The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-16 00:00:00

though the menaces of the Moniteur, and the protecting
~qu.alron of Sir Sidney Smith, did the whole work of
diplomacy—his Lordship was the chief gainer by the
transaction. His dispatch was believed, and his zeal
was rewarded, while the less obtrusive merits of the Ad-
miral remained unblazoned, and were left without re-
compense. The red riband which was due to Sir Sidney
Smith—or which, as Col. Napier suggests, ought to
have been cut into three parts, and shared between his
Loreship, the Admiral, and the writer of the Moniteur,
was conferred upon the unsuccessful Envoy, and the
alter tulit honorer was verified in diplomacy as well as
in authorship.
" After admissions like those we have been recording,
and the more recent display of duplicity or deceit at
Constantinople, what in the name of wonder can recom-
mend his Lordship to his present mission, but his con-
duct towards Mr. Canning : and is that a sufficient
stock of service for such an appointment ? An Ambas-
sador has been described, by one of the !lade, as ' a
person sent abroad to lie for the good of his country :'
has the time now arrived in which he may do the same
for a red riband and a peerage ?"
Such was tha exhibition of Lord Strangford's eminent
public services," and such is the record preserv©d in
tb columns of the Times of his Lordship's moral ex-
cellencies. Are these the " public services" which
streegthen his son's claim to the honour be now solicits
at the hands of the Canterbury Tories?
But it will, perhaps, be said that the Times is not an
authority on either side, whether as a detractor or an
eulogist, on whose testimony candour would rely for
its estimate of public or private character. It is, how-
ever, unfortunate for Lord Strangford that he was in-
duced to make an experiment, the result of which, in-
stead of removing the imputations cast upon his charac•
ter as a diplomatist and a public man, by the Times,
fastened them more indelibly. A Contemporary journal
(The Sun) copied the article we have quoted from the
r Tizzies, and appended to it some comments of its own ;
remarking that for such a character it would not accept
the embassy to the Brazils ; and adding, that " to the
friends of liberal principles, it must be consolatory that
the reviler of Mr. Canning's memory would hardly be
believed on his oath—certainly not on his honour—at
the Old Bailey."
Tbis blow was felt ; and to avenge the injury inflicted
on his reputation, his Lordship, in an evil hour, was
prevailed on to apply to the Court of King's Bench for
a criminal information against the journal in which the
offensive comment on the Times' article appeared. Lord
Tenterden was then the Chief Justice of the Court—a
Judge at whose bands no favour for wilful and ground-
less libels was to be expected, but who strictly required
from those who sought protection of the extraordinary
powers of the Court, that they came to it with clean
hands. Mr. Brougham, as counsel for the defendant,
boldly avowed that the publication intended to impute
jalsehood to Lord Strangford ; and contended that the
imputation was well founded. The affidavits in support
of the application did not satisfy the Court, and the
Noble Lord took nothing by his motion.
We well remember the sensation which the matter
caused at the time. Lord Strangford and his family
may thank the clumsy advocacy of the Times for an
untimely revival of the now almost forgotten affair.
In addition to the peerage and the red riband, which
the Teines once thought in this instance conferred no
honour on the wearer, Lord Strangford receives sub-
stantial advantages in the shape of pensions ; one of
2,036/., another of BW. ; his daughter a pension of
222/. ; while the Viscountess Dowager Strangford re-
' ceived for many years two pensions of 338/. and 266/.,
one of which, reverting on her death to Lord Strang-
ford's son, the present candidate for Canterbury, he has
relinquished. To this the Hon. Gentleman alluded
when he said, " He was under no obligation to the
Crown. What the Crown had conferred he had given
back to the Crown."
We have nothing to add, except to repeat that
the Tory electors of Canterbury, who believed in
THom, and the SMYTHES, father and son, are
worthy of each other.

There are certain actions, such as murder, the:

&c., which nature forbids, and which are classed by
all moral writers as crimes per se. There are
others, such as bringing in brandy and tea without
paying duty, and such as attempts to change the
form of Government, which are not naturally
offences or crimes per se, but are made so by the
decrees of law makers. These are called political

offences.
The former are well known; briefly to illustrate

ie latter, we may observe that, to bring brand.

from France, or tea from China, is of itself as
beneficial a portion of trade as any other, and
its nature is not at all altered by the law, except as
that is violated when it prohibits them from being
imported unless a high duty be paid. In fact so
useful and so virtuous, if we may be allowed the
expression, are some of the acts of the smuggler,
that they redress the injury which a very high duty,

or an absurd prohibition, produces, and compel the

law-maker to alter his decrees. In these cases it is
obvious that the conversion of the useful introduc-

Lion of tea or brandy into an offence is entirely the
act of the Legislature, and but for its act the im-
portation would be for ever a useful part of trade.
There being no natural government of society,
every political arrangement being a matter of expe-
diency, no one government being abstractedly ex-
cellent, all government being intended for the good
of all, however much any existing government may
hedge round its power with punishment and terror,
every attempt to change, improve, or alter it can
only be considered as a political offence. It is pro-
hibited by law, not by nature. A monarchical go-
vernment or a republic is not, like life, the gift of na-
ture, and like property, the gift of industry—or of a
faculty given by nature—and there is no universal
voice which prohibits men: from establishing or
subverting either, as there is a universal voice
which prohibits them from committing murder.
Otherwise the form of government must be every-
where alike. Both those who wield power and
those who wish to wield it, may perpetrate great
crimes, and for that are much to be condemned ;
but of itself neither the possession of political
power, nor the attempt to seize it, however cha-
racterised by law, is other than a. political offence.
How can it be when the whole structure of go-
vernment is altogether a human contrivance to
attain a political end ? It is like the tax on im-
porting brandy—the creature of law.

We make these observations to meet a little cen-
sure of the Scotsman, which stigmatizes some of
our late remarks on Mr. FROST as at once "bold,"
and an " abuse of words." Mr. FROST was tried
for treason, and treason is a political, not a moral,
offence. Far from being a moral offence, it is in
many cases a most virtuous action. The Emperor
of RUSSIA stigmatized, and this is the case with
all tyrants, the efforts of the Poles as treason ; but
no generous heart applies to them any other epithet
than ore of virtue and honour. We do not say that

the millions now excluded from the pale of our
Constitution have the same cause of complaint
against the Government as the Poles have against
the Emperor of RUSSIA; but our Contemporary
will not deny that the Government has long treated
them with a step-mother's kindness, and that they
have come to regard it as their enemy. It is a
fact that thousands, and perhaps millions, of them
sympathise with Mr. FROST, and many have
boldly expressed their sympathy.
Now, with all deference to the Scotsman, consi-
dering it of far more importance to convince the mil-
lions they are in error than to sabre or shoot them out
of their conviction, of far more practical utility to re-
concile them to the Government by kindness than to
vindicate the law by some cruelty which but contri
butes the rnoretcimake men hate it—not making light
of the great offence cotrittritted by Mr. FnosT, hut
p calling it a political offence, we should
have been more ti49sed, we repeat, to praise than to
dame the Ministers, had they so far pardoned Mr.
FrtosT as to remit all other punishment than merely
keeping him safe in the Colony. Some, and we
'link great, respect is due to the feelings of the toil-
worn awl ill-requited people ; and that public writer,
whether his lucubrakions appear in the Standard or
the Scotsman, is no friend 0 the future peace of
the country who urges the GoyernrirgAt to disrr.
gard tbeir feelings, or wishes it to rely for security
on terror. His opinions may be clothed in sacred
and venerable names, but they will only be the
more mischievous.

The Post has taken six days to acknowledge the
•eception of the information we gave it last Satur-