The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1847.

FERDINAND, King of Naples, is trifling on the brink
of a precipice. It is said that he has a heart of suffi-
cient susceptibility to overcome the prejudices of his
dynastic education, and that the Sovereign of the Two
SICILIES is ambitious of being beloved. The conver-
sation which is reported to have recently taken place
between his Neapolitan MaaesTic and the Papal
emissary, the Count FERRETTI, indicates that he has
some inkling of his most perilous position, and that
an insatiable and egotistical thirst for popularity may
yet possibly diminish his disinclination to concede to
the wishes of his subjects—to the aspirations of those
Reformers who have been hitherto treated as political
incendiaries, and as rebels only worthy of perishing
by the bullets of a fusillade, or the axe of the guil-
lotine. If Faabuiaesn would but open his eyes to the
recognition of that sublime truth which is being
taught upon the very frontiers of his dominions,
namely, that the
to a throne is
in indestructibleth founda-
tionliberated people ;if he affections of a
would the
who
oy
havecon the histories
of those crowned personages
t hbaete placed
h
in a precisely similar predicament tt,
he is himself at this mome*t involved; if hen wwould
but discover the accuracy of the doctrine which
maintains that loyalty and patriotism
may be ren-
dered synonymous terms if the Legislature be only
conducted with sagacity, the character of his
reign
might even at the eleventh hour be redeemed, and his
memory enrolled among those of the most memorable
benefactors of humanity. No throne in Christendom
tottered more frightfully than that of the Sovereign
PONTIFF immediately before the dissolution of GRE.•
GOEVICITI. ; and yet from the wise and provident
clemency of his successor, that throne was, within
a few weeks after his accession, rendered as strong,
if not stronger, than any in the Eastern and
Western Hemispheres. Such has been the extent
and sullenness of this alteration at Rome, that those
who bearded the Pontificate during the stubb,rn
rule of CAPELLARI have bowed the knee in homage
before the puissant liberality of FERRETTI. The
Marquis AZEGLIO, who spoke so terribly and threat-
ingly of the decrepitude of the Papal Government to
GREGORY, has already become the panegyrist of the
Policy introduced into the council•chambers of the

Vatican by Pius. Those extraordinary changes should
speak with a thrilling eloquence and an imperative logic
to the heart and head of FERDINAND. But, in dreaming
of the possibility of such a concession of prejudices
from a Bourbon Prince, we should be exposing our-
selves to deserved ridicule ; we should be as ridicu-
lously sanguine of temperament as though we poured
molten brass into a crucible, and expected it to har-
den into a cake of gold.
Louis XVI. is said to have pondered in the clois-
ters of the Feuillants over the history of JAMES 11.,
and to have even meditated, as JAMES IL had done
before him, over the destiny of CHARLES I. CHARLES
X. may have mused in like manner over the narra-
tions of those.ill starred potentates, upon the eve of
that revolution which in three days witnessed the
discomfiture of MARMONT and the victory of LA-
FAYETTE, the accession of Louis PHILIPPE and the
dethronement of himself. His last reveries in his cabinet
at the Tuileries may have been in reference to the
dismal flight in the fishing smack and the ignominious
deaths upon the scaffold, inflicted by the block and
the guillotine. FERDINAND may delude himself with
the notion that his is not the age for the recurrence
of any such catastrophe, but so also did CHARLES 1.,
JAMES 11., LOUIS XVI., and CHARLES X. In
1649, in 1688, in 1793, in 1830, the debasement of
those several monarchs may have seemed to
themselves equally improbable. The divinity
which is supposed to hedge a King blinds him as
to the perils reserved by futurity, and when the
crisis has arrived he discovers, as a most eloquent
historian has recently observed, that his fall is "long,
deep, and appalling."
FERDINAND of Naples and the Two Sicilies is be-
traying the same ignorance of the dangers with
which he is every day surrounding himself by his
obstinacy in retarding the liberation of his subjects.
His conduct in reference to PIETRACATELLI, the late
President of his Council of Ministers, has displayed in
a significant manner the blindness of the SOVEREIGN

and the futility of such hopes as would induce us to
anticipate the voluntary abandonment of his re-
pressive policy. LONGOBUCCO must abandon
the woods of Calabria, and march his fol-
lowers in triumph to the gates of the Neapolitan
I Palace before FERDINAND will accede to the demands
of the population. PIOTINO must emerge from Sila,
and threaten the capital from the ruins of Hercula-
neum before a favourable response will be given to
the demands of the insurgents. BoNnomo must
annihilate the Royalist troops at Monteleone, before
the iron sceptre will fall from the grasp of FERDI-.
NAND, and the naked sword from that of STATELLA.
And why are these anticipations inevitable ? Be-
cause the blood of the Bourbons beats in the pulses
of the KlNG—the same blood which throbbed in the
heart of the great Lours, when he uttered his famous
blasphemy against the people retat c'est moil
There is a constitutional and dynastic reason,
in fact, why FERDINAND should emulate his imperial
namesake of Vienna, and forego a glory such as that
which has recently been acquired by Ms, by
CHARLES ALBERT, and by LEOPOLD. Neapolitan
and Calabrian patriots cannot obtain their liberties
as readily as the Romans, as bloodlessly as the Tus-
cans, or as unexpectedly as the Piedmontese. The
8,000,000 of people in the dominions of FERDINAND
r cannot so satisfactorily reach forth their hands and
find the fetters of ages shattered with the mere wish
for their destruction, as 5,000,000 have lately done
in the territories of the House of Savoy, as 2,700,000
have done in the Papal States, and as upwards of
1,000,000 have done in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
The emancipation of the Neapolitans and Sicilians
is, however, merely postponed; their aspirations must,
like those of the 4,700,000 Lombardo-Venetians, be
ultimately realised.

We yesterday pointed out the general depreciation
n the value of property of every description, and the
njury to the national credit occasioned by the at-
tempt to get back a few millions of gold a little
sooner than they would return in the ordinary course
of trade. It is not the amount that is exported from
the country alone that creates the mischief. The very
fact that there is a limit beyond which the Bank
cannot go, and that it must necessarily contract its
issues, whenever the amount of gold lying idle in its
coffers is materially reduced, considerably increases
the evil. The moment it 'increases the rate of inte-
rest, or refuses the usual and ordinary accommodation
to houses of established credit and reputation, the
directors, as it is termed, " putting on the screw,"
there are numbers of persons ready to follow the
I example thus set. 'When a certain degree of pre-
caution is exhibited in the Leviathan esta-
blishment whose especial duty it is to regu-
late the monetary affairs of the country,
that precaution is invariably ascribed to alarm, the'
alarm becomes contagious, every one begins to hoard
for the coming storm, which the financial operations
of the Bank indicate with almost as much certainty
as the lowering of the mercury in the barometer
forebodes the approaching tempest; the dangers of the
crisis are magnified ; each man fears that if he
should part with the funds then at his command,
although he may not require them at the moment,
nor for some time to come, he may not be enabled
again to procure them when actually wanted. He
prefers the loss he will sustain by locking up his
money in his strong box, and relinquishing the
certain profit that he would receive for its temporary
use, either by lending it to parties of acknowledged
solvency, investing it in the purchase of any descrip-
tion of securities, public or private, or applying it to
mercantile or commercial speculations. He contracts
all his operations to the very lowest, lest he should
be deprived of the means of meeting his own obliga-
tions, and carrying on his business, on which his
future welfare must mainly depend. It is thus that
at a time when money becomes more than usually
valuable that it is withdrawn from general use, and
suffered to remain unproductive. We have already
shown that it is only the money in actual circulation
that affects the general prosperity of the country, and
upholds or deteriorates the prices of every species of
commodity, of.every article of merchandise. For all
practical purpcses, the gold might as well be exported
from our shores, as remain locked up in private hands.
There may be abundance of hoarded money, while
the money in actual circulation is insufficient for the
general wants of the community. The panic, ridicu-
lous and unfounded as it may be, increases tenfold
the difficulties of the period ; and every one who
acts on the selfish principle is really doing his utmost
to impair the national resources, and to injure the
property of his fellow-subjects, acts that may, and
frequently do, recoil upon himself with fatal effect
The fear of some possible danger leads to a rea
calamity.

A shocking accident, which occurred on Sunday
last, affords a fair illustration of the manner in which
the: monetary derangements, the financial difficulties,
have been precipitated. A large congregation had
assembled at the Wesleyan Association Chapel,
Bacnp,lo hear a lady preach ; suddenly a woman
in the gallery was beard to scream, as if
alarmed for • her personal safety. It was
immediately supposed that that part of the
chapel was giving way. Every one rushed to the
door attempting to escape ; the instinct of self-pre-
servation rendered each indifferent to everything but
his own personal safety. Men, women, and children
were strewn upon the ground, trampling on and
bruising each other in a frightful manner; the dresses

of some were actually torn off, and of others hang-
ing in tatters from their persons. A man, a woman,
and a boy lost their lives in the melancholy trans-

action, while very many others were much hurt. On
subsequent investigation it was found that there was
no real danger, the alarm was perfectly without
foundation ; a staple had fallen out knocking against
a Pipe, and making a slight noise as of something
broken ; a female cried out, and the exclamation of a
timid woman led to the death of three human
beings, and the serious injury of a considerable
number. So it is with our national resources. A
deficient harvest led to beyond the ordinary quantity. The Americans and
Russians, who supplied our wants, were not aware of
the extraordinary demand that there would be for
the produce of their soil, or the increased resources
that would be at their disposal in consequence.
They did
.not, therefore, order a proportionate
amount of our manufactures sufficient to liquidate
their demands on us. The balance of trade was in
their favour, and consequently the surplus was paid
in gold. The additional prosperity thus occasioned

- - -
would naturally have produced a demand on