The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-03 00:00:00

SUMMARY OF NEWS

AND
(4: pinton.

" Who runs may read."

FOREIGN.
The long delayed ratification by the Ottoman Porte
of the treaty of July 13, 1841, for the closing of the
Dardanelles, has arrived at Paris. It was delayed by

the intrigues of Russia.
A change, or rather modification, of the French Ca-
binet, is now generally looked for in Paris. M. Guizot,
it is thought, will retire to make room for Mole, Monta-
livet, or Thiers.
The fortifications of Paris are suspended; the con-
tractors are nearly all ruined, the Engineering Depart-
ment having enforced the exeeution of their engagements
with the utmost severity. A large body of workmen are
consequently thrown out of employment, and they will
doubtless augment the difficulties of the Ministers.
Another source of embarrassment is the apprehension
that a Turkish squadron will be sent against Tunis. The
Cabinet knows not what step to take. The Presse is for
a declaration in favour of the Tunisians. This would be
but a preparatory step to the seizure of Tunis by France,
which England must oppose. Here, then, is a peck of
troubles for France.
The wife of Don Carlos—the late Princess de Beira—
is seriously indisposed. This occurrence is likely to be
made a pretext for insisting on the liberation of her hus-
band. Despatches to Berlin and Vienna on the subject
have already been transmitted by the Prussian and Aus-
trian Ministers from hence. Prussia, it is added, will
peremptorily insist on the early termination of Don
Carlos captivity.
A letter from Toulon of the 25th ult. has the follow-
ing :—" The number of sick in Africa is very great.
The five sail of the line engaged in transporting troops
to the various points of that country are each to bring
back 200 of these invalids, and every preparation for
their comfort on board is made. The officers of these
ships are discontented at seeing them converted into
hospitals, but as the other vessels are insufficient for the
purpose, this appropriation is indispensable. The Ma-
rengo, Alger, Diademe, Genereux, and Ville de Mar-
seille, will bring home the 23d of the line from Oran,
the 62d of the line, it is believed, from Constantine, and
such of the soldiers as are discharged from service. By
these changes the army will gain between 4,000 and
5,000 effective men ; but the aggregate number will be
the same as at the opening of the campaign in the spring
—viz., 80,000 men."
The Cologne Gazette says :—" The contraband is ac-
tive on the confines of Russia and Prussia. The peasants
have formed a kind of armed corps to carry on the
traffic. The penalties are severe. The Russian smug-
glers are sent to Siberia. The Prussian smugglers are
kept till they pay double duty, which is so severe that
they are seldom ransomed. A pound of cotton pays 70
roubles duty."—There is an easy remedy for this demo-
ralising evil. Reduce the duties and there will be no
smugglers.
The Regent of Spain has returned to the capital,
which he entered in triumph on the 23d ult., amid the
acclamations of the people and the National Guard.
" The Regent," says a Spanish Correspondent of the
Moniteur Parisien, " before returning to Madrid, re-
fteived from all parts petitions for amnesty and clemency.
At .every station as lie passed along the people thronged
to great him. On the Queen's birthday he gave a grand
reception at Saragossa, and his saloons were crowded.
The inhabitants of Bilbao presented him an address, de-
manding justice on the truly culpable, but at the same
time calling to his notice those heroes with whom he had
been united in affection at the bivouac, and in the hour
of danger, and concluding with this appeal—' Clemency
—clemency for Bilbao !' " The Regent will cast a deep
stain upon his name if the clemency so generally im-
plored be refused.
The Correo Nacional announces that the publisher of
the Cangrejo has been condemned by the jury to six
years' imprisonment for an article in that paper, and that
all the persons in prison in Madrid under sentence for
offences of the press have been removed to the prisons of
Las Penas de San Pedro, where they are to undergo their
sentence. One of them is said to be upwards of seventy
years of age, and in a bad state of health. The Spanish
Government is very much to blame in authorising these
prosecutions for political offences. Espartero ought to
signalise his return to the capital by setting all this class
of offenders at liberty.
The number of letters which have passed through the
French Post-office have more than doubled within the
last twenty years.
PUBLIC OPINION.

The Times, alluding to the question of the relations
existing between the Porte and some of its former Chris-
aft"' provinces, remarks :—" It has been pretty generally
agreed by all the Powers and the statesmen who have
applied themselves, with more or less disinterested
anxiety, to cure the disorders and to invigorate the frame
of the Turkish Empire, that repose was the condition
most essential to the recovery of its health and vigour.
But, unfortunately for the theory of those who hold that
since the signature of the collective note of July, 1839,
all Europe has acknowledged a common interest and a
common policy in Eastern affairs, the Porte has conti-
nued to be agitated, not only by internal intrigues, but
by a series of occurrences which perpetually exhibit its
own embarrassments, and to invoke the interference of
its allies. The note sent by the Turkish Government
on the 28th of October to the representatives of Eng-
land, France, and Russia, is an unequivocal symptom of
the fresh perturbation in the relations existing between
the Sultan and his former Christian provinces."—
Whether existing in a state of peace or war, the days
of Turkey, as an influential and independent Power, are,
we fear, numbered. She is a doomed kingdom, though
possibly for a few years, a variety of accidental causes
may occur to protract her fall. The old fanaticism,
wh.ich was her great strength in war, is gone and the
reforms, substituted in its stead, have not yet acquired
sufficient vje-our and stability efficiently to supply its
place. At proent, the pacific dispositions of the, peat
European States nointain Turkey in a state of compara-
tive integrity ; but let hese dispositions be but once dis-
turbed, and the Powers be
own interests, and from thatwholly
Moment taken
Turkey's fate is
sealed, and she becomes a Russian
up with their
p:•ovin ce.
The Chronicle thus alludes to Lora John Russell's
answer to the Plymouth. Address, and the romments
made on it by the Tory Journals :—" The first sourZke of
annoyance appears to be the confidence expressed in, and
accepted by, Lord John Russell, as the champion of free
trade, in opposition to the Tory monopolist confederation.
Having a Premier of their own, whom nobody trusts,
and who has been baptised " Judas" by every section of
his followers in turn, they naturally wish the antagonist
force to be in the same predicament. They know what
their own feelings would be in case of discomfiture.
The thought of defeat makes the eye of Sir Robert Peel
himself glance furtively at the picture of Actmon.
They are startled at the closer drawing together
of the bonds of union and confidence ~ under
circumstances of discouragement ; so they have re-
course to the theory of quackery and credulity for a
solution. Generally speaking, an expert and un-
scrupulous quack is the last person whom the more cre-
dulous class of patients will be content to distrust.' Lord
John Russell unscrupulous l' We should like to hear
of a public man who has alienated more followers by the
very fact of his unyielding scrupulosity, even while re-
taining their high respect for his integrity and courage."
—Were not the Tories in fear of. Lord John Russell,
they would not, through their organ, attack him as they
have lately done. It is his high moral influence over a
large portion of the more reflecting classes of the com-
munity, that makes them dread every sound
political
opinion that falls from his lips, as if it were fraught with
ruin to their own prospects. In a word, his Lordship is
a thorn in the side of Toryism, and long may it rankle
there !
The Post is still disquieted in spirit about the stern
truth-tellings of the Liberal press, as is evident from the
following passage :—" Whatever may be the opinion of
' Liberal Members of Parliament on either side of the
House of Commons, we adhere to the judgment which we
have on more than one occasion expressed, that good
order, and the liberty which depends upon good order,
cannot be expected to exist in this or in any other coun-
try, where the outrageous falsehoods of the press are per-
mitted, as in this country they now are. We affirm that
free discussion is one thing, and the freedom to publish,
without any sort of let or hindrance, whatever violent or
inflammatory falsehood may happen to occur to the
heated mind of a party writer, is quite another. That
the one thing is a good, and the other an evil. That the
one ought to be encouraged as an aid to intelligence and
freedom, and that the other ought to be punished as a
gross offence against good morals, good manners, and
the peace
of society." —The real meaning of all this
farrago of words is, that the Liberal journals should not
be permitted to write any thing but what is pleasing to
the Tories. They should drop no suggestions but such
RS are in accordance with the best interests of Sir R.
Peel and Co. If they act °therwise' and insist on telling
the truth, careless how that truth may offend the delicate
ears of Tory ism then they should instantly be put down
as a nuisance, and proscribed as heartless, unprincipled
fire-brands. This is good Tory logic enough ; but every
unbiassed reader's common sense will at once supply an
answer to it.
The Herald thus comments on Lord Dangannon's letter
respecting the Oxford Professorship of Poetry :—‘, His
Lordship who is an M.A. of Oxford—but of Christ
Church (Dr. Pusey's own college)—is exceedingly dis-
tressed on account of the opposition to Mr. Williams'
pretensions to the chair of Poetry being founded on
grounds so irrelevant' as these or those special theo-
logical tenets.' Now it is because we, too, can say with his
Lordship, that we are attached to that noble University
and deeply interested in its welfare,'—that we protest
against the assumption that the grounds of objection to
Mr. Williams, for one of its professors, in a chair—the lee-
. tures of which are, of all others, calculated to exercise