The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

(From the Morning Herald.)
The discussion last Tuesday, on Mr. Colquhoun's
proviso to the 10th clause of the Poor-law Amendment
Bic admirably illustrates the unsettled views of those who,
while calling for the education of the people on a cern-
prenensive principle, have not amongst themselves an
understood principle at all. Mr. Colquhoun's proposition
was direct and practical—" That in the union schools far
the infant poor a chaplain of the church of England be
appointed to regulate and superintend tie instruction
of the children, except the children of such parents as
are of a different creed from the established church ;
or, in the case of orphans, whose godfather or god-
mother object to the child receiving instruction in the
doctrines of the established church." Let us see the
variety of objections to this truly conciliatory propo-
sition. Dr. Lusbington, after having declared in a
long speech that "he believed that the Dissenters of
this country would receive this proposition not merely
without reluctance, but with joyful acceptation," repented,
and said that "he would leave the door open, not only
to the parents and guardians, but also to those who were
interested in the welfare of these children, to show what
was the belief of these parents " To say nothing about
the assumption that people could feel very much interested
in the welfare of poor children and let them go to a union
bastile, the doctor's proposition is about as absurd as any
" notion" (as he called it) we ever heard of, except one.
Mr. Langdale decidedly outdid him. That Hon. Gentle.
man moved that the following words be added to the pro-
viso—" That no instruction should be given to an orphan
against the express wish of the orphan itielf! We rather
suspect that Mr. Langdale must have been petted at
home under a foolish mother, who would not allow a
tutor to instruct him against the darling's "express wish."
There is no other way of accounting for such juvenile
Utopianism. Lord John Russell, however, did not cut
a much better figure, when we contrast him with his
former self. He insisted that the word "religious" should
be inserted before the word " instruction " in the clause,
when all the world knows that in his famous education
scheme, he would not allow the clergy of the Establish-
ment to have the superintendence of religious instruction
at all I Then there was Mr. Hawes, who must have hie
hand in every thing, objecting to the appointmeht of
Chaplains, that it would aggravate the Church-rate
question—when the more that question was aggra-
vated the better it would suit the Honourable
Member ; and there was Mr. Ward asserting that the
clergy should only be paid rateably ; and there was
somebody else who contended for something like a
sectarian census of the population, so as to know what pro-
portion of the children would fall under the care of the
Established Clergy; and to end this amusing discussion,
there was Mr. Hume to grace it with a vulgarity which
we th aught had been exploded for years, " that there were
lot,: of black coats doing nothing, taking away the pro-
perty of the country, and appropriating it to themselves !"
The truth ie that all this precious school have an
against the Church which most of them caenot deice, and
which not one of them dare explain. Some dill ke it as
the bulwark of religion ; others hate it as a buttress to the
institution of property ; and all of them are ini:nical to it as
adverse to organic changes., which would unsettle every-
thing, aad the religious faith of society amongst them.
(From the Morning Post.)
The anxiously expected arrival from America has taken
place, and we have carefully collected in another column
all the intelligence from the United States which it has
placed in our pes,mion.
'Phis intelligence will not
realse the expectations generelly entertained in this coun.
try, for it deck not includo,Lany.iintimation of the liberation,
actual or intended, of
to
us
anytti:iolownl-subject, Mr. M‘Lcod
nor does it cenvey
and are than the plevalent
rumours at Wasigltgton
glee, York as to the na-
ture of the demand relating to him
which has been
addresse I by Mr. Fox to the American
pursuance of the latest instructions fromernmL
eont,
Palmerston. The news indeed, much morde
vague than the people of England expectee and de:
shred. It amounts merely to the fact that an application
of some kind or other had beeu made by the. British
Minister to the United Sate; Government; that General
Harrison and his Cabinet had held an anxious, or at least
a prsl
ongtd, conference, supposed to be on the subject cf
that communication; and that no open and visible steps
h vi yet been taken to affect in any manner the position o.
,
Mr. M'Leod. One Jnircal, inde.eJ, expresses its belie
that the Attorney-General of the Federal Government
had received instructions to repair to Lockport, and csm-
jectures that the object cf this legal mission i 3 to inter-
pose, in the name and by the authority
of the Free -
dent, on the aeproachirg trial of the British prisoner.
It is, in the meanwhile, not disagreeable to remark
the very striking change which has taken plsce in the tone
of the United States journals. The language of arrogant
boasting and of fierce disdain has somewhat suddenly
given place to a show of moderation and a display of argu-
ment. Of these we hare collected a few of the more fa-
vourable specimens; and the British public-, if they ca'-
not, its perusing these lucubrations, compliment their
brethren at the other side of the Atlantic on the accur Icy
of their statements, or the strictness of their logic, will
recognise with pleasure the visible improvement of their tem-
per. It is said that one of the passengers by the Britannia
is a special messenger charged with important despatches
from Mr. Fox to the British Government.
(From the Globe.)
The Bill to admit Jews to held. Corporate offices was
read a third time last night in the House of Commons.
The majo ity in its favour was more than three to one :
the numbers being, for the third reading, leg; aeainst it,
31. As the words, on " the true faith of a Cetittien,
in the declaration required to be taken by all persoes
elected to offices in Corporations, and which, therefore,
excluded members of the Jewish faith from such
offices:, were introduced into the Bill by the House of
Lords, we doubt whether the large majority by which the
House of Commons has passed the present Bill, which
goes to expunge these words from the declaration, will
induce their Lordships to adopt a measure which calls
upon them to review and rescind their former decision.
Mr. W. Gladstone led the opposition last night ; and
maintained the character he has acquired for uncom-
prnmising hostility to all whose creed is not squared
tit strict conformity to his own. From an apprehension
scarcely consistent in an unshaken faith in the apos-
tolic succession claimed for his own Church, or with the
more enlarged and certainly mare enlightened belief in the
divine origin of Christianity, Mr Gladstone insisted that if
this Bill became law the Church of England would be en-
dangered, and our common country be'un Christianized
Vain and impotent mortals, busily and laboriously employed
ittraising 01910 hills, ass outworks to protect the cause of the

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Times.)
Although intelligence from America has for some time
beers looked for with more than ordinary interest, the ar-
rival of the Britannia, which left Boston on the 16th of
March (several days later than the President's departure
from New York), presents no news relative to M`Leod's
affair of any determinate character. That he himself was
still kept a prisoner, with little hope of being exempted
from trial, appears to be the only material fact in the Bri-
tannia's barren budget. We learn, however, from our
own intelligent correspondent " the Genevese Traveller,"
that his subjection to the course of law had been irre-
versibly decreed : only, with the view of insuring his cer-
tain acquiltl, he has been transferred from the frontier
county of Niagara to Albany, where, it is said, no causes
of any sort exist that are likely to operate to his pre-
judice. Our correspondent further assures us, that
though Mr. Fox's instructions do not actually enjoin
him, ia the event of receiving that refusal of M‘Leod'e
immediate release which the President of the States
will feel co!titutionally imposed upon him, to demand his
passports and quit the country, no eventual rupture will
be thereby occasioned, inasmuch as the declaration of the
British Government, undertaking the entire responsibility
of the Ciroline's destruction, will be pleaded and sus•
tained at M`Lcod's trial, as constituting an infallible bar
to his conviction. From these consideratiens, as well as
from the altered tone of the American journals, and espe-
cially from the circumstance that their original clamour
for what they called the rights of justice has cooled
down into a mere punctiliousness about its forms, the cer-
tainty is, that M`Leod's trial would be nothing more than
a solemn judicial farce, ending, as it began, in veritable
smolie. One reason why Mr. Fox bad not yet succeeded
in obtaining that gentleman's release is said to have been
that the requisite official communications with the new
Government could not be proceeded with until the
British Minister were formally presented to General
Harrison ; but as that ceremony came off on the 9th
ult., (a week before the Britannia sailed), we must
infer that Mr. Fox's final negotiations had encountered
other obstacles, particularly as we learn that he had not
entered on them up to the 11th ult. For our own part,
notwithstanding the "untoward event" which has been
made such a gratuitous handle of in thie momentary spirt
of national temper, we never could bring ourselves seriously
to believe that the worthy Jonathan would so far com-
promise his cautious and calculating character as to com-
mit himself to the contingencies of war upon a basis so
barrow and insignificant. " Talkee, talkee," (as the
negroes say) is, to be sure, no unusual pastime of his; but,
take him in the main, he is of a sound reflective turn ; and
accordingly, when his occasional ebullitions of speech sub-
side into a quiet depth of thought, his practical conclu-
sions, though often implying a censure upon his antece-
dent infirmities, are, for the most part, unexceptionable.
Never, perhaps, was America in a worse condition
for assuming a belligerent attitude than she is at the
present moment. Such is the comparatively defenceless
state of her frontier towns, that their inhabitants seem
already to be panic-struck with the very idea of the ap•
preach of a British army. Her scattered navy happens
at present to be very inadequate for any sudden emer-
gency, nor could it be concentrated without the twcfold
disadvantage of considerable delay, and its withdrawment
from remote interests which usually demand protection.
Her " sinews of war" also—the well-replenished coffers
and stable credit indispensable to a good commissariat—
are dreadfully out of order; added to which, the millions
of her sieve population ready to sacrifice everything for
personal freedom, constitute, as she well knows, an enemy
within the camp, quite manageable in tranquil times, but
willing and competent, at a moment's warning, to
make common cause with any invading army that
might insure them deliverance from their oppressors.
The expedient of the American authorities for main-
taining their national dignity, by resolving to have M`Leod
tried at Albany, for the purpose of preventing his convic-
tion, is, therefore, a very prudent and intelligible after-
thought. Upon the whole, the prospect of a war with
Great Britain upon this isolated question, even if Mr. Fox
should have- actually demanded his passports, seems to be
considered by all. parties in America to be at an end.
What may subsequently come of the other unsettled dis-
putes respecting the north-eastern boundary, and the right
of search on the African coast it were mere folly to con-
jecture. It is perfectly clear that our national rights on
those points cannot be surrendered without equal injury to
the security of our Canadian possessions, and to the hu-
mane wardenship in regard to the slave-trade which this
country is irrevocably pledged to exercise. That we may
eventually be involved in war on such grounds is far from
being impossible: but in the mean time we console our-
selves with the reflection, that "sufficient for the day is the
evil thereof."