The Sun.
London, England, 1824-01-02 00:00:00

THE LONDON JOURNALS•

DAILY
Extracts from the Morning Papers, Jun. 2.

ENEW TIMES 3

A meeting of the West India Merchants is
aboat to take place, for the purpose of taking
into consideration the present alarming state of
the Colonies, and to petition the Legislature for
relief. We trust that these Gentlemen will cau-
tiously abstain from any topics which may tend
to irritate rather than to allay the discordant
passions now afloat. Living, as they do, amidst
the enlightened society of Europe, they cannot
but feel that slavery is a state abhorrent to the
ger►ius of our free Constitution ; and though its
othiva abolition would doubtless be attended
vrith infinite evil, yet reason, humanity, justice,
and even the well-understood interests of the
masters themselves, command its gradual extinc-
tion. Why is the state of the Colonies alarming ?
It is because both parties may easily be driven to
extremities : the Slaves may be incited to insur-
rection against their masters ; the masters may
be hurried into rebellion against their Sovereign
—unless the voice of reason be addressed to both,
in the accents of authority. This office the meet-
ing of West India Merchants may effectually
perform. They may state to Government the
hardships under which the planters labour ; and
they may represent to the planters how much
those hardships must necessarily be increased by
an unjust opposition to the measures of improve-
ment which the Government has suggested. If
such sentiments of considerate humanity prevail
at the intended meeting, it may be converted into
a source of great public benefit : if not, we fear
it will only be tkrowing oil o►► a flame, which,
alas ! already burns but too fiercely.

[MORNING POST. j
French Papers to the 31st ult. reached us last
night by Express. The chief article of interest
which they contain is the trial of Simon the Royal
Guard, who shot young Honein on the day of the
Duke d'Angouleme's triumphal entry into Paris.
He was brought before a Court Martial, and the
result has been, what might easily be expected,
the acquittal of the accused, or to speak more
conscientiously, the assassin, for the evidence
proved the shot to have been fired when no
possible danger could he apprehended from the
deceased. He was on the quay below and
Simon on the terrace, at the top of a wall ten
feet high, which must he scaled before the un-
fortunate Ilonein could approach his destroyer.
The plea of personal security therefore had
DO foundation : or if Simon was threatened
by any individuals on the terrace, his selecting
a young man below for his victim must appear
still more wanton and unjustifiable. It was not
stated by any witness that lionein even attempted
to mount the v all, and the highest provocation
which he gave was to call the centinel a " had
conscript." Ills father, however, was evi-
dently unwilling, after receiving the King's
bounty (a paltry 401. a year) to press the
trial to conviction, and only instructed his
Counsel to clear the memory of his son from
the charge of having been a rioter. The Pre-
sident of the Court, .on the other hand, took
care to stop every witness who entered into any
details unfavourable to the accused ; and the
Counsel for the defence declared, that if Simon
should be condemned, " fear and discourage-
ment would be spread throughout /the army."—
It is not astonishing, therefore, that he should
have been acquitted, and that justice should have
been sacrificed to authority on the one side, and
to gratitude or interest on the other. Of the
feellegs excited by Ilonein's death some idea will
be formed by the following bold declaration of
one of the witnesses, Mr. Delorme, a corporal in
the National Guard, who was on the spot at the
time :—" I heard a thot, and saw a young man
fall. I then saw the sentinel shoulder his musket,
and coolly walk backwards and forwards, after
having Committed the murder. The indignation
was so great, that the people talked of cutting
him in pieces, and had my musket been loaded,
I am not sure that I should not have shot him."
The existence of such a spirit between indivi-
duals of the National and Royal Guard is a se-
rious consideration for the French. Government.

[BRITISH PRESS.i
Lisbon Papers to the 21st reached our office
yesterday. These wretched Gazettes ,of des-
potism contain nothing of any interest from that
country, and are occupied with a long tirade
against Masonry and its votaries, to whose mys-
terious influence they impute Don Podro's dynasty
in the New World, and the separation from Por-
tugal of the Brazils. A new Cagliostro, in the
person of an individual of the name of Moniz
Barreto, is brought forward, whose got-up con-
fession of Masonry, and all its consequences,
is extracted from some wretched rag called
the Padre Amazo, said to be printed in a
garret of this city, and subsequently circula-
ted through Lisbon. This veritable docu-
ment is entitled, " A Defence of Citizen
Dominjos Alves Branco Moniz Barret() (a Don
with five names), against an imaginary crime, for
ayhich he was unjustly sentenced by the Judge
(who has only two names and a half), Francisco
de Franca Miranda." As the crime of Citizen
Dominjos is stated to be imaginary, we fancy his
confession is pretty much"of the same character :
both are probably the production of the compiler
of the Padre Amazo, and have no other foundation.
The Italian Cagliostro, when all his schemes were?
exhausted, and he was caged by his Holiness
the Pope, in Adrian's Tomb, commonly called
the Castle of St. Angelo, made a full confession
of his former practices, and renounced ma-
sonry as impious and heretical ;. all his crimes,
including his league with La Motte, and the
conspiracy of the diamond necklace, were con-
tritely imputed by him solely to masonry and
its principles. The genuine defence of the
worthy Sieur Moniz Barreto imputes, in the same
way, the independence of Brazil solely to the
" Craft." But it is an utter waste of time to com-
ment on such trash as this. It is now plain, with-t
out any sort of mystery, masonic or otherwise, I