The Sun.
London, England, 1833-09-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It will be seen by the letter of our corre-
spondent from Portsmouth, that her host
Faithful/Majesty Donna Maria 11., the young
Queen of Portugal, has reached that port, and
has been received, not only with the honours
due to her illustrious rank, but with a cordiality
suited to her intimate alliance with this country.
The reception which she has met with at Ports-
mouth is only a prelude to that which awaits her
in the other English towns which she may visit,
or through which she may pass. The Royal in-
vitation to Windsor, though it can scarcely add
to the gratification which she must feel at the
hearty welcome of the English people, rejoicing
in the success of her cause, shows that the
highest authority of the state participates in the
declaration of the popular sentiment. The visit
of the young Queen of Portugal to this coun-
try, on her way to her own capital, is in every
way grateful, politic, and well judged. Had she
departed directly from Brest, Havre-de-Grace,
or any other French port, to Lisbon, we should
never have had an end of the stupid clamour
that France was now to be selected as the
favourite state for a Portuguese alliance. Had
she not come to the English shores, but merely
proceeded to the Tagus with an English escort,
she herself would have lost the benefit of that
influence which must always result from the de-
claration of popular opinion in favor of her cause
by so great a nation as the English. Another
advantage she must have forfeited by a direct
return to Portugal from France ; she would have
deprived herself of one of the most useful and
edifying sights in the world for a Constitutional
Monarch—the sight of a great nation abounding
in resources of all kinds—mighty in warlike
power—ennobled by every kind of civil splen-
dour and magnificence—and enjoying all under
constitutional laws, which, while they secure
order, protect liberty. It cannot but be agree-
able to those who see in our present relations with
France a bulwark against the assaults of conti-
nental despotism on free states, and a guarantee
for the general peace of Europe, to observe the
delicacy with which the French Government has
conducted itself in this, probably not very im-
portant affair. Knowing that Portugal has long
been the intimate ally of England, and that the
other Powers have always deferred to English
opinion on Portuguese questions, the French
Ministry made their recognition of the young
Queen dependent on ours, and instead of royal
salutes at Havre-de-Grace, allowed her first to
receive such salutes in England. We do not
say that it would be possible, or, if possible,
that it would be useful, for Louis Philippe to
acquire an ascendancy over the family of Bra-
ganza by zealous professions or displays of idle
parade, but it is agreeable to see that he does
not aim at such an object. Don Miguel visited
this country, coming through France, and pro-
ceeding to Lisbon. His heart was untouched
with the sight of the wondrous results of free
institutions. Let us hope better things of the
young Queen.—Times.
Archdeacon Bathurst, of Norwich, has ad-
dressed a " Second Letter" to the Archbishop
of Canterbury, on the present state of the Church
of England, and the views and expectations of
the people with regard to it. " The principle,"
he says, " whether imperatively as to concilia-
tion of the Irish people or not, by the Irish
Church Bill, has been clearly admitted, that
the State has a right to re-model the Church, as
to its internal arrangements, with a view to its
efficiency and better satisfying the purposes for
which it was instituted." Archdeacon Bathurst,
whilst noticing this admission, does not hesitate
to express it as his opinion that " circumstanced
as the Irish Church peculiarly is with regard to
the population of 700,000 belonging to the Esta-
blished Church, and seven millions to the Ro-
man Catholic Church, a larger admission might
have been made, and a portion of the Church
property applied to general education, and the
relief of the poor, congenial to the pious and
charitable intentions with which much of the
Church property was certainly left." In the
meantime the Irish Church Bill has not been
imperative in England. The Venerable Arch-
deacon says, " the Irish Church rate being done
away, and the Irish Church property being made
chargeable therewith, has raised expectations
in this country of some similar expectation
in England." He informs his Grace,
that " even in my Archdeaconry, where I
have, within these few years, exercised the most
decisive, though, in my judgment, necessary act
of authority in one instance, and with successful
issue, I have, within these three or four weeks
past, received from another quarter a very re-
spectful but decisive refusal to comply this year
with an extensive order made upon one of the
numerous parishes in my archdeaconry ; and
which order, on consultation, and in compliance
with the advice and consent of a very sensible
man, the rector, at whose intimation a close in-
spection of the church edifice was made, I have
suspended only with a view to present concilia-
tion, but with a determination, if necessary, by
and bye, to see the order fully executed, by
compulsory means ; and this in a parish where
previously orders, not strictly compulsory, but
commendatory, and unlike the orders now in
question, have been executed in the most liberal
and creditable manner." These are signs of the
times not to be mistaken. "it is quite evident
(says the venerable Archdeacon) that parishes
are waiting to see if they cannot get rid of the
church-rate altogether." And he calls upon
the Lord Archbishop to look to these things,
and to make head against the coming danger.
The venerable Archdeacon deems it a slip, that
in Ireland the vestry cess was not converted into
an equal average charge on the land for some useful
public purpose, such as the foundation of a poor
rate, or a fund to assist the education of the
people ; and he impresses on the Archbishop the
necessity of taking into his serious consideration
whether, if the Church-rate be done away in
this country, the amount fairly averaged should
not be applied to education in schools upon a
broad principle, upon which the only condition
should be, that the children who are therein
educated, should go and give an account of their
going to some place of religious worship on a
Sunday. Archdeacon Bathurst thinks that it
might be expedient to tax large preferments of
all descriptions in the Church, for the establish-
ment of parish schools in connection with the
Church, by which means a most useful class of
men might be brought forward in every parish,
who would prove a great benefit to society ge-
nerally, and to the establishment in particular.
Schools of this kind would, in his opinion, be
much better than those snpported by voluntary
subscriptions, on the present plan of the national
school society. Where parishes possess chari-
ties left for purposes of education, those charities
might be placed under the superintendence!? f
legally expressed authorities, so as to secure their
most useful application. The clergy of the es-
tablished Church of England, when speaking of
ecclesiastical property, are but too apt

to forget that the Clergy do not consti-
tute the Church. The Clergy are but a
part of the Church ; and the property of
the Church ought to be applicable to education
—to the support of the poor—and, in short, to
all pious purposes. This was distinctly laid
down by those reformers of the Church of
Scotland who framed the Book of Discipline in
1560. Having stated what provision ought to
be made out of the estates of the Church for
ministers, readers, &c., they say, " Rests two
scrts of people who must be provided for of that
which is called the patrimony of the Church ; to
wit, the poor and the teachers of the youth. The
poor must be provided for in every parish. Not
that we are patrons to stubborn and idle beggars,
who, running from place to place, make a craft
of begging ;b for these, we think, must be com-
pelled to work, or then punished by the civil
magistrate. But the poor widows, the fatherless,
the impotent, maimed persons, the aged, and
every one that may not work, or such persons
as have fallen by occasion into decay, ought to
be provided, and have their necessities supplied
by the parish where they were born, or have
remained for any long space." Again, in au-
other part, they say, " Two sorts of men, that
is the preachers of the word and the poor, be-
sides the schools must be sustained upon the
rents of the Church." These principles of the
Scotch Reformers are in strict accordance with
the views of the primitive Christians. The
property of the Church was not given for the
clergy, but the clergy were merely the adminis-
trators for the community. It gives us sincere
pleasure to hear the liberal and truly Christian
sentiments of Archdeacon Bathurst, with regard
to Church property :

" The time is come (he says) when a further Refor-
mation in the Church is required by the public voice,
and when the Church property is expected to answer
religious purposes more nationally and effectively, than
hitherto of late. The Reformation itself has, by separating
the Catholics from us, and giving rise to many Sects
among Protestants, made it desirable that the general pur-
poses of religion, for which the property was left, rather
than exclusively of a sect, or party, should be consulted,
without, however, at the same time, destroying the con-
sequence of the dominant sect, or party, which is con-
sidered by, and has long been considered bound up with
and most congenial to the other institutions of the country,
namely, the Episcopal Church. When unforeseen circum-
stances arise as to the disposition of property left long ago,
we ought, in equity, to consider what those who left it
would probably, with unbiassed minds, and intentions
equally pious with those which actuated their bequests,
have recommended now. Their piety, their wisdom, as
they are canonized and sanctified by death, ought so to be
referred to now, as of spirits of the just made perfect, as
raised above worldly prejudices and passions of the day,
and, like guardian angels watching. over us; and in this
exalted character we ought to ask what is likely to be most
congenial, so far as our wisdom can see, to their views.
For they are now, like that "Dicont numen" described
by the poet, and in possession of more, we trust, than is
expressed by what follows:

Sedesque quiet
Quas neque concutiunt venti neque nubila nimbi 3
Conspergunt neque Nixacri concreta Pruina
Cana Cadens violat semperque innubilus :Ether
Integit et large diffuso luminc ridet.'

" In short, even as the heathen deity is fabled to have
removed the mist which concealed the antagonist's deities
from the sight of ,Eneas, amid the flames of Troy, even
so Nubem "—Morning Chronicle.

In pursuing our review of the Whig system of
foreign policy in answer to the statements sent
forth to the world in the Government manifesto,
called the Reform Ministry and the Reform Par-
liament, we come to the subject of Poland.
Greatly, indeed, must the author or authors of
the pamphlet in question presume upon the ig-
norance or credulity of the British public to
suppose that they can connect the heroic struggle
of Poland—its unavailing appeal to civilised
Europe—its national extinction—with any thing
creditable to the foreign policy of the present
Government. If ever there was a case in which
more than any other, Whig policy violated Whig
principles, and tarnished the faith and honour of
England from a truckling subserviency to Rus-
sian domination, it was in the case of Poland ;
a country which the Whigs never ceased to
sympathise with until they had the power of
serving it ; a country which, in 1794, they ac-
cused the Tories of abandoning to its fate, to
the manifest danger of the common liberties of
Europe ; a country which, in 1831, they them-
selves abandoned to utter ruin, by one of the most
disgraceful acts of political dereliction of which
the history of modern times affords an example.
When the Whigs, in 1794, made the abandonment
of the Poles to the rapacious ambition of Russia
the subject of a solemn accusation in Parliament,
and when Mr. (now Earl) Grey moved the ce-
lebrated address to the Crown, condemnatory of
the Tory policy towards that heroic and long-
suffering people, the case against the British
Ministers was not so strong as in the present
instance. This country was not then bound by
any treaty to protect the independence of Po-
land. It was bound, indeed, by a regard for its
own interest not to allow such a violation of the
public law of Europe, and such a disturbance of
the balance of power as the subjugation of Po-
land by the Russian and Prussian armies at that
time involved. Still the faith of the country
was not pledged, as it is now, by solemn treaty
to protect the national existence of Poland, being
part and parcel of the " settlement of Europe,"
agreed to by all the Powers at the Congress of
Vienna in the year 1815. The case, therefore,
which Poland can make out against Lord Grey's
Administration is worse than that which was so
energetically set forth in Lord Grey's address
against a Tory Administration. If the Govern-
ment of that day were rightly chargeable with
betraying the liberties of Europe by the de-
sertion of Poland, how can the present Mi-
nistry escape from the guilt of the accusation
which they themselves placed on record ?
It surely was as difficult for the English Govern-
ment to check the aggressive ambition of Russia
in regard to Poland at the commencement of the
French war, as after sixteen years of peace. If
Ministers were branded as traitors to the liberties
of Europe by abandoning Poland at that era,
what valid excuse can those very Whig oppo-
nents urge in defence of similar conduct on
their own part now ? It is vain and absurd for
them to plead the agitation of the Reform Bill
as a justification. The Reform Bill afforded no
.
excuse for surrendering the political interests of
the country in its foreign relations—still less for
a violation of national faith ; besides, nothing
could be more detrimental to the progress of
liberal principles at home, than permitting the
undisturbed march of despotism on the Conti-1
nent. Let it not be forgotten that our Whig
Ministers, at the very time when they refused
to act upon the treaty of Vienna for the protec-
tion of Poland, were paying millions of money
to Russia under the pretence of an existing
treaty relative to the Russo-Dutch loan, but
wrehnieceh
otreaty had
the
co
natci
ye xp d
which b y
limitedth oc c u r-
its
existence. That contingency was the severance
of Belgium and Holland, and the Dutch King,
who was to pay in common with ourselves,
regarding that event as an ipso facto cancel-
ling of the treaty, declined making any more
payments. The fact
.was, the payment which
England undertook with Holland was the pecu-

niary consideration guaranteed to Russia for ex-
ercising her influence, or being supposed to ex-
ercise it, to keep Belgium and Holland united.
It was a foolish treaty ; still, as long as it existed,
we were bound to observe it ; but the duty
which Russia had to perform while Belgium and
Holland were united having ceased by their se-
verance, there was no reason why the pecuniary
consideration should not cease also. But if
paid at al!, our Ministers were at least bound to
stipulate that the treaty of Vienna with regard to
Poland should be observed. They did no such
thing. The money so paid, whether as a bribe
or a tribute, but certainly not as a legal
debt, was singularly useful to Russia in
moving her armies upon Poland, and in sub-
sequently extending her armed protection to the
Porte. This transaction the authors of the
Ministerial manifesto cast into the shade. But
impartial history will, hereafter, make it a
disgracefully prominent transaction of our
" Liberal" Ministry—a transaction which it is
evident Government itself thinks cannot bear the
light. Nor was it the injustice and insolence
of Russia alone which our Ministers tolerated
in the case of Poland. The Government of
Prussia violated its professed neutrality in the
most shameful manner, and our Government was
passive—nay, it refused redress to those British
merchants and manufacturers whose goods were
seized in transitu through the Prussian territo-
ries to Poland, while Prussia did every thing
against the Poles except actually take the field.'
Now Prussia joins with Russia in holding out
something like threats if we dare to insist upon
the validity of the treaty of Vienna as between
ourselves and Poland. A voice from Berlin
says, in speaking of the recent Russian mani-
festo, " This may cause some embarrassment to
the English Cabinet, for it is publicly announced
to it and the world that the Russian Cabinet has
taken its resolution with regard to Poland, and
will irrevocably abide by it. More Parliamentary
speeches will not now suffice if Lord Palmer-
ston is in earnest with his sympathetic feelings.
This might do as long as silence was observed in
St. Petersburgh, but now serious explanation
must be made, or Lord Palmerston must have
sufficient self denial to acknowledge the validity
of the arguments which it seems have repeat-
edly been urged by Russia in confidential diplo-
matic communications." Here is a pretty plain
threat that Lord Palmerston must be more ex-
plicit in his dealings with Russia, or abide the
consequences. The insinuation that it " may
cause some embarrassment to the English Ca-
binet" is easily understood. It would look as
if Lord Palmerston's speech was merely ad
captandunz for the British House of Commons,
and that it was more sympathetic with the cause
of Poland than was exactly in unison with the
confidential diplomatic communications between
his Lordship and the Court of St. Petersburgh.
So much at present for this chapter of our fbreign
policy.—Morning Herald.