The Sun.
London, England, 1833-08-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE Pl I3LIC JOURNALS.

It has been already hinted that all necessity
for the presence of Don Pedro, ex-Emperor of
Brazil, in Portugal, terminated with the restora-
tion of the lawful Queen to her dominions, and
that the continuance of his Imperial Majesty
there would much tend to embarrass his daugh-
ter's Government, as well in its relation to the
Portuguese people as to the states most closely
allied to and connected with it. What charac-
ter or capacity could Don Pedro sustain in Por-
tugal ? He is not King of Portugal ; he has
not only recognised, but enforced by arms, his
daughter's right to that sovereignty. Don Pe-
dro chose to be Emperor of Brazil, and whilst in
full enjoyment of the Brazilian throne, he sur-
rendered formally the succession to that of Por-
tuaal in his daughter's favour—an act of state
which stands registered among the records of
every Government in Europe and America,
and which has become an integral por-
tion of the law of the civilized world.
That Don Pedro no longer holds the Brazi-
lian seeptre, is not acribable to any interference
or act of Portugal, or its infant Queen. His
Imperial Majesty's failure to retain the affections
or obedience of his Brazilian subjects can in no
wise, therefore, influence the already fixed rela-
tions between Donna Maria and the Portuguese
people, any more than it can the rights of Wil-
liam IV. to the crown of this United Kingdom.
If Don Pedro, then, should prolong his resi-
dence in Portugal, it cannot be as Mo-
narch of that country,—it cannot be for the
sake of effecting a usurpation as treache-
rous, atrocious, and unnatural as that of
Miguel himself; to the detriment of his own
offspring. Not being Sovereign, could Don
Pedro, still the head of the House of Braganza,
remain in Portugal as anything below the rank
of King? Not, we fear, as an ordinary subject.
The habit of dominion would cling to the vic-
torious Prince. Partisans would at all events,
in disparagement of the rights of a female infant,
declare for a Monarch of mature age, however dis-
qualified by legal and constitutional objections, lit-
tle within the understanding of an ignorant multi-
tude. Intrigues would spring up on every side,
and the country might be plunged into all the
horrors of another disputed succession, without
the shadow of participation or even privity on
the part of those in whose name, and in fur-
therance of whose alleged pretensions, the con-
test would be carried on. But as between Sove-
reign and ordinary Portuguese subject, is there
any middle denomination befitting the person of
Don Pedro ? Could he act as Regent, in the
name and on behalf of his daughter, the reign-
ing Queen ? On this point we refer to the
letter of a correspondent, who adduces argu-
ments founded on the constitutional charter
of Portugal, to show that Don Pedro is
wholly disqualified, by virtue of express
articles of the charter, from exercising
the office of Regent. By this charter, the
permanent Regency, during the minority of
the Monarch, must have for one of its members
the member of the Royal Family who is next
in succession to the crown. At present Don
Miguel would be the person answering that
description, but we take for granted that the
first formal act of the provisional Regency now
governing in the Queen's name would be, by a
right inherent in all lawful Governments, to out-
law the usurper who had seized her crown, and
attacked by sea and land the forces which bore
her commission, as a rebel and traitor, and to
render him for ever incapable of enjoying any
rights, or fulfilling any duties, appertaining to
a Prince of the House of Braganza within
the dominions of Donna Maria 11. The
necessity of the case, as well as considerations
of expediency, would then probably suggest the
appointment of the elder Princess, aunt of the
Queen, as Regent pro forma during the minority,
leaving the executive power substantially in the
hands of the statesman now acting as provisional
Regent for her Majesty, assisted by certain col-
leagues. At the same time that Don Pedro
would himself be aware of the wisdom of retiring
from a scene where his presence could only em-
broil those paramount interests for which he has
already done so much, no effort ought to be
spared towards rendering his Imperial Majesty's
retreat as dignified and consistent with his rank
and moral rights as was in the power of a
loyal and dutiful daughter to make it. Every
arrival from Portugal will now teem with im-
portance, anti many circumstances may occur to
demand from the British Government proofs of a
manly, decided, and generous policy in support
of its re-established ally. We are under little
uneasiness with regard to Spain. She is fami-
liar with the treaties which bind Great Britain
to the defence and protection of Portugal against
all foreign enemies, and we presume she is not
ignorant how much the public spirit of this coun-
try would outrun the most vigorous measures of
the Government, or the most exigent obligations
of any written compacts. But, we repeat, we
have no fears on this head, and observe without
surprise that Lord Althorp last night disclaimed
" any feeling of jealousy towards Spain."—

Mr. O'Connell complained last night of a
xnigepresentation of his speech on the subject
of the Foreign Enlistment Act, which ap-
peared in the Times of yesterday. We only
refer to tLe Honourable and Learned Gentle-
man's complaib:t, because he made the following
observations with regard to the report in the
Morning Chronicle :—" The excuse of a noise
in the House could not avail in this instance,
for his real sentiments—the sentiments he
had uttered, were given in the Morning Chro-
nicle most exactly—in a way which he could
only characterise as a model for reporting, so
accurately was it done."—Leaving to our contem-
porary tofight his own battles with Mr.O'Connell,
we have merely to remark, that the same gen-
tleman who reported his speech so much to his
satisfaction on Tuesday night, has reported
scores of his speeches in the course of the
session, and from what we know of him, we are
sure that on every occasion he discharged his
duty with equal fidelity and equal ability. We
are sure, also, that there is not a gentleman on
this estabiiAment, who, down to the period
when the Hon. and Learned Gentleman made
so coarse and unjust an attack on all reporters
without exception, who was not equally desirous
to do justice to him : and who, making allow-
ance for accidental errors, did not report him
with fairness and ability. But where was Mr.
O'Connell's sense of justice, when he libelled
all reporters, treating them as a set of low
miscreants, who were picked up by the
proprietors of newspapers, to do for the
wages of journeymen carpenters, a duty formerly
discharged by gentlemen and scholars at a liberal
salary ? Does Mr. O'Connell think that gentle-
men can easily forget these insults ? Or does he
think that any praise can be of value from one
who was so little scrupulousin censuring ? This,
however, is a subject on which we do not wish
to enlarge. Mr. O'Connell's character can only

he injured by himself. If he be satisfied with
his own conduct, well and good. All we have
to say is, that as a man possessed of great
energy and acuteness, and eloquence of no ordi-
nary kind, no account of the proceedings of
Parliament would he properly executed, in which
full justice is not done to Mr. O'Connell. This
measure of justice, we conceive, he has hitherto
received from us ; and we are sure that no gen-
tleman on this establishment will allow himself
to be influenced in reporting Mr. O'Connell, or
any other Member of Parliament, by any other
consideration than a sense of the value of their
speeches to the public at large. But Members
of Parliament will see the propriety of abstain-
ing from all sweeping accusations against the
press in general, because in some portion of the
press justice has been done to them. What can
he more discouraging to a man conscious of
having honourably discharged his duty, than to
hear himself involved in a sweeping censure of
the whole press, merely because the Hon. Mem-
ber who makes it has not the courage nor the
manliness to single out the paper which has
misrepresented him ?—)Horning Chronicle.
Ministers are likely to make their exit for the
session, or as the performers at another theatre
would say, for the season, with somewhat more
of eclat than many of their acts would imply.
One of the greatest errors into which they had
fallen was the idea that by a vote of the House
of Commons they could alter the public opinion
with regard to the assessed taxes. That idea,
however, they have had good reason to relinquish,
and we are happy to find from what occurred in
the House of Commons last night, that they
have relinquished it in good earnest. The
house tax, at all events, is to be given up next
session. Retiring with a pledge to that effect,
the Ministers will leave behind them a more fa-
vourable impression than could be extracted
from the memory of their most elaborate speeches,
and when they return again to the performance
of their Parliamentary duties they will be wel-
comed, if for no other reason, in the hope that
their pledge will be then redeemed. Indepen-
dently of all party considerations, however, we
rejoice at the prospect of so great a relief as the
public may fairly expect to realize within a short
period from the present time.—Morn. Herald.
We published on Saturday last an abridged
report of the proceedings at a meeting of the
freemen of Liverpool, which was held for the
purpose of manifesting their gratitude to J.
Nichol), Esq., the Member for Cardiff; for the
zeal, energy, and talent which he had exhibited
in the Committee of the House of Commons in
defence of their rights. A variety of topics of a
more pressing nature have hitherto prevented us
from recurring, as we had intended, to the sub-
ject of this meeting, although there are few
subjects of greater or more lasting importance.
The freemen of Liverpool are justly indignant
at the invasion which is meditated upon their
rights, and the violation which they have reason
to apprehend it is intended to commit upon the
sacred and immutable principles of justice in
their persons. It is evident also, from all that
occurred at the meeting to which we refer, that
a large proportion of the inhabitants, of all
ranks and classes, of the great, wealthy, and
important town of Liverpool, fully sympathize in
the feelings of their fellow townsmen, the bur-
gesses, and are determined to assist to the ut-
most of their power in repelling the foul
and manifest injustice with which the bur-
gesses are threatened. It is the mere cant of
arbitrary injustice to say, in reference to such a
case as that of the burgesses of Liverpool, that
corruption is a great crime, and one which
ought to be severely punished. It is the mere
parade of wanton and profligate and impudent
hypocrisy to vindicate the course which has been
recommended in this case by the barren and
empty truism that the constituency of Liver-
pool ought to be made pure. These are pro-
positions which nobody ever thought of deny-
ing. But crime is not punished, but screened
and protected rather—relieved, at least, from the
severer part of its proper punishment, the dis-
grace which ought to follow its detection—when,
as is proposed by certain wise and liberal legis-
lators, the innocent are confounded with the
guilty, and an equal penalty awarded to each.
Nor can any numerous constituency be effectu-
ally purified by beholding the highest authority
in the State act the part of an oppressor—in-
flict indiscriminate vengeance—proclaim, not in
words, but in the more impressive and inde-
lible language of its deeds, to the guilty,
that they shall have innocent and honour-
able sharers in their fate—to the innocent
and honourable, that they might just as well,
for any difference that the legislature will con-
descend to make in favour of innocence and
honour, have been guilty and base—to all the
world, that in the high estimation of a reformed
Parliament guilt and innocence, corruption and
parity, honour and baseness, are exactly alike.
Assuredly it is not by such measures and such
doctrines as these that public murals or political
purity are to be maintained or restored. The
course which it is proposed to pursue towards
the whole body of the freemen of Liverpool
would be so gross an outrage upon the plainest
principles of equity, so palpable a contempt of
the simplest rules of common sense, that it would
have been surprising indeed had the mere idea
of a thing so monstrous failed to excite the
warmest and most general indignation among all
classes of the inhabitants of that borough.
There is no evidence, nor even su mucti as no
accusation, against more than one out of every
four or five of the body of burgesses, which,
in their character of burgesses, it is proposed
to disfranchise in the lump ; while, to add to the
absurdity, if that were possible, and to aggra-
vate the iniquity of the intention, if it ad-
mitted of aggravation, much the larger pro-
portion of those burgesses whose guilt has been
established by evidence are to be permitted to
continue voters for the borough of Liverpool,
because, although they are convicted of having
taken bribes, they possess the redeeming merit
of occupying houses worth ten pounds by the
year. And this is said to be a measure of puri-
fication. What consummate and insufferable
nonsense ! It is a measure cunningly devised
no doubt for the purpose, not of purifying the
old electors of boroughs, but of corrupting the
new electors. It proclaims to the former that
innocence is no protection—to the latter, that
guilt may be incurred by them with safety—to
both, that in the view of the Legislature there is
no distinction between innocence and guilt, but
a great distinction between burgesses and house-
holders, between rights derived from ancient
charters and rights conferred by " the Bill."
This view of the subject has been very generally
taken by the burgesses of every ancient borough
in the kingdom. The proceedings against the
freemen of Liverpool are felt to be an attack upon
the rights and security of freemen everywhere. No
evidence of corruption at the last election at
Liverpool could be found, during a rigorous inves-
igation. The fair inference from this is, that n

Liverpool, if once corrupt, had purified itself,
for which, instead of punishment, the borough
was entitled, undoubtedly, to high praise. In-
stead of praise, however, an inquiry by preju-
diced and partial inquisitors is undertaken into
scenes long past : and this inquiry, necessarily.
Imperfect from the loss of evidence, probably
unfairly conducted, from the known prejudices
and predilections of many of the inquirers, is to
be made, as it appears, the foundation of such
a measure as we have above described ; of a '
measure which does less than nothing for purity
of election, but every thing for one class of
voters in contradistinction to another; of a
measure which while it makes the free-
men of corporations penally responsible,
the whole for any part, conveys to the
ten-pound household electors a monopoly of
bribery, and a full assurance of impunity
in committing it. Is it surprising, then,
that the freemen of Bristol and Nottingham,
and Newcastle and Coventry, and Exeter and
Hull, and Canterbury and Chelmsford, and
Shrewsbury and many other boroughs, have taken
the alarm, and have determined to consider the
cause of the freemen of Liverpool as their own ;
or that the local Press, wherever there are free-
men enjoying the elective franchise uncler a
charter, has manifested considerable anxiety
upon this subject ? Morning Post. •

COURT OF CHANCERY, AUGUST 7.