The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-06 00:00:00

THE StIN,

a sufficient interval has elapsed—when the republican
generations have marched onwards in the footsteps of
their respective predecessors—when the posterity of
the Revolutionists of February shall pause in the
serenity of the ripened harvests and mellowed vintages
of Democracy, and, looking backwards to the day
when the Republican Constitution was accepted by the
first French Legislature ever electedby Universal Suf-
frage, they behold the colossal creation of the Na-
tional Assembly, they will be better able than ourselves
to distinguish the grandeur of its proportions, the dig-
nity of its aspect, and the sublimity of its attitude.
When Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH, with that purely
historic and exquisitely perceptive wisdom which con-
stituted the very texture of his noble and philosophic
character, laid it down as an incontrovertible
axiom that constitutions are not made, but grow,
he spoke exclusively in reference to the gra-
duation perceptible in the progress of know-
ledge from ignorance, and the general unfolding
of the principles of civilization. He by no means in-
tended to imply that Liberty was incompatible with
the maintenance of Order until the several peoples of
the earth had passed through probationary stages of
government, such for example as those England has
been destined for many successive centuries to endure.
To assert so much would be as ridiculous as to de-
clare that the aborigines of Australia would have to
pass successively, generation after generation, through
the glooms of idolatry, and infidelity, and demon-
worship, through the ghastly shadows of
Bhuddism, through the sensual and ravishing
magnificence of the classic mythology, through the
misty lore, and the dismal cirques, and the lonely
cromlechs, and under the forest oaks, and among the
rustling mistletoes of the Druidical belief, through
the temples of Thor and Odin, of Juggernaut and
Osiris, of Brahma and Jupiter, before the mind of the
savage would be fitted to receive the beneficent truth
of the ONE GOD, and the divine consolations afforded
by the doctrines of Christianity. Where it cor-
rect to assert that no nation can receive with
safety to itself or advantage to its neighbours
a free and (as far as human nature will admit of it)
a perfected constitution without preparing itself for
that inestimable boon by long centuries of prepara-
tion, it would be equally correct to declare that the
population of an Oriental empire should be instructed
alone in the lonic schools of philosophy, the next
generation in the Eleatic schools of metaphysic., and
so on through the systems of ANAXIMANDER and
PYTHAGORAS, Of lIRRACLITUS and EMPEDOCLES, Of
PROTAGORAS and PLATO, until in some remote century
the descendants of such men as DwARKANAUTH TA-
GORE might be fitted to understand the celestial
revelations of NEWTON, and the inductive system
contrived by the immortal BACON. No : were such
an erroneous construction placed upon the beautiful
axiom of MACKINTOSH, we should be compelled to
regard him as the advocate of a sluggish advance-
ment in knowledge and civilization, a notion wholly
incompatible with every other phase of his philosophy.
The experience of others adequately regarded imparts
to extreme youth all the advantages of antiquity.
And it is this which enables a country like France,
young, comparatively speaking, in her knowledge of
political freedom, to avail herself of the venerable
experience of England, and to establish upon a kin-
dred basis a free and generous constitution. In
symbols they are different, it is true, the one being
Republican and the other Monarchical, but in nature,
in vitality, in the vastness of their basis they are
identical. It is folly to regard the fabric of the
French Republican Constitution as built up upon a
foundation of sand, that foundation being, in truth,
as solid and durable as our own. Our Constitution
is based on national experiences, while the new Con-
stitution of France has been constructed upon the
experiences of the whole world, the stones of the
great edifice being cemented together by the sweat of
the national agony and the blood of its prolonged
misfortunes.

The Lords of the Admiralty have at length shaken
off a portion of the official trammels by which they
have hitherto been fettered and restrained. For
once they have decided upon a case according to its
own intrinsic merits, without being guided or in-
fluenced by precedent, and they deserve the thanks
of every Englishman for the decision at which they
have arrived—a decision which strikes at the very

root of one of the most unwise and impolitic usages
that had been suffered to prevail in the management
and direction of the British navy. During the last
month (on the 21st ultimo) we remonstrated, in the
strongest terms, upon the folly of paying off
no less than seven vessels of war, mounting in the
whole 136 guns, and manned by no less than 1,350
seamen, all of whom, although in the highest-state
of discipline and efficiency, were cast loose upon the
world, to be plundered by the hordes of miscreants
who infest our ports of their hard earnings, and then
suffered to starve about the streets, or to offer their
valuable services to other nations by whom their
merits might be better appreciated than they had been
in their native land. It was, however, the custom.
Alone-y was so complete a drug, that although the vessel
might on the expiration of her appointed time of service
be in the soundest condition, she should yet be dis-
mantled, her masts stripped of their rigging, her planks
torn up, and a large and most unnecessary expendi-
ture incurred, and all for no earthly purpose, except,
perhaps, to ascertain to what extent Joum BULL
would submit to a system so supremely ridiculous.
But the large outlay was by no means the most ob-
jectionable part of the proceeding. It was not merely
the waste of public money, the enormous increase of
the naval estimates that formed the only, or even the
most serious ground of complaint. It was the discharge,
the casting off of men whom no amount of money
could replace, in order that repairs, which were
wholly unnecessary, might be effected—those who,
during three years of active service, had been brought
to the highest state of discipline, who were thoroughly
acquainted with the various duties they were called
upon to perform, who had acquired a love for the "old
ship," (for such attachments are by no means rare
among seamen), a feeling of respect for their officers
and friendship and regard for each other, were
separated and dispersed, and exposed to the
d: moralization that must result from an un
controlled association with the depraved wretches,
into whose clutches Jack invariably fell when at
liberty on shore. It would take many months to
repair the mischief thus occasioned even if the men
themselves could be obtained at the very moment
when the country required their services. The bad
habits and vicious inclinations acquired during
such a period could not easily be shaken off, and got
rid of. The money also which they had earned like
horses they would have spent like asses in the inter-
val, and be deprived of the means of rendering their
declining years happy and comfortable from the tills•
taken and injudicious course pursued by the authori-
ties, by those who should act towards them as
guardians and protectors, and avert temptation by
every practicable means.
What hope, however, could be entertained of again
collecting these valuable men at the required time ?
In all human probability they would, after under-
going many severe privations, when their money had
been wasted in profligacy and dissipation, have been
c2o,,,eutomorpuerhlilarnedgatytoo aseuaeskntaafilr employment under another flag.
the well- trained
resources sailorsand
advance‘vould t
hb
ee
power of our principal maritime rivals, who would
gladly receive and cherish the precious treasure
which we had flung away with such reckless prodi-
gality.

A hope, however, is now opened to us, that hence-
forth these things will be managed diff,,rentlY The
Superb, 80 guns, which has recently been de-
tached from the Mediterranean fleet, is to prove an
exception to the general rule. The Gallant Admiral
under whose command she was placed, has, it appears,
officially certified that she is in every respect fitted
to be again immediately placed in commission with-
out overhauling, and, it appears, from the naval
intelligence, which will be found in another part of
our impression, that their Lordships intend to
act thereon, to cast off the usual dockyard perquisite
of "repairing" and " refitting " a perfectly sound
and efficient vessel, and, above all, to retain her gal-
lant crew in the service of their country. The Ro-
samond steam-sloop, which has just returned from
foreign service, is also to be kept in commission.
Here then a formidable blow has been struck at the
ancient practice—a most valuable reform has been
introduced. We trust that the precedent thus esta •
blished may prove the general rule—that hencefor-