The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-17 00:00:00

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LONDON,
TUESDAY NVENING, FEBRUARY 17, 1535.

The meeting of parliament is near at hand, and
never did parliament meet in circumstances more cri-
tical, or under a responsibility more awful. He who
can look at the present situation of our public affairs
without the deepest interest, and the most serious ap-
prehension, may possess the courage of a fool, or the
apathy of a stoic, but has no claim to the sagacity of a
wise man, or the spirit of a good patriot ; for that sagacity
would render him alive to the impending danger, and that
spirit would make him anxious to aid in such measures
as may seem most likely to expose and avert it. The
most unenlightened and unreflecting observer must per-
ceive that we have nearly reached that limit beyond
which we must have either peaceful change or fearful
convulsion—either so thorough a Reform of enormous
and universally acknowledged abuses, as may, by reali-
zing the just expectations of the country, prevent the
fatal consequences of popular discontent; or a convulsion
in the course of which the people, in striking at the
abuses with honest but ill-guided vehemence, may
probably sweep away whatever is excellent, as well as
ornamental, in our civil institutions.

The contest is no longer between Whig and Tory,
but between the selfish pretensions of the few, and
the manifest rights and interests of the many—
between accumulated corruption. and that spreading
light which has enabled the people to detect
and expose it. It is in vain to suppose that this ques-
tion can now be set at rest by temporary expedients.
It is in vain to suppose that the nation will now be
satisfied with trumpery palliatives, and paltry make-
shifts. And what else can be expected from the pre-
sent GOvernment—from men, who have all their lives
been opposed to reform—whose ruling passion is
hatred of reform—and some of whom have had the
audacious insolence publicly to declare that they de-
test the very name of Reform ? The day has long
gone by for the adoption of palliatives—the cancer
which has eaten so deep into the body politic must be

cut out root and branch—must be unrelentingly extir-
pated—there is no other means of safety.
Let those moderate politicians (as they call them-
selves) who are inclined to favour the hollow pretensions
of the WELLINGTON Administration—who are not
ashamed to re-echo the nonsensical cry of a " fair trial,"
look for a moment at the state of public opinion and
public feeling. Most of them are old enough to re-
member the time when Reform was scarcely heard of—
occasionally mentioned perhaps, in the speeches of a
few public men, or discussed as a topic of curious spe-
culation by ingenious writers—Vut not at all regarded
by any large portion of the people as a question
of much public interest. What is now the case
The cry of Reform is heard from one end of
the land to the other. It is no longer confined to
any one class, nor is it the sudden ebullition of some
popular frenzy, which subsides with the occasion in •
which it originates. It is the natural effect of con-
viction founded on reason which has been growing
and extending itself slowly but surely, in defiance of
rooted prejudice, and in opposition to an overwhelming
influence embodied against
it, and which in fact has be-
come more lively, more general, more efficient, by the
very means which injustice, supported by power, has
employed to suppress it, and which, for the last few
years, has been spreading with a rapidity and to an ex-
tent, of which prejudice will not, and thoughtlessness
cannot, form a conception. This we think a matter of
the greatest importance—a point for the most serious
consideration of those who profess popular prin-
ciples, but hesitate to range themselves on the
popular side. Can they expect that the people will
relinquish their desire for Reform, or that they will
ever relax their efforts to obtain it ? Surely no one
who has not been asleep for the last seven years
can harbour such a hallucination as this.—No !
The people are immovably bent upon Reform.
They have, at last, got hold of an instrument
by which they have been led to hope that they may
constitutionally attain the object of their heart's desire.
Let this hope be disappointed—let the worthlessness
of this instrument be proved—let those who have put
this instrument in their power deceive them, either by
openly deserting their cause and joining their enemies,
or by pursuing a wavering, indecisive, and equivocal
course of public conduct—and the people, despairipg of
a constitutional redress of their grievances, will take
the remedy into their own hands, and moderate men
will have the satisfaction of reflecting that their tem-
porizing and treacherous policy mainly contributed to
bring on a state of things, the result of. which he who
• can contemplate without dismay, must be either more
or less than man.

The Paris papers of Sunday have been all re-
ceived. They contain no news of any importance ;
and their disquisitions on the several questions, which
for some weeks past have agitated the public mind,
have been anticipated in The Sun, in the course of
last week. The time occupied by the Chamber of

Deputies, in its sitting on Saturday, was consumed
in the presentation of petitions, and the receiving of

Reports made by some of the Committees—particu-
larly one on the Tobacco Monopoly, which
gave rise to a long unprofitable debate, which
debate ended by leaving the question where
it was at the commencement. The most amus-
ing part in the speeches of the several - Ora-
tors, was their extravagantly ignorant assertions re-
specting the exercise of the legislative and judicial
functions in England. Had the name of this country
not been mentioned, in conjunction with the descrip-
tion which the Deputies gave of the most important
of its institutions, we should never suppose, from the
absurd allegations put forth by these philosophers,
that their orations had the least reference to us. We
had no previous conception of the gross ignorance
Which. prevails in the Chamber of Deputies respect-
ing the Constitution of this country ; especially when
we remembered that there is hardly an Honourable
Petit Maitre in France, capable of composing
three sentences in grammatical order, who has
not concocted some scheme for the improvement of
our Government, and the amendment of our institu-
tions. According to the French Chamber of Deputies,
we -had never been able to distinguish between the ex
. ercise of legislative and judicial functions ; and conse-
quently that the House of Commons always acted in
the double capacity of making and administering the
laws ! This, and twenty other absurdities equally ri-
diculous, arose on a proposition for granting to the
Committees appointed by the Chamber of Deputies
the power of examining witnesses on oath—a privilege
never before enjoyed by them.
The Bayonne and Barcelona papers contain copies
of the proclamation of General LLA UDER, on taking
possession of the Captain-Generalship of Catalonia.
On the 3d of February the ex-Minister of 'War ar-
rived with his escort at Lerida. The following is his
first official proclamation :

" Inhabitants of Catalonia—lndividuals of the Army and o'
the Urban Militia—

" I return to this soil, for which I have so great an affection,
in order to continue in your presence, to strengthen the peace
and quietness you enjoy.
" In the circumstances under which I was called upon to
take upon myself the office of Minister of War, I intimated to
you, at the time, that this delicate appointment was beyond
my strength and attainments ; but obedience and gratitude to-
wards the best of Queens, who honoured me with her confi-
dence, decided my course. .

" My intentions were pure, and constantly in unison with
the principles I profess, which are well known to you through
my actions during my command of this Principality, and my
most decided endeavours to ameliorate the character of the
bloody civil war which is raging in the insurgent provinces ;
and finally to eradicate that deep-seated cancer. Neverthe-
less, that want of confidence in myself with-which I under-
took the Ministry, obliged me to solicit that her Majesty
would accept that resignation, which I had considerable diffi-
culty in persuading her Majesty to do ; and in which act I re-
ceived fresh proofs of her Royal bounty and confidence.
" I return, then, to unite my fate with yours ; thus fulfill-
ing the promise I gave you, on my departure, to persevere
in combating the haughty Carlism, which is our only and
our real enemy, and which artfully appears under so many
different forms.

" My short sojourn in the Ministry has not been without
use. I have had an opportunity of witnessing the magnani-
mity of her Majesty the Queen Regent ; her unbounded love
for the Spaniards ; and of knowing that she is a Princess who
is most worthy, on account of her virtues, of exercising the
royal authority. I have interested her Majesty in the lot of
this precious soil, and she is most desirous for the good of its
natives, and full of gratitude for the heroic efforts which
have been made here for the sacred cause of her august
daughter.
. .

"This conviction will, I believe, be sufficient to induce
us to increase our sacrifices, until peace shall be re-established
in the kingdom,—that peace of which we stand so much in
need. The object of the sacrifices must be to support the
throne of Isabella 11., the Estatuto Real, the public liberties
which that throne ha 4 re-established, and the laws which in
future are to be made, with the concurrence of the constituted
authorities and the Royal sanction.

" I reckon upon your concurrence and decided valour for
the preservation of those valued and grand objects by which
alone our happiness can be insured. Do not doubt of similar
exertions on my part. By whatever dangers you may be sur

rounded, your Captain-General and companion in arms will be
the first to hasten to meet and remove them.

(Signed) "EL MARQUIS DEL VALLE DE RIVAS,
" Lerida, 3d Feb., 1835." (LLAunEa.)

The French Journals contain no particular accounts
from Spain. The stormy state of the weathert and
the badness of the roads, prevent the armies from
coming to any decisive engagements.

We have received a file of New York Papers to the
25th ult., but the lateness of the hour at which they
reached us obliges us to postpone any observation upon
them till to-morrow.

The Morning Herald, in a letter from its Bayonne
correspondent, publishes a long account of a gross and
wanton outrage committed by the French authorities
of that city on a British subject—a gentleman named
EDMOND RYAN, which has led to a long correspond-
ence between the British Consul and the Prefect, and
subsequently engaged the attention of the Home Go-
vernment. The case seems one of unexampled hard-
,.
ship, nor is there in the whole correspondence the
slightest offer of a justification for such an ex-
traordinary
proceeding. What could induce the
French authorities at Bayonne to treat a gentle-
man, travelling about on his own business, and under
the protection of the British Government, in the
manner detailed below, is entirely beyond our compre-
7hension ; especially as we never heard his name before,
and therefore know not how he could have contrived to
make himself sufficiently important to be doomed the
victim of State malignity. As the question is likely
to be fully investigated, . now that Mr. RYAN is
at liberty, and demands compensation for the
injuries he has sustained, we shall not pronounce
an opinion upon it one way or other, until the whole
of the facts connected with it have been fully elicited.
The following copy of an affidavit made by the British
Consul at Bayonne, and Mr. RYAN, contains the whole
history of the affair, with the exception of the fact that
Mr. RYAN is now at liberty, through the energetic
boldness of the British Consul. The whole particulars
have been submitted to the Duke of WELLINGTON.

" On this day, the 29th January, 1835, personally came and
appeared before me, J. V. Harvey, Esq., his Britannic Ma-
jesty's Consul at Bayonne, Edmond Ryan, a subject of his Bri
tannic Majesty, who being duly and solemnly sworn did pro-
test, declare, and say,—that on the 7th of January, 1835, I
left London for Paris, with a passport from the French Em-
bassy, and on my arrival in Paris, I caused my passport to be
duly countersigned at the British Embassy in Paris, and by
the competent French authorities, for Bayonne, where I ar-
rived on the 14th of January, intending to proceed to Spain.
An opportunity presenting itself on the same evening, too late
to redeem my passport, I set out on my journey without it, con-
sidering, also, that the Visa of the Spanish Consul, owing to
the civil war now waging in the North of Spain, instead of a
protection, might tend to impede me on my journey. On my
arrival in the neighbourhood of the village of Espelette, about
two leagues from the frontiers, I was stopped by two armed
men, wearing no uniforms that distinguished their functions,
but to whom I offered no resistance whatever, nor made
any attempt to escape. I was delivered over by these persons
to the gens-d'armes, and sent back a prisoner to Bayonne,
where I arrived on the evening of the 15th inst., and was
taken before the Prefect of the Department, who sent me to
the British Consul with a verbal message, viz., whether it was
his (the Consul's) opinion that I should be set at liberty ?
when the Consul immediately wrote to the Prefect in the af-
firmative. On, however, returning to the Prefect's, I was sur-
prised to find he had entirely changed his mind : instead of
setting me at liberty, as I expected he would have done, in
consequence of the nature of the British Consul's communica-
tion, he gave orders for me to be forthwith taken to gaol, at
the same time informing me that I should be conducted by

the gens-d'armes to Calais. On the evening of the 17th of
the same month, I was visited in prison by an agent of police,
who, by order of the Prefect, informed me that I was to be
sent before the tribunals for trial, and on the folios ing day
the Concierge received orders from the same authority,
that, even in the event of my being acquitted by
the Juge d'lnstruction, he was on no account to re-
lease me. On the 20th of January, I appeared at the bar
of the tribunal of the Juge d'lnstruction, whom I immediately
informed of the nature of the communication made by the
Prefect to the Concierge of the prison in which I am confined,
and my consequent determination not to stand the mockery of
a trial before a Judge who only had it in his power to condemn
me. Notwithstanding this avowal, the Judge declared after

a careful examination of the proces verbal, that there was no

accusation against me that could warrant my detention, and I
was immediately ordered to be set at liberty by that authority.
Against this decision the Procureur du Roi protested, and his
protest was duly noted in the books of the prison. In the
course of the day, I received a communication, through the
Concierge, from the Procureur du Roi, stating that he had
merely entered his protest against my release, pro forma,
that he, the Procureur du Roi, perfectly agreed in the de-
cision of the Juge d'lnstruction, viz. —that there was
no legal accusation against me whatever that could war-
rant my detention, but not wishing to take upon himself
the responsibility of my release, in direct opposition to
the authority of the Prefect, with whom he had had a
warm altercation, he had referred the whole of the case to
the Procureur-General at Pau. On the, 24th Jan., his Britan-
nic Majesty's Consul communicated to me a letter, which he
had addressed on that morning to the Procureur du Roi, re-
questing to be informed of the decision of the Procureur Ge-
neral relative to my detention, and no answer having been
received by the Consul, I now most solemnly protest against
this arbitrary and unjust detention. Having been acquitted by
the Juge d'lnstruction and guilty of no crime, I am, neverthe-
less, still doomed to suffer, in the common gaol, the society of
felons and men convicted of the most heinous offences, and I
hold responsible, through the protection of his Britannic Ma-
jesty's Government, those authorities by whom I am thus ille-
gally detained, to the great detriment of my private affairs,
for such indemnities and reparation as the nature of my case so
imperiously calls for.
" Witness my hand at Bayonne, this 29th day of Ja-
nuary 1835. " ' EDMOND RYAN.'
" Signed and sworn to before me, as aforesaid, in the com-
mon gaol of Bayonne.
" Witness my hand and seal of office, at Bayonne, this 29th
day of January 1835. " J. V. HARVEY,
" His Majesty's Consul, Bayonne."

FIRE IN ST. JAMES'S-SQUARE.--On Sunday
night, between eleven and twelve o'clock, a portion of the re-
sidence of Wilbraham Egerton, Esq., M.P., No. 8, St.
.James's-square, was observed to be on fire, and an alarm was
promptly given, as reported, by the Marquis of Exeter. In a
very short space of time the St. James's engine and the
County engines were on the spot, and almost immedi-
ately afterwards several other engines were brought into
the square. The fire was found to have commenced near the
dust bin, and to have been communicated to an ornamental
screen connected with the stables and other out-buildings at-
tached to the house. In order to prevent the flames from
extending to the principal buildings, extraordinary exertions
were used, and several noblemen and gentlemen, amongst
whom-Earl De Grey was particularly conspicuous, contributed
their personal exertions to suppress the fire. A plentiful sup-
ply of water being ready, the engines were brought into full
play, and in about three quarters of an hour all danger was at
an end. A detachment of the C division of police was on the
spot, and rendered very essential service during the confusion
consequent on the occurrence.
AUSTRALIAN CUNNING.—The natives of Aus-
tralia are cunning ; oue of them meeting Mr. Bennett took
his black coat for an indication of the clerical profession, and
immediately advanced a claim for a shilling, on the ground
that Government gives an annual grant of 5001. for the promo-
tion of Christianity in this quarter—of which, by conversing
for a few minutes with the stranger " white feller" in the said
black vestment, this shrewd "black feller" considered himself
to have fairly earned a portion. Mr. Bennett explained the
gentleman's mistake, and was curious to hear what his notion
of a Clergyman might really amount to. The answer brought
out this pregnant definition :—" He white feller belonging to
Sunday, get up top o'waddy, pile long corrobera, all about
debbil, debbil, and wear shirt over trowsel."—Bennett's

The first volume of the " Continuation of Valpy's
illustrated History of England," from the period of Smollett
to the present time, by the Rev. T. S. Hughes, will be pub-
lished March 1. These volumes, in continuation of Hume
and Smollett, will commence with the year 1760, and embrace
a narrative of all the important events in the long reign of
George 111. and down to the present period, more particularly
interesting to the present generation. Mr. Valpy has so
arranged this new portion of the history, that it can be had
complete in itself in six monthly vols., ss. each. Hume's por-
tion of the history is printed in 8 vols., and Smollett'S in 5,
all illustrated in a similar manner.