The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-21 00:00:00

ON, TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 21, 1A46.

The case of the unfortunate Danish claimants is to be
again brought forward in the House of Commons on
the 30th by Mr. HAwEs. We trust that his appeal to
the justice of the Government will be met in a spirit
of honesty, and that at length means will be provided to
liquidate the claims of those unfortunate persons, many
of whom have been reduced to the lowest depths
of poverty by the dishonesty, mean, pettifogging
quibbling of various successive Governments. The
Sovereign of ENGLAND is bound by Magna
Charta neither to sell, nor to delay, nor to deny
justice—and our present Gracious SOVEREIGN has, as
far as she herself is concerned, done all in her power
to expedite justice being done to these claimants. In
answer to an address presented to her MAJESTY on the
10th June, 1841, by the House of Commons, praying
" that her MAJESTY would be graciously pleased to ad-
vance to the claimants the amount as ascertained by the
Commissioners to be due, and assuring her MAJESTY
that the House would make good the same." her
MAJESTY, on the 21st June following, was pleased to
return the following answer:—

" It must at all times be my most earnest desire to attend
to the wishes of the House of Commons, and I shall be ready
to give effect to them in this instance, whenever the means
shall have been provided by Parliament."
Her MAJESTY therefore has done her part, but surely
Magna Charta itself is little better than " a mockery, a
delusion, and a snare," when a mere " red tape" beauro-
cracy, upon the plea that there are no special funds
provided to liquidate those claims—a plea as false as it
it is paltry—can thus violate with impunity one
of its most important provisions, and render of no avail
the willingness to do justice of the SOVEREIGN, and the
decision in favour of those demanding it of repeated
majorities of the House of Commons. These claims, it
will be remembered, arise out of the seizure and confis-
cation of British property by the Danish Government in
1807, and were originally divided into three classes : the
first being for loss of debts owing by Danish to British
subjects, sequestered and confiscated ; the second, for the
loss of goods seized on shore; and the third, for that of ships
and cargoes taken within the Baltic. To the two first
of these classes full compensation has been allowed by
the Government. From the third class it has hitherto
been withheld. The House of Commons, in the two
successive sessions of 1838 and 1839, adjudged,
by large majorities, that the claimants of the third
class were equally entitled to compensation with
the other two classes. It was thereupon referred by
the Treasury to certain Commissioners to adjudicate and
report upon the individual cases ; and, after a strict in
vestigation of documentary and other evidence, 116
claims, to an amount in the whole of 225,0001., were, in
1840, reported as established. No steps being taken by
the Government of that day towards the payment of the
sums thus awarded, it was moved, on behalf of the
claimants, on the 9th of June, 1841, that " the
House should resolve itself into a Committee of
the whole House, to consider of an address to her
MAJESIT," which motion, though opposed by the
Government, was eventually carried without a division.
The next day the address to which we have before
alluded was agreed to by the House of Commons, and on
the 21st of June the QUEEN'S answer was returned.
From that time to the present no attempt has been'made
by either the late or the present Government to give effect
to the declared assent of her MAJESTY. Opposed as
they arc to each other on almost every other matter, both
Whig and Tory officials have been hitherto united in this
denial of justice, and it is only by the union of beau-
reaucrats of all parties in opposition to the frequently-
declared sense of the independent Members of bath
sides of the House that justice to these claimants
has been so long delayed. Let us hope, however that a
better spirit is now in the ascendant, and that Sir
ROBERT PEEL will do on this, as he has done on several
recent occasions, sink the official in the st atesman, and
cease to do injustice to these unfortunate claimants.

The accounts from Madrid are to the 14th instant.
Dispatches from General JOSE CONCHA, dated the 11th
inst., had been received. He reports that he met the
insurgent force under General IRIARTE, at Banoza,
about fkaur leagues from Astorga, on that day, that he
engaged them, and totally defeated them, taking 165
prisoners, whom he sent to Lugo. The Governor of
Vigo had reported to the Government that tranquillity
had been completely re•established throughout the pro-
vince. The Gazette of the 14th contains the appoint-
ment
of Don AUGUSTIN ARMANDARIZ to be Royal
Commissioner of the Bank of ISABELLA 11. It also
contains a decree reducing the number of stockbrokers
in Madrid to eighteen.

The ➢ladrid Bolsa was closed on Easter Monday.

We have received the Paris papers of Sunday. The
Moniteur contains the addresses presented by the Cham-
bers of Peers and Deputies, on Saturday, to the KING of
the FRENCH, on his late providential escape from the
assassin's aim, and his MAJESTY'S answers. Duke
PASQUIER before introducing the Peers thus addressed
the KING :
"Sire,—l wait, not to make a speech to the King, but to
present to him the Chamber of Peers, until all the members
shall have entered, and it will be necessary for me to wait a
long time, for they are very numerous. The sentiments of
which their presence here offers you the expression are these
of all France."

His MAJESTY replied:—
" I appreciate the delicacy of the reserve which you impose
on yourself; I am no less sensibly affected by the conduct of
the Chamber of Peers. It knows how much the expression
of its sentiments, always so precious to nee, becomes the
more so under this painful circumstance. Ido not speak of
myself. I only think of the danger which my family in-
curred, and it is very gratifying to me to receive this fresh
proof of the affection of the Chamber of Peers towards me."
Loud cries of " Vive le Roi" arose at the conclusion
of his MAJESTY'S speech.
M. SAUZET, the President of the Chamber of De-
puties, next addressed his MAJESTY in tho following
terms:—

"Sire,—The entire Chamber comes to lay before you its
emotions and its wishes. All opinions, all ranks, press for-
ward to hail your miraculous preservation, as they would
close together to defend you, and to serve as a rampart be-
tween crime and you. bur language, Sire, is the faithful
echo of the country. At this moment a loud cry of indigna-
tion and devotion resounds from one end of the country to the
other. France, that ancient land of loyalty, so hospitable to
the unfortunate, so generous even towards her enemies, rouses
herself at the idea of these dastardly attempts, from which
she believed herself to be for ever free—(Cries of ' Vive le
Roil—but her confidence is not discouraged; she knows
that a wretch may pollute her soil, but cannot endanger her
institutions or dishonour her renown. She knows that assas-
sins are to be found amongst the noblest of nation., as they
might arm themselves against the best of Kings.—(Renewed
cries of ' Vice le Roi.')
" But. He who guards kings and protects nations will not
allow his designs to be thu 3 thwarted ; it is to Him that be-
longs to maintain the great missions which He has given,
and to protect the elected of nations with the inviolability
of his power. He has visibly' stretched forth his hand over
your august person.
" Sire, we bless Providence, we congratulate the country,
we congratulate that Queen whom we see always at your
side, as a devoted companion who shares your dangers, and
as an angel of virtue who wards them off—(Loud cries of
Vive la Rine')—those princes to whom you with confi-
dence deliver over the future welfare of the country and our
liberties; we congratulate the royal child, for the protection
raised over you is a promise to him that it will be permitted
you to finish your task, to form his youth, and to prepare him
by the instruction of your trials, your courage, and the affec-
tion of your people, for the accomplishment of his high
destinies."
The speech of M. SAUZET was followed by a loud and
prolonged burst of applause.
His MAJESTY replied :
"I am too much affected by
you all I hear, too deeply pene-
trated by the sentiments which
ex-
pressed of this numerous assembly have just so warmly
whiCh
surround me, as
well as the Queen, and my family, y sons and my grand-
sons, to express to you the feelings mwhichfilaltmis gyphasesairnt.
leave it to your own hearts to conceive what in
mine, and which I cannot explain to you as I would wish.—
(Cries of Vive le Roi.') You feel, without its being neces-
sary for me to say, what there is painful for me, not in the
danger which I have incurred, but in the idea that my
family were exposed to share those perils. lam happy in
sharing your hope that Divine Providence will continue to
watch over us, and that there will only remain of those
de-
plorable attempts the remembrance of the indignation which
they excite, and the testimonies of affection and devoted-
ness which are poured out around me.— (Renewed cries, of
Vise le Ra.') France knows how much lam devoted to
her. It is for her sake I wish to live, and all my days will
be devoted to her happiness and her prosperity."

The speech of bis MAJESTY was delivered under feel-
ings of great emotion, and at its conclusion was hailed
%ith loud marks of acclamation.

These papers likewise contain various details respect.
ng LECONTE and his crime.

" Lecomte," says the Journal des 'Wats, "arrived
at Fontainbleau at two o'clock in the morning by 1
the Nemours diligence, and after having remained
a short time at an inn, where he drank two glasses
of wine, and partook of some slight refreshment, he set cut
to conceal himself in the forest, and stole into the inclosure,
when ho loy in wail for tho £in* lie raniinini then tin

spreading with fearful celerity among her population ;
burglaries are committed in the open daylight, by mobs
scourged on by bodily distress ; the flames of incen-
diarism redden her skies, such as the one which
recently occurred at Annacotty, while another wretched
man at Cooga is murdered in the highway, like
so many previous victims. Yet this is the precise time
when the representatives of that unfortunate island en-
deavour by every open opposition or petty subterfuge to
retard the interposition of the Legislature in her behalf.
Government dispatches 5001. towards the relief fund
forming at Clonmel, and the Irish Members by an ac-
tion almost simultaneous keep aloof from the Parliament
House, with a miserable hope (which, unhappily for all,
has been realised) that the Commons would not muster
in sufficient numbers to hold a sitting, and to expedite
as far as possible the government of the realm. We
have not language sufficiently powerful to express our
sorrow and our indignation.