The Sun.
London, England, 1824-04-29 00:00:00

[NEW TIME.]

Much anxiety was expressed yesterday morn-
ing by the public in general as to the King's
health. The postponement of the Drawing
Room was supposed to have been occasioned by
serious illness. In the course of the day, how-
ever, this cloud which obscured the public joy
was dispersed. It became known that the epi-
demic cold with which his Majesty was attacked
had given way to judicious treatment, and
that the King was convalescent. Much as tire
desire that our beloved Sovereign should
often grace the courtly circle with his pre.
sence, we cannot but applaud the wise caution
which spared His Majesty the toil and fatigue of
a Drawing Room, when his frame was in the
least degree weakened by indisposition. Tfiat
which was a comparatively slight attack might
otherwise have been converted into a severe fit
of illness, and the agitation and alarm which•had
already begun to pervade the Public mind would
hese assumed a painful intensity, in proportion
as danger might have been-supposed to threaten
the. precious life of the Monarch..

[BRITISH PRESS.]
The Adjourned Quarter Sessions for the coun-
ty of Surrey, held at Reigate, on Tuesday, be-
fore the Chairman, Lord Eastnor, the County.
Members, and a large body of Magistrates, was
distinguished at its opening by peculiar warmth,
nod even violence. After the report of the Sur-
geon of the Brixton House of Correction was put
in, and read—which stated, among other things,

that no prejudicial effect had been endured by
the prisoners from the operation of the particular
species of labour from the tread-wheel, Mr.
Briscoe, a most respectable Magistrate, rose to
address the Chair, and stated, that he had a specific
motion to bring under their consideration ; and he
appears to have been met by prejudice and clamour
from the Bench in the very outset. We were sur-
prised to see Mr. Denison, the patriotic Member
for Surrey, and Mr. Randle Jackson, a leading
Member of the India House, among the most vio-
lent of Mr. Briscoe's opponents, and wishing at
once,• to drown, his motion by clamour and nurn-
berg- Mr, Briscoe may have taken up opinions
too suddenly, and without due reflection and in-
vestigation, against the punishment now in ex-
istence within our prisons, of the Tread-wheel.
But his representations, as an unprejudiced
and respectable Magistrate, were entitled at
least to attention and respect ; they were
fairly and openly preferred ;
and the attempt to
get rid of them by unworthy technical objec-
tions---and these failing, to put down Mr. Bris-
coe by violence and vituperation, bears little
testimony, we are sorry to say, to the impartia-
lity and good temper of the Bench of Surrey Ma-
gistrates in general. When Mr. Biscoe came for-
ward with an open opposition to the discipline of
our prisons, and to the indiscriminate use of the
tread-wheel, he ought to have been better pre-
pared with his arguments and proofs, and we
do not think that the solitary instance of cruelty
in the case of- the soldiers Noggett and Wilson
was at all sustained. These men appear to have
acted outrageously within the prison of which
Mr. Green was the governor. They had been
refractory.; they had refused to work upon the
wheel when confined, and cut up all their blan-
kets. One of these soldiers had even assaulted
the Governor so severely, as nearly to break one
of his fingers, and the other had given one of the
turnkeys a most dangerous kick.

f 55OiNIrta Iltß A Ln.3
Of tho many projects to which the present su-
perabundance of capital has given rise, the most
important is that which has been announced under
the title of the West India Company. We have
no hesitation in pronouncing this the most im-
portant of them all, as we apprehend that it con-
tains within it the means (if any exist) of saving
the West India Proprietors from the ruin which
appears to await them, and of ultimately averting
the loss of these Colonies from the Mother
Country. We consider both the objects and
'the consequence of this association to be much
more extensive than is perhaps contemplated by
its projectors, and that it will end in the
transfer of the whole or greater part of
the territorial possessions of tke West In-
dies to this Company, and to its establishment in
the West upon the same footing as the_ Lords of
'Leadenhall-street in the East. Whatever objec-
tions might have existed to such a measure for-
merly, recent wants seem to have annihilated
them. Common danger often produces results
which even common interests cannot accomplish.
Besides, the present mode of conducting West
India affairs seems but little calculated to meet
the crisis it has produced. The means of com-
munication at home through agents of unequal
views, knowledge, and discretion, and the
Government abroad through the means of
local assemblies, all seem but to produce disu-
nion, and to shew the necessity and importance
of one general system, which acting alike through
all the Islands, with decision, tempered by huma-
nity, and unalloyed by local prejudices, may ac-
complish the deliverance of the West Indies
from their present alarming state. We may,
perhaps, be told that this Company has no such
views as those which we impute to it. Perhaps
not. What we say is, that its establishment is
likely to tend to such a result, and that so far
being an object of alarm, we hail it as likely to be
beneficial.