The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
ream THE DAILY PAYYPAI Or YISTERDAY.
TIMES.—From the first day of Introit's apprehen-
sion his country's interposition on his behalf has pro-
ceeded on an entire disregard either of his guilt or
innocence. The whole responsibility of his conduct,
whether he took part in destroying the Caroline or in
slaying any of her crew, has been assumed unreservedly
by Britain, without acknowledging or denying his
agency in any shape whatever. Even if he had actually
killed Durfee, the demand for his release was rightfully
insisted on, just the same as if he could prove an alibi.
Neither must his certain acquittal be attributed to any
exculpatory protestation which the prisoner's natural
fears may have laid before his counsel, or to any extra-
ordinary exertions of that counsel in rebutting the evi-
dence against him. Of course every excuse is to be made
for .I•Leod in having done his utmost to save his endan-
gered life. But on purely public grounds, it is much to be
regretted that his moral courage did nut embolden him to
refuse to plead to the indictment at all. But since he has
consented to accept the legal assistance provided for
him by his sham prosecutors, the counsel so appointed,
we must recollect, is American counsel, who may be ex-
pected to effect his extrication with the least possible
odium to the nation which employs him. An eloborate
defence is, therefore, got up, where no defence at all was
necessary : hosts of witnesses are summoned for the pri-
soner, who might properly, and we will add safely, have
refused to call them : and the American management of
M'Leod's interests to which he has submitted, is thus a
party to the great Republican intrigue, which, while pre-
tending to cloak itself under ;he forms of law, has really
determined, by all sorts of pitiful connivances, to prevent
a condemnatory verdict, whose consequences are notori-
ously dreaded by those who affect to bravo them. In a
word, the humiliating position which the chivalrous Re-
publicans have assumed in reference to WI/cod's case,
involves the twofold necessity—that he must be
tried as a nominal solace to American vanity, and
that he must be acquitted as an indispensable de-,
precation. of British vengeance. Accordingly, the
grand forensic farce announced for performance at Utica
on the 4th inst. has been got up with fully as much
care as is usually bestowed in bringing out a Christmas
pantomime ; and at the rehearsals which had been prac-
tised beforehand, every precaution was taken to insure
its perfect success. Thus, Mr. Wells, the owner of the
Caroline, who was believed to be completely cognizant
of M'Leod's guilt, is so conscientious as to be unable to
swear that he ever saw him. Not a single American.
strange to tell, can be found to prove that he ever
boarded the Caroline's deck, or had been seen in col-
lieion with a single individual of her crew. Not a
plausible presumption of his alleged delinquency can
now be produced. This, indeed, is at length acknow-
ledged by the American papers ; yet the farce was to be
proceeded with, nevertheless ; nay, it is actually to
have a run of twelve or fourteen days, and will then be
terminated amidst the scotlings of universal Europe.
No man can read the New York papers without seeing
that such is its predetermined issue.
ADVERTISER.—The news from the United States
is of the deepest and most alarming character. Not only
is public suspense still unalleviated on the score of
M'Leod's trial, but a fresh cause of apprehension has
arisen in the capturing of an American citizen by a party
of armed British soldiers. Here is an outrage of the
nature of that of which we are ourselves demanding
apology and reparation from America. Here is a position
assumed the very parallel of that at which England has
so justly taken umbrage. It is a case ia which the Go-
vernment must act speedily, and with a spirit proper to
the crisis ; not with a low and vulgar animus, as of one
intapable of truthful avowal, but with a bold aad gene-
rous purpose to stay the course of increasing animosity
between this country and America, if ardent endea-
vour can, and with a resolve to prevent, if timely
acknowledgment of regret, and application of means as
guarantee fur non-repetition of events of so direful a
signification can prevent—in the first place, an evil of
such inherent affliction as a border war, and in the second
place, calamity of such overwhelming consequences as
that in which a border war would necessarily terminate.
Than the fact in itself of the Grogan affair, we know of
nothing so completely derogatory to British dignity; and
even if there were little of mean and malicious demon-
stration of motives in reference to the conduct of our
colonists, yet the step confined to a political sense is as
impolitic and opposed to a just appreciation of England's
interests and self-respect as any which could have sul-
lied the British name upwards of fifty years since. In
fact the whole picture carries the mind back to periods of
the darkest barbarism and bloodshed.
CHRONICLE.—Lord Stanley is allowed to be the
best debater of the present Tory Ministry ; he is classed
next after Sir Robert Peel in importance as a Minister,
and by a large section of the Tories was openly pre-
ferred to the Premier, and the welfare of the vast colo-
nial empire of this country is committed te his care. Is
it possible that Lord Stanley could be so ignorant as to
believe that a single Government of Russia of no great
extent, could produce thirty-eight millions of quarters ?
But those who do not believe that he made the statement
in sheer ignorance, pay a wretched compliment to his
honesty. We give his admirers the option of pronounie
ing him either egregiously ignorant, or egregiously men-
dacious ; one or the other he must be. We had ima-
gined that a love of truth was characteristic of an Eng-
lish nobleman. Arrogant we have sometimes heard
them termed ; selfish they must be, as all men cor-
rupted by indulgence necessarily are ; but Ike mean-
-1 ness which can seek to compass a
.petty object by
mendacity, we never supposed them to possess. And
yet, if Lord Stanley did not state what he knew to be
false, for the purpose of deceiving the electors of North
Lancashire, that Noble Lord deserves to be held up to
England and to Europe as a man so ignorant, that the
i lowest hedge schoolmaster of Ireland would blush to be
placed cn a level with him. And are the English, then,
one of the most intelligent, if not the most intelligent, i
of the nations of Europe, and yet can find no other MIA 1
to place at the head of their colonial administration, I
than a nobleman who could, in a speech which he know
would circulate over all the empire, utter the absurd i
statement, for popular effect, that one of the numerous
Governments of Russia—a Government, too, of limited
extent—actually produced in one year thirty-eight mil-
lions of quarters of grain ! Wherever Lord Stanley
shows his face he ought to be met with this Tamboof
statement. To repeat such a statement ought to cover
any British nobleman with disgrace ; but more than dis-
grace ought to be the portion of the man 'oho has as-
pired to a leading place in the councils of his Sovereign.
HERALD.—It will be seen that the trial of li•Leod
stood at the date of our last letters (the 2d October) for
the 4th. But it eras far from improbable that it might
not come on for hearing even then, on the grounds inti-
mated by his counsel in founding his application for
delay on the hearing, at the Circuit Court of Utica, of
the 27th inst. We can also state upon the authority of
a highly respectable informant, whose letter is dated from
New York, that in that city the belief is gaining ground
daily that 3PLeoel wee not likely to be tried at this as-
sizes at all : hut that it would be found necessary to al-
low his important case to stand over to the ensuing Term.
The expectation of his final acquittal, all our letters
agree in representing as extremely general among all
parties ; and it is gratifying to us, to add that we are
disposed to concur in that expectation. That atrocious
design of the " Patriots" to which we have just
alluded seems to confirm the reasonableness of this
tsenerral belief. The same impression derives further
Importance from another incident, (fearful though it
be) connected with the Yankee practice of supplement-
ing the truth—eliciting forms of regular courts of
justice, and the tardy decisions of the solere ;Li. con-
stituted tribunals of a State, by those sue_inuirrJ
visita-
tions of popalar or powerful factions.. which, identical
in principle, have Yet obtair,ed three distinctive
epithets in as many countries; In Britain we call them
" mob-law ;" in Irelarthey term them " club-
„'„,
law ;" in the UPLted States they comprise the
" Lynch-law." in our Rouse of Commons, among
that Whig-Radical. section known as the " Tell" and
the "Repeaters," the same sort of thing passes under the
much mare poetical and figurative designation of " the
wild iustice of revenge." A formidable secret society
a species of Canadian repealers—or ribandmen—or in-
(tendiaries (no matter under what nickname, or whether
disciplined and commanded by Captain Rock or Daniel
O'Connell) ;—it secret society, powerful, extensively dif-
fused, completely organised, and termed " The Hunters'
Lodges," weary calmly told, " mean to have a conviction
if pe.ssible." In these simple words, in this little for-
mula, in this accidental blunder into ingenuousness,
, what a key do we pick up wherewith to unlock
the rays-
I terious notions of our brother Jonathan touching the
majesty of the law !
l'ObT.—We confess we do not attach so much im-
portanceo to • the issue of Mr. .11‘Leod's trial as many of
n 4ar this forbearance Brli,,ntereporaries. The late Government of Greet
"nee which abstained for a year or two from adopt-
ing
spirit
, tie act of the seizure of the Caroline, and which,
American Government very consistently with the mean
and anti-national
towhkiceleipdi3citia..temd,t,epoderma
prisoner.
and and to put
to have trade some
on his trial, must be presumed
which peace will aor
arrangement, in virtue of
countries, let the e preserved between the two
issue of this trial be what it may.
It is not for a single
any Foreign moment to be imagined that
happened to be SecretaryLord' (
alme Great Britain, although it
to leave the question of pea:thh, could have consented
try and the United States of orAmerica war between this coun-
the precarious verdict of twelve Utica contingent upon
ilternative is unavoidable. There jurymen. The
for the preservation at once of the honour
is some arrangement
Bri-
tain, and of peace between Great Britain and °I.
Great
States, let the issue of the pending trial be what it may,
the United
or all the members of her Majesty's late Goer
and especially the Secretary of State for Foreign vAnnlffaeint, r
are in the position of traitors to their Sovereign ands
country.
GLOBE.—The Times, assuming to itself the leader-
ship of the new Government in matters political, seems
desirous of extending its powers to matte:s military,
Not only does it wish to be regarded as the oracle of
Downing-street, but it aspires to be consulted by
the Nestor of the Horse Guards. A few days
since the plan of military operations against the
Americans was laid down with the most amusing
exactitude. And now having, of - course, re_
ceceived the gratifying assurance that the pl.ln of
operations against America has been favourably
received, and will be adopted when hostilities commence
--thb next step is, if possible, to provoke a war between
the two nations, by insulting the one and inflaming the
other, in order to show the practicability of the inven-
ti" for dissolyiugtheUnion, and then con quering,seriatim,
the States of America ! If there be any two nations upon
the face of the entire globe, the interests of whose inha-
bitants are emphatically and inseparably bound up with
the preservation of peace hetiveen their governments, those
rations are Britain and the United States of America. War
,etween thesis can never take place without
paralysing
and even prostrating the commence on they which both
depend for the employatect Of h 'elf .•
t capital and the very