The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-08 00:00:00

tJY

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1847.

There are many subjects, in themselves apparently
of trivial consequence, that exercise the greatest in-
fluence over the welfare, happiness, and morals of
thousands of our countrymen. It may seem of little
importance to the public generally, that wealthy
landowners should be permitted to deal with their
own properties is t P manner they may
think proper ;
that they shoal sly encourage a superabund-
ance of game, r on their private demesnes, but
on the farms of nantry, and that they should be
enabled, by means of stringent enactments, to pre-
serve that game, and to punish with the greatest
severity any attempt to interfere with what they
are taught to regaiiil as much their private properties
as any other portion of their possessions. They ask
why should not the surreptitious taking of a hare or a
pheasant be dealt with as a theft as fully as if a
pocket-handkerchief had been abstracted—or, to make
the analogy more perfect, as if a domestic animal, a
sheep or fowl, had been purloined ? And they con-
tend that, because there are greater facilities
afforded . for obtaining possession thereof, that
a greater degree of punishment is absolutely ne-
cessary to prevent persons from taking that to which

they have no manner of right. There is some sip-
-11574012`0106tice, some colour of equity, in these
etwertionB -b .a little close examination will enable
ta tq detect the fallacies, and to show hew wholly
unwarrantable aro the assumptions. It is now uni-
'venally admitted; "that property -has its duties as
stall s-its rig'atii. that it was originally ciiierred,

not merely for the sake of the grant ecs, but for 014
benefit of the public generally, and that no
i
person has a right to deal with his property in. any
If, then, manner that may be injurious to the community at
large or even to a single individual. tthese
clahwiesf can bheo mpuahinlitcaienveidl
swciatnhohuet
trdaecteridmetntthoerir mopleas:-
ration ; if they are founded on the princ.h pl
isetsheof n
tional justice, and conducive to th at which
foun-
dation of all correct legislation—the greatest good
of the greatest number—they should be retained, but
if otherwise, no time should be lost in their amendment.
This is the simple question to be dealt with
—to this the voice of public opinion is required
to give an answer. = There are constitutional
modes of giving expression to that voice, which can
not be slighted or despised. It may for a time be re-
sisted, but must ultimately prove victorious. Hitherto
philanthropists have proclaimed the serious and
demoralising effects of the game code to the peasantry of
the country, they have pointed out that it holds a
prominent position amcngst the social evils that are
suffered to exist, to the public detriment ; that by its
means thousands of our fellow• citizens are taught
habits of idleness, and made acquainted with crime ;
the county gaols filled, and the rates greatly magni-
fied ; once happy families deprived of their natural
guardians and protectors, and becoming the inmates
of parish workhouses, and the recipients of parochial
charity. But still the public generally have not been
fully awakened to the great extent of the mischief,
Inhabitants of cities and towns do not feel the pres-
sure of the grievance. The rural part of the commu-
nity are widely dispersed ; they are not in the
habit of congregating together in masses, and
giving expression to their feelings. The
wound may rankle at their hearts ; their
maledictions, though deep, may not be loud,
and their apparent apathy is not ascribed to its true
causes.

Other matters, too, up to a recent period, ab-
sorbed the public attention. It was but within
the last year that the doctrines of free trade were
triumphant ; that monopoly was prostrated, and a
tax that pressed on the national industry, and en-
hanced the price of the people's food, removed.
No question of minor interest could be fully inves-
tigated while those of such paramount importance
remained unsettled. Happily they have been dis-
posed of, and the public mind is no longer distracted
in reference thereto. We may now look for other
measures of reform, and what can be more urgent or
pressing than that to which we have alluded ? The
distress that has unhappily afflicted the sister king-
dom has occupied the earlier part of the session ;
there remains, however, ample time for legisla-
tion. Let it not be supposed that the
people are indifferent or supine ; their voices
must be heard. The prison returns of the past
year would alone speak trumpet-tongued as to
the necessity of a sweeping alteration, a radical
change. Many of the higher classes have not been
inattentive to the signs of the times. They have;
with a good grace, surrendered the strict preservation
of their estates. The Duke of DEVONSUIRE has
lately directed that a considerable quantity of hares
on his property should be destroyed. We trust
that many will be found to follow the exatnple.
Let them ask themselves what real benefit or gratifi-
cation they derive from the excess of game, to set
against the immense mass of crime, vice, and misery,
produced by these game-laws. If a conscientious
answer is returned to the question, we are
convinced that a majority of our gentry will cease to
be game-preservers, and that a thorough and efficient
reform sA ill take place, to the benefit not only of the
public generally, but also of the landowners them-
selves.

Anything more ungenerous. and disgustingly
servile than the conduct evinced towards Mr.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS (whose letter we published
in our columns of yesterday), by the Liverpool agent
for the steam• ship Cambria, IN hich runs between this
country and Boston, it were difficult to conceive.

Four weeks before this ship sailed Mr, FREDERICK
DouGLAss, in company with a gentleman of the Hall'
of Commerce, London, called upon the London
agent, and having inquired whether his being a man
of colour would prove any barrier to his enjoying all
the rights and privileges enjoyed by other passengers,
and having been answered in the negative, paid
401. 195., the amount of the passage-money, and then
received a ticket assigning him a particular berth in
the C.irnbria. On repairing on board Mr. DOUGLASS
learned to his surprise that his berth had been given
to another, and was told that the London agent had
acted without authority, and he was further informed,
proh pudor! that he would not be allowed to proceed
in the ship unless he gave up his berth, agreed to take
h's meals alone, and not mix with the saloon company.
Desirous of returning to the United States, this gen-
tleman had to submit to these mortifying conditions,
hich however reflect no degradation upon the party
on whom they were imposed, but have fixed an in-
delible stigma upon the company owning the
Cambria. Such treatinea is, indeed, an outrage
upon British feeling and British philanthropy.
Against such a scandalous proceeding Ur. F.
DOUGLASS, on the eve of his departure, wrote a pro-
test which, to quote his own appropriate language,
" he felt to be due to his own rights as a man, as
well as to the honour and dignity of the British
public." In having taken this step Mr. DOUGLASS
has faithfully anticipated the judgment which every
high-minded Englishman will pass upon the dis-
graceful conduct he has experienced. We do not
envy the feelings which ought to actuate the minds of
the American on reading the concluding paragraph
of Mr DOUGLASS'S letter :—" I have travelled in this
country nineteen months, and have always enjoyed
qual rights with other passengers, and it was not
wail I turned my face towards America that I
met with anything like proscription on account of my
colour." The more we retioct upon this matter the worse
it appears. The assertion that the London agent
acted without• authority is a trumped-up excuse.
Flow happened it that Mr. Doua Lass was not informed
of the objection to the contract he had entered into

till the last moment ? A month had elapsed since he
had taken his berth, and he bad made a particular
inquiry before he paid his passage-money. From
the singular nature of this inquiry, even if the
London agent ht d no doubt as to his authority, it is
not improbable that he had, in the interim,
acquainted either the directors in London
(if any), or the Liverpool agent, with the
question lihich Mr. DOUGLASS had put and
the answer he bad received. If this was so, and the
arrangement made was viewed as objectionable and un-
authorised, Mr. DOUGLASS ought to have been warned
of the fact at the earliest moment. As the matter
now stands before the public, who can say but that
the other passengers intimated to the company their
repugnance to the manner in which they had agreed
to accommodate Mr. DoucLass in the Cambria, and
that then, and not before she was on the eve of
leaving the harbour, regardful only of their pockets,
and shamefully regardless of the constitutional
laws of freedom, for which England has so long been
proudly renowned, the company determined to sacri-
fice Mr. DOUGLASS to the vilest prejudices that can
warp the human mind ? But whether this was the
real state of the case, or not, it is grievous to con-
sider the miserable and dishonourable extent to which
a company, partly formed of Englishmen, have con-
descended to pander to the tyrannical conceits of the
upholders of slavery. America may boast of her
freedom, but so long' as her practice belies her
vaunted principles of equality, the sons of genuine
freedom will laugh her to scorn. For ourselves, we
shoulcl heartily rejoice if the Government were in a
condition, without a breach of contract, to mark its
sense of the insult which has been offered to the
British nation, in the person of Mr. DOUGLASS, by
withdrawing- the allowance which they make to the
company for the conveyance of the mails.

We earn from Konigsberg (Prussia) that all the
Russiatx 'Students of that University, about 150 in
number, have been ordered to return to their country
immediately. It is said that the Emperor IcicnoLes
intends to forbid all his subjects to receive their edu-
cation in foreign universities.
It is stated in a Berlin letter that M. A. nu HUM-
BOLDT has been charged by the KING to Convey to
London the magnificent shield which his MAJESTY
has caused to be executed for his royal godson, the
Prince of WALES.

The Madrid rail of ti e Ist had not arrived in
Paris whin the post left oz Tueaday.

We have received the Paris papers of Tuesday.
The Presse returns to the recent change in the
Spanish Ministry, and in an article of the " willing
to wound and yet afraid to strike school," expresses
its surprise at the reception which the Pacheco
Ministry has met with from the Madrid press, and
considers the " benignity of polemics" which all the
journals have exhibited on the occasion as even more
strange than the manner in which the new Ministry
came into power. We think we can enlighten the
Presse on this subject. The Pacheco Ministry is a
Spanish Ministry, chosen by the Queen of SPAIN of
her own free will to serve Spanish interests alone.
It is what no other Ministry since 1843 has been—a
national Ministry. Since 1843 until the present
moment, every Ministry in Spain has been really
nominated by the Neapolitan agent of France,
CHRISTINA, for the all but avowed purpose
of sacrificing the interests of Spain to those of
France. Hence the general joy with which the
appointment of a national Ministry is hailed. Here
we take note of another admission, made by the organ
of Queen CHRISTINA :
"The Progresaists, satisfied that the Puritans were
preparing the way before them, have too much tact to
continue against that party the war which they have
waged against every Ministry since 1843. Making all
necessary reservations for saving appearances, they will
vote with them on all important occasions, as they have
heretofore done with M. Salamanca. They expect to
reap very shortly the fruits of their tactics. They have,
it appears, already gained M. Olozaga, and want only
Espartero and the National Guard. They see that they
will gain all this by a dissolution of the Congress, for
which they are striving."

If a dissolution of the Congress would give a Pro-
gressist majority, it is evident that the present Con-
gress does not represent the Spanish people ; and
having been elected only a few months, it is also
evident that but for the unconstitutional and illegal
coercion exercised by the Afrancesado Ministry of
ISTURITZ, under the inspiration of the French
Government, the Progressists would have had a
majority in the present Congress. It is pleasant to
find the Presse every now and then in its agony thus
blurting out a truth. Queen CHRISTINA is in the
greatest consternation—

" She wanted," says La Patrie, " to return forthwith
to Madrid, and it has required the most earnest entrea-
ties to prevent her doing so. She bitterly regrets having
left Madrid, and not submitted to the sorrows she hart
to endure there. She considers the intrigue which has
subvei ted the Casa Irujo Cabinet as but the prelimi
nary scene to a drama which she awaits with terror.
The recal of Olozaga and Espartero would give her
mortal pain."

It would appear from the following article in the
Presse, that France is likely to be embroiled with
the Brazils on account of the seizure by French
cruizers of certain Brazilian slavers :
" Since the month of March, 1846, during which the
convention of 29th May, 1845, has been in full execu
tion, a considerable number of Brazilian vessels, destined
probably for the slave-trade, have been seized and pro-
secuted for piracy, in virtue of the dispositions of the
law of 10th April, 1825. Among them were a Brazilian
schooner seized on 17th April on the coast of Congo,
and brought into Brest on the 25th June; another
schooner of the same nation, seized the 221 May in the
Guir of Benin, and arrived at Brest the 6th August ; a
three-masted Brazilian vessel, captured the 20th at
150 leagues from Gabon, and brought into Brest the
15th August ; a Brazilian brig-schooner, seized the
18th ut Congo, and arrived at Brest the 17th Decem-
ber ; together with several other vessels, Sardinian or
Brazilian, proceeded against before the Maritime Tri-
bunal of Brest. All these vessels were laden with
negroes, who were disembarked at Goree, and placed
at the disposal of the local authorities. If France were
invested with the right of applying her own repressive
laws to foreign vessels, without doubt the seizure
would be valid, and the slave-ships ought to be con-
demned. The offence of being engaged in the slave
trade would in their case be incontestable ; but France
has not the right to prosecute and judge them on that
account—that right belongs only to their national
jurisdictions. The Government of Brazil has, there-
fore, strongly protested against the seizures made, and
the prosecutions undertaken against its subjects, in
violation of the right of nations and of its own sove
reignty. It never ceases complaining, and the fact
becomes evident that if justice be not done in the case
grave misunderstandings will arise between the two
Governments. We hesitate not to say that the demands
of Brazil are well founded. The vessels have been
seized in despite of the most evident right. The slave-
trade, criminal as it is in the eyes of humanity, is not
a crime in the face of international law, and its repres-
sion belongs only to interior jurisdictions. Odious
though theslave-trade be, we have not the right to
assimilate it to piracy, and we cannot do it without
wounding the nationality and menacing the security of
all navies."

The Journal des Dibats has an trtielia urging on
the Government the necessity of abolishing, until
1848, all import duties on corn and provisions of
every description.

The Commerce gives the following particulars as
to the provisions of the new Customs Bill, which has
been introduced by the Minister of Commerce
The new Customs Bill lately presented in the
Chamber of Deputies has not yet been published. Its
principal provisions are, however, known to some of the
Deputies. It appears that the only important article:of
this Bill relates to the admission, free of duty, of mat-
ters necessary for ship-building. This article runs thus :
Bar iron, copper, zinc, flax, and tow, destined for the
construction of French trading vessels, shall be admitted
free of duty, on condition that it be shown within the
space of one year that these articles have been employed
as specified. The same immunity is accorded to sheet-
iron destined for the construction of trading vessels.
Royal ordonnances will hereafter point out the nature
and conditions of the proofs to which this immunity
shall be subjected.' "

On the same subject we find the following in the
Emancipation of Brussels, from a Paris correspon-
dent :

" You would probably like to be made acquainted
with some of the modifications of the tariff of Cut•toms
Duties Bill, just laid btfore the Chamber of Deputies.
As far as a rapid glance at it has enabled me to see,
there are several provisions which will affect your pro.
duce and manufactures. Raw zinc is to be altogether
free of duty. The prohibition on looking-glasses is to
be taken off. The duty on plain glass is to be reduced
30 per cent. There is also to be a reduction of the
duties on hops and on marble. In general the reform,
for such the new law proposed by M. Cunin Gridaine is
declared to be, is framed on the most timid and insigni-
ficant scale. It is presented to our manufacturers and
traders in a dose so mild, that their complexion, so easily
affected, is not changed in the slightest degree. It is to
raw produce that relief is applied, and even this is not
radically done. Neither coal nor cast-iron is touched
on ; something certainly is granted to cast iron appli-
cable to ship-building, but that is a trifling boon. No
change whatever is made with regard to cloths of any
kind. The partisans of free trade, and the great railroad
companies, who have need of rails and engines, cannot
be satisfied with this Bill."

The French Government has forbidden all French
subjects to accept letters of marque from Mexico,
thus following the example which had been previously
set by the English Government.

M. DUCHATEL, the Minister of the Interior, in-
troduced on Monday, into the Chamber of Deputies, a
Bill for granting a supplementary sum of 1,000,000
francs for the secret police service. This Bill, and
the speech of the Minister of the Interior on intro-
ducing it, are the subject of some indignant com-
ments in the National.

The Prince DE JOINVILLE'S squadron will sail from
Toulon on. the arrival of the Descartes from Cher-
bourg and Brest. The destination of the squadron is
said to be Athens.
Count ST. AULAIRE arrived in Paris on Monday,
and had interviews with the KING and M. GUIZOT.
It is said that the Due DE MONTEBELLO will replace
Count Du ST. AULAIRE in London. The Baron
BILLING Will go to Madrid and Count BRESSON to
Naples.

OLozAGA left Paris for Madrid on Monday night.
The Paris Bourse became very firm towards the close of
business on Tuesday. The Three per Cents. closed at 78f.
65c. the Five per Cents., 116 f. 65c.; the Orleans Railroad
Shares, 1,240 f.; Rouen, 880 f. ; Havre, 6771. 50c. ; Great
Northern, 633 f. 75c.; Avignon, 795 f. ; Vierzon, 565 f.; Bor.
deaux, 515 f. ; Boulogne, 4251: ; Troyes and Montereau, 300 f. ;
Basle, 210 f.; Dieppe, 335 f. ; l'aris and Strasburg, 432 f. 50c.;
Tours and Nantes, 4271. 50c. ; Paris and Lyons, 436 f. 25c.;
Lyons and Avignon, 460 f. ; Cette, 447 f. 50c. ; Spanish Three
per Cents., 34%.
MARSEILLES, APRIL 2.-Marseilles and Avignon, 803 f. 75c. ; Northern, 623 f. 75c.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, Aran, 7.
bour
Boulogne and Amiens, 16%-Dutch Rhenish, 4-Luxem-
g, 1%-Northern of France, 123-Orleans and Bor-
deaux, 6%-Paris and Lyons, 51,4

THE COAST OF AFRICA.
By an arrival from the above quarter, we are put
in possession of intelligence to the 10th of March,
being a month later than the last advices.
The coast was healthy, as was the squadron em-
ployed upon it in the futile endeavour to suppress
the slave trade. One capture had been made since
our last letters, but she was an empty prize.
Sierra Leone and Ascension were healthy, and
turtle was abundant at the former place.
A. frightful massacre of slaves had taken place at
Lagos Bay, some months since, the owners not
having vessels to ship them in, nor food for their
sustenance. This had no relation to the report
isilnaayse,s
which re-appeared some days since, about 2,000
ahnadv i ns
,1113rtie t:e,a3k,enwthh
theoic rp
eoberatchhada tnotlfieouGndaa.l-
tion in fact,