The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-29 00:00:00

quarters—for we have no friends but our right
arm to trust to, and in that and the blessing of
Providence we will put our faith, taking all due
care to keep our powder dry.

We scarcely have in our recollection anything
more discreditable than the tone in which the
member for Lambeth, yesterday, alluded to that
great man, the Rajah of Sarawak, when question-
ing the advisability of a paltry vote in Committee
of Supply, a wretched little rubbishing driblet of
£4,209 to defray the expenses of Labuan—upon
which possession, recollect, Sir JAS. BROOKE himself
has out of his own private purse expended at the
very least some £30,000 sterling! Yet yesterday
afternoon, Mr. W. 'WILLIAMS, the high-souled
member for Lambeth—skinner of flints and parer
of cheeses to a certain school of our political Eco-
nomists—had the extreme impertinence to de-
nounce this trumpery vote as (in Mr. WILLIAMS'S
elegant phraseology) " little better than a job pen-
sion to a. person named BROOKE (!) who had
founded Labuan for his own benefit (!!) and had
afterwards palmed it of on the British Govern-
ment (!!!)" Language like this, under ordinary
circumstances, might reasonably be passed alto-
gether sub silentio as really and truly beneath
contempt. But remembering that Sir JAMES
BROOKE, by reason of the absolute and entire dedica-
tion to this very project of Labuan of the whole of
his private fortune, of the best years of his honour-
able and memorable life, of his daring, of his genius,
of his large ambition, and of his many noble aspira-
tions—is at this moment all but a ruined man, is
but just now beginning slowly to recover from a
serious and painful illness, brought on, it is not
. for an instant to be doubted, by excessive anxiety
of mind, and by the physical wear and tear caused
by his prolonged and reiterated vicissitudes !
Re-
membering all these indisputable facts, we say,

the language employed yesterday by the member

for Lambeth in reference to the Rajah of SARA-
WAK was no less than simply in one word
disgraceful.

No wonder the right hon. gentleman, the
late Home Secretary, Mr. SOTHERON ESTCOURT,
at once rose to express his conviction that the
hon. member who had thus spoke hr intem-
perately would upon reflection be having
referred to a man like Sir JAY )KE, in

terms of such unjustifiable No

wonder Mr. ESTCOURT, though peesonally, as
we are ourselves, a total stranger to the Rajah

of Sarawak, protested strongly in the British
House of Commons against his name being
there mentioned in words so strangely disrespectful.
No wonder the hon. gentleman the member for
Pontefract should find himself impelled (in oppo-
sition to those disrespectful remarks uttered by
Mr. W. WILLIAMS), to pronounce a glowing pane-
gyric upon Sir JAMES BROOKE, placing him, while
doing so, in the same category with Sir WALTER
RALEIGH and other distinguished adventurers! It
was simply of a piece with the whole of this singu-
lar proceeding on the part of the hon. member for
Lambeth that at the close of the discussion which he
found, probably much to his surprize, he had thus
provoked in committee, he coolly " disclaimed any
intention of speaking of Sir JAMES BROOKE in any
way disrespectfully." His language of course was only
to be understood in a sense strictly and exclusively
Pickwickian !

The vote equally as a matter of course was
in the end agreed to—that munificen t and mag-
nifirent vntn of 44.9110 t During the discus-
sion, however, a hope was incidentally expressed
by the noble lord the member for King's Lynn, to
the effect that the colony of Labuan might even-
tually be dispensed with by the Government. Very
earnestly, and not by any means for the first time
—for we have written upon this matter for a long
while past consistently and persistently very
earnestly would we here at once express a hope of a
diametrically opposite kind. The abandonment of
Labuan, particularly now when new and
most auspicious relations have been esta-
blished between this country and the vast Chinese
empire, between England and the great insular
empire of Japan, between England and her own
superb empire of Hindostan, but yesterday, as it
were, brought directly under the dominion of the
SOVEREIGN—the abandonment of Labuan by the
Imperial Government at such an epoch in the de-
velopment of our commercial intercourse with the
Asiati?, continent and the Eastern Archipelago
would, in truth, we are firmly persuaded, be, in
TALLEYRAND'S phrase, " worse than a crime—a mis-
take." It would be a crime perpetrated, in the treat-
ment of Sir JAMES BROOKE by his ungrateful country.
It would be a mistake in regard to the real interests
of that country itself. Precisely this very standing-
ground upon the north east coast of Borneo is what
the Government of England ought most to deside-
rate as the Archimedian you sto for our commerce
in the eastern seas. Labuan is precisely the very
spot for a grand coaling depot in that quarter of
the globe. There is coal actually there. Yet
with everything to tempt us to the acquisition—
gratitude, honour, interest—there is a grievous
risk that Labuan may, out of the most mistaken
motives of the most paltry ennomy, be allowed to
slip from our grasp by the apathy, or the timidity,
or the carelessness of the Imperial Government.
0 that the Rajah of SARAWAK had but been a
Whig ! 0 that Sir JAMES BROOKE had but owned
as his patronymic the name of GREY, or of ELLIOT,
or of RUSSELL. The transfer in that case would have
been managed so very easily. Yet, for all that,
whatever may be the ultimate decision of the
Legislature, or of the Administration, in reference
to the colony of Labuan, the name of Sir JAMES
BROOKE will survive to after generations among the
glorious catalogue of those great British Worthies
who have been among the noblest and the most
heroic of the world's adventurers !

A letter from Rouen states that the harvest is
now going on with great activity in that neigh-
bourhood. The crop, however, will be far less
abundant than last year's, and not more than two-
thirds of an average one. Some fields of rye and
oats which looked fine a short time since are
scarcely worth the expense of cutting.
MARSEILLES, Wednesday, July 27, B.3O.—Her
Majesty's steam gun sloop Coquette entered the old harbour
last night. As she was coming in her commander picked
up a fishing boat, which had broken away from her moor-
ings and was drifting out to sea. The Courrier de Mar-
seilles of this evening publishes the following letter, dated
yesterday, from Toulon :—" The steam gun sloop Coquette,
which had left Marseilles for a short cruise, was surprised
by bad weather near Toulon, and obliged to take shelter
in this port. On entering she saluted the French flag
with' 21 guns, which was immediately returned by
the forts, and then the flag of the Commodore, fly-
ing from the Ville de Paris with 11 guns, which was
likewise returned. The Commodore, in consequence
of the bad weather, sent off several of his boats to offer their
services to the English gun sloop. The commander of the
c9clnette, Captain Foley, on landing made it is duty to
visit the maritime authorities of our town, who received him
lin the politest manner." A private letter mentions that no
curiosity was excited by the preseuce of the English
English officers treetl3.
lthe Arsenal flag in the "harbour,t and by the appearance of the English
as well as all the° visitaf
uniform in the s
TILE
of
r i ti ma
and
dprefectDockyard,
and thehe
thet h e Coquettedistinguishing
naval authorities
The
ethomriaties received the officers of
and cordial courtesy which is
a COLOGNE
DESTRUCTION OF
On Friday night last, durin,E the French navy.
and in
thunderstorm, the 1
THEATRE.—
On
spite of the exertions
Cologne Theatre caught fire',
burnt to the ground..,
made to save it, was before lo
the
eadname Deutz, whose
One death only occurred, that ofnti
the
ed found beneath the ruins body
eascommenced in the upper of the
before it b k
t morning. 1.8
theatre, and as thf2re
ins the
was several vivid flashes of lightning just
out was generally attributed to the lightning. r ° e
The celebrated composer Verdi has started a. sub-
scription at Busetto, in Parma, for soldiers wounded
'in independence.