The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-17 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION'.

The mischievous article published by the Times,
on the Queen's visit to Cherbourg, has produced a
great and it may be said a painful sensation in Paris.
In the ignorance which prevails in France of Eno.-
lish affairs, the public here, judging of the Times
by its f inner reputation, fancy that the opinion of
England is faithfully represented by that most dis-
ho:iost and fickle of journals. They are not aware
that ever since the Crimean wer the Times is ab-
solutely drunk with vanity, and that its absurd
pretensions to be the 'supreme atbitsr of the des-
tinies of policy of England are not worthy of more
consideration than the borrbast of a man suffer-
ing from delirium tremens. The very small
Minority of Frenchmen who have a real know-
ledge of the state of affairs in England, however,
are well aware of the motive which leads your
ex-leading contemporary to lose no opportunity
to excite the two nations against each other—Cher-
bourg is only a pretext. The real cause is the bitter
disappoinment of the chief Palmetetonian organ in
being compelled to witness that the present Minis-
try, notwithstanding the many difficulties which
beset them on their coming into office, hare sue-
ceeded in doing that which Lord Palmerston, with
all his old experience ,and all his fitiessing, was un-
able to accomplish—establishing the alliance with
France upon a broad and solid basis—that of mutual
esteem and confidence, not of concessions of national
dignity and self-respect. As to the threat which
your contemporary pretends to see in the opening
of an additional dock at Cherbourg, it is tee ridi-
culous to be replied to seriously. Even before the
opening of this new dock, and the completion
of the railway which places Cherbourg in direct
communication with the capital, its defences
entitled it to be cun&dered as the Sebastopol of
France. The combined fleets of Europe might have
found a shelter behind its sea wall any time during
the last ten years, and, though the new dock will
afford additional capabilities for the repair of ships
and the embarkation of troops before the new dock
was commenced Cherbourg was more formidably
fortified than Portsmentle This is a fact which is
not I believe, generally known ; but I can vouch
its
for authority,
not only from personal inspection,
but on the authority of competent military and
naval judges. What has created a very bad im-
pression here, however, is the insolent miscon-
struction put upon the invitation addressed by
the Emperor to her most gracious Majesty.
After the ill-feeling and the apprehensions of a
rupture created both here and in England by
the indiscreet language of the press on both sides
of the Channel, what better plan could possibly be
adopted to show that all these sinister reports were
wholly without foundation, than that the two sove-
reigns should protest against them by a cordial and
friendly meeting ? It is, moreover, pointed out
here tied the clamour of the Times for a Channel
fleet seems hardly borne out by the announcement
which it publishes in its number of yesterday, from
which it appears that the Squadron of hrnour ap-
pointed to escort her Majesty—a squadron eellected
without the least effort on our part, and, as it were,
at a moment's notice, mounts no less than 786 guns
—a Lumber which I have reason to believe will
not be surpassed, though it may possibly be
equalled, by the French squadron which has been
under orders for this inauguration tor the last four
months ! and which is formed' with the elite of the
-Toulou, Brest, and Cherbourg, fleets. Thee few
facts may possibly be useful in dispelling the effect
produced by tbeNapid declamation of the Times._
Standard.