The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-28 00:00:00

of the St. Lawrence choked with dead bodies,
than either yield an inch of territory,
or pay a fraction of compensation to the
State of Maine. The Chinese not being
Christians, and consequently not in the right way
of salvation, the Tories have scruples about shed-
ding their blood ; but none whatever about shooting
their American co-religionists. If Christians fight
with one another, no scandal, it appears, is given ;
but to make war on the Heathen prevents the
spread of the peace-inspiring precepts of the Gos-
pel ! We are to pity and pardon the Chinese after
receiving at their hands the most atrocious insults
—after being ignominiously expelled as felons from
the " central flowery land," and having our trade
declared to be for ever abolished ; but if we find
the people of Maine obstinate in carrying on an old
contest about a boundary line, bequeathed them by
Massachusets while it was a British province, and
when Lower Canada belonged to the Crown of
France, why, we are to make no more ado than
to pour an army into their territory, and if possible
destroy them with fire and sword ! We are not to
allow ourselves to be insulted by any talk about a
new arbitration. In a leading article in the Times
of yesterday, that polluted organ of all that is most
detestable in Toryism—hypocrisy and tergiversa-
tion—says, in one place, that the award of the King
of HOLLAND was unjustifiable, and in another
that the State of Maine ought to be compelled,
vi et armis, to abide by it ! Mark the consistency of
the " misleading Journal :"
" The award of the King of Holland, which stretched
the Maine boundary to the northernmost bend of the St.
John's, beyond the Eagle Lakes, was in itself an unjusti-
fiable transfer of a large portion of British territory to the
United States—namely, that contained between the fron-
tier heretofore contended for by Great Britain and the St.
John's river."

This is tolerably explicit, and looks very like
the preface of an appeal to the two Governments
to submit to a second arbitration. But nothing is
further from the intention of the honest swaggerer
of Printing-house-square. We quote from the very
same article from which the above is taken :----

" What next ? Why, will ye believe it ? we are actually
insulted by the threat of another arbitration !—to end,
like the last, in the contemptuous treatment of what-
ever decision may be come to, which does not assign over
to the Republicans the full measure of their demands upon
this country, founding their rejection of it on some equi-
vocal pretence, that a loop-hole has been left in the care-
less wording of the bond, through which their conscience
is not ashamed to wriggle out of its gravest obligations.
We tell Lord Palmerston that neither Parliament nor
people will suffer him to ply away English t.easure as a
makeweight for his incapable diplomacy. We tell him
further, that he must not palter with the patience of a
manly people in conniving at the proposed mockery of a
second arbitration, by which the King of Holland can do
no otherwise than feel himself personally outraged ; and,
still more, the British nation be made sensible that their
own Minister panders to the scheme of a foreign Govern-

meet for gaining time until its unfriendly projects are
matured, and keeping this empire vexed arid harassed by
the needles non-adjustment of quarrels affecting its com-
mercial security, its dignity in the eyes of other nations,
and its comfort and trahquillity at home."

So, rather than hurt the feelings of the old '
King of HOLLAND, whose award the Times pre-
viously denounces as uqjust, we are to plunge two
great nations into all the horrors of a bloody and
calamitous war ! Mark, too, the marvellous incre-
dulity of the Times, that a people should be found
to resist a Royal award, however preposterous I
" Oh, dear no !" shouts the moral Times, " the
country must not think of preventing such a con-
tingency as a war between Great Britain and the
United States, at the expense of the personal feel-
ings of the Royal adorer of the Countess D'OUL-
TREMONT—the aged hero, whom the Hague
Journals celebrate as the conqueror of his own too
susceptible heart." Now, with all proper respect
for the wisdom of a King, whose folly cost him a
kingdom, we sec no just ground for refusing to set
aside the award of WILLIAM of HOLLAND, which
has satisfied neither England nor the United
States, and referring the whole question to
the arbitration of the King of the FRENCH.
The &spited territory *as "elaiiried by Canada
for the Crown of France, when Maine, forming
a part of the State of Massachusetts, belonged
to Great Britain ; and therefore there must be
many maps and papers in the Colonial archives
of France likely to throw considerable light upon it.
This is the more necessary to be done, as President
VAN BUREN declares that he has no power to
interfere to limit the pretensions of Maine, unless
he be called upon to enforce an arbitration pre-
viously assented to by the British and Maine
.
authorities. :Maine being an independent Federal
State, cannot be coerced unless proved to be
wrong by a valid sentence of arbitration ; and save
in the very teeth of such an award can involve the

whole Federal Government in her quarrel.
The territory in dispute embraces an extent of
about 10,500 square miles, of not much value in-
trinsically ; but of vast importance to Great Britain
as connecting the provinces of New Brunswick and
Lower Canada. The whole dispute has arisen out
of the interpretation of the word "highlands in
the treaty of 1783, the British Government main-
taining that the highlands described in the treaty
as forming the line of boundary are those which
separate the waters of the St. John River from
the waters of the Penobscot ; while the Maine
authorities contend that the highlands in question
are those which divide the waters of the St. John
from those of the St. Lawrence. Now, as the

question is by no means so clear as is con-
tended on both sides, and as the territory
in dispute is of the utmost importance to us, we
would be inclined to look upon the sum of
200,0001. as well expended in obtaining the undis-
puted possession of it. We are here taking for
granted that the rumour, which has so alarmed the
Tinzes, about such a settlement of the question is
well founded—a matter of which we profess to have

no exclusive information. The adjustment of a

boundary is a sorry pretext for a war between two
great, civilized, Christian nations ; and rather than
take upon our own shoulders any part of the re-
sponsibility of originating it, we profess our readi-
ness to make great sacrifices indeed. Let it be re-
membered too that we shall not fight the worse
when driven to it, for a careful abstinence from
contests of doubtful necessity.

A Correspondent, whose letter we published
lately, found fault with what
and thence t ourhecalleldcedrew h
‘‘bitttere-
ness" against the Church,
charitable conclusion that we must
resctbdeito
of the
a fairheCa-
tholic religion. Another gives us
and impartial mode of dealing with questions arising
OR points connected with religion ; while a third
complains that we are far too partial to the Dissent-
ers. We would wish to believe that there is no
just ground for the charges brought against us, and
we say, once for all, that we regard all religious
sects with an equal eye. With religious opinions,
or forms of worship, we quarrel not. In those
matters we reverently acknowledge the supremacy
of each man's own conscience. To his own
Ma?ter every individual standeth or falleth, and n 9
human power has a right to interfere.

But far be it from us to clothe with similar
and abuses which,
of an unhal-
immunities the corruptions
arising not out of religion, but out
lowed alliance between the minister of religion
and the civil magistrate, are, in our o • religion
and the
greatest obstacles to national advancement, whether
considered in a social, civil, moral, or religious
point of view. We honestly confess that we can-
not, without feeling and expressing strong indig.
nation, 1.-,ce the claims of ecclesiastical domination
and spiritual tyranny,
- advanced with so much ar-
rogance,
prosecuted with so much vehemence, en.