The Sun.
London, England, 1833-08-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TILE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Aberdeen owe
some redress to the Portuguese nation, and to the inhabi
tants of Li.hon more esp,,cially, for the gross and frequent
wisrepresentations into which his Grace and the Noble
Lad were led with regard to the political sentiments of
that insulted people. In ureing upon the present Govern-

ment of England the justice and expediency of acknow-
ledging the authority of Miguel, and in avowing that
such ri cognition would have speedily taken place, had he
(the Duke of Wellington) rtmaine'd in office, his Grace
t!ever failed to put forward as his fivouri•e argument that
the Queen had no friends in Portugal but the band ol
" fereign adventurers," who were described as consti
toting the whole strength of Donna Mari s ; whereas, in
truth, three font the of her Majesty's forces were 0.;
other than native Portuguese. If, then, as is shrewdly
remarked by t contemporary, the predilection of the
people of Portugal for Miguel was a sufficient ground
wl.neon to justify an intended recognition of him by the
Dr,ke of Wellington's Ministry, pending even a doubtful
eemflict betreen the tyrant's armies and those of the
Cjuen, tl e reasoning surely holds with far more truth in
favour of the Qty en's cause, now that the inhabitants ed
the e pital, and of the southern provinces, have declared
themselves so unequivocally for Donna Maria, and that the
fortune of war, moreover, has left her M.jesty without
an effective rival to the crown. If the Duke of Welling-
ton would have acknowledged the King de facto, whom
he coot ssed to have been originally a usurper, how
much more anxious must his Grace now be to press upon
Lord Grey's Government the immediate recognition
of that Princess, wl o unites in her own person tie
rights of legitimacy and of actual possession. It would

be therefore a dignified and consistent act for the
Duke of Wellington to move, aed for Lord Aber-
deen to second, an address to the King, praying that he
would be graciously pleased to accredit a Minister to the
Court of the Queen of Portugal, and to interpose his good
offices with the States of the Continent, to prevail upon
them to follow the same just and amiable course. At all
events, as the recognition of Donna Maria is now a matter
of moral necessity, the sooner the requisite forms of concert
between his Majesty and the Com t of the Tuileries ca❑ he
completed, the more graceful and decisive will be that most
salutary lesson to q rants all over the world. As f irDonPedro,
his mission is now aeciimplished, he is•functns officio from
the hour in which his daughter has been replaced upon her
throne, and his retirement !rem Portugal may be imme-
diately looked for. Indeed, such a step on the part of the
Duke of Braganza has become desirable on many consi •
derations. He is not, and cannot be, King of Portugil,
yet his rank, and the sway he has been used to exercis..,
would remove from hint that responsibility which is
an es•entiai attribute of all political functionaries, save
the Sovereign alone. Don Pedro, moreover, has persons
about him, and we apprehend posessing no small in-
fluence over him, whose presence at or near the seat of
the Queen's Government, or whose direct correspondence
with it, might embarrass not merely the constitutional
march of Portuguese affairs, but much disturb and per-
Imps embroil the relations between the Court of Lisbon
and other friendly Powers. Don Pedro, therefore, we arc
bound to repeat, would serve his daughter, and disem-
barrass her allies, mote by his absence from Portugal than
by his continuance there. The existing Regency, with
Pa molla for its chief, would be joyfully acknowledged by
the -British and French Cabinets. We refer to an highly
interesting letter from Oporto, for a spirited and graphic
account of the military opera•ions of the 25th ult., and
their results. It is clear that Bouruiont was severely
beaten, and that the British brigade forms a fighting ele-
%cut with which the Miguelites have been shy of con-
tending. The contest is now completely over ; Miguel's
first refuge will probably be within the Spanish terri-
tory.— Times.

We call the attention of our readers to the very able
protest (in another column) of Lord Holland, against the
rejection of the Bill for removing die Civil Disabilities
of the Jews. " That the genius of our Constitution
(says his Lordship) is to admit all from whom it exacts
the duties of allegiance to the full enjoyment of political
rights, and especially that of an eligibility to offices and
trusts of polit cal power, is an axiom abundantly sanc-
tioned by history and authority, and practically manifested
by this striking fact, that ❑o subject of the British
Crown is or has been incapacitated from holding such office
or trusts, except by the operation of positive statutes, and
that the common law of the land, which, in the language
of the great Lord 'Mansfield (-peech in Omychund v.
I3arker—Atkyns' Reports), a never fails to work itself
pure by rues drawn from the fountain' of justice, would,
if unrestrained by statute, secure to every free-born sub-
ject within the realm, the entire right of serving his
Prince and country in any office or trust merely political
and temporal, to which the favour of his Sovereign
might legally appoint, or the confidence of his fellow•
subjects duly elect him." It falls on those t; ho wish to
exclude the Jews from the common privileges of English-
men to show that the exclusion is justified by necessity.
The Jews are natural born Blitish subjects; "for," as his
Lordship observes, " birth, not parentage or religions
faith, entitle a mitt to the privileges appertaining there•
unto." They are entitled to hold real property like other
natural born British subjects. Why, then, are they ex-
cluded front other privileges? From nothing in their
religion itself, for by universal admission there is nothing
in their religion which unfits them from discharging the
duties of a good citizen. And, in truth, the Jews could
hold office, and enter Parliament, but for certain words in
the oath of abjuration not in the substantive part of it,
and nut introduced with a view of confining the benefit
arising from taking it to Christians, or of excluding Jews
from office or from Parliament; and for a declara ion in
a recent statute for the relief of Protestant Dissenters,
which had by no means for object the extension of dis-
abilities and penalties to the Jews. His Lordship has in
this Protest argued the question in a very masterly man-
ner. The Constitution recognises no religious disabilities.
They are always exceptions to the rule of the Constitu-
tion to admit all natural born subjects to offices of honour
and trust, and can only be justified by clear neces-
sity. There are persons woo think that the country
would be ruined if there were not continually a mani'es
tatien in the House of Peers of obstin ite adherence to the
principle of unjust exclusion. The exclusion of the Jews
is a favourite with these people, because it is the last
remnant of persecution. There are others again, who
oppose the removal of the Jewish disabilities upon grounds
utterly incomp►ehensible. Lord Seagrave, in supporting
Catholic emancipation, voted for the extension of Chris-
tianity, which was not the case under the Bill for remov-
ing Jewish disabilities. Then we are to suppose that
Lord Seagrave voted for the extension of Catholicism;
because, if the retaining the Jewish disabilities prevents
the extension of Judaism, the retaining of the Catholic
disabilities must also have prevented the extension of
Catholicism. But with reasoners of Lord Seagrave's cast,
the mode of dealing of our Sunday contemporary (the
Examiner) is the best:—

" Rabelais adumbrated the wit of British legislators when
he described a people who watched day and night to guard the
moon from the wolves. The Duke of Wellington stands the
foremost of these sentinels. He almost speaks in the language
of Goldsmith's soldier discussing the dangers of a French in-
vasion It is not so much our liberties as our religion that
would suffer by such a change ; ay, our religion, my lads.
May the d-- sink me in flames (such was the solemnity of
his adjuration) if the French should come over but our religion
would be utterly undone.' For the French should come
over,' read the Jews should come into Parliament, and we have
an- epitome of the great Captain's speech. All this sort of
people are as devout as Mistress Cole in the Minor. Lord Sea.
grave, whose fame as Colonel Berkeley is not exactly as a pot
of precious ointment to the righteous—

" Was sorry to differ from the Noble Lords with whom he
generally acted; but atter giving that subject his best conside-
ration, he was bound to vote aginst the Bill_ He knew that
this was inconsistent with his general proceedings; but in sup-
porting the emancipation of the Jews, and in supporting other
similar measures, he had always voted for the extension of
Christianity. That was not the case under this Bill ; and there-
fore he felt himself bound to oppose the Bill.'
" How hard it is to judge of men. Looking merely at the
outside of this Noble Whig's life, how few would have ima-
gined what he was propagating—but, lo! it was Christianity.
To judge of the tree by the fruit were difficult, if trees had a
voice to declare their qualities and confound our inferences ; in
such case the thorn would doubtless proclaim that the purpose
'4 its being was the production of cotton."—MorningChronicle.

The blow which has been struck at despotism in Por-
tugal, and which, we trust, has thoroughly felled it there,
Is not only important in itself, and gratifying to the friends
of freedom, of humanity, and of social order, but most im-
portant as regards the gonsequences of which it will
sooner or later be productive throughout all Europe. It
is another of those triumphs in that " war of opinion "
which Canning bad the sagacity to foresee, to which be
partly paved the way by tue liberality of his foreign pos
hey, and which, without any intention to exaggerate its
extent, cannot fail to have a decided influence upon the
domestic as well as the foreign policy of every state in
Europe. Miguel was the representative of despotism and
despots in Europe; he has been struck down even in his
own strong hold, surrounded by all that tyranny could de-
sire to execute its purposes—by a generally ignorant and
superstitious people—by a priesthood gt eat in numbers, and
still greater in influence, which clung to him as its last hope
--by a soldiery too brave for the cause in which it was
embarked, and stimulated to do his bidiiing by hopes and ex-
pi ctationa which could riot fail to work powerfully upon its
mind—and, finally, by it' nobility, not wealthy indeed, but

more disposed to support an advocate of exclusive privi-
leg,es, than a government which proposed to restore the
days of the Constitution, and along with them to intro-
duce reform into every department of the state. We say
that with all these advantages—with unequalled support
at home, and more counsel and support from abroad, than
any legitimate Sovereign ever received—the perjured des
pot has been made to bite the dust--has seen his troops
expelled from his capital—.lle greater part of his kingdom
declare in favour of the legitimate Sovereign—and him-
self, if we are rightly informed, a fugitive and a vaga-
bond, not only without a kingdom and without a Court,
but without a home ! May it ever be so with those who
would break the necks of the people, and substitute for
the mild arid beneficial influences of a good government,
the blighting effects of an imprisoning, torturing, and
bloody tyranny ! But to our original proposition. Those
who look upon the fall of Lisbon, and consequent fall of
the usurper, who lately filled its dungeons with thou-
sands of political victims, as a solitary event—the triumph
of ono brother over another—or a mere victory of liberalism
in a small and comparatively unimportant kingdom,—
greatly mistake both its character and importance. The
revolution which has now taken place there, is only another
link in that great chain of which the American revolt from
its allegiance to this country formed the first, and which
has since lengthened through numerous revolutions in every
part of Europe—in France and in Spain—in Italy and in
Belgium—in unhappy Poland, and in the states of Southern
America—whose effects are to be sr en in the reform of the
lopresentation which has taken place Lefe—and in the
present troubled state of Germany, and which will, ere
long, exhibit themselves, not only in those countries which
are known to pant for freedom, but even in the wilds of
Siberia itself ! We despair not, indeed, of the seed of re-
venge and retaliation which has been sown there in Polish
exile and general tyranny, springing up at no great dis-
tance of time, and making its author, like another
Frankenstein, tremble at the work of his own hands.
lii the meantime, it is most gratifying to think that the
good that has been already done, has been mainly
achieved by British valour and British skill. The Portu-
guese force under Villa Flor deserves every credit for its
gallant defeat of the Miguelite commander, but Napier was
the man who paved the way to its victory, as well as
afforded protection during its advance, and an English
officer, who had been imprisoned by the usurping tyrant,
the first that led forth the inhabitants of the capital to its
subjection to the lawful Sovereign, and all those who were
opposed to her sway. To find our countrymen the fore-
most in the fight is gratifying—to find them victorious in
a noble cause is an additional wreath in the crown of
honours which they have won. That Donna Maria will
be immediately recognised by France and England, there
c4lbe no doubt. She has indeed been recognised already
by both as the de jurc Sovereign of Portugal; and we
cannot but deem the saluting of her flag by Admiral
Parker and the French Admiral, as a recognition of her de
facto sovereignty, to be followed immediately by the re-
ception of her Ambassador at Court, and a special embassy
to Lisbon. Morning Advertiser.

An extraordinary and revolting execution is to take
place at Norwich next Saturday, if the circumstances to
which we shall presently advert, should not be deemed
sufficient to warrant a commutation of the sentence. Our
readers may remember that at the Spring Assizes in that
city, a woman named Mary Wright, suspeced of having,
on the 30th of November last, administered poison to her
husband and her father, who both died at the same time,
was tried upon the former charge, and was convicted. We
do not wish to cast the slightest imputation on the verdict
of the jury in making as a general remark that in charges,
the most atrocious and abhorrent to the feelings of our na-
ture, there is no small danger of a virtuous indignation get-
ting the better of our judgment, whence it has been known
to happen that an innocent person has become the victim
of the law. Instances we need not cite. Therefore it is,
however disagreeable the task in such a case, that it be-
comes the duty of a barrister not to refuse when sot
licited to act as Counsel for the prisoner whose guilt is
doubtful. In the sequel of this trial the prisoner's Counsel,
as will be seen on reference to another of our columns this
day, prevailed with the Learned Judge on the trial to dis-
regard the verdict of the " Jury of Matrons." The
sentence consequently, instead of tieing executed within
48 hours, was respited till after the death of her child,
should it prove that she was enceinte, and thus the unhappy
woman became doomed to suffer several months the anguish
of her peculiar situation. Het accouchement took place
last month, and the law now demands her life.
The question arises, how far her previous suf-
ferings will satisfy that law,—or whether, in this
" Christian land," the mother of a new-born infant
shall—in England, and in the light of the nineteenth
century—be suspended on a gallows for the edification of
the multitude? Besides the absence of all motive for such
a murderous deed there was another argument urged by
prisoner's counsel in the cross examination—no speech
being allowed for the defence—name y, the high probabi-
lity that this woman was at the time the subject of a
paroxysm of insanity; and to this, it will be seen, the
Learned Judge, in summing up, particularly alluded.
That a few weeks before she was certainly labouring under
mental derangement was clearly established in evidence,
and this might possibly have been proved to be the fact at
the time of the crime had not her husband and her father
died. We cannot help hoplug that the advisers of the
Crown will see it right to adopt this view, and direct the
convict to be placed in custody for life, as is usual in cases
of this melancholy description. —Morning Herald.
The Lisbon affair, as described in the only accounts
before us, is the most extraordinary one ever heard of.
The letters of the 22d, received by the previous packet,
announced that a Proclamation was preparing, and, if
printed in time, would go by the mail. It was not ready,
and did not -tome ; but, in the evening, the Duke de Ca..
daval, as Commander-in Chief of the army, issued the
paper, which is an appeal to the loyalty of the Ltsbonians,
and calls them to arms. In the following night of the
23d the Duke, however, seems to have quitted the city
without any previous notice to the inhabitants, proceed-
ing with tire garrison towards Cabecas, whilst the police
corps took up a position without the town. We have
here, then, an intact corps of ten thousand men,
with the choice of ground, around Lisbon.
Now, what are the supposed inducements which
led the Duke to evacuate the capital ? The only
one alleged is the defeat of Telles Jordao. If the one
thousand infantry and sixty horse who left the capital in
the night of the 21st and in the morning of the 22d had
not joined, that officer could not hive had with him more
than 3,000 men. The defeat of such a corps as this
could bring no immediate danger to the capital, particu-
larly as the extent of the enemy's force was well known,
and the Government were besides fully aware that General
Molellus, with 5,000 men, was rapidly advancing from
Alvito, in Villa Floc's rear. There is something, there-
fore, in the Duke's evacuation which we do not compre-
hend, and whether it was with a view to concert ulterior
operations or by orders of the King time only can tell.
" In the morning," that is of the 24th, we are told in the
words of an " eminent person," that the town was
without a garrison, when the populace opened the pri-
sons, liberated 5,000 (a few months ago they were
50,000 !) prisoners confined fur political offences, com-
mitted very few excesses, and that a few '.fives were
lost. They proceeded to proclaim Donna Maria,
and armed themselves as a National Guard, &c.
This account is fully borne out by the testimony
or Lieutenant Fitch, who, in Lisbon, appears to have been
the hero of the day. He says that he was released by a
mob of thirty people, and soon afterwards found himself
at the head of five thousand, with whom be marched
through the city, playing the Constitutional Hymn, when
the English Admiral fired a salute at their flag. Then it
was that Villa Flor crossed the river with one thousand
men, and took iossession of the city. This letter is in
another part of our columns. In a word, the liberated
prisoners seemed to have been the only persons actively
employed on this occasion ; and it is presumable that they
also signed the Act of Acclamation, as neither the Muni-
cipality nor any of the principal inhabitants appear to have
taken any part in the transactions. We confess that the
whole is too confused and too mysterious to enable us to
express any opinion on the results of Villa Flor's entry
into Lisbon. We shall, therefore, anxiously wait fur
further accounts.—Morning Post.

•
When the. Irish Church Temporalities Bill
was in danger by the majority of two against one of its
clauses, in the Upper House, Much merriment was excited
by a Noble Lord whispering in the ears of a certain cde-
brated Marquis of the Oviposition party, " Really this is
two bad, L--v !" Those who recollect a certain pithy
correspondence will guess at the allusion.

RATIONAL REVENGE.—At the last Mayo
Assizes a prisoner was indicted upon a charge, to substan-
tiate which it became necessary to produce a donky in
Court, as something turned upon its identity. The pri-
soner was convicted, and the very next day the unfortunate
witness (the donky) was found murdered by the
road-side.

We regret to hear that the prevailing mania
amongst noble and distinguished families, of emigrating to
various parts of the Continent, appears to increase, and
numerous large establishments are on the eve of being
tiroken up. The number of domestics thus thrown out
of employ, and the loss to tradesmen, at the west end of
the town, will be severely felt.