The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-20 00:00:00

TH.E SUN,

immediately after the revolution of February. Late
one evening, a general officer, whose appearance bore
evidence that he had journeyed in haste from afar,
appeared at the hotel of the Minister of the Inte-
rior, and demanded an interview with M. LEDRU
ROLLIN. He was told that the Minister would not
be disengaged until two o'clock in the morning, and he
stated he would wait; he did wait, he had an interview
with M. LEDRU ROLLIN, who recognised him at
once as an officer holding a high command in Africa,
who was absent without leave. This officer proposed
to M. LEDRU ROLLIN to organize an expedition
secretly for the invasion of England, without any
declaration of war, offering himself to take the com-
mand of it, undertaking to destroy Woolwich and
London before he returned, and engaging, should the
expedition fail, to take the whole responsibility on
himself, and to suffer execution as a brigand rather
than acknowledge that he had been acting under
the orders of the French Government. The proposi-
tion was indignantly rejected by M. LEDRU ROLLIN,
and the proposer covered with shame withdrew.
Who was the proposer of this brigand expedition ?
Not a Red, not a Republican, but a Burgrave, the
great General of the great party of order, the trusted
of the Bourbons, the eulogised of the parti•pretre,
the man the ascendancy of whom in France we were
told two years since was absolutely necessary to pre-
serve the peace of Europe : the proposer of this ex-
pedition was no other than General CHANGARNIER.
So much for the Burgraves being the party of peace.
But we are told the Bonapartists are the party of
peace 1 Are we to consider the expedition to Rome
as an evidence of their love of the doctrines of non-
interference and of their peaceable intentions ?
Fortunately, however, for the peace of France and of
the world, whilst the real party of order in the
country, the party of peace, of the Constitution, and
of legality, has been consolidating its forces, and now
remains in an attitude of calm dignity, inspired by
the possession of conscious power, watching the
course of events, and so directing them as to consoli-
date and secure the Republic, which is henceforth the
only possible form of government in France, the
reactionary conspiracy is broken up, and the con -
spirators who plotted the destruction of the
Republic are now turning their arms against
each other ; anything like a reconciliation be-
tween the Bonapartists and the Burgraves is
now impossible; the reactionary conspiracy can;never
again be reorganized on its former footing. If we
needed any additional proof of this we should find it
in the debate of Monday on the Questors' Bill. Who
would have imagined that M. TRIERS would have
been hooted down by the partisans of M. BONAPARTE ?
Yet so it happened. Who would have imagined that
the Ministers of M. BONAPARTE would have been
roughly questioned by General BEDEAU, and that M.
BERRYEE would have threatened to impeach not only
the Ministers, but the PRESIDENT himself. Yet so it
happened. Who would have imagined that those who
refuse to listen to either M. TRIERS or to the Minis-
ters of M. BONAPARTE would have eagerly drunk in
the words of M. MICHEL (de Bourges) and M.
JULES FAVRE ? Yet so it happened. The different
fractions of the reactionary conspiracy knew that
their fate rested in the hands of the Re-
publicans, and the former listened, therefore listened
attentively to the Republican orators, who carried
away the honours of the sitting. Of the state of
dissolution in which what was once the reactionary
party is at present our readers may judge from the
following passage, which we copy from the observa-
tions of the Journal des Debats on the debate of
Monday :

" Question any one who was present at the sitting, for
which we could have wished closed doors had been de-
manded, and he will tell you that never, at any of the
most tumultuous and most stormy periods, did the As-
sembly present a more lamentable spectacle of disorder.
In a pitched battle in which every one combats around
his flag, there is at least grandeur and something that
elevates the miad; and besides, defeat is almost as noble
as victory; but what was witnessed on Monday was ❑ot
a conflict, it was general anarchy, it was chaos, it was
dissolution."

Yes, the reactionary party is in a state of chaos,
and dissolution, and it is not such by cunningly de-
vised schemes as a partial restoration of the fran-
chise to the peasantry, under the guise of a new Mu-
nicipal Bill, whilst the disfranchisement of the work-
men in the towns is continued, by the 31st Mey,
that the party can be reconstructed. The
Republicans will accept nothing short of the complete
restoration of universal suffrage, and they, therefore,
properly abstain from taking any part in the discus-
sion of the Municipal Bill; and we may be very cer-
tain that the PRESIDENT will accept of no such
compromise, because it will not give him
a single additional chance of re•election.
We consider, therefore, that the Republicans for prin-
ciple, and that the PRESIDENT for interest, will perse-
vere in their demands for the abrogation of the Law
of May, 1850, and the Burgraves will not venture a
second time to refuse it. The victory throughout
these contests has been, and must eventually be, with
the Republicans.

The Commissioners for the Sale of Encumbered
Estates in Ireland are actively engaged in their voca-
tion, and properties to the amount of tens of thousands
of pounds sterling are changing hands (lay after day,
the old families, whose inheritances have been
squandered away, being replaced by new corners.
We should indeed be rejoiced if we could state that
there had been a marked improvement in the rates of
purchase, or that a desire to become landed pro-
prietors in the sister kingdom had influenced English
capitalists to enter the market. But no, the same
excessive caution—nervous timidity might be the more
proper term—is still but too painfully apparent, and
at every sale well circumstanced estates are knocked
down at little more than one-half their actual value.
These are indeed "alarming" sacrifices, and, unfor-
tunately, almost es " deplorable" as they are " alarm-
ing." They proclaim in the most unequivocal terms
the wretched condition of the nation, where real
property, once so anxiously sought after—the fa-
vourite description of investment—has fallen to so
heavy a discount, and that notwithstanding the
unusually favourable terms as to title, for the first
time tendered for public acceptance. On every for-
mer occasion—even on sales under the highest tribunal
in the country—the purchaser should observe the
old maxim, caveat emptor. He should pay his money
in full dependence on the accuracy and acuteness of
his solicitor and advising counsel. On the accuracy
of the former—for if the abstract of title were in-
correct in any particular, the most experienced
conveyancer might be deceived, and that without
any fault of his own ; while, on the other
hand, the ,slightest negligence or oversight,
arising possibly from a disordered stomach or inci-
pient gout, might occasion some fatal mistake, such
as the overlooking of some latent blot on the title,
that would lead to the loss of the entire purchase-
money, and reduce the unfortunate purchaser to abso-
lute ruin.

But these serious dangers did not constitute the
only evils of the ancient system. Although the con-
fidence of the purchaser in his legal advisers of either
branch of the profession were fully merited, although
no mistake of any kind should be admitted, and that
a title could thus be obtained that would have the
scrutiny of the most stringent investigation, that
would be proof against the captious objections of an
unwilling purchaser, great annoyance, delay, and
expense would necessarily take place before the
transaction could be completed. Months would be
wasted, while the ;professional gentlemen were dis-
puting about the sumcietcy
putth e
forward
bt he e.
propriety of the
requisitionsf
half of the purchaser. The searches positive and
negative for judgments, Crown bonds, and reco
as well as for all acts affecting gthe
ni-
question (we are speaking
ersatnact ea s
in
of property in
Ireland), would consume some additional weeks.
Then the result of the searches would again be laid
before counsel. New requisitions and new objections
might, and in all human probability would, then be
put forward, founded on the additional premises.
Any member of the profession in Ireland, any
vendor or purchaser of property in that
country, before the recent Act came into
operation, will say that we have not by
any means overcoloured the picture, and that
many months usually intervened between the contract
for the sale and the completion of the transaction,
during which the purchase money was lying compa-
ratively idle and unproductive, to the serious loss of
one or other of the parties. When all these matters
had been completed—when the differences about the
4eed of settlement had Well fully ;wiped—