The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-08 00:00:00

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,§AIII.

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1858.

We have reason to know that we are not un-
known to many parts of Europe, but we make no
pretension to being the European journal. If we
did so, however, we would not sacrifice our Eng-
lish character to please all the censors of the press
and post-office in all the capitals or border towns
of Continental nations. Our pride would still be
to represent, wherever we went, the best, the
most English qualities of the English. First
amongst these we take to be an instinctive, and
an intense hatred of despots, tyrants, dictators,
slaveholders, and autocrats of every variety.
Even when we have been ready enough to ac-
knowledge the good personal qualities of the man,
we did not lose our aversion to the thing. In the
good old days of negro slavery, the paternal
planter was confessed to be a mild specimen of an
inhuman class ; and we all felt that a slaveholder
was not one of us, although he might be British
born. Indian "Nabobs," of the same era,
whatever their genius, were seldom thoroughly
at home when they returned to the
land of their birth. They had lost their
genuine British character when they had dallied
with absolute power, and had reigned over
a host of cringing and fawning slaves. And to
this day we regard an American slaveholder,
although of Anglo-Saxon origin, as less kindred
with us than a foreigner thoroughly imbued with
the love of freedom. This is a notorious and
undeniable fact—to say that we are Englishmen is
equivalent to saying that we will surt,:r no restraint
on our own freedom, and that we detest the class
whose rule depends on fettering the freedom of
our neighbours.

It is, therefore, much to be deplored that a jour-
nal which, as foreigners imagine, represents the
general feeling of Englishmen, should, so far as
foreign despots are concerned, almost completely
misrepresent them. Foreigners find the Time.,
commonly adopting the side of their oppressors,
and lampooning or bitterly denouncing their
noblest patriots. In 1848, for instance,
and generally ever since, the despots of Austria,
or of Italy, or of Germany, despots every
where, were the class it patronised ; if almost
compelled to rebuke them, the rebuke was as mild
as old Era's ; while the KOSSUTHS, MAZZINIS,
and LAMARTINES were hardly tolerated in the
hour of success, and denounced with exulting
satisfaction, as soon as foreign force had trampled
them and their nation's liberties afresh under the
hoofs of despotism. It was the same with the
cause of Poland during the Crimean war. Poles
were attacked in the persons of the most unfortu-
nate of the exiles resident in London, and the
emancipation of their cpuntry, although the con-
dition of European safety against Russian aggres-
sion, and the easiest means by far of bringing
Rus,ia to terms, was scouted as madness.

Now, Englishmen almost universally were tho-
roughly opposed to all this. KOSSIITEI and Hun-
garian liberties, Mezzryt with his brother trium-
virs, and the emancipation of Rome from Papal
rule ; the Pules, the Polish Legion, and Poland
as Europe's bulwark against Russia, were topics
of interest everywhere. All must remember, so
recently as the Russian war, that while the Times
was, almost cruelly, attacking Poland and the Pules,
a meeting could be held nowhere which did not
respond enthusiastically to the mention of the
rights of Poland. Whether it were a Radical
gathering in St. Martin's•hall or a gathering of
Lincolnshire farmers, in town or in country, Poland
was always a welcome topic, and the speaker who
introduced it needed no eloquence to secure pro-
longed cheers. The very name was eloquent to
Englishmen. What Pole abroad could have
imagined for a moment that the whole English
nation—a few aristocrats and their supporters in

the London press excepted—desired nothing so
much as that the war should be carried on through
Poland, and that its restoration to the map of
Europe should have been the chief result of all
our sacrifices.

These remarks have been suggested to us by
the recent attack of the Times on MAZZINI and
the highly respectable publisher of his last pam-
phlet. M.izzlis-r has written a highly im-
pressive letter to Lours NAPOLEON. It
is Strong; but often eloquent in denuncia-
tion, the sting of the
fa
eloquence beciisg
.
a very clever arrangement of undeniable
LOUIS NAPOLEON IS pitted against LOUTS NAPO-
LEON, and his whole policy arraigned in no mea-
sured terms. Of course we should dissent from
many of the opinions, and challenge many of tht
statements, yet no one can deny that they are sub
stantially true, and all would confess that MAZZINI
had a right to attack, with the most legitimate of
weapons, the ruler who had crushed the Ronnii
republic in the blood of Romans, and driven
MAZZINI and his fellow triumvirs from the pos'
to which the people had elected them into exd .
We never did, and never could excuse the murder
R)man liberties by the arms of a foreign re-
public, nizzaza was, at least, as legitimate a