The Sun.
London, England, 1833-09-25 00:00:00

thereby to know what money and other thin gs
were paid in the finding of any priest or priests'
anniversary or obit." This Act, it is properly
observed, though it refers to the chantry
contains in the above section powers and princi-
ples applicable to the deeds and charters of lay
as well as clerical corporations. But if there
were any doubt upon the subject, it would be
removed by the Act of William and Mary,
1693, applicable to the Scotch burghs, to which
we mean more particularly to advert. That
Act, as we find it quoted in the report of the
Committee on the Scotch burghs in 1821, pro-
ceeds on the narrative that great mat-administra-
tion had taken place in those corporations, and
adds—ct That the care, oversight, and control of
the said public good and revenues, and of the
ad ministration thereof doth undoubtedly belong to
their Majesties by virtue of their prerogative
royal. They have therefore thought fit to declare in
plene Parliament, like as they do hereby declare,
that as well from what has passed as in time
coming, their Majesties will give commissions,
one or more, to such persons as they shall be
pleased to nominate, to inquire into the state of
the common good and revenues whatsoever of
all the Royal burghs, and how the same bath
been heretofore, or shall hereafter be employed,
or misemployed, and to call the malversers and
their employers to account, and to ordain and
decree them, and every one of them, to refund
and repay as the said commissioners shall find
them liable." Such are the considerations
which the Tory adversaries of the corpora,ion
commission ought to bear in mind, when they
are invited to rail against the proceedings of the
commissioners, who best show the efficiency of
the zeal with which they perform their duty by
the loudness of the complaints which they excite
among the corrupt and the interested. The
people or the great body of the inhabitants in
every town which they have visited, hail their
approach as the promise of reform, and are pre-
pared to second their efforts with their sympathy
and approbation. The commissioners open their
doors to all persons who choose to attend their
investigations, and have thus avoided the
error of the factory commissioners, who were
reproached with unfair play in keeping their sit-
tings private. But though they have avoided
the mistake of the latter, they have not been

exempted from a censure of a totally opposite
kind—namely, that of divulging prematurely to
all the world the secrets of the corporations

which they are sent to examine. It would be
difficult, indeed, to please all tastes in a case
of positive contradictions, where there cannot
possibly be a juste milieu. If the commission-
ers were to hold their sittings private, they
would be called a court of inquisition ; when
they render them public, they are accused of
appealing from the magistrates to the mob.
And truly in the case of the investigations con-
ducted at Leicester the corporators had reason
to dread publicity, and to court a secret trial.
Abominations almost incredible have been de-
tected and revealed in the conduct of the rulers
of that borough. Would it be believed, unless
it had been well attested and openly admitted,
that in 1825 the select few sent out 2,000

circulars to non-resident parsons and Tories,
inviting them to take up their freedom to vote at
the election, and that for the 800 who did so
the corporation iemitted their fees, but paid
the town clerk out of the trust finds of the
borough ? Would it be believed that, in the
succeeding election, the corporation spent in op•
posing Mr. Evans, the present member, and sup-
porting his antagonists, the sum of 10,0001.?
Would it be believed that, not having this
money at their command, they would have the
effrontery to borrow it on bond, and to mort-
gage the corporate property for the amount?
Such bold, bare-faced, and gigantic corruption
is, we allow, almost incredible ; but it is, never-
theless, true, 'though probably it could never
have been divulged except by the power of this
commission. But is the mere disclosure of
such frightful abuses to be enough ? Is there
no law or equity to make the parties repair such
a profligate waste, or restore such an un-
disguised plunder, of the borough property ?
If we cannot on due proof of the facts " call "
(in the words of the Scotch statute of William
and Mary already quoted) " the malversers and
their employers to account, and ordain and
decree them, and every one of them, to refund
or repay these moneys, and the said commis-
sioners may find them liable," then we say there
is no justice " extant" in England. The length
to which these remarks have already extended
obliges us to postpone till to-morrow some
further comments on the Scotch Commission.

We are still of opinion that no overtures re
specting the final settlement of the Portuguese
question have passed from the Royalist camp to
Lisbon, notwithstanding the good wishes and
benevolent intentions of some of Lord W. Rus-
sell's attaches. The incidents of the war, or the
approaching attack, may have led to communi-
i cations between the belligerents, but we consider
them as more connected with military etiquette
than as indicative of any new and sudden symp-
tom of reconciliation. Matters have gone too
far to admit of any compromise that at all in-
volves the sacrifice of a principle, or partakes of
humiliation. If we have judged the character of
the Portuguese rightly, we should say that the
Royalists stand in a position too advantageous
to offer terms ; and, when we look to the other
side, we cannot help thinking that Don Pedro
has, at length, found that he has over-reached
himself. The Portuguese—and it is a pecu-
liar trait of the Pyrennean Peninsulas—are
cool and deliberate ; they possess the faculty
of foresight to an eminent degree ; and, On
mature consideration of all the stages of
the present contest, we feel convinced that
there is not a respectable inhabitant of
either Lisbon or Oporto (and it must be borne
in mind that in both places the rabble only were
left behind) who can arrive at any other con-
clusion than this, viz., that Portugal never can
be satisfied or rendered happy by a Government
which makes disorder and spoliation its basis—a
Government under which corruption in all its
deformity stalks unabashed. In what is passing
around them the Portuguese see nothing but "
wild democracy, which, with _all its unbridled
passions, is sure to end in oppression. In
Don Pedro's Government they behold none but
men who have survived the forfeiture of cha-
racter, and who cannot again be trusted. The
great and influential part of the Portuguese po-
pulation is interested in the King's cause,
because they are fully convinced that it is their
only means of salvation—the only mode of
stopping the inroads of anarchy. Resistance,
therefore, has become a duty, prescribed alike
by honour and by interest. At every pore the
Portuguese have bled, and there is not a sacrifice
which men can make in defence of their invaded
and outraged country in which they have not
joyfully acquiesced. Their efforts, it cannot be