The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

ritoas THE lIORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the 'limes.)
Although intelligence from America has for some time
been looked for with more than ordinary interest, the ar-
rival of the Britannic, which left Boston on the 16th of
March (several days later than the President's departure
from New York), presents no news relative to M‘Leod's
affair of any determinate character. That he himself was
still kept a prisoner, with little hope of being exempted
from trial, appears to be the only material fact in the Bri-
tannia's barren budget. We learn, however, from our
own intelligent correspondent " the Genevese Traveller,"
that his subjection to the course of law had been irre-
versibly decreed : only, with the view of insuring his cer-
tain acquittal, he has been transferred from the frontier
county of Niagara to Albany, where, it is said, uo causes
of any sort exist that are likely to operate to his pre-
judice. Our correspondent further assures us, that
though Mr. Fox's instructions do not actually enjoin
him, in the event of receiving that refusal of M'Leod's
immediate release which the President of the States
will feel constitutionally imposed upon him, to demand his
passports and quit the country, no eventual rupture will
be thereby occasioned, inasmuch as the declaration of the
British Government, undertaking the entire responsibility
of the Caroline's destruction, will be pleaded and sus-
tained at M'Lcod's trial, as constituting an infallible bar
to his conviction. From these consideratio-is, as well as
from the altered tone of the American journals, and espe-
cially from the circumstance that their original clamour
for what they called the rights of justice has cooled
down into a mere punctiliousness about its forms, the cer-
tainty is, that M‘Leod's trial would be nothing more than
a solemn judicial farce, ending, as it began, in veritable
smoke. One reason why Mr. Fox had not yet succeeded
in obtaining that gentleman's release is said to have been
that the requisite official communications with the new
Government could not be proceeded with until the
British Minister were formally presented to General
Harrison ; but as that ceremony came off on the 9th
i ult., (a week before the Britannia sailed), we must
l infer that Mr. Fox's final negotiations had encountered
other obstacles, 1 articularly as we learn that he had not
entered on them up to the 1 lth ult. For our own part,
notwithstanding the "untoward event" which has been
made such a gratuitous handle of in this momentary spilt
of national temper, we never could bring ourselves seriously
to believe that the worthy Jonathan would so far com-
promise his cautious and calculating character as to com-
mit himself to the contingencies of war upcn a basis so
narrow and insignificant. " Talker!, talhee," (as the
negroes say) is, to be sure, no unusual pastime of his; but,
take him in the main, he is of a sound reflective turn ; and
accordingly, when his occasional ebullitions of speech sub-
side into a quiet depth of thought, his practical conclu-
sions, though often implying a censure upon his antece-
dent infirmities, are, for the most part, unexceptionable.
' Never, perhaps, was America in a worse condition
fir assuming a belligerent attitude than site is at the
present moment. Such is the comparatively defenceless
sta,e of her frontier towns, that their inhabitants seem
a'ready to be panic-struck with the very idea of the ap.