The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS•

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Morning chronicle.)
" One false step leads to many, says the adage.
We have a striking exemplification of its truth in the
case of the Horse Guards and the Earl of Cardigan.
After dismissing his Lordship from the 15th Hussars
for causes which peculiarly denoted his unfitness for
command, the Horse Guards, in an evil hour, were per-
suaded to entrust another regiment to him. The mili-
tary authorities ought to have considered that ungentle-
manly conduct indicates, in a man of rank, an inherent
and irremediable defect of character, and that the com-
passion which restores such a man to command is the
extreme of cruelty to all who may be subjected to his
control. The best of men may err, hut there is a wide
difference between accidental faults of omission or com-
mission, and the systematic tyranny of which Lord Car-
digan had been proved guilty. His Lordship is inca-
pable of reform. When he was driven from the 15th,
he did not feel that he had done anything wrong. He
pitied the army which had lost his valuable services.
When Sir John Macdonald read him a lecture at
Brighton, he felt not the rebuke, but argued that, as
all that he had done when in command of the 11 th
had been sanctioned by the Horse Guards, Lord Hill
could not reprimand him without reprimanding himself.
We have copied paragraphs from two of our Con-
temporaries (the Times and Mori iog Advertiser),
which describe the reception of the Noble Earl at
Drury-lane Theatre on Tuesday night. He was lite-
rally expelled the house. What an indication of the
sense entertained by the public of the condact of this
protege of the Hcrse Guards! But the truth is, the
military authorities are the parties who are to blame.
Lord Cardigan, from an inherent defect in his character,
is evidently insensible to all these displays of public in-
dignation against him. But Lord Hill must have anti-
cipated all that has taken place. Where is all this to
end ? An extract of a letter from Brighton, in another
column, communicates the information that Captain
Reynolds (the black :male man) three weeks ago ten-
dered his resignation, and asked leave to sell out.
Three other officers, the initials of whose names
are given, have applied to be exchanged or re-
moved from the 11th Hussars. What further
proofs of the insupportable nature of the tyranny
to which the officer; of the 1I th are sub-
jected, will satisfy the Horse Guards ? We
trust this will be a lesson to Lord Hill to beware
how he hereafter suffers himself to be influenced by
considerations as led to the restoration of Lord
Cardigan. To that ill-judged measure is attributable
the ruin of about a score of gentlemen who found it
impossible to exist under the command of the Earl of
Cardigan. Lord Hill has not done enough for justice,
but be has done more than enough for his own condem-
nation ; for it will not be forgotten that in the docu-
ment read by Sir John Macdonald, at Brighton, on the
part of Lord Hill, it was declared that the disgensions
of the 11th Hussars, which were placed to the account
of Lord Cardigan, would interfere with the efficiency
of the regiment, were its services required against an
enemy. ;Tare, rcddc milli legiones,—restore my re-
giment of 11th Hussars, is a demand which her Ma-
jesty is entitled to put to the Commander-in-Chief.
We cannot close these remarks without availing our-
selves of the following striking picture from the " Offi-
cer's Tale," by Harriet Lee, drawn, we have no doubt,
from the life, of the effects of the injustice of a com-
manding officer on a gallant youth :
" had felt himself rapidly rising in general estimation.
Even those who, from envious motives, did not personally
like, yet joined to applaud him ; and he already antici-
pated in imagination the most exquisite of all pleasures,
that of triumphing by the mere force of merit over the ar-
rogance or the accidental prejudice of one who, whatever
might be his failings, he yet believed to possess judgment
and military ardour enough to applaud desert. From all
these towering hopes, these high-raised expectations, he
fell at once; a glance, a ward of Colonel Mordaunt's an-
nihilated them. Every officer in my regiment, I pre-
sume, does his duty,' said the Colonel, coldly turning his
back on the parade both to Montague and his own son, as
the latter, perceiving a marked neglect or iaattention in
his father, somewhat too officiously interfered. The
speech, the manner, and the circumstances that accompa-
nied or succeeded both, though not immediately obvi-
ous in their effect, were nevertheless decisive. All who
hoped, all who feared, all who, without opinion or judg-
ment of their own, follow that of the majority, gra-
dully shrunk from the intimacy of a young man, who what-
ever his merit, was guilty of the crime of not pleas-
ing. Such, however, were the habits of subordination, or
the effects of consciousness, that what each man observed,
no one commented upon, lest its operation upon his own
conduct should become remarkable to his hearer. Monta-
gue, therefore, condemned without being arraigned, and
and shunned without having trangressed, bad in a very few
weeks but too much opportunity to observe that,
Our genuine virtues do more sweet and clear
In fortune's graceful dress appear,'
since the gallant spirit that had lately extorted praise, and
the approbation that seemed to ensure esteem, was by turns
sneered at as Quixotic or pedantry, when the favouring
smile was no longer likely to gild them. The feelings of
an enthusiastic and aspiring young man, who saw himself
enthralled in a bondage it was useless to complain of, and
hopeless soon to escape, may much more easily be imagined
than described. Injury be might have atoned=-error be
might have corrected—nay, even prejudice, as man to man,
he might have baldly stepped forward to contradict or
rectify; but his opprosnr, Ives front the circumstances of
situation, armed with weapons 'Ale% he could encounter
on no equal terms either of reason or of force ; and thongh
the iron daily we into his very soul, he was eMiged to
ssem;thi,hisbrowerh,oafnodrgfeved o
the I h
ns
i into. a smile tl'ee' pre-
f him
•-s
ri:;',`!n the Times.)
The age ettehing quarrel between the two nations of
the Peninsula hag b'tcome the ell engrossing object of
attention, and, as both ige.'etie* bare appealed to Eng-
land for a justification of the Votincie on which they
have respectively entered into it, it iitte become highly
important that the whole country should Comprehend
exactly the facts and arguments by which that appeal
setteported4 To commence, than, with the Spanish
riAe.et Memoratadatn which has been submitted to the
British' dabinet. it sett froth we understand, that the
convention grit'Weeh the tyro' eroeent for the navigation
of the Douro was e;tsilCleided on thy gist of August,
1835, stipulating that the s,fetiot dtktiei on Mer-
chandise should be very light. 'Ravi; a reftereel
the convention of 1835 shows that atilt* i's' entirely
misstatement, for none of the articles ment.:l6* these
duties nor their amount, but, on the contrary, LS'
regulations of the navigation and the tariff are left to
the oonsideration of a mixed commission. It is
further to be observed, that one of the articles of
the Treaty provides that the tariff and regulations
shall form a part of the Treat;; ee neon as approved
of by the contracting parties. This CfSeS2ll shows; that,
as far as these regulations are concerned, the' lessty is
incomplete until. both the Governments have apprdiPei
of it; and that therefore it is impossible to treat it as if
broken. Another point set forth by the Spanish me-
morandum is, we are informed, that the Spanish diplo-
matist, after repeated endeavours to obtain a declara-
tion that foreign produce introduced into Spain by the
Douro should be free from the payment of duty on its
entrance into Portugal, could not obtain such a con-
cession, and therefore proposed that a silence as to this
matter should be preserved in the Convention, Them
entreavours to obtain such a declaration, which would
have seriously damaged the Customs revenue of Por-
tugal, could not but be resisted by that Power. No pro-
duce could be brought down from Spain by the Douro
other than Spanish produce, and hence it seemed most
unreasonable that Spain should require that the produce
of foreign countries should be brought up the Douro
without paying on their entrance into Portugal. The re-
jection of such a demand. which has nothing in common
with the spirit of the Convention of 1835, could not there-
fore with any reason, be urged as a matter of complaint.
It appears that. something of the sort was agreed to by one
of the first set of Portuguese Commissioners, whose
report was rejected by the Cortes, and which is totally
distinct from the matter now under discussion. In fact,
the insertion of such a claim in the first report would
rather put the Portuguese in a better position, since it
shows what a just pretext they had for rejecting such a
Treaty. The Spanish memorandum afterwards, wo un-
derstand, alludes to this report of the first Commission
in express terms, making it a subject of serious com-
plaint that the Portuguese were unwilling to sanction
two points—viz., the exemption of duty on foreign pro-
duce just described, and the admission of Spanish wines
by the Oporto depot on paying ao more duty than that
levied on the wines of Portugal. The first point has
been disposed of : with respect to the latter, it must be
seen that such a concession by the Portuguese would
have introduced a stipulation solely in favour of Spain,
since the Douro is not very navigable within the Spa-
nish territory. while the mouth of the river, which of
course is in Portugal, would have been thrown open
for the exportation of Spanish produce. In such a se-
rious light is anything affecting the winegrowers re-
garded in Portugal, that persons well acquainted with
the country say that an insurrection in the Douro
provinces would have been the result of such a conces-
sion. Bat, it is said, the most important assertion as'-
, vanced in the Spanish memorandum is, that her Catho-
lic Majesty stated that she was ready to conclude the
Treaty immediately, if the Portuguese Government
woulli likewise agree to it, but that the latter showed
weakness or bad faith in not wishing to approve of the
Treaty before it was submitted to the Cortes. The
Treaty here referred to is that agreed to by the new
Commission last May, and the one which was under
the consideration of the Legislature during the session
just closed. This point, it will be seen, embraces a
great constitutional question as to the power of the
Government to conclude such a Treaty without legis-
lative sanction ; and this has been rather involved
by the fact that the constitution of Portugal
in 1835, when the convention was signed, having,
been changed during the progress of the nego-
tiation, a different law now prevails as to the power of
the Government. In 1835 Portugal was governed by
the constitutional charter, which dirt not require the
approbation of the Cortes to commercial treaties ; but
the Constitution of 1338, which rules at present, re-
quires the consent of the Legislature to render such a
treaty valid, and the matters of detail which appear in
the Mixed Commission are
the treaty as agreed on by