The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

who is quite
stTzleealoKuisngo'f his subjects
The visit of Lord Grey to Brighton has not
for the great measure which is to wipe off from
baseeannxainouuseless
eo nme .0
England the " foul scorn" of the world, for call-
ing a nation controulled by boroughmongers and
loan-jobbers a free people,—the King, who had
hoped that this great measure might be carried
by the mere zeal and integrity of Parliament, on
the ground of its conspicuous justice and its
urgent necessity,—the King, seeing that these
his reasonable hopes are not likely to be fulfilled,
has consented to the only act which can ensure
the consummation of the wishes and (what is
more important) of the happiness of his subjects.
The King will create as many Peers as are, or
as circumstances may show to be, necessary for
carrying the great anti-revolutionary and consti-
tutional. project for the restoration of the repre-
sentative privileges of England. Some Peers
will be created immediately : the rest in a short
time. The Bill must pass, and the Aristocracy
shall be saved in spite of themselves.—Times.
It would appear that the circumstances under
which General Torrijos, and the ill-fated patriots
who accompanied him, were put to death, have
affixed in the minds of the Spaniards at Madrid
and elsewhere extraordinary odium on the tyrant
and his Ministers. The man who was most
active in enticing and betraying that brave officer
was Lieutenant-Colonel of a regiment in gar-
rison at Malaga, and the assurance which he
gave Torrijos of support from the troops in-
volved the Governor of Malaga himself (Mo-
reno), who had once been a subaltern officer of
the intended victim, and had but lately received
the rank of Major-General, less, it may be as-
sumed, as a reward for past services than an en-
couragement to that base one in which he was
about to be employed. Even when embarked in
the bay of Gibraltar, Torrijos might have
escaped had he listened to the warnings of his
better genius, which interposed at the last hour
to save him. Then, while buoyed up by dis-
astrous confidence, the master of a little coasting
vessel stepped on board him, and delivered this
verbal message from a tried friend at Malaga—
" Come not here, or you are betrayed and lost."
The General with his usual recklessness of
danger, exclaimed, " Oh, -- are always
cowards," and smiling at what he thought the
poor man's ignorance of facts, dismissed him. A
correspondent, who signs himself an " English
lawyer," and makes an unmeaning complaint
against us, has offered, at the same time, some
striking observations on the atrocity of this
whole case, and impugns the legality of a capi-
tal punishment inflicted by the power by which
the crime had been instigated. Undoubtedly,
whatever may be our abhorrence of perfidy like
that which the Spanish Government is here ac-
cused of, we must admit that no representation
of the prospects of success, however flattering,
in an enterprise which had revolution for its
object, could on legal principles justify any
native Spaniard for acting upon such induce-
ments, whether false or true. It could not, for
instance, he pleaded before any court of justice
as a valid defence of the Gibraltar expedition,
that it was undertaken on the belief of finding
a rebel associate in the Governor of a certain
garrison ; and it makes no difference in that
construction of the law, from what quarter the
assurances of support and assistance proceeded.
Nor do we see that as a justification of his
attack, if he really designed an attack, upon the
Government of Ferdinand, an Englishman could
bring forward the promises of succour held out
to him, with any greater show of reason than a
Spaniard. The enterprise, was, in the technical
sense, illegal, no matter by whom it might be
executed. But there is something more to
be looked at in the case of a British subject.
Ferdinand had issued a decree last October, corn-
manding Torrijos, by name, and ether constitu-
tionalists, to be instantly shot wherever they
might be laid hold of. In a country where there
is no law for its inhabitants which cannot be su-
perseded by the tyrant's will, the above decree,
however cruel and bloody, must be taken to con-
stitute the only law which the Spanish patriots
affected by it could appeal to. But although an
ordinance of Ferdinand could make Spanish law,
and thereby legalize the wholesale butchery of
Spanish subjects, such an authority was not of
force sufficient to abrogate the law as botween
nations, and so to cut away from a British-born
subject his trial by the ordinary laws of Spain,
which alone could, on any principle of interna-
tional justice, determine whether, and to what ex-
tent, the late Mr. Robert Boyd was implicated
in the acts of Torrijos. If Mr. Boyd was exe-
cuted under Ferdinand's decree of October, he
was murdered in a manner not merely the most
barbarous in itself, but the most insulting to-
, wards the British Government. This flagitious
cruelty will, we doubt not, have already given rise
to strong claims for reparation by his Majesty's
Government ; nor is there any thing in the spirit
manifested by Ferdinand towards English poli-
tics, interests, or connexions, which should in-
duce a Minister of this country to abate one
jot of rigorous justice in his demands. With
regard to the chief of that hapless band with
which seems to have perished whatever hope of
speedy amelioration had existed, whether much
or little, in the political condition of their
countrymen,. we have heard many interesting
particulars of Torrijos, and not one which does
not redound to his honour as a soldier, a pa-
triot, and a gentleman. General Torrijos was
of the ancient family of Borjas (Borgia), the
Spanish branch of which (whatever some mem-
bers of the Italian might have been) was always
of unstained reputation. During his boyhood,
or rather childhood, he was bred up in the Royal
Palace, as Page of Honour to Charles IV., and
emerged, as was the custom, though under 16
years of age, a Captain in the infantry regiment
of Ultonia, forming part of the Irish brigade.
For the following twelvemonth he prosecuted his
studies as an engineer. At the commencement
of the war in 1808 he was promoted to the rank
of Major, and, in the course of the war, was fre-
quently, though so young a man, distinguished
by his skill and bravery, and intrusted with
difficult services, which he performed with
energy and discretion. At 19, when only a
Lieutenant-Colonel, he was preferred to many
officers of higher rank, and appointed to com-
mand the advanced division of the army of
Catalonia. In 1812 he was made Colonel of
Doyle's Fusileer regiment, and formed part of
the garrison of Badajos ; in 1813, he joined
with his regiment the 4th army, which was in-
corporated with the British corps under Lord
Hill. At the battle of Vittoria,
asrecom-
mended
n-
manded the 2d brigade of infantry—
,
to the Spanish Government by the
Commander-in-Chief; and to thepromoted rank
of Brigadier-General, in which he distinguished
himself at the battles of the Pyrenees, and
h French campaign. The known
throughout t-e
••
liberal sentiments of Torrijos, and his services

in the cause of freedom, occasioned his imprison-
ment in the gaol of the Inquisition in 1817,
where he remained for three years a solitary cap-
tive. In 1820 he shared the triumph of the
patriots, and held a variety of important com-
mands ; but, in 1823, his plans of defensive
operations against the invaders were paralyzed
by treachery or weakness at head-quarters.
Nevertheless, the last capitulation to the French
troops was made by Torrijos, as Commandant of
Carthagena and Alicant, long after the Duke
d'Angouleme was in possession of Cadiz, and
the. Constitutional Government had ceased to
*exist. The terms he then obtained were most
honourable, both for the townspeople and the
troops. These terms were broken by the
Spanish Government, and the breach of faith
shamefully connived at by the French Bourbon
Minister. Torrijos, abhorring slavery, emi-
grated from Spain, and has ever since employed
himself in efforts to overthrow the hateful rule
of Ferdinand VII. As a politician, he failed
from the frankness and generosity of his own na-
ture, which rendered him almost incapable of
distrust. Men unworthy of his confidence, there-
fore, too easily obtained it, and it was to
treachery he fell a victim at last. As a member
of society, it is difficult to conceive a human
being more formed to engage the affections of all
with whom he had intercourse. His manners
were gentle, his sentiments noble, his principles
upright, and his morals pure. This tribute to
the memory of a foreign patriot will, we trust, be
forgiven, from one who loved him—one who
knew him long, and in domestic intimacy, in the
hour of buoyant hope, when he betrayed no
spark of insolence, as in that of grief and disap-
pointment, when his manly constancy never for
a moment failed. He left England, pledging
himself to die for Spain or redeem her, and too
faithfully has he fulfilled the obligation. The
wife of this brave Spaniard,—a daughter of the
ancient house of Velasco—a virtuous, devoted ,and
broken-hearted woman, survives—if she yet does
survive—the blow, in utter poverty. But we
will not humiliate what remains of Torrijos by
begging for his widow.—Times.
We have devoted a considerable portion of
our columns this morning to the insertion of a
debate in the• French Chamber of Deputies on
Wednesday and Thursday last, not for the in-
trinsic interest of the policy which it discloses,
or of the facts which it communicates, but for
the extraordinary scene of confusion and misrule
which it describes. It was expected that the
discussion of the Civil List would evolve much
heat into the speeches of the opposition mem-
bers, as their fever of impatient dislike to Louis
Philip was at its height, but nobody would have
expected that so very trifling a cause should have
produced the crisis. This cause is so very mi-
nute, that without some explanation, it might
escape the plain understandings of our English
readers. The " Rape of the Lock" does not
celebrate events and results more disproportioned
to circumstances which gave them birth, than the
French journals which have given us an account
of this absurd affair. A Minister of the Crown,
in speaking of Louis Philip, called the French
over whom lie rules, " his subjects." On this
enormity there was a loud cry from one part of
the Chamber to order ; and louder vociferations
followed, that " We are not the subjects
of Louis Philip." Can the reader imagine
anything more childish than this disavowal, in
the whole range of theoretic folly, or republican
pedantry ? By the word subjects, these po-
litical etimologists understood feudal inferiors
—and knowing themselves to be fellow. citizens
of a constitutional King, they were thrown into
a fit of fury at a phrase which, however innocent
in the dictionary, and however common in every
free monarchical State, they construed into a
claim of vassalage. We have regretted, from
the commencement of the late revolution, to see'
the pedantic alarms of our clever neighbours, at
the mere use of words, which with people feeling
more confidence in the strength of their own
freedom would have passed as matters of indiffe-
rence, and at their anxiety to change forms of
expression which, with the commentary of the
charter in their hands, would have been harmless
to less sturdy professed believers in the rights of
man. Their studied change of their King's
title from " King of France" to " King of the
French," as if any person short of absolute
idiotcy could conceive that if the former expres-
sion had been retained Louis Philip would
have been a feudal possessor of the French
territory, instead of an elected ruler of the
French people, was the first indication which
they gave of this attention to theoretic
trifles. It has been followed up by a thousand
others, equally unnecessary and equally ridiculous.
The King himself has encouraged the affectation
by calling the National Guards " his comrades,"
and his subjects "his fellow-citizens." We see
of course no objections in the employment of
the terms themselves, in their changes, or their
uses ; but we see an indication of great weak-
ness in making them a subject of the slightest
importance, while the franchises and rights of
the country are secured by free institutions, and
by the strong guarantees of universal interest
and order. We have left ourselves no room to
make any observations on the ridiculous con-
spiracy—Carlist, or republican, or both—which
is said to have been discovered at Paris. It is
extremely likely to turn out a hoax, or a piece of
insanity. It would be extraordinary indeed to
see in modern time the Monarchy of a great
country overthrown by the ringing of a great bell
as the walls of Jerico were thrown down by the
" blowing of rams' horns."—Times.
The Paris Papers of Thursday and Friday,
received last night, abound in instructive notices
upon the present state of parties in that capital,
and bear with considerable pertinency upon the
question of the ultimate stability, not only of the
Administration, but, it would seem, of the
throne itself. The body politic of France ap-
pears by these accounts to have been, within the
last few days, a prey to distraction of all sorts—
treasonable plots, with the avowed intention of
overturning the Government out of doors, and
seditious discontent, and undisguised disloyalty,
within the walls of the Legislative Chamber,
which have equally in view the extinguishing the
spirit in which the present order of things is ad-
ministered. Amongst our extracts will be found
copious details of the developement of these two
new assaults upon the Government, to which it
will be necessary here to allude only in a general
way. And, first, of the plot. One day in the
middle of last week our private correspondent
adverted to the great distress which prevailed
amongst the
working classes in Paris, and ex-
pressed his fears that it would be turned to ac-
count by the discontented and plotting Carlists.
Upon the same day, and half an hour after he
had despatched his letter, an occurrence took
place which justified his suspicions, and vin-
dicated the accuracy of his intelligence. On
Wednesday last eight persons, principally
ouvriers, made their way to the Church of

.Lobe-Dame, and, having reached the steeple,
commenced ringing the bells, which is the tocsin,
or conventional signal, for a general insurrection
throughout Paris. The appeal appears to have
met with no response on the part of the people,
and the conspirators, besides giving some uneasi-
ness for a moment to the timid portion of the
inhabitants, failed in doing any mischief to any
other persons than themselves ; for they were
instantly pounced upon by the police, and taken
into custody. Seven out of the eight are now
in the hands of the law, and are undergoing exa-
minations to which it is insinuated the Ministe-
rial journals give an undeserved importance.
The France Nouvelle, a Paper more particularly
devoted to the service of M. Perier, gives at
great length the particulars of the progress and
failure of this abortive piece of high treason, and
annexes a proclamation which was said to have
been subsequently found upon the conspirators,
or in the steeple of the church, of a very treason-
able character, calling upon the people to fly to
arms, and displace a Government which had al-
ready, upon many occasions, denied the pledges
which it made at the Revolution,and betrayed the
cause of liberty generally, by its conduct towards
the Poles and Italians, and other nations whom it
had encouraged to rise in behalf of their
national liberties. The plot is called Carlist,
but this proclamation savours more of the vio-
lence of the republicans ; some more recent dis-
coveries, however, it issaid, connect it with
the party of Holyrood-house, and trace it
to the friends of the expatriated family.
It is to be observed that in comment-
ing upon this paltry attempt at rebellion
there is a great difference in the tones of the dif-
ferent Journalists, according to the colour of
party to which they severally belong. The Mi-
nisterial apologists labour to bestow upon it a
vast importance, whilst those of the Opposition,
by reasoning calmly upon the details as published
by Government, succeed, we think, in demon-
strating its improbability by reference to the
well-known unpopularity of the exiled family in
the capital, where they are more disliked than in
any other part of France. Some of this latter
description of papers affect to treat the narrative
of the France Nouvelle as a pure fabrication,
and insinuate that it was put forth for the pur-
pose of distracting public attention from the
more important discussion upon the Civil List.
As a corollary to the announcement of a plot,
numerous arrests have, of course, taken place.
The other piece of adversity with which the Go-
vernment had to struggle is one of infinitely
greater importance, though, for the present,
it has been as harmless in its results as the
affair of the steeple. We have already stated that
the question of the Civil List had come under
the consideration of the Chamber of Deputies,
where, upon its entrance, it met with anything,
but a flattering reception. During its short pro-
gress it does not appear to have increased in
favour. The Opposition, which bristled up at
its appearance, have since assumed an alarming
attitude of important hostility, and been able to
present to the Throne and the Ministry, perhaps
a more fiery ordeal than either has had to pass
through since the Revolution. We have abstained
from translating, except very briefly indeed, the
general course of reasoning upon the merits or
vicious tendencies of a large Civil List, because
the arguments having reference to an abstract
question are applicable in any other country as
well as France, and have been used in our own
Houses of Parliament upon the discussion of
questions of a similar nature. But our readers
will perceive the importance of those altercations
between the Ministry and the Opposition, and
of that unchecked burst of indignation which
was uttered by the latter at an expression from
one of the Ministers, which appeared to call
into question the sovereignty of the people,
and the principles supposed to be conse-
crated by the occurrences of July. It will be
remarked that a great majority of the speakers
upon the Civil List, appear to have taken an
adverse part to it, which would at first sight
give
an impression that the measure was gene-
rally unpopular in the Chamber. This appa-
rent prepossession, however, is not real, and the
order in which the debate was conducted ap-
pears to have been the result of design, and its
success of a trick allowable enough in Parlia-
mentary jockeying. There is a positive regu-
lation of the Chamber which requires that the
supporters or opposers of any measure shall
speak alternately, and such has been the practice
hitherto. But upon this occasion the Oppo-
sition made out two lists, the Members of one
of which inscribed themselves as friendly, and
the other as adverse, to the measure. When
they came to speak they all declared against it,
notwithstanding the mode of entering their
names, and thus the real friends to the Bill
were altogether shut out from a hearing. In-
dignant at this manoeuvre, the Count de Mon-
talivet, the Minister of Public Instruction, on
Wednesday claimed his right to speak, and pro-
ceeded with considerable ability and animation
to sustain the Bill. His line of argument was
not likely to make many converts, as he con-
tended
that a large Civil List enabled the King
the more liberally to encourage the fine arts,
and effectually to relieve misfortune—an
argument which would go to prove that
the amount ought to have been doubled,
and it WAS accordingly received with disfa-
vour. But when, towards the conclusion, he
said " that, if the enjoyment of luxuries was
denied the King, it would soon be proscribed to
his subjects," the Chamber was actually in a
flame. Many of the Deputies started up, and,
' indignantly denouncing the expression, declared
that they acknowledged subjection to no
jurisdiction but the law, to which the King of
the barricades was as amenable as any other
citizen of France, and with this protest actually
left the Chamber. It was in vain that the Mi-
nister, who is a very young but a talented man,
made attempts at explanation ; he could not ob-
tain a hearing ; and the tumult amongst the
Members increased to such a height of impro-
priety that the President was obliged to adjourn
the sitting for a short time. Upon its resump-
tion, the next day, the debate upon the word
subject was continued, and from the tribune it
has extended to the newspapers, in whose pages it
is very likely to be worried to death. M. Barthe,
another Minister, and M. Montalivet himself,
assured the Chamber that the expression was not
intended differently from the sense of the Char-
ter, and a document was read, signed by
M. Nlauguin and another violent Member of the
Opposition, in which they subscribed themselves
the " King's most faithful subjects." The usage
of the English Parliament, too, now always a
great authority in France, was appealed to by
the Ministerial party. In reply, it is asserted
that the word never occurs in the Charter, and
that the King's title of " King of the French"
had been expressly altered at the Revolution, be-
cause that style was supposed to give him terri-
torial jurisdiction, which would imply the sub-
jection of others to him. The majority of the

Chamber appear to have been convinced by these.
explanations, for they passed to the order of the
day upon a motion for expunging from the mi-
nutes of the sitting the offensive word, which
was allowed to stand as having been used by the
Minister. A protest has consequently been
signed by M. Odillon Barrot and 109 other
Deputies against the expression in question.
The Bill itself which led to this altercation has
been fully discussed, but no division has yet
taken place upon any of the several amendments.
It is still thought Ministers must lessen their de-
mand very considerably.—Morning Herald.
To the brilliant qualities which recommend Mr.
Bulwer to the multitude of readers, he adds one
quality which must always endear him to men
who feel an interest in the destiny of their spe-
cies. It is impossible to rise from any of his
works, without being more or less smitten by his
bold views, his love of truth, and without feeling
an elevation of purpose somewhat akin to his
own. In his Eugene Aram there are many ad-
mirable passages, evincing a higher aim than
that of merely amusing his readers. We were
particularly struck with the following, which has
reference to a subject of painful interest at this
moment :

" They had now approached the strangers, who, how-
ever, appeared mere rustic clowns, and who pulled off
their hats with the wonted obeisance of their tribe.
" Hullo, my men,' said the Squire, assuming his ma-
gisterial air ; for the mildest 'Squire in Christendom can
play the Bashaw when he remembers he is a Justice of
the Peace. ' Hullo ! what are you doing here this time
of day ? You are not after any good, I fear.'
" ' We ax pardon, your honour,' said the elder clown
in the peculiar accent of the county, ' but we come from
Gladsmuir ; and be going to work at Squire Nixon's, at
Mow Hall, on Monday ; so as I has a brother living on
the green afore the Squire's, we he a going to sleep there
to-night, and spend the Sunday, your Honour.'
‘. Humph ! humph ! What's your name !'—' Joe
Wood, your Honour ; and this here chap is Will
Hutchings.'

" 6 Well, well, go along with you,' said the Squire ;
' and mind what you are about. I should not be sur-
pri%ed if you snare one of Squire Nixon's hares by the way,'
" Oh, well—and indeed, your Honour.'
" ' Go along, go along,' said the Squire; and away
went the men.

" They seem hcnest bumpkins enough,' observed Lester.
" It would have pleased me better,' said Aram, had
the speaker of the two particularized less ; and you ob-
served that he seemed eager not to let his companion speak:
that is a little suspicious.'
" Shall I call them hack ?' asked the Squire.

" Why it is scarcely worth while,' said Aram ; ' perhaps
I over-refine. And now I look again at them, they seem
really what they affect to be. No, it is useless to molest the
poor wretches any more. There is something, Lester,
humbling to human pride in a rustic's life. It grates
against the heart to think of the tone in which we uncon-
sciously permit ourselves to address him. We see in him
humanity in its simple state; it is a sad thought to feel
that we despise it; that all we respect in our species is
what has been created by art ; the gaudy dress, the glit-
tering equipage, or even the cultivated intellect; the mere
and naked materiel of nature, we eye with indifference or
trample en with disdain. Poor child of toil, from the grey
dawn to the setting sun, one long task, no idea elicited—no
thought awakened beyond those that suffice to make him the
machine of others—the serf of the hard soil ! And then, ton,
mark how we scowl upon his scanty holidays—how we
hedge his mirth with laws, and turn his hilarity into
crime ! We make the whole of the gay world wherein
we walk and take our pleasure, to him a place of snares
and perils. If he leave bis labour for an instant, in that
instant how many temptations spring up to him ? And
yet we have no mercy for his errors; the gaol—the
transport-ship—the gallows ; these are our sore lecture-
hooks—our
only methods of expostulation. Ab, fie o❑
the disparities of the world ! They cripple the heart,
they blind the sense, they concentrate the thousand links
between man and man into the two basest of earthly ties
—servility and pride. Methinks the devils laugh out when
they hear us tell the boor that his soul is as glorious and
eternal as our own; and yet when in the grinding drud-
gery of his life, not a spark of that soul can be called
forth ; when it sleeps, walled around in its lumpish clay,
from the cradle to the grave, without a dream to stir the
deadness of its torpor."
Power ! power ! Mr. Bulwer. The gaudy
dress, the glittering equipage, and the cultivated
intellect, are evidences of power. The justice
tramples on the hind, because he is delivered
over to him bound neck and heels. The hind
is not despised because we see in him humanity
in its simple state, but because he is powerless.
Whoever shall succeed in developing the mental
faculties of the rustic, will obtain for him respect.
It has been found that whenever civilised men
came in contact with savage tribes, instead of im-
-1 proving them, they destroyed them. No means
have yet been devised for inducing men to refrain
from abusing power, but the dread of reprisals.
We pass respectfully by the formidable mastiff,
and step aside when it crosses our path ; but we
instinctively kick the cur when in our way. Ap-
peal not to the feelings of Justices of Peace or
Parson Magistrates. But let us endeavour, if
possible, to place the means at the disposal of
the rustics of retaliating with effect on them ;
and we shall obtain that from fear, which it would
be vain to hope from other motives. In the
mean time they are, we fear, to be considered as
beings against whom all may raise their hand.
We cannot give a better instance of the mode
in which they are dealt with than the following
case in the Devizes Gazette of Thursday last.
It is a report of a trial at the Devizes Borough
Sessions, before the Mayor (J. North, Esq.)
and T. G. B. Estcourt, Esq. (the Recorder).
It will be observed that the Recorder summed
up favourably for the prisoner, who yet was sen-
tenced to seven years' transportation ! And yet
we wonder that there should be incendiaries :
John Mills, a young man, 21 years of age, who
stated himself to be a native of Newbury, was first placed
at the bar, charged with stealing seven pounds of beef,
value three shillings, from the shop of James Wickham.
A woman in the employ of Mr. Wickham saw a person,
on the evening stated in the indictment, take the beef from
the window of her master's shop, and run off with it;
but she could not swear that the prisoner was the perso❑ ;
she gave an immediate alarm, and the brother of Me.
Wickham went in pursuit and overtook the prisoner a
short distance from the house with the beef in his pos-
session. The beef was produced and identified. The
prisoner in his defence said, that he had that evening ar-
rived from Andover in search of work ; that when near
Mr. Wickham's shop, he saw a person drop the beef; that
he took it up, and was following the person with the in-
tention of restoring it, when he was apprehended. He
was at too great a distance from his friends to call any
witness as to character; and lie was totally unknown to
every one in Court. Mr. Estcourt summed up very fa-
vourably for the prisoner ; and the Jury, after nearly half
an hour's deliberation, returned a verdict, We find him
guilty of having the beef in his possession, but we do not
think there is sufficient evidence to convict him of steal-
ing it.' Mr. Estcourt explained to them that the Court
could not receive the verdict in that shape. The prisoner
was indicted for feloniously stealing a piece of beef, and
they must either find him guilty or not guilty of that
charge. If they had any reasonable doubts, they should
give the prisoner the benefit of those doubts. The Jury
again retired, and at length brotght in a verdict of
Guilty. The Court considered the case a gross one, and
sentenced the prisoner to seven years' transportation. The
prisoner complained of the severity of the a ntence, and
said that it was a great hardship that a youth like him
should be sent out of the country for a crime of which he
was innocent."—Morning Chronicle.
In the discussion on the Civil List, in the
sitting of the Chamber of Deputies of the 4th
January, the Minister of i'liblic Instruction, in
broaching a theory which is greatly in vogue
with tailors and milliners in this capital, that the
luxury of a Court is beneficial to the people, hap-
nened to make use of the word subjects. In
the sitting of the sth of January, as soon as the
proses verbal of the previou,-, sitting had been
read, in which the word subjects was repeated,

M. de Tracy called the attention of the Chamber
to the use which had been made of this word.
When the Government, after the month of July,
thought proper, he said, to suppress a word
which revives the memory of the empire, and the
servilities of the Restoration, it is natural and
proper that we should desire its suppression.
M. de Tracy concluded with moving " that it
should he entered in the proces verbal, that not-
, withstanding the explanation given by the Mi-
nister, the word subjects, repeated by him, found
in the Chamber the same opposition, and that
the Chamber repelled the appellation as no longer
suitable in the relations between the Sovereign of
France, the Chief of the nation, whom all French-
men ought and wish to respect, and the citizens who
comprise the great French family." The Keeper of
the Seals (M. Barthe) here dexterously availed
himself of an argunientuin ad honzinent. The
report of the Municipal Commission to the King
terminates thus—" We are all with a profound
respect the very obedient servants and faithful
subjects of your Majesty ;" and this report was
signed by MM. Lobau, Audry de Puyraveau,
De Sehonen, and Mauguin ! The laugh was
almost universal. No Frenchman is proof
against ridicule, and this dexterous allusion pro-
bably kept M. Mauguin from the field. M.
Offillon Barrot observed, that the plain word of
King of France was purposely supplied in the
Charter by the word King of the French. '1 his
was not lightly done. It was not a mere diffe-
rence of words, it was because a principle was
involved in the words, as the King 9f France
indicated relations of vassality and feudality,
whilst the expression of King of the French
could only have reference to a high jurisdiction,
and not to a territorial power. Neither was it with
out intention that, in the preamble of the Charter,
there were substituted for the words our subjects,
a phrase, from which the word subject was pur-
posely retrenched. A good deal of personal al-
Ba
tercation followed. It ideiv.:
cait
that
shingtaootct
oiriNiilvet,bet
this he
at
abhnbsuasyten M.witaut he
grhhthohttrelilbiayett hosoaaffti
tdaitllhetl
eoK"
beai
ert%'vegtis;loliaubjgiiii
per-
sonifyingmi
and
the law, the people were subject to him.
M. Audry de Puyraveau, one of the gentlemen
who signed the report, said he had signed it with-
out reading the formula. " I declare" he said,
" that I am not, and never will be the subject of
any one." As the words King and subject are
used with much latitude, we can hardly blame
the French for being somewhat jealous with res-
pect to the word subject, which, in Europe,
generally means one under the absolute command
of another.—Morning Chronicle.
The persons to whom Earl Grey may offer
the new dignity of convenient, servile, occasional
Peers will do well to reflect upon the situation,
not of disgrace merely, but of real danger, in
which they will place themselves by accepting
the ignominious elevation. That a great crime
and misdemeanour will be committed by every
man who may take any part, even the most
humble and abject, in a conspiracy the object of
which is to pack an assembly of such a character
as the House of Lords—au assembly forming
at once the highest legislative body, and the
supreme judicial tribunal of Great Britain—is
a proposition which no man who has the least
tincture of constitutional learning, or in whose
mind the transient violence of party feeling has not
for the moment silenced even the suggestions of,
common sense, will venture to dispute. If the
House of Peers may be packed upon the
present occasion it may be packed upon
any future occasion ; and those who now
assist in packing it are justly responsible before
God and their country for the future packings
to which this precedent will lead the way, when
perhaps some favourite at Court is deeply inte-
rested in an appeal about to be decided, or
when the impeachment is :coming on for trial of
some disgraced or unfortunate Minister against
whom popular clamour may happen to run high.
The judicial character and functions of the
House of Lords ought, in a country which
prides itself upon the purity and independence
of its tribunals more than upon any other of its
constitutional peculiarities, to have been suffi-
cient to protect that assembly from the degrading
and polluting operation which it now seems
destined to undergo, and would have been so at
any other than a period of national delusion and
insanity. This delusion and insanity cannot,
however, be perpetual. The sober sense ofthe com-
munity is returning and will return. The
moment of its entire restoration will he
the moment, however they may triumph
in the meanwhile in the success of their po-
litical schemes, or the acquisition of their
foul and fetid honours, of severe and condign
punishment to all who take part in the debase-
ment of an assembly the unsullied honour of
which is an important and permanent interest of
the British people. If the packing of the House
of Peers seem more monstrous and offensive
when we record that assembly as a judicial tri-
bunal, the proceeding assumes its most fatal as-
pect when the House is considered in its essen-
tial character of an independent branch of our
mixed Legislature. In this view of the subject,
an act which reduces the House of Lords, and
is adopted only because it reduces the House of
Lords to a mere chamber for registering. the
edicts of the Executive Government, is in itself
neither more nor less than a complete revolution.
The British Constitution has hitherto consisted
of King, Lords, and Commons. After this pro-
ceeding can it any longer be described as consist-
tinbgeseoftialnreye obtrhaenrebthesan? th‘evifillrsttbeanpdeetrlatgeelbaestanoyf
loenggr ea rd
ead supportto
a aftersiavi
slavish
bt shall
dependency
e have a ve
of beenth
i
Crown ?
Will not the British Constitu-
tion consist exclusively of King and Commons,
until the latter shall have swallowed up the for-
mer with his new dependent and impotent Peers .
atobursaebboler
After
clamour, is it possible, and we beg seriously to
oytialsprreerNo'odauttiivoen,,anedffeienteddefebryenacne
urge this question upon tdhose that
to wliom the
Peerage may now be offered,
in England in the position in which this
affairs
remain
change T
shall have left them ? To us this appears
proceed, or the Consti-
tution
of England must be restored, in a re-
stored state of the public mind, perhaps in a
n
thus begun must
either alternative, what is
wholly
ll) r i
reign.i
inpossible• he revolutionary move-
ment
And,n
the value of the suborned, polluted, servile
which Earl Grey can offer? If the revo-
lution proceed, the new Peers gain the advantage
of being more elevated than before as marks for
its fury, and less sheltered by any claims to na-
tional respect. If the Constitution should ever be
restored they will have gained the privilege of
sharing, with the Ministers with whom they had
conspired for its destruction, in the dangers of
an impeachment. The bait which Earl Grey
has to offer is, it must be confessed, a tempting
one. Nor let this restoration of the Constitution
be deemed chimerical. The British Constitu-

lion as it is has many friends, awl stroll friends
as will not desert it the moment it is down, but
the business and glory of whose lives will be, on
the contrary, to struggle for its recovery. The
foolish persons who are eager to grasp at a
prostituted dignity would do well to reflect upon
the possibility, for it is at least possible, that it
may some day or other be thought necessary to
restore to the House of Lords that independence
and that constitutional character of which their
elevation will have deprived it, and that, putting
all feelings of a vindictive kind out of the ques-
tion, the degradation and punishment of those
who took the most conspicuous part in destroy-
ing the independence and perverting the consti-
tutional character of that august assembly will
be an indispensable part of the restorative pro-
cess.—Morning Post.
It is not a little curious to observe the very
different, or rather the contradictory, manner in
which questions, essentially the same in their
character, though different in name, are treated by
the enemies of innovation and improvement.
When the Catholic question, for example, was
under discussion, the grand argument put for-
ward on all occasions, and that also which was
most relied upon, because it was the least capable
of contradiction, was that, however just the claims
of the Catholics to a participation in the rights of
British subjects might be, the public mind was
not yet ripe for their concession, and consequently
that the granting of emancipation would be a dan-
gerous precedent, which might be converted to
highly unconstitutional purposes, The Emanci-
pation part of the press did not dispute the fact
that the majority of the people were adverse to
the claims of the Catholics ; but it contended
that as their claims were a matte' of right as
well as of justice—and supported by the whole
intelligence of the country, they ought to be con-
ceded, lest a worse evil should come out of
their refusal than could possibly arise from their
concession. How differently now is the Reform
question treated by the Anti-Reform press ? On
the Catholic question they put forward the prin-
ciple that the majority of the people were against
the Catholic Bill, and that it would be a breach
of the Constitution to pass it in opposition to
their wishes;—now, while they cannot deny the
fact that the majority of the people are in
favour of the Reform, they talk loudly of
the destruction of the Constitution, but say no-
' thing of the propriety of consulting the wishes of
the people ! If, however, the voice of the people
ought to have been consulted in the one case,
much more ought it to be consulted now ; for, on
the Catholic question there was great division of
opinion, not only in this country, but also in
Ireland and Scotland ; but now there is no divi-
sion—all are united—all of one heart and of one
mind ; and such being the fact, nothing imagi-
nable call he supposed more truly foolish, incon-
sistent, and ridiculous than the opposition which
they attempt to make to the passing of the
Bill. Do they think that they can prevent Re-
form from being carried, not only into the repre-
sentation of the country, but into every branch
of the executive ? Are they blind enough to
hope that a gallant and free people, knowing
their rights, and knowing the wrongs to
which they have been subjected, will consent
to be ruled by a faction, when they are sensible
of possessing both tile power and the knowledge
to rule themselves ? Do they vainly hope to
arrest the tide of public opinion, and from the
past experience of their conduct, to enamour the
people of slavery—of poverty and rags—of
giving away the produce of hard labour in taxes,
and seeing these taxes expended profusely and
unnecessary to their own injury ? Vain idea.
The time is gone by for misrule. The Mrs.
Harriet's this, and the Lady C.'s and D.'s
t'other thing, are in the black list of public
opinion, and nothing that the heartless faction
can do will prevent them from being struck off
the list of State paupers. A gentle resignation
to the declared will of the whole country might,
twelve months ago, have saved them from much
of the calamity which they have so amply de-
served ; but they have now provoked the worst
that the public could do to them, and what
right have they to expect salvation.—Morning
Advertiser.