The Sun.
London, England, 1824-03-08 00:00:00

but unless the Allied Powers should aid this at-
tempt, the freedom of the Colonies will not be
endangered ; and should the Members of the
Holy Alliance extend their kind offices to the
American Continent, another and a very obvious
question will undoubtedly arise, in the consi-
deration of which this country and the United
States will be deeply interested. Amongst other
reasons for urging the Allies to assist the Spa-
nish Government in its crusade against the pro-
♦inces, the Madrid Gazette tells them that
their trade with South America will be totally
ruined,unless Ferdinand recovers possession of his
Colonies. Several decrees have lately been pub-
lished at Madrid ; one imposing new taxes, and
another forbidding the importation of grain, meat,
or pulse, into the Peninage. In one of his recent
decress, the King expresses his intention to re-
establish in his finances " the bases and the
methods of the ancient re►enues of the monarchy,
such as they have been sanctioned and naturalised
by the lapse of time." In France the elections
almost exclusively occupy the attention of the
public..

[MORNING cnaoxrcLE•l
To praise is always to us much more agreeable
than to censure, though unfortunately it so hap-
pens that food for censure is in general more
abundantly supplied to us than that for praise.
Our readers wilt, however, do us the justice to
allow, that we have never been slow to commend
the authors of wise and liberal measures, on
which ever side we have found them. To the
list of those whom we have deemed deserving
occasionally of eulogy, we must now add
the Lord Chancellor, who surprised us most
agreeably on Saturday by some excellent re-
marks on the system of pleadings in England.—
" He took the opportunity," he said, " of ob-
serving upon the intricacy of legal pleadings.—
Ile recollected, in former times, these pleadings
were extremely simple, but by modern practice
they had been rendered most complicated. It
had been thought advisable to assimilate the
pleadings of Scotland, the length and intricacy
of which had been much complained of, to those
of England ; but it appeared to him that the
pleadings of this country were now nearly as in-
tricate as those of Scotland, and therefore little
would be gained by this assimilation." Very littls
indeed ! It would require a very nice talent for dis-
crimination to tell which of the two is the most
absurd and oppressive. There is one point, how-
ever, with respect to which his Lordship will par-
don us for being somewhat sceptical. He says" he
recollected in former times the pleadings of this
country were extremely simple." If he meant that
he recollected there had been a time when pleadings
iw this country were extremely simple, we can
understand him; we should suppose, for instance,
that in good King Alfred's days, all the special
pleaders in England would hardly have afforded
employment to a single law stationer. But the
Chancellor's notions of simplicity and ours must
differ very materially, if he apply that word to
any thing which he can recollect in his own time,
It is perfectly true, as his Lordship observes, that
the pleadings *in Courts of Law are objection-
able, as well as those in Courts of Equity.—
The whole of the technical system is founded on
the grossest ignorance of the object to be attained
by judicial proceedings. To lead parties through
all the labyrinths of a pleading, before allowing
them to come to issue, is as absurd as it would be
to force us every time we have to go from our
office in the Strand to the Houses of Parliament,
to go by York to Edinburgh, and return by Car-
lisle and Lancaster. The simplest statement of
the cum claimed and the ground of debt is the
best. The parties ought to be brought face
to face without delay, and the time of the Court
to be occupied with the cause itself, and not
with the vile hocus pocus invented by
lawyers under the name of pleadings. We
are by no means disposed to deny that
very great ingenuity may be displayed in
this science ; what we contend for is, that
this ingenuity is useless to all but those who
are paid for it. To walk across the Strand on a
slack rope suspended between the opposite roofs,
would be both a difficult and a dangerous opera-
tion ; but thank. God, the refinement of the law
has not yet prevented us from crossing on the
ground. Special pleading, however, is not one
whit more necessary to the bringing parties to-
gether in Court, than the slack rope suspension
is to the crossing a street. We rejoice most un-
feignedly that the Lord Chancellor has enlisted
himself on the side of common sense. Our only
fear is, lest there should be some unfortunate
misconception from the difference of meaning
sometimes attached to the same words. Simplicity
in the mouth of a veteran lawyer may have a very
different sense from what we give to the word.

[THY TIMES.]
A file of American Papers, comprehending the
eight last days of January, has reached us, and
others, to the Bth ult., are.expected daily. The
interest of the former is confined to a long series
of debates in Congress-Ist, on a resolution to
provide sufficient funds for the maintenance of a
political mission to the States of Greece ; td, on
un amendment to that resolution, pledging the
American Legislature no further than to a decla-
ration of its sympathy with the Greek patriots iu
their struggle. The inference to be drawn from
a pretty attentive perusal of these voluminous
discussions, is, in our judgment, not unfavourable
to the know ledge, acuteness, or general ability of
the disputants. Those who were willing to con-
fer upon the Greeks the proposed indications of
national countenance and friendship, enforced
with much vehemence the fit appeals to liberty
and humanity by which public sentiment might
be excited ; while some of their opponents
rested on the farewell advice of Washington, viz.
—that " the Republic should cultivate relations
of commerce with all the world, but form as few
political connexions as possible with any foreign
Powers." This text, which on the whole is a Wise '
one, would unquestionably have justified a rejec-
tion of any premature entanglement with European
politics ; but a far less dignified ground was taken
by one or two of the speakers, who seemed to re-
gard the danger arising from the threats of, the
floly Alliance-,against every thing American as
quite imminent enough, without enhancing it by