leftw aion
st
delighted
e
she ats a
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eh
de
her money, and was initiated into one of the mysteries of
science at the same time.— Western Luminary.
INTERESTING DISCOVERY.—The Union, of Mans,
gives an account of the discovery at Boisse-le-Sec of a
subterranean passage leading
square, in the middle of which is an immense stone
table, havir, to a hall nearly fifty feet
above it a lamp in baked clay, suspended
by an iron chain. Another curious discovery has taken
place at Morellettee, near Mainers. A peasant, who
whealsewditghe digging there
re
afocrheeslta!b,oufnoudndw,itaht
iarboont:tansidx feet
con-
taining a long chain and an iron collar, and the head of
a Wan, 9U which the skin and beard were still intact'