The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is not many days since we felt it our duty
to suggest that an active interference by this
country on the side of Portugal might be re-
quired—first, as the best means of recovering
that ancient ally and friend of England from the
desolation into which an unnatural war has
plunged her ; secondly, as a necessary fulfilment
of those several treaties by which Great Britain
ha• solemnly bound herself to aid and support
the lawful Sovereign of Portugal, should his or
her crown be endangered from without, or the
Portuguese territory threatened with invasion.
It is needless to go over again those arguments
on the Portuguese question which have been
stated in so many preceding articles. We have
acknowledged Donna Maria for Queen, and
thereby invested her with all those rights to Bri-
tish co-operation and support which inured to
any of her predecessors. The joint movements
of the Pretenders Carlos and Miguel, carried on
within the Portuguese frontier against the neigh-
bouring Sovereigns of Spain and Portugal, cannot
be looked at with indifference by Powers in close
alliance with either of the last-mentioned crowns.
From the complication given to the affairs of the
two countries by the separate claims but conjoint
exertions of the two traitor Princes, it is difficult
to surmise what mischiefs might follow the en-
trance of a Spanish army into Portugal ; nor on
what plea, or by what expedients, such a risk
could be averted, were the civil war in the
neighbourhood of Lisbon and of the Pyrenees,
both contests being fed by common means, and
parties to be continued as at present. There is
nothing, in such case, left for England but an
Effective interposition. We hold that not only
must a . Spanish army enter Portugal, but a
French army must enter the north of Spain, if
Don Carlos shall continue to organize rebellious
from the former kingdom against Queen Isabella,
and the French Carlists shall take advantage of
the insurrections thus excited to shelter themselves
in the rebel districts of Spain, and thence direct
their operatiOns against the south-western parts
of the French monarchy. Will the people
of England relish either of these military
operations ? We do not say that Don Pedro
has acted wisely, or his Ministers honestly, or
that the departure of one and the other from
Portugal might not he a salutary and even indis-
pensable occurrence. But at least, while they
Flo remain, and pretend to govern for the Queen,
let them do so in that constitutional and na-
tional sprit which the interests of the royal
cause prescribe. Pedro should be urged, nay;
enjoined under penalties, to call together the
Cortes, Miguel proclaimed a traitor, and Carlos
warned by Royal manifesto to quit the Queen's
dominions,where his presence is that of a foreign
enemy, and as such has long been full justifica-
tion of the march of a British army to dislodge
him. These views, we have strong reason
to believe, are those which have been deeply
and steadily entertained by persons in this
country, who ought to have power to act
upon them. We hope and trust that very high
personages are not insensible to their truth. If
ministerial responsibility mean any thing, it sig-
nifies that Ministers are equally responsible for
the non-exercise of the powers which belong to
them, when their own conviction tells them that
their bounden duty requires such powers to be
put vigorously in force, as they would be for the
assumption and application of powers which they
had not. We can conceive nothing much more
ignominious than for statesmen to shrink on a
mere encounter with difficulties in quarters
where they ought to be prepared for them, from
the fulfilment of what in their hearts they know
to be an obligation imposed upon them by the
vital interests of the kingdom. If a Minister '
felt that the foreign policy of Great Britain
demanded, and that the laws of nations
permitted, an immediate interposition of her
navy or army to uphold the rights of an ancient
ally, nothing ought to deter such a Minister
from putting into execution his declared prin-
ciples, for, at the worst, he always holds his
personal remedy and security in his own keep-
ing. The active aid which was recommended
in the case of Portugal can have been, and has
been, resisted only upon Tory and Holy
Alliance views.— Times.

Our contemporaries of all parties continue
their discussion on the right and expediency of
the British Government to interfere in the civil
war now raging in Portugal. The Tories exult
in the reported determination of Ministers not
to send out to that country an armed force,
rejoicing at the apparent gain to Don Miguel
and the cause of Absolutism. We very much
doubt whether such an advantage will be the
consequence of the pacific policy of the Cabinet.
The issue of any general war at the present
moment is doubtful, and might involve a tem-
porary triumph of the principles of the Holy
Alliance. The question is not simply whether
our Cabinet has or has not a casus fcederis for
militaryintervention with the affairs of Portugal;
but the more vital point is the influence of such
a decided policy in Great Britain on the poli-
tics of the Continental Governments of Europe,
and the probability of its affording to the Nor-
thern Powers a plausible excuse for a general
war. The great principles on which Lord Grey
announced the formation of his Ministry were
three—Reform, Economy, Peace. How far he
would consistently redeem his two latter pledges
by sending British troops to Portugal, at this par-
ticular crisis, must puzzle every reflecting person.
We can see no reason for the exception to the
general rule of his Administration at this parti-
cular moment, but many reasons which would
make such an extraordinary act especially incon-
sistent. We are persuaded that the cause of
Jiberty throughout the Continent will be most
promoted by a pacific policy of the British Ca-
binet. The resources of this country and of
France, and of Belgium and the southern parts
of Europe, will be better husbanded against any
future military attempts of the Holy Alliance to
put down Constitutional freedom. In the mean-
while the people throughout Europe are great
gainers by peace. Tt2e rapid progress of know-
ledge, which gunpowder and cannon balls cannot
impede, and the commercial intercourse of the
European nations are working a silent but rapid
political revolution. Education in Prussia,
6gravny, and Holland, is the most potent and
,destructive enemy of the arbitrary monarchies,
and at no distant time must prove itself to be
an adequate solvent of Absolutism without the
aid of French and British armies, or naval ex-
peditions. The oppressed nations may groan
under arbitrary Governments for a time, but a
nation which cannot work out its own poli-
tical salvation, will never be permanently as-
sisted by the military aid of its neighbours. We
do not think that the great body of our country.
men care two straws whether Miguel or Pedro
reigns in Portugal, or Don Carlos or the Infant
Queen in Spain. A war on behalf of either of
these Royal Personages might be temporarily

popular with the thoughtless—with the " cur-
rency men," who imagine that paper would be
thereby necessarily substituted for a metallic
currency—with the agriculturists, who might
hope that " war prices" would more easily pay
their mortgages, rents, rates, and taxes—but a
twelvemonth would scarcely elapse before all
would sensibly feel in their pockets, and loudly
denounce in public meetings the folly and op-
pression of a reckless war expenditure. We do
not pretend to know the sentiments of Lord
Althorp on this critical question, but we greatly
indeed mistake his common sense if he can
countenance the eventful measure of an armed
interference in the affairs of Portugal. He must
be a bold leader of the House of Commons who
in the ensuing session can face a Reformed
Parliament and bring down to it a War Budget,
at a time when the agricultural and commercial
classes are contending for the repeal of duties
on malt, assessed taxes, and the corn laws. The
Tories have sufficiently involved us in National
Debt, and heaped upon the country a sufficient
load of permanent taxation, without the public
burdens being increased by a Whig Ministry.
We shall be content to indulge in a new
war when we have paid for the last ; but we
think it will be some time before we shall be
in a situation to follow the expensive pastime
of another general war. Our resources are still
abundant and comparatively great, and the trade
and commerce of the country, we believe, were
seldom in a more prosperous and natural state ;
but the agricultural classes are severely suffer-
ing, and we fancy that they will not be very
willing to increase the mortgages of National
Debt and Poor Rates for which the land is
pawned to the public creditors. We have no
fears of the incursions of Russia. Her finances,
and the loose hold which the Government has
of so many scattered territories, will long control
her ambitious designs. Poland will give her
ample occupation on the advent of any general
war. The people of Prussia and Germany, in
general, are becoming daily more enlightened,
and acutely feel the wrongs of their gallant and
oppressed neighbours. Austria will be exclu-
sively occupied by Italy, and awed by Bel-
gium. British subsidies and loans will no
longer provide the Northern Powers with the
" sinews of war." In fact, the people of Europe
and the cause of liberty have, at present, every-
thing to gain by the preservation of peace. The
Absolutists are annually losing strength and their
hold of the people ; Great Britain and France
are daily growing in power, and more closely
knit together in a community of political interest.
How great has been the gain to civil freedom
during the last three years of general peace. In
this country we have reconstructed the Consti-
tution. Reforms in every department of the
State are in active progress; and, though that
progress may not equal the sanguine expecta-
tions of all classes of reformers, we are at a loss
to imagine how the reformation of our national
institutions would be accelerated or continued in
war. In France, the most sensible persons agree
that the principles of constitutional liberty are
continually striking deeper root. The civil
dissensions in Portugal and Spain will infallibly
regenerate the people of those nations ; and we
much doubt whether the influence of priestcraft
and the deep-rooted obstacles to good govern-
ment imposed .by a long course of monarchical
tyranny can be otherwise rooted out. We can
see therefore infinite evils in the risk of a general
war ; and we perceive no circumstances in the
present state of the Portugal question which
would justify our Government in an offensive
expedition to the Tagus. Twelve months since
its expediency might have been doubtful ; but
the ascendancy of liberal principles in the Spanish
dynasty, and the free scope which the two con-
tending parties in Portugal now have to settle
their own contests themselves, put beyond a
question the advantage of a pacific policy on our
part. It is of course a favourable opportunity
for the Tories to assail the Ministry, and to
endeavour to create that dissension in the Ca-
binet which they would have the country believe
really exists ; but this temporary party manoeuvre
is harmless, and they are welcome to their
amusement, as the nation is at last redeemed
from all chance of the Conservatives again
plunging us into general wars to put down liberty
and job in loans and army contracts. If any
future Ministry should resume the old mis-
chievous game of meddling with our neigh-
bours, a reformed House of Commons will
speedily extricate us from such a destructive
nuisance.—Morning Chronicle.
We stated, on Saturday, our belief that Lord
Grey had resigned office on the day before. It
appears we were mistaken, and that his Lord-
ship is still the First Lord of the Treasury. The
reports of his resignation, which were extensively
credited on Friday evening, appear to have
rested on very insufficient evidence—that of Mr.
Edward Ellice, who is, according to the recorded
testimony of the Times, " a person discredit-
ably known in the City." We had, however,
for our own announcement rather better autho-
rity; and we are induced by it still to believe
that the Noble Earl did actually talk on Friday
of retirement, with a heroism which entitles him
to high praise. The fashion in which the Globe
contradicts our statement, is worth notice. Our
story was told at our usual hour of publication
on Saturday ; and the Globe might have taken
its accustomed time in the correction of our
mistake, penning its exordium three hours before ,
noon, and its peroration three hours after it.
But the Globe is silent, till almost the hour of
projection. Then it dashes off a paragraph or
two, dated " Globe Office, three o'clock," in
which it informs the world that " the pertinacity
of its Tory contemporaries puts it under the
almost ridiculous necessity of asserting, in as
plain language as it can employ, that their
statements announcing the resignation of Lord
Grey, are entirely destitute of foundation ;"and
the Globe winds up this pithy assurance by ob-
serving that it " writes in haste, and will early
resume the subject." But why, when our fable
was accessible at nine, was the " almost ridicu-
lous necessity" of disproving it felt only at
tbree? And why, when the Globe might have
told the truth at ten leisurely, did the Globe tell
the truth at three " in haste ?" It is just pos-
sible that, although the Globe had our story in
the morning, it had not any instructions for its
own till the afternoon ; and we must be allowed
to suspect that at ten there was some probability
in the rumour, which at three became " en-
tirely destitute of foundation." But enough
about Ministerial changes.
of this gossip
We care very little, whether the in-
formation we received on this subject were
partially correct, or whether it were, as the Globe
asserts, "entirely destitute of foundation." It
is of more importance to us that we should
vindicate the accuracy of our statements upon
the more serious matter in issue. Has the
project (of sending troops to Portugal been

gravely entertained by the British Cabinet, or
has it not ? We have asserted distinctly and
deliberately that it has. The Globe has asserted
as distinctly and deliberately that it has not.
" All the rumours relating to preparations for 'an
expedition to Portugal are equally ungrounded."
Now we retain our conviction that the project of
sending troops to Portugal was entertained by
the British Cabinet ;—and we rely upon the
suggestion in the Times of Thursday last that
" the Queen of Portugal has an undoubted
• right to call upon her ally the King of Eng-
land, who so long as there is reality in treaties
must feel himself bound to grant her the stipu-
lated succour;"—upon the assenting silence
with which the Globe of Thursday and
Friday gave credence to this declaration ;—upon
the actual preparation of instructions for the
Military and Ordnance Departments ;—upon
the selection of the stations from which the
troops were to have been drawn ;—upon the de-
signation of a Major-General now on the Staff
in Ireland for the command of these troops ;
upon the more than hopes held out to the Am-
bassador of Don Pedro in Downing-street ;
upon the almost official intimations of persons
in authority at the public offices;—upon the
incautious babble of a Cabinet Minister fami-
liarly known as Lord Brougham's " Cabinet
Simpleton" in places of less confidential inter-
course. The Treasury Journals will call upon
us with their accustomed simplicity for the names
of our informants and the nature of our informa-
tion. They will ask from what stations the
troops were to come, and what Officer was
to command them ; they will bid us name
the Commoners who have whispered at the
Foreign-office, and the Peers who have prat-
tled in the Park. VVe are content to rest the
accuracy of our statement upon its notoriety.
There is not a Whigling at Brookes's who does
not know much of which the Newspaper he
takes in will profess to be utterly ignorant. The
Globe will be as little aware of the intended
expedition to Lisbon as it was of the intended
appointment of General Ellice to Portsmouth.
And its readers will laugh at its blindness in the
one case as they laughed at its blindness in the
other. Whether the failure of Lord Palmer-
ston's purpose be attributable to discord in the
Cabinet or to resolution in the King, let us
heartily congratulate England and Portugal that
it has failed :—England, because she has for the
present escaped the guilt of oppressing where
she ought to protect, of injuring where she is
bound to befriend, of destroying the independ-
ence of a nation whose independence it is her
proudest boast to have bought with her richest
treasure, and even with her noblest blood ;
Portugal, because this event virtually termi-
nates the conflict by which she has been rent
asunder, and leaves once more the decision of
a contest, in which she only is interested, to her
own will and her own laws. The force upon
which the Brazilian pirate has hitherto relied
for the repression of the free choice and the
subversion of the ancient institutions of Portugal
is rapidly melting away. By his avarice, by his
incapacity, by his cruelty to the people he is un-
fit to govern, by his ingratitude to the soldiers
he is unworthy to command, he is disgusting
the honourable men who, in ignorance of his
character, have too readily embraced his cause.
Colonel Bacon, the commander of his cavalry,
has returned to England. Major Bransen, and
other officers, to whose ill-paid services his
recent successes are to be attributed, have re-
embarked for Portugal, where they are about
to assist in the expulsion of the invader, whose
intrusion their mistaken zeal protected. If
the army of Don Miguel be commanded
with a loyalty, the signs of which we
cannot find in the management of his fleet,
the buccaneers who have so long profaned
the sacred name of liberty will before Easter
be driven from their strong holds ; and the cause,
which not all the effrontery of the Treasury
bench will now deny to be the national cause, will
be triumphant in Portugal. What punishment
is reserved for the Minister who has plotted
against the liberties of a foreign country, and
compromised the dignity of his own ;—who
has entailed upon Britain the stigma of unful-
filled promises, upon Portugal the calamities of
protracted civil war ;—who, during the progress
of this strife, has said nothing but with the in-
tention to deceive, has done nothing but with the
purpose to betray ;—who even now only laments
that he has not been suffered to remedy unwise
diplomacy by unjust aggression ? Lord Pal-
merston should retire from public life. He has
accomplished his destiny. He can never exult
in a more indignant reprobation, or bask in a
more universal contempt.— Morning Post.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HO USE.

Saturday two young men, named Clarke and Smith
were brought before the Loan MAYOR, charged with
having stolen several hats. The hat-manufacturer had, it
appeared, sent his boy with half a dozen hats to a cus-
tomer, and one of the prisoners, soon after the boy want
on his errand, followed him, and told him that he was,
by order of his master, to give up the hats, and to return.
The boy was simple enough to yield obedience, and did
not suspect that he had been robbed until he returned to
his master. A few days afterwards the boy saw the two
prisoners, whom he had observed together on the day he
was robbed, walking arm in arm under an umbrell I. He
said nothing, but followed them till a policeman was
within retch, when he charged them with the robbery,
which they denied, asserting that they had never seen the
face of their accuser before.

Parish, the officer who apprehended them, stated that
the prisoners disclaimed all knowledge of the lad, who, on
the contrary, persisted in declaring that they were the
very men.

The prisoners bad also given false addresses.
The Loan MAyoe. asked each the address of the other,
but they agreed in that respect completely, for they de-
clared they were quite strangers to each other.
The Loan MAYOR—What ! did you never pee each
other before the day you were apprehended ? Prisoners
—Never, my Lord.
The LORD MAYOR—And one of you were so kind as
to accommodate the other with the share of his umbrella?
Pray whose was the umbrella ? The prisoners looked at
each other.

The LORD NIAYOR—Come, come, answer at once ;
that's easily answer,d. Both prisoners—Mine, my Lord.
--(Loud laughter.)
The LORD MAYOR—WeII, I am satisfied now as to
your ignorance of each other. Now, why did you say
that you lived where you do not live? Clarke—That
was the officer's mistake my Lord. I told him that I
had lived where he went to look for me; not that I did
live there.
Smith—And so did I.

The LORD MAYOR—WeII, for strangers, you agree
wonderfully in what you say. I shall remand you till I
see whether more evidence may not appear against you.
The police said the prisoners were well known thieves.
Clarke—Thieves ! Don't believe a word of it. I wish
I could get it to steal.—(Laughter.)—Remanded.

A gill named Mary Everett was charged with having
uttered a bad shilling. She had gone into a shop to ask
for some article, and she threw down the bad money to
pay" for it. She swore it was good, and was put in the
station_house.

The LORD MAYOR—What account do you give of
yourself, young woman ? Prisoner—What account!
Why, I'm unfortunate, to be sure. How else would
I be?

The LORD MAYOR—And where did you get this bad
shilling ? Pritoner—Where ? Why, from a customer of

mine, to be sure. Who else would give it to me ? How
can I tell the person ?
The LORD MAYOR-1 dare say you are known at this
sort of business ? Prisoner—Well, have you anything
more to say ?
The LORD MAYOR-Yes ; you shall g o back to prison
until I ascertain whether Mr. Powell knows you. Pri-
soner—l'll carve you out, when 1 meet you, for this,
s'elp me God.
The LORD MAYOR —Oh, very well. Then, after I
dispose of you, according to Mr. Powell's report of you,
Pll make you find hail to keep the peace towards me and
every body ebe.—(Great laughter.) Prisoner (leaving
the bar)—if I a'nt got into it at last, I'm blowed.
The Loan MAYOR —You shall find respectable bail
too, mind that ; and, gaoler, keep her by herself in the
prison, for fear she should lose the independence of her
spirit by associating with others. The prisoner (from
the other room)—S'elp me God, you've sarved me out!—
(Laughter.)