The Sun.
London, England, 1824-03-25 00:00:00

[THI TIMES.]

The Alien Act is a disgrace to the law of
England, and is supported in the House of Com-
mons by arguments as unworthy of an enlightened
assembly as the measure itself is of a free peo-
ple. What is the professed intention of Minis-
ters, as declared by Mr. Peel in his speech re-
commending the Bill ? "To protect foreign
c:crdaoilt in
adu flel-1
i
lg w -subject :
" G overomoots from clasturbance by their SU 1)-•
" jests, living under the laws of England." O
this pretence, if a foreigenn
Agemarhieass
-psoulbitiecat of iris own
privatepolitical r
Sovereign, should call upon
O
the Home Secretary to him from. Eugland,
the latter must comply
with the tyrannical de-
mand, and a British Minister be made the agent
of a foreign 1 t.espotistn
in the exercise of its odious
persecutions.!`.l3ut when is it that refugees from
Continental tyranny are most numerous, and
plots for its overthrow most likely to be under-
taken ? Precisely When the foreign Government
is most guilty of those barbarous acts which
drive its subjects into exile, and which authorize
—nay, enjoin as a sacred duty—their combined
endeavours to /i"dicate their wrongs. In this
broad view of the question, therefore, the natural
operation of the Alien Act is--to be more severe
against the sufferer as bissuffering becomes more
intense, and most useful to the tyrant when his
oppression becomes most intolerable. What can
such a system. be called, but a shameful league be-
tween the British Parliament and the Holy Al-
liance, for destroying, by y hand of English law,
every scattered remnant of that resistance to op-
pression, which, in its more collected and formal
sta te,the con tinental members of the same confede-
racy have broken by armed violence! It is, we re-
peat, shameful that this country should be so
debased ; for never before in English history had
the slaves of foreign despots an acknowledged
right of dictating to a British Sovereign how,
and in what cases, he should enforce the law of
England against individuals breathing British air,
and reposing on British soil. " But," says Mr.
Peel, " the law has never been put in action at
" the request of any foreign Government : in ten
" years no application for the removal of a fo-
" reigner from England has ever been officially
" made !" What, then, becomes of the sole pretence
on which the Alien Bill has been defended by
Ministers ? A law for the protection of foreign
States, and never once appealed to on their be-
half since the hour when it was first enacted !
Why, the effrontery of such arguments, coupled
with such admissions, wore befits a state paper of
Buonaparte than the speech of an English gen-
tleman. If the law be thus useless to the end it
professes, it casts an odium, at once gratuitous and
absurd, upon the Legislature which enacts it. On
the other hand, we are told that the deportations
under this law, originating with the Ministers
themselves, have been but few in number. We
say more—that few ns they were, the old law
of England was fully sufficient to deal with
the parties, unassisted by such foreign inventions.
Count Bettera, for instance, was sent off, and
justly ; hut was the Alien Act necessary to pro-
tect Prince Esterhazy against a desperado of that
characters lie alight have been imprisoned, in de-
fault of bail, for his threats against the Prince's
safety ; he might have been transported as a felon
for his actual attempts to murder him. The Alien
Act was, indeed, the power resorted to by Mr.
Peel ; but it Wail-employed,
to supersede the law of England—not required
to fill up its defects. In all cases, however,
it must he observed, that the discovery of a ma-
chination against foreign persons or Govern-
ments constitutes the ground of complaint and
banishment under this act : yet, the moment in
which the discovery is made, the danger of the
conspiracy vanishes.

ARDROSSAN HARBOUR.

To the EDITOR of the AYR and WIGTONSHIRE COURIER.

&e,-Since Mr. H. CAMPBELL, of London,
has thought fit to reply, though only in part, to the observa-
tions made by me in my letter of the 23d ult., regarding the
superiority of Ardrossan Harbour over that of Troon, I con-
sider, that, in thus taking notice of his letter, I do so, not so
much to gratify his curiosity, as to show to the " commercial
and nautical portion of the community," that he knows little
or nothing of the subject on which he writes, and that he has
not yet been able, in one single instance, to confute my posi-
tions. One part of my letter, which is that touching the
fate of the brig Eliza of Londonderry, Mr. Campbell is
pleased to overlook. This silence shows his profound wis-
dom, and I give him credit for letting "sleeping dogs
Before, however, proceeding to answer his queries, allow
me briefly to remark, that the veracity and accuracy of my
statements, regarding the harbours in question, were all esta-
blished by circumstantial facts, which the ingenuity and so-
phistry of Mr. Campbell cannot overturn. He is therefore
obliged to " bounce" from the subject of controversy, and com-
mences a story about the " Merry Don of Dover," and plays
off a few of his witticisms on that most marvellous of all mar-
vellous ships, with whose history, I dare to say, Mr. H. C. is
as well acquainted as any old wife in Christendom. But since
he appears to know so much of the " Merry Don's" history,
why, let me ask him, did he omit so necessary an appendage to
it as that of the Jack Ass :2 He must have a hit, too, in the by-
going, at the Union (not the Unicorn, as he would have it)
brig of Newcastle. But since he seems inclined to be merry,
I by no means wish to intrude my observations on this
head, but leave him in the full enjoyment of his own hallu-
cinations--.