The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-26 00:00:00

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LONDON,
TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 26, 1834.

There are no fresh arrivals from Spain. The only

intelligence from Madrid is contained in a few para-
graphs in the Paris papers of Sunday, which we have
just received. The Courrier Fran fais states that
despatches from Madrid have been received in Paris,
which bring intelligence that 4,000 Portuguese troops
were assembled in Estremadura, with the intention of
marching to the aid of the REGENT of SPAIN against
Don CARLOS, and the insurgents in the Spanish pro-
vinces. It further states, that these troops have been
furnished by the Regent of PORTUGAL at the expense
of England, by whom the charges of their equipment,
and the payment of them, are to be borne during the
time they are engaged against the rebels. These troops
are divided into two brigades, composed entirely of
men who have been bred in the camp, and inured to
all the toils and hardships of a military life. They
are first to march into western Biscay, the principal
seat of the rebellion, where it is confidently expected
their appearance will be sufficient to restore tranquillity.
We learn from the same paper, that great doubts
are entertained in Paris regarding the stability of the
Madrid Cabinet. The Ministry are opposed in every
quarter, and do what they will, the people will hardly
be satisfied. The fact is, the Spanish Ministry want
that, with the aid of which ARCHIMEDES offered to
undertake the movement of the earth—firm standing
place. Their position is one of the greatest difficulty
and danger. Beset' with snares, and surrounded with

pitfalls, they can hardly move without being
caught by the one, or dropping into the other.
On one side, there are the old Grandees—the Hidalgos,
who may be said to live, move, and think only in the
past, to contend with ; on another, the Liberals, who
assisted in carrying the Revolution of 1812, and
establishing the Charter of Cadiz—all men of the
present day, who know and feel that no European
Government can continue to stand stock-still, while
the rest of the world is progressing round them ; and,
on a third, they have to oppose the violence of fierce
Revolutionists—men sunk in debt, and drowned in
the ruinous consequences of dissipation, who have no
hopes of ever being able to relieve their losses except '
by the plunder and confiscationary grants which ac-
company a civil war. We therefore think that those
who speak lightly of the mistdk es of the Spanish
Government, do not sufficiently regard the magnitude
of these evils which press upon it from every quarter,
and in every direction. The Court may merit reproof
for flying from Madrid on the breaking out of
the cholera, but the Ministry ought not to be held
responsible for the private acts of the Regent. The
Members of the Cabinet, save when attending on the
QUEEN as public servants, never absented themselves
for a single day from the capital. The only thing
doubtful about them at present is their intentions with
respect to the -payment of the national debt. How-
ever, as the; Report of the Committee must appear in a
few days, there is no necessity for entering more fully
into this question.

The trial and acquittal of the editor of the _National,
a :Paris paper, for a libellous attack on the Citizen
King, has given a sudden check to the French Go-
vernment, and ought to convey a warning to Louis
PHILIPPE himself of the danger of intermeddling
with the affairs of the Ministry. An account of the
trial, abridged from the French papers, will be found
in another-column. The great interest awakened by
this trial in Paris was principally because the deci-
sion upon it would declare how far the article
in the charter, which provides that the person of the
KING shall be sacred, will protect the Sovereign
from all animadversion on his conduct, in a ministe.

rial and private capacity. This has been now done.
The KING is no longer sheltered by the charter than
while he continues to support the character, and per-
form the duties of a KING. If he chooses to become
Premier to himself, he is amenable for his conduct
to the public ; and some have gone so far as
to say, that, were ,his acts in a ministerial
capacity contrary to the laws of France, the KING
might be tried and convicted under them as if he were
a private individual. This doctrine will sound very
discordantly in the ears of a Sovereign who is reported
to be the author of his own speeches from the throne,
and the principal framer of every public document
promulgated by his Ministers.

The political movements of the Orange agitators
Dublin, and, within these few days, through

greater part of the North of Ireland, remind us of one
of SAMPSON'S most signal victories over the Philis-
tines. 'We observe the jawbones of asses everywhere
in requisition,—not felling foes, but threatening exter-
mination. The speech of the Rev. MARCUS BERES-
FORD has opened the bottomless pit a second time,
and already is the light of heaven obscured by
the smoke, which, rushing forth, now hangs over
and obscures the land. In Dublin the old, withered,
sapless limbs of the most rotten corporation in the
British Empire' are showing signs of a resuscitating
influence, the Guilds are preparing to vote addresses
to the Earl of WINCIIILSEA for that nobleman's
spirited support of tithe-huntings in Ireland. In Fer-
managh, too, the Orangemen are assembling by hun-
dreds, preparatory to their assuming the government of
the country, and of course shipping off the Papists to
Australia. But have the daring Orange Chiefs, who thus
endeavour to disturb the peace of Ireland, considered what
will be the consequences of these assemblages of insur-
gents in a country of which they constitute only a
sixteenth part of the population? Do they wish to
witness the total abolition of an established Church--
the downfall of all ecclesiastical as well as civil dis-
tinctions—and the total abolition of tithes under every
possible name and form in Ireland ? If they do, then
may they go on after their present fashion, and we can
assure them that they will not fail to be pre-eminently
successful.

The besetting misfortune of the country is, that
as legislators, there are not sufficient men who (to
use a vulgar expression) know their trade. It is not
merely the absence of talent, but there is among many
of our public men a lamentable lack of useful infor-
mation, and regular industry. There is little knowledge
of the principle of things, consequently little appro-
priate application of details, even where there is the
industry to collect them.
In all this there is nothing surprising, when we con-
sider what many of the men are whom we have for
legislators. The sons of the aristocracy of England
spend some ten years of their boyhood at our public
schools, learning little else than Latin and Greek.
They remove to the Universities, where their chief
acquirements are idle and irregular habits. These
are the scions who in due time compose the
entirety of the House of Peers, and who form the
bulk of the House of Commons. The remainder
of this last assembly is made up of men that have been
the authors of their own fortunes, who get into Parlia-
ment to feed their vanity, or to advance their interests,
rather than to promote those of the community at
large, which, moreover, the bulk of them are incapable
of doing, for they only bring with them the knowledge
and the habits of mind that belong to their occupations,
beyond which they know little.

As the most voluminous are the worst class of wrl

ters, so the number and length of our Acts of Parlia-
ment demonstrate that we are bad legislators. Not
being founded on principle, consequences spring from
our statutes not intended by their authors, nor desired
by their objects. Hence new statutes are made to
correct the errors of the former, from which fresh
errors spring, that are again attempted to be corrected
by further enactments, and our legislation thus forms a
circle of accumulating errors.

Even in the note which has lately been sounded most
loudly, and not unusefully, we have a confirmation:of the
poverty of intellect and information which characterises
many of .our public men. We mean retrenchment, a
a thing right in itself, and hitherto very necessary. We
have here found men who can pare and who can scrape,
but few who can investigate. There is a point, how-
ever, beyond which retrenchment cannot go ; but there
is no limit to the increase of industry, nor to the increase
of the public means through industry. Though distress
prevails, and continues to increase, notwithstanding a
few intermediate gleams of sunshine, we have scarcely
had any one in place o 1 in Parliament, who has even
hinted at the cause, though distress could not originate,
and much less increase, without a cause, and that a
continuing cause ; but scarce one of our public men has
set himself to find it out, or to consider how the pub-
lic revenue is to be increased through industry,
though such increase is of infinitely more importance
than all the savings that have or can be made, by
retrenchment, however proper, which moreover has
nearly reached its limit.
When it is considered that we have 411 Peers and
658 Members of the House of Commons, it is plain
that nothing can be done properly, unless every thing
to be submitted to either assembly shall have been
previously well considered and well prepared. But
going no further back than the two last Sessions, has

there been any measure properly matured before being
brought into Parliament ? We refrain from
particularity. We have no wish to find fault,
but we have a very earnest desire to rouse Mi-
nisters to a sense of the consequences they may
bring upon themselves and the country, by the want
of due consideration and preparation. As for those
Members who have attempted to make themselves pro-
minent by their talk, and by their motions and notices
of motions, perhaps they will not thank us for our
admonition. But we request of them to consider
whether they may not thereby mar rather than fur-
ther their purpose of recommending themselves to
public estimation. We are within compass when
we say that nine out of ten of the 102 notices of
motions that have been given for next Session are
out of place, and that of the remainder, there are
few which do not evince the absence of all knowledge
of the principle upon which the well-being of the sub-
ject-matter of the motion depends.