The Sun.
London, England, 1833-03-14 00:00:00

4 k, - *nsit.

LONDON,
THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 14, 1833.

It will be seen by our Parliamentary report,
that much progress was not made in Committee,
last night, with the Irish Coercive Bill. The
chief points of interest consisted in the an-
nouncements made by Lord ALTIIORP and
Mr. STANLEY, of the modifications they were
willing to agree to in the details of the
Bill. It is proposed that no officer shall sit
on a courtmartial tinder the rank of Captain,
which will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hun-
dred, insure all the members of it having
arrived at a tolerably mature age. Further, when
the courtmartial consists of five members only
they must be unanimous, when of seven there
must be a majority of five, when of more
than seven, the majority must be of seven.
With respect to domiciliary visits, the right of
entry is to be barred by the party suspected to
be ahsent from home appearing. The right of
search for arms is also to be given up, Lord
ALTIIORP thinking the power of the law in
this respect already sufficiently strong. The
power of imprisonment in any other than a public
prison is also to be taken away, and courts-
martial are to have no jurisdiction over political
offences, even in a proclaimed district. These are
great and important concessions, no doubt, and
fully bear us out in all we have said against the
measure, and the imperative necessity of its de-
tails being modified. We are not of those rvho
yield to the argument, that the greater the de-
viation from the Constitution the better; and,
therefore, trust to see yet further modifications
of the Bill, which will make it approximate
somewhat more to the Constitution we have
lately made such struggles to place upon a firm
basis.

The reply of Lord ALTHORP to the deputa-
tion who waited on him relative to Mr. THOMAS
ATTWOOD'S motion for inquiring into the dis-
tresses of the country, will, we understand,
cause a material falling off in the number of those
who had promised to support the motion. Pre-
viously to the deputation waiting on Lord
ALTHORP, Mr. ATTWOOD had reason to
expect that his motion would be carried, as
more than one hundred Members of the House
of Commons are said to have signed a paper
pledging themselves to support it, and about a
hundred more had intimated their readiness to
do so under certain modifications. It appears
from what has transpired on the subject in the
Club-houses, and other places of political resort,
that Mr. ATTWOOD had intended to confine
his motion to an inquiry into the causes of the
distress which prevails amongst the industrious
classes, but that several of the aristocracy, both
WhiT and Tories, who promised to support

him did so on the condition of his making
his motion more general, they having suf-
fered in some instances, to the extent of
more than two hundred per cent. on their
estates, from the prevailing distress, most of
which they attribute, with how much reason re-
mains to be shown, to the sudden alteration of
the monetary system. It is also a curious fact,
that in the interview between the deputation
and Lord ALTHORP, his Lordship expressed a
strong opinion in favour of inquiry, and observed,
that the statements of the deputation were so
powerful, as to demand his serious consideration.
It was necessary, however, he said, to consult his
colleagues on the subject, and he would apprise
them of the result by letter. This he has done,
and in a manner so unsatisfactory to the deputa-
tion, that there is now little prospect of Mr.
ATTWOOD'S motion for inquiry, coupled, as it
is, with a demand for investigation into the
merits of the present monetary system, being
carried, if he should persist in it, under the pre-
sent circumstances.

Mr. ATTWOOD being a banker, and, there-
fore, interested in advocating a return to a paper
currency, it is very common to hear his motives
impugned, and his alliance on this question with
his relative (MATTHIAS), one of the rankest
Tories of the House of Commons, tends to
divest his exertions on this subject of that credit
for patriotism which has marked his public career
in other respects. We believe Mr. ATTWOOD,
however, to be actuated by the best intentions,
although, like most other men, he may have a
crotchet in his head on the currency question.
Still, considering the great extent of the prevail
ing distress, the mercantile paralysis with which
the country seems to be afflicted, the total ab-
sence of the enterprise by which large masses of
the industrious population were formerly kept in
profitable motion, it is difficult to conceive on
what ground the Government can object to a
Committee of Inquiry.

Letters from Paris state that it is still in con-
templation to release the Duchess de BERRI,
after her accouchement, which is expected to
take place in about a month from this period.

Up to a late hour this morning no further
accounts had been received from Oporto either
at the Foreign-office or at the Portuguese
Embassy.

Up to this time no fresh communication has
been made to the West India Committee by
Lord GODERICH, on the subject of the pro-
posed emancipation of the slaves in the West
India Colonies. The Committee augur favour-
ably to their own interests from this delay.

We stated on Tuesday that we had been able
to trace the rumour of Don PEDRO'S defeat to
a Noble Lord who has been an extraordinary
partisan of the Usurper. This Noble Lord
stated on Monday, to use his own elegant
phraseology, that " it was all up with Dot)
PEDRO"—that he had certain information of
PEDRO'S having fled from Oporto,and of the Con.
stitutionalists having commenced negotiations for
the surrender of that city, and their abandonment
of Portugal. Upon this authority, conveyed in-
deed through a source which divested it of
suspicion,was our Morning Contemporary misled,
when he stated that the most alhrming news had
been received from Oporto. Nothing had trans-
pired to warrant the statement. The Noble Lord
and his Miguelite friends here had nothing from
Oporto of a later date than the 21st of February,
at which time the official accounts sent to Lord
PALMERSTON, to the Admiralty,and to the Por-
tuguese Embassy, left things nearly in statu quo,
surrounded indeed by additional difficulties, but
without any fact to justify the assertion that "all
was up with Don PEDRO."

Perhaps, whilst we are writing, there maybe
accounts on the way of the disastrous termina-
tion of the Portuguese campaign which the
Times has anticipated, and for which too many
circumstances have prepared us ; but a very little
consideration will show that the report of Mon-
day last was without foundation ; and we may also
fairly infer, that for at least a week subsequently
to our last accounts, nothing decisive had taken
place in favour of the Miguelites. Had Don
PEDRO fled, and Oporto surrendered, the news
would have been conveyed from Oporto to
Madrid, and thence to Bayonne, in less than
four days ;—from Bayonne to Paris it would
have been conveyed by telegraph, and from Paris
here in two days, so that up to the 6th or 7th
of March we might have had accounts, if they
had been favourable to the Miguelites. So far,
therefore, no news is good news for the Consti-
tutionalists.

Until we know the result of the conflict which
was expected on the occasion of landing provi-
sions for the use of the Constitutionalists,—a
conflict which must have materially changed the
face of affairs on one side or the other, we shall
refrain from any observations on the policy pursued
by our Cabinet with reference to the Portuguese
question. We hear it condemned on all sides ;
but in order to examine it fairly, we must wait
for those disclosures which the result of the
contest between Don PEDRO and the Usurper,
can alone bring to light.