The Sun.
London, England, 1832-08-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

Upon the announcement of the Tithe Bill by
Mr. Stanley some time ago, we took occasion
to declare our opinion upon the subject, and we
were, therefore, well pleased to find that the Go-
vernment, abandoning the future prosecution of
the two measures threatened for the future regu-
lation of the church property and church esta-
blishment of Ireland, contented itself with an
attempt to carry through, during this session of
Parliament, the single Bill, enforcing composi-
tion in those parts of the country to which the
former composition, which was optional, had
not extended. Of this measure we have little to
say, either in praise or in blame. In order to
arrive at a final settlement of the great question
itself—in order to save the property now un-
doubtedly belonging to the state from becoming the
prey of the landlords of Ireland—and ultimately,
we trust, in order to devote it to better purposes
than it has been turned to in the hands of one
party, or would be in those of the other—
namely, to the improvement both of the moral and
physical condition of the ignorant and wretched
peasantry of that country—in order to do any
or all of this, it is undoubtedly necessary to as-
certain the correct value of the property itself, and
simplify the mode of securing it. As a means to-
wards this end the Bill in question does not seem
objectionable; under its provisions, undoubtedly,
an estimate of the value of the property to be re-
el iimed will be obtained, and its collection ren-
dered more easy. Nor can we believe that, if it
had been introduced, unaccompanied by the pro-
posal of other and ulterior measures, it would
have excited any opposition even in so irritable
a people as that of the Sister Country. Accom-
panied as it was, we are not surprised that it
should have had such an effect. But now, when
these measures have been withdrawn,—when,
from the declarations made by many Members of
the Government, any return to them, even in
another Parliament, can no longer be feared—
when the Bill for a composition stands simply
and singly before the House and the country, we
really think that the outcry which it is attempted
to raise against it, and the vexatious opposition
which, night after night, pursues the measure,
are as unjustifiable as they are mischievous.
Above all, must we raise our voice against
the conduct, which, now for two nights, has
been pursued by a little trio of self-constituted
Irish patriots ; a conduct which we can only cha-
racterise as alike absurd, factious, and disgraceful
to public men. On Tuesday Mr. Leader pre-
vented the House of Commons from proceeding
with the business of the country, by a threat of
counting it, if any luckless Member, less gifted with
the talent of enduring patiently the floods of
wretched common-place which he and his assn.
ciates might pour upon the remaining thirty-
nine, should venture to quit the House ; and
last night Mr. Ruthven and Mr. Wallace
seemed determined to bring the matter to a
practical test, by inflicting upon their hapless
audience a series of—we will not term them
speeches—speeches, indeed, proh pudor !—but
disjointed and unmeaning words, which, unless

patience has made St. Stephen's her own, might
well have afforded Mr. Leader the golden op-
portunity he sought. Really such conduct is
puerile—it is worse—it is mischievous to the
cause they pretend to serve, and disgusting to
all its best friends. We tell those gentlemen
that it is so—that they delude themselves if they
imagine that Ireland, or the friends of Ire-
land in England, will view such proceedings
with anything but disgust. We tell them
that the real advocates of Irish rights and
of the promoters of true Irish prosperity, see
in such conduct nothing but cause for alarms ; but
the ridicule, which should belong solely to the
authors of it, may attach itself to the cause
which these legislators are by their advocacy
ruining. Let them abstain in future from such
doings. Late as is the period of the Session,
inconvenient as such a course would be, rather
than permit the whole business of the empire to

be delayed by the teazing and abortive pawings
of little giants, miscalling themselves friends to
.Ireland (for where are the O'Connells, the
Brownlows, the Killeens ?), they may depend
upon it, the intelligent and really patriotic of
both countries will, at whatever sacrifice, rall'
and convince then► that the House of Commons

will neither countenance, nor submit to be dic-

tated to or impeded in its course by efforts like
theirs. Already we hear that an independent
Member of Parliament has declared his inten-
tion of moving for a call of the House, should
these proceedings be repeated ; and, if driven to
this extremity, we would suggest for the consi-
deration of Messrs. Leader, Wallace, and Ruth.
yen, with what appetite their Irish colleagues
will cross . St. George's Channel, to resume
their places in an August session ; and whether
those who were the authors of the infliction
will find ready fztvour in their eyes.—Morning
Chronicle.

The practice so scrupulously insisted on by
gatemen, of involving diplomatic negotiations
in the most profound mystery until the moment
when they have come to a conclusive result, has
surely prevailed too long for the true interests of
those most concerned in such transactions. It
cannot but soon ur.dergo such a modification
as must confine it to being the exception, and
not the rule, in the conduct of international
communications—at least as far as regards Eng-
land, and all countries enjoying free institutions.
The whole science of modern diplomacy is no-
thing better than elaborate iVlachiavelian machi-
nery for managing State affairs on good old
right-divine principles—as much as possible to
the convenience of Princes, and as little as pos-

Bible in subjection to the influence of their sub-
jects. Its great professors were the cowled
Padishalis of the Vatican ; such crafty and
ambitious Monarchs as Louis the Eleventh of
France, and the petticoat politicians, Queen-
mothers, and Cardinals, who came after him :
in our own country, that imperious Suzeraine
who would allow her faithful Commons liberty
of speech to the extent of yea and nay ; and
that master of the mysteries of kingship who
" sharply reproved the same Commons fir de-
bating of matters fiir above their reach and
capacity, and forbad them meddling with
any thing that regarded his Government or
deep matters of State." In modern times Met-
ternich, Pozzo di Burgo, and the Patriarch
of France, are shining lights in the same
sphere, before whom the brightest of preceding
luminaries are shorn of their beams. 'Flie
agents of this system are not men selected froin
those whose opinions are as familiar to their fel-
low-citizens as their political actions are open
and undisguised. In England they are not
taken from amongst well-known public men.
They are a class sui generis, regularly bred up
in the schools of intrigue, and, like monks in
the itomish Church, or special pleaders in law,
in proportion as they are adepts i❑ their pro-
fession, and esteemed by their superiors, are they
blind bigots or thorough knaves, incapable of

wide and philosophical views, or dexterous in
willing their knowledge to their own private in-
tereit alone. With such directing master-spirits
and such instruments, diplomacy will never
adjust the differences of nations according to a
simple plan, or with truly honest intentions. It
will not look at the subject-matter of its inter-.

vention straightforward,.. or " oculo irretorto."
It sqnintsat every thing, and sees every thing

under such crooked and distorted shapes, as are
most congenial to its sense of the moral line of
beauty. Its efficiency depends upon dexterous
duplicity ; its success is but superior overreaching.
Upon one party or the other confiding in it, it
entails mortification ; and in every seeming
settlement of a difference it deposits the seed
of numerous others, until the accumul ttion of
dilemmas becomes inconveniently great and com-
plicated ; when war is invited to clear the score,
that the game of finesse may be commenced
with restored freshness and gusto. The conse-
quence has been that the civilized States of Eu-
rope are perpetually embroiled with each other,
and are involved in as many and as bloody con-

flicts amongst themselves 'as were the savage
tribes that trod the aboriginal woods and savan-
nahs of America ; and such would be the story

to the end of the chapter if the destinies of
nations were for ever to be controlled by the
tribe of diplomatic manoeuvres. They have met,
however, like their masters, with a formidable
antagonist in the Press, which with the eyes of
Argus discovers everything in the way of State
mystery, and with the hands of Btiareus disse-
minates its Sybiline leaves of information upon
highway and byway, amongst Kings and crafts-
men, until nothing is left for the lying profession
to exercise its vocation upon. Such, indeed,
we should say, rather will be than is the result
of a free Press. It is not so successful in its
operations as yet, and the reign of Plenipotenti-
aries, with its whole corps, must still continue in
opposition to.the spirit of our British Constitution
and to the theoretic responsibility ofour Ministers
for the consequences of their measures, both fo-
reign and domestic. What can be more unreason-
able than the present system of allowing Govern-
ment to carry on negotiations with foreign
Powers, on matters of the deepest import to the

well-being of this country, Without any sub-
stantial control upon their decisions—allowing
them to secure themselves with the pretext of
necessary mysteriousness from all inquiry into
the arrangements by which the country is to be
irrevocably bound ? When the veil is raised
conventions are produced, and we must content
ourselves with them for good or for evil. The
Minister is in general, able to screen himself
with his Parliamentary majority ; while the Op-
position, that might expose and frustrate an in-
choate design, is paralysed by the consciousness
that the time for resistance has elapsed, and
people acquiesce because what's done cannot be
undone. It may still be admitted that there are
cases in which secrecy of negotiation is indis-
pensable ;—it may be fully admitted ;—but we
contend that such cases are, and should be, the
few exceptions, while the general rule to the
contrary should cover the majority of instances,
and be the standing principle of our Govern-
ment. In all arrangements with foreign Powers,
no proposition of importance should be pro-
posed or assented to by a Brish Cabinet
without the sanction, express or implied,
of Parliament. Had this course been hitherto
adopted, England would have escaped many
great vexations and innumerable misfortunes,
some of which are felt at the present
day—Castlereagh could not have smiled away
her interests at the Congress of Vienna—
we should not have been declared debtor to
Holland or Russia—nor should we be paying
off a loan raised by the Empress Catherine to
carry massacre and partition into Poland ; we
should not now have a Ministry, esteemed by
the country, committed in a most discreditable
manoeuvre to effect that object in favour of the
man who, in more humane times, outstripped
the cruelty of his predecessor; nor should we

have that Ministry, as well as the whole nation,
stultified by scores of protocols to settle a plain
question, which should have been set at rest by
by one. If we have been wronged, however,
in these transactions, they are irrevocable, and
we must submit ; but there is another, of a
similar description, with which we are menaced,
but which may, perchance, be arrested. We
shall allude to it at present in a few words. The
settlement-of-Greece treaty will be signed, sealed,
and delivered, as usual, au secret. We ask Mi-
nisters shall it, when laid before the nation, con-
tain an assent to the young King's marriage with
a Russian Princess? If this be so, or if, with
such an arrangement as this in contemplation,
England is committed to the guarantee of the
Greek loan, then do we maintain that our Cabi-
net has been palpably befooled, and we are made

the tools of Russian schemes and Russian
aggrandisement. This may be rumour—it may
be the truth. Is the country to remain in the
dark respecting it to the last ?—Morn. Herald.
Once more, in the name of the people of
England, we demand of Lord Grey why lie
does not—why he attempts not to—enforce the
execution of the protocols, nay, of even one of
the 67 protocols by which he has been raising
to agony the public expectation during the last
18 months ? If the settlement of all disputes
between Holland and Belgium was deemed by
his Lordship necessary to the peace of Europe,l
and the successive treaties contained in the pro.
tocols were essential to any desirable adjustment
between the Belgians and the Dutch, how
comes it that such treaties are suffered by the
British Government to lie for so much waste

paper upon the shelves of the Foreign-office ?
Here we are, for the first time since the peace,
under a fearful deficit in the public income, as
compared with the expenditure. Here have the
Customs fallen off frightfully, because of the
universal distrust and agitation of Europe.
'I. his country has been tormented by an uncer-
tainty as to peace or war, which paralizes and be-
numbs all foreign commerce, and which every
Minister must be aware tends, more than a state
of positive war itself; to dry up many of the
most valuable sources of revenue. And why
are such things tolerated ? Why has Lord Grey
been the principal party to their production..?
His Lordship, through Lord Palmerston, has
been laying down the law, and prescribing and
dictating to the Dutch and Belgians what they
must do, and in what mutual relations they
must be satisfied to stand hereafter, on pain of
drawing down a visitation by main force from
England and her co-protocolling Powers ; for
be it remembered, that in their protocols each
promises for itself, and for its partners, in the
policy adopted by the entire body. Belgium
obeys the orders implicitly, and fulfills the con-

ditions imposed upon her ; thus affording proof
not merely of the tractable and conciliatory dis-
position of the Brussels Cabinet, but of the di-
rect and honest purpose of France and England
to abide, on behalf of Belgium, by the letter of
the protocol treaties. Is it so with Holland ? No;

she repels at once the most important proposi-
tioni made to her, and persists for months
together in incurring the full penalty of
coercion by force of arms, pronounced
by the five Courts against whichever of
the two disputants should set itself against
their award. Then what prevents the five great
Powers from acting upon their own reiterated
pledges, and coercing the obstinacy of the Dutch
King ? Had Belgium been the recusant party,
' it is plain that she would have been vouchsafed
no such indulgence. Then the responsibility rests
with Lord Grey, and with no other; for beyond
every Minister of the Allied Governments has
the Noble Earl expatiated on the necessity of
preserving peace, and the urgency of some final
arrangement of this untoward question. We can
with difficulty credit the statements made, no
matter, how grave and upright the authority, re-
earding the course of the British Government,
and its motives for shrinking from the dis-
charge of a high and paramount duty. We
dare not listen to any averment so calum-
nious, as that Lord Grey is disposed to shrink
from the obligation of either calling upon the
other protocolling parties to join him in com-
pelling Holland, lest they should refuse, or,
jointly with France, if acting without them,
lest they should resist the operation ! What,
refuse to execute their own solemn engage-
ments, entered into, not abruptly or incon-
siderately, but after numberless negotiations, with
the most ample knowledge of all the events which
had taken place, and of all the interests at issue,
—with an abundant cognizance both of things
and persons, after full allowance being made for
predilections, fox repuguances, for the means of
restoring the status in quo between the rivals,
and for the seemingly insuperable necessity of
admitting the uti possidetis ;—after all this, is
it possible for Lord Grey to impute to the allied
Monarchs of Germany and Russia the immea-
surable baseness of forfeiting their own royal
words, and discountenancing—much more re-
sisting—the execution of their own deliberate
contracts ? If Lord Grey avows any such sus-
picion, not founded upon overt and demon-
strable acts, but only on his individual im-
pression of the corrupt character or worth-
less policy of the two Emperors and the
King of Prussia, the suspicion is so of-
fensive and insulting as almost to justify, in
those three Courts, a declaration of war against
England. Lord Grey ought to be interrogated
in Parliament upon the subject, and invited to
declare-Ist, Whether he has ground for sus-
pecting that the Continental Courts hare been
trifling for so many months, and laughing at
King William IV.'s advisers ; or, otherwise,-
2d, What objection his Lordship has to demand
of those Governments the discharge of their
joint engagements, and the immediate exercise
of a compulsory power over Holland, according
to the terms of the treaty. We have never
heard that any positive ground existed for antici-
pating a rejection by the three Courts of an of•
ficial call upon them from England, to unite with
her in enforcing the evacuation of the Belgic
territory. If no such motive for apprehension
can be alleged by Lord Grey, then is his Lord-
ship the sole cause why Belgium is still ousted
of the possession of her own town of' Antwerp:
but if materials whereon to build an alarm so

humbling to the other Powers, and so exaspera-
ting to England, have really been before the eyes
of Lord Grey, whereby it became manifest that
Great Britain was, for nearly two years, dealing
with a set of persons, who would swear one day
and the next day be forsworn,—then was it
doubly indispensable for the Prime Mi-
nister to throw himself on his country,
—to let England, France, and Belgium under-
stand clearly what they had to expect from the
honour of the Holy Alliance Courts, and thus
relieve us from the perils of treachery, if not
from those of open conflict. In one word, if
Lord Grey's inaction proceeds from a dread that
the Russian, &c. ministers have all this while
been laughing at him, and instead of executing
the protocols when required, will use them only
to light their pipes, he endangers the best in-
terests of Great Britain, from a wish to avoid
some personal mortification, by attempting this
absurd delay. If he has no motive to suspect
the covrotocol makers, but, on the contrary,
reason to rely upon their assistance, then his
apparent languor throws doubts upon his own
sincerity. In either case, what will the British
Minister gain ? He will not escape war by
showing the world that he trembles. He will
not secure the confidence of Belgium, whose
rights he abandons, by such a miserable, evasive
protocol as the 67th,—nor of the French nation
(we say nothing of poor Louis-Philip), by the
readiness with which he receives the law from
Holland, and her Muscovite Camarilla. We
refer to our Brussels letter for proof of the im-
minence of that very danger of war, which our
slow rulers pretend to avoid by hesitating and
childish procrastinations.—Times.

We have waited for some days in the expec-
tation that the Lord Chancellor would have
something to say in reference to the matter
alleged against him by Sir Edward Sugden in
the House of Commons. He is, however,
silent, and we are therefore compelled to recur
to an affair which the Noble and Learned Lord
seems desirous to leave in a very unsatisfactory
position. It is only necessary to state a few
facts, and to ask a few questions, in order to
show that the affair cannot with honour to
some of the parties be permitted to remain where
it is. In the first place, it is a fact that such
words were said, by one of the public Journals,
to have been uttered by the Lord Chancellor, in
his place in the House of Lords, as no man
having the manners or feelings of a gentleman
could by possibility have uttered, under anv pro-
vocation—such words, as it is universally felt,
could be properly answered only by a horsewhip
or a cudgel. In the second place, it is a fact
that a Right Hon. Gentleman, the descendant
of a Noble House, a friend and colleague of the
Lord Chancellor, asserted subsequently in the
House of Commons, or insinuated in a manner
not to be understood, that the Lord Chancellor
had communicated to him that these blackguard
words were erroneously ascribed to him. In the
third place, it is a fact that the Journal which
printed them, justly abhorrent of the sup-
position that such terms could have issued
from the imagination of any person connected
with it, reiterates its assertion, and offers to
swear to it that they were the ipsissima verba
of the Lord Chancellor. This is the actual
position of the affair, and we think the public
have a right to know a little more fully than
they do at present who are right and who are
wrong. The imputation of wilful falsehood
is added to that of gross, vulgar, and unmanly
scurrility by the turn given to the affair in the
House of Commons by the friends of the Lord
Chancellor. The world in general, so far as
our observation extends, gives full credit to the
accuracy of the report, fetid as it was, and the
rather that the Journal in which it appeared is

supposed to have often been favoured by contri-
butions from the pen of the Noble and Learned
Lord. Nobody suspects the Right Hon.
Friend of the Lord Chancellor in the Com-
mons' House of Parliament of fabricating a
communication he did not receive. The ques-
tion then is, whether the scurrilous Lord Chan-
cellor is afraid to say from his own lips, in con-
tradiction to the reiterated assertion of the
Journal whose columns had the misfortune to be
soiled by the language imputed to him, what he
has instructed his friend and colleague to say on
his behalf ? If the Lord Chancellor used the
language imputed to him, there can, we sup-
pose, be no doubt that he has added to this
offence the baseness of instructing his friend to
say that he never used it. His choicest nick-
names will, we have no doubt, find at last their
proper owner. The Lord Chancellor will be
cautious how he uses such language in future, if
he has heard, as we have, that at the Clubs the
odds are five to one in favour of the first men
who commit such an outrage, be the scene where
it may, be the rank and station of the offender
what it may, having to undergo the discipline
of the horsewhip, at the latest, on the following
day.—Morning Post.

A controversy of no inconsiderable moment,
as regards not only the honour of England, but
the general peace of Europe, is now carrying
on, both on this and on the other side of the
English channel, respecting the policy which it
behoves the Courts of England and France to
pursue respecting the settlement of the Belgian
question, and the still more important matter of
the edicts of the Germanic Confederation. By
one party it is strongly advocated to he the
bounden duty of France and England, not only
to put an end at once by force of arms to the
dilatory and deceitful proceedings of their col-
leagues in the London Conference, respecting
the affairs of Belgium and Holland, but to enter
their decided protest against the edicts of the
Germanic Diet, as infringements upon the inde-
pendence of its states, and attempts to disturb
the state of Europe as settled at the close of the
last war; by another it is urged that we have
already embarked too far in continental politics
—and that whatever may be our obligations
with respect to Belgium and Holland, it would
be the height of absurdity to take special notice
of what is going on in Germany, " without
knowing how far the spirit of resistance exists
among the Germans themselves." The two
questions evidently merge into one—the right of
interference on the part of France and England
in the affairs of the continent--a right of which
no possible doubt can now exist in so far as
Holland and Belgium are concerned, for it is
allowed and recorded in hundreds of protocols,
and which we deem to be equally clear as regards
the affairs of Germany. The questions at issue
are not matters of internal regulation, but
European questions—things affecting the balance
of power in the great European world, and, as
such, having an immediate bearing upon the
welfare and prosperity of both France and
England. In the case of Belgium and Hol-
land the right of interference cannot be dis-
puted, because it is based on specific treaties.
In the case of the German States, should they re•
fuse to incorporate the edicts of the Frankfort
Diet with those of their separate legislatures, the
right is equally clear, not only on the score
of our national interests, but on that also of a
gross and tyrannical attempt, on the part of
others, to interfere with that which no country
or state has a right to meddle with—the internal
regulations of other States—their independence
and right of legislation. And has not such
interference been practised ? Has not the Frank-
fort Diet taken upon itself to legislate upon
matters which are purely at all times within the
province, and at the will and pleasure of inde-
pendent States ? And are England and France
to look passively on, and let tyranny and
despotism extend their hateful branches to the
danger of her interests, and the ruin of others,
who look up to them for protection ? Are they
to permit the precedent to be established that the
independence of States is nothing, and that their
power of making laws for themselves may be
exercised by others who have no interests in
common with them—no right to intermeddle,
but the right of power over weakness? We
wish that a Chatham were now alive to chastise
the authors of such cowardly counsels, and to
tell the despots that the first attempt to enforce
the edicts which they have promulgated, would
be equally considered a signal of war as if they
had attempted to take the Tower of London.—
How the caitiffs would skulk at his frown !
How they would retreat into their dens, and be
glad at any sacrifice to purchase absolution from
the lion-hearted Minister ! But the times that
are past are, we fear, no type of the future. The
little obstinate King of Holland—obstinate be-
cause he is backed by the despot Courts—beards
us with impunity ; and those who, had a
Chatham or a Canning lived, would have trem-
bled at their own recent acts, even as the King
of old trembled at the vision of the hand-writing
upon the wall, pursue their froward course with
out even the fear of giving offence ! My Lord
Grey, this will not do. Reform is a blessing ;
but the contempt and insults of Foreign Powers,
Englishmen were not made to brook.--Morn-
ing Advertiser.

A certain witty theatrical Lord, being asked
'Mademoiselle MA ss's family name was such, or whe-

titer it was assumed, replied, I really am not quite cer-
tain, but I should rather think it was " un nom de
guerre."

TRAGICAL FATE OE BERNARDO, COUNT
Or BARCELONA.—By the death of Louts, in 840, Cata-
lonia and Gothic Gaul fell to CHARLES, the youngest son of
that Emperor. Indignant that in the division of the
empire no portion was left for him, PEPIN, son of the
rebellious Prince of that name, no sooner heard of his
grandfather's death than he seized on Aquitaine. BER-
NARD° formed the party of the son as he had formed
that of the father, and when summoned by CHARLES,
his new sovereign, to do homage in person for his fief, he
at first refused to appear, but not without assigning the
most plausible pretexts he could for neglecting to obey.
Soon hearing, however, that these reasons were unsatis-
factory to CHARLES, he hastened to disarm by his presence
that Prince's anger. His arrest was resolved ; he fled ;
his domestics were laden with fetters, and his moveable
property seized. Feeling that he was unable to contend
with so powerful a prince, be forsook, or pretended to
forsake,
waited on the King. He threw himself at the royal
eet, protested that he always had been, and would always
remain, faithful ; that the enemies of his sovereign should
also be his, and offered to do battle with any one who
PErtH, gained the advisers of CHARLES, and
again
should gainsay him. CHARLES believed, and pardoned
him. In the wars which followed he remained neuter;
but when, in 843, on a new division between the two
brothers, Catalonia again fell to CHARLES, he begun to
aim at independence. However cautious his proceedings,
they reached the ears of his superior, who concealed his
resentment, but meditated a detestable revenge. Being
summoned to attend a convocation of the States at Thou-
louse, he reluctantly obeyed. On entering the assembly,
as be knelt to do homage, CHARLES seized him with the
left baud, arid with the right plunged a poniard into his
heart. 'What makes this tragedy the more striking is the
common belief of the times that the victim was the father
of the murderer, who is said to have kicked the body, ex-
claiming, " Such is the punishment for defiling the bed
of my father, thy liege lord."—Lardner's Cyckpuliai
—History of Spain and Portugal.