The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EV 14:N IN G, SE PTEMBF R 26, 1849.

but if the charge be of a felonious character that pri-
vilege is denied, and although all his goods and chat-
tels may be forfeited to the Crown upon his convic-
tion, and his future prospects in life for ever blighted,
he is not permitted to obtain that which is essential to
a fair and impartial trial. The humane theory of
the British law is, that it is better that ninety-nine
guilty persons should escape the punishment due
to their crimes, than that one innocent man should
suffer. In practice, however, innocent men are re-
fused what may be essential to make their innocence
apparent, lest a guilty person might possibly escape,
by the opportunity afforded to his advocate of dis-
covering a flaw in the indictment, if any blot should
actually exist therein. Why should persons be de-
barred from the strictest inquiry into the validity
and legality of the charge, because the results are of
an infinitely more momentous character than any
that could follow an adverse decision in a civil case
or in one of misdemeanour.

Again, the trial by jury is regarded as the great
palladium of an Englishman's liberty. It is his
proudest boast that he cannot be adjudged guilty of
any offence, save on the unanimous verdict of twelve
of his peers, indifferently and impartially selected.
This is a beautiful theory, but how is it carried out in
practice? The sheriff, an officer nominated, with some
rare exceptions, entirely by the Crown, in whose elec-
tion the people have no share, nominates the jurymen as
he thinks proper. We doubt not that this extraordi
nary power is in every instance most impartially and
fairly exercised ; but it may be abused, and in cases of
great political importance the imputation will fre-
quently be made, although perhaps most undeservedly.
Why should not every ground of suspicion be re-
moved by the publication of the jury panel a few days
before the sittings commence, and the delivery of a
copy to every prisoner who chooses to demand it `r
By this means the current of justice will flow pure
and unsullied, and be (as it ought) above the breath
of slander or reproach. •

A banquet—brilliant, political, philosophic, enthu-
aiastic—has at last taken place in the Champs
Elysees. Not the banquet of a few pottering re-
formers, Sprinkled with the demireps of aristocracy,
and variegated by the colours of those statesmen who
degenerate from mob-orators to place-hunters, from
place- hunters to courtiers, and from courtiers down-
wards to the lowest grade of al, the sycophants of
kingcraft. Nothing of all this cast a gloom O‘f.r
the convivialities of the Republicans who, on Friday
afternoon, dined umaer the green trees in the garden
of the Chalet. M. ODILLON BARROT, in the me;
morable spring of the current year, made an appoint-
ment with three millions of men on the Boule-
vards, and failed to keep it. The Parisians
could not easily forget that dereliction of politica!
consistency. No more patchwork improvements fol
1 them l no more cobbling of the old decaying consti-
tution ! nu more extraction of the rotten planks, and
substitution of the sound ones as a compensation for
their eTr aneseence ! The doom of the whole blundering
edifice was pronounced by the heroes of February.
The Past was swallowed in the Revolution. The
Present was a chaos, obscured by confusion, and dark-
ened by doubts, but lit up, nevertheless, with the
gleams of hope, and the meteors cf popularity, and
the flashes of heroism, and the conflagrations
of oratory. As for the Future—it was a
region of dim anticipations, of doubts, and
anxieties, of the joy of confidence and of
the dejection of dread, a vista as fluctuating and
as feebly defined as might have been expected
from the perspective ambition of a volatile and ima-
ginative people. Talk as we may of the extravagance
of some of the leading statesmen of February—of the
despotism of the commissaries sent into the depart-
ments by the Provisional Minister of the Interior, of
the economic hallucinations of LOUIS BLANC, of the
rhetorical rant of Elocoat in the liVorme, and the
subversive Socialism of ALBERT in the Atelier—it
must be confessed that there was at least in these men
a manliness of daring which compensated in some
measure for the total avant on their part of the dig-
nity of virtue or of the grandeur of patriotism. For
these reasons we have watched the character and the
proceedings of the democratic banquet of Friday,
without that inexorable predisposition to suspect and
to abhor which obscures the judgment of those who
are filled with an antipathy for Communism.
After the speech delivcred by the President, Al.
A UDRY DE PLITRA VEAU, in the course of which he
took an oath of fidelity to the Democratic Republic, an
oration was uttered by M. LEDRU ROLLIN, the dis-
tinguished but unpopular member of the Provisional
Government and the Executive Commission. To
deny the eloquence of this oration would be as ridicu-
lous as to deny that its tendency, though obscure and
inferential, was in a very peculiar degree pernicious.
The orator repudiated Socialism, but in the same
breath he adopted its synonym, called Social Repub-
licanism. He reverenced not FOURRIER, but the
ghost of FOURRIER, not Saint Smola, but his sha-
dow, not the Organization of Labour, but the aboli-
tion of competition. He grew impassioned as he
tracked the recollections evoked over the sequence of
fifty-six years when he raised his wine-cup to his lips
and drank To the Anniversary of the 22d September,
1792 ! The Right to Labour ! he exclaimed : Was
that Socialism ? No : it was not Socialism—it was
Republicanism ! The infinitesimal division and dis-
tribution of property ! Was that Socialism ? No : it
was not Socialism—it was Republicanism ? The
equalization of public imposts ! Was that Socialism ?
No : it was not Socialism—it was Republicanism !
The abolition of monastic vows ! Was that Social-
ism ? No : it was not Socialism—it was
Republicanism ! " Yes ! it is Republicanism !" he
exclaimed, "it is Republicanism! and the adver-
saries of the true Republic are aware that that Re-
public, if once rooted in the morals of the country,
cannot be overthrown." A sophism, that—and a
sophism to our thinking as tawdry and hollow as any
one of those shallow dogmas which have been horn
from the soul of an unprincipled ambition. For a
man who insinuates the spoliations of the rich, to talk
of the morals of the country ! For a man who
hints at the despotism of the rabble over
the conscience, to talk, forsooth, of the
morality of his proposed institutions ! But enough
of this brawling affectation of justice—this flimsy
pretence of humanity--this tinselled mask of pa..
triotism. The violence of the sentiments enunciated
on Friday evening, in the gardens of the Chalet and
in the Champs Ely-sees, by M. LEDRU ROLLIN, has
done more to damage his reputation as a Republican
statesman than the insolence of his circulars or the
tyrannical behaviour of his commissaries. Hence-
forth his name will never be whispered among
those of the practicable politicians capable of
securing the :salvation of the Republic. He can
never regain power except by building up for
himself a new popularity; and to acquire a new po-
pularity, it is necessary for him to repudiate almost
every act of his past career. History will pre-
serve his name among those men who, by a glo-
rious display of courage, or rather by a magnificent
ebullition of audacity, saved France on the 24th of
February. The glory of that event will pre-
serve his name to posterity, but the frivo-
lity of his ideas, and the rashness of his
philosophy, will cover the subsequent incidents of his
biography with the pall of oblivion, that pall which
conceals nothing but baseness and corruption. M.
LEDRU ROLLIN has had opportunity enough to be a
great man, and has been, without courage enough to
render himself a bad man—he was shot up into cele •
brity, almost by accident, and in obedience to all the
laws of moral and intellectual gravitation, is now
falling into the depths of insignificance.

SPAIN.

Madrid journals of the 20th have arrived.

General CORDOVA and his staff arrived at Barce-
lona on the 17th. The General immediately assumed
the command of the province of Catalonia. It was
arnouneed in Madrid that AMETTLER, at the head of
400 men, had entered Catalonia.

MADRID BOLsA, LPT. 19.—Three, 19 15-16 i ;
Fives, 104 d ; Exchange on London, 47 80 cash.

ROYAL SAPPERS AND DIINERS.—The 12th com-
pany of this branch of the Ordnance corps were medi-
cally inspected at the Ordnance Hospital on Friday last,
fLocl their baggage put on board the Princess Royal,
hired transport ship at Woolwich, on Saturday, and the
company under the command of Captain Baillie, R.E.,
will embark to-day, Monday, September 25, for Gib-
raltar, to relieve the 11th company under the command
of Captain Ilutehinson, stationed at Gibraltar since
June, 1842. ,

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
Prince LOUIS NAPOLEON arrived on Sunday even-
ing.. No attempt was made to disturb the public
tranquillity, as the preparations of General CAVAIG-
NAC were so complete as to render all such attempts
hopeless.
The speech of M. LEDRU ROLLIN at the Chalet is
regarded by almost all the moderate papers as a
declaration of war against society.
The Journal des Debats says:—
" The speech of M. Ledru Rollin is not precisely a
chef d'ceuvre, but as it has been put forth as a pro-
gramme of the future, it is well to know to what we are
proceeding.
" To what, therefore, are we to come, or rather what
would be our fate if . Ledru Rollin had the guidance
of affairs ? To a general war and assignats. That
is not only the result, hut it is the avowed object of
the programme of M. Ledru Rollin. The old mem-
ber of the Provisional Government remarks with
great severity on the foreign policy pursued by the
present Government ; he announces that he will
speak more fully elsewhere ; but he has already
said enough to convince us that he has nothing in his
head but revolutionary propagandism. With regard
to the domestic policy pursued, M. Ledru Rollin ex-
presses his views on financial affairs, and chooses as his
model the great citizen," Camber. That name is too
closely connected with the system of assignats to be rea-
dily forgotten, and a reference to the Illoniteur will in-
form us of all his propositions on the subject of assignats,
forced loans, suspension of the payment of pensions, &c.
There is nothing in all this to quiet uneasiness; and
when speaking of the subject, M. Ledru Rollin exclaims
with enthusiasm, 'May we not find another Cambon?'
" But M. Ledru Rollin asks other very indiscreet
questions. For instance, he demands what has been
done for the people since February? It is not for us to
reply; but had we to do so, we should say like every ono
else,' Aloney has been wanting.' But to this M. Ledru
Rollin observes, that he could never comprehend that
objection. lie is very fortunate. Let him then address
himself to M. Goudchaux, or even to M. Gamier Peps
and M. Duclerc, to all finance Ministers; past, present,
and to come, always excepting a Cambon, and ask
them if they understand it. But that is of no cense •
quence. Our fathers,' he said, ' lived by expedients,
and it is thus that all revolutions aro supported.'
Such, therefore, is the programme of the future. A great
country must live like a spendthrift, from day to day ;
making bills, and doubling the expense in proportion as
he devours his capital. What a future. But it is said,
at such or such a period, in times of great embarrass-
ment, millions and even milliards have been found.
That is true. There is a great eichymist—credit ; there
is a philosopher's stone— ivbieli is confidence. But cor-
thieuce cannot be command 'd. You may apply to It
what has been said of a woman,
She is like your
shadow; fly from her, and she follows you ; follow her,
and she flies from you.' You complain that money has
been concealed—that there must, after thirty years of
peace, be plenty of it, and that it must be found. Seek
it then, ye searchers after measures. It will hide itself
in the bowels of the earth from whence it first came, and
yeti will be reduced like the great citizen Cambon to
make laws against it—and that is what is called a pro-
:,raaitue for the future—and you do not observe that it
is only the deplorable and vulger prospectus of the past!
We know of no greater reaetionist than M. Learn
Rollin ; when he speaks we think we are listening to
e voltigeur of '93. What Frederick William wished, to
do for the middle aces, M. Ledru Reign wished to effect
for the Convention, and it is well known how the thing
succeeded beyond the Rhine.
" The great object or 111. Ledru Rollin is to make
reputlcanism enter into our habits, but we humbly
opine that different manners may be adopted for effecting,
it. When he was Minister of the Interior he endea-
voured by his circulars and his commissaries to instil bis
own ropublican ideas into the habits of the people. We
doubt whether he has had reason to congratulate himself
on his efforts, and we think he must have learnt that it
is not for the country to make :itself the image of the
Republic, but for the Republic to become the image of
the country."
It would appear from the Constitutionnel that the
spoken speech was even more violent than the pub-
lished one. That journal says :
" The speech delivered by M. Ledru Rollin at the
banquet at the Chalet, on the anniversary of the French
Republic, was, it is said,:before publication very much
corrected and softened down. This is scarcely to be
credited, for even in his well-known circulars has he
ever given way to more violence of expression. What
is here called right of labour, forced loan paper money,
&c., is nothing more nor less than universal war with all
its consequences, and that is the happiness which M.
Ledru Rollin promises to France in the name of the true
Republic."
It is abundantly evident that LEDMI ROLLIN is
now willing to go to the extremest lengths of Com-
munism in order to gratify his hatred of the moderate
Republicans.
In the Reforme of yesterday we find the following
attempt to excite the Communists and Red Repub-
licans to another rising. In large characters there
appears :—" Eighth Bulletin of the Republic of IS4B.
Departure of the transported (insurgents)." Here
follows a dismal account of the departure of 550 in-
surgents for Havre, in the midst of rain and storm.
Then comes the following bulletin, equally in large
print :—" Other Bulletin of the Republic of 1848.
Fete at the President's of the National Assembly.
The musical part of the fete given this evening by
the President of the National Assembly will be com-
posed of a fragment of Eden, of Christopher Co-
lumbus, by DAVID, and of an air of the Favorite,
sung by Mdlle. LAMORCIERE. ‘Vive la Repub-
lique.' "

We find the following resume of the present state
of parties in France in the SRcle :
" We are far from considering as well founded the
alarms which at present are felt in the public mind; we
must not, however, deceive ourselves by illusions; the
violent party does not consider itself as vanquished; far
from being broken by the late events, they are still
closely united; they have the cohesion and the discipline
of an army, and they march forward with boldness to the
accomplishment of their designs. Let it not, therefore,
be forgotten that there are sixty thousand men, all ene-
mies of social order, animated by mad passions against
the National Assembly, and keeping up amongst them-
selves the most intimate relations, and that they may be
on foot either to vote or to combat on the first signal
from their invisible chiefs, and ready, for the purpose of
securitg the triumph of their Utopian schemes, to range
themselves under any standard of insurrection that may
be unfurled.
"There arc many honest citizens who are discontented
with the Republic, which has not, we confess, been as yet
calculated to inspire them with much enthusiasm,:and very
well disposed, as they say, to receive pretender, provide d
he presents himself under favourable circumstances, and
surrounded with a respectable cot (eye. This class ofcitiaens
await Louis Napohon, doing him the injustice to sup
pose that he will prefer the character of as adventurer
to that of a devoted citizen. Others would prefer the
Prince de Joinville, whose foresight, if he had been free
or more influential, would have saved the late govern-
ment from its faults, and from their attendant ruin.
Others, again, feel convinced that the restoration of
Henry V. is inevitable; others, again, in their impatience
and discouragement, would be it sliced to accept the first
comer. But let all who entertain those ideas reflect
that at the back of any movement that might be made
by any party there would bo found the army of So-
cialists, ready to turn: their demonstrations and their
efforts to their own advantage, and to trample every
standard in the dust and in blood, in order to raise their
own red flag on the ruins of our city. Let all who feel
impatient and discontented bear these reflections well in
mind. To them we would say, 'France, if united, will
triumph over every peril which may threaten her.'
The Moderate party in the country is endowed with
strength and intelligence; let it continue to be just, firm,
and vigilant, and it sill have nothing to fear from fac-
tions. The Republic is France—it is us. France will
have the government which she thinks best suited to her
interests, and of which she will be worthy."

The National announces that 4,000 French troops
have landed at Venice from four steam-frigates.
In the same journal we find an article warning the
Vienna Ministry and their Archduke JOHN that their
reactionary intrigues are discovered.

"Does Austria, for instance," asks the National," be-
lieve that we are ignorant of what is passing at Vienna ?
Do we not know that the mediation, at first refused, was
only accepted at the instances cf the Ministers of Holland
and Belgium, and with a view to gain time ? Do we
not know that the project of the Cumarilla was to begin
by crushing Hungary, and then to return with all its
forces, not against Italy, but against Vienna, where the
democracy has broken down all impediments?"
"Does the Assembly at Frankfort, discredited amongst
the Germans themselves, hope to deceive us ? Let it
try, then, to push liberal Germany against us. As for
Prussia, we know that her King feels too uneasy about
his own throne to be thinking of us. Russia remains—
this flaming sword of absolutism, supreme hope of the
phantom of an Emperor that the Archduchess Sophia
rules from Schoenbrunn. Russia? She has a numerous
army but little money ; and even if she possessed ex-
haustless treasures, they would be neutralized by the
fear of putting her troops in contact with the west.
Tho Czar dreads ideas more than artillery. Let war
break out and Gallicia, which out of horror of Austria
(another insult to Austria) spreads her arms to him,
would, as well as Posen, be occupied by Russian troops,
but they would advance no farther. And what do Hun-
gary and Bohemia, crushed but not enslaved, wait in
order to proclaim their entire independence ? The signal
of war."

" A high Prussian functionary said to the one of our-
selves a few days ago, and he ;is a an not disposed to
accept the republic, ' Before a year is about, no matter
what happens, the different German states will be formed
into a republic, not into a single republic, but into a se-
ries of Republics united ay a federal link. And that
which will provoke this general revolution will be the
ntry of a French army into Italy.'
"If these words, emanating from a man so well placed
for appreciating circumstances be true, the miserable
same played by Austria may retard her fall, but will not
save her. A law superior to all poli'ical cembinations
rules European affsirs. The old monarchical mould is
broken, and everything tends in the world towards the
constitution of the uniTersal democracy."