The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-19 00:00:00

aiming

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1848.

There seems to be, at last, some chance of arriving
at an accurate knowledge of the circumstances which
have conduced to the still further estrangement of the
Spanish and Britannic Governments. The supple-
mentary correspondence which has just been laid be-

fore Parliament—and some of the most remarkable
and interesting passages of which are contained in
another portion of this evening's impression of The
Sun—explains every detail of the misunderstanding
which has recently resulted in the retaliation of Eng-
land through the dismissal of Senor XAVIER DB 'STU-.
RITZ from the Court of Queen VICTORIA. Every one
of those details—Yes ! we undertake to prove that every
one of those details, without any exception whatever,
corroborates the opinion already expressed by our-
selves, namely, that the character of Sir HENRY
LYTTON BULNYER as a diplomatist remains altogether
unimpeached, and that the policy adopted towards the
ruling Administration of the Peninsula by her Bri-
tannic MAJESTY's present Secretary for Foreign
Affairs is a policy calculated in every respect to for-
ward the interests of England, and to elevate instead
of to diminish the reputation of Lord PALMERSTON
as a sagacious, daring, and consistent statesman.
Resuming the narrative of this singular, and (we
cannot but think it) somewhat fortunate misunder-
standing—a misunderstanding fortunate for the
credit of the Russell Cabinet, inasmuch as it pre-
vents even an apparent complicity between the mem-
bers of that Cabinet and the colleagues of the inso-
lent and despotic NARVAEZ—resuming, we say, the
narrative of this misunderstanding between the Bri-
tish and Spanish Governments, at the point which
formed the termination of the ;Bulwer-Sotomayor
correspondence ; we take up the thread of occur-
rences at the time of the dismissal of our Ambas-
sador from Madrid. The authority, of course, from
which our epitome of Lets is derived is the
Isturitz-Palmerston correspondence which we have
already noticed as having been presented to the two
Houses of Parliament.

Aware of the extravagant and almost unparalleled
audacity of its conduct towards the English Govern-
ment, in giving Sir 11. L. BULWER just 48 hours in
which to make the necessary arrangements for his de-
parture—aware that the step taken by the Duc DE
SOTOMAYOR, on the l'ith of May, was, as Lord
PALMERSTON has emphatically remarked, one "of
which modern times furnish ,few examples "
the Government of General NARVAEZ has-
tened to exonerate itself from a portion of
the blame resulting from that most astonish-
ing act of Ministerial petulance, by dispatching
the Count MIRASOL to the Court of St. James's with
all possible expedition, and charged with some more
explicit and direct explanations than those which
were already contained in the note transmitted to our
Ambassador. As was natural under the circum-
stances, Lord PALMERSTON refused, for several rea-

sons, to listen to the communication of Count MIRA...

sot, the most important of such reasons being—
first, that such communication should have been
conveyed through the official and accre-
dited organ, namely, through the medium
of Senor XAVIER DE IsTuarrz, and secondly,
from the consideration that "even if Count MIRASOL
had come provided with credentials to her MAJESTY,
as on a special mission from his SOVEREIGN, it surely
is not immediately after the abrupt dismissal of the
QUEEN'S Minister from the Court of Madrid that
her MAJESTY could have been advised to re-
ceive a fresh envoy from the Queen of SPAIN,
unless, indeed, such envoy had been charged with
a suitable apology on the part of his
SOVEREIGN:'
Now, subsequent explanations on the part of his
Excellency Senor ISTURITZ showed plainly enough
whether or not Count MixAsoL was the bearer of a
suitable apology. So far, indeed, from the instruc-
tions received by this embodied postscript to the letter
of dismissal comprising anything whatever of a con-
ciliatory or apologetic character, they consisted en-
tirely (as was acknowledged by the letter written
to Viscount PALMERSTON, on the 7th in-
stant, by the Spanish Ambassador in Lon-
don) of a series of reasons for that dismissal,
reasons so egregiously flimsy and inconclusive as to
enhance the shame of the act which had led imme-
diately to the estrangement of the two Governments.
Firstly, the Spanish Cabinet excuses itself for the
dismissal by maintaining that Sir H. BULWER was
implicated with the party hostile to the ruling states-
men at Madrid ; and firstly, Lord PALMERSTON
rebuts this uncorroborated accusation with the direct
contradiction of the British Ambassador, accompany-
ing his rebuttal with the intimation that, suppos-
ing it were incumbent upon a foreign Minister
at a Court to confine his social intercourse
to whatsoever party might happen for the moment to
be in power, such a course could have been scarcely
possible on the part of Sir H. L. BULWER, seeing
that between December, 1432, and October, 1847, the