The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-13 00:00:00

PRICE 4° - TAMPED, 51).

E

'Brie 7.

(Firm the Times.)
When Tacitus wrote'his treatise on the manners
of the Germans -he lived under a despotism the
most a`holate, the most power:ul, and the most per-
vading which the world had ever witnessed. In
th s 3 days ther3 was -no ft eling of religion, no
progress of social enlightenment, to fetter the arm
of power uplifted to strike, and the civilised world
was governed, not by the steady will of a master
submitting himself to laws which it had created for
his guidance, but, as recent experience had too
clearly shown, by the fury of a tyrant, the delu-
sions of a maniac, or the pureile caprices of a
buffoon. Yet Tacitus dared to write, and Rome to
read, that memorable appeal from the vices and
servility of Imperial Italy to the rough but manly
liberty of Republican Germany, and neither a ser-
vile Semite nor a prostituted tribunal troubled the
repose of the man destined to bequeath to future
ages the deathless picture of all that tyranny can
inflict and all that helplessness and meanness can
suffer. Had Tacitus lived, not in Pagan Rome but
in Christian France—had his lot been east in the
nineteenth instead of the first century of our era—
had he, instead of being the citizenof a country the
pride of which it was to trample out the liberty, of
every nation of the earth, and finally to immolate
her own freedom in order to retain the precious
power of enslaving others—had he been born the
citizen of a country which only 70 years ago un-
dertook the propaganda of freedom over the whole
earth, and little more than ten years ago possessed
a free press and a free Parliament—would his
double-edged commendations of the laws and man-
ners of another State have been written with equal
impunity? The question is an interesting one for
those who are anxious to measure the progress of
the human race during the last eighteen hundred
years, and is distinctly resolved in 04e negative by
the present prosecution of M. de Montatembert.
We have no doubt that our readers hare
availed themselves of the opportunity we have
afforded them of making themselves masters
of a work which is destined to be remarkable not
only for its great intrinsic merits, but for the judg-
ment which the tribunals of France are called upon
to pass on it. Of this production itself, highly
eulogistic as it is of England, her habits, and her
institutions, we might at another time, and in the
portion of this journal devoted more especially to
literature, have had many things to say. M. de
Montalembert's faith is not our faith. The point
of view from which he regards English party-poli-
tics is not our point of view. We differ very widely
from him in his appreciation of individual states-
men and orators, and habit has not reconciled us to
the constant reiteration of his proposition that
liberty is the most favourable condition for the
diffusion of the Roman Catholic religion,—" the
sure and only weapon by which she makes and con-
firms her conquests." taut we confess it ; after the
careful perusal of a work from which we are com-
pelled in so many respects to differ, we feel the
most unfeigned astonishment when we find that
such a publication, proceeding from such a man, is
actually treated by the French Government as a
crime, drawing after it consequences so serious that
we do not care in the present stage of the proceed-
ings to particularise them more minutely. We can-
not even conceive what that theory of government
is which can treat such a work' as an offence. We
trust that it is no part of the entente cordiale to
punish a man of letters, born we believe in this
country, and certainly possessing a knowledge of its
institutions and politics superior to that possessed
by many well-educated Englishmen, for having
selected as the subject of his pen the memorable
Revolt of our Indian Army, and the great Parlia-
mentary contest to which it indirectly gave rise.
In treating that subject he gives it to be under-
stood that he prefers the present Constitution of
England—that is, the Constitution of France ten
years ago—to the present Constitution of France. Is
it, then, a deadly offence in the eyes of our ally that a
French author should at length have been found to
venture upon writing a few pages in behalf of us
—of us whom ever since the commencement of our
Indian troubles a large portion of the press of
France has not ceased, in language the most un-
measured, to denounce, to vilify, and to execrate ?
We may be, perhaps, blinded by egotism ; we cer-
tainly are utterly unable to see why the French
Government, which has viewed with such phleg-
matic and impassible patience the frantic attacks
against our Indian empire and its supporters,
should be roused into such sudden and vehement
activity by the novel apparition of an author who
believes that there is something to be said on the
other side, and who, relying, no doubt, on the cor-
dial relations between the two Governments, has
given utterance to his opinions with all the elo-
quence of a long, and heartfelt conviction. Is it
the rule upon which literary productions are viewed
by the French authorities that toabuse England is
to praise France, and to praise England is neces-
sarily to decry her neighbours ? The French Go-
vernment professes to rest on the will of the majo-
rity. Does this mean that the voice of the minority
is thenceforth to be silent for ever, and that the
fiat of universal suffrage is to meet with universal
submission, not only of the body, but of the mind
—not only of the actions, but of the thoughts? Is
it to be understood that the French nation, which
has sounded the depths of all philosophy and
climbed the heights of almost every species of lite-
rary excellence, is henceforth to be precluded, not
only from speculation on its own institutions, its
own destiny, and its own manners, but also from
contemplating the constitutions and habits of
foreign nations, lest by such means a light, however
dim and reflected, should be thrown on France her-
self, a subject henceforth wholly forbidden to
French writers ? If this be really so—and under
no supposition less extravagant can we account for
the prosecution with which M. de Montalembert
is threatened—it were only merciful to declare it
at once, and thus close in black night the gradu-
ally deepening twilight which broods over free
discussion in France. .
Let the men of genius who are still so un-
happy as to dwell where genius is the heaviest of
misfortunes know their fate at once. The circle
within which they have been restricted has up to
this time been traced with tolerable precision. No-
body supposes that since the institution of the em-
pire the French Government would tolerate appeals
to the great masses of mankind, such as we in this
country arc every day familiar with. But it has
up to this time been supposed that publications
evidently not designed to work on the passions and
feelings of the populace, written for the perusal
of educated readers, and based on actual fact and
observation, might be given to the world with
impunity. Within this little circle the literature
of France has hitherto restricted itself, and M. de
Montalembert had every reason to think that, at
any rate within these limits, he might express
approbation, in common with some others of his
countrymen, of the Constitution of England, and
even in measured and decorous language convey
doubts as to whether his own country had succeed-
ed in providing herself with the best of all possible
Governments and Constitutions. This last refuge
of the literary spirit of France has at length been
reached, and there remains nothing for her writers
and thinkers but absolute and mournful silence.
The lamp is quenched, the vase is broken, the voice
is hushed, and from one end to the other of the
Empire nothing must henceforth be heard but that
which is dictated by the Government, or antici-
pates with servile sagacity that which the Govern
ment would have it utter. Whatever be the result
of the particular trial, this must be its effect upon
the mind of France. History is a seditious libel if
she praises institutions different from those which
France now enjoys, or blames anything which has
the faintest resem. blance to them. Philosophy is a
seditious libel if, in the boundless freedom of spe-
culative intellect, she evolve any principle from
which the libert of thought or action can, how-
ever remotely, be deduced •, and poetry is a
seditious libel unless solely devoted to the
monotonous task of offering her incense to a
single man and to a single system. These things
are the affair of France herself, but it concerns Eng-
land somewhat to sec the praise of her institutions
treated as a mortal offence by a friendly Govern-
ment, and to find herself summoned, in the person
of M. de Montalembert, before the Correctional
Pol'ce to defend her institutions. It may be neces-
sary, in the opinion of the French Government, to
tread out in this manner the last embers of free
discussion ; but surely the subject was ill-selected,
and it was unwise to let it go forth that the COU;
de grace was given to the press of France because
it was too apt to employ itself in commendation of
a country with the abuse of which the French
Government never interfered, but whose praises it
was utterly unable to bear.

CUSTOMS DUTIES IN BRAZIL.—The committee
of the Privy Council have received a copy of a despatch
from Brazil enclosing a translation f a Brazlan decree
dated 15th September, modifying the Customs duties on
cod fish, various kinds of baizes, coatings, buskins, various
kinds of flour, iron, common salt, wool dust, fish not
fled, water colours for painting, and papers to paste on walls.

THE NA VY
NEWS pApE R
4.
_e-Admiral of the Bine Sir i 4 . ''
is mentioned in naval circles t• ii.:1„,„„., :y yr
successor to Admiral Sir G. 7M.:.; on th_ :1?.
piration of that officer's tel ."zmand I.'
lor%
'hid at Portsmouth on the 31s 4_, d
Mr. Oruzalier, clerk of the s :Snlll , 0
Master Shipwright's department P® moat
dockyard was superannuated yesterday on -a pen-
tion of <£.260. Mr. it }tip; late--megspiw—t_
...a,
"11

:me department,-
was found dead ih his bed Am
.curs lay mornin7, when his wife awoke. Ile was
an old and 'valued servant of the Government, and -
much respected.
The St. Vincent, 101, Capt. H. Eyrcs, C. 8., flag
of Rear-Admiral theilan.O. Grey, Superintendent

of Port-4month Doekvard. is taking; her provi-
sions and stores preparatory to taking up moorings
oil' Gosport; the old station of the ordinary deliot
ships.
The new 51 gun screw frigate Melpomene, is to
be out of the hands- of the shipwrights in Ports-
mouth dockyard by the 27th, when she will be im-
mediately rigged and fitted for the first class of the
steam reserve'(i. e., in all respects ready for com-
mission).
The Urgent, 6, iron steam troopship, Commander
M'l)onald, will be ready by the 21st inst. to em-
bark troops at Portsmouth.

The Neptune, 120, sailing ship, has between 300
and 400 men employed upon her to turn her out of
hands by the beginning of the financial year, as a
91 gun screw two-decker.
The line of battle screw steamer, Hood, 00, which
is being. brought forward at Chatham dockyard for
launching, has had a number of shipwrights em-
ployed for several days past in false keeling the
ship. Messrs. Penn, the contractors for making the
oagines, have sent a numbstrof workmen from their
factory.to prepare the Hood for the reception of the
screw propeller and the machinery, the latter of
which will be of 600-horse power. The Hood is a
very fine vessel, and will prove a valuable addition
to that class of screw steamers.
Rear-Admiral Smart, Aide-de-Camp to the Queen
and Chairman of the Dockyard Commission, of
Economy, accompanied by Mr. R. Laws, storekeeper
at Chatham ;Mr. A. Murray, chief engineer' and
inspector of machinery at Portsmouth ; Mr. Chat-
field, master sliipwright at Deptford ; and others
composing the
,Qemmission, yesterday arrived- at
Woolwich dockyard, for the purpose of inspecting
the working of Bray's steam traction engine
in order to render a report to the Board of Admi-
ralty. yesterday was the close of the month for
which the engine was engaged experimentally,
when it. was put through a course of tests in drag-
ging heavy loads of timber, at a speed of six miles
per hour, along the stoned thoroughfares, winding
round the narrow curves, and performing a rapid
circle in the presence of the commissioners, as well
as Sir John Rennie the engineer, and the various
authorities of the yard. The commissioners ex-
pressed themselves extremely satisfied with the
trials, and returned to Chatham.
The crew of the Cressy at Sheerness were paid
down yesterday, and a portion of them have been
granted from 7 to 14 days' leave of absence.