The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-13 00:00:00

not describe again the course adopted in regard to
Savoy; the misfortune is, that unless Europe for-
bids, it leaves the COUNT and the EMPEROR at
liberty to barter Sardinia for the withdrawal of the
French troops from Rome, or for the mere additions
to his territories which VICTOR EMMANUEL is
allowed to accept. What right, however, the
EMPEROR has to grant licenses to the KING, more
than England or any other European Power has,
it is hard to say. We certainly wisli that these
denials did not rather strengthen suspicion in our
minds, as they probably do in GARIBALDI'S. We
trust, however, that there will be more Govern-
ments to consult in the business of Sardinia than
in that of Nice and Savoy. Sardinia is not a land-
locked province or a small county ; but may be-
come a buttress to an ambitious naval power in the
Mediterranean. The COUNT says that no one dare
ask such a cession from a country with a population
of 24,000,000 inhabitants ; and that, therefore, after
annexation, it will be an impossibility. We shall

see.

In regard to Rome—it is confessed that the
Eternal City is desirable as an Italian capital.
But as regards the means to that end, we shall be
able to say in what condition we should be in six
months hence." Not quite clear in the telegram,
are we to understand that negotiations are going
on respecting it with the Power which holds the
keys of Rome and the patrimony of St. PETER ?
And is the surrender of Rome, as we have Itlready
suggested, to be the consideration for the surrender
of Sardinia to Imperial slavery ? A revolution at
Rome is, however, it seems, looked for, but it is to
be " accomplished by the conviction that liberty is
favourable to religion !" That conviction we, of
course, fully share ; but it is quite another thing
that liberty should be favourable to priestcraft. It
has not been generally thought so by priests; and
it is not easy to conceive that the habit of political
independence should not tend to foster that awful
Protestant habit of independent thought on reli-

gious subjects also.
Venetia, too, is to be emancipated—but by a
change of European opinion. At present, Europe
does not wish that Piedmont should make war on
Austria. This opinion must be respected. So Aus-
tria is, for her satisfaction, told that there is a good
casus belli against her, but that it will not be turned
to account. Europe's opinion is, however, to be
changed. How ? It will change when it sees a
United Italy able to deliver Venetia, which will
never willingly endure its bondage. " Austria has
flattered them in vain." Such are the views with
which the Parliament of Northern Italy authorises
its Government to proceed to the work of annexa-
tion. Immediate union of all Italy disposed for
union—no more cessions of territory—Rome the
capital of Italy when she has become a convert to
the doctrines of Religious Liberty—and Venetia
joined to its sister territory when Europe under-
stands that a united Italy is too strong to tolerate
the bondage of her sons.
Our old friend, BONIFACE, of the Constitutionnel,
we observe, has stepped forward to lecture Sardinia
for helping GARIBALDI in Naples ! He calls on
Europe to join in the censure. Doubtless he will
find monarchs ready enough to do it, but he himself
can scarcely be hardy enough to maintain that it
were not better done than left undone. And it is
not surely for France, the Republican subverter of
the Roman Republic, to lecture another power on
irregularity. Perhaps it is merely done to keep up
some pretext for demanding Sardinia as satisfaction.

It would be amusing, were it not also most
sinister, to note those ridiculous rumours now rife
in Parisian circles as to the probable, or rather, as
it is there confidently intimated, the certain break-
ing-up of the Palmerstonian Government ! "The
wish" is so obviously "father to the thought" that
the exultation openly expressed on the other side
of the Channel, at the mere notion of this Minis-
terial disruption in England, is calculated, we are
certain, to render the arrantest Tories in these
islands devoted and almostunconditional adherents
of the present Cabinet. In the presence of the
actual situation of affairs upon the Centinent, there
is not a politician in the United Kingdom who
would not be disposed frankly to waive all
party differences with a patriotic desire to
disembarrass the councils and to strengthen the
hands (if need be, upon any contingent emergency)
of her MAJESTY'S Government. Particularly at a
conjuncture when in France there become audible
such very significant aspirations for the downfall of
a Ministry that can only be odious to the "powers
that be" yonder among our neighbours for a reason
that, of all reasons in the world, should render it
popular with all ranks, and classes, and sections, and
parties, of Englishmen. That reason being, of
course, no other than that the Government of
Lord PALMERSTON and his colleagues is essentially,
and above all thing 3, an English Government.
Grievous though the shortcomings of the present
Cabinet undoubtedly were during the last session—
deplorably though the country was deceived and
disappointed either through the want of discipline
or the want of earnestness among the various mem-
bers of the Administration—lamentable though the
numbers were of dropped measures, evaded re-
forms, postponed innovations, forgotten or broken
pledges, modulated or abandoned principles, making
up the wordy mass of the Parliamentary records of
the lengthened sayings and the little doings
of her MAJESTY'S Ministers everything
inimical to the Cabinet of Lord PALMER-
STON would be utterly and instantaneously
scattered to the winds and forgotten at the ap-
pearance of any European complication in Which
the members of the British Ministry should seem
to have drawn upon themselves the of a
Foreign—beyond all of the French—Government.
It could only be thus by reason of her MAJESTY'S
advisers having shown themselves completely and
thoroughly to be Englishmen. Forgotten then
would be the distinctions of Whig or Tory, of
Liberal or Conservative, of Peelite or Canningite,
of Derbyito or Palmerstonian. We should all of
us cordially, and without the smallest reservation
of enthusiasm—be (like the Ministers themselves
in such an emergency)—solely and simply English-

men.

Are there not portents of such an emergency
being at this moment imminent? If not—whence
are these exultant whisperings, these confidently
muttered predictions in Paris about the speedy
on-coming of the downfall of the PALMERSTON
Government? With the northern despots gather-
ing together at Warsaw—with the Italian problem
daily, hourly approaching nearer and nearer to its
definitive solution—with France hesitating midway
between the two extremes, prepared at the whim
of her inscrutable Lord and Master to throw
her great sword into either scale as may
appear at the moment of decision best calculated to
suit her own selfish interests—with the Pear ripe
upon either branch, and NAPOLEON'S hand, waver-
, ing as to which branch shall be shaken under the
circumstances—it does certainly appear to be the
very period when we should all of us, in this coun-
try, be the least disposed to throw a stumbling
block in the way of the QUEEN'S Government.
The confident predictions uttered in Paris, how-
ever, as to the certain and speedy downfal of the
Cabinet of Lord PALMERSTON, by the mere force of