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

[BRITISH PRESS.]

The latest accounts from Madrid, to the 20th,
state that the long-expected amnesty was still
under protracted discussion, by Ferdinand's
Council of State. There had been several sit-
tings, at which the tyrant and his brothers pre-
sided. The antiquated archives of Spain, cen-
turies since, were searched to discover pre-
cedents, from the tyranny of Charles Y.,
and the conduct of Philip of Bourbon at
a later day, on which to raise exceptions in
the forthcoming amnesty. The capitulations
granted to the followers of the Cortes by
the French Generals had also embarrassed
these sage and liberal Councillors. The decree,
however, is said at length to have been agreed
upon,and was to make its long-promised appear-
ance on the 30th. Ferdinand is said to feel
lonely without the company and support of The
Andalusian Monk, his late Minister, and the
return of the confessor Saez to the Ministry is
anticipated in Madrid. All this is only what
we expected. Ferdinand is incurable ; he is
a bigot from- habit and conviction, and a tyrant
from feeling: a liberal or enlightened act would
he foreign to his character and that of the crew
by whom he is surrounded. It is better his
tyranny should be undisguised and unbearable,
than that any half measures should paralyse
that resistance which is now sure to spring up
again in Spain. The last letters from Bayonne
give the accounts of a mutiny at Estella, among
the Faith banditti, who became indignant at the
corporal punishment of one of their Officers.—
The troops broke into open revolt, and in
endeavouring to suppress it eight of their Offi-
cers were killed, and the Battalion of Royalists
then marched out of Estella, with drums beat-
ing, and divided into three columns. The pri-
sons of Pampeluna, filled with Constitutionalists,
were beginning to be slowly cleared of their vic-
tims; hut fines of from two to six thousand francs
were individually levied from them. This is one
way of recruiting the Royal Exchequer. No loan
was yet arranged, or in any progress likely to be
so. Spanish Stock on Monday, in Paris, was dull
at 27k. What capitalist would lend to such a
Government as now oppresses Spain ? There can
he no confidence or stability in such a tyranny.

[MORNING HERALD.]

It is unfortunate for the people, and probably
for the popularity of the present or of any future
Ministers, that there should be such an odious
description of agents introduced into the n anage-
meta of the taxation of the country--one whose
emolument is derived from a commission on the
amount of whatever suns of money may be raised
extra by virtue of his assessment. The gain
arising from a commission necessarily operates
as a stimulus to the agent to fix the assessment
as high as possible. The more a man can tax
the district to which he may be appointed, the
more money he puts into his own pockpt. A
Government may think itself very cunning to
proceed.on such a principle ; but, in time, it will
find its loss in the alienations of the affections of
the people. The Ultra supporters of Government
will say that people have their remedy if over-
charged. But what is their remedy ?—an ac-
tion at law, or a petition to the Lords of the
Treasury. Now as to the first remedy, every
body knows that it is worse than the disease; for
our Courts of Law, in consequence of the in-
tolerable expence attending them, and the
time it takes before a man can obtain his re-
medy, may be called Courts of torment rather
than Courts of relief. And as to petitioning the
Lords of the Treasury, look at the loss of time,
the humiliation of such an application, and the
expence. How few know how to draw up a
petition in sufficiently crouching—nay, abject
terms', for the perusal of their Lordships ? It is
here necessary to get some Solicitor to do it, and
commences expence ; for there must be a confer-
ence or two—the draft and the fair copy of the
petition—the talk over each—together with the
expences attendant on the Solicitor sending the pe-
tition by his clerk for the perusal of their Lord-
ships. We should suppose in every such appeal,
that the Solictor's bill would amount to two or three
pounds, and the person sustain a loss in time of a
pound or two. And after all, probably, the sum
to be recovered, even if their Lordships should
be favourable to the prayer of the petition,
might not exceed 51. It is very easy to talk
about the relief to be obtained in English Courts
of Justice ; but except the sum to be recovered
be large, it is not worth any body's while to
have to do with an English Court of Justice. If
the sum at issue be to no great amount, an honest
solicitor will advise his client to put up with the
loss and not make bad worse, by an appli-
cation to his Majesty's Courts. If all the As-
sessed Taxes could be done away with, and a
modified tax on income front real property be
substituted, it would remedy this grievance of
men and their families acquiring their living
by causing their neighbours to be taxed as high
as possible. We often wonder what the pa-
triotic part of eur Representatives have been
about, that they should so silently permit such
inquisitorial Bills to pass. These, and most
Bills, are generally got threugh the House at
nearly the close of the Session, whl it is well

known to the makers of these Bills that there will
be no more than 20 or 20 Members out of the 650
present. This system of survey is becoming a great
grievance indeed—as bad, if not worse, than the
Inquisition ; for the latter merely touched men's
religious scruples, about which the mass of the
people might probably be careless—the other
their pockets, in the safe-keeping of which all
have pretty nearly the same feeling of self.—
We hope, however, that Mr. Robinson and Mr.
Canning will alter this vile system of paying
commissions, instead of giving salaries to sur-
veyors.