The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-30 00:00:00

scientious Dissenters decline to vote for him, and an
officer who has, in general, heretofore been exclusive-
ly appointed by Churchmen. There may have
been now and then a contest between the two
parties in the Church which shall elect the Church-
warden ; but, in general, his election has not been
considered as a political contest, and that the Tories
can draw consolation from such a success is a sure
sign that their cause is at a very low ebb. But they
not only rejoice in being able to elect a Church-
warden, they triumph at the success of the Chart-
ists. The Halifax Guardian chuckles at resolti-
tions for Universal Suffrage and the Ballot having
been passed at some meeting, in opposition to the
Anti-Corn-law Whigs ; it reprobates a Whig
master, who dismissed from his employment the son
and daughter of a man who had attended the meet-
ing, and was in favour of Universal Suffrage.
The Standard quoted the paragraph yesterday,
and called it " Revenge of the Whigs." To elect
a Churchwarden, therefore, and to share the
triumphs of the Chartists, are now the chief souree
of consolation f,.? the Tories.

We are not disposed to deny ....at there is much
political apathy just now amongst the middle
classes ; there is no enthusiasm, we admit, in favour
of the Whigs ; there is great zeal amongst the
Tories to get office, and this zeal and apathy give
an appearance of advantage to the Tories. Many
of the people when not excited by political enthu-
siasm fall into their Loid tracks ; they go with the
gentry, they follow the clergy, and the result is, the
Churchmen are Able to elect their own Church-
warden. In some small boroughs, too, by the aid
of bribery, as has been distinctly proved at Cam-
bridge and Ludlow, they can return a Tory Mem-
ber, and these small successes are driving out of the
Tories the little discretion they had.
Let us suppose that they succeed according to
their heart's desire, what would be the result ?
We will admit that, repudiating the Whig policy,
and carrying things with a high hand, they should
steadily and successfully resist the demands for
further reform ; that, adopting the principle to
which Lord J. RUSSELL has given the name of
finality, they should succeed in arresting the pro-
gress of political change, and of course of political
improvement, and this consequence would follow.
Time will not stop for them nor society either.
They would hold fast old institutions, and new
circumstances would arise. For a short
period, complaints would be unnoticed or sup-
pressed by the law; motions to extend the suffrage
or to repeal the Corn-laws would be derided or
scornfully rejected ; grievances would accumulate ;
complaints would be multiplied ; motions for redress
would be repeated ; the opposition would increase
in strength ; the Tories would be compelled on
some such points as extending the suffrage or mo-
difying the Corn-laws, as they were compelled to
yield the repeal of the Test Act and the emancipa-
tion of the Catholics ; their defeats and the hope
of further success would again revive the enthusiasm
of the masses ; we should have the Charter, or
something like it, demanded from one end of the
empire to the other, and again the Tories would
scud from office before the storm they had evoked.
Between the Whigs and them there is this dif-
ference. The policy of the Whigs may be erro-
neous, may be mischievous, but it pretends to
have the public welfare for its object ; no man can
say that for the policy of the Tories. The utmost
merit that it claims is to hold fast by institutions
which have existed for a considerable period, and
are supposed to have been the causes of the na-
tional prosperity. The Tories avow that their ob-
ject is to benefit themselves ; the Whigs profess to
benefit the public. The latter may really mean
to do the same thing as the former, but, at least,
they profess something different. Tho Tory per-
sists on ruling the people in spite of themselves,
for his own purposes ; the Whig professes to
rule them by their consent for their own
advantage. The Whigs, therefore, are always
ready to go with the people, the Tories always to
resist them. They actually, from the determina-
tion to achieve their own selfish objects, try that
as long as possible ; they persist in endeavouring
to coerce society back into submission to their
Utopian ideal of perfection—the institutions of
some past age--till society, tired of submission to
their broad, barefaced selfishness, rises against them,
and then they vote the men back into office, who'
by going with, can guide the people. If the
Tories were to get into office, and to adhere to
Tory policy, in much less, we believe, than ten
years we should have a counterpart of the
events of 1828 and 1829, ending, however, in a
change much more extensive, if not more violent,
than the Reform Act.

In the Paris Journals of Tuesday we find nu-
merous communications from Naples, the substance
of which will be found in another column. The
marriage of the Duke of ORLEANS, which was
solemnized at St. Cloud on Monday evening, was
rendered popular by the following Royal Ordi-
nance, extending the amnesty of the Bth of May,
1837, to all political offences committed anterior
to that date. Political refugees may now return to
their country :
" Sire,—An amnesty, three years ago, signalised the
marriage of the Heir to the Crown. Yielding to the
dictates of your own heart, and to the counsels of an en-
lightened policy, your Majesty desired that an event
which fulfilled the wishes of France by ensuring perpe-
tuity
to the dynasty of July should be an occasion for a
great act of clemency ; and it restored liberty to all who
had been condemned, and were then detained in the
prisons of the State, for political crimes and offences.
The marriage of your second son, Sire, spreads through
your august family a joy in which the nation partici-
pates. Your Majesty is desirous that it should become a
new occasion for manifesting your Royal clemency. Your
Ministers give themselves up with eagerness to the execu-
tion of your orders by proposing to complete the amnesty.
and extending it to every individual condemned for political
crimes and offences previous to the 18th May, 1837,
whether they are or are not detained in the prisons of the
State. This measure will efface the last traces of events
which are already far from us, and of which we have
no reason to apprehend a return. Clemency belongs to
the Government of your Majesty—for thereby it is ho-
noured without being weakened. A power which knows
how to pardon, acquires the right of being inflexible
when its generosity has been bestowed upon ungrateful
and rebellious hearts.

44 I am, with the most profound respect, your Majesty's
most humble and most faithful servant,

" The Keeper of the Seals, Minister Secretary of State
for the Department of Justice and Worship,
" VIVIEN."

ME ROYAL ORDONNANCE.

" Louis Philippe, King of the French, to all present and
to come, greeting: We have ordained and do ordain as
follows:—Art. 1. The amnesty granted bv our Ordon-
nance of Bth May, 1837, is extended to every individual
condemned previous to the said Ordonnance for political
crimes and offences, whether they are or are not detained
in the prisons of the State.—Art. 2. (This is the usual
direction for carrying the Ordonnance into execution.)
Done at St. Cloud, 27th April, 1840.
(Signed) " LOUIS PHILIPPE.
( Countersigned) "VI VIE N,
" The Keeper of th 2 Seals," &e.
Letters from Alexandria of the 6th inst. an-
nounce that the PACHA has appointed ACHMET
PACHA. Grand Admiral of the Turco-Egyptian
fleet. With reference to the rumoured misunder-
standing between MEHEMET ALI and the Eng-
lish Consul-General Colonel HODGES, we find the
following in one of the letters before us :—" Co-
lonel HODGES had some days since an angry inter-
view with the Pacha; the particulars have been
much exaggerated, and many reports, which I
know to be untrue, are in circulation, which will
doubtless find their way into the papers. The
Colonel asked him whether he intended to give up
the Turkish fleet, and received a decided negative,
until the present question was disposed of. The
desertion of the Turkish crews being alluded to,
Colonol HODGES told him he not only was not sur-
prised at their deserting, but wondered they did
This,not
all desert and take their ships with them.
and some subsequent angry
r s at io
HODGESn e
rhas
given rise to a report that Colonelcve
presented himself as authorised to give protection