The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-14 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

OXFORD, WORCESTER, AND WOLVER•
HAMPTON RAILWAY.
WORCESTER, TUESDAY EVENING.—This afternoon a
special general meeting of the proprietors of the Oxford,
Worcester, and Wolverhampton Railway Company, was
held at the Guildhall in this city, for the purpose of
taking into consideration the drafts of the undermen-
tioned Bills, applied for in the present session of Parlia-
ment, which, according to the circular issued to the
shareholders, it was intended to submit to the meeting
for approval, viz :
" A Bill to authorise the Oxford, Worcester, and
Wolverhampton Railway Company to raise a further
sum of money, and tor other purposes; and
" A Bill to authorise an alteration of the line of the
Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton Railway, and
for other purposes."
The chair was taken by F. Rufford, Eeq.,
A statement of the particular provisions of the pro-
posed Bills having been made by the solicitor, and the
Chairman havingmade a few remarks congratulating
the shareholders upon the favourable prospects of the
undertaking, resolutions were unanimously adopted ap-
proving of the Bills in question, and the meeting broke up.
BR.

ISTOL AND EXETER RAILWAY.—OPENING
TO TIV ERI ON.
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ng of the Tiverton branch of the Bristol and Exeter
ene
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friends from Bristol. Sir Thomas Dyke Aclaud joined
the train at Hele. The party entered
arrived the
ried at
carriagesvi at
the Tiverton road platform, and the trainthe
Tiverton station at a quarter past eleven o'clock. The
train was received as it approached the station by a con-
course of people of both sexes, who loudly cheered it in
its progress, and upon its arrival at the platform, the
company were received by nearly all the respectable in-
habitants of Tiverton and its vicinity. In the course of
a short time it was arranged that John Heathcote, Esq.,
M.P. for Tiverton, should introduce the chairman and
directors of the Bristol and Exeter Railway to the com-
pany. Three cheers having been given for Mr. Heath-
cote, three for J. W. Buller, Esq., three for Sir Thos.
D. Aclaad, Bart., and three cheers for the directors of
the Bristol and Exeter Railway,
Mr. HEATIICOTE addressed the assembly. He congratu-
lated them on the completion of the line, and its open-
ing that day, which placed Tiverton in communication
not only with the towns near it, but also with every other
part of the world. It was not necessary for him to ex-
patiate upon the advantages of railways, their own ex-
perience had made them quite aware of them, but he
might be allowed to contrast the mode of conveyance
which they now enjoyed, with that to which they were
subject when he first came to Tiverton some thirty years
ago ; when if all went smooth and right they would ac-
complish the journey from London to Tiverton in 27
hours.—(Loud cheers.) He begged to introduce to them
the chairman and other directors of the Bristol and
Exeter Company, and to state that during the progress
of this great and important work they had always met
the requirements of the public in a kind and friendly
spirit ; he begged, therefore, to introduce to them James
Wentworth Buller, Esq., chairman of the Bristol and
Exeter Company.
Mr. BULLER was received with the most cordial ap-
plause, and on behalf of himself and his brother direc-
tors ho returned thanks to Mr. Heathcote for the kind
and eloquent manner he had spoken of the directors and
the work in which they had been engaged, and for which
he tendered them his cordial and warmest thanks.—
(Cheers.) He congratulated them upon the beauties—
animate and inanimate, which the railway had that day
exhibited, and the advantages which would follow the
opening of such an important undertaking, which he
hoped would meet with that success which such an open-
ing seemed to promise; he hoped they would all have
occasion long to remember this day as a day of general
advantage to Tiverton, as well as increase to the comfort
of individuals.
Mr. 11EATUCOTE then introduced Sir Thomas D. Ac-
land, who having acknowledged the compliment paid
him, said there were none so high, and none so lowly,
throughout the country, but must receive advantages
from the almost flying machines which God had permit-
ted the ingneuity of man to accomplish.—(Cheers.)
E. DIVETT,,ESq. (our estimable city Member), was then
introduced by: Mr. Heathcote, and in returning thanks
for the manner in which he had been received, congra-
tulated the assembly on this day, which he felt assured
must add to the prosperity of Tiverton, a prosperity
which he should always be glad to assist. They all
were aware of how much they owed to the science and
skill of his noble friend who hail so kindly introduced
him to them.—(Cheers.) By his perseverance they had
seen that accomplished in Tiverton which had been by
the most unhappy differences driven from other parts of
the country. Ile (Mr.Divett) rejoiced with the assem-
bly he saw before him at the advantages this line must
afford them, and he begged to assure them that he had
always been most deeply interested in the prosperity of
Tiverton.
Three cheers were then given for the ladies, the
cheering being led by Mr. Comins, after which a pro-
cession was formed, headed by a band, and the directors
were escorted to the Angel Inn.
The directors held a board meeting at noon, and
having attended to business, about three o'clock, de-
voted themselves to entertaining their friends at a cold
collation—a task which was accomplished to the satis-
faction of all. Tiverton kept holiday in honour of the
occasion.

TRADE RETORT.--MANCHESTER, TUESDAY.
During most of this week many houses suspend almost
all operations ; and, as a necessary consequence, such
firms transact little or no business on this day. This,
together with the prevailing dulness, caused to-day an
exceedingly flat market. No change, as to prices, can
be noted this week. For some days past foreign buyers
have manifested a disposition to transact a little more
business, on the whole the prospect of trade is a shade
brighter.
ST. MARTIN. IN- THE-FIELDS .—The Bishop of
London has presented the Rev. Henry Mackenzie, M.A.,
vicar of Yarmouth, to the vicarage of the above parish,
rendered vacant by the resignation of the Rev. Sir H.
R. Dukenfield. The living is of the annual value of
1,285/., with a viearage-house in St. Martin's-place.
SIGNS OP THE TIMES.—" You ought to have come
to the I'ig and Whistle last night, Jim—you ought."
There vos two Furren princes there, and a German
Prime Minister in trouble, as made themselves very
agreeable.—Man in the Moon.
ROYAL ARTILLERY.—WOOLWICH, JUNE 13.—
Captain Fitzmayer's and Captain I'ickering's companies,
third battalion, paraded yesterday forenoon at 11 o'clock,
in heavy marching order, for the Commandant's inspec-
tion, who expressed himself highly pleased with the
clean and soldier-like appearance of the wen after so
long a voyage. The companies were four months, with
the exception of one day, in the Athol! troopship on
her passage from Ceylen.
DUTCH CATTLE.—Very large quantities of calves
are now being brought by the stearte-ehips from Holland
to the metropolis. One vessel, the Ocean, arrived from
Rotterdam, has brought 200 head of this description of
live young stock, being a far greater number than has
been brought during any former season.
ATTEMPTED MURDER AND ROBBERY AT HAIM.
GATE.-011 Monday morning, about, half-past five
o'clock, when a female servant of Mr. Todd, boot and
shoe-maker, at High Harrogate, opened the house door,
a man rushed within the house, and, seizing hold of her,
tied a brown coloured handkerchief over her mouth, W
prevent her screaming. He then commenced riling her
pockets, but finding little of value there, he drew a
razor, and attempted to cut her throat with it, inflicting
two severe gashes. When he had frightened the young
woman out of further resistance, he hastily ransacked
several of the drawers, from which he removed several
articles of silver plate; but hearing a whistle (which was
supposed to have been given by an accomplice stationed
near) he suddenly decamped, leaving the bulk of the
property behind him, but taking with him the hradker-
chief which he had tied round the girl's mouth.

HE REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA.

The following intelligence from Caracas will be
read with interest by all persons commercially con-
nected with the Republic of Venezuela. We under-
stand an agent of the Venezuelan Government is at
the present moment in London, charged to negotiate
a loan of 240,0001.
The following address from British merchants
engaged in business with Caracas and La Guayra
was presented on the 25th of April to the British
Chargé d'Affaires—a similar address was presented
on the 28th by the English merchants at Puerto
Cabello :

" Caracas, April 25, 1848.
" The undersigned British merchants, engaged in
business here and in La Guayra, have the honour of
addressing you as the representative of her Britannic
Majesty in Venezuela, for the purpose of soliciting your
attention to the law passed on the 21st instant, copy and
translation of which are annexed, for the issue of bonds
to the extent of 5,000,000 of dollars, the first article of
which they apprehend will have the most disastrous con-
sequences to their interests.
" It does not belong to them, as foreigaers, to pass a
judgment on the policy of the measure in question, as
regards its bearings on the general welfare and prospe-
rity of this Republic; but they entertain the conviction
that the provisions of the first article attack the sanctity
of property, and are a manifest violation of the solemnity
of contracts made in virtue of, and in accordance with,
the laws of the country. It determines that payment of
debts, contracted in conformity with the law of the 10th
of April, 1834 (copy and translation of which we ac-
company), may be made in the bonds to be issued by the
Government, secured on property, in most cases it may
be presumed, already mortgaged to the creditors, and
which, therefore, it is no longer within the power of the
debtor to load with fresh incumbrances. If the creditors
(and every British subject engaged in business is so) re-
fuse to accept them in satisfaction of their claim at the
nominal value, it is left to the option of the debtor, within
the period of one year, to demand that time (espera) be
granted, or a reduction of the debt, one or other of which
to be determined by arbitration, in the manner
therein provided, which it is to be obligatory upon
the creditor to accept in all its consequences,
for the same article determines that the sen-
tence is without appeal. The advantages thus conferred
on the debtor are even greater than at first sight they
appear. Of the arbitrators one is sure to be his friend,
and when the umpire comes to be named, of course he
insists upon a person favourable to the interests he re.
presents being chosen, or the matter stands over, to the
injury of the creditor, who is thus kept out of his money,
by which the object of the debtor is attained; or, if
sentence be pronounced, it must be a modification of the
original engagement, and no modification can take place
that is not an immediate benefit to the debtor, tor it is
here to be borne in mind, that the debtor has received,
under the original contract, full value for the amount of
his engagement.
" No one ventures to hope that the bonds to be issued
by the law will be equal in value to those of the domes-
tic debt, which at present may be quoted at 40 per cent.
Few believe that it will reach the half of this price, and
as the necessities of the planters, who thus burden their
properties,and proclaim their pecuniary embarrassments,
compel them to force to sale at whatever sacrifice such
of these assigned to them as they may retain in their
hands in order to obtain the means of carrying on cul-
tivation and even of support, it will be scarcely an ex-
aggeration- to set down the probable money-value of this
paper at one-tenth or one-twelfth of that which it pro-
fesses to represent.
" With no inclination to advance aught that may be
deemed disrespectful to the institutions of this country,
after what has been stated above, they feel it incumbent
upon them to declare, that the manner in which the tri-
bunal is constituted, which is to decide upon the value
of their claims, inspires in them no confidence whatever,
and that they look upon its sentence as, in all cases, cer-
tain to favour the debtor at their expense.
" The monstrous injustice of allowing the party who
bas benefited in a contract, to seek to exempt himself
from the fulfilment of stipulations that are favourable to
the other, without both being restored to the position in
which each stood when the engagement was originally
entered into by appealing to the decision of arbitrators,
in the choice of whom the creditor, whose rights are in-
vaded, possesses no security beyond that of the debtor
who his favoured in his attempts to deprive him of what
the law awarded, must be apparent to all, and will have
the attention at your hands which it so eminently de-
serves.
"If, therefore, the creditor is to be sacrificed, either
in the amount awarded, the indulgence granted, or the
way in which payment is made, what prospect short of
ruin awaits those who, in perfect confidence that the laws
would be observed and justice impartially administered,
have intrusted their own capital and that of others on
guarantees, which now, by the retrospective character of
the proposed measure, are scandalously set aside or
shamefully evaded? The preservation of credit is im-
possible where the creditor is thus placed at the mercy
of the debtor; and the peculiar hardship and injustice
sought to be inflicted are the more apparent, when these
concessions to the one party, absolutely incapacitate the
other from the fulfilment of conditions towards the
public and the State, as in the case of custom-house
duties, &c., which are rigorously enforced. In the case
of the Colonial Bank, the retention of specie and the
conversion of its notes are obligatory, while the means
of doing so at all times must be provided by its debtors,
who nevertheless may appeal to the provisions of the
contemplated law, and require it to take bonds, or to
submit to an indefinite term for payment, awarded by a
tribunal whose sympathies would be, it is not too much
to say, in favour of those whose case, in all probability,
would soon aiter be their own.
"This confiscation of property, by bringing transac-
tions legally completed, within the sphere of enactments
only now submitted to the executive in order to become
Jaw, is confidently asserted to be a violation of the treaty
stipulations, and upon this ground your attention is
called to the Bth and 11th articles of the treaty with our
country, wherein it is provided that absolute freedom
shall be allowed in all cases to the buyer and seller to
bargain and fix the price of any goods, wares, and mer-
chandise,' and that their effects and property, whether
intrusted to individuals or to the state, shall not be
liable,' even in the time of war, to seizure or seques-
tration.' Much less is Venezuela, in the tine of peace,
in virtue of the real or assumed distress of a compara-
tively small portion of its citizens, and those among the
higher and wealthier classes, to insist abruptly upon her
Majesty's subjects surrendering their claims, and sub-
mitting to a confiscation of the fruit of their labour, and
possibly of property, for the safety of which they are
responsible, invading the principle universally recog-
nised, that no law of posterior date can have a retro-
active effsct.
" In virtue of the above considerations, arising out of
their situation generally, and the wide-spread misery
which must follow the sanction of the law by the Execu-
tive, the undersigned, being quite content to intrust the
conduct of this affair to your discretion, have to entreat
that, in the event of such a course meeting with your
approbation, you will take the earliest opportunity of
bringing the matter under the consideration of the Ve-
nezuelan Government, pointing out its dangerous ten-
dencies and palpable injustice, and seating, finally, that
if their friendly re, reseetalions are disregarded, they are
prepared to protest, and to throw the consequences of
this violent proceeding on the Venezuelan Government,
calling, as they must then do, upon their own for re-
dress.

"Her Britannic Majesty's subjects have the most en-
tire confidence that their interests will find in you, as
they always have done, a zealous and able advocate' on
this occasion, and the undersigned scarcely can contem-
plate the possibility of an emergency, wherein their in-
terests may be more extensively or deeply implicated,
nor one in which more flagrant injustice may be defeated.' " With sentiments of the highest t, res e we have
the honour to be, sir, your obedient humble servants,
(Signed)
,6 George Ward; L. Miranda, manager of the Co-'
lonial Bank; W. Anderson; O'Callaghan and
; Mocatta and Co.; Michael and Law-
rence O'Callaghan; J. Halle; Meyer and Ren-
nedy; A. Dunbar; Edwprd Thornbrough Har-
rison; Pp. L. Steinthal and Co.; J. Theodor; H.
J. Lord; S4ntiago M'Manus; L. B. Adams;
Miguel Ellui; Bartolo Bontante; Thomas IV,
Filler; Gregor MacGregor; Robert J. Boulton;
Pp. John Boulton; G. K. Circowich; C. Chitty."
Mr. Wilson, Charge d'Affaires of her Britannic
Majesty, made the following reply :

"TO THE BRITISH MERCHANTS AND BANKERS AT
CARACAS, LA GUAYRA, AND PUERTO CABELLO, ETC.,
ETC., ETC.
"British Legation, Caracas, April 28, 1848.
" Gentlemen,—l have to-day had the honour of re-
ceiving your memorial dated the 25th instant, calling my
attention to a project of law for affording pecuniary
relief to solvent Venezuelan landed proprietors at the
cost of their creditors and of the Venezuelan nation,
which project was on the 21st instant approved of by the
Venezuelan Legislature, and has been sent up to the
Executive Government for its constitutional action.
"You complain of the hardship and injustice both of
the provisions of the law its, If and of the attempt to
give to them a retroactive effect with prejudice to your
interests, and in violation of your rights in Venezuela
as British subjects; and you state, in conclusion, that
if such a measure of confiscation of the just fruits of
your labour be carried into effect, no prospect short of
ruin will await you.
_ "I fully concur with you on all those points; and I
have, therefore, submitted a copy of your memorial and
of its enclosures to the Venezuelan Government, with
tthheateixtpression of my confident hope and expectation
will adopt in this grave matter such a decision as
may be Mist consistent with political integrity andin-
ternational good faith.
"I have to express to you my thanks for the terms in
which ou have
y bee pleased to notice my constant en-
deavours, as in dutn y bound, to uphold the rights and
protect the interests of British subjects in Venezuela;
confidencet
and to assure you that your declare tipon any other d in the
DOT upon
connuance of thosoccasi e exertio
on, h
nse will no °n the present,
-
"I have the honour to be, Gentle men disappointed.
Yeur most obe-
client humble servant,

" BELFORD HINTON 'WILSON,
H. B. M. Charg6 d'Affaires."
" PROJECT OF LAID FOR A TERRITORIAL
INSTITU TE.

" The Senate and House of Representatives of the
Republic of Venezuela in Congress assembled:

" CONSIDERING:
" 1. That in consequence or former and recent causes,
the agriculture of Venezuela and all the other industrial
interests of the country have been, and are still, suffer-
ing in an extraordinary manner, which is rendered
manifest in the decay and paralyzation of every kind of
labour, and in the alarming decrease in the transactions
generally.
" 2. That the debts, which weigh principally on the