The Sun.
London, England, 1840-09-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1840.

Silver Cein to Hamburgh
91 Malta
If Calais ...... . ....
„ St. Petersburg
„ Rotterdam
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Ditto Bars to Rotterdam

SFIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Times.)
Information has not yet been received of the arrival
at Macao of the expedition against China ; but,
judging from the date, the 30th of May, when the
Singapore division of the fleet sailed from that port,
and also the date, the 10th of June, when the
Admiral's squadron was spoken with off Anjeer, it
is probable that the united force will have reached
the China seas about the 20th of June. The follow-
ing appears to be the amount of navel force employed
on this occasion—viz., Her Majesty's ship Melville,
74, bearing the Admiral's flag ; the Wellesley. 74,
bearing the Commodore's flag ; the Blenheim, 74 ;
the Blonde, 46 ; the Druid, 44 ; the Alligator, 28 ;
the Volage, 26 ; the Conway, 26 ; the Nimrod, 20 ;
the Hyacinth, 18; the Cruiser, 18 ; the Larne, 18 ;
the Modeste, 18 ; the Pylades, 18 ; the Columbine,
18 ; the Orestes, 18 ; and the Algerine, 10 ; be-
sides which there are the East India Company's
steamer Atalanta, the troop-ship Rattlesnake, with 19
sail of transports. The amount of land force is not
stated, but additional transports had been taken up at
Calcutta, and fresh troops were to be embarked at Ma-
dras for China. The plan of operations and the point
of attack are still merely matter of conjecture, but
there are apparently indications of wavering on the part
of the Chinese Government, especially if we may
believe the alleged disgrace of Commissioner Lin,
from which it may be inferred, that iI a firm and
uncompromising course is adopted, without offering
any gratuitous insult to Chinese pride, or stipulat-
ing for the legalization of a prohibited traffic, there
will be found no insurmountable obstacles to a peace-
ful termination of existing differences. If such
an accommodation be unattainable, active hostilities
must ensue, the results of which it is impossible to
foresee or predict. In the mean time let not Ministers
flatter themselves that China is an enemy to be despised,
or that, beins, despicable, she will have to maintain her
contest with' us single-handed. The resources of an
empire embracing 300,000,000 of a subject population
can neither be few nor inconsiderable; and Russia,
while she maintains a profound silence on this subject,
is neither inattentive to our movements nor inactive in
employing means to defeat them. Dees Lord Palmer-
ston know that a Russian embassy is now threading its
way through Tartary from St. Petersburg to Pekin, if it
has not already arrived at the imperial city, to give heart
to the Chinese in the approaching struggle with England,
to explore thoseunknown regions, and to organiseEastern
Asia against us through means of its lord paramount, the
Emperor of China, in the same manner as the attempt
has already been made to organise Western Asia! A
war with China, if present circumstances ripen into
such an event, will be no child's play, and it is such a
war that has been wantonly incurred, while, on the
western as well as on the eastern confines of our Indian
empire, peace is insecure, and in Europe the aspect of
affairs becomes every day more threatening. If we
turn from China to India, while the success of our gal
lent countrymen in arms has been, and continues to be,
all that our national pride can expect or desire, there is
nothing in the political results of their achievements in
which we can rejoice. The weak and profligate old
man whom we have placed on the throne of Cabul, and
whom we retain there by force only, is declared to be
held in equal hatred and derision by his outraged sub-
jects. The retrograde movement of the Russian force
from Khiva is fully confirmed, but it is equally certain
that there is a fixed determination in the imperial coun-
cils at St. Petersburgh to renew the attempt, making
ample provision against those contingencies which ren•
dared success in the first instance impossible. The purpose
of Russia is to invade Khiva. to take possession of the
country, and to establish Russian influence on a firm
basis, as a check on the influence which England has
acquired in Cabul. In Cabul the question was nomi-
nally whether Shah Sonjah or Dost Mahomed Khan
should rule ; but really it was whether the ruler, who-
ever he might be, would acknowledge Russian or Bri-
tish influence, which his been determined for a time in
favour of the latter. In like manner the question be-
tween Russia and Khiva is, in terms, whether the
latter will surrender certain subjects of the former,
whom she holds in bondage ; but, in fact, whether she
will acknowledge the sway of Russia, as a means of
counteracting the ascendancy which England has ac-
quired in Cabul. Thus the contest is only in name
between Russia and Khiva, but in reality between
Russia and England. These two Powers are every day
approximating to each other in the heart of Central
Asia, and te native Powers that lie between are
inevitably crushed in the collision that is taking
place between them. While England, with very
questionable policy, has weakened by extending her
trontier she has at. the same time, with at least tem-
porary success, transferred the scat of the contest from
the heart of the Indian empire to its extreme boun-
daiies ; and while Russia has been defeated in her pro-
jects before Herat, at Candahar, and in Cabul, she is
endeavouring to retrieve her losses and her disgrace by
establishing her supremacy in Khiva. These plottings
and counter-workings against English influence b)
Russia in China and in Central Asia, always disavowed,
but never abandoned, may well teach caution and
vigi-
lance against the insidious policy she may be contem-
! plating while according her co-operation in the adoption
of coercive measures against the Pacha of Egypt. This
is the topic of absorbing interest in the news just re-
ceived, but we will not dwell upon it in this place.
The attitude of the Pacha is calm and unbending, re-
solute against submission to the mandates of the Four
Powers. If we may credit the authenticity of the pro-
clamation bearing Commodore Napier's name, England
has already taken a decisive step which cannot be re-
conciled with the terms offered to Mehemet Ali. The
elements of a European war are at work, from which
it is not by the wisdom, or foresight, or judgment, or
energy of Ministers, that we hope to be delivered.
(From the Morning Post.)
A correspondent in Paris, on whose means of infor-
mation the greatest reliance may be placed, informs us
that 4‘ a second memorandum, still more illusory than
the first, was forwarded about ten days ago by Lord
Palmerston to the French Government through M.
Guizot. It was not published by the Cabinet of the
Tuileries from a feeling that it contained, au fond, more
of masked irony than the preceding note, though bearing
on the face of it the same appearance of conciliation."
The extraordinary fact of Captain Napier having begun
operations by issuing incendiary proclamations to the
inhabitants of Syria, and summoning the Egyptian au-
thorities to retire from Be.yrout before the period al-
lowed to the Pacha by the treaty, were considered in
Paris as sufficiently illustrating the secret animus, the
irrepressible the contradiction between words

and deeds, which the French conceive to have all
along formed the under-current .f Lord Paltnerston's
policy.

(From the Morning Herald.)
The Journal des Debats, in commenting upon the
part taken by the Morning Herald, in reference to the
/risk Municipal Corporations Bill, and some other
measures which received the support of the Conserva-
tive leaders in Parliameet, although such measures
were essentially revolutionary and destructive, charges
us with having placed Sir Robert Peel and Mr.
O'Connell in the same category of politicians. This is
worse than a mistake. In order to make the charge
good, the Journal des Debats pretends tb quote verbatim
a passage from the Morning Herald, literally support.
ing its accusation as follows :—" Sir Robert Peel and
Mr. O'Connell may now, like the two quack doctors
described by Goldsmith, go hand-in-hand, smiling on-
wards to immortality." Undoubtedly we compared Mr.
O'Connell and a well-known Conservative accomplice in
Mr. O'Connell's scheme for entrenching within the ram-
parts of Conservative power the repeal and riband ene-
mies of British connection in Ireland, to the two medical
mountebanks so humorously described by Oliver Gold-
smith, who denounced, placarded, and anti-puffed each
other for some years in the bitterest spirit of rivalry,
until, having their eyes opened to the mutual advantages
of a compromise, they suddenly resolved to bury their
reciprocal animosities in oblivion, and make victims of
the deluded public in common. Then did those great
men, with the magnanimity of exalted genius, assist
instead of impeding each other's progress in the field
of generous exertion for the benefit of mankind and
their own particular interests. Then did they adjust
their wigs at the same looking-glass, prepare the pills
for their patients in the same pestle and mortar,
and, casting the petty jealousies of their profession be-
hind them, " go hand-in-hand, smiling onwards to im-
mortality." The writers is the Journal des Debats are
gifted with a vivacity of imagination, which makes it
rather difficult, if not degrading, for them to con-
descend to a vulgar attention to the facts. So,
when the Morning Herald spoke of Mr. O'Connell
and Mr. Frederick Shaw as worthy imitators of their
great prototypes in (iolcisaiith, the Journal des Debits
took the liberty of substituting the name of Sir Robert
Peel for that of Mr. Shaw, and gave the credit of its
own alteration of the text to the paper which it pre-
tended to quote verbatim. A journalist that can so
coolly substitute what it invents for what it finds in the
language of an adversary, can never be at a loss for a
text on which to engraft a suitable commentary. Our
opinion of Sir Robert Peel's conduct, as well as that
of other distinguished Conservatives both Houses of
the Lrgislature, on the Ministerial Bill for providing
AL. O'Connell with his long-desired " tv)rrnal
schools of political agitation,", is before the public.
But in the surrender of the municipal fortresses of
Protestant power
and British connection to the
malignant and indefatigable enemies of both
the one and the other,- we believe Mr. Shaw to be the
original and principal offender. We have no doubt that
Sir Robert Peel, who made him a Privy Councillor in
Ireland, relied more on his advice on Irish Affairs t;:an
he ought to have done, 2nd was '.ilereby led into deplo-