The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-12 00:00:00

tatives has no jurisdiction or supremacy over him
—he is responsible to the whole people, and to
them only. Such is Mr. BUCIIA.NAN'S view of
the position of the President, and it is probably the
correct one.

We can, however, conceive of one valid answer
which the Lower House will have, even admitting
all that Mr. BUCHANAN says. They may reply,
that they regard the committee as the grand
jury, or the preliminary inquirers in the
case. It may be that there is no case at all,
against hlm ; in that case the charges, as he terms
them, will be discussed in the manner most honour-
able to him. It may be otherwise—it will then be
for the committee to prepare the definite charges
which he fairly demands, and to bring them before
the tribunal appointed by the constitution. It is,
however, a serious fact that the Supreme Authority
in one of the largest and most powerful States of the
civilised world stands so far in the position of a de-
fendant, on the ground of official misconduct, that
he has to deliver this solemn protest against the
mode in which his conduct is investigated. But for
the vast difference between the Republic and the
old States of Europe, it would remind one of the
times of our own and the French Revolutions. But
the American Cabinet is not responsible to the House
—the President appoints his officers, retains them,
whether the house approves or not, and must there-
fore bear the consequences of all things done by his
servants. We may be pretty sure that in one respect,
at least, our QUEEN will notlwish to "Americanise
our institutions." Happily for her she can never
be accused ; and, more happily for her still, no
party would tolerate the thought of doing it.

But the other day Lord DERBY proposed the re-
jection of a bill sent up, nemine contradicente, by
the House of Commons. The bill had been discussed
there ; at least Mr. NEWDEGATE had uttered some
plaintive sentences on the sad fact that none of his
fellow members saw any harm in the bill. Lord
DERBY also, like the whole House of Commons, saw
no harm in the bill itself, but he saw mischief in its
promoters; and, not on the merits of the bill, but
avowedly on the demerits of the promoters, he,
forbade the second reading of the bill. The dan-
gerous persons referred to were a committee of
gentlemen who style their society one "for the
liberation of religion from State patronage and
control"—and the bill, said to be promoted by them,
was one to abolish a declaration made by Dis-
senters when taking municipal office, that they
will do nothing by virtue of their office to injure the
Established Church.
If such a declaration be of any value, we beg to
suggest that it should be made not by Dissenters
only, when accepting municipal office. The report
which appeared in The Sun of yesterday of the
meeting to elect Churchwardens at St. Paul's,
Knightsbridge, reminds us that there are persons
far more dangerous to the Church of Eng-
land than the committee of the Liberation
Society, and the Dissenters whom they may
be said to represent. The Church is far less in
danger from assault than from treason. Mr. LID-
DELL, Mr. BRYAN KING, and their coadjutors are
far more dangerous'enemies to her than Dr. FOSTER,
Mr. MIALL, and the committee at Sergeant's Inn.
If Lord DERBY delight in declarations, and think
it important to discourage the enemies of the Church,
although they may be backed by the whole House
of Commons, by all means let them get ready at
once a bill to require a declaration of every
clergyman similar to the one he retains for Dis-
senters. Now that corporations have sold all their
livings, Dissenters cannot through them injure the
Church ; but clergymen within her walls can plainly
do her more mischief in a year than Dissenters or
a corporation could effect in a century. Indeed, at
the close of the vestry meeting Mr. WESTERTON,
the well-known re-elected churchwarden, remarked
that Parliament must interfere, and "compel them
to make some declaration, failing which they should
be compelled to leave the Church which they had
disgraced."
We hear all kinds of stories of Dissenters' fana-
ticism, and of their unseemly conttntions ; they may
be true or false, but they are at least private mat-
ters : we mean that a congregation of Dissenters
is in no way responsible to the nation for its
mode of conducting its worship, or for any
thing whatever but avoiding breaches of the
peace. But nothing done amongst Dissenters
can pretend to rival in fanaticism, if not something
worse, the doings of Mr. LIDDELL and his asso-
ciated Romanisers, as they appeared in the report
yesterday ; he being, moreover, an officer in a church
which belongs to the nation, and is maintained by
the nation for national purposes, just as much as
are our army and navy. The ecclesiastical general
of the London division of this church costs the
nation some £lO,OOO a-year. How many military
generals can ever hope for such national pay ?
At St. Paul's vestry we have, in brief, the
following illustration of National Churchmanship.
Mr. LIDDELL, Incumbent, takes the chair (a right
denied to him, however, by some first-class lawyers).
Apprehending doubtless a sharp catechising for his
doings, he makes an oration on peace, meekness,
gentleness, and all that, and nominates his church-
warden. Forthwith Mr. WESTERTON rises to pro-
pose a question or two. Doubtless anticipating
the nature of the questions, the Rev. Chairman
says he cannot hear them. Mr. WESTERTON is
not, however, the man to be put down by a parson.
He says his questions are relevant, and proceeds to
put them. " Have you," he says, helped yourself to
the money collected at the sacrament by the offer-
tory, to pay for altar lights, without the consent and
against the protests of the people's churchwarden
Here the confusion of the meeting asserting he had
done it, and of a few friends of the-incumbent not
denying it, but trying to put down the questioner,
became indiscribable. " That is true,,, " order,"
" chair who are you," and t, turn. him ad-
dressed ,; "
o an incumbent's friend, resounded from
all sides. At a momentary lull in the uproar, the
Chairman, who had been long standing in vain, ex-
claimed—" The question is irrelevant. I decline to

answer it." Again the cries resounded—,, phi
—" Quite right"—" A confession of guilt."
At another lull Mr. WESTERTON interferes,—.
"That answer is sufficient. My second question is,
from what fund was the old debt paid which you
contracted for altar . candles, which debt, when I
was in office, I would not allow to be taken from
the altar money?" Again the self-appointed Chair-

man refused to answer, and also refused to hear

another question. Hereupon commenced a battle

between the Chairman and the meeting, equalling
in its way all that is to be looked for

in the fight between the BENICIA BOT

and SAYERS. If our readers overlooked yesterday

this " mill extraordinary" between a clergyman and
his parishioners they had better turn to it again. It

is the fitting vestry parallel to St. George's-in-the-
East. Eventually Mr. HALL, the late churchwar-
den, having got possession of the ear of the meet-
ing, fairly frightened the reverend gentleman
out of the chair, and " saluted by hootings, groan-
lugs, hissings, and waving of hats, he and his
retired ”_as the meeting said, to St. George's-in-
the-East l The victorious HALL was then voted
into the chair.

It was indeed time for Ills Reverence to be off.

Between Mr. HALL and Mr. WESTERTON he
would have had but a sorry time of it. The
latter had retired from office weary of- fight ;
Mr. HALL, who succeeded him, had tried concilia-
tion for a year in vain. There was no satisfying
the demands of the Jesuits in disguise, and it re-
quired all his nerve to avoid being handed over,
body and soul, to Rome. Two of Mr. LIDDELL'S
poor young curates had been helped over into
Popery; and then Mr. HALL produced a list of
between 200 and 300 perverts, including members
of Parhameat, great men and great women, and
nearly 200 clergymen, which the Puseyite
teachings had led from Protestantism to
Popery. It was the terror of this list which
frightened Mr. LIDDELL out of the chair. A
discreet flight. Mr. WESTERTON had intended to
show by Mr. LIDDELL'S answers that the latter
had paid for his altar candles with the sacrament
money, against the protests of the parish ; that he
and his curates had received young women to con-
fession in the vestry and in private rooms else-
where, and then enjoined penance, and granted
special absolution. Moreover, that he appro-
priated the offertory money to the establishment
of the mission in St. George's-in•the-East
by Mr. BRYAN KING and Mr. LOWDER ! Perhaps
as bad a part of the affair as say is that
the Bishop of London, whom the country pays
so splendidly to keep his clergy right, evaded
the request of the Churchwardens, and declined
to interfere ! Can it be that Dr. TAIT is indiffe-
rent to the spread of such Popish practices—and
the consequent perversion of weak-minded Pro-
testants to Popery—as were described at the meet-
ing ? We need not say more just now. Between
Messrs. KING and LIDDELL we are not likely
soon to want a text, if we wish for one, on the
folly or wickedness, or both, of Anglican Popery.

The letter from the special correspondent of the
New l' ork, Times, which appears in another part
of our paper, is, though rather long, well worth
reading. it contains authentic information, from
a new, and as the writer is an American, an im-
partial source, on the actual state of the African
slave trade, and the delinquencies of the American
Government in regard to it. And a mortifying
narrative it is. Here is a person who left America
imagining that the extent and horrors of the slave
trade, and the abuse for its purposes of the American
flag, were all greatly exaggerated for party purposes
at home. He finds, after a sojourn on the Coast of
Africa, that it is even worse than had been repre-
sented. The trade is frightfully rampant, and
almost every slaver hoists the American flag.
Writing from St. Paul de Loando, he says that the
seas on this coast swarm with vessels, whose only
and known object is to get a cargo of negroes—" live
stock." Forty-five hundred slaves at least have
been kidnapped in the year; three out of four
vessels get off; and " almost invariably this work
is carried on under the American flag, and every
merchantman with these colours flying is a justly
suspected craft."
The trade is carried on with even worse than its
old horrors, the exposure to pursuit and capture
rendering it necessary to put negroes and provi-
sions on board with such haste that the stowage
and supplies, of water especially, are more defec-
tive than they would be, if all were done at leisure.
We need not repeat the tale of horrors, our readers
can turn to it. The state of the poor creatures
found in the Tavernia, a New York brig, captured
by her MAJESTY'S ship Viper, is, the writer tells us,
not an extreme case. The description of the different
classes of men engaged in this hellish traffic, from
the wealthy gentleman who does not lose caste
thereby in New York, to the veriest cutthroats on
earth, a medley of the rascals of all nations who do
the actual work is remarkable, and shows special
knowledge; the slavetraders, our writer divides
into three classes, " the genteel, the semi-genteel,
and the full blown cutthroats."
As the extent of coast in question is not alto-
gether unmanagable, it seems wonderful how so
many escape. The British receive the praise of
doing all they can. " They take six slavers to
our one," says this American, and tells his
countrymen, that " there is no rubbing this
out, and that all the pseudo-patriotic talk they
may indulge in cannot get rid of it." He com-
mends our vessels as well as our zeal, and observes
that we have no discordant southern element in our
navy assisting to perpetuate the traffic, and wink

ing at the escape of slaves. Pretended trading under
the American flag is the chief means made use of
by the slavers. "The palm oil dodge" is a favou-

rite one; and though a manifest fraud, is yet sue

cesstul. Three vessels would suffice for that trade,

yet those professedly engaged in it are very nume-
rous.

Our American seems to have no doubt that were
America as earnest as we are, the traffic would be
stopped very quickly. Political chicanery and the
fears of the moneyed interest in the United States

are the real protectors of the slave trade. He would

substitute severe imprisonment for capital punish.

ment, in the case of those convicted, because the
milder punishment would be inflicted, while no one

has yet been etecuted. He would concede the righ

of search within 200 miles of the African coast, as

" the exemption from search is the actual safe

guard of the slaver," and he would send to the

West Coast of Africa, a squadron suitable for the

purpose, and worthy of his country. A better ad

viser than the writer of this letter President
BUCHANAN could not have. The letter itself can

hardly escape his attention.

In another part of our impression we publish a
,etter addressed to us by Mr. RUEGG, one of the
Board of Guardians, in answer to our remarks on
the case of ELIZABETH HODDER> This poor girl, it
Will be remembered, was removed from the Union
at Sherborne while dangerously ill of an infectious
fever, and was taken to a cottage five miles off;
situated in a most unhealthy locality. We do not
perceive that the reply of Mr. RUEGG at all excul-
pates the Board of Guardians. In a large Union
like that of Sherborne there should be proper ac-
dcoismeamseos. datilof h
n tfoerreis
patientsno tthe suffering B
o Board of G
from contagious
ua rd
ia n s
friaurrreoti
nhg
epr
ret al
cyt
al y
nr e tymooeudb
ilseaadm;ewlhf to nynoout h
uElGeaaGyr having
tgkhstahtuehs
tNs
nrs
hieoasnst
er
to be removed was certified by the medical officer
in charge of the house, and that she was taken
away at the-express wish of her two sisters?"
We " say" a very obvious truth, that in exonerat-
ing the Board of Guardians he is making a serious
charge against the medical officer, who, should this
statement be correct, is manifestly unfit for his re-
sponsible office. With regard to the wishes of the
poor girl's relatives, the medical officer of the parish
was bound to inquire into their capabilities for re-
hov ae td thereand
ve
awkward
micteuii vss mnhgaa nsi
.lieefreh's
etee, nas such dsi inquiryisrheetnb egeenwt fie
ridrt e t moo
fab deaenm,
and dangerous case, as her removal to such a place
as that described by Dr. WILLIAMS, " surrounded
byitated.
stagnant ditch," could never have been per-
m

The best answer to the virtuous indignation
of the Board is afforded by the unfortunate fact
that the poor girl died a few days after her re-