The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-30 00:00:00

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, SPAPER
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FRANCE AND PORTUGALkor
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(From the Times.)
At the great break-up of 1814 there was a Ng
siderable number of persons in France, well edu-
cated and of good social position, who knew literally
nothing of the events of the last twelve years. Fed
upon the glorious food of Napoleon's bulletins,
with such comment as might be afforded by the
laboured panegyrics of the Senate and the judicious
reticences and amplifications of the Moniteur, they
had been led on from victory to victory, from
triumpli to triumph, from glory to glory, till at last
the dream was only dispelled by the arrival of the
Cossacks and the abdication of the Emperor.
Many had never heard of the battle of Trafalgar,
knew Eylau and Aspern only as complete victories,
and would, in fact, have been not a little embarrassed
to give even the most meagre account to their children
of the history of the great empire of which they were
citizens during the perisd of its rise, its glory, and
its fall. It is always easier to decide after hearing
one side than both, and we suppose it is out of
compassion to this well-known weakness that the
Moniteur carefully withdraws from the considera-
tion of its readers whatever might be urged in op-
position to the view which by order sublime it is
directed to advocate.

We have now before us the version which it has
pleased the French Government to give of its recent
transactions with Portugal, and it has occurred to
us to ask what possible object can be served by
such a manifesto as is there put forth. We can
quite understand the policy of an absolute Govern-
ment, which, as it does many things by force
which it does not like to avow, withholds the
knowledge of them from its people altogether,
but we confess that we cannot understand the
sort of half-confidences to which the Moni-
teur treats its readers, neither showing the
whole case nor concealing it, but making, state-
ments so evidently onesided as to furnish the
strongest inference against itself as to the bearing
of those facts w r:,:x if dare to produce.
We really thinl- ;,4 --"-7 person could
read the garl?led ;lit which the
Moniteur has put forward -on this subject Without"
coming to conclusions most adverse to the French
Government, and that less candour or a little more
would have better answered the purpose of vindi-
cation. We are told that the demands of the French
Government have met with full satisfaction, and
that the French Government did not make them
until it had fully satisfied itself that it was right.
This is the argument from authority. The French
Government has a quarrel with Portugal; the French
Government believes itself to be right ; therefore,
the French Government is right. Rex sum.
Nil ultra qucero plebeius. But, like Atrides, the
French Government is not context with its own
authority, but must make " a simple statement" of
facts to establish its claims—a simple statement of
facts so very simple that it only tells its own side,
suppressing all that makes against it—a simple
statement of facts which is by no means equiva-
lent to truth. The French Government will not
allow the matter to be decided in the first instance
by the Portuguese courts, it will not submit to the
arbitration of a neutral Power, to be named by
itself, but in the Moniteur it thinks it can make a
case, and this is the way it sets about it :—First,
the French vessel was seized, according to the testi-
mony of the captain and the investigation of the
Minister of Marine, beyond the limits of Portu-
guese jurisdiction. The captain was condemned to
the galleys for two years,which mayperhaps slightly
influence his testimony. What the investigation of
the Minister of Marine was we are not informed, and
we may conjecture, with some plausibility, that
the investigation was held on the captain's testi-
mony; at any rate, it appears that the Portuguese
officers distinctly asserted the contrary. This
the French Government held to be conclusive
on the question of jurisdiction. A deeply tainted
witness on bne side, a pure one on the other,
and a decision ha favour of the tainted witness—
what can be clearer ? But surely there is something
more in this than a question of fact. The point of
jurisdiction could only arise on the supposition that
the vessel was a slaver; and, if a slaver, surely not
entitled to the benefit of any jurisdiction whatever.
We had imagined that a slaver was like a pirate
—fair prize whenever she could be caught, and
it certainly does not increase our respect for
the French Government in this transaction to find
her whole moral and material force embarked in
support of the position that slavers ought to enjoy
impunity if they can only pigs the limit of three
miles from the shore. Surely, after this, it will be
impossible for the French Government to maintain
that it is one of those Powers to whom the world
may look for any effort, however feeble, towards
the suppression of the slave trade.
Waiving, however, this argument, of which the
Mon iteur, to do it justice, does seem to be a little
ashamed, it proceeds to its old ground—that the
papers of the vessel were regular, that a French
delegate was on board, and yet that the Court at
Mozambique, with incomprehensible blindness,
took no account of these conclusive presumptions,
" nor of any other circumstance," which ought to
have left no doubt as to the fair character of the ship
and the honesty of the captain. What " any other
circumstance" was we do not know, but the facts
which the Moniteur does venture to state, though
they account for the presence of negroes on board
the ship, cannot, we apprehend, be allowed to ex-
clude proof of one other circumstance—namely, that
a portion of those negroes were brought on board
by visible force and against their will—were, in
fact, not recruits, as the Moniteur calls them, but
conscripts. This fact that 13 negroes were
brought on board with their arms tied behind
their backs was proved by the French delegate
himself. The Moniteur has the disingenuousness
to suppress it, and then to state that it is incon-
ceivable how the Portuguese authorities could have
acted in a manner contrary to their duty. The
hopes of the Moniteur were, that the Portuguese
would have eagerly admitted the irregularity
of the proceeding. Those hopes were, it seems,
at first deceived, but the Portuguese Govern-
ment, after a more careful examination, was
brought to a more exact appreciation, and sub:-
mitted to the just representations of the Govern-
ment of the Emperor. If words have meaning
this phrase is intended to convey the notion that
the Portuguese Government submitted from a con-
sciousness that it was in error, whereas' we know
that it protested solemnly that it yielded only to
force. This last touch gives the transaction its
completeness. A French vessel violates the laws
of God and man by kidnapping negroes, it is con-
demned accordingly, its own Government rescues
it by force from the independent nation against
whose laws it had offended, publishes an official
narrative of the facts in which all notice of the
ground of conviction is carefully suppressed, and
then tells the world that the return of the vessel
was not extorted by menaces, but was the result of
a more careful investigation and exact appreciation
of the facts.
So much for the French side of this matter. Is
it, can it be true, that the Government of England,
which is now expending half a-million a-year in
the suppression of the Slave Trade, which has for
fifty years unceasingly laboured by the pen and
the sword to put down this traffic, has actually in
this instance not only done nothing to protect its
old and faithful ally in the noble stand which has
been made against the oppression of Fiance, but
that those measures of oppression and coercion
were actually planned in unison with the English
Government ; nay, more, that that Government
lent its full countenance to France from first to
last ? Such statements emanate undoubtedly from
the French Foreign-office, but we sincerely trust
that they are devoid of all other foundation than
that which is unfortunately too notorious—that,
after urging Portugal on in her course of opposition
to the slave trade, we have tamely deserted her in
the hour of her need. It is hiuniliating enough to
know this ; but we will not lightly believe, even on
the authority of the French Foreign-office, that any
Government of English gentlemen could be found
to add to the desertion of an ally under such cir- -
eumstances the inexpressible servility and meanness
which would be implied in such an union of the
strong against the weak to beat down the right and
secure triumph and impunity to the wrong.

DEATH OF A TRAFALGAR HERO.—We announce
with deep regret the death of that gallant and distinguished
officer, Captain Robertson Walker, R.N., which took place
at his seat of Gilgarran, near Whitehaven, on the 25th ult.
He entered the navy on the 6th April, 1801, and was ap-
pointed midshipman on board the Princess Charlotte. He
fought on board the Victory, as forecastle mate, in the battle
of Trafalgar, and served with the most distinguished cou-
rage during the whole of the war. In 1814 he was engaged
in the American war upon the Lakes, where he defended
the Confiance against a vastly superior force, and did not
yield until all his crew were either killed or wounded. On
the 20th August, 1815, he at last obtained his captaincy;
but all his efforts to procure further employment were un-
t wailing, although his gallantry had been recorded in the
despatches on many occasions.—Naval ond.ilfaitary Herald.
ATTEMPTED ROBBERY ON A POSTMAN.—A des-
perate attempt at highway robbery was made on a postman,
in Hampshire, on Thursday night. The Hamble post-letter
carrier, in going from Hamble to Woolstone, has to pass a
very solitary place between the seat of the Earl of Hard-
wicke and the military hospital building at Netley. About
half-past six o'clock on the evening in question the post-
man was passing the spot referred to, which is in a hollow,
and overhung with trees, having his bag of letters slung
to his back with leathern straps, when a fellow suddenly
sprung upon him and cut one of the straps. The postman,
although much frightened, immediately faced about, and
had the presence of mind to threaten to shoot his as-
sailant, at the same time thrusting his hand into his pocket
as if to draw out a pistol. The would-be robber on this
quickly made off through trees, and was not seen after-
wards. The large number of navvies working at the Net-
ley Hospital makes it dangerous toiwalk in the neighbour-
hood after Aightfall.