The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-01 00:00:00

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(From the Morning Herald.)
" Why laughest thou, 0 Charon?"

Every admirer of Lucien will remember the ad-
dress of Mercury to the grim ferryman of the Styx,
whom he had encountered when out on a " day
rule," and taking a stroll through the streets of
Athens.
As soon as Charon could speak for laughter he
replied that he had just heard a man accept an in-
vitation to dinner, and that instantly a tile fell
from the roof and killed him—" so I laughed."
If there be any beings now walking the earth
with feelings akin to those of the grisly boatman—
of combined contempt and loathing for the human
race and for their ghastly wars, or still more ghastly
pacifications, what a glorious laugh must they
have had in contemplating the proceedings of the
" Peace Conferences" at Paris, where a conclave of
statesmen—"sly slow things, with circutnTective
eyes"—gravely performed an operation akin to that
of the sluttish housewife, who sweeps the dirt under
a corner of the carpet, and thinks, or feigns to
think, because it is hidden it is removed.
"Oh, cfeca wens hominum." If this is the re-
sult, are not the rulers of England guilty before
Heaven of all the useless bloodshed, and worse,
which has made desolate so many households in the
east and west of Europe ? Well may the satirist say
of those administrators—
" Not one looks backward—onward still he goes;
Nor e'er looks forward farther than his nose."

Not one of them perceives that the sore is only
cicatrised, and that the "foul corruption mining
all within" must sooner or later break out, when
perhaps the patient may be too exhausted to en-
dure the drain.
One hundred and one guns broke the silence of
Sunday night with the announcement of a peace of
such a nature that a second like unto it would be
more ruinous to the nation than the most destruc-
tive war in which these realms have ever been en-
gaged.

- As the Conferences were conducted in secrecy the
announcement was appropriately conveyed in the
darkness of the night. Well might it be so ; they
who conducted them love the darkness rather than
the light, because their deeds are evil. Let us now
consider what we have gained and what we have
lost ; whom we have aided ; whom we have be-
trayed ; and for what purpose we have sacrificed
lives innumerable, and millions yet uncounted and
yet unpaid, during the sanguinary burlesque of
the last two years.
We went to war nominally because Russia
had laid her grasp upon the territories of her neigh-
bour.
We were determined—so at least we said—
to uphold the independence of the Sultan and the
integrity of the Turkish empire. The confiding
Turk whose word has always been his bond, be-
lieved and trusted in our professions. he allowed
our fleets to enter his harbours ; he put his for-
tresses in possession of our armies ' • he placed the
greatest general in Europe and a fine army at our
disposal ; and fearfully have we betrayed this con-
fidence. Take first the original cause of the war
—the Principalities. We are ready to make any
change, any alteration in their constitution except
that which plain common sense and plain common
honesty would point out as the true one. We would
divide them, if such a division would weaken them,
for Russia or Austria; we would bind them together
if it would strengthen them against the Porte. We
were ready to have deprived the Sultan of them
alogether, although we knew that their cession
would be a breach of hospitality upon his part which
his religion forbids him to commit ; we would, in
fact, have done everything and anything except
place them in the position which Servia has occu-
pied to her own advantage for so many years, lying
under the suzerainty of the Porte, with her fron-
tier fortresses occupied by Turkish troops for their
defence against foreign aggres,ion. Obstacles,
moral or physical, were as nothing to us ; ancient
allegiance we broke down ; but we have since
raised a range of mountains in Bessarabia which
have vanished to make way for a commission of in-
quiry. Will not the example of the treaty of
Gulistan, in which we pledged the honour of Eng-
land for the faith of Russia, who, in the natural
course of events, laughed in the face of England,
and kept the lands which she was pledged to see
restored to Persia—will not this, we say, open their
eyes to what the faith of Russia is worth T Alas,
it will not. Eyes have they, and. see not ; ears
have they, and hear not. Scientific diplomatists !
they can discern the face of the sky, but cannot
understand the signs of the times.
Thus have we contrived to sacrifice, in one point,
both the independence and integrity of that ally
in support of whom we called God to witness we

took up arms in good faith.
We shall return again to other instances of our
bad faith to Turkey, and to that future punish-
ment which that bad faith must brini, upon our
heads, merely premising that what we have' alluded
to above is neither the last nor the worst. That
such is the case will be shown by the unanswerable
proof which it is in our power to give, that the
treaty of the Bth of May, 1854—now to be abro-

gated by a most scandalous breach of faith—was
absolutely entered into at a moment when mea-

sures had been taken and despatches written which
would render the forfeiture of our pledged faith an
absolute and inevitable necessity.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

Our Malta correspondent, in his letter of th• 26th
ult., gives the following account of arrivals and depar-
tures of ves-els

"The Malcolm Brown and Arabella schooners, with
Government stores and merchandise, arrived from Lon-
don on the 24th, and during the past three dap a whole
fleet of colliers have come in.

" The City of London steam-transport arrived from
Leghorn on the 22d.
"The Africa schooner arrived on the 24th.
" The Great Britain steam-transport arrived on the
24tla from Genoa, bringing Cols. De Horsey and Burn-
aby and 42 officers and 1,040 non-commissioned officers
and privates of the 2d Regiment of the Anglo-Italian
Legion. The Great Britain returned on the 25th for the
3d Rifle Regiment, which is incomplete, further enlist-
ment in Italy having been suspended, and so has like-
wise the purchase of mules in Spain, according to a pub-
lic notice posted up at Gibraltar.
"The Hydaspes, the Sarah Sands, and the Norman
screw steam-transports, with the troops and horses they
brought from England, left for Constantinople on the
23d ; and likewise the Marley Hill steam-transport, with
clothing. The Sarah Sands also embarked, at Malta,
Capt. Guise, Lieuts. Barrell anti Knight, of the 50th ;
Mr. CAreux, and 42 privates of the 92,1.
" Her Majesty's steam-frigate Curacoa left on the 24th
for Cm etnntineple.
"Her Majesty's screw steam-ship Megtera left on the
22d for England.

" The French steam line-of-battle ship Prince Jerome
and the steam-frigate Le Loire arrived from Toulon on
the 23d, bound to Constantinople. Tee latter left for
Kamiesh on the 25th.

" The French steam-sloop Passepartout arrived from
Messina on the 23d, and left for Tripoli on the 25th.
"The American ■ailing ship Alleghanean/ in the
French transport service, arrived on the 24th from Mar-
seilles, with grain and deal planking, for Kamiesh.
" The French brig Chevalier Mustafa arrived from
Bona on the 24th..

"The French steam line-of•battle ship Navarino, and
the La Saone, steam-corvette, took their departure on
the 23d for Constantinople.
" The Normandie, French steam-transport, left on the
22d for Marseilles, conveying 147 French military inva-
lids from the East.

"The Henri IV., French steam-transport, from Con-
stantinople, arrived on the 25th, with 113 French mili-
tary invalids, and left for Marseilles on the 26th.
"The Esser Hair, Ottoman Government steamer,
which left for Canea on the 21st, put back from stress
of weather on the 22d, and remained until the 23d, when
she took a fresh departure.
"The schooner yachts Mariquita and the Dream ar-
rived on the 25th from Algiers.
"Her Majesty's steam-packet Caradoc arrived from
Marseilles on the 23d, and leaves shortly for Alexan-
dria, to be at the disposal of the Eirl of Dalhousie, the
Governor-General returning from India. By the Cara-
doo accounts were received of the birth of the anxiously
looked-for heir to the Throne of France, and accordingly
on the following morning a Te Deum was chanted at the
Carmelite church, at which, on the invitation of the
French Consul, the British and naval authorities, the
officers of the British and French ships of war in port,
and the foreign consuls attended. The ships of war in
port dressed in colours, those of England displaying
conspicuously the tricolor, and those of France the St.
George's ensign of England. At noon the Prince Jerome
fired a grand imperial salute of 101, and all the British
ships of war a Royal Salute of 21 guns. The Royal
standard of England was hoisted at the palace flagstaff
and on several other public establi-shments, and the
Union Jack on every fort throughout the island. All
the foreign Consuls hoisted their national colours, and
every merchant ship in port was dressed out with tele-
graph flags innumerable.
"The French postal steam-packet Mersey arrived
from Marseilles on the 24th, and left for Syra, Slur")
and Constantinople on the same day.
"The French postal steamer Hellespont arrived at
Malta from Marseilles on the 26th.
"The Sinai French postal steamer arrived on the
26th from Constantinople, Smyrna, and Syra. She left
for Marseilles on the same afternoon.

"The Lebanon screw steamer, which arrived from
Constantinopleand Smyrna on the 21,id, left for Marseilles
and Liverpool on the 23d.
" The Karnal screw steamer left for Syra and Con-
stantinople on the 22d.
"The Madge screw steamer arrived from Plymouth
and Gibraltar on the 23d.
"The Gulliver steamtug left for Constantinople on
the 24th, and at the same time the EglintetisteamerfOr
the same destination.

" The Prince of Wales screw steamer, from London,
left for Constantinople on the 25th.
!! The Ottoman Elm litter a! liCekboi arrived from