The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-22 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1847.

Portugal being the theatre of civil war, a powerful
squadron of British vessels is dispatched to Lisbon
and Oporto, and, at the same time, the Government of
this country intimates that England regards the revo-
lutionary contest now raging in the Peninsula with
the strictest neutrality. The apparent contradiction
of the movement and the declaration is so remarkable,
that a question naturally arises as to the object of the
presence of a British fleet off the coasts of a kingdom
already distraught by the anxieties consequent upon
an insurrectionary armament. If we view the war be-
tween Queen MARIA DA. Gums and her people with
such impartiality and indifference, wherefore do our
line-of-battle ships float in the' bays of Pertugal?
The inquiry is an obvious sequitur to the seeming
counter movement and counter-statement of the Admi-
nistration. It was partially from solicitude on this point
and partially from sentiments of humanity that Lord
BEAUMONT, on Thursday evening, excited a discussion
as to the conduct pursued by Great Britain towards
Portugal in her present state of embarrassment and
confusion. We are, from many considerations, grati-
fied that the Nobly Lord brought the matter directly
under the scrutiny of the Legislature, and thereby
elicited from the Marquis of LANSDOWNE an -explana-
tion so peculiarly satisfactory. Whatever may have
been the impres:ion hitherto prevalent upon the
Peninsula as to the readiness of the British Govern-
ment to side either with the Constitutional party or
with their opponents, those erroneous impressions
must now be dispelled by the explicit assurances of
the Lord President of the Council. Notwithstanding
the belligerent character of our maritime power
in the vicinity of Lisbon and Oporto, there can no
longer be a question that England is watching the
revolutionary conflict in Portugal with sentiments of
rigid neutrality, or that the British fleet has
been dispatched to that portion of Western Europe,
solely for the conservation of British interests and the
protection of British subjects. Beyond this ulterior
object our squadron is prepared to afford succour to
any inhabitant of Portugal, whether royalist or in.
surgent, when driven forth in the extremities o
battle.

By this latter announcement we conceive that
peculiar force is imparted to the virtual entreaties of
Lord BEAtTmoNT, that the English Government
should make a representation to the Government of
the Portuguese SOVEREIGN in respect to the atrocious
and despotic proceedings of that Government towards
the unfortunate prisoners who surrendered at Torres
Vedras. Are our intentions towards the belligerents
in Portugal strictly neutral ? Then let neutrality be ,
preserved in a manner becoming the dignity and
honour of Albion. We confess our willingness to
afford protection to the young QUEEN, supposing her
Majesty to require shelter from the storms of the re-
voiution ; and yet— coupling this with an avowal of
our neutrality—we are to look on with indifference
at the perpetration of a crime towards the insurgents
of which history scarcely furnishes a parallel! Surely
this is a most questionable neutrality, a most odious and
dastardly neutrality SALDAN U A commits a politi-
cal offence, not justified by the usages of ho-
nourable nations, and certainly not exceeded in infamy
or treachery by the most barbarous states : he for-
mally and deliberately signs a stipulation with a por-
tion of the troops of the Conde BOMFIM that they shall
be allowed to depart all the honours of war, on
surrrndering the impregnable castle of Torres
Vedras to the royalist commander; and, on the fulfil-
ment of the latter portion of that engagement, he for-
mally and deliberately acts counter to his most so-
lemn promises. Instead of receiving all the honours
of war, the officers of the duped insurgents are first

conducted to captivity in the metropolis, and are sub

sequently sentenced to be banished to Angola, one of
those terrible settlements in Africa, which, like Sierra
Leone, has deserved the appellation of the " White

Man's Grave!" Was ever conduct more infamous
than this? The crime of SALDANIIA is such as to

almost justify an armed interference and a summary
vengeance. It is a crime which can find no pallia-
tion, excepting upon the most diabolical system of
Machiavellism. When NAPOLEON BONAPARTE or-
dered the massacre of the troops at Jaffa, he was

impelled to that rigorous act by the execrable dupli•
city of those soldiers of DJEZZAR, in having broken
the solemn oaths which they had previously taken ;
by their murdering the French messenger carrying
a flag of truce, in defiance of the holiest laws of nations;
by the dearth of provisions in the desert, and the

possibility of granting such scoundrels their liberty
without unnecessarily risking the lives of his own men,
for the preservation of which he was responsible as
Commander-in-Chief. In the prf,ceedin of SAL-
ANITA. towards the prisoners of Torres Vedras we
find no eneiternents of this kind, and beyond that
we find, what there was not in the massacre of Jaffa,
a sacrifice of all honour in the non-fulfilment of de-
liberate stipulations. SA.LnaxuA,
the manliness to have the moreover, has not
prisoners of Torrer Vedras
fusiladed at once; he kills them under a sti;lterfuge, he
poisons them atinosphurically, he sends them" in a das.