The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-09 00:00:00

THE SIT N, LONDON,

first to last has been (so to speak) literally permeated
with treason. "If I fail," said the Honourable and
Learned Gentleman, in one part of his observations,
"If l fail," said he, " in prosecuting the Noble Lord,
there is no censure, no chastisement which this House
has legally the power to inflict which I shall not most.
richly deserve." Air. ANSTEY is quite correct; and,
we trust that this, his voluntary declaration, will not
be very :speedily forgotten. He will in that event
have most richly deserved the severest censure and
the heaviest chastisement the House of Commons can
inflict—firstly, because he will have wasted the time
of the public which is just now inexpressibly
valuable; and, secondly, because he will have calum-
niated the name and assailed the reputation
of a distinguished public man—a name and a reputa-
tion which are the property of the people and of

history.
It is by no means difficult to discover the ori3in
of this flagrant onslaught upon the Foreign Secrets ry.
The reason is as transparent as the personal hostility
of Mr. URQUHART. Mr. ANSTEY is as much t;he
victim of a monomaniacal rage against Lord PA.1..-
MERSTON as good, simple Mr. PLUMPTRE is affliet;ed
with what the Right Honourable and Learned Gen-
tleman the. Master of the Mint called on
Monday evening—Hebrewphobia. But in the case
of the Member for Y oughal there is this
secondary incitement—(an incitement which deprives
us of all commiseration in his madness)—bis
diseased anxiety to render himself suddenly con-
spicuous. In striving to achieve for himself a cur-
tain amount of popularity by such an adventure as
the one we have just indicated, Mr. ANSTEY has made
a grievous and, we cannot but think, an irreparable
blunder. In struggling to become all at once poi--
manently important he will only render hitmelf
momentarily notorious. lie is making an unwhole-
some effort to be the object of general admira-
tion, and in so doing he is only ensuring to
himself an universal ridicule. Instead of displaying
his own strength by Lord PALMERSTON's wealin6ss,
he will reveal his utter insignificance when contrasted
with the virile energies of his opponent. He is
straining the thews of his intellect—in vain—to bend

;he colossal bow of an Ulysses—let him beware

that in the midst of his futile exertions he be not
himself felled to the dust by the shaft discharged
from a bow as subtle and as potent as that of Cupid!
Mr. ANSTEY should bear this in his recollection, that
as a young and inexperienced Member of the
National Legislature, it ill becomes him to assail a
statesman whose reputation was ripened into celebrity
before his own fingers had done with the deleclus and
the lexicon. Already we should hope that the re-
presentative of Youghal has seen the magnitude of
his mistake—from the contemptuous unanimity with
which the Members walked out into the lobby when
his speech commenced, and from the ignominious
celerity with which the House was counted out bo-
fore its conclusion.

The obstinacy of the King of NAPLES has forwarded
the cause of constitutional liberty in Italy. By his
refusal to imitate the examples of the POPE, the King
of SARDINIA, and the Grand Duke of TUSCANY, who
wisely placed themselves at the head of the reform
movement from the first, and were thus enabled wisely
and peacefully to prepare the way for a gradual and
safe transition from a despotic to a constitutional form
of government, the King of NArLEs placed himself
in direct antagonism with the spirit of nationality
which is developing itself throughout Italy with a
force, against which, eventually, even the bayonets of
Austria will be of no avail ; and the consequence has
been, as every one of common observation must have
foreseen, that he has been utterly defeated, and forced
to go much further even than those whose examples
he scorned to imitate. He has been forced to
give to his people a constitution, and thus
Naples, which, a month since, was the most
retrograde of the Italian States is now the most ad-
vanced in the onward march of progress. It is a
curious coincidence that, on the very day, and
almost at the very hour M. GUIZOT was pro-
claiming in the Chamber of Deputies his conviction
that the question of giving constitutions to the
Italian States would not arise for the next fifty
years, and that therefore it was absurd for the pre-
sent generation to trouble themselves about that
which could only concern their posterity, it is, we
repeat, a singular coincidence that at that very mo-
ment
the King of NAPLES should have been in the
act of proclaiming a constitution, and of thus raising
the very question which M. GUIZOT (by whose ad-
vice the King of NAPLES, it is said, has acted in
refusing all reforms) so complacently, imagined he
had succeeded in shelving. The success of the Nea-
politan movement will give rise to very grave compli-
cations in the affairs of Italy ; and we trust that
the leaders of the Neapolitan nation will be
enabled to guide it so as to avoid giving
any pretence for foreign interference. It is clear
that they must rely on themselves alone, for the
KING cannot ,be trusted, and will rather be a spy
and a betrayer of their counsels to Austria, an
urger on to deeds of violence by which they may
commit themselves:than, as CHARLES ALBERT iS,, a
friend and a leader in whom they may repose confi-
dence, or a moderator on whose integrity and good
with the most implicate reliance may be placed, if
they need advice, they should rather seek it from the
Porn, and from the King of SARDINIA, or from the
Grand Duke of TUSOINT, than from their own
SOVEREIGN. We cannot forget that in 1821 the
the❑ King of NAPLES played precisely the same part
that is being played at this moment by the present
KING, and that he afterwards betrayed the constitu-
tion he had sworn to defend, and, backed by Austrian
troops, persecuted all those who had been instru-
mental in freeing their country. That the same dis-
position exists on the part of the present KING it is
impossible to doubt, and there is still the same secret

article of the treaty of 1815 to authorise Aus-
trian intervention in the affairs. of Naples
now as then ; but inasmuch as we believe the Austrian
Government is perfectly aware that there are cases in

which "discretion is the better part of valour," we are

not very apprehensive of any immediate attempt on
the part of Prince 111ETTERNICII to put down the
cause of constitutional liberty in Naples. In the first
place, we believe he would find considerable difficulty
in transporting his army to the scene of action. Pius
IX. would most assuredly not imitate the example of
Pius VII., in giving a free passage to the Austrian
troops through the States of the Church, neither
could Austria reckon on the assistance of Sardinia or
Tuscany to keep Lombardy quiet. Not a soldier,
therefore, could Austria spare from Lombardy to as-
sist the King of NAPLES in coercing his subjects.
The withdrawal of any considerable portion of
Austrian troops from the Lombardo-Venetian
kingdom would be the signal for an outbreak, which
would receive moral, at least, if not physical support,
from every Italian state bordering on the Austrian
dominions. Neither can any large force be spared
from any other portion of the Austrian possessions.
Bohemia, Hungary, Gallicia, are only retained in
their allegiance by the presence, in each of them,
of an overwhelming Austrian force, from which not
a single soldier can be spared ; and as Austria has no
money, and has recently been refused a loan, it is
not probable that she will be enabled to levy any
fresh
troops for the purpose of aiding the King of NAPLES.
pru:Ndaelneees' atnliderfre
fierornnes has 3 to i
workt n oin h
ot
it
her
rr
epwowher,by
rege-
neration, and to take a leading part in working out
the regeneration of the wh I •0 c Italian nation.

The cause of the people
of
rs eompletely triumphant
at Naples. The Minister
Police,me C A R R
the
eDLe Oeisp,
(at tar hashtt
policeee.
Depart-
ment. been dismissed, and the manageut
transferred to the Minister for the Nome
nt. BOZZELLI, who was a Councillor
under MURAT, and to whom has been entrusted of
care of drawing up the new constitution. T
is very popular, and has frequently addressed itici
the
people, explaining to them the nature of the consti-
tutione he proposes to grant.
The civil war still continues in Sicily. The inha.
bitants of Palermo have attacked the forts and driven
the troops from them with great slaughter, so that
at present Palermo and its fortifications are coin-
prii
citiesot ro, iy in the hands of the insurgents. The troops
have retired some miles from Palermo into the inte-
wuhi tnah:l, under
etle insurgents,lrlfotlhvieconditions:h
ALs,sina and several other
1 example of Palermo, and are
now in open revolt.

The EING has offered to hold the Sessions of the