The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-03 00:00:00

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DEATH OF MR. P. M. STEWART, M.P. FOR REN-
FREwSHIRE.—In our publication of this day fortnight we
noticed the dangerous illness of the lion. Member for
the county, but in the hope that he was past danger, and
in the way of recovery. From that period Mr. Stewart
lingered on in a very dangerous state, but still leaving
his aged mother, and the circle of near relations who at-
tended him, with occasional glimpses of hope that he
might recover, till about the beginning of the present
week, when the fatal symptoms of the disease continued
more markedly to develop themselves, and yesterday
morning at eight o'clock he expired. There are few men
in the country whose death would be more generally re-
gretted than that of Mr. Stewart ; or who, as active po-
liticians, will leave fewer enemies behind them. In the
House of Commons Mr. Stewart took a prominent part
in the discussion of every public question that wrs
brought forward ; and we have heard it admitted by
Members of the House, that no other representative
from Scotland possessed the same influence in it as the
Member for Renfrewshire. The deceased gentleman was
active and most judicious as a man of business ; atten-
tive to his duty, and his affability and good humour,
accompanied with an incessant flow of unlaboured wit,
secured deference at all times for his remarks, and
kept all around him, including his opponents, in the
best of humour. In addition to filling the distinguished
post of representative for his native county, Mr. Stewart,
at the time of his death, was chairman of
.the Oriental
Steam Navigation Company, vice-president of the Lon-
don Scottish Society, an institution which ranks the
highest names in the land amongst its directors ; and
was also, now or recently, chairman of the West India
Steam Navigation Company, the London and Westmin-
ster Bank, a director of the Caledonian Railway,-and
many other institutions. The late lamented Member was
a decided Liberal in his religious, as well as in his poli-
tical views. He was one of the ablest and most unflinch-
ing supporters of the Free Church movement, both in the
House of Commons and in private life. So far, and so
disinterestedly, did he carry his opinions on this subject,
that he gave much offence to many of his best friends
during the non-intrusion controversy, and by several of
/hem was considered to have perilled his return to Par-
liament in the cause. In this county, the notice of Mr.
Stewart's severe illness, and now of his decease, has
been received by a universal expression of sorrow.
Rich and poor, men of all ranks of life and of every
shade of political opinion, mingle in one general feeling
of regret at seeing a gentleman possessed of such great
and varied qualifications cut off suddenly, in the midst
of his usefulness and in the very prime of his life. Mr.
Stewart was unmarried, and only 48 years of age.—
Glasgow Post.
DOTAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS.—The
first meeting for the session was held yesterday evening
at its rooms in Grosvenor-street, when the chair was
*
tak
)resident en by Earl De Grey, the president. The Noble
having addressed the meeting in a few pre-
fatoty observations, several donations were announced
the
differenntri3
aefoetal7, amfongst which were nine drawings of
Anson
nitaat
peiustice at New York, and one of
the model
thneusvania. The Dean of West-
minster exhibited to meetingA. a well-executed model
in cork of Westminster.
a!abey, which excited an inte-
resting discussion
thelkatllialytthaetructure. Mr. Donaldson
expressed his hope
,ion of a sre some-
erec
thing congenial might be
Rouses
Of Parliament, and to where such the adjacent
been atteaction would be
an interesting relief. It had
considered
that the piers would be too weak for sucho
but these might be enlarged wogitahla gre„ateartrnew eight;
while the addon of a spire d give to the ediflegg—at;
ecclesiastical character, whereas tt now had nothing butn
towers. Dr. Buckland, in reply, stated that the cathedral
was scarcely susceptible of any such required alteration,
as whatever fresh enlargements for the support of the
spire in the interior were required, would entirely de-
stroy its architectural effects,

THE SPANISH MARRIAGES.
(From the Times.)
We might accept with satisfaction the coiesprmaiit
which the French Government has thought fit to pay
our information and our influence, if it were not wholly
inconsistent with truth, honesty, and reason. If we are
to believe the Debats, it was the declaration made by
this journal on the 7th of August which removed all the
scruples of the French Government, revealed the whole
perfidy of the Foreign. office, and hurried on the mar-
riages of the Spanish Princesses to their unseemly and
untoward consummation! Our article of that date,
which occasioned some sensation in Europe, was sup-
posed at the time to have disclosed and denounced de-
signs on the part of France, upon suspicions which sub-
sequent events have shown to be too well founded. We
have certainly no reason to regret the language we em-
ployed on that occasion ; for, if it appeared at the time
to be vehement and premature, it is now demonstrated
that it was, on the contrary, too late so prevent the
evil, and far too feeble to brand this policy of
treachery and deceit as it deserved. The course
of King Louis Philippe has, since that time, been
" dragged to light from the recesses of diplomatic
intrigue." Need we add that it has incurred, as
we predicted, " the censure of Europe, and the resent •
merit of Spain ?" But it seem; according to the last
discovery of the organ of the Tuileries, that our object
in writing as we did at that time was not to put Spain
and Europe on their guard against the intrigues of Louis
Philippe, but to celebrate with the utmost publicity the
triumphs of Lord Palmerston's policy for a directly op-
posite purpose. We are to be regarded as the confede-
rates of the Foreign Secretary, for the express purpose
of betraying his secret intentions; and Lord Palmerston
is accused of conducting an underhand negotiation by
publishing it in our columns. It is needless to repeat
that the whole spirit and purport of the article of the 7th
of August was to defend the independence of the Queen
and monarchy of Spain which has since been so
foully trampled on and outraged. We know not
how far Lord Palmerston may at that time have
shared the opinions we expressed ; we only know,
that if he did share them at that time, the Foreign
Minister of England would not have chosen a public
journal as his only or his chief weapon, and it is
notorious we have never had the slightest pretensions
to his confidence. But in the whole of this transaction,
down to the minutest details in which we are ourselves
mixed up, it is not difficult to trace the unscrupulous
efforts of the French Government and the French press
to extract from the most trifling incidents proofs of in-
tentions which never had any real existence at all. To
carry their own plot into execution, and to justify the
secrecy and violence .by which alone it could be con-
summated, they required an alleged counter-plot on the
part of England. Nothing wan so much desired at the
Tuileries as that England should openly or decidedly
espouse the cause of the Coburg Prince, since that would
have left the French Court at liberty to throw on us the
whole burden of the treachery which now rests on
themselves. No means have been left untried to give a
character of reality to what is now a hollow pretext.
Queen Christina herself made direct overtures not only
to the late Administration but to the present one,
professing her readiness and her desire to effect the
Coburg marriage, provided she had the support of Eng-
land.
We believe that those proposals were courteously but
positively rejected by Lord Palmerston, as they had been
by Lord Aberdeen. The British Government declined
to interfere, and it acted wisely. There is now great
reason to believe that these overtures of Christina in
favour of the Coburg Prince were intended as a trap for
the English Government; and that if Lord Palmerston
had unwarily lent himself to any such negotiation the
Queen Mother would have turned the tables upon him,
and left him in the lurch, whilst France would have ac-
quired a real justification of the marriage, instead of a
flimsy pretext and a clumsy invention. The scheme was
worthy of M. Bresson, and of the master he serves. It
was defeated, not by the subtle penetration of the
Ministers, to whom these insidious overtures were made,
for at that time they bad not learned to rank the states-
men and diplomatists of France among the falsest of
their race and profes.ion, but simply by the indifference
of the British Government to the cause of a Prince
whose success or failure was a matter of no concern to
us. If Queen Christina had really chosen to send for
the Coburg Prince to Madrid, he required no passport
from England. The whole artifice, therefore, failed;
and it only deserves to be recorded in the • his-
tory of this transaction, that the only persen by whom
the Coburg suitor was seriously brought forward was
Queen Christina herself. Meanwhile, however, the
French Government, eagerly intent on the complete
fulfilment of their plans, hurried onwards, relying on
the chapter of accidents to furnish them with some scrap
of an apology. The accident of Lord Palmerston's
basing named the Coburg Prince first, in a dispatch in
which he enumerated the rival suitors, and the appear-
ance of our own observations on the 7th of August, in
which we demonstrated that the Coburg Prince had
nothing in common with the royal family of England,
were seized upon as important dieclorures of a design to
wrest the throne of Spain from the descendants of Philip
V. We are indeed now enabled to comprehend the im-
moderate importance which was attached by the French
official press to our own remarks on that occasion. They
were at first directly attributed to a leeding member of
the English Cebiner, end when we had dis-
posed of that falsehood, they were as falsely
described as a species of Downing street ma-
nifesto. The intention of this and many similar
exaggerations is new perfectly evident. It was thought
that they might be used hereafter as proofs of duplicity
on the part of Lord Pannerston ; and our article is now
deliberately brought forward by the JGurnal des Debats
for this very purpose. The whole structure of this in-
vention is as loose and groundless as the allegation it is
intended to support. If the whole defence of the policy-
of Louis Philippe rests on the alleged preference of the
British Government for Prince Leopold of Coburg, it is
false, not only in the whole, but in every part. Yearn
may roll by, and half a century may pass, before another
sovereign or ano:her generation of princes yet unborn
ascends the throne of Spain ; and it is beyond the grasp
of our statesmanship to embrace the revolutions nud
changes which the world may have witnessed before the
dreams of French ambition are realised, and the subjec-
tion of the Spanish people achieved. But no lapse of
time and no change of events can obl:terate from the
memory of this generation, or from the pages of
history, the indeliWe blot which this transaction has
attached to the good faith and good name of Louis
Philippe and his Ministers. They set hut little value on
the respect and esteem of the people of England, since
they did not hesitate to sacrifice them to the gratifica-
tion of their pique against a particular Minister of this
country, and to the acquisition of a sullen triumph and
an uncertain future in Spain. The marriages which are
Just consummated are, however, but the first acts in this
passage of history. Their consequences will be deve-
loped hereafter. The first of them, the most certain,
and perhaps the most important, is the destruction of
that confidence in, and consideration for the rulers of
France, which has for many years been the true basis of
the general peace. As they have succeeded in their
political contrivances, so they have sunk in the estima-
tion not only of England but of Europe; and the sternest
enemies of the dynasty of Orleans have now reason to
boast that it has justified their opinion of its character.