The Sun.
London, England, 1858-02-05 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 5, 1858.

the first place, the noble earl said the first detachment
of artillery was sent out without guns, without horses,
and without equipments. The explanation of that was,
that the Court of Directors stated, in rep'y to inquiries,
that on the arrival of the men in Calcutta, not only
horses, but everything else, would be prepared for them,
so that they might go at once to the field. By the time
the next detachment was sent out the Court of Directors
had found that the stores in India were not in the state
they had supposed. Accordingly the men were sent out
with guns and equipments, and a double set of harness was
sent with every gun, in order that anyguns which might
be found serviceable in India, but for winch there was no
harness there, might be supplied with harness from this
country. Yet the noble earl bad stated publicly, with•
out having taken pains to ascertain the truth, that the
artillery were sent out without their guns and equip
ments. In the case of the artillery, not a man was sent
out who was not a trained soldier ; in the case of the
line, no one was sent who had not at all events gone
through a course of practice with the Minie musket ;
and he would tell the noble earl that the troops recently
despatched to India were very superior to those sent to
reinforce the army of the Duke of Wellington during
the great Peninsular war. As regarded horses, any one
who reflected on the matter must feel that the sending
of horses to Calcutta, either by way of the Cape or by
way of Alexandria, was a work of great difficulty ; but
the Government had not been inattentive to the require-
ments of India as regarded horse', and he must do the
Court of Directors the justice to say that they, as well
as the Government, had exerted themselves to procure
home, and that horses had been obtained to a caneider-
able extent from the Cape, from Australia, and from
the provinces adjoining India, from which places they
would probably be enabled to obtain an adequate
supply. No demand had been made upon the Govern-
ment for reinforcements whieh they had not met. At
the present time there was a constant stream of 1,000
troops per month flowing into India, and he was not
without hopes that they would soon be enabled to
increase that number. A regiment was now being raised
in Canada, which was to be called "The 100th
Regiment," and was to be attached to the line ; and
instructions had been sent out to other colonies with the
view of obtaining reinforcements there.
The Earl of DERBY would like to know whether
these new troops were not merely to be raised, but
officered, in the colonies, considering the latter point
very important one as regarded the connection between
the colonies and the mother-country. (Hear.)
Lord PANMURE said it was intended that the
regiments should to a great extent be officered by
persons living in the colonies.
Earl GREY was exceedingly glad that her Majesty's
Government appeared to be alive to the importance of
meeting the increased demand for men. He differed
from the noble earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) with
regard to the embodying of the militia, believing that
that made the militia a direct competitor with the line
He thought that if the matter were investigated it would
be found that during the war with Russia the embodi-
ment of the militia was the most Expensive andineffectnal
mode of raising men that could possibly have been
adopted. His noble friend (Lord Panmure) was right in
anticipating continued demands from India. The con-
test was not yet over, and a considerable time, he
believed, must elapse before we should be free from
demands for reinforcements, He entirely concurred
with the noble earl, that in each a state of affairs
nothing could be more impolitic, nothing so morally
wrong, as to enter into a new war with China, and at
such a moment begin a contest of which nobody could
foresee the end. Assuming that they took Canton,
where would they be then I Their difficulties would
only begin. Would they hold it ? He knew no station
in the whole world in which British troops suffered so
much as in China. He knew that during the former
war, and during the period when they occupied long
Kong, it was fetid that no climate in the world, not
even that of the West Indies, taking the whole year
round, caused a greater consumption of men. If they
took Canton, they should hold it ; and when once they
entered on a wrong course every step would lead them
into new diffieultiee. It was said they were bound to
take it, because, indeed, the conduct of Sir J. Bowling
had plunged tfam into a quarrel, in which they had gone
on without having either right or reason on their side,
and they were now about to inflict the horrors of a
bombardment on the innccent people of Canton. If the
Cakes° were content with allowing them to hold iaand
refused to make terms, what were they to do ? How were
they to go on when every new atop would only make it
more difficult to stop or to go on ? That was not a time to
debate the Chinese question, but be must say it was an
event unexampled in their I'arltamentary hint cry that they
should now be actually engaged in war with China,
although no authentic declaration had been made to
Parliament and to the world what the objects of that
war were. (Hear, hear.) All they knew wag, that when
! the subject was discussed some time since, their lord-
ships had refused by a small inejority to condemn the
conduct of the government, but the other house had
condemned them. Since then Parliament had not been
informed for what they were now going to fight, nor
what were the objects for which hostilities were being
curried on. They learned, indeed, from the ne.espapers,
but from the newspapers only, that one of their objects
was to compel the Cainese to pay for the damage done
to the property of the English merchants resident in
that country. That demand was as unprincipled as
any ever made by a great country on a helpless power.
If it had been made by Russia on Turkey, or any other
small state, it would have been condemned from one
end of this country to the other. If that was really to
be one of the demands it was impossible to stigmatise it
too strongly : it was as impolitic as it was wrong. There
was much force in the observation made by a noble earl
opposite, that a great deal of evil had arisen from having
demanded compensation for merchants in the last war.
They had already been compensated by the increased
value given to their commodities by the war ; and by
the demand for compensation that unhappy war, which
no one cuuld look back on without blushing, was turned
into a source of profit for therm Nothing could be more
impolitic nor more dangerous than to give persons of
that kind an interest in engaging this country in war.
Lord BROUGHAM wished to direct attention to two
points. He regretted to be obliged to agree with his
noble friends that, although the worst of the crisis in
India
abadpassed over, yet they must be prepared to
have on their hands some five or six as enths of war. Ia
addition to the operations in China, they could not
expect those in Central India and Odle to finish before
(as it was hoped) of the In-
that time. He could not but express his surprise that
rnetlations between the Indian
such a moment should be chosen for bringing forward a
andlie between the Indian and Lie-
large and most important measure--neither more nor
the proprietary body. It was a
of great difficulty and immense compl,xity
and when they would be able calmly, deliberately
subject
euniesab,nsi
jni
Im-
perial government—of
Imperial
pn e theri,
governmentsfi counciln als e
at;
dte
involving the largest interests, and he wou d venture to
with full and entire circumspection to examine the
say that it -.vould be better to consid,r that final settle-
ment The other matter to which he would refer
at a time when all the operations of war were at
erop
aspect most fortunate and providential—the
e
his,,cfarpoimtel,thoef France, of Ichuafersrritecieen t event —rnoet unhappy in one respect, but
e
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peace of Europe,
some of which were itnpuseible under the laws of this
country, and others which evon thepresent state of the
law rendered superfluous. When it was found that
pull:cations were issued which not only extenuated but
even justified these ante, and even went so far as to
lament over thefailure of this glut, a claim was made
that a law should be passed to repress and prevent such
publicetiome His answer to this was that the law
was sufficient as it now stcod. If any man was insane
enough
to publish an Exhortation to murder or to
defendaurder, he apprehended that he was guilty
of a misdemeanour, for which he could be most severely
deal with ; again, if a man, inst-ad art general panegy-
ric on rte e acts, were to point out cr indicate a par i-
cular individualees an object, whether a foreignprince
edHe remembered when a roan was prosecuted
libel on the first Napoleon, when first consul, and
convicted. The war, however, broke out, and the man
moat improperly was, not brought up for judgment. He
hropoaruo dnait gat,
s ih
abe bad not tee least doubt lie could be severely
al m.
vat's believed ti& Lord Sidneouth had ac e d very
wrongly in not having that man brought up for sentence.
There were, indeed, circumstances of mitigation in his
case which would no doubt have been urged by his
counsel in hie favour ; but, nevertheless, it was even
more requisite to bring him up for sentence after the war
bruke out than before. (Hear.) He recollected another
case befere Lord Ellenborough in the Queen's Bench, in
1812. It was the case of a wager between two gentle-
men. One paid
the other 1001., on condition that he
should receive a guinea a day as long as Bonaparte lived;
the money not being paid, he brought his action. The
case subsequently
therefore an illegal act,
as it might lead to rho encou-
ragement before the full court oa a rule for
a new trial, and all the points were raised and fully
argued ; the court decided that it was an immoral, and
of the crime of assassinating the Emperor.as
It was urged he was an enemy. "True," said Lord
Ellenboreoh.b,
" he is an enemy, but he should be put to
death in a legal way, in open war, by force of arms, and
co; by essaosination."
Any wager or ails contract having
a tendency to encourav assassination was clearly
illegal. It was said that some refugees went further
than mere publication, and encouraged these plot, ; ii
there was any evidence of that, the law was strong
enough to punish them. If the existing law was not
sufficient to prevent these cabals, it was fit some amend-
ment Fshoull be made; but he thought there was no
loubt that any persons could be punished who published
such doctrine,, more especially when they were not
confined to a general defence of these acts, but held oat
encouragement to an attempt on the life of any foreign
prince. It had been said that, as
by the law of Eueland
it was high treason to compass or imagine the death of
the severeign,.
why not make it a crime to compass en
imagine the death of a foreign sovereign ? The answer
was, that such an indictment could not be supported
without an overt act. When the regicidee were perse-
cuted in the reign of Charles II , ter the execution of
Charles 1., they were indicted under the etatute of
Edward 111., in ceneipeeeing and imagining the death of
the late Kire Charles 1., of blessed memory, and the
overt act laid was cutting off his head ; but they were
not indicted for that act. He would very much regret
to see any change in the law which would lead to a
r viral of the old Alien Act; he entertained the strongest
eijeetion to some of its provisioes, and would not con-
sent to re-enact them except in a most modified form.