The Sun.
London, England, 1858-02-11 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, FEB. 11, 1858.

Notwithstanding the overwhelming majority by
which the first reading of Count WA LEWSKL'S
bill for deteriorating and eventually abolishing the
privilege of sanctuary for political fugitives in
England was carried, that inauspicious measure
has not yet received the legislative sanction.
Many of those who voted in the majority reserved
to themselves the rig,lit of opprmin-; it during its
further progress, and it is by no means impossible
that when they learn the opinions entertained by
their constituents on the question, they may feel
disposed to retrace their step 3, and adopt a course
more in accordance with the national honour and
the feelings and wish€s of the community at large.
Although we cannot consider that they acted
judiciously in yielding for a moment to
foreign dictation, or permitting themselves to be
influenced by the truculent menaces hurled at
Great Britain by insolent and ignorant soldiers,
they have yet an opportunity of partially retriev-
ing their reputations, and conciliating those by
whose suffrages they were enabl
the question. That oed to divide on
pportunity will, however,
speedily be forZeited. The " light cloud" is
passing rapidly over the moon's face,
and another
mistake of a similar charact,:r will become irre-
mediable. The excuse, or rather pretext, that
they were unwilling to give offence to a friendly
Government, by refusing to consider a bill intro-
duced at its instance, will not be available after
the second reading. And surely there would have
been leas chance of giving drones by standing
firmly on constitutional principles in the first
instance, than by sacrificing to expediency and
resisting when the most tenable post had been
recklessly abandoned.

There are many ancicat mytll3 from which
salutary morals may be deduced. We have all
heard of predictions being fulfilled and fatal con-
sequences arising from the very means adopted to
avert them. So it may be in the present instance.
Every schoolboy knows the apophthegm—"si vis
pacein para belluin." The best mode of avoiding
aTronts is by being always ready to resent them,
and permitting no man to offer an insult with
iinpunity. The rule is applicable to public as wcll
OS to pints affair% " amiol 'Pale Aag

until the vigorous truths enunciated by Mr.
ROEBUCK were ringing in the Ministerial ears, and
probably until a telegram had announced the
danger to the Government of ,bringing forward
any measure in the present state of public opinion
unless armed with some such document. But no
apology was made for the inflammatory harangue
of Count DE MORN; who occupies so important
and influential a position in the Legislative Body,
and who has, since the delivery of that incendiary
speecb,been nominated one of the Council of regency.
It was not through " inadvertency and accident"
that it was inserted in the Itloniteur. It there
remains on record as one of the menaces which
compelled England to truckle to a foreign Power,
and legislate under the threat of grave ulterior
consequences.

By yielding at present and recognising the
propriety and justice of such interference, we
expose ourselves to similar and even more stringent
applications in future, and as there must be a
limit beyond which we cannot go, the danger for

.
the future in plice of being averted greatly
enhanced. We have earned for ourselves the
contempt of other nations, and may be obliged at
last to show even at serious cost, how greatly mis-
taken they are who have imputed cowardice or

timidity to the English people, or think that they
can be insulted, and their feelings outraged with
impunity—or that simple expression of regret will

at any time eampeasate for a wanton and de

berate affront.

A gallant Irishman has recently—or, we are
very much mistaken--by means of one heroic
exploit, seized at once upon Fame and Fortune.
We cannot for an instant believe that the bauble
grasped at by this dauntless man will be the only
tribute offered to him for this act of almost match-
less hardihood. The Victoria Cross will hence-
forth glitter, of course, upon the valiant breast of
JAMES CAVANAGH, but the splendour of his late
achievement demands some yet more substantial
evidence of the national admiration. CAVANAGH
should at once be presented with a commission.
Ire has earned this, and nothing less than this, by
the value of the glorious feat he has just accom-
plished—by its actual intrinsic value to us as a
means of saving us, beyond all doubt, much
bloodshed, and the many noble lives that must
otherwise, in all human probability, have been
sacrificed.

Remember precisely what the service was upon
which this daring Irishman voluntarily adven-
tured. It was an enterprise so bold, even be it
said, so foolhardy, that Sir JAMES OTITRAM him-
self-o=Am the Preux Chevalier of our Indian
Army—when it was proposed to him by
CAVANAGH, that he, as General, should permit
him, as a simple civilian, to enter upon it,
objected that he thought it so dangerous that he
would not have asked any officer to attempt it !
Yet, of his own free will, and by his own sugges-
tion, JAMES CAVANAGH not only attempted but
successfully and heroically accomplished this most
perillous achievement.
The Residency of Lucknow, remember, was
surrounded by swarms of those bloodthirsty fiends
—the Sepoy mutineers. Lucknow, in truth, was
fairly beleagured. It had been relieved for a time
by the arrival of HAVELOCK and his little band of
warriors, but that heroic band was, in point of
numbers, so inadequate for the emergency, that it

was really in fact more of a Forlorn Hope than
an army. Lucknow, therefore, though saved
from its former desperate straits by the advent
of HAVELOCK and OUTRAN with their dauntless
followers, was still, nevertheless--after their
entrance into it—in fearful peril from the fury and
the multiplicity of their besiegers. The Defenders
of Lucknow were therefore eagerly awaiting their
deliverance by the forces under Sir COLIN
CAMPBELL. It was exactly at this criti-

cal juncture. that JAMES CAVANAGH VOI WI

teered to penetrate through the ranks of the
besiegers, and thus convey from the beleagurEd

garrison authentic tidings of their position to
the Commander-in• Chief. Those tidings, in spite

of every obstacle, he actually did convey. And
they came to Sir COLIN SO opportunely, in the

midst of his memorable advance, that in C 01194-

quence of the information thus acquired the Com-
mander-in-Chief was enabled prudentially to

advance upon Luckuow by a longer and more
circuitous route, thereby rendering the relief of

the place less sanguinary in its accomplish-

went. Finding, from the accounts fur-
nished to him thus expectedly by CAVANAGH that
OUTRADeS men were not actually in straits im-
mediately desperate, Sir CoLIN prudently deter_
mined to make a detour, and by so doing spared
many a life that mutt otherwise inevitably have
been sacrificed.

The adventure thus happily carried to a
successful issue by the heroic messenger,was effected by him under the shelter of a
very alight disguise. Re had with him but
a single companion—a native spy, one KUNOUJEE
LALL. The costume adopted by CAVANAGH,
before starting, was simply that of a budmasb, or
irregular soldier of the city. He carried a sword
and shield. He wore native shoes, and tight
trowsers, and had on a yellow silk koortah, over a
muslin shirt—white, and closely fitting. A yellow
chintz siu,wl was thrown around las shoulders.

1104 watt or9llrinci wiaa a oreanzialgurid

no dynastic alliances ; it does not maintain a
large standing army, and yet no affronts are
offered, nor is any attempt made to interfere with
its internal legislation or Government. We should
like to hear the answer which Mr. BUCHANAN would
return to such an application as that recently made by
Count WALEWSKI, and which was the MBA of the
present attempt to increase the stringency of our
penal code.

We are not the advocates of war with any
nation. It is at best a fearful alternative to be
compelled to hazard the lives of our gallant
soldiers and sailors, and to incur enormous ex-
penses that sooner or later must fall heavily on the
pockets of the taxpayers. Least of all would we
desire war or misunderstanding with France. Our
soldiers have stood side by side in the cause of
justice and civilisation ; have witnessed each
others' prowess ou fields of stricken fight ; and
the desperate courage with which they rushed
onward to " the imminent deadly breach."
Neither Power could slight or despise the
other, or enter lightly on what might prove
a desperate conflict, where every nerve would
be strained on either side. But a war
between them or even a coldness of feeling,
would be greatly to be deprecated, from
the consequences that must inevitably result to
the welfare of Europe, and of the whole civilised
world. As a morning contemporary justly remarks,
it "would only be not so unnatural as a civil
war." But e►en that risk we should be prepared
to brave rather than succumb to foreign pressure,
or legislate under a direct threat of invasion,
more especially when that was accompanied by
insulting and men dacious allusions to our country
as " a den of assassins."
There has been a sort of apology tendered at
the eleventh hour, for the intemperate and abusive
language of military ruffians, which, by insertion
in the Moniteur, was approved and adopted by
the Esrmon. But that apology was withheld

turban, and about his loins he bad wound a
white waistband or kummerbund. His. bands to
the wrist, and his face and neck down to the
shoulders, were blackened with lamp-
black, applied with a cork, dipped in
oil for the purpose oCnaking the oolour
stick—an item in the aconnnt f his discmiscs
sufficiently indicating it to have been one of a
very primitive character. Nevertheless with this
very faint and transparent masquerade, JAMES
CAVANAGH—thanks to his combined courage and
address—was enabled, under the protection of
Heaven, to pass unscathed and undetected through
that swarming host of deadly and implacable
enemies. Discovery would have been to him the
signal for cruel and inevitable destruction. Yet
he braved all this, actuated in the first place by a
" sense of duty," hoping to be of use to the Com-
mander-in-Chief, and in the next place eager to
grasp with a bold hand the coveted bronze cross
of his most Gracious SOVEREIGN. For these
objects the dauntless soldier imperilled his life
voluntarily. To effect these two things he
willingly put that life, as it were, -apon
the hazard of a die—wading across the Goompty
river at a point where it was one hundred
yards in width—passing by sentry after
sentry—penetrating through numerous bands of
the insurgent soldiery—eluding the vigilant eyes
of innumerable watchmen or chowkeedars—
refreshing himself with a carrot pulled by the
wayside among the green fields—losing his way—
coming upon unexpected outposts of the foe, and
sometimes even having to answer a String of ques-
tions put to him by the armed mutineers I Pass-
ing through all this frightful ordeal with unflinch-
ing nerves and unflagging self-possession. Here,
in truth, is one of those gallant men whom Eng-
land should delight to honour. This is one of
those valiant warriors at heart, whom the modern
HANNIBAL loved to incite for battle by letting
them know for an absolute certainty that if they
willed it, they each carried a marshal's baton in
his knapsack. CAVANAGH, again we say, ought, i
he cares for it, to be rewarded with a commission