The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-10 00:00:00

Ti) ,-0 ;';ItI.X.

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 1840.

The last intelligence from China has quite con-
founded the Tories. The memorial recommending
the general massacre of all foreigners, without dis-
tinction of guilt or innocence, which met with so
favourable a reception from his Celestial MAJESTY,
the Board of War, and the Grand Military Coon-
dal, has put a stop to all the nonsense about the
humanity and the immaculate innocence of the
Chinese Government. The Imperial " Son of
Gf Heaven's sense of justice was not in the least
shod el by the perusal of TsANG WANG-YEN'S
plan for the wholesale slaughter of all foreigners
in China. On the contrary, his MAJESTY appears to
have hemp delighted with it. He commanded it to be
carefully copied, and forwarded to the High Com-
missioner LIN, who with Admiral KWA N, Kwo,
commander of the land forces, and E, another

military dignitary, were to examine it, in conjunc-
tion, and report upon its practicability. If approved
of by these officers—and NVe have no reason to
suppose that it has been !ejected—an attempt to
extent,: it to the very letter has ere this been made.
Indeed the attempt twice made to burn the British
fl( et in Toongkuo bay, crowded not only with
British merchants but such of their wives and chil-
dren as before resided at ;Macao, incline us to the
opinion that TANG WANG-YEN'S memorial,
which recommends this diabolical process of des-
truction, was as favourably received by LIN and
his coadjutors as by the EMPEROR and his Council
of War.

This single transaction clearly shows in what light
the people of England otOit to view the boasted
morality of the Chinese Government. Few who
will take the trouble to examine it, can be imposed
upon by LlN's specious appeals to the humanity of
the Queen of ENGLAND, to whom his Excellency
has thought proper to athitess a second letter, in
which her MAJESTY is greeted as a vassal of the
Celestial Empire. The object of the Commis-
sioner in addressing these letters to the Queen of
ENGLAND, is wholly misunderstood by such English
journals as hare expressed any opinion about them.
Avowedly they are recommendations to her MA-
JESTY to abolish the traffic in opium; but in reality,
they are intended to represent to the nationsbordering
on China that England is tributary to the Celestial
empire ; and that in the event of hostilities taking
place, we are to be regarded not in the dignified
ight of enemies, but as rebels and traitors. lAN
was aware that no British subject would take
charge of his letters, and yet he reported the
very reverse of this fact to the EMPEROR, who or-
dered eopies of them to be dispersed throughout
his dominions, and to be made extensively known
to the people of Burmah, Ava, Siam, and all the
adjoining States. Now, our relations in the
East are not of a nature to permit us to over-
look
the danger of allowing such a trick as this
to be played upon us, with impunity. It
will not do to allow the subjects of our
suspicious ally, THOROWA DEE, or even the Court
of Bancok, to run away with the impression that
Great Britain is tributary to any power on earth.
We cannot afford to laugh at such gasconade in
India, however much it may amuse us in England.
The EMPEROR must be taught not only to feel, but

to acknowledge that England is not one of the
" twelve thousand kingdoms," over which he rao-

destly claims to exercise imperial sway.
It would be a waste of time and of the public
patience to revert, at this stage of the proceedings,
to the origin of our quarrel with China, or to in-
voke public odium upon the Tory scribblers, who,
with a meanness disgraceful to the British press,
condemn Captain ELLIOT for not having given up
a British subject to be murdered to expiate the
accidental death of a Chinaman, killed in an affray
with some American and English sailors at Hong
Kong, on the 7th of July last. The people of
England, we are confident, highly approve of the
conduct of Captain ELLIOT on that occasion,
which was highly creditable to him as a Christian
and a British officer. His first act, on learning
that a man had been killed in a scuffle, was to offer
a reward of 200 dollars, in the QUEEN'S name, for
the apprehension of the murderer, if a British
subject. He next gave, out of his own pocket,
1,500 dollars to the family of the deceased, to ,
which he added 400 dollars to protect them from
the extortion of the lower Mandarins—leaving it
to be supposed by the Chinese villagers that the
latter sum was all that the family received. To
allay the irritation in the village he distributed a
further sum of 100 dolla:s among the poor. And
finally he broughtregularly to trial, on board the
ship Rut William, at Hong Kong, on the 12th
of the following month, five sailors who took part
in the affray, and who were found guilty of riot
and assault—the Grand Jury having ignored the
bills charging them with wilful murder. Had
Captain ELLIOT been guilty of the base cruelty
of giving up any one of these men to be mur-
dered by the Chinese—for be it remembered that
when life is demanded for life there is no trial
whatever—there is not a man, woman, or child in
the British Isles worthy of the country which gave
him or her birth, by whom he would not have been
execrated. This, in fact, is the only transaction
in the whole official career of Captain ELLIOT to
which we can refer with a really triumphant feel-
ing ; and long may it be imitated by his successors

We have received Cape of Good Hope papers
to the 23d of April. Her MAJESTY'S ship
Blonde had then arrived, and carried intelligence
from England to February 22. Nothing is said of
Rear-Admiral ELLIOT'S having made any prepa-
rations to leave for India ; but we notice an ad-
vertisement in one of the Cape Town papers,
which indicates that the Melville, his flag-ship,
was there on the 22d of April, and was expected to
leave. The decision shown by the Chinese makes
us regret that our hint, given months ago, to send
naval dfficers over-land to India to accelerate the
preparations, and, if necessary, take the command
of the naval force which might be prepared in
India—for that mighty empire of ours has all that
is necessary to equip a fleet but seamen and officers
—was not adopted.

Earl FITZWILLIAM is to bring forward to-
morrow evening his motion on the Corn-laws, and,
alarmed at his noble exertions, all the obscene birds
of corruption hasten to drop their dirt on him. The
Noble Earl will regard ...heir efforts with perfect
contempt; but their sarcasms tell the whole world
that they are affected by a very different emotion. The
Corn-law men know that they are plunderers, and
their hideous screams are intended to terrify the
public from approaching their nests. Their cries,
however, do but reveal their hoards, and will lead
the public to the spots where the plunder is hidden,
and where they may recover their property. They
do not like, we know, to have their tricks pointed
out ; but they must submit, and in spite of their
screams forego their prey.

Ode of their screams takes this articulate forr3—
" Agriculture gives an immense quantity of employ.
ment to the people ; but for the Corn-laws the land
would go out of cultivation, there would be no em-
ployment for the agricultural population, and they
would fall on the parish to be supported." This
assertion implies that the Corn-law supplies
employment to the agricultural population. It
follows, then, the agricultural population have
been well employed and well paid since the Corn-
laws have passed. But this, the strongest argument
of the Pro-Corn-law men, is as easy of refutation as
the rest of their screams, whenever they assume an
articulate form.

That the agricultural population is not disposed
to sedition, is vouched for by the whole mob of
parsons and country gentlemen, who Boat on their
spaniel-like crouching temper, and are never tired
of praising their habits of submission. To what
distress, then, must they have been driven, when
they went stalking through the land in great mul-
titudes, and made the horizon red with incendiary
fires in 1530 ? There was no rebellion amongst
the landlords' serfs, except when they followed some
noble leaders, from the time of JACK CAPE till after
the present Corn-laws were enacted. There were
LUDDITE outrages in 1812, and Radical or mob-
risings in the towns at many prior and subsequent
periods ; but it was only when the Corn-laws were in
full vigour in 1830 that there was an extensive
sedition amongst the agricultural labourers. Is this
a proof of the successful working of the blood-
sucking systeni
But what happened after 1830 ? Did the land-
lords employ the people—could they employ them
advantageously ? The Statute Book answers, No.
Poor-rates were going a-head, and the new Poor-
law, passed for the very purpose of relieving the
landlords from supporting an idle population, is a
complete proof that the Corn-laws had not provided
an abundance of employment for the agricultural
population. Betwixt 1834 and the present time
the degradation of the agricultural population, iu
spite of the law which was theoretically recom-
mended to us as likely to elevate that population,
has been continuous, and is now almost complete.
Our records are lies, the evidence of the sense is
worthy of no credit, if the agricultural labourers of
Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Kent, Bucks, &c., be not
almost as badly off—worse indeed in proportion to
their toil--than the lumper-fed beggars of the
sister island. The new Poor-law passed for the
behoof of the landowners, and the riots of 1830
prove decisively that the screech about the Corn-
laws providing employment for labourers, is the off-
spring of terror, and is not a representation of any
facts.

But it may be said that there would have been
a surplus population, great distress amongst the
agriculturists, sedition, and new Poor-laws, though
there had been no Corn-law, and that the Corn-
law has in fact lessened the evils which it
could not cure. Admitting that distress would
have existed naturally, which, however, is wholly
unfounded, to cut short the supply of food, and to
enrich the receivers of rent, who spend their in-
comes in Naples, Florence, Rome, Paris, Greece,
London, Cheltenham, and Bath, is about the most
absurd—not to call it the maddest—way that ever
was found out of giving employment to the rural po-
pulationsocates of the Corn-law assert
England.
But ButwohfelE.:
that there would have been want of employment, a
surplus population, and great distress in the agri-
cultural districts, though it had not existed, we
must remind them of the peculiar situation of Eng-
land. Never was a country so, blessed by Provi-
dence, and so cursed by mischievous legislation.
The kindred of her people, estabWshed in America,