The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Courier.)

Symptbms'have not been wanting for some time paSt
that the bonds of alliance once so close, have been
sitting loosely of late both on France and England' ; tlat
the vows of eternal attachment so liberally and loudly

exchanged between the leading Government met: of
.both countries, are sharing the fate of fickle lovers'
oaths ; and that interests have been found not quite
so mutual and identical as, when the inter-alli-
ance was first built up, • was so fondly imagined.
Sundry have been the breaches in the walk
once of such compact appearance, and the dry-
rot lurking from the first in the green wood, with
which the lath and plaster edifice was constructed, has
Made. such progress now as to threaten from day to day
its sudden downfall. So long as England was found, or
continues to be taund, of " squeezable" materials, the
protestations of France will not be failing in feigned ler-
a-ency, and the sturdy old oak will be stanthered in the
parasitical embraces of the ivy, until drained to
the dregs of its juices the clinging runner shall Unlock
its insidious grasp Of itself, and leave the dry and wither-
ing carcass of the noble tree to nestle meaner weeds, or
he preyed on by the lowest vermin of the field. From the
first date of that close alliance the foundations of which
were laid in the abrupt and contemptuous abandonment
%)y Lord Palmerston of all the oldest and fastest
fiends of this country, England, through a feeble and
frivolous Foreign Office, has been used and abused by
France for her own sole and exclusive ends, until now
chat sunk so low in opinion abroad, that accaunted so
little formidable in the power of offence, and so compara7
tively valueless as an indispensable support, she is to be
cast off on the least show of recusancy with as little
ceremony as a worn-out suit. The French press teems
with virulent invectives or 'cooler and more laboured
dissuasives against the English alliance, not the
Press representing the Carltsm or Republicanism, or the
jusle millieu. but more or less the Press of all parties
and all shades of opinion. As with the Press, so with
the public men of France, although in language more
measured, and on occasions fewer, but of greater inn-
men t. On the. Eastern question we have seen M.
Guizot fraternize with M. Bcrryer, both sympathising
with Russia, and each as strongly opposed as the
other to the policy and views of England. Yet of
all French Statesmen the first, the great Doctrinaire
leader, was once, as longest, the firm unflinching.advo-
cue of English alliance, against the host of rabid Car-
lists, lt,_,publicans, and Napoleonists by which it was
furiously maligned and repudiated. •
(From the Globe.)
" My chief difficulty is Ireland !" was Sir Robert
Peel's memorable apology for his abandonment of the
Premiership, when office was within his grasp.
The Tories seem as much embarrassed as is their
leader by the state of Ireland. Its very
tranquillity, so long . denied, and now at length
admitted, is asserted to be more dangerous—more
pregnant with portentous appearances, and more replete
with proofs of criminality in the Government, than re-
bellion itself ! Order, tranquillity,- cheerful obedience
to constituted authority, are in'lreland valueless, in Tory
estimation. Strange country!where the existence of peace,
manifest to all, is denied until the denial is found to be no
longe.:eredible even with those most Willing to be de-
c jived ; then, by the very organs which affected to deplore.
the disturbed state of thatcountry, and which attributed
the faliely-asserted presence of conspiracy, insurrection,
and incipient rebellion,' to the Government, tranquility is
there adtrittted to exist; but is also asserted to' be not
only valueless, but dangerous! " There is tranquillity
in Ireland," at length confesses the TiRTC'S. But then
cui bouo What is the use of peace in Ireland ? Such
is the sum and substance of three or four elaborate ar-
ticles which have appeared in succession in that alarmist
journal. The following extract contains the gist of the
whole :

" What is the tranquillity of Ireland worth, we pray
you, if it depend on the word of an arch incendiary, to hid'
his envenomed hordes of anti- Saxons rest upon their arras
just until the moment . arrives when he shall order
them to rouse from ,their fox's slumber, and fall on ?
What 'is the false tranquillity of that man worth,
who forbears not in the spirit of peace, but, in the 5er....-
blance of it, lies in wait for battle? O'Connell and Dr.,
lurray between them confess that the peace of Ireland
hangs on a contingency, and that the very hour in which the
Queen shall exercise her prerogative in such a manner as
to withdraw her patronage from them—that the very first
accession to office of a Ministry which does not hang its
power on the votes of a majority moved by the will of
Murray, O'Connell, and Co., shall blow the se-much-
vaunted peace of Ireland to atoms?"
Most marvellous discovery in the science of Govern-
ment ! " The peace of Ireland hangs on a contin-
gency !" Does not every good that a Government can
bestoW, or a people enjoy, 'hang, as the peace of. Ire-
land hangs, upon " a contingency ?" The existence of
the Moriarchy, and the preservation of the people's
liberties, depend upon contingencies. What social
blessing, what moral enjoyment does not ? To assert
the worthlessness of national peace, because it must
cease when war breaks out, is a position which,
stripped of the pompous verbosity of the. JOurnal which
asserts it, is too puerile to provoke any feeling more
dignified than contempt. _ •

(From the Standard.)
Mr. Kelly yesterday closed the defence of Mr.
Frost at the Monmouth Commission by a very powerful
speech. It was expected that the trial would
probably terminate this. day. At the conclusion of
the defence Mr. Frost being called upon in the
usual form to add, if he thought it proper,
his own observations or arguments to those of his learned
advocates, replied with firmness, and with a mani-
fest feeling of gratitude—" My Lords, I am so well
satisfied with what my Counsel have done for me,
that I have nothing to add." The acknowledgment
was prudent and just, for never was a case of defence
conducted with more zeal or kith greater ability.
Although still restrained from offering am remarks
upon the merits or probable issue of the trial, we may
congratulate the Conservative party and the Conserva-
tive press upon the noble position occupied by them dur-
ing the whole progress of the investigation. Though re-
presenting the class most deeply interested in the pre-
servation of order and• the security of property—the
class which has never excited the ignorant by enormous
lying, or sought to traffic in the evil .passions excited
by distress—the Conservatives and the. Conser-
vative Press have, with religious care, abstained
from every act or expression which could even by
remote consequence prejudice the case •of the parties
upon trial. They have. not taken the opportunity
of the moment, when the leaders of the Chartists are
in jeopardy of their lives, to inflame the public mind.
against the principles and practice of the Chartist
Association. Tiley have left it to the Whig-Radi-
cals, the Ministers, and their press, to hunt the
lives of men already secured within the meshes
of the law, by denouncing them as "ruffians." It
is fitting that they who have led men into transgression
should proVg the cruel persecutors of those whom they
have seduced. From the first tempter to crime, the
liar from the beginning, " the first Whig," to the
Exanziner's eternal topic—Jonathan Wilde—it has
been the same, and ever will be.

The Shah of Persia, according to a letter from
St. Petershurgh, has offered to the Russian Govern-
ment escorts for all convoys-of stores, &e., crossing his
territories, for the expedition against the Khan of Chiva.

A poor woman, wife of Walter Phillips, miner,
at the Coalbrook Vale Iron Works, near Nantvglo,
was delivered on Tuesday week of four fine enildrcn,
three girls and a boy. The mother and the children
are getting, on as well as possible.—Welshnzaii.
One o the trawl boats belonging to this poi t
saw, one day this week, just outside the Lizard, a fine
whale, blowing up the water to a tremendous height.
This is the second whale which has been seen by the
crew of the same vessel during the last fortnight.—Fal•
mouth Packet.

Few persons are aware. that 100.0001. was
left to the University of Oxford by Michael Angelo
Taylor, to build a picture gallery and lecture rooms coc.-
fleeted with science and arts. A dispute having arisen
between his relatives and the trustees respecting the
will, the latter, rather Shan risk a suit in Chancery, have
agreed to take 75,0001:, and have begun clearing the
foundation for the building. They have removed the
old houses at the corner of Beaumont-street, St. Giles's,
nearly opposite St.-John's College, which is the most
central they could meet with.
A curious discovery was made last week near
Sherfield House, Southampton—a bed of oyster-shells,
several feet in thickness, having been found about four
feet beneath the surface of the soil. They were not
petrified, but bad been preserved in a bed of sand.