The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-15 00:00:00

%ONDON, WEDNES'DAY, OCTOBER 15, 1856.

The arrival of NIEV.AEZ at Madrid was the
signal for the downfall of O'DONNELL. He found
that,
according to American parlance, he was
fairly " cornered," and that he might. as well
surrender at once without even attempting to
defend the position for the attainment whereof
he had made so many and such serious sacrifices.
During his three months of office he succeeded in
alienating every former friend, without gaining a
single new one, in Spain. He recklessly yielded
ito temptation, although the slightest considera-
tion might have convinced him that treachery
similar to that which he displayed towards
ESPARTERO would, oa the first convenient oppor-
tunity, be exhibited towards himself. He is now
in the position of a traitor deprived of his antici-
pated reward—a signal instance of retributive
justice.

Fe was necessary to the carrying out of
queen ISABELLI'S project against the Constitution
which she had sworn, to observe. Unless a traitor
could be discovered in the Cabinet it would have
been impossible to got rid of ESPARTERO, whose
acceptance of office had within a few years pre-
served the Crown of ISABELLA IL An Absolutist
Ministry could not at once be proclaimed without
exciting a revolution, of which it was impossible
to predict the results. Extraordinary preparations
should be made, an overwhelming military fore.
concentrated on the capital, and O'DONNELL was
enabled; by virtue of his office, to make the
arrangements, without which the Bourbon Dy-
nasty might have ceased to reign in Spain.
O'DONNELL at once fell into the trap so
artfully laid for his reception. Cunning as he
was, he had one still more cunning to deal with—
one profuse in promise, but stingy in performance.
lie could not appear to doubt the pledges of his
SOVEREIGN, and, in an evil hour, yielded to the
temptations so lavishly displayed before him.
It was, however, obvious from the very commence-
ment, that O'DONNELL was but a mere " warm-
ing-pan," to hold the situation until a greater
favourite at Court—
neanmd tooreready to carry out
Absolutist doctrines,
obedience to every whim of theyiSelod implicit
could be procured. Every possible blandish-
ment was exercised the most unbounded
favour was displayed towards th 3 instrument, the
soothing system was cmatinued till the very last ;
and when every one else knew that the ground
was giving way beneath him he fancied himself
more secure than ever. He should have profited
better from his former experience of the charac
teristics of the Bourbon race. The only advantage
which he received during his brief tenure of office
was the adhesion of the Emperor NAPOLEON, who
unclisguisedly mounted his colours. It is, however,
difficult to say how the farther change will be
received at the Tuileries.
As a further movement
in the absolutist came it could scarcely be dis-
pleasing to the Emperor, who, it is said, regards
Constitutional
Government with no very favour-
able eye. He may, however, see that ISABELLA,

as .a true niece of BOHBA, is going a little too far
—that she is determined to do as she likes with
what she considers her own, even if she sacrifices
her throne in the attempt.
We shall witness the playing out of the game
with comparative indifference. It is scarcely pro-
bable that NARTAEZ will long retain his position.
Re may continue to render himself more ob-
noxious than he has hitherto been, to identify his
name with the most unpopular measures, the
restoration of the plunder accumulated by the
QUEEN MOTHER, and the extension of her power
and influence—a large infusion of the sacerdotal
element into the Government, and an unresisting
submission to every caprice of the SOTEREIGN,
however unreasonable. But even he must stop
somewhere, and a more unscrupulous agent will
yet be discovered, to whom NAR7AEZ must yield
his position.

Then, indeed, " will be the tug of war."
The question will no longer be of a change
of Ministry—but of a Dynasty. The Spanish as
well as the Neapolitan BOURBONS seem to have
nearly accomplished their destinies. They have
hardened their hearts against the signs of the
times. They have destroyed the Constitutions
which were the firmest foundations of their re-
spective thrones, and treated with gross ingrati-
tude the nation to whose disinterested efforts they
owed the power of displaying the attributes of
their race. Well, the day and hour of retributive
justice is rapidly approaching. Whatever may
be the errors of Spaniards or Neapolitans, they
will not perpetually submit to the despotic domi-
' nations of ISABELLA or of BODTBA ; although they
may not have merited a direct interference in their
favour, they may still be assured that any energetic
efforts to obtain freedom will receive the sympathy
of every true-hearted Englishman, and that if
not with them we shall certainly not be against
them, nor shall we suffer any undue interference
by other nations. All they require is a clear
stage and no favour, and that they shall receive !
For all beyond they must look to their own
right arms. The " hereditary bondsmen" must
themselves strike the blow that will break down
the barriers of oppression, and open the way to
liberty and Constitutional Government.

Another of those miserable shams and mockeries
of Justice, called Courts of Inquiry, has just been
appropriately consummated. An investigation
growing out of an unfortunate fracas which took
place on the 11th ultimo, at the Royal William
Victualling Yard, Plymouth, between Dr. BuDD,
one of the most eminent physicians of South
Devonshire, and Captain NIAs, the local Superin-
tendent—has resulted in an official judgment,
which for its perverse fatuity has seldom if ever
been surpassed. The circumstances of the
wretched little contretemps from which the Board
of Inquiry may be said to have emanated we care
not here in any way minutely to recapitulate.
The whole affair simply being nothing more nor
less, as it appears to us, than one of those melan-
choly exhibitions of irrascibility consequent upon
the sudden collision of two men of the most incon-
gruous temperaments—ene of them morbidly sen-
sitive of anything at all bearing the faintest con-
struction of a personal slight or indignity, the
other no less morbidly puffed up with an extrava-
gant sense of the most egregious self-importance.
The abrupt clashing of which same glaringly an-
tagonistic temperaments produces—hardly less
inevitably than the bringing together of fire and
gunpowder—an instantaneous explosion !
It is perfectly comprehensible, therefore (re-
membering the frailty of human natures•), that
when an amiable gentleman like Dr. BU DD, 01
Plymouth, an eminent member of an eminent pro-
fession, approaches an impulsive gentleman (to
say the least of him) like Captain Nras, the
Superintendent of the Victualling-yard ahead,
mentioned—lt is perfectly comprehensible, we
say, that when an unoffending Physician (hat iu
hand) approaches a petulant Superintendent (cap
on head) only to find his courteous advances waived,
of with an irritated and irritating movement of
the hand, and an order to the bowing Doctor to
follow his High Mightiness into some adjacent
office—lt is perfectly comprehensible, we say,
that all this should somehow-, on the instant, and
without the smallest opportunity for premeditation,
be resented. Particularly if the incident happens
to transpire, as it actually did transpire, on the 11th
ultimo, in the presence of a group of ladies, the
friends of this same courtly but repulsed physi-
cian ! The sequel is soon told—almost as rapid
and inevitable a sequel as that resulting from the
application of the lighted match to the train oi
gunpowder. "Wincing under such unexpectedly
cavalier treatment Dr. BUDD declines to have
anything to do, either with the office or the Cap-
tain-Superintendent. The latter, thereupon,
" incontinently" orders a policeman who is stand-
ing hard by and gazing with astonishment at the
two wonderfully choleric interlocutors, to tura Dr.
BUDD out of the yard ! Without any more rea-
son for so d3ing than we have here mentioned—
without any more ado—in the presence of Dr.
Bureg friends, the ladies who are looking on from
a little distance at this most extraordinary treat-
ment of their coarpanion. Naturally, very natu-
rally, the worthy doctor hears the order for his
being thus summarily ejected from the yard by
a policeman with absolute amazement. He
pauses. The " Peeler" takes him by the arm in
order to carry into execution the command of his
superior officer, the Captain-Superintendent.
Thereupon, goaded by these indignities, quoth
Dr. BUDD turning upon Captain NIAS—" You
are the greatest brute I ever saw " Having
relieved himself of which pithy expreoion of dis-
gust, the doctor (who had come with au Admi-
ralty letter, authorising him to conduct a party
of French gentlewomen, lion-hunting, over the
dockyard) is walked through the gate, in preeeace
of his companions, and under the eyes of the
policeman. SucTa, briefly, was the lamentable
little fracas between Dr. JOHN BUDD, M.D., of
Plymouth, and Captain JOSEPH Nias, C. 8., Su-
perintendent of the Royal William Victualling
Yard—the fracas upon which an Admiralty
Board of Inquiry has just been sitting, and upon
which that same board has but very recently pro-
nounced its judgment, after all due delay and
deliberation. A judgment, we are bold to say,
at once the most perverse and the most prepos-
terous.

Let it be remembered that, according to the
declaration of Captain NIAS, it was after Dr.
BUDD had called him a brute, that he ordered the
doctor to be turned out of the yard by a police-
man ! Whereas, according to the statement of
Dr. BUDD (a statement, it must bo added, sup-
ported upon oath by all the evidence brought to
bear upon the matter before the official Court of
Inquiry), it was in, consequence of his being or-
dered to be ejected from the yard, as already
related, that the doctor, in a sudden outburst of
excitement, indulged himself by blurting out thug
significantly his disgust at the extraordinary
course pursued by the Captain Superintendent.
"It is clear, then," as our very plain-spoken
physician wrote, in a letter addressed by him on
the 18th ult. to Mr. PIIINN) of the Admiralty,
"It is clear, then, that either Captain NIAS or I
myself must be beifore their Lordships a con-