The Sun.
London, England, 1823-05-21 00:00:00

[MORNING CHRONICLE.]

The Courier, some days back, gravely sug.
Bested a Most ridiculous embarrassment to 80ut...
bon councils, on the supposition that the Cortes
may remove the Royal Family to the Canaries,
and then, he asks, how are the French to settle
the kingdom without a King ? In such a case
what is to be done ? Are the Due d'Angouleme
and old Aloncey, line the Pantaloon and Clown
in a Pantomime, to run over the whole world
knocking their heads against the wall in . quest
of the fugitives ? Are they to take shipping, or
to balloon it, or ride astride of dolphins to the
Canaries ? What will the God of Saint Louis
do for them in such a strait—can the Prince
llohenlohe accommodate the French army with a
rainbow by way of pontoon between Spain and the
Canaries ? Something grand in such an event, it is
clear, must. be done to recover the Royal Family.
This would certainly be a new case for the Gazette
of Europe—Lost, stolen, or strayed, a King of the
Bourbon breed, who answers to the name of Fer-
dinand,and is of no use to any but the advertisers,
In the mean time, how is the kingdom to be settled ?

—The known principles of the-Freyich Bourbons,
which keep their fingers from picking and stealing,
and their tongues from lying, will not suffer them
to take possession of it in defaultof a betterormore
legitimate owner, and what is to be done for a
King, a thing tell times more necessary to a king.
dom than a people ? A thought strikes us ! There

'are several goodly idols in the B'rit'ish Museum,
things that have in their better days, and ano-
ther quarter of the globe, been held in wondrous
veneration by the people, and honoured by priests.
Suppose one of these was to be anointed and setup
in the Escurial for the time; they are portly and of
a noble presence, with huge mother-of-pearl eyes,a
fine head of feathers, and legs very crooked and
fit for the paths that Kings love to walk in.—
Surely such ,a thing as this might hold drawing-
rooms and levee's, and indeed perform every ne-
cessary office of state pageantry, in as perfect
a manner as the best Monarch in Christendom.
With the help of a tea-kettle and a bushel
of coals per diem, Mumbo Jumbo might also
be 'made to write the sign manual, and would
thus be complete in the executive functions—

an excellent high pressure King of half, horse
power.-✓-This contrivance would have one great
advantage, that of haslding his tongue, a point of
discretion in which so many mighty Monarchs
fail, and, as Bacon says—" Surely Princes had
need in tender matter and ticklish times to be-
ware what they say ; especially in those short
speeches which fly abroad like darts, and are
thought to be shot out of their secret intentions.
For as for large discourses, they are flat things,
and not so much noted,"

[THE TIMES.]
A Bill against 64 Occasional Freeholders" in
the boroughs of England and Wales, is now on
its way through Parliament, and will receive, we
trust, the attention and support to which it is so
well entitled. The practice which has notori-
ously prevailed, of gentlemen who possess large
property in boroughs, cooking up a temporary
majority of voters for the mere purpose of ac-
complishing their own return, is manifestly an
abuse of the constitution and law of Eng-
land. These occasional electors have no
fixed interest in the place for which they
vote,: the Member whom they send to Par-
liament is really their representativeor ra-
ther, perhaps, they are his representatives. lie
is only the nominal and fictitious representative
of the borough for which he assumes to be re-
turned. The best interests of the borough itself
and of its inhabitants may be, and too aften are,
set at defiance and seriously injured by almost
every vote which a Member so returned gives in
Parliament ; and yet his own creatures, heedless
of the opinions of the fixed inhabitants, can and
do re-elect the same patron, for the same borough ;
and thus, in fact, set aside the Royal Charter from
which the borough derives the privilege of sending
Members to Parliament. All this is plainly against
the principles of the Constitution,as well as against
these of common sense; but it is likewise con-
trary to positive law, as declared and enforced
by a long series of statutes from the Revolution
downwards. It was an illegal practice before
the Revolution, as proved by the famous Haste-
mere case, which Sir Francis Pemberton tried,
and which the great Lord Somers has reported.
The practice even then—when the law upon the
subject and the importance of the principle were
less understood than at present—the practice
was even then described by the Court to be
" too bad to be excused." The principle is now
universally recognized ; and yet, shameful to
say, the practice is almost as generally at utter
variance with it. This Bill, then, which seeks
no more than to produce a conformity between
the law and the fact, calls loudly for the sup-
port of every Member of Parliament.

[MORNING HERALD.?

Pads Papers of the 17th arrived yesterday:—
They bring no news from Spain of a latter date
than the intelligence already received, so that
nothing farther is known of the operations of
Moncey and Mina. Private letters in the Jour-
nals say that the army of the latter was consi-
derably reinforced after his retreat from Clot and
Mich. The inhabitants engaged in commerce,
of both places, and great, numbers of young
men, had either joined or placed themselves un-
der the protection of his army. He had, besides,
had an accession of two regiments to his Force.--
The most important circumstance, however, is
the dispersion of the hand of Quesada. Their
disregard of order and discipline obliged him to
make some examples. He accordingly caused
several to be bastinadoed, and two shot. The
consequence was, that elmost his whole force
took leave to abandon him. Hence, accord-
ing to the Journals, the raising of the siege of
Santona. The French troops, it is said, are hi-
dignant at the disorders committed by the men
of the Faith, who act as mere banditti. The re-
sult is that the country is deserted by all who
have the means of removing and any thing to lose.
Thus the principal allies of the French are not
likely to add to their strength, but rather to ox.
asperate and strengthen the oppos;tion to them.
There is rather au interesting inference fur-
nished by-the progress of the French invasion.--
It strews what classes are favourable to the
French aneto servilisrn, and what to the Con-
stitution. Who are they that have joined
the standard of the invasion ? The very lowest
class oppaniards, debased by poverty, ignorance;
and superstition—and this only in some provinces,
where the monks and priests had paramount in-
fluence. There can be no doubt that the higher
clergy are also enemies of the Constitution—many
of them have either fled or live suspected and
watched by the Government. The monks, a nume-
rous body, are still more active enemies. But
many of the poorer secular Clergy are earnest
Constitutionalists. The Nobles, it may be sup.
posed, favour the old despotism. But what proof
of this, beyond a few isolated adventurers, who
have shown more personal ambition than attach-
ment to a particular cause.? A great array of Spa-
nish Nobility, on the contrary, appears in favour
of the Constitution, and has been conspicuous in
the different Cortes. The Nobles who joined
Joseph Buonaparte have to a man been received
into the Constitutional party. The truth is, that
no class was more interested in the destruction
of the ancient abuses than the Nobles, except-
ing only vine who were fattening upon the
favours otthe Court and the, misery of the nation.
—The middle class, including trades, profes.
sions, and the more independent cultivators of
the soil—a vast mass of intelligence—hal'

clearly proved itself favourable to the Constitu-
tion. We will quote a passage from the Journal
de Paris, which shews that this is the opinion
even of the Ministerial Party at Paris. That
Journal says--" There is a fact which must
strike all who reflect. In Spain, the upper
class is in general inclined to the representa-
tive system, and acts in conbert with the
middle class—against the inferior, which in
some Provinces has declared itself for abso-
lute power. Be it remembered that the Journal
des Debats admitted this important fact in an ar-
ticle becqme memorable from the quarter whence
it was supposed to proceed." The article in
question was, we believe, ascribed to M. Cha-
teaubriand. Here then are the very Ultras
themselves admitting that their chief Allies in
Spain are the lowest order of the population of
the Spanish Provinces. There are some ac-
counts from another very interesting theatre of
war—Greece ; nothing, however,- that can be
called -_important. The Divan menaces the
Greeks with new fleets and armies, for the fiftieth
time; and the Sultan is said to have thrown off his
Ottoman indolence to assist at the Council. It
certainly appears, and it has been some time ex-
pected, that another fleet would soon sail from
Constantinople. But the accounts recently had
from the Greek islands show that means of re-
sistance are amply prepared. The island of
Ypsara is almost become one extended fortress—
so garnished is it with cannon. It was even sup-
posed, when some late accounts came away, that a
naval force was in preparation to make a descent
upon Smyrna. The Austrian Observer states that
the Pashaw of Scutari is at last prepared to as-
sist the Turks with some 20,000 Albanians; but
nothing-seems more doubtful. The Greeks, at
all events, seem resolved to perish or conquer.
They will enter into no negociations not acknow-
ledging their independence for its basis.