The Sun.
London, England, 1833-09-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We yesterday communicated a brief hut in-
teresting statement of the melancholy shipwreck
which took place in the neighbourhood of Bou-
logne on Saturday evening, and we to-day in-
sert further particulars. As the whole of the
distressing scene occurred in the immediate
neighbourhood of that town,—as the perilous
situation of the vessel for two or three hours be-
fore its actual wreck was the object of sympathy
and attention to thousands on the shore,—as
direct communications had taken place between
the captain and the humane sailors of the port,
relative to the saving of the lives of the crew
and the passengers, when the loss of the ship
was considered inevitable,—as three of the
people on board have been saved, who can re-
port what occurred up to the last moment,—and
as the actual catastrophe was witnessed at a very
short distance, both by French and English
spectators, there never, perhaps, was a case in
which all the circumstances which can affect our
feelings or satisfy our curiosity in such a cala-
mity, can be more fully developed, explained, or
exposed. It is now quite evident, that out of
the 136 persons on board, only three have been
saved, and it is equally evident that nobody
would have perished but from the mistaken sense
of duty on the part of the captain, and the ac-
cidental absence of the British Consul. Had the
passengers consisted of any other class of per-
sons than convicts, they could have insisted
on being landed : had they not been in-
trusted to the captain as a species of
gaoler, the latter could have had no motive for
risking either his own life or theirs by retaining
them on board amid the storm. This unfortu-
nate man, who himself has perished in the gene-
ral wreck, seemed to be placed in the situation of
the governor of a prison, who sees a fire raging
in his neighbourhood and hesitates to unlock
the doors of the cells till the progress of the con-
flagration has rendered the general escape of the
prisoners inevitable. He has sacrificed his own
life, and that of more than a hundred of his
fellow-creatures, to his timidity of character, and
his mistaken sense of duty. The surgeon
seemed to share his alarms, and has been involved
in his fate. It would be unfeeling to cast a
censure on the grave of men who have them-
selves suffered along with the mass of individuals
whose lives have been the sacrifice of their hesi-
tation. We can only congratulate their friends
on their good fortune in havinc, perished, be-
cause, had they alone escaped, after having con-
signed their convict passengers to a watery
grave, by refusing to land them, the laws or pub-
lic indignation of the country would have exacted
from them an account more terrible than death
itself : but, passing by these reflections, we
beg to make two or three simple remarks on
the melancholy event. In the first place, it
should be known to all persons in the situation
of the captain of this transport, that though
they are bound to keep their cargo of convicts
in safe custody till they arrive at the place of
banishment, they have no right to expose their
lives to any danger which can be avoided. In
the present fatal instance no danger could have
occurred in landing them, as they could not
have run into the interior, or remained in France
without a passport, and might therefore easily
have been again collected for transportation.
In the second place, the Consul should have
been at his post, anti been able to have directed
the disembarkation of the convicts on his official
responsibility. And in the third place, a most
rigid examination ought to be instituted into the
state of the ship, and into that of every other
taken up by Government to transport convicts.
The voyage is long and dreary,—the seas
.through which they have to pass are tempes-
tuous,—and there is too much reason to appre-
hend that without the exercise of proper vigi-
lance the refuse of our ships may be thought
good enough for transporting to another quarter
of the world the refuse of our nation. It will
be seen, however, that, in a letter we publish
to-day, the Amphitrite is declared to have been
a perfectly sound vessel.— Times.
All those who are acquainted with the la-
borious and important duties which devolve on
the Speaker of the House of Commons, and
can properly appreciate the unwearied industry,
the unimpeachable impartiality, and experienced
judgment, with which Mr. Manners Sutton dis-
charges them, must feel gratified to hear that his
Majesty, concurring with the feelings of his sub-
jects, has honoured him with the Grand Cross
of die Order of the Bath. Never was such a
distinction awarded to a more deserving func-
tionary, or conferred at a more appropriate time.
Mr. Manners Sutton had retired from the la-
bours of the chair after a long and creditable
performance of them durinr, several Parliaments
—he had retired without the usual promise of a
peerage, and bad been secured in a pension little
short of his present emoluments. The reformed
Parliament, with nearly one half of its Members
new to the forms of Parliamentary debate, and
eager to display their latent qualifications to
their Lewly created constituents, offered the
prospect of a busy session and not a very orderly
assembly. Yet the Right Hon. Gentleman, in
the midst of such inducements to keep aloof
from a field in which he might encounter new
difficulties, but could scarcely hope to attain
new honours, did not shrink from coming for-
?yard, at the request of the Government, to pre-
side over the deliberations of the reformed
Rouse. In this renewed legislative campaign
lie has again distinguished himself for every
quality required in a Speaker, and has by his
urbanity, dignity, and experience in guiding the
order of debates, performed an essential service
to the Rouse and
the country.— Times.
The Provin
mai Press, especially of the smaller
boroughs groaninc, under the " influence" of
electioneering Peers'' and 4, borough patrons,"
teems with commentary on the
lock " explana-
tion" of the EarlWarwick.r g
Times makes the following The Leeds
sp aiy and home
commentary on his Lordship's defence.
" The Earl of Warwick has retiurned
he has appeared in his place in the House tobfur runtry—
has declared his intention of rebutting, with lria-)'e
possible
energy, the serious charges which a 'Commitat
House of Commons have preferred against his Committee
or the
,and of vindicating, before the whole country, his
tidar
and calumniated name. Let him prove that his pro
ceedings have not been unconstitutional and offensiveo
him prove that he advanced no money at the
last election for Warwick, except for the payment of
legal expenses—let him prove that by flagrant corrup-
tion he was not accessary to the brutal demoralization
of his tenantry—let him prove that neither he, nor his
steward, nor his agents, by notices to quit, by fictitious
rating, and by the appropriation of money to the lowbsotne
purposes of pultlie bribery and vulgar dtbauchery,wiasse
which were most certain y per-i
cessory to the ir.iquitons acts
let him prove all this—an,
petrated in his name—we say,
then let him retain his office of Lord Lieutenant of the
county—let hits walk abroad with unbranded brow before
the peoplerilnit_ let him bask in the smiles of the Go-
vernment and the4suntry—but if he does not prove this,
then the loud ass4,sl(ii. r ant demand of the whole empire
144';• moat *IOW* reluet int Mtnistry—condign
pu-
niahment or of Warwick."
We shafaii'o.:u is s to see a digest of the
evi-
dence again Earl when the Cow-

irfa3aati,qe

mons' report and Committee minutes are
printed ; the Conservative advocates of the
Patron of the borough of Warwick.' will pro-
hahlv find it as difficult a task to whitewash his
political conduct, as to rescue him from the just
indignation of a Reformed Parliament.—Morn-
zng Chronicle.

In a Morning Paper of yesterday there is an
attack upon the Duke of Wellington on ac-
count of his protest against the West India
Slavery Bill, which we do not hesitate to pro-
nounce more discreditable to the character of
the daily press of this country than anything
which has appeared within our recollection. It
is a mere overflowing of ignorance and self-con-
ceit. The writer, who is evidently without an
idea that is unassociated with the sound of
Bow bells, thinks himself qualified to pronounce
an authoritative decision condemnatory of the
Peers' privilege of protest, because, forsooth,
the Peers of England do not express themselves
like the cockney leader-w-iter of the Times ;
and to ridicule the apprehensions of those who
fear that emancipated negroes in Jamaica, who
can squat, will not work for hire, simply be-
cause it is within his own knowledge that there is
no squatting ground between Printing Houte.
square and Whitechapel Church, and when,
in a fit or laziness, he has been temp'ed to think
of vagabondizing within three miles of St.
Paul's, the laws respecting vagrancy, of which
he seems to have acquired some knowledge,
have sufficed to keep him steady at his mercenary
task. This writer begins by assuming that all
who, like the Duke of Wellington, think the
abolition of slavery, to be safe to the planter or
beneficial to the slave, ought to have been pre-
ceded by more advanced moral and religious in.
struction, and by more fixed and certain habits
of industry on the part of the latter, than at
present exist, are the advocates of interminable
slavery ; and he assumes throughout his pert
and ii,norant lucubration that from the condition
of slavery as it exists in the West Indies any
change must be for the better. Men who pos-
sess the average information upon the subject,
however, which this writer evidently does not,
or who are endowed with those ordinary powers
of reasoning which have evidently been with-
held from him, know that both these assump-
tions are false. Slavery has existed in other parts
of the world as well as in the West Indies, and
a state of society has arisen in which the
interests of the owners and the happiness and wel-
fare of the slave have equally dictated the extinc-
tion of slavery. In such cases the extinction of
slavery has been easy, natural and safe. It has
required no force, no legislation. It is thus only
that slavery has hitherto been abolished wherever
the institution has had existence. Of the salutary
effect of this kind of abolition the world has had
ample experience. But of the extinction of
slavery in defiance of the wishes and interests of
the owners of slaves, the world has had no ex-
perience whatever, or none at least which affords
encouragement to the attempt. The experiment,
then, about to be tried in the West Indies, is
altogether new, and it is dangerous because it is
new. In all former instances of the extinction
of slavery, the circumstance which determined
the fitness of the slave for freedom was the same
which decided that it was the interest of the
owner to emancipate him, viz.—the disposition ;
and aptitude of the slave to work for hire. Is

,
there any evidence to prove, or do tne circum-
stances of our West India colonies afford a pro-
bability, that this disposition or aptitude to free
labour will be found among the present genera-
tion of negroes in the West Indies? The reverse

is notoriously the fact. What, then, are the
probable consequences of the forced measure
of emancipation ? Clearly no other than
these—that the emancipated negroes will suc-
cessively, but rapidly, betake themselves to
the uncultivated parts of the various colonies
where, %%HI comparatively little labour, they
can rear from a teeming soil the means of indo-
lent existence—that they will gradually but ra-
pidly relapse into the savage state—that the
existence of whites in their vicinity will become
so unprofitable and so unsafe as to insure, after
a succession of brutal and sanguinary conflicts,
the total abandonment of the colonies, and the
ruin of the immense British interests connected
with them, without affording any increase to the
happiness or any improvement of the condi-
tion of the negro population, whom, on the
contrary, this change will consign to the deepest
misery and degradation. Interminable slavery is
not the desire of those who deprecate premature
emancipation. And, if it were, it would be easy
to show that interminable slavery isa much smaller
evil than the least of those which premature
emancipation is calculated to produce. But the
cockney writer in the Times, who cannot einanci-
pate himself from his habitual ideas of the wor-
thy magistrates of Worship-street, and the narrow
lanes in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel, and
the small gardens at Mile End and Hackney,
triumphantly asks, " What has the magnitude of
the country, 'speaking of Jamaica, " to do with
the matter ?" gravely pronounces that " the
country may indeed be extensive, but severe

laws may be enacted and enforced to compel
residence and to punish vagrancy," and declared
it as his enlightened opinion that "the free
negro reFusing to work, and wandering without
the visible means of subsistence, may be punished
as a rogue and vagabond, as in our own free
island at home." It would be idle to attempt
to reason with a person at once so uninformed
and so presumptuous ; but we will give him a
word of advice, which will not be the. worse

advice although he may be too conceited to
regard it. Let him by all means leave off cri-
ticising the protests of the Duke of Wellington,
and seek information respecting the West Indies

from any of the poor black -men who sweep
some of the crossings in his own neighbourhood,

the most ignorant of whom is qualified to teach
him much that he ought to know, before he
again ventures to write upon any subject con-
nected with the West Indies.—Morning Post.

On Tuesday morning, a party
of twenty-four
men under the command of a chief constable (Mr. Brady),
proceeded to the lands of Ballynagrena, in this county,
with an intention of protecting property in corn, standing
crops, &c. of a person named Kennedy, who held ground
there, as tenant under the Courts, and who was, not very
long since, put into the occupancy by the county sheriff,
with the aid of military force, the former tenants having
attempted to overhold the possession. On the approach
of Mr. Brady's party, they were tired upon by about 20
men, some of them protected by a h:gh hedge, and others
tlTihyte,etilaee:waoinah:llnsot:o,pfaol,fdartrino•Kh.oeunsne
dwyhicihnt,lriadrbeinen
jbumrneedial:ty.
overtaken owing teor4vtliniffig
(t.novgeertetdinwg
iothvetrhtahreml:ed grre:e6fieitiet-
experienced fled intent
cboyu ltdh
the
police
i be
ee
wasich
d,:hr
returned
n efret b
yhigh,
shotsand
front the police somewhat abouttwntiri.uereniumbher fired by the
others. The police were all
others was, it is supposed, badly) vi::unduetd.oneHeof the
'%
however, carried off. The assailants wore neither sll.(as,
nor coats, and the surrounding hills were crowded wi'tet:
persons who shouted and cheered the countrymen during
the conflict. The ground where they took their po.ition
was covered with cartridge paper and loose powder, and
within the walls of the ruined house iron slugs were
fou ado... Limerick Herakl.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS HARRIET

MARTINEAU.

(From Fox's Repository.)
"My family is of French origin, as my name must
already have suggested to you. All that is known
of it is that my great grandfather, who was a sur-
geon, quitted France on account of his religion, at
the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes,
and settled at Norwich, in the county of Norfolk,
where he married a French lady who had emigrated
at the same period, and for the same reasons. Ever
since .my family has maintained an honourable sta-
tion in society, the eldest suns always practising
surgery, the others devoting themselves to commerce
or manufactures. My father, the youngest of five
brother, was the proprietor, at Norwich, his native
place, of one of the manufactories peculiar to that
town. He had eight children, of whom lam the
sixth.
" I was born in the month of June, 1802. The
following are the principal circumstaacea which have
combined to give me a taste for literary pursuits;
my health, now perfectly good, was extremely deli.
cate in my childhood; I have been, ever since that
period, afticted with an infirmity (deafness) which,
without absolutely depriving me of all intercourse
with the world, has forced me to seek occupations
and pleasures within myself; lastly, that which has
contrihuted to it more than all the rest, is the affect
tion subsisting between me and that one of my bro-
thers whose age is nearest to my own, and who
adopted one of the learned professions.
" [he first work that I published was a little
volume, entitled Devotional Exercises,' for the use
of young persona. It appeared in 1822, and its
success encouraged me to let it be followed soon by
another of the same description, entitled ' Ad-
dresses, with Praers and Hymns, for the use of
families and schools.' About this time a circum-
stance occurred which was the origin of that series
of tales you are now engaged in translating. A
country bookseller agl:tri me to compose for him
some little work of fiction ; thought that I might
join the useful to the agreeable, as I had the choice
of the subject, if I could show the folly of the po-
pulace of Manchester, who hail just been destroying
the machinery, to the great detriment of the manu-
factures, on which their bread depended. I pro-
duced a little story, entitled The Rioters,' and the
following year another on wages, called The
Turn Ont. I was far from suspecting, while I
wrote them, that wages and machinery had any
thing to do with political economy; I do not
even know whether I had ever heard the name
of that science. It was not till some time af-
terwards that reading Mrs. Marcet's Conver-
sations on Political Economy,' I perceived that
I had written political economy, as M. Jourdain
spoke prose, without knowing it. Its. Marcet's
excellent work suggested to me the idea that if
some principles of the science had been successfully
laid down in a narrative form, all might be so
equally well. From that moment I was continually
talking with my mother and the brother whom I
have mentioned to you, of the plan which I am at
present executing. Nevertheless, I had no friend
in the literary world, which is indispensable to-
wards gaining the confidence of the booksellers.
No one who could be of any use to me would pay
any attention to my plan. Ri-ally I cannot com-
plain much of this ; it must, I own, have appeared
whimsical enough, arid, all things considered, of
very doubtful success. I am far from regretting
this delay, which has enabled me to exerci-e my-
self in different kinds of composition, and has left
me time to acquire same knowledge of the world, a
thing so necessary to the truth of descriptions so
varied as mine must be.
" During the three years which preceded the
publication of my tales, I was constantly writing on
different subjects; I was, besides, employed in re-
viewing works on metaphysics and theology in the
Afontbly Repository, a periodical, the Editor of
which the Rev. W. J. Fox, is, after my brother
James, the steadiest friend and the best guide that
I have ever had in literature and in philosophy. I
published besides, in 1830, the Traditions of Pa-
lestine.' Iu the course of the following year, the
Association of Unitarian Dissenters, to whom I be-
long, printed three essays of mine, which had ob•
tabled prizes, and which were addressed to the Ca-
tholics, the Jews, and the Nlallometans. Meantime,
I had quite made up my mind to risk the publica-
tion of my Illustrations of Political Economy.'
The plan had been reiected by the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, though only two
or three of the members had paid any attention to
it. No bookseller of any reputation would hear of
my work, and when the recommendation of the
literary man I have mentioned had determined me
to attempt the enterprise, it was begun, a thousand
voices uniting to announce that it would not sue-
ceed.---sAt the end of one month success was certain
" I was sure that it would be so; not that

exaggerated my talents. I am as far as ever from
thinking that this work has succeeded because it has
been written by me; but I do think that the want
of such a work was felt so mnch by the public,
that it was sure to be caught up with eagerness.
This conviction gave me the courage to undertake
ir, and its being so well timed is si,fficient by itself
to explain the great number of copies which have
been sold.

" My intention at first was only to publish twenty-
four tales ; but as the taxes are a subject towards
wh ch the public mind is particularly directed at
present, and as there is the greatest necessity that
the people should be enlightened with regard to
them, I have resolved to enlarge my plan, and to
go as far as thirty tales.
" As it has been erroneously supposed that my
work was finished before I began the publication of
it, I am glad to have an opportunity of telling you,
that I only write each tale in the month before it is
printed, that I may have the advantage of the newest
discoveries upon the subject of which I treat. No
one but myself sees them before they are given to
the printer, and no one has ever helped me in their
compilation. My brother, the only individual whose
assistance I could accept, lives at Liverpool. I can-
not, therefore, consult him. List autumn I quitted
Norwich for London, where I intend to remain.
" Be.ides my Tales, which appear monthly, I have
just undertaken a little series of four numbers on our
sy=stem of poor law., which will be circulated by the
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
The first, entitled The Pari4l,' came out a fort-
night ago; the second will be published in the
course of the summer.

" There is not at present any portrait of me pub-
li:he I, but Finden is engr►ving one on steel, which
will, I believe, soon be out.*

" I think I have answered all your questions;
nothing remains but to assure you of the interest
with which I shall see your translation: I shall be
happy to own myself indebted to you, if, through
your means, I can render to the French people the
service that my countrymen have allowed me to
render to them.

• It has just appeared, and is from the admirable like-
ness by bliss Margaret Gillies, of whom, as an artist yet
little known, we cannot reftain from saving ilia her rapid
improvement in colourings and her rate combination of
classical taste with boldness of design, promise to win for
her the honours of her art.—Ed. M. R.

At Agram, in Croatia, the clergy recently
went in procession from the church to consecrate the first
stone of a theatre about to he built in that town.
DESTRUCTION OF FIUMAN LIFE BY CllO-
- disease called spasmodic cholera appears to
have been unknown previous to 1817, when it appeared
in India. Since that tithe, till near the end of 1832—a
period of about fifteen years—there have been, through.
out the world, as near as can be estimated, one hundred
millions of cases. Of these, fully one-half, at the very
least, must have died; which gives a mortality, from this
single disease, of fill, millions in the above period, or up-
wards of three millions three hundred and thirty-three
thousand annually. In India, alone, the mortality has
exceeded eighteen millions. These calculations have been
made by Jonnes, the celebrated French physician ; and
it is estimated that they are rather under than above the
truth.