The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-08 00:00:00

POLITICAL SUMMARY OF THE

MORNING JOURNALS.

The Morning. Post observes, in the course of a leading
article on the subject of the revenue :—" We are glad to lea=
that the ratification of the commercial Treaty with Frande (that
is, provided it be a good Treaty) is daily expected. We did
not know that it had yet been signed, or even that its terms
had been finally adjusted. The last we heard of the matter,
only ti few days ago, was to the effect that negotiations on the
subject of the commercial Treaty with France had been sus-
pended, in consequence of the recent state of our relations with
that country, and were not yet renewed. To be sure this was
only from Lord Melbourne, in his place in the House of Lords,
an authority which we would not think of comparing with our
well-informed Contemporary ; yet we venture to suggest to
the latter that the information may not be strictly and literally
accurate which has led him to announce to the commercial
world that the ratification of the Treaty is daily expected."
The Morning Herald, alluding to the subject of Ireland,
says—" What compensating prospect has the country at large
in the present state of Ireland? Nothing more satisfactory
than the permitted incendiary harangues of O'Connell and his
faction; and the issue of addresses to the Irish people, exhort-
ing them, in the case of a war breaking oat, to abstain from
their duty as subjects to their Sovereign—as Britons to their
fellow-countrymen—as members of a free State and a Chris-
tian community to the institutions they are bound by every
principle of natural allegiance and civil obligations to defend.
We hope that some Member of Parliament, who may find his
strength and powers sufficiently renewed for the task by the re-
freshment of a long Easter vacation, will not fad, directly Par-
liament shall have re-assembled, to move for a Committee of
Inquiry into the present state of Ireland, and of the law in
Ireland with respect to the matters submitted the night before
last to the House of Lords by the Earl of Charleville."
The Times thus alludes to Mr. Tooke's late letter to the
Editor of the Britannia :—" Ecce iteruni Crispinus !—be-
bold again Mr. William Tooke ! That singularly self-satisfied
specimen of humanity, ex-Member of Parliament, ex-Trea-
surer of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
and ex-Manager of University College, London, but not yet
ex-Candidate for Finsbury, has thought proper to circulate a
latter addressed ' To the Editor of the Britannia,' upon the
occasion of his late expulsion from the Gower-street Commit-
tee of Management. It cannot be denied that, in the present
great dearth of topics of political, ecclesiastical, or general in-
terest, the publication of this letter is extremely seasonable.
An explicit exposition of the. principles' to which Mr. Wil-
liam Tooke ' has steadfastly adhered from his youth up,' is the
very thing which the world for some time past has been
anxiously and impatiently lookina.. for. Public men have be-
come so changeable, and a high tone of principle so scarce,
that we want some faultless model to fix attention, and chal-
lenge universal imitation. Mr. Tooke condescendingly, but
with a master-hand, sketches out the portraiture of such a
man."

The Morning Chronicle puts forth the following remarks
on the subject of Dr. Wiseman's letter to the Editor of the
Tablet: ---.‘ In the letter of Dr. Wiseman, which was pub-
lished in last Saturday's Tablet, the Oxford question is treated
with great meekness and piety. This eminent Papist regards
Puseyism as a struggle of noble minds to break through
chains that have bound them for years,' and adores the power
of Providence in ' the revival of atholicity in England,'
and the ' movement towards Catholic ideas and Catholic feel-
ings' of the ' Theologians of Oxford.' The whole affair, in-
deed, except perhaps the late pitiful submissions, must have
been, as it evidently was, highly gratifying to his mind. To
see the English Clergy, after centuries of separation, hostility,
and Protestant pride, thus returning to the rock whence they
were hewn,' is a sensation for whic Dr. Wiseman and every
other zealous Catholic might well be envied."

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
t From the Globe.)
The rapidity with which Opposition bas retraced its
course on the Education question, is as unexampled in
the history of parties as it must prove gratifying to the
Government, and satisfactory to all who desire to see
the poorer classes of the community supplied with
the means of intellectual and moral improvement.
Sir Robert Peel's address to the members of the
Tatnworth Institute, and more recently in the debate
on the Poor-law Continuance Bill, in which the ques-
tion of pauper instruction was largely discussed, may
be regarded as a formal and specific recognitio❑ and
adoption, by the leader of the Conservative party in the
House of Commonc, of the principle features in the
plan of National Education, which was assailed and
denounced by the same party in and out of Parliament
as pregnant with danger to the national religion and
lesigned to sap the foundations of morals, by omitting
to enforce instruction in the creeds and catechism
of the Church en the children of parents who are
members of other religious communities. We may
now, therefore, regard the Government plan of
National Education as placed beyond danger of
further opposition. The tempests of unreasonable
wrath, which at one time threatened to overwhelm
and destroy it, have tended to its advantage ; they
have dispersed the clouds of prejudice, and dispelled the
vapours which had collected, and which prevailed for a
time to obscure the visual organs of many well-meaning
persons, thus enabling them to discern clearly what they
had previously apprehended imperfectly. 'Fix annual
vote for educational purposes, which, we hope to see
gradually but largely extended, will henceforth be re-
garded as an essential part of the national expenditure ;
and though we expect and desire that the mode of its
application shall be watched with careful jeal anAy,
whoever may be the Ministers of the Crown, we trust
that there will be one supreme effort by the Committee
of Privy Council for Education, to render the plan
truly effective for the benevolent and patriotic purposes
of its original projectors.
(From the.Sthndard.)
_ _

If we allude to the treasonable menaces of the
O'Connell party in Ireland, it is not that we have the
sllghtest expectation that these menaces will ever be
realised. IV° are well aware that the persons who
employ them contemplate nothing but the making
of a little money. We regard the braggadocio as
likely to prove mischievous only by lowering the
character of the United Kingdom among fo-
reigners, and thus, to the extent to which credit
is given to it, in diminishing the force of the
Conservative principle in every country. It is a cer-
tain truth that the traitors and Jacobins of France,
and of most of the European nations, have been
taught to expect the signal of anarchy from Ire-
land ; and thus the common interests of civilization
are concerned in showing that there is no chance
of that signal being given, loudly as the O'Con-
nellites may swagger about it. We do not, however,
expect that anything we say can shame the absurd
blusterers into silence ; but we are not without a
hope that others may be shamed from giving any atten-
ton to them. It is quite manifest that the O'Connellite
party feel this ; otherwise the increased violence and
acrimony of their threats would be difficult to ac.
count for—as men who are in pursuit of an object
which they believe themselves strong enough to
achieve, never magnify unnecessarily the difficulty
of the enterprise, by challenging honourable pride,
and a just resentment of insults, to enlist among
their opponents. The strong man is very rarely
an insolent bully the strong and prudent man
never. We are willing to illustrate this truth by the
example of England. The power of England is never
spoken of at home but when she is threatened ; abroad
one hears of little else but complaints of E agland's
power from the ill-disposed—exultation at it from the
friends of order throughout the world. Like the hero
of the Italian narrative, her trophies are the subject
of wondering observation everywhere but in her
own house. Even the O'Connellite claim to a share in
building up the fabric of British power and renown,
though rather extravagant in its amount (for setting
what has been done against the empire by rebellion
and " the state bardering on civil war" in one scale,
aad the services of O'Connellite soldiers and sailors in
the other, it is doubtful which will preponderate)—
even the O'Connellite claim to a share in building up
the power and renown of the empire is a confession that
such exist to an extent in which it is desirable to par-
ticipate. Yet, powerful as England is, she threatens
no one ; and even vihen she answers the ridiculous
threats of others, it is as one slightly whips a trouble-
some dog out of the way with the kind design of saving
the noisy animal from a more serious punishment by
the heels of a tormented horse. _

(From the Courier.)
The attention of the Legislature will shortly be
directed at an early period of the present session
to the present system of the new Post-office scheme,
which, in spite of every sort of trick, misrepre-
sentation, and subterfuge resorted to for swelling
or falsifying the real returns of revenue from it,
is generally understood to have disappointed miser-
ably all the pompous pretences of its projectors and all
the sanguine anticipations of its popularity-hunting pa-
trons, the Ministry. The public—for revenue, as our
Paris contemporaries would say, enters into the pub'.ic
domain—have been saddled with a grievous loss in the
bargain of grossly enhanced new taxation, to which
universally subjected, in order to make up the defi-
ciency caused by the remission of old fiscal charges
bearing exclusively on the rich and commercial classes,
and so lightly as scarcely ever to have formed tho sub-
ject of complaint. Aggrieved moreover as are the in-
dustrious masses by the aggravation of imposts on all
articles of necessary consumption, in favour of class in-
tere: its neither injured, nor affecting so to be, until the
Pen. ay-post philosophy was broached, and excitement
sedulously propagated in behalf of a clap-trap plausibly
adapt ed for the party exigencies of the moment, yet the
evil is rendered more intolerable still by the certainty
that I.he State, which also was to be a gainer by the
change, is quite as much damaged by the result as the
peopl ,t individually.

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

T:CMES.—Scarcely any attention has been drawn in the City
to the quarterly return of the revenue, and it seems to have
been wholly without effect on the prices of public securities.
These documents have, indeed, long been considered quite
valueless as to any practical result, because they exhibit a one.
sided account, in which the whole of the receipt, but a small
portion only of the expenditure appears, and not to possess the
merit even of good statistics by which the fluctuations in the
commerce of the country may be determined. The only fact
of a-ay importance deducible from the present return is, that all,
the increased taxation has not maintained the income of the
country at its old rate. Notwithstanding this, however,_ the
moneyed interest do not appear to indulge in any notion of a
loin, since they are utterly unable to form any judgment of the
extent to which the same purpose may not be answered at the
Treasi iry by the application to public purposes of the stock and
mone3 - belonging to the savings-banks. If the returns were
omittr:d altogether, there would be very little inquiry after
therm in the City, though an improved form might be adopted
in wbiich they would be very generally useful.
The premium on gold at Paris is 71/.z per milk, which,
at the English illint price of 3/. 17s. 10%d., per ounce
for ste ndard gold, gives an exchange of 25. 33, and the ex-

change at Paris on London at short being 25. 42k, it follows
that gold is 0 38 per cent. dearer in London than in Paris.
By advices from Hamburgh the price of gold is 4281 per mark,
which, at the English Mint price of 3/. 17s. 10id. per ounce
for standard gold, gives an exchange of 13. 64, and the ex-
change at Hamburgh on London at short being 13. 6i, it fol-
lows that gold is 0.12 per cent. dearer in Hamburgh than in
London.

The course of exchange at New York on London is 107
per cent., and the par of exchange between England and Ame-
rica being 109 23-40 per cent., it follows that the exchange is
2.33 per cent. against England. But the quoted exchange at
exchange at New York being for bills at sixty days' sight, the
interest must be deducted from the above difference.
Considering that this was the first day of private transfer,
very little business was transacted in the Government securi-
ties ; the prices of which fluctuated but slightly.
The committee of the Stock-Exchange met to-day for the
consideration of the question, whether the quotations of the
converted Portuguese stock should be marked or not in the
official list. They adjourned the question for a month, and
therefore it is evident that the quotations cannot be marked
during that period, but that they consider that, according to
the present aspect of the matter, their reguiation prevents
them from esteeming the converted stock as one agreed to by
the bondholders, so as to justify its recognition in the Stock-
Exchange. To remove apprehension that business has been
transacted in converted Portuguese bonds, a price for which
was posted in the market yesterday, it is now explained by the
jobbers that they deemed this the readiest mode to make known
their estimated value, and it was to this end alone that the
announcement was made, to save inquiry on the subject. It
is now withdrawn.

CHRONICLE.—By a communication received by Mr.
Thornton, the Chairman of the Committee of Portuguese
Bondholders, from the Secretary of the Committee of the
Stock Exchange, we are informed that the Committee, at their
meeting held this day, came to the following resolution :
" That the further consideration of the memorials on the sub-
ject of marking the prices in the new Portuguese Bonds be ad-
journed till Tuesday, the 4th day of May next."
This we look upon as a very proper measure, lair and impar-
tial to all parties, giving time to the bondholders to obtain
better terms from the Government of Portugal, if they deem
the recent financial decree finally unacceptable; or of enabling
the Government of Portugal to remove the objections
entertained against it, if they have good arguments
to advance in its support. The great obstacle to the
acceptance of the decree in its present shape arises, we pre-
sume, first, from the notoriety of the fact that the home credi-
tors of Portugal have, under all circumstances, been paid in
full out of a separate fund appropriated to their exclusive use,
while the English bondholders were totally neglected ; and,
secondly, from the breach of the original contract of loan,
whereby the whole revenues of Portugal- were pledged and hy-
pothecated to the bondholders ; so that the payment of the
home creditor, to their prejudice, was a palpable breach of
faith, and an act of which they have most cogent reasons to
complain in terms of the principles set forth in Lord Palmer-
ston's instructions to Mr. Adams as regards the debt of New
Grenada.

It will be incumbent on the Government of Portugal to
meet these objections and to justify the basis on which their
conversion rests. There can be no doubt that Lord Howard
de Walden will bring the subject forward, and use every proper
exertion to effect a satisfactcry arrangement. Abuse of the
Portuguese Government, however, will do no good, and add
anything; except weight, to the proceedings of the Committee.
By their violent and inconsiderate language they have done
much to injure their own cause, and to embarrass their friends
in affording them efficient assistance.

HERALD.—The Foreign Market remains in a quiet state.
The new cut-down Portuguese little goes were not quoted to-
day, for reasons to be seen hereafter.
It appears that a deputation of ten members of the Com-
mittee of Portuguese bondholders was deputed to manage an
interview to-day with the Stock Committee of Capel-court
on the subject of the proposed conversion fraud of the Por-
tuguese Government. The parties so deputed by the Por-
tuguese Committee were gentlemen of social standing and con-
sideration, some of them officers of rank, but lest by chance
they should assume to conceive themselves entitled to the de-
cent observances of society as such, the Stock quorum, with
the democratic spite of brief authority which delights in bringing
down all above to its own more lowly level, are said to have kept
them for some considerable space dancing attendance and K ait-
ing for audience in their ante-chamber. At length, after
grave deliberation a gracious intimation was conveyed from the
Stock conclave that Jr. Thornton with one or two other mem-
bers of the Portuguese Committee would be admitted, but
that the Stockroom—what a queer pretence for these Stock
grandees of the first class—was net large enough to contain the
whole ten of the deputation in waiting. It is said, however,
that the little room might easily have accommodated some two
dozen more individuals. However, Mr. Thornton, who by way
of proving his qualification as a bondholder, and his right to a
voice in relation to the decision of any question respecting Por-
tuguese bonds, had taken the precaution of being accompanied
with a waggon load of credentials in the shape of Portuguese
bonds, with another gentleman of the deputation proceeded to
the interview with these " potent," if not grave and gracious
seigniors of the Stock House. What transpired it is of no
consequence to refer to, as the following document subsequently
addressed to Mr. Thornton involves the gist of all that was said
and done :

" Committee-room, Stock Exchange, April 6, 1841.
" Sir,—l arts directed by the Committee of the Stock Ex-
change to inform you that, at the meeting held this day, it was
resolved,—
" "That the further consideration of the memorials on the
subject of marking the prices in the new Portuguese Bonds, be
adjourned till Monday, the 4th of May next.'
" I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
"JAMES VAN SOMNER, Secretary.
•
" To Richard Thornton, Esq., Chairman of the
Committee of Portuguese Bondholders."
So closes this business, so little discreditable to the Stock
Committer!, for the present. It. may be added, however, and
we have the authority of the most respectable Members of the
House—of Members ranking higher for character, and quite
as high in the breeches-pocket sense,•as any one of the thirty
members of the Stock Committee, a list of whose names is
now before us, that the course of these proceedings has
been viewed with infinite disgust in the Stock Exchange
itself, as tending greatly to damage the character of, and to
impair the confidence of the people in, that establishment
whose credit, and the interests rf the community as con-
nected therewith, it was their first and bounden duty to up-
hold, with utter disregard of selfish views and sinister in-
fluences of their own, or of loan jabbers' connections out of
doors. There are names on the Committee which suggest at
once a solution of much of the paltering, equivocal, and dis-
graceful manoeuvres by which the recognition of the fraudu-
lent conversion was attempted, was actually decreed, and
lastly rescinded in very sneaking deference to the expressed
sense of public opinion, which could not safely be defied for
reasons which were coming home, and would have been driven
nearer home to them with the journals of every morning.
There ought not to have been one moment's hesitation from
the first in rejecting the application for " marking the prices "
of the dishonest conversion bonds, that is of legalising the
dealings in them, by whomsoever such application was made,
or by whatever dishonourable influence supported underhand,
in respect of which on another occasion something more may
perhaps be said, when a certain ministerial morning journal
extraordinarily allied somehow for years past with Penin-
sular loans and finance will not be forgotten. The Stock
Committee knew well that the Portuguese Committee of bond-
holders could not represent less than eight or ten millions of
Portuguese stocks, and therefore their intimation of
dissent from the proposed conversion confiscation of a
large proportion of so immense a property should
have been received and acted upon as final at once, founded
too as it was on a recorded and binding regulation of the Stock
House itself. They had moreover publicly challenged, and
were in possession of the proof to which their character as a
great public body was pledged, the calculated perpetration
of a system of fraud, by which it was sought to be made ap
pear that a vast majority of Portuguese bondholders were
anxious for the conversion, and had so sent in names, claims,
and large amounts for registration, as if bonds were held bona
fide to the amounts, whereas no such bonds were held, the
parties pretending being little better in many instances than
a better class of paupers ready for any dirty.work for a consi-
deration.

Bonds may however make their appearance to be converted,
and it behoves the Portuguese Committee to be vigilant lest a
second edition of Mendizabal's surreptitious issues of Spanish
Bonds should be attempted front Portugal, and so foisted on
the market in the shape of Conversion Bonds, by which the
treasury at Lisbon might be conveniently and unsuspectedly
replenished, to the greater damage still of the interests of the
bondholders. These, however, are matters on which more re-
mains to be said yet. The conjoint confederacy here, at Lis-
bon, and Madrid, for plundering the British public must be
waited upon with such constant and assiduous care that perhaps
at length the unholy league and covenant may come to be
broken up and the parties to it brought to justice. No thanks
for that, however, to the very accommodating friends of the
loan jobbing interest in the Stock Exchange Committee.

POST.—Ten of the members of the Committee of Portu-
guese bondholders waited on the Committee of the Stock Ex-
change to-day, for the purpose of getting a knowledge of the
intentions of the latter body with regard to the conversion
which the Portuguese agency are attempting to thrust upon
the English people in behalf of their Government. The gentle-
men of the Committee of bondholders demanded, as the parties
appointed to watch over interests amounting to ten millions of
pounds, exclusive of four years' accumulation of dividends, an
unreserved conference with those of the Committee of the
Stock Exchange. The latter, however, demurred, and a
considerable time :being taken to deliberate upon the sub-
ject, it was at last decided that two or three only of
the number should be admitted, on the ridiculous plea
that the Committee-room was small. Mr. Thornton and his
friends appear not to have been able to make much impression
upon the Stock Exchange authorities. It is not convenient to
them to lee regulated by the declared wishes of a public meet-
ing in 1841, as was the case in 1834, because those wishes
are opposed to jobbing in a spurious security. They have,
nevertheless, exacted a promise that no immediate recognition
of Ferrer's Two-and-a- Half per Cent. conversion shall for the
present displace the legitimate bonds.
Although the Committee have not yet authorised the quota-
tion of the new bonds, prices for them, real or fictitious, have
been put upon the board of the house, and the wonder among
the members generally is who could have taken that liberty.
The Committee are bound, wr think, to put an instant stop to
such a proceeding, as, otherwise, they may be themselves sus-
pected of dabbling in them
The continued absence of the steam-ship President is be-
ginning to be viewed with very great, though we cannot but
hope unfounded, apprehension. It has been reported that a
vessel resembling her was seen making for Fayal, in the
Azores, where the Company to which she belongs are under-
stood to have a depot of coals. If she went to Fayal for coals
or put back to Bermuda to refit, after the heavy gale of the
14th ult., it is hardly to be expected that she should reach
Liverpool for a day or two to come. Yet as much as 15 gui-
neas per cent. premium was paid on her at Lloyd's yesterday,
and to-day the rate was increased, we hear, to 20 guineas per
cent. She may not improbably be coming slowly on under
canvas.
Although the commercial, and still more, if poFsible, the
financial advices brought from the United States by the North
America are, on the whole, of a gloomy complexion, there
are, nevertheless, here and there points to be found in them
which present an agreeable contrast to the mass of discourage-
ment.
It may not be uninteresting to our readers to know the re-
ports going out from hence to the United States on business
matters. The subjoined is extracted from the circular of an
eminent house at Liverpool, as transmitted by the last steamer
The present quotations of the price of cotton vary little
from those at the close of last month ; that little, however,
is against the importer, and the advices from the manufac-
turing' districts are exceedingly discouraging, with a con-
stant tendency towards decline throughout the month. This
feature is the more remarkable when we look around and
behold the prosperity which pervades the manufactures of
our neighbours, the French; when we consider that grain
will not be wanted ; that the Continental exchanges are so
much in favour of this country as not only no longer to cause
the Bank of England any alarm for their gold, but to give an
almost certain assurance that it must now flow back into their
coffers at too groat a rate to maintain the present rate of inte-
rest. When we see such evident signs of prosperity it is really
disheartening to think upon the present state of England's most
important branch of national prosperity. In fact, it tan no
longer be doubted, and it is no longer doubted, even by some of
these interested in the maintenance of the present regulations