The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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Some very interesting Parliamentary Returns rela-
tive to emigration to the American and Australian
colonies were yesterday distributed. They consist of
extracts of correspondence between the Secretary of
State and the Governors of the British colonies re-
specting emigration and the disposal of Crown lands,
and dispatches from Colonel Arthur, tending to throw
light on the state of Van Diemen's Land. If ever
there could have been a doubt as to the impossibility
of connecting the two objects of farming and penal
discipline, it must be removed by the dispatch of Go-
vernor Arthur, of 28th June, 1832.
The discipline and control of the convicts in Van Die-
men's Land is carried, perhaps, to a higher degree than
could ever have been contemplated. The colony may be
traversed from one end to the other, by day or by night,
with the most perfect safety ; and the community, without
reference to political feeling, affords the Government steady
support in upholding a system which they have the good
sense to perceive is intimately blended with their personal
security ; many of the convicts also become greatly re-
formed when in the service of considerate and judicious
masters. But with all this abatement, there is so much
peculation, so much insubordination, insolence, disobe-
dience of lawful orders, and so much drunkenness, that re-
ference to the magisterial authority is constant, always at-
tended with loss of time and expense to the settler. If the
case, indeed, be a serious one, and the prisoner be com-
mitted to take his trial, the master, or some member of his
family, with perhaps two or three servants, is brought from
the interior to appear before the Supreme Court or Sessions,
at a considerable direct charge, in addition to the injury
which is sustained by his absence from his family and from
his property ; and this is felt to be so burthensome, that
there can be no question things appear better in the colony
than they really are, for in numberless instances masters are
known to submit to peculation rather than incur the addi-
tional expense of prosecuting their servants."

change in this province, while the price of labour continues
very high in the neighbouring states ; nor, indeed, in any
new agricultural country, where the population is not pro-
portionate to the extent of land to be brought into cul-
tivation.

" In adverting to these circumstances, it will appear evi-
dent that emigrants having many difficulties to encounter
in providing shelter for their families, their first object will
be to obtain land, and clear a few acres in a neighbourhood
in which they may procure work ; and that many of those
who bring with them sufficient property to maintain their
families for two or three years after their arrival in Canada,
will quit the provinces if great exertions are not made to fa-
cilitate their location in districts where their industry can
immediately become profitable.
" The settlers sent out from Wiltshire by the parishes,
and from Sussex by Lord Egremont, and also those from
Yorkshire, had been led to expect that land would be granted
to them upon terms that would enable them at once to cul-
tivate a sufficient portion of land for the maintenance of
their families. All these must have been forced into the
United States, had they not been placed on land by the
local Government. They have completely succeeded, and
are useful to the officers who have taken their grants near
them.
" Farming in this agricultural country is in fact the only
resource for a man with a large family, either as a tenant or
proprietor of land ; for although an industrious labourer may
readily obtain work, his family cannot.
" Officers of the navy and army must necessarily receive
their grants in new townships ; these and emigrants with
capital—a class of settlers now becoming numerous—can-
not be prevailed on to enter the forest, except they are
assured that indigent settlers will be located with them.
" The most advantageous system that can now be
adopted to raise the value of land, or to correct the errors
which have been committed in settling the province, is to
condense the new population as much as possible in townships
contiguous to those already settled. The minimum price might
be fixed at 10s. per acre when a township contains 100
families, or when about 8,000 acres have been sold ; but I
certainly should recommend the land to be disposed of at,
a more reasonable price, till a tract of land had been par-
tially settled."
The principle is here admitted, that the condensa-
tion of the people is an advantage ; and that regula-
tions to prevent the dispersion of settlers are beneficial;
and the only question is as to the means by which, in
a colony like Canada, the condensation may be best
promoted. In the Westminster Review for October
we observe an able and laboured article on the sub-
ject of the proposed New South Australian Colony.
We fear that from the nature of the soil and climate of
New Holland, the scheme is open to several of the
objections of the Reviewer. But it appears to us that
the Reviewer has not met in a fair and manly manner
the principle he opposes, namely, that the productive
power of labour is increased by the concentration of
the population within certain limits. The evil of dis-
persion has been, to a certain extent, counteracted in
North America, by the extent of water communica-
tion ; but who does not know that the scattered popu-
lation of North Carolina would be able to employ their
labour to more advantage, were the inhabitants to be
settled sufficiently near each other to admit of the
making of roads and bridges, by which easy commu-
nication might be practicable ? The settlers are
buried in the woods, grossly ignorant, and can only be
said to vegetate. The principle of concentration does
not appear to us to be affected by all that the Re-
viewer has said. He has merely shown that, in the
application of the principle to different countries, the
same rules cannot be observed.—Morning Chronicle.

The picture which Colonel Arthur draws of the
difficulties which the master has to encounter in con-
veying a convict to his settlement, is somewhat dis-
heartening—
" The master has to take the convict to his home (either
to the other extremity of the island, a distance of one hun-
dred and forty miles, or nearer, as the case may be,) and
well would it be if he could get him quietly there ; but the
contrary is of too frequent occurrence. Either with some
money the convict has secreted, or from the bounty of
some old acquaintance, the assigned servant, now relieved
for the first time for months from personal restraint eludes
the vig►lance of his new master, finds his way into a pub-
lic-house, drunkenness follows, disorderly conduct is
the consequence ; and the first notice the settler
has of his servant, for whom he has travelled to Hobart-
town, for whose clothing he has paid the Government, and
for whose comfort he has made perhaps some other little
advances, is, that he is lodged in the watch-house, with the
loss of half his clothing, or committed to the gaol for a
felony! This is not in the slightest degree an overdrawn
picture, but a plain matter of every day's occurrence. A
settler, newly arrived, thinks it at first a vexation not to be
endured ; but he soon falls into compliance with difficulties
which are visited alike upon all ; and finding there is no es-
cape from them, he is forced to participate in the common
mischief, which he cannot avert."
When the whole expense of punishing the assigned
convict is thus borne by the settler, we may be pretty
sure that the discipline will not err on the side of
rigour. And this, by-the-bye, prepares us for the
great difficulty which will be experienced for some time
in our slave colonies. We admit that the negro is
more docile than an English convict, and that old habits
will do much ; but still considerable difficulty must be
experienced during the apprenticeships in maintaining
order through the magistrate alone. The settler in
Australia is driven by self-interest to connive at the
misconduct of the convict, for, besides the expense,
the punishment of the convict deprives the settler of
his services ; and in like manner the apprentice negro,
if refractory, can only be punished at the expense of
the master. , The account given by Colonel Arthur of
the parent stock from which the population of Van
Diemen's Land must principally be derived, is in keep-
ing with the above description :
" Free hired labourers receive 151. of surplus wages over
and above a most liberal allowance of food and clothing ;
and fencers, reapers, carpenters, masons, &c., derive a still
larger surplus ; yet these men, in eight cases out of ten, do
not accumulate ; every farthing is expended in the pur-
chase of ardent spirits ; and when all is gone they return to
labour. Were spirits reduced in price they would still ex-
pend all their money—they would dissipate for a longer
time ; were spirits, on the contrary, raised in price, the only
effect would be an increase of the time devoted to labour,
and a reduction in the number of hours spent in in-
toxication."

After this picture who would be in a convict settle-
ment ? It is quite clear that, if the master connives
at peculations, by which he is himself a sufferer, he
will not be more anxious to suffer in order to protect
his neighbours. A free settler can have no adequate
protection in the neighbourhood of convicts. A better
description of labourers from this country would be
soon contaminated by the example of the emancipated
felons from England. It is greatly to be regretted
that the attempt to forma colony of convicts was ever
made. Our North American Colonies present a more
cheering prospect. The correspondence between Lord
Goderich and Sir John Colborne is calculated to throw
light on a question a good deal agitated at this time—
namely, the extent in which the combination of
labour ought to be aimed at in granting new
land. By the regulations of the Colonial-office
of Ist March, 1831, all lands must be put up to
sale • but the lowest price is fixed at 53. per acre.
Lord. Goderich, in his despatch to Sir John Colborne,
dated Ist Jan. 1833, observes—
., I am satisfied that, viewing the lands as a great finan-
cial resource, the sale of them at a high price is no less ex-
pedient than in reference to that other object of keeping
the inhabitants of the colony within limits, and of prevent-
ing a forced determination of the people to the single class
of landowners. * * * * * From the tenor of my
communications, I trusted that you would gather my in-
tention, that indigent emigrants should never, except as a
measure of the last necessity, be settled on lands allowed
them on more favourable terms than to any other class.
When, therefore, I approved of the settlement of poor emi-
grants reported in some of your dispatches last year, I
proceeded on the supposition that the parties could not
have been possibly provided in any other way ; I by no
means proceeded on an assent to the doctrine, that as every
industrious emigrant can in two years become an owner of
land, it is better for the provinces that be should commence
immediately on his own property. It is precisely by the
prevention of this event that I think the rigid establish-
ment of a high minimum price will be beneficial. I know
not how to propound, in plainer terms than I have already
done in my dispatch of the 21st November, 1831, the ne-
cessity that there should be in every society a class of la-
bourers as well as a class of capitalists or of land-
owners. The high rate of wages and the scarcity of
labour is the complaint of every growing society ; to force
the condition artificially by tempting into the class
of landowners those who would naturally remain labourers,
appears to me a course opposed to the dearest interest of
the colony ; it is injurious to the individuals themselves,
who would eventually profit more by passing through two
years of labour, and then enjoying the services of others
during the same, than they can profit by the immediate ac-
quisition of land, with no capital and no supply of labour.
I object, therefore, to favouring indigent settlers, either in
the price of their land, or in the period of credit allowed
to them ; I object to it as regards the revenue, both because
it directly depreciates the value of land, and because it ope-
rates indirectly to the same end by diminishing the number
of competitors for land on the usual terms."

The failure of the house of which the Governor of
the Bank of England is a member, though an event of
no more intrinsic importance than any other bank-
ruptcy, is calculated, we imagine, to have an injurious
effect upon the minds of such foreigners and other
persons as are not aware of the total absence of con-
nection which may, and did, in this instance, exist be-
tween a man's mercantile and official character. The
Bank Direction, indeed, including the late Governor
himself, derives credit from the fact which has been
undeniably established, that the latter either did not, or
could not, derive from his situation in the bank the
smallest relief to ward off the approaching crisis of his
house. Yet, under all circumstances, it is an event
which ought to have been, as we are assured it might
have been, avoided. In the first place, considering
that it is only a very few months ago that the late Go-
vernor of the bank was elected to that office, there are
many persons who consider him to blame for allowing
himself to be placed in a situation of such high finan-
cial credit and responsibility, when the precarious state
of his own mercantile credit could scarcely be unknown
to him. His own family and immediate connections,
which are known to be among some of the most
wealthy persons in the city, are also blamed that they
did not step in and avert, or stave off the crisis till the
party in question could have disrobed himself of his
official garb. We do not wish to appear to press upon
misfortune by any stronger remarks than these. The
event in question, however, gives rise to this general
remark, that it ought to cure the bank proprietors of
their too ready acquiesence in " House Lists," which
have for time immemorial rendered the chairs of the
direction of the Bank of England their own nominees ;
a system mischievous in itself, and evidently not car-
ried into parctice with anything like sufficient previous
scrutiny and caution.--• Morning Herald.
The relation which actually subsists between Mr.
O'Connell and the present Government of Great Bri-
tain on the one hand, and the nature of that anterior
and perhaps more intimate connexion (for the latter
qualification is at least of questionable accuracy)
which enables him to sway at will the understand-
ings and the passions, to govern with absolute au-
thority the opinions and the conduct, of the Roman
Catholic population of Ireland, are questions for the
contemplation of British Statesmen, and of the whole
British community, of greater importance than any
other within the whole range of national affairs, fo-
reign or domestic ; much as there is, at almost every
point of our political position, at the present day,
of embarrassment, doubt, confusion, and alarm. The
political efforts of Mr. O'Connell, have never, either
in Ireland or in the Legislature, been directed to pro-
cure for the destitute and half-starving peasantry of
his country any mitigation of the evils of their phy-
sical condition. He has, on the contrary, aggravated
those evils by his strenuous and successful endeavours
to promote discontent, tumult, and crime, to fan the
flame of intestine strife, and to shake the security of
life and property ; thus erecting a barrier the most in-
surmountable against the influx of capital, and placing
the imperious and irresistible interdict of agitation,
upon all the pursuits and all the habits of regular and
beneficial industry. Not content with these efforts to
perpetuate and increase, the physical sufferings of the
lower orders of his countrymen, Mr. O'Connell has
omitted no opportunity of shewing that his heart is in-
capable of any touch of sympathy with the material
evils of their condition. Giving nothing to the poor,
he has for many years extorted from the most destitute
of their number large sums under the name of rent,
enriching himself and family with the spoils of beg-
gary and famine, and making a profitable escape from
the toils of a profession which afforded him the means
of an honourable and affluent independence. The
triumph of Mr. O'Connell over the understandings,
the feelings, and the pockets of his poor Roman Ca-
tholic countrymen is a triumph sui generis. It entirely
differs both in kind and degree from the ordinary
achievements of political leadership. It presents to
our view not so much effects withoutany adequate cause,
but effects totally incongruous and incompatible with the
visible causes by which they seem to be produced.
Ireland under the cultivation of Mr. O'Connell seems
to be a garden of which the chief product is a monster.
A miracle surpassing that of any legend of the Church
of Rome grows there in rank...luxuriance. Mr. O'Con-
nell sows the seeds of meanness, extortion, fraud ; he
waters the ground with the tears, and enriches it with
the blood, of his suffering countrymen, and lo there
springs up an ample harvest of rich and ever-increasing
popularity. The continued and growing popularity of
IVIr. O'Connell among the poorer classes of the Roman
Catholic population of Ireland, in spite of the foul
injuries he inflicts and the sordid extortions he prac-
tises upon them, is indeed simply a manifestation
of the power of the Popish Priesthood over the
minds of their benighted followers. That with so
much wickedness and baseness as he daily exhibits
he should be tolerated by any considerable number of
the people, in the character of a political leader, is
a fact to be explained no otherwise than as every
other anomaly of the Church of Rome is to be
explained—by the ignorance and superstition of
the people, and the despotic authority which the

Were British America by itself, and were the Go-
vernment unfettered by the acts of its predecessors,
there could be no difficulty in carrying Lord Gode-
rich's plan into effect. But the proximity of the
United States influences the price of labour in Canada,
and no system with respect to future grants of land
can have the effect of keeping labour lower than it is
in the United States. Of course, the price of land in
the United States, and the extent of land already
in Canada, in an improvident manner, must also, in a
great measure, determine the price of future grants.
" In carrying into effect (says Sir John Colborne, in his
dispatch to Lord Goderich, dated April 16, 1833) arrange-
ments proposed for the advancement of the agricultural in-
terests of the colony, and for the improvement of the terri-
torial revenue, it is not only necessary to bear in mind the
present political state of the province, and the injudicious
manner in which the land in the front townships had been
granted, but that the four or five townships in a northern
direction from the St. Lawrence and the Lakes Ontario
and Erie, are for the most part occupied by the U. E.
Loyalists, or settlers from the United States, and much in-
tersected by Clergy reserves, the Crown reserves pur-
chased by the Canada Company, blocks of land set apart
for the support of schools, and large improvident grants
made at an early period ; that as the Canadian farmers
improve their estates slowly, and are contented with small
profits, they do not employ labourers constantly ; that the
rates of wages cannot undergo generally any material

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1834.

priests are enabled to exert over minds thus debased
and depraved. Mr. O'Connell is the agent and the
instrument of a permanent and comprehensive Papist
conspiracy against the Protestant religion, and against
British government and law, in so far as British go-
vernment and law are understood to be the natural
allies and protectors of the Protestant faith. It is in
virtue of this mission that he can alternately fawn and
bluster—without incurring the imputation of incon-
sistency ; that he can profess in Parliament his full
satisfaction with a measure, and in Ireland, after the
interval of only a few weeks or days, declare that he
never regarded it but as the forerunner and preparative
of other measures still more propitious to the cause for
which he works,—without any impeachment of his
integrity and good faith; that he can revel in wealth
abstracted from the scanty meals of thousands of the
starving families of his countrymen,—and still retain a
high reputation for disinterestedness and generosity.
What would be vice and infamy in other circum-
stances become virtue and honour in the estimation of
conspirators when they tend to promote the objects of
the conspiracy. This affords, we believe, the only pos-
sible explanation of Mr. O'Connell's continued popu-
larity with the Roman Catholic population of Ireland,
notwithstanding the mean and degrading vices which
have distinguished his political career. In the absence
of any other proof the ascendancy of such a man would
furnish conclusive evidence that the Papists of Ireland,
under the controul and dominion of their Priests, are a
vast body of conspirators against the Protestant re-
ligion, and against the connection of their country
with Great Britain. Until this conspiracy be broken
up, or reduced to weakness and consequent humi-
lity, it must have one or more political leaders,
and those leaders must, of necessity, be such as Mr.
O'Connell is. It is this conspiracy which has created
and will uphold Mr. O'Connell, not Mr. O'Connell
who has been essential to the institution, the mainte-
nance, or the success of the conspiracy. We have
now explained our deliberate view of the character and
position of the great leader of Irish agitation, with re-
ference to the Roman Catholic population of his own
country. The relation in which he stands towards the
actual Government of Great Britain remains to be un-
folded, but this we must postpone until another day.
We are bound, however, at once to express our belief,
founded upon circumstances which seem to us perfectly
unequivocal, that the conspiracy against the Protestant
faith and the connection of Ireland with Great Britain,
of which Mr. O'Connell is the ostensible and promi-
nent leader, already reckons among its members a con-
siderable and influential portion of the King's Cabinet.
—Morning Post.

CONFESSION of the MURDERER of MR. RENS.

STO W, OCT. I.—The examination before the Ma-
gistrates led to the apprehension of Edwin Jeaffrey,
alias Butcher, (living as carter with Mr. Ellis, but-
cher, in this place), who, in his confession, says—
" That about a week before the murder, as he was
cutting hay in his master's rick-yard, adjoining the
road, he saw Mr. Rens pass, and observed he had a
nice gold chain and seals attached to his watch, and
thought he should like to get pessession of it. He
still harboured that thought until the night of the mur-
der, when he again saw the deceased pass his master's
rick-yard, wished him good night, followed him down
to his stable, at the back part of his master's house,
which leads into the lane where the deceased was
walking ; he went into the slaughter-house and took a
large stick, which the butchers use for knocking down
calves ; he followed the deceased, and leant against a
gate, near the spot where the murder was committed,
while the deceased passed round the head of the horse-
pond ; the deceased came up to him, wished him good
night, and he wished the deceased good night; turned
round, and knocked him down, when he took his gold
watch, purse, and a piece of Indian rubber from his
pocket ; he heard some person coming, and jumped
over the wall into a garden, concealed the watch, and
lay concealed himself until the person passed ; he then
got back over the wall, went to his stable, fetched his
lanthorn, returned to the spot, and lighted the persons
who had discovered it home, with the body ; he then
went home, ate his supper, and went to bed, as if no-
thing had happened. He concealed the watch for a
few days, when he put it into his pocket, and has worn
it constantly until within a few days of his detection,
when he changed it away for another watch of very tri-
vial value. On being asked how he could suffer two
men to be imprisoned and tried for the crime, knowing
they would most probably receive sentence, he said,
he was aware of that, but he did not care so as he kept
the watch—he was so in love with that watch—but at
last he got so tired of it that he was determined to get
rid of it."

There is no doubt that it produced such uneasiness
of mind as to lead to a confession of the horrid crime.
Since his confession, he says he feels happy, and has
nothing to do but to pray to God to, forgive him. He
is about twenty years of age, of a boyish appearance,
and during his examination he displayed the greatest
indifference ; there was such a vacancy in the expres-
sion of his countenance, that it remained unaltered
during the whole of the examination ; and afterwards,
when his friends came to take their farewell, he exhi-
bited the carelessness of feeling and recklessness which
characterised him throughout. He says he had no
enmity against the deceased, but his sole motive was
the stealing of the watch. He is committed to Glou-
cester gaol to take his trial at the next assizes.-ox-
ford Journal.