The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-06 00:00:00

TILE SUN,

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LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1851

The reports of the Presidents of the Queen's Col-
leges, or as they have been euphoniously termed the
" Godless" Colleges, in Ireland, which have just
been published, afford abundant evidence that the
denunciations of " the Most Rev. PAUL," aided
and supported by the diatribes of the
" Lion " of Tuam, the pastorals of the dove of Elphin,
and even the resolutions of the Synod of Thurles,
have not induced the intelligent and educated mem-
' hers of their creed to reject the inestimable advan-
tages offered by the new institutions for the education
of their children. The " colleges" still flourish, and
pupils still flock in, notwithstanding the organised
opposition that has been put forward. We do not find
the grass growing in their courts, as was boldly pro-
phecied by ultramontanist seers, nor have the Roman
Catholic gentry withdrawn their sons from the lec-
ture-rooms as from pest-houses. The progress of
these valuable institutions appears to be as great as
could fairly have been anticipated, and it is the more
satisfactory, as it proves beyond the possibility of
doubt that there are persona determined to judge for
themselves, who will not surrender their opinions into
the hands of a bare majority of the bench of bishops.
The Right Reverend Gentlemen may perchance feel
astonished at the discovery that their authority is not
quite so despotic as they had fondly supposed, and that
any of their flocks should venture to think or act for
themselves without previously obtaining ecclesiastical
sanction. It is, however, an unquestionable although
a painful fact, and may teach a salutary lesson to
sacerdotal would be despots.
It is also shown that there never was a greater
mistake than supposing that any danger to faith
or morale was incurred by the students, or that their
religious training was altogether neglected. In
every case, as remarked by Mr. EDWARD BEE.,
WICK, the amiable and talented President of the Gal-
way College, " the religious and secular education
went hand in hand ; the latter given by the accom-
plished scholars who fill the professorial chairs, a large
number of whom are Protestants—the former dispensed
by the clergyman, who, in accordance with the statutes,
had entered upon his office under the sanction of the con-
stituted authorities of the Church." Perhaps it would
be impossible to find any body of young men more
attentive to religious duties and religious instruction
than the students have been. One day in the week
has been appropriated to that purpose, and the re-
spective Deans of Residence have expressed their en-
tire and unequivocal satisfaction at the attendance
they have received and the attention exhibited.
Whether belonging to the Church of England, the
Presbyterian, or the Roman Catholic persuasions—
they have worthily discharged their duties:with credit
to themselves and benefit to the rising generation
committed to their charge. Whence, then, the
accusations that have been so freely and
unsparingly preferred of the total absence
of such instruction, and almost Atheistical tendency
of the courses prescribed ? Alas ! these grave charges
were preferred, not because there was a want of re-
ligious education to all persons willing to receive it,
but because all opportunities of proselytism and pro-

pagandism were forbidden. The tenets of one creed
could not be forced upon the members of another
without the assent of their parents or guardians, and,
horrible to relate, it was possible to receive a sound
practical education without surrendering the con-
science of the neophyte into the hands of a priest of
any communion.

" Hine Moe lachrymto."

Hence the objurgations of those who found that
they should be contented with retaining their own
without invading the provinces of others, or seeking
to withdraw the pupils from the spiritual banners
under which they had enlisted. This it was that

made an enemy of CULLEN, that rendered M'HALE
rampant, and drove HIGGINS almost out of his
senses. They fancied that the time had
arrived for banishing heresy from Ireland,
and restoring England to the Papal fold.
They were not contented with equality—they sought

superiority. They followed the example of
many of the Protestant clergymen in Ireland, who,
when the national system of education was introduced
under the auspices of the then Lord STANLEY, op-

posed it with all their powers, and uttered the loud-
est complaints, because they were not permitted to
instil their own tenets into the ears of the pupils,
and to exclude the religious interference of
pastors of another denomination, so far
es members of their own creeds were con-

cerned. This insane conduct, so injurious to the
cause of Protestantism in Ireland—the ministers of

that creed in too many instances standing proudly
aloof, and declining any interference because they
were not permit'ed to inculcate their own doctrines,

and thus surrendering the care and superintendence
of the rising generation into the hands of their op-
ponents—is now being imitated by a large propor-
. .

tion of tha Roman Catholic clergy, not in accord
ance with their own individual views, but in obeli.

ence to the instructions from the Vatican

eighteen years They were wiser in their generation,
since, than they have now shown themselves, and
they reaped the fruits of their moderation. Now

they are pursuing a different line of policy, and the

result may possibly not quite answer their expecta-
tions. They now desire to enforce a slavish and
unreasoning submission from lay professors of
their creed—to strike a desperate blow

for despotic power. Let them, however, be-
ware; they have already, by their unwarranted
assumptions in this country, succeeded in alienating
the Duke of NORFOLK and other high-minded and
educated Roman Catholics. An equally impo-
litic course in Ireland— the following out
of the path on which they have entered
under ,the guidance of CULLEN and APHALE—

may produce consequences far beyond their calcula-
tions. Let them recollect that in attacking the
Queen's Colleges, they are not dealing with the
ignorant, uneducated, and superstitious masses, but

with educated persons, competent to arrive at sound

conclusions, and with sufficient energy to carry out
their own opinions, notwithstanding any sacerdotal
opposition, no matter how decisive or energetic.

The state of affairs in the island of Cuba becomes
every day more serious; each arrival from America
brings intelligence calculated to render the relations
between Spain and the United States more compli-
cated and more dangerous, and nothing but the exer-
cise on the part of the Government of Spain, and on
that not only of the Executive but of the people also
of the United States, of a degree of prudence, cir-
cumspection,
and calmness, which, judging from
their antecedents, we cannot hope or expect from
either of the parties, can much longer ward off a war
into which, should it once commence, every maritime
nation must of necessity sooner or later be dragged ;
and for all these consequences the members of the
Executive of th 3 United States are alone to blame.
Had they placed LOPEZ under arrest when he first
commenced recruiting for his piratical expedition;
had they seized the Pamper() as she entered the
waters of the Gulf, and they might have done so,
or intercepted her on her passage, none of these com-
plications would have arisen. They would have
saved the lives of at least fifty of their fellow-citizEns
who have been publicly executed at the Havannab as
pirates ; they would have escaped the dangers with
which they themselves are threatened for mass meet-
ings in New York, and a state of almost insurrection
in New Orleans ; and they would have saved the
world from the risk of a general war, a war in which
savetnhoemonseelvesf
trheee n, egro slaves, who would probably set
can by possibility gain anything,
whilst the losses of
all engaged in it, be they victors
or vanquished, must be incalculable. It appears from
the intelligence brought by the Humboldt, which left
New York on the 23d wt., and landed her letters at

Cowes on Thursday, that LOPEZ landed at Cubanos
with 450 men, and was immediately attacked by the
Spaniards, under General ENNA. A aeries of en-
gagements followed, in which, according to the ac-
' counts of the American " sympathisers," LOPEZ and
his troops were uniformly victorious, albeit these
accounts tell us nothing of the whereabouts of the
victorious LOPEZ, whilst, according to the official
accounts of the Captain-General of Cuba, LOPEZ was
defeated, and compelled, with the greater number of
his followers, to take refuge in the mountains, where
they were hemmed in by the troops, the natives, and
the negroes, and would be compelled ultimately to
, surrender, whilst another portion of his followers had
made for the shore, and seizing four boats which they
found there, had endeavoured to escape to New
Orleans. The Spanish account is corroborated by
the fact that these same four boats were pursued by
a Spanish war steamer and captured, and that their
crews, consisting of forty Americans (among whom
was Colonel CRITTENDEN, the son of the Attorney-
General of the United States), four Irishmen, one
Scotchman, one Italian, one Phillipine Islander, two
Habaneros, and two Germans, where publicly shot as
pirates at the Havannah, on the 16th, in the presence
of 20,000 people. That the Spaniards were perfectly
justified in thus executing summary justice on a gang
of marauders taken with arms in their hands, no
one who is at all acquainted with the law of nations
will attempt to deny. These persons had been
warned by their own Government that the protection
due to American citizens would not be awarded to
them if they engaged in any piratical expedition
of the character of that in which they chose
to embark, and the Cuban Government pro-
claimed that all persons taken in arms against
the Spanish Government would be immediately
shot ; indeed, the United States consul at the
Havannah admitted the full right of the Spanish
Government to execute these prisoners by cautiously
abstaining from interfering in their favour, although
requested so to do. As the editor of the New York
Courier and Enquirer justly observes—
" The simple execution of these prisoners, however
much it may excite pity, does not justify crimivation.
The act was no infringement of any international law
or right. Nearly all of the victims were Americans by
birth and citizenship; but they were informed months
ago, in the clearest language, by an official proclamation
of the President, that an enlistment in an enterprise
like that they have undertaken would deprive them of
all claims to American protection; and also were warned
by a public manifesto of the Captain-General of Cubs,
that if another piratical expedition was attempted
against Cuban territory, those taken in it should suffer
a pirate's doom. With such a premonition, it was, in
fact, an act of mercy that those whose loss we mourn
were shot instead of hanged. To shoot regular pri-
soners of war in cold blood is deemed in modern times
a violation of the rights of war;' but those individuals
were entitled to no belligerent rights whatever. At the
very best they could be put only on the footing of re-
bellious subjects, and that footing would at once sink
them into a bloody grave. We saw at the Park last
evening a flag with the inscription, ' The blood of fifty
murdered Americans cries for vengeance.' Doubtless
the nerves of many a good fellow, as he looked upon it,
tingled with indignation. But it was but a base revolu-
tionary ruse, worth► only of the profoundest contempt."
We agree with the Courier in considering the dis-
play of this flag as a ruse worthy only of the pro-
foundest contempt, but it happens unfortunately that
it is a ruse that has invariably succeeded in raising
the hot blood of the masses to fever heat wherever it
has been employed, and therefore we cannot but re-
gret that the execution of these men took place
so immediately after their capture, and that no dis-
tinction was made between any of them ac-
cording to their different degrees of guilt, but that
all were involved in the one common punishment of
death, and that inflicted after such a fashion as to
give to that which ought to have been an act of stern
justice the appearance of a massacre. It is, how-
ever, a fait accompli, and we must now consider the
probable consequences which may arise. A col-
lision between Spain and the United States seems

inevitable; Spain can put no trust in the assur-
ances of the Executive of the United States when
she finds that in command of the buccaneers,
among those executed at the Havannab, was Colonel
W. CRITTENDEN, the son of the Attorney-General of
the United States—the son of the man whose duty it
was to prosecute all engaged in attempting to fit out
this expedition. But even supposing the Executive
of the United States desirous of preventing these
marauding attacks upon Cuba, it is exceedingly
doubtful whether, in the present excited state of
public feeling, it could now prevent them ; it might
have prevented the departure of Lorzz and his com-
rades, but now that the hot blood is up we fear that
the difficulties in the way of suppressing these ma-
rauding expeditions are almost insuperable. From
the feeling exhibited by the Spaniards, the Creoles,
and the negroes who were present at the late execu-
tion at the Havannah, it appears to us evident that

. _
there is no chance of any of these marauders getting
possession of Cuba, unless they are backed by the
whole force of the United States, and that ultimately
they will be so backed is, we fear, probable. Then will
follow a fearful retribution; the last act of Spain in
Cuba will be to free and arm the negroes, and
the United States will find themselves in-

volved in a servile war, in which the
negroes must ultimately be successful, and which
will not be confined to Cuba, but will spread to
Florida and all the Southern States, whilst Spain,
whose commerce is so trifling as to be almost value-
less, will issue letters of marque, and the Atlantic
and the Pacific will swarm with privateers sailing
under the Spanish flag, who will inflict incalculable
damage on American commerce, and render the com-
munication by sea between New York and California
all but impossible. From the Mexican ports on
the Gulf and on the Pacific there will issue
forth, swift and well armed, privateers who
will pick up the gold ships of California,
even as of old the galleons of Spain were
picked up by the buccaneers ; and thus, whilst Spain
will lose Cuba, the Americans will not gain it, and will
find their commerce seriously crippled, if not altoge-
ther ruined. A judicious exercise of prudence and
self-command by both parties may yet obviate those

disastrous consequences which, without the exercise oi

such prudence, appear to us inevitable ; and we sin

cerely and ardently hope that such prudence may be

_ -
displayed, and that the peace of the world may con-
tinue undisturbed. In the meantime we again urge
upon our Foreign Secretary the necessity of being
prepared for all events.

This morning an accident, which threatened fatal
consequences, occurred to a man named Walker, and a youth
named Hodges, in the employ of Mr. Tout, fellmonger,
Long-lane, Bermondsey. It appears that Walker and
Hodges were larking, when Hodges threw a noose, formed
at the end of a piece of rope, round the neck of Walker, at the
same moment that the other end of the rope was caught in
an upright shaft at work, near which they were standing, by
which Hodges'a right hand was drawn in and the fingers
severely crushed, and the rope so tightened round the neck
of Walker as to produce insensibility. They were both con-
veyed immediately to Guy's Hospital, where Walker is
doing well, but it is feared that the youth Hodges, will lose
the fingers of his right hand.

DREADFUL ACCIDENT IN FLEET-STREET.—TbiB
afternoon, at about a quarter past one o'clock, a boy was rid-
ing i n Fleet-street on a truck, and when near Farringdon-
street one of the wheels came off, and he was thrown into
the middle of the road, when a cab which was passing ran
over him. He was taken up apparently dead, and conveyed
to St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.—The ordinary
meeting was held last evening at the society's rooms, 20,
Bedford-street, Strand; Mr. J. D. Salmon in the chair.
Numerous donations were announced, and seven new mem-
bers elected. Mr. G. Edgar Dennes, the secretary, exhibited
specimens of Lomrsia oryzoides, collected by him at Brock-
ham-bridge, Surrey, on the 30th August last. Mr. Dennes
stated that Mr. Brewer, the society's local secretary at Rei-
gate, had dried numerous specimens of this rare grass for
distribution to the members in January next. The continu-
ation of Mr. D. Stock's paper, "On the Botany of Bungay,
Suffolk," was read.

A FEMALE FOUND IN THE THAMES.—Yesterday
afternoon, as the F Citizen boat was proceeding upwards,
and near Waterloo-bridge, the captain discovered the body
of a female floating on the surface of the water. He hailed
the Thames police, and four officers put off from their ship in
a boat, and conveyed the deceased to the vault of St. Mary-
le-Strand, for an inquest. The deceased appeared about
thirty years of age, respectably dressed, and had apparently
been in the water about five or six days.

APOTTIECARIES'-HALL. —The following are the
names of the gentlemen who passed their examination in the
science and practice of medicine, and received certificates to
practise, on Thursday, Sept. 4, i 851 :—John Rolston, Devon-
port ; Thomas Henderson Somerville, Sedbergh, Yorkshire ;
Charles Denton Hulme, Leicester; John Le Gay Brereton,
Doncaster.

AMERICAN WlT.—About the drollest man alive is
a chap now in Chicago, well known in northern Vermont by
the name of " Tim Wait." Say what you might to Tim, he
was always ready with a repartee, and a good one. On one
occasion he came into a hotel in Burlington, looking rather
jaded and down in the mouth. " What's the matter, Tim ?"
said one of the company, "you look rather the worse for
wear."—" Why, you see,"said Tim," I haven't slept a wink.
for three nights—last night, to-night, and to-morrow night '
Having set the bar-room in a roar, Tim left to make up for
his loss by a triple 5n00ze...../Joston Post.