The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-15 00:00:00

Altieldn Atit

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1846.

The anxiously expected decision in the case of
IVALSTAB C. SPOTTISWOODE, has at lengeth been
attained. The Court of Exchequer, on Friday, pro-
nounced their unanimous judgment through the
Lord Chief Baron, and that judgment and the rea-
sons therefore are perfectly decisive, as to the hitherto
vexata questio, the liability of the allottees of shares to
contribute to the expenses of the abortive railway
schemes. It will be seen that it fully bears
out the anticipations that we have from
time put forward with respect thereto, although no
decision has yet been given in the other important
case of WTOOLMER v. TOBY. The judgment of the
Court of Exchequer is perfectly decisive as to that

case also, and the several provisional committeemen
must now prepare themselves to bear the entire ex-

penses of the abandoned undertakings, to withdraw
from the numerous actions so rashly insti-
tuted, paying to the defendants the costs
thereof, and to make arrangements for the re-
turn of the full amount of the deposits to such of
the allottees as had, in pursuance of the demands
made on them, paid the same without drawback or
deduction of any kind. Few will be disposed to pity
those who authorised the commencement of actions
with the hope of extorting from the fears of the par-
ties interested that which they could not obtain from
their justice. They did not do so without
having been clearly and explicitly warned as to the
probable consequences to themselves likely to result
from such a reckless course. On Friday, March the
20th, the verdict at Exeter was delivered, in the
case of WooLmER v. TOBY. The following Monday
we stated in The Sun the difficulties that existed ;
and that we could not believe that the verdict
could be allowed to stand. Nothwithstanding
that caution not a day was lost by the acting
managers in availing themselves of the apparent
sanction afforded to their claims, and letters innume-
rable were forwarded to the several allottees, calling
their attention to that case, which they said settled
the question of their liability, and threatening im-
mediate proceedings for the full amount of the de-
posit unless a certain specified sum (and generally
ss. additional for the cost of the letter of application)
should be paid within a short time. On the

28th March The Sun contained an article clearly
showing that no decision whatever had been given,
that the important points imk)lved in that case had

been merely placed in train for an argument before
the full Court, that it might receive the calm and de-
liberate consideration so essentially necessary to a
sound conclusion, and we also pointed out the reason
why judgment was nominally entered for the plain-
tiffs on the occasion, viz., that no injury
could , be thereby occasioned to any per-
son if the plaintiffs were wrong, whereas
great hardship would be inflicted on them if right in
their demand, and that the points had been ruled at
Nisi Prius in favour of the defendant. We also
showed why the allottees should not be held responsible
for any portion of the preliminary expenses, if the un-
dertaking were not proceeded with, and stated the
broad principle, " that where persons set a scheme on
foot, and assume to be the managers
of it, all the expenses incurred before the scheme
is in actual operation must be sustained by them,
if that scheme should afterwards be abandoned." It

will be seen that the Lord Chef Baron in his
judgment, quoted and approved of that principle, and
founded an important part of his judgment thereon.
We afterwards repeatedly urged the same subject,
and called upon the directors and managers, who were

[ending their names to the commencement of litiga-
tion, by which their expenses and liabilities

must be fearfully increased, to pause ere
they plunged into such a difficult and
doubtful course, and at least to await the final result
of either of the two great cases. But in vain—" Quod
Deus vat perdere, priusquamdementat"—hundreds o

actions were actually commenced ; too many, terrified
at the effect which such proceedings might have on
their future prospects, were induced to effect cam-
promises, and to pay large sums in order to escape
from further annoyance; but a vast number,
we have been assured, were through our state-
ments led to resist the unfounded demands,
and have thus saved their property. The
unseemly haste with which the proceedings were insti-
tuted, the urgency of the demands, and the threats
with which they were attempted to be enforced,
were in themselves sufficient t 8 satisfy any one of
ordinary sense, that the parties were themselves con-
scious of the we akness of their cause. The judg-
ment of the Court establishes that there was no part-
nership existing, inasmuch as the prospectus having
held out that there were to be a certain number

of shares, and a certain deposit on each ; a
smaller number only had been paid upon,
and on the authority of PITCHFORD V. DAVIS, where
it was held that a party could not be considered

liable as a partner unless he knew and sanctioned the
deviation from the terms of the prospectus, and of
NOKKELLS v. CROSBY, already mentioned, no part-
nership could be said to exist between the parties.
The Court also laid down the important rule, " that
an allotment of shares in an abortive scheme is not a
compliance with t application, which must be
taken, of course, to have been for shares in a bond
fide railway ; they then stated that there could be no
pretence at all to retain any portion of that part of the
deposit which was intended to meet the standing
orders of Parliament, the ten per cent. on the amount
of the shares, And they also stated that the 2s. 6d.
per share, which was apparently demanded for the
preliminary expenses, must be returned in full.
Nothing can be clearer or more decisive on the entire
point. We verily believe that there is not a single case
of claim against an allottee that will not be governed
thereby. _We may now congratulate the person
threatened with proceedings on a satisfactory ter-
mination being put thereto, and on his mind being
relieved from the feverish anxiety he endured while

tthheeltaawki:vg ayasawinan unsettled and doubtful state ; and
we do think that nothing more beneficial could have
happened to the provisional committeeman himself than
the fallacious and unwarranted hopes
by which he has hitherto been sustained, the enabling
him to view his real position in all its stern realities,
that he may thus be induced no longer to procras-
tinate, but to take such steps as may be sufficient to
extricate himself from his unpleasant position. The
certainty of any loss, however great it may be, if
within his means, will be far better than the hope
deferred, w hich sickens the heart ; the habits of idle-
ness, or perhaps worse, which he may acquire during
an absence on the Continent, and the destruction of
his professional
sio
by
the business, which must necessarily be
occasioned
le want of a master's eye and a
master's superintendence.

Haying considered the precarious position of po-
litical parties just at the present juncture of the
session, it is scarcely possible to resist the inclination
to tarry for a moment upon one of the most remark-
able personalities with which Parliamentary discussion
was perhaps ever interrupted ; and we are the more
impelled to this course from the manner in which
those personalities were met on Friday evening by the
Prime Minister. It would be nothing less than
impertinence to recapitulate the assertions of the as-
sailant, Lord GEORGE BENTINCE, inannuch as those

assertions have already attracted so universal a no-
tice, but especially inasmuch as they have been so
wholly and triumphantly disproved by the illustrious
man whose character they were evidently intended to
blacken. We do not, indeed, ambition to be
regarded as the panegyrists of Sir ROBERT
PEEL—as far as he is entitled to pa-
negyric, his own political acts form his noblest
eulogium. Neither do we aspire to the office of
becoming the excusers of any statesman ; but, as
honourable journalists and as conscientious commen-
tators upon the great internal and international
movements of the age, it becomes our bounden duty
to narrate facts in their original nakedness, and to
point out the most rational inferences which a
consideration of those facts evolve. When, there-
fore, we recognise the general jeopardy in which
legislative matters are placed, and placed principally
by the contemptible squabbles of party ; when we
perceive justice, and national benevolence, and mercy
travestied, by being employed as masks, for the con-
cealment and for the realization of a petty revenge ; when
we behold the amalgamation of individuals in one unique
corps whose sympathies have in reality not the
feeblest affinity for each other ; when we see the dig-
nity of the Senate compromised by recriminations,
and the time of the public frittered away in the ut-
terance of personalities—some direct allusion to these
circumstances becomes to us absolutely requisite,
Such an allusion, moreover, is not of a barren and un -
profitable character, as, from comparing the tone and
the arguments of the different speakers upon these
occasions, we may readily penetrate the motives
which actuate the aggressors, and the integrity to
which the aggressed can lay any just claim. Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S rebuttal of the charges cast upon
him by the Noble Lord the Member for Lynn
is the more particularly significant from the fact of
its being altogether decisive upon the many malig-
nant and graceless attacks which have been
showered upon the Premier throughout the
pending session. That the Prime Minister hunted
Mr. CANNING to death scarcely required that
elaboration of statement in which the former
indulged to disprove ; the memorials of history had
already settled that interesting episode in modern
statesmanship to the satisfaction of every calm and
reflective mind. Any reference to that portion of the
Premier's defence would therefore be literally super-
fluous. It is in what is indicated by the subjoined
paragraph, however, that our chief attention was
occupied immediately upon its utterance.
" I cannot understand," said Sir ROBERT PEEL, in
conclusion, " I cannot understand how the Noble
Lord—believing that I had chased and hunted his
noble relative to death, and without making any public
or private intimation to me of those feelings—consented
to accept me, nevertheless, as a Leader, and to call me
his Right Hon. Friend !" •

Thereis something withering in the sarcasm of that
sentence—it is opening a window in the bosom of his
accuser, such as the ancient philosopher once yearned
for. Through the candour, the delicacy, and the
simplicity of those unostentatious words the whole
flimsiness of the imputation is divulged. One
perceives that the origin of the accusation
was something totally distinct from that of mere re-
verence for a departed relative, otherwise so many
years would not have elapsed before that accusation
was pronounced ; otherwise, the Noble Member for
Lynn could scarcely have numbered himself
during so many years among the political
adherents of the man who had " hunted that
same relative to death ;" otherwise he could never have
called that man, however otherwise illustrious, his
Right Honourable Friend. And all these things could
never have been accomplished without the entire abne-
gation of self—a supposition which Lord G. BENTINCE
with great reason would be the very first to
repudiate. The aspersion must consequently have
originated from some pressing and exciting senti-
ment of the moment, in the flush and unpremedita-
tion of which it must have been pronounced. From
these reflections it becomes manifest, that however
emphatic may be the declaratiOns of politicians
gifted with extreme excitability of temperament, a
fair allowance must be made for the dimming haze of
passion, that allowance must be subtracted, and the
I remainder placed only to the account of reality. Again,
if so much must be conceded upon the matter of
Mr. CANNING'S demise, may not just so much
he conceded upon the matter of coercive measures
towards Ireland? May not this antagonism to the
Ministerial policy be just as attributable to some mo-
mentary impulse of feeling rather than to
any deep-rooted anxiety for the lenient legisla-
tion of the inhabitants of that island—the more so
as upon the first reading of the Curfew Bill during
this identical session many of its present fiercest op-
ponents were numbered amongst its supporters ?
There was then a glimmer—a chance—a possibility
of throwing out the obnoxious commercial
measures : that possibility no longer exists,
and on that account they may not unreasonably be
charged with having fastened upon the Irish Bill as
the readiest means of revenging themselves on the
Ministry. Were we not justified in calling their
behaviour a ruse

A Berlin letter, in the Cologne Gazette, states in
positive terms that the independence of Cracow is to
be annihilated, even in name. The town is to be incor-
porated with Austria, but the other conditions agreed
upon between the three Powers are not yet known. The
writer adds—" It is incontestable that Prussia enters
into the views of the two other Powers with great re-
gret ; but, to induce her to concur, they cited a secret
article in the Convention of Munchengratz, whereby
Prussia, Austria, and Russia agreed to destroy the
independence of this small state, if it continued to
form the focus of Polish propagandism."
The Augsburg Gazette states that the Government
of Russian Poland has, in consequence of the recent
insurrection, sent out of that country all the Prussian
artisans and journeymen, even those who had regular
passports.

- The prosecution commenced against the Com-
mandant of Ham and two of the gate-keepers, in con-
sequence of the escape of Prince Louis NAPOLEON,
has been discontinued, and the only person to be
brought to trial is Dr. CONNEAU. He will be tried
by the Court of Assize of Amiens.

The Commerce says, General MoisTnoLoN has just
been pardoned, notwithstanding what the journals
say to the contrary. He was to be set at liberty on
Thursday night.
The Akbar, of Algiers, of the 7th, informs us that
the Governor- General left that place on the preceding
day for Oran, in the Cameleon steamer. The Duke
D'AUMALE left on the sth, for Tenez, in his way to
France, in the Titan.

The Past Ampt Gazette of Frankfort has a letter of
the 31st ult. from Cracow, stating that M. KYBALSKI
had been attacked and robbed on the high road in
Galicia, and left with his arms and legs broken with
flails; that near Bochnea three landowners have been
murdered by the peasants; and that, near Turnou,
the wife of another land-owner was murdered as she
was returning from Cracow, where her husband had
died in prison.

Prince WALDEMAR of Prussia, who was present at
the Seikh war, arrived, with his suite, on the 4th
instant, at Trieste. He was to proceed immediately
;o Berlin.

Madrid papers of the 7th and Bth instant have been
received. The news of the POPE'S death had created
a great sensation in Madrid, as it would affect mate-
rially the negotiations now going on with the Court
of Rome. Accounts from Portugal to the 3d
state that the PALMELLA. Cabinet had issued
an annesty to political offenders, a decree
for organising the National Guard, and an-
other for the dissolution of the Council of
State. The PALIeELLA Ministry was gradually ac-
quiring the confidence of the people.
MADRID BoLsa, JUNE B.—The official bulletin
quotes neither the Three nor Five per Cents. Ex-
change on London, 37.

We have received the Paris papers of Friday and
Saturday. On Thursday, the Dijon and Mulhausen
Railway Bill was passed in the Chamber of Peers ;
and in the Chamber of Deputies all the articles of
the budget of Algeria were voted; and on Friday
the project of law itself, relative to the extraordinary
credits for Algeria, was adopted by a majority of
215 to 17.

Lettors from Marseilles, of the 13th, state that
serious troubles had occurred :at Rome; that bodies
of insprgente had paraded the streets, demanding a

Constitution, and crying "Down with the priests;"
"No Papal Government." Collisions are stated to
have taken place between the people and the troops
both at Rome and at Ancona, and throilghout Italy
commotions were apprehended.
The Duke DE FITZJAMES died at Pl.:is on Thurs-
day.

The preparations for opening the Great Northern
Railway from Paris to Lisle, on Sunday, are repre-
sented by these papers as being on the most magni-
ficent scale.

The Journal des Debats publishes the following
intelligence from Lisbon, dated June 2 :
" Since the last collision between the garrison and popu-
lation of Lisbon, public tranquillity had not been disturbed..
The provincial insurgents, who had marched upon Lisbon,
appeared disposed to retrace their steps and return to their
homes. Several measures had been agreed upon in the
Council of Ministers, presided over by the Queen. A general
and entire amnesty heel been granted to all the insurgents of
Torres Novas who had risen in 1842 against the Costa
Cabral Ministry, after the re-establishment of the charter
of Don Pedro. They had been reinstated in their property
and offices, the •-ecree authorising the Government to re-
move from their residence the public functionaries whose
opposition it apprehended had been revoked. This decree
had excited a great animosity throughout the country
against the Costa Cabral Ministry. The law on the Council
of State, which converted that body into an administrative
council, had been suspended until the decision of the new
Cortes. Several juntas had sent in their adhesion to the
new Cabinet, which, having confirmed in their offices most of
the civil governors appointed by the insurgents, had em-
powered them to dissolve the Administrative, Council in the
provinces, and to replace them by temporary commissioners
until others be chosen by the electors. M. da Silva Passos,
former Minister of Finance, and a very popular man among
the insurgents, had been invested with the command of the
strong place of Santarem. The Colonel of the Municipal
Guard of Lisbon has been superseded in his post, as well as
several other officers and functionaries known for their de-
votion to the Costa Cabral Administration. All the mea-
sures of the new Government appeared to have given satis-
faction to public opinion, and considerably allayed the popular
effervescence. Nevertheless, the insurgents continue to de-
mand the re-organisation of the National Guard, which the
Ministry was well disposed to accord. It was then actually
occupied in revising the existing law, which had occasioned
many abuses. The financial crisis continued, money was
exceedingly scarce, and the Ministry will only find re-
sources when the Cortes have met. It had authorised the
company called Confianca National, as well as the bank, to
suspend payments during three months. That company had
been instituted for the purpose of bidding for the Govern-
ment loans."

The Constitistionnel gives the following relative to
the mission confided to Mr. HOOD at La Plata :
" Mr. Hood has received from the French and English
Governments a special mission and full powers to arrange
the affairs of La Plata. At_first M. Guizot refused to con-
sent to the power demanded for Mr. Hood, but after a long
correspondence he at last yielded. From the plan adopted
it is much to be feared that the only persons who will derive
any profit from this mission will be Rosas, Oribe, and Mr.
Hood himself. Mr, Hood remained at Monte Video, first
as Consul of England, and afterwards as Consul-General.
He was obliged to withdraw immediately after the treaty of
October 29, 1840. He went to England, where he did not
cease intriguing for six years in favour of his protegte. His
incessant endeavours in favour of a man who has become the
right arm of Rosas, and like him sullied with crimes and
blood, ought to have opened the eyes of the Cabinet of St.
James's. Let any one who can explain the sympathy of M.
Guizot for this bitter enemy of our country. Will M. Guizot
deny the facts imputed to Mr. Hood ? If necessary, all the
city of Monte Video cov Id bear witness to them. M. de Ma-
reuil, whose conduct we have pointed out, has received
orders to proceed to Buenos Ayres to assist Mr. I food. It is
even said, that the two Governments have authorised Mr.
Hood, if necessary, for the accomplishment of his mission, to
disavow the acts of their present agents, particularly in what
concerns the navigation of the Parana,"
The Three per Cents. closed on the Paris Bourse on Saturday at
83f. sc. ; the Five per Cents., at 120 f. 25c. ; the Orleans Railroad
shares, 1,248 f. 75c.; Rotten, 1,016 f. 25c. ; Havre,743f.; Great Northern,
73f. 50c. ; Avignon, 877 f. 50c. ; Vierzon, 622 f. 50c. ; Bordeaux, GOof. ;
Boulogne, 4851. ; Paris and Strasburg, 503 f. 75c. ; Tours and
Nantes, 516 f, 25c ; Paris and Lyons, 5401. ; Lyons and Avignon
Deflnitive, 5151. ; Bordeaux ant Cette Dennitives, 509 f. 15c. ; Spanish
Actives, 31 ; Spanish Three per Cents. 37%f.
The ibllowing are the quotations in the new lines :
LYONS, JUNE 11.--Marseilles and Avignon, 917 f. 15c.; Rotten,
1,025 f. ; Lyons, 546 f. 25c. ; Great Northern, 7521. 50c.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE •
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, JUNE 13.
Boulogne and Amiens, 11—East Intlian, %—Luxembourg, 1S
Namur and Liege, 3% —Orleans and Vierzon, 15—Paris and Lyons
Constituted, 63.:j.

HOUSE OF LORDS.-(THIS DAY.)
The House sat to-day at eleven o'clock to hear appeals.
The Peers present were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cotten-
ham, and Lord Campbell.
PINRITIS V. THE RATCLIFFE GAS COMPANY.
The further arguments in this part-heard appeal occupied
their Lordships the whole morning.