The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-11 00:00:00

fate of its gifted Correspondent; Its solicitude,
indeed, as to that mysterious fate which has
befallen Mr. BowLBY out at China in the discharge
of his responsible and onerous, and, as it now proves

:o have been, eminently perilous duties in quest of

information, is, certainly, in itself honourable to
the Times, is certainly, as we have said, perfectly

natural under the circumstances. But in the anguish
with which our contemporary broods over the lot

of its vanished representative, and speculates at

random as to the dim possibility of his reappearnee,

it appears to us that its discretion fails under the
weight of its blended doubt and indignation. In-
somuch that the Times, in commenting upon these
recent telegrams—on one hand, urges upon those in
authority the infliction upon Pekin of an appal-
ling and wholely disproportionate punishment,
while, on the other hand, our contemporary
does not even hesitate to throw out the
most sinister, and, as we cannot but regard them,
the most monstrous and atrocious insinuations
against certain unnamed members of her MA-
JESTY'S Government. We cannot under any cir-
cumstances be regarded for an instant as among
the apologists of the present Administration. We
are most assuredly not among the number of the
partisans of this or of any other Cabinet. We are
not Whigs, nor yet Peelites, nor yet Canningites.
Our political principles are not coloured by any
one of the glaring hues constituting the rainbow
or harlequin diversity of this particularly parti-
coloured Coalition. The independence of our views
holds us still, as it has done unceasingly for years and
years past, apart from all party. We can least of all
perhaps be charged with anything like even (to
use the mildest term) a predilection for that particu-
lar section of the present motley ministry known
by way of distinction, among all the various parties
having their representatives at the Cabinet Council
table as the Peace-at-any-Price Party! Against whom
it is quite clear that this atrocious insinuation, as
we conceive, has been so unjustifyably directed by
our contemporary the Times. The imputation
here darkly hinted at, is expressed in the manner
following by our chief morning contemporary, where
expatiating upon the mystery yet enveloping the
fate of the two missing Englishmen, it observes :
" It is a sensitive and thrilling topic on which to
touch while there are hearts here in England
agonised by the uncertainty, and while there is a
possibility, and, as we believe, even probability,
that the two missing men may be by this time
comfortably telling the tale of their captivity under
the roof of some well-warmed joss-house within
the English lines." GOD grant it ! " But," con-
tinues the Times, " instructions are now going out
from a Cabinet which contains members who
notoriously entertain strange notions as to the
rights of belligerents even to poison wells."
Now, we do unhesitatingly affirm that the cruelty
and the baseness of the shameful insinuation
underlying those words are absolutely beyond the
reach of exaggeration. We are as firmly per-
suaded that the charge involved in that last sinis-
ter sentence (which we have here italicised) is
entirely groundless as applied to anyone of the
sixteen members of the present Government, as
we are confident in our heart's core that they are
one and all high-minded Administrators and
generous-hearted, open-handed Englishmen. It
is a monstrous imputation, and one that
we hasten to scout as at once heart-
less and baseless, one that we hasten to
scout thus all the more eagerly, because we are
not in any way partizan adherents of the Govern-
ment, any more than we can be deemed other than
directly antagonistic to the particular section
of the Government here referred to, that already
specified as composed of the Peace-at-any-
price representatives. Whatever their political
deficiences or financial eccentricities, both the
Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of
the Board of Trade are honoured and admired in
this country, as they deserve, in truth, to be hon-
oured and admired, namely, as high-minded ad-
ministrators, as generous hearted, open-handed
English gentlemen.
It needs not the goad of any such cruel and
poignant insinuation, as the one we have here par-
ticularised, to incite along the one bold and right-
onward course a Cabinet, presided over by Lord
PALMERSTON—a Cabinet, the conduct of the Fo-
reign Department of which is confided to Lord J.
RUSSELL, the War Administration of which is
entrusted to the Right HOll. SIDNEY HERBERT.
That the honour of England is safe in the keeping of
such men (differ from them though we may, and very
often do in detail) we rest perfectly well assured.
As assured of this as we are in regard to this par-
ticular war in China, that the glory of our arms
will be sustained out there under the guidance
Sir HOPE GRANT, or that the dignity and
integrity of our diplomacy will be secured by any
negotiation that may be entered into by the Earl
Of ELGIN and KINCARDINE, as her MAJESTY'S
Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Pleni-
potentiary.

Whether we are to feel flattered or censured by
Count DE PEE.SIGNY'S lecture to his Prefects on
the Freedom of the Press in England, in relation
to the French laws and administration of the press,
it is hard to say. His opening paragraph gives us
praise enough to make us blush for very modesty.
"I have just been living (he says) among a people
who may be justly proud of their institutions;
where the liberty of the press is openly exercised
without being a danger either to the State, to
public order, or to the safety of persons and of
things ; and where, useful to all parties, appealed
to and respected by all, it forms the surest guaran-
tee of public liberty, of order, and of the prosperity
of the country. I have long witnessed that noble
spectacle, and if formerly I had not liked true
liberty, I should have acquired a taste for it in that
country." And these laudations of our liberty are
penned as an introduction to his manifesto on
assuming the Dictatorship which the ordinances of
the coup d'etat confer on the Minister of the In-
terior. Surely freedom for the French Press is
about to spring from the head of Count DE PER-
SIGNY, like Minerva front the Head of Jupiter, a
goddess fully equipped.
But stay a little, and England must hear some-
what not quite so much to her honour, and France a
little showing that the English model has a doub
aspect. Both the past and the present of England
warn the French Minister that he must not abuse
the fact p
of an English free press. History tells
that for long the law of the press was more severe
in England than in France. From some time after
the accession or the Hanoverian Dynasty, the press
of this country was under the Common Law,
administered by judges removable by the Crown;
indeed, while any danger from the STUARTS re-
punished with
mained, the press might be said to be in the
hands of the Government who
aee
severity anything which it considered libelous.
represen
reflect
t
The following
not unfair :—" Now, if wetion i s
that certainly
thely
judges nominated by the Crown ,werel
chosen from among the most zealous partisans
of the House of Hanover, and were even liable, up
to 1760, to dismissal by the Crown, it may be
imagined what was the liberty of the press for the
partisans of the Sit.IARTs, for tht: Jacobites, the