The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-31 00:00:00

FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

The correspondence which has just been presented
to Parliament upon the subject of the abrupt dis-
missal of Sir H. BULWEE from his post, by the orders
of the Spanish Government, certainly, throws great
additional light upon the real nature of the question
which this country has to settle with Spain. We are
not privy to the line which the Government may de-
cide upon taking in this matter, but tho papers before
us enable us at once to separate Sir H. BULWRICS
cause from that of the Noble Lord at the head of
the Foreign Department, although knowing the in-
terested attempts which will be made to connect
thou; es well as to make it appear that we are in-

debted to Lord PALMERSTON'S note, of the 16th of
March, for everything unpleasant which has since
occurred in our relations with Spain. We feel sure,
however, that the British public will not be deceived
by the specious arguments with which certain of our
contemporaries have sought to cloud the important
matter at issue, as though the additional sacrifice of a
British Minister were deemed desirable, merely for
the purpose of appeasing the spent insolence of the
despotic Minister of a second-rate power. We must
have, indeed, fallen very low for such a considera-
tion to have any weight ! But with regard to Lord
PALMERSTON'S instructions of March 1 6,for our part we
never saw anything objectionable in that dispatch,
taken as instructions for the guidance of our Minister
at Madrid. It contained, in a few words, the outlines
of a policy which it must be the wish of all parties in
this country to see adopted in Spain ; and, so far from
having been intended to complete the ruin of the sur-
viving parties to the Spanish marriages, it was rather
calculated to conciliate them to the more popular
party, and thus to consolidate Queen Ise asi.La's throne
upon the affections of her people. If offence was
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order, had, by a singular want of self-respect, estranged
from him the respectable Spaniards of all parties.
We feel sure that had Sir H. BULWER waited upon
the Duke: of SOTOMAYOR, and read that dispatch to
his Excellency, assuring him, at the same time,
of the friendly disposition with which he came to re-
present the sentiments of the British Government, the
advice would have been listened to in the same
friendly spirit, even though it were not followed.
Instead of this, however, Sir H. BULWE& was pleased
to make the substance of his intended communication
to the Spanish Government for some days
the subject of his general conversation (by which
means we charitably account for its premature ap-
pearance in the Clamor Publico), and then to forward
it to the Duke of SOTOMATOR, accompanied by a
note, the nature of which was calculated to irritate
that Minister rather than to explain the motives by
which the British Government was animated. We
confess that under these circumstances we cannot be
surprised that offence was taken, although we cannot
but feel hurt that the Spanish Government did not
at once, as it did subsequently, know how to separate
the part of the agent from that of the employer. We
must also feel sorry that in this instance Lord PAL-
mmarrom showed his usual dislike to disavow an
agent who had not actually disobeyed his instruc-
tions. But we now maintain that, with Lord PAL-
MERSTON'S temperate answer to the Duke of SOTO-
MAYOR'S bombastic and indefensible note, all hostile
feeling on the part of the government of Spain to-
wards that of great Britain apparently ceased ; it then
became a purely personal question between the
British Representative and the Spanish Minister, the
notes of the latter chiefly turning upon the share
which the former was said to have had in the publi-
cation in the Clamor Publico. That Sir H. BULWER
was fully sensible to this is shown by the manner in
which he latterly begged the Duke of SOTOMITOR
not to suffer their personal quarrel to exercise any
injurious effect upon the relations between the two
countries.

We next come to the insurrection which broke
out in Madrid on May the 7th. We cannot for a
moment suppose that Sir H. ByLwau can have taken
any part either directly or indirectly in that abortive
attempt on the part of a few misguided soldiers to
revolutionise Spain. lc appears impossible to us that
any British Minister could ever so far forget himself
as to participate in so criminal an undertaking. Yet
such was the discredit into which Sir H. BuLwEa's
general conduct had brought him, that we find him
obliged to defend himself against a public accusation
of having aided and abetted that plot; and, ridiculous
as the charge must be, we have reason to know that
he was generally pointed at as the supplyer of the
" foreign gold" referred to in M. SARTORIITS'S official
proclamation. This, as it were, official accusation led
to a further correspondence of an unpleasant nature,
which so far from conciliating matters tended further
to embarrass the position of her MAJESTY'S represen-
tative, till the insurrection at Seville, in which he
was supposed to have had a hand (we have no doubt
with equal injustice), induced the Spanish Govern-
ment to take the bold step of ordering him to leave
Madrid within forty-eight hours.

Such are the simple facts of the compromising
question, and we ask, in all sincerity, whether there
was anything in Lord PALS ERSTON'S dispatches
which was calculated to bring about such a result ?
We are far from defending the conduct of Queen
ISABELLA'S Cabinet. On the contrary, we think the
tone and matter of the Duke of SOTOMAYOR'S notes
most insolent and unjustifiable. %Vhat can be more
arrogant, for instance, than the pretension which he
puts forward in his last note as justifying his dismis-
sal of Sir 11. EULWER, because that gentleman's
conduct had been condemned (as he is pleased to
state) by the English press and Parliament, as well as
by her Majesty's Government, as though other than
the employer had a right to recal an agent with
whom he might be dissatisfied ? But our limits pre-
vent us from denouncing at present the various pre-
tensions which make the Duke of SOT ()MAYOR'S
notes ridiculous. Our object has been to show that,
however unjust may have been the decision of the
Spanish Cabinet to dismiss a British Minister with-
out previously applying to his Court for his recal, yet
Lord PALMERSTON cannot be considered to have as-
sisted in any way whatsoever in bringing about
this result. W e sincerely hope and believe that Sir
H. BULWER had no connexion with this last out-
break at Seville, which alone was the immediate
cause of his dismissal. We only regret that his
associates should have been of so low a stamp as to
permit such an idea to be for an instant entertained
with respect to a British Minister and gentleman. If
the charge is a false one, as we have already ex-
pressed our confident belief that it is, the Spanish
Government must give all the satisfaction which can
be demanded for so unparalleled an insult to the
British nation. But if the charge be true,—and it is
for the Spanish Government to prove that it is so,—it
will be the duty of the British Government at once to re-
pudiate a Minister who will have brought a disgrace
upon his country, by abetting a factious rebellion
against the SOVEREIGN to whom he was sent as a
friendly counsellor.

We have written these lines without any feeling
of party spirit, and we hope we may have shown
that, whatever course her Majesty Government may
think it best to adopt, the present embarrassing posi-
tion is not one of their own creating.