The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-17 00:00:00

ZANTE.

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lEarthquake which occurred on the 30th day of October,
I arrived on the morning of the 30th ultimo, half an
hour after the occurrence of a dreadful calamity, which has
irreparably injured the whole town and island of Zante.
Oa proceeding through the streets I found them filled
or encumbered with ruins; the bulk of the population still
out of doors; the tiles and the shaken and disunited por-
tions of houses fallen or ready to fall ; very few of the
houses, net even those most solidly built, had escaped ex-
ternal and apparent injury ; and even where such was not
visible, had suffered greatly internally in their furniture
by the concussion. I regret to state that I fund
three of the school-houses wholly or partially de-
troycd ; the Resident's house is greatly injure 1, not
habitable, I fear, with safety. The Courts of Justice,
hired building, reduced to a dangerous state, and no longer
tenable. The Regency terribly shaken. Many of the
churches smiuusly injured, sore irreparably so ; some of
the principal steeples cracked and brought into a dan-
gerous state; and one so much so, that, with the consent
of the Bishop, I immediately ordered it to be taken down.
Innumerable private houses have been: injured more or
less, many enth ely destroyed ; many poor and destitute
persons made houscless ; upon the habitations of the poor
indeed the grestest ruin has been occasioned, from these
having been less solidly built, and in most cases formed of
unhewn stone, and no other cement than mud, and which
crumbled to the earth at the first shock.
I regret to acquaint your Lordship that the devastation
is still more general in the country than in the city, and
that the distress is and will be infinitely greater ; and the
means of the inhabitants whose huts and houses have so
generally been destroyed or injured, affurd little or no re-
sources for them to fall back upon.
On the 2d November, after having inspected the mili-
tary works, I devoted myself to a personal examination in
lie city of the several cases of severe distress, which by
my directions the inspector of police, with some of his as-
sistants, had ascertained to exist ; some I found not only
houseless and destitute of all means to cover themselves
against the approaching inclement season, but actually in
want of food ; I extended immediate relief in both respects
so far as I could, and certainly, fur the moment, sufficient.
I then proceeded to Scudicado, and there I witnessed a
scene of desolation and ruin, of consternation and misery,
far exceeding any I had previously seen in the course of
these visits, and, I may well add, in the whole course of
my life. This village, containing a population of about
800 persons, is nothing but a heap of ruins ; not a house
untouched, and very few left standing. In all the other
villages, even those most injured, there is covering left,
which will enable the more fortunate to show their hospi-
tality and feeling for their unfortunate neighbours by
giving them shelter, but here in Scudicado there is no
shelter left. The site of
the village is on a small bill, no
part of the surface of which is free from ruins. The fur-
niture, the beds, buriedin the ruins of the houses, the de-
vastation is so great
.that no parts of the fabric in the
shape of planks are in a state to form fresh cover. I
noted the cases of utter destitution, they arc numerous.
I intimated to those who had some resources of property,
though at present none in ready money, that they might
seek relief in the shape of loan out of the sum decreed
by the Senate, and I acquainted the Capo that if they
would send to the town a sufficient number of horses to
carry out seven or eight hundred planks for the use of tha
destitute, and to form covering for them, I would direct
that these should be supplied gratuitously. This has been
done, and small sums of money have, by my direc-
tions, been dispensed to the most destitute for immediate
necessities, and to enable them to get shelter put together,
should their fellow-townsmen either refuse to labour for
them gratuitously, or be too much involved in distress
themselves to assist them.
The material injury which the island of
.Zaste has sus-
tained is extensive, and cannot be rated at less than
300,0001. sterling. I need scarcely tell your Lordship
how utterly inadequate the revenue of these States is to
afford any significant relief, and I deeply regret to say that
since I hove arrived here I have received very bad ac-
counts of the oil crop in Corfu.
I have set on foot a private subscription here, to which I
have liberally contributed, in addition to a much larger
sum I had previously appropriated to the immediate relief
of the more destitute and helpless persons. This has been

cordially and liberally seconded by most of the leading
people, an example which 1 have no dcubt will be followed
in all the islands.

The general distress cf the poorer classes will be very
much aggravated by the heavy losses which this` signori in
all parts cf the island have sustained. Their country-
houses, exclusive of the damage to their town resider.ces,
have almost without except.on been seriously injured,
many of them entirely destroyed, and in general they are
become, in many instances, rather the objects than the
dispensers of charity. They however have in general con-
tributed freely to the subscription, but without advances
on credit, either by loan from the Government or in some
other way, they will be unable to restore or repair their
habitations. This will have a serious effect in the country,
not only from the signori being obliged to abandon their
country residences, but from the want of assistance which
the country people would receive, were the signori able to
engage labour for the repair of their houses.
I cannot express how greatly I have been relieved and
comforted in the arduous and painful dunes I have had to
discharge, and the proxhional measures which I prumptly
adopted on behalf of the Senate, by the effectual, prompt,
and worst paternal action of his Highness the Presi-
dent, Sir Pietro Petrizzopulo, and the members of that
illustrious body. in approving and confirming all I had
done, in announcing their desire and determination to do
whatever further is in their power, and even empowering
me, in their name, to extend such further relief as I may
deem necessary.
EXTRACT FROM TREASURY MINUTES, DATED DEC. 31, 1840.

Write to Mr. Stephen, with reference to his letter of
the 2d of December, that my Lords have learnt with the
greatest sorrow the distress occasioned to the inhabitants of
Zante by the late earthquake, and taking the circumstances
into consideration, and adverting to the opinion expressed
by Lord John Russell, my Lords feel they should be jus-
tified in making a small grant from civil contingencies in aid
of the sufferers ; my Lords, therefore, have directed that a
sum of 4,0001. should be set aside from civil contingencies
for that purpose.
Lord Melbourne and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
state to the Board, that her Majesty has been graciously
pleased to direct that 1,000/. should be issued in aid of the
distress of the inhabitants of Zante, out of her Royal
bounty. R. GORDON.

Whitehall, Treasury Chambers, April 1, 1841.

AMERICAN PEOPLE.

As fir as the American people have had time enough
to degenerate from their British origin into a distinctive
national character, we are afraid that that character con-
sists, for the most part, in empty pretension and puff.
Haring begun their Republican career with a deep tinc-
ture of vanity occasioned by their successful struggle for
independence, and having afterwards enjoyed considerable
mercantile prosperity as the principal cotton-growers for
the European market?, they seem to have strutted into a
precocious and unnatural self-importance, as if their poli
tical and commercial resources had attained a maturity
which, under the guidance of democratic infallibility, ren-
dered every chance of miscarriage an inconceivable thing.
Like the Persian ambassador, who, on learning from
Sir Gore Ousely the prodigious revenue of the
English Post-office (before Spring Rice's time), was so
oblivious of the local exigencies and facilities pro-
ducing that revenue, as to have determined that
his own country, though neither conducting an extensive
correspondence, nor furnished with suitable mail roads,
should immediately reap a similar fiscal advantage—the
equally sanguine Americans appear to have jumped to
the conclusion, that because properly conducted banks of
issue, amenable to legal restrictions, and instituted by
a substantial proprietary, have been found eminently con-
ducive to public prosperity in old countries, therefore in
order to possess themselves of analogous benefits, no-
thing more was necessary than to organise a board of
needy Directors, get hold cf an easily-procured charier,
open shop with a suitable complement of counters and
clerks, and scatter their paper responsibilities over the
whole surface of their credulous and confiding country.
In general, not to speak of their unscrupulous defiance
of the statutory regulations of such chartered forcing-
beds, they have not only multiplied them in every
district, without inquiring into their means of per-
manency, or whetlizir they were actually called
for by the fair necessities of the neighbourhood, but they
have almost universally neglected the provident pre-
cautions which, alone, could secure the provincial
succ,!ss of these Banks, and their requisite credit in the
remoter ramifications of commercial enterprise. The con-

sequence has been, that the speculations in question have
both generated and shared all the disasters inseparable
from an unreal capital and from over-trading. For some
years the manner in which they ministered to the conveni-
ency and accommodation of their respective vicinities
(though often on usurious terms), as well as to the private
avarice of their Directors in divers forms of traffic for-

bidden in their charters, imparted to them a plausible and
adventitious prosperity. The day of reckoning was never
thought of; but when that day—which honest men who
mean to pay their bills must always be provided for—was
suddenly brought about by a no-confidence panic, such as
every mercantile community is liable to, the pretended stock
of these Banks, in nine cases out of ten, was ascertained to be
non inventus est ; scarcely a dollar could they muster to hon-
our their worthless paper; their nefarious proceedings spread
havoc and consternation thougbout the entire Union; peen-
niiry distt ess became everywhere prevalent ; and many of
the implicated parties, if they were not actually subjected
to restraints of a sponging-house, had at least done every
thing in their power to deserve them,
A day or two ago, we briefly noticed the scandalous dis-
closures upon this subject which have recently been sub-
mitted to the American Legislature. In to-day's paper
we give a faithful abstract of the remaining portion of the
evidence ; and, according to the explicit confession of
these reports, which minutely detail the defaultership of
the various bubble-banks throughout the republic, the sys-
tem generally pursued has been such as brings no ordinary
disgrace upon the popular domination inseparable from
democratic governments,—a domination, which, judging
from this particular instance, is scarcely more blind and
resistless in producing internal distress. than arbitrary
and mischievous in shaking the national credit. Owing
to the supreme force of the popular will in the United
States when a sufficient impulse of supposed self-interest
calls it into action, it appears that an application for bark
charters, backed by the provincial authorities
who systematically league together—not for weigh-
ing, or, if necessary, overruling the wishes of their
constituents, but for implicitly carrying them into effect—
has generally been complied with, as a matter of course.
Precautionary inquiries and securities have been too ge-
nerally disregarded ; nominal provisions and prohibitions
introduced into charters have been carelessly trusted to ;
and hence the disastrous upshot has been exactly what
every provident calculator might have clearly foreseen.
With regard to the almost incredible facts, authenti-
cated by the American commissioners, we can do little else
than refer our readers to our accompanying abstract, con-
tinued from Wednesday's paper. The following are in-
structive specimens :
" MICHIGAN.—This report commences with a statement
of the condition of the Farmers' Bank of Genessee county,
from which it appears, from the evidence of the cashier,
&c., that no set of books had ever been kept, that the
whole amount of specie which appeared at any time to
have been the bone fide property of the bank was about
$1,560; that fraudulent attempts had been made to ex-
hibit the bank in a sound condition, in anticipation of the
commissioners' visit, such as borrowing certificate; from
other banks; $lO,OOO in silver were actually paid into the
hank by a party, together with two certificates, all of which
remained in the bank a few days, and were then taken
away by the same parties. In short, the condition of this
bank was utterly rotten.
" The report on the other banks, dated April, 1838, ex-
hibits a wholesale syst oil of fraud and rascality of the most
disgusting nature; six banks were found in such a condi-
tion that injunctions had been applied for and issued ; in
the Jackson County Bank a horrible system of fraud was
discovered, which we have no room to detail. Among
other instances, 11 boxes were discovered, containing a
snperficies of coin, altogether amounting to $5,099 (reck-
oning the coin found elsewhere), whilst the substratum
contained lead, tenpenny nails, and window-glass broken
into small pieces. Notwithstanding this, the statement of
the bank, dated three days before, claimed possession of
$20,000 in specie. On an examination of its affairs, there
appeared a real deficiency of assets to meet the liabilities of
the bank of $44,701 !
" Of the Exchange Bank of Shiawassee (Michigan),
the Commissioners report that no part of the capital stock
appears ever to have been paid in ; that seven ' coppers'
were found in the safe, but that no other coin appeared at
any time to have been the property of the bank; that there
was one counterfeit note of $5OO on one of the New
York banks; that the cash in the bank, stated at $14,174,
was made up, as far as could be ascertained, by certain cer-
tificates of deposit, obtained from other banks.
The Report of the Commissioners to the Legislature
of Michigan contains an able and forcible expose of the
banking system generally . they strenuously recommend a
repeal of the general banking law of 1837.
On the Commissioners' inquiry into the origin and
transactions of the Grenada Bank in Mississippi, we find
that :
" A. C. Baino affirmed—Was elected a Director, but
knew nothing of the organization. There were no visible
funds in Bank. He demanded the certificate of deposit,
$50,000, from Mr. Royall, but he repied that it was not
given him to be used unless he could not induce the Com-
missioners to take stock notes, payable and negotiable at
the Brandon Bank. Mr. Royall admitted that the certi-
ficate from Brandon was a false one, or, in his own words,
a sham.'"
Matters in Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana, were found to
be equally bad. Violations of Charter, base swindling,
illegal speculations, and general insolvency, are charged
almost without exception against the entire swarm of ac-
credited pickpockets who have contrived to overrun those
States. What renders the evil infinitely worse is the fact
that nearly the whole of the principal local authorities
in each State, being deeply implicated in these trans-
actions, have generally lent their official influence,
by all sorts of collusive contrivance—not only to
screen the chief defaulters, but to enact local laws
to enable them to continue their malversations.
Wholesale villany like this, threatening the United States
with absolute ruin, has latterly received a partial check,
simply because its inherent elements of calamity could no
longer be overlooked with safety by the central Govern-
ment. Unpardonable laxity, if not actual connivance, has
too obviously prevailed in that quarter where there ought
to have been the utmost circumspection and good faith.
The whole expose, however, will not be without its advan-
tages. While the American democrats must doubtless
learn to practise henceforth a lower tone of vaunting in
reference to their national wealth, the numberless fo-
reigners who have suffered by their failures will naturally
exercise a more prudent distrust of them in future trans-
actions; and our own countrymen, in particular, may be
expected to deduce from these occurrenew a proportionably
strong conviction of the superior soundness and stability of
the public institutions under which they have the happi-
ness to live.

It is notorious that for one man robbed by the
highwayman, burglar, or pickpocket, thousands arc daily
plundered under forms of civil law.—Tory Standard.

TRIAL AND CONVICTION FOR
MURDER IN NEW BRUNSWICK.

The trial of Peter Robinson, charged with the murder
of Mr. Suydam, the President of the Farmers' and Me-
chanics' Bank of New Brunswick, which continued seven
days, having occasioned considerable excitement, we ex-
tract from a New York paper the account of the last day's
proceedings, when the murderer was found guilty, and
sentenced to suffer death. The particulars of the murder
will be found in the judgment:—
This morning the minds of every person here seemed
relieved from a great load. Robinson was convicted, and
was to die, and they were satisfied ; and had the Jury ac-
quitted him last night, beyond a doubt, the people here
would have hung him on the neatest tree to the Court-
house. I never saw or heard of such a state of excite-
ment and indignation as this whole community has been
thrown into by this affair; and many persons wanted to
have Robinson hung this afternoon, saying, " There has
been too much money spent on the d—d scoundrel.' And
yet the people of New Brunswick are tolerably moral as
times go. But the ladies in particular all wished to have
Peter hung.
Mr. Graham's speech was a brilliant one, and at the
close of it the audience burst out into loud tokens of ap.
probation and applause. Chief Justice Hornblower re-
buked them, and said, " stop this noise; if people want
to evince anything cf this nature they had beitar go to a
theatre, and not to a court of justice. This occasion is a
most solemn one ; and this is the first time I ever saw any
such feeling exhibited in the State of New Jersey during
40 years' practice; and it is highly disgraceful to the
county of Middlesex."
At half-past eleven this mornine. the Court was opened ;
the crowd was tremendous, and there were a large number
of ladies present, as before. The prisoner appeared very
pale, but apparently unmoved ; although his lips were
parched and a death-like palor overspread his countenance.
Solemn silence was obtained, and the Chief Justice
said, " Peter Robinson." The prisoner stood up. " You
stand before this Court convicted by the verdict of the
jury of the murder of Abraham Suydam, in the first de-
gree, Have you aught to say other than what, by your-
self and by your counsel, you have already said, why
the Court should not proceed to pronounce judgment
upon you ?" Prisoner--I have nothing to say.—( Here
his lips quivered.)
JUDGE—Peter Robinson, after a full, fair, and impar-
tial trial with a Jury selected by yourself out of a large
number of your fellow-citizens, and by the aid of efficient,
honourable, and able counsel, who have left nothing un-
said or undone in your behalf which became them, or
which honourable men ought to have said and done in
your behalf, you have been convicted of the wilful, foul,
malicious, deliberate, and premeditated murder of Abra-
ham Suydam, by which conviction you. arc doomed to
suffer the awful punishment of death.
[Here several of the ladies began to cry, but the pri-
soner was unmoved.]
JUDGE—Mr. Suydam was your neighbour, your fellow-
citizen, and for aught that we know, or that has ap-
peared to the Court on the trial, be was )our benefac-
tor. He had conveyed to you a lot of land ; he had ad-
vanced you money to build a comfortable dwelling thereon,
for yourself and your family. In consequence of what
he had advanced to you, and for the security of the
proper payment to him of his money, you had fur-
nished him with a bond and mortgage on that pro-
perty. With these securities on his person, and in his
possession, on the morning of the 3d of December,
and, as we have reason to fear, in pursuance of a previous
arrangement made by you with him, he left his home and
the bosom of his family, and entered your house, never to
return to that home and that family alive. It is evident
that but a few minutes elapsed after he entered your house,
before you cruelly murdered him, and then robbed your
victim of his money, his watch, and the papers which he
had about his person ; and there, at the bloody scene of
his murder, you dug the unhallowed grave; and within

the walls of that building, erected by his money, you
sought to conceal his mangled corpse. Mr. Suydam was
a husband and a father, as well as yourself ; to him life was
as dear, and perhaps dearer, than it was to you; and his
death was a, little expected by him at that awful moment
when you killed him, as it was by you. But, unmindful of
those dear and blessed ties which bound him to his home, to
his wife and his children—unmindful of the ties which
equally bound you and him to society—unmindful of the rela-
tions in which he stood as your neighbour, your friend, and
benefactor—unmindful of that tribunal before which
you were about to send your victim, and before which
you would have to appear—unmindful of the vengeance
of a just and holy God—forgetting that his eye was upon
you then, and would be upon you through time and
through eteinity, you committed this cold-blooded mur-
der. We do not design to dwell upon the details of this
awful tragedy—its bloody history has been listened to
by, and is painful to us all. Nothing now remains but
to pronounce the sentence of the law ; and we only pause,
Peter Robinson, to warn you against the delusion of in-
dulging any hope that you can by possibility escape the
vengeance of that law- If chains, if bolts and bars, and
human ingenuity and watchfulness can prevent it, you can
never escape from the custody of the law but by death.
And we warn you against the slightest hope that execu-
tive interference will be extended in your behalf. The
outraged majesty of the law demands your life, and no-
thing else will satisfy it. We only, therefore, as your
fellow-men, and with the sympathy duo to you as a
fellow-mature, here pause to commend you to Him
whose blood alone can wash out the guilt which rests
upon your never-dying soul. Your blood falling upon the
ground cannot restore the life of him whom you mur-
dered, nor prepare him for that eternity into which
you sent him without a warning. But, unlike hi, sad
close of life, sonic time is allowed you to prepare for that
awful change which you have shortly to undergo. We
commend you to God. We commend you to that
Saviour of men through whose mediation alone you can
hope for forgiveness hereafti.r. You cannot intend to
assume an idle indifference to your fate, to the solemn
death you have so soon to undergo, or to the scenes of
eternal life that you have to pass through. You may
affect an indifference to all this; you may reject the
Bible and the Ministers of Christ, and those consola-
tions which they may seek to offer you. But
God knows your heart. You may deceive men ; you may
die as the fool dieth ; but that is the most that, you can
do. You cannot deceive God ; his eye is upon you, as
it was at that moment when you struck the
fatal blow—as it has been ever since—and as it will be

until the moment when the breath ceases to ani-
mate your body—and it will follow you to another
world ; and his wrath will rage against you through
the unwasting ages of eternity, if his justice is not
satisfied. by the atoning Wood of his Redeeming Son.
Hear, now, the sentence of the law—lt is considered by
the Court, that you be taken to the gaol from whence you
came, and that within that gaol, or some place else which
the Sheriff in his discretion shall decide upon, according
to law, on Friday, the 16th day of April (yesterday), be-
tween the hours of ten in the morning and two in the
afternoon, you be hung by the neck until you are dead,
and may God have mercy on your soul."
Here there was scarcely a dry eye in the Court. The
ladies sobbed audibly, and all were deeply affected. The
prisoner appeared to be the only person present that was
unmoved. His eye never quailed, his lips scarcely parted,
and not another muscle moved in his features.
The Judge himself was evidently completely overcome.
In a few moments he said, " Let the prisoner be removed
from the bar."
Here the rush was tremendous to get a sight of the pri-
soner. The ladies, in particular, were all anxious to see
how he looked. Finally, he was removed between twe
officers, through the crowd, to the gaol, about 300 yards
distance. He smiled, as usual, to the crowd, and said to
the Sheriff, " Remember, you must share the fees with
me that you get for hanging me." And such was his
hardened indifference to the last moment, that after he
was ironed and locked up in his cell, he said to the gaoler,
"As I am a carpenter, I think I ought to be employed to
help to build my own gallows, and I should make my own
coffin, and give my wife the money. All I ask is a snug
platform and a strong rope ; and if Jackey Edmonds goes
to Heaven, I don't want to go there. I won't have a d—d
priest come near me."
The Court ordered that his wife and child might see
him at all times consistent with the prisoner's safety, and
in the presence of some of the proper authorities. But
that she was to have no direct intercourse with him, nor to
see him alone—and she is to bo searched carefully before
she enters his cell. A Juror asked Peter how he felt at
last, and he said, " First rate."
Such is the last but the closing scene of this sad tra-
gedy. It appeared to be to all, except the pri.soner, a
great gala-day in New Brunswick : and even to him,judg-
ing from his conduct and conversation, it was a source of
interest and apparent amusement. Such and so various
are the ways of man.