The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-11 00:00:00

TILE SUN,

from the principles of a pure and exalted patriotism
rather than from a diseased anxiety to evince an un-
necessary bravado by increasing the national ex-
penditure.
Among both parties there may be discerned much
that is apparently reasonable, among those._ who
conceive the notion of an invasion to be
a rational possibility, as well as among those
who receive it with incredulity and derision. With
the former the principal reasons for an interference
on the part of the Legislature, and for a comprehensive
re-organization of our insular and maritime defences
are the following :—The changes effected in naviga-
tion by the application of the steam-engine to war-
vessels, and the extraordinary state of preparation in
which the naval and military departments of France
are, when contrasted with the equally extraordinary
absence of preparation observable among ourselves.
It is maintained by the Commander-in-Chief that,
as matters are at present conducted, an incursion
on the part of our neighbours, would in all likeli-
hood redound to our discredit, by producing a suc-
cession of sudden and terrible disasters. According
to this illustrious authority (and the opinion is cor-
roborated by his apologists), in consequence of the
adoption of steam as a motive-power ordinarily
employed on the ocean, the Channel is virtually
no longer in existence, Dover and Calais are vir-
tually connected by a highway as easy of traffic
as a macadamised road, cleared by the Rebec-
caites. Virtually—they maintain—France is as
independent of time and tide as she would be in

marching her battalions into Piedmont. Virtually,
,Great Britain is no longer an island. Thus it would
appear that every facility is afforded the Cabinet of
the Tuileries for dispatching a legion of conquerors
to London, under the banners of BITGEAUD, to fulfil
the predictions of Punch, and to realise the dream of
the Prince DE JOINYILLB.

By a very different style of argument, the op-
ponents of this rather unpleasant hypothesis pro-
test that England has nothing whatever to
dread from the proximity of so many
thousand well-armed and well-disciplined French-
men ; that our position is not a jot more vulnerable
than it was during the days of the Directory or the
Empire ; that, in short, if steam has effected any
appreciable alteration in our regard, as contrasted
with France, it has rendered us, if possible, less
liable to assaults, and more secure from surprises.
True, there are magnificent works, either completed
or in active preparation, at Dunkirk, at Havre, at
Calais, at St. Servan, at Cherbourg, at Indre,
at l'Orient, at Brest, at Rochfort, and at Toulon ;
true, that enormous sums are applied at different
times for the prosecution of these noble undertakings,
such as 26,000,000 francs for the dockyard at Cher.
bourg ; 18,000,000 francs for the breakwater, in all,
44,000,000 francs as a single appropriation.; true,
that an extraordinary credit of 93,000,000 francs was
voted in 1846 by the Chamber of Deputies ; true,
that France has her coasts admirably forti-
fied, her metropolis unassailable, a standing
army of 300,000 men, a vast and effective militia,
and a national guard accustomed to the rules of war,
if not to the rigours of a campaign." In defiance of
all these facts, acknowledging them and parading
them as CARACT*CUS was paraded through the streets
of Rome behind the triumphal chariot of GERMA...
NICUS, the antagonists of those who have originated
these ideas as to our national instability insist that a
moderate augmentation of our present system of de-
fences would be sufficient to render our p)wer terrible,
ourselves unconquerable,ind our island impregnable.
How far these latter arguments are based on reasor
we shall hereafter take into consideration.

A division has taken place among the Young Ire-
lenders that bids fair to occasion a secession from the
Irish Confederation similar to that which took place
from Conciliation Hall about a year and a half since.
Mr. MITCHEL, one of the most eloquent, but also
one of the most indiscreet of the physical force
party, late editor of the Nation newspaper, has again
spoken out and repudiated the timid course "pursued
by his quondam friends and associates. He mani-
festly pines after the honours of martyrdom, and is
taking, the most certain means to attain his object;
AsLila nßCgtiMes...,ttutt,
whose notions are of so warlike a character, who
will not be restrained or remain contented to bide
his time until a fitting opportunity. Mr. Duerr
has already had too painful an experience of official
prosecution, and Lord CLARENDON has too clearly
shown that he will not permit the laws to remain a
dead letter in his hands, and that it is not merely the
misguided wretches who actually commit outrages
and thus subject themselves directly to the penalties
of the law that will be brought to justice, but that
their instigators and abettors of a superior class will
also be compelled to answer before a jury of their
countrymen for any offences of which they may be
guilty. There can be no mistake about Mr. MIT-
CHEL, and he is fully resolved that there shall
be no mistake ; indeed, it is impossible for
any language to be more explicit than that which he
has used. The domestic traitors and the foreign foes
are too clearly indicated ..to admit of any doubt as to
his meaning. Every constitutional mode of ame-
liorating the condition of the Irish people is de-
nounced as a palpable humbug, that should give place
to instant preparation for war, and a regular or-
ganization of a force to resist the domination of the
Saxon enemy. He tells us " that all the symptoms
of landlord nationality, which had deluded us into
the Irish Council, and had kept us vainly moving
the aristocracy in the ranks of their countrymen
were a deliberate fraud—were, in fact, a demon-
stration intended to act upon the English,
and that the Disarming Bill was the first fruit
of a new and more strict alliance between traitors
at home, and foes abroad." He then states what he
wished to have said through the columns of the
Aation, " Sayings which must speedily have led to
very decisive doings," had not Mr. DUFFY wisely
demurred and
,refured to permit the paper, of which
he is the proprietor, to be made the medium for the
publication of such doctrines. He also gives a rather
startling exposition of what he conceives to be" Te-
nant Right," and the only means by which it can be
obtained, in which we doubt not that the views of
many of the frieze-coated assistants of the Holy Cross
demonstration are set forth. We must, however, suffer
the Learned Gentleman to speak for himself. " I
desired (said he) to preach to them that every farmer in
Ireland has a right to his land in perpetuil,
(let law say what it ill)—that no landlord who

denies that right ought to receive any rent—that
tenant-right, however, though the universal right of
all Irish farmers, never had been and never could be
recognised by English law—[we should think not, if
his definition is to be received as the correct one]
that there was and will be no other way of establishing
and securing that right except as in Ulster—by
successful intimidation, that is to say, by the
determined public opinion of armed men ; that
. therefore, the power calling itself a Govern-
ment,' which called on the people of Ireland
to deliver up their arms under any pretext, must he
the mortal enemy of that people, their rights, their
liberties, and their lives. I desired to warn my
countrymen accordingly, that if they should carry
their guns to the police-stations, when ordered by
Lord CLARENDON, they would be putting arms in the
hands of their deadly foes, and committing virtual
suicide. I desired to preach to them that the country
is actually. in a state of war—a war of property'
and t' poverty'—a war of 'law' against ' life
t
hir safety lay, not in trusting to any laws
or legislationtat of the enemies' Parliament, but solely
in their determination to stand upon their own indi-
vidual rights, to (Wend those to the last, and sell
the"i' lives and lands as dear as they could."
This is speaking out with a vengeance. Itwould
indeed be impossible, as the Premier might.
say, to
intimate more plainly Ha intention to violate the law
himself and encourage others to do likewise. There
k no concealment or mental reservation here : the
farmers are to hold their lands in perpetuity ;
any landlord who ventures to dispute this sum- I
[nary alienation of his property is to receive no rent._
I trifling return that for a tim© may be made
merely as a favour is to be withheld, and the right is
t. he secured by " successful intimidation," or, in
uther words,.a repetition and increase of those agra-
rian outrages that have already brought disgrace-on
too many districts, and for the practice of which two