The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-17 00:00:00

PIRIT OF THE API3LIC JOURNALS.

The Movement speakers and writers in France
will rejoice at last night's conversation in the House
of Lords, as it will enable them to replenish their
quiver with some keener arrows against M. Casimir
Perier, than any which they have hitherto dis-
charged at that very meritorious, hut not very po-
pular minister. The supply comes from the Duke
of Wellington, the last person in the world to be
suspected of aiding such allies ; and though his
Grace himself always acts according to the rules of
honourable warfare, we are afraid that the faction
to whom he has presented these shafts svill be able
to tip them with poison. The ?mope which they
will then inflict, with such weapons, on public cha-
rae.er in France, will not be confined to one minis-
try or to one minister, but extend to the king and
to every (et of servants whom his Majesty has called
to his councils since the late revolution. We need
not remind our readers that no greater enormity
in the eyes of the Movement party could have been
committed by any French ministry than an attempt to
stifle the Belgic revolution, or to restore the dominion
of the Orange family over the Belgic provinces.
M. Perier felt this so much, that in order to
gain popularity for the councillors of his Sovereign,
ha has lately used some freedom with edicial truth,
and represented the revolution of July at Paris as
always affectionate to her daughter—the revolution
of September in Brussels. The Duke of Welling-
ton, on the contrary, speaking from official recollec-
tion, and confirmed by Lord Grey, speaking from
official documents, shows that the French Govern-
ment, down to the period when his Grace left
ofiice, always professed its desire to contribute to the
restoration of the House of Nassau, and to revive
those treaties which united Holland and Belgium
under one chief. The admission of the Duke's
statement, therefore, gives a double blow—it wounds
the popularity of M. Leffitte's cabinet, and attacks
the veracity of M. Perier. It cannot be too much
regretted that so able a man as the present Prime
nister of France should have given way to such a
political clap-trap, and should have addressed to
the Chamber, without consulting official documents,
statements which the papers in his own of ice were
able to disprove- At the same time, we ere not
altogether convinced of the prudence or wisdom,
in a professed lover of peace, of emblazoning this
inaccuracy at the present moment, and thus furnish-
ing arms to the partisans of war. The Noble
Duke's perspicuous narrative contains facts with
which the world was yet imperfectly acquainted.
It was generally known that Louis Philip, on his
accession, wrote autographs to all the Sovereigns,
declaring the resolution of his Government to ad-
here to existing treaties; but it was not so generally
Toown that the first Ministers alert the revolution
had acted so cordially to maintain inviolate or to re-
store those conventions which created the kingdom
of the Netherlands. His Grace, therefore, has been
actually obliged to acccuse them of being more up-
right and honest than their own colleague, who was
in the King's council, though he (lid not hold a
portfolio a, the early period of these transactions.
The Noble Duke mentioned three periods in
which the French Government offered to co-
operate with the British to maintain the in-
tegrity of the Netherlands, and to extinguish the
Belgic revolt. lit, When the Prince of Orange
arrived at Brussels; 2d, when he left Brussels for
the Hague; and 3d, when Prince Frederick made
his unsuccessful attack en that capital. These pe-
riods are so near each other, and two of them are so
identified, that we tray conclude the offer to be only
one and the same. The revolt broke out on the 26th
of August ; the Prince of Orange entered 13russels
on the Ist of September, and left it on the 3d, and
the attack of Prince Frederick was made on the
24th and three following days of the same month,
Till the disastrous iestie of this assault, no propo-
sition had been made by the most violent Belgic
revolutionist to separate the Crowns; all would
have been satisfied with a separate administration
of the two sets of provinces. Even after the
repulse from Brussels, the Belgic Deputies to the
State-General still lingered at the Hague with Orange
cockades in their hats, and consulting about the
means of establishing a separate administration under
the same Crown. It was therefore no great stretch
of generosity in the French Government to offer aid
when the Belgic revolution was not quite sure of
success. But the Duke's statement does not stop
here. His Grace tells us that so late as towards the
end of November, when he left office, and even up
to February, 1831, France held out the same offers;
and here the divergence of accounts and the (Ili
culty of reconciliation begin!. The bombardment
of Antwerp happened on the 27th of October, the
Belgic National Congress met on the Bth or 10th of
November, and, after a few sittings, decreed the ex-
pulsion, for ever, of the family of Nassau. If
France, therefore, at this time proposed to co-ope•
rate in the interest of an Orange settlement, it could
only be by one of those hated revolutions denomi-
nated "a restoration." Against this charge the
French Cabinet will find it most difficult to defend its
conduct. But the weight of the accusation will be
diminished by the admission of his Grace and the
explanation of Earl Grey, that the idea of force
was from the beginning abandoned, and that the re-
storation contemplated roust have been one to be
brought about by peaceful means and friendly inter-
position. In the midst of disclosures and contradic-
dictions, which are irritating enough in their own
nature, and which faction in France may so easily
inflame, it was gratifying to hear the manner in
which both the Noble Speakers dwelt on the high
character of the French nation, and the value of its
friendship in preserving the general peace. The
compliment paid to the power, the resources, and
the spirit of the people, may well indemnify our gal-
lant neighbours for any suspicion thrown on the
scrupulous veracity of their Prime Minister, though
we cannot, with Eat' Grey, allow any doubt to be
thrown on the authenticity of the Minister's speech,
or any excuse to be drawn from the nature of the
channel by which it was published to the world.
We called 11. Perier's speech at the time a mani-
festo ; and as it was read by him, and the manu-
script was sent to the Monitettr, its accuracy can-
not be for an instant questioned.—Times.

To the remarks which we made yesterday on the
subject of Mr. Hunt's motion res•pecting the Man-
chester massage, 'nay tie added, that not only he by
whose approbation the proceeding was chiefly
stamped is no more, but that his fellow Ministers
are generally beyond the reach of human tritnnals
or investigation. Lord Liverpool and Mr. Canning
are gone; and it is a deep-seated enmity which the
death of the offenders cannot assuage. The odia in
;ongum jaciens,quce reconderet auctaque promeret,
at least implies that there should be some one living,
—some important and marked personage surviving,
—on whom the hoarded vengeance may fall. With
respect to the verdicts obtained at the time, they
did not operate any change in our conviction, nor
are they calculared, in our (opinion, to alter the
character of the transaction ; for though a very ge-
neral indignation was excited in the people by the
blood which was shed, yet we all know the power
of Government, and more especially of a Govern-
ment so endowed with patronage as was that of
the old Tories, in procuring cflicial absolution to it-
self and 1:s
adherents for any act of tyranny, cruelty,
or oppression. An instance, indeed, was exhibited
the other day by a hoary survivor of the faction,
which lets us fully into the minds of the whole tribe
of them. He thought it a su&icient justification of
himself for having hewed place upon place, on a
son who had never done anything to serve his coun-
try, that the offices were only in reversion, and that
some of them his son had not yet obtained,—as if it
were a merit on the part of the donor, that Provi-
dence had not swept away the lives which stood
between him and the objects of his rapacity. A kind
of defence was set up of the employment of spies by
Government, or rather a palliation offered of the
practice. Upon this we can only say, that bad
Go-
vernroents employ them, and that spies are in requisi-
tion in the exact propot tion in which Governments or
Administrations are bad. The great Elizabeth and
tter able Ministers certainly employed them; but it

was at a peculiar era, and when her hie, upon which
the Protestant succession hung, was sought by the
darkest arts : in ordinary times she would have,
;corned them. And, be it observed, it is not
charged upon Ministers, neither was it ever charged
by this journal, that the spies were employed by
them for the purpose of exciting the sedition which
was afterwards to be punished. They were em-
ployed, we will allow, simply t'^ detect the sedition;
hut if none existed; what became of their trade ?
The spies had, therefore, a direct and personal in-
terest in making the food they had to feed upon.
But if such wretches as Castles are] Oliver had no
right to be present at !he Manchester meeting, and
other asserntelagts of the people legally convened,
neither had Mr. Hunt. The people of England are
an instructed people. If they have grievances to
complain of, they are capable of making their
complaints known in their respective districts,
townships, or counties, without the assistance
of aliens. What no. d to send from Man-
chester to L.,ndon for a man to tell the pec-
ple of the latter place whether they suffer ? or
what they suffer ? and how they are to redress their
sufferings ? It is this very intervention of strangers
that render; the introduction of spies into popular
assemblies practicable. If neighbour only met
neighbour,—if the parishioner his fellow-pa-
rishioners,---and the constituents their represen-
tatives, there would be an end of spies and their
excitement. It is, in truth, an insult upon an as-
sembly of Englishaten for any stranger—for any
man without possession, habitation, or interest on
the spot—to come among them (and more especially
to attempt to direct their counsels,) and so to say,
by his presence, that they are such a band of fools
that they cannot express their own meaning without
his aid and in-truction. We wish due regulations
were always enforced in this respect. It is even an
argument used by some against the existence of any
grievance, that the people themselves cannot in
every gieen division of the realm detect and expose
it, without aid of some itinerant patriot—some
dealer in public wrongs by trade.—Titnes.
M. Casimir Perier has, we fear, done himself no
good by his far-famed speech on the foreign relations
of France. We may observe, in passing, that the
came allowance is not to be made for this speech
which is properly made to the reported speeches in
our Parliament : it is a written document, prepared
with care, and read to the Chamber. The Duke of
Wellington succeeded last night in proving that the
whole of the statement of M. Perier, regarding Bel-
gium, was false from beginning to end, if there
were any truth in the language held by the French
Government to the Government of this country.
The gist of the statement of M. Perier is, that
Frarce, by encouraging the revolution in Belgium,
and declaring that she would resist an armed inter-
ference, was the salvation of that country.
" If said the Duke of Wellington) the King of the
French encouraged the revolution in Belgium, he broke a
solemn treaty, not only with this country, hut with the
King of the Netherlands. But the fact was directly other-
wise. If the Noble Earl would grant the pipers, with a
motion for which he (the Duke of Wellington) should
conclude, it would appear that from the moment at which
the revolution in Belgium broke out, to the latest hour
that the last Government was in office, the French Go-
vernment never did promote or encourage the Revolution
in Belgium. On three different occasions the French
nister had voluntarily declared that measures had been
taken by that Government to prevent any assistance being
given to the rebellious Belgians ; and no party in France
had ever c:4ltemplated the fitness of affording assistance.
Up to the very last moment that he (the Duke of Welling-
trn) was in office, the French Government was anxious to
a degree, in some manner or other, to re-establish the
House of Orange in Belgium. Even in the January after
the dissolution of the last Cabinet, a letter from the Prince
of Orange showed that an attempt had been made by the
French Government to maintain the authority of the
House of Orange."
Earl Grey, while he resisted the production of
the correspondence moved for by the Duke, on ac-
count of inconvenience to the public service, ad-
mitted the correctness of his statement. I-le said,
" He could not be called on to explain the speech of
the French Minister, and at tt,e same time it wa.. not ex-
pedient for him to make any harsh comments upon it. He
might, however, say that he had looked over the correspon-
dence to which the Noble Duke r, (erred both before and
since the notice, and that the statement in the speech of
Al. Casimir Perier was not correct. He was not sure
that the pass tge read by the Noble Duke positively bore
the ecnstruction put open it; and if he (Earl Grey) ad-
mitted that France did aid the Belgian Revolution, it cer-
tainly followed as a consequence that the Ministry of
that country had been guilty of a breach of good
faith He (Earl Grey) lead

no hesitation in subscribing implicitly to the statement of
facts made by the Noble Duke. The French Government
not only did not profess to encourage, but expressly dis-
claimed all interposition. The whole correspondence, as
the N,ble Duke Lad stated, was conducted in an amicable
spirit, and if it were not presumptuous in him (Earl Grey)
to say so, he might add, that the proceeding was highly to
the honour of the Government of the Noble Duke.—
(Cheers.) Not only was there no evidence of intention to
interfere, but the evidence was most complete that, on an
application from the Government of the Netherlands for
military assistance fr m this country, it was immediately
and at once refused."

We are glad to find that the Duke of Wellington
comes out so clear in the affair of Belgium ; for the
language in the speech from the throne, and, still
more, his own speech on the address, led to a gene-
ral suspicion that foul play was in contemplation
with regard to Belgium. We shared with many
the belief, that the change of Ministry deranged the
plan of the alliance, and led to the independence of
Belgium. Injustice, however, has, it seems, been
done to the Noble Duke, and we ale now bound to
look upon him in another light. In his Grace's
reply, he very properly discriminated between the
speech of M. Perier and common speeches, observing
that it was the written speech of the Minister, and
had been circulated by authority. In that reply,
his Grace, in order to deprive the French Minister
of the benefit of a sort of hypothetical apology of-
fered for his mis-statement by Earl Grey, declared
roundly, that " it would be found that at the mo-
ment the supposed threats were made, we were on
!he most friendly footing with the French Govern-
ment, and on the most friendly footing with all the
Ministers of Foreign Powers at Paris, and all the
Ministers of Foreign Powers here; and if there had
been any intention of an armed interference against
France in any quarter whatever, the Government
here must have known of it, and so they must had
there been any jealousy shown towards that Go-
vernment. He took that opportunity of declaring
most distinctly, that he did not know of the inten-
tion of any Power to employ an armed interference
with the Belgian revolution ; nor did he know any
thing whatever of any threat of France directed
against any Power that might be inclined so to in-
terfere." These revelations will neither serve to
raise the character of M. Perier, nor will they
tend to make Louis Philip popular with the
French nation. It is now generally believed that
Louis Philip betrayed the Italian Patriots, but it has
not certainly been hitherto understood in France
that he was from the beginning so eager for the
success of the King of the Netherlands. To speak
in homely language, the Duke has fairly let the cat-
out of the bag. " They were fully convinced of the
sincerity of the French Cabinet, for the Ambassador
in London had expressed his fears that his Court
would not be able to maintain peace if there were
any armed interference by other natiotis in the affairs
of Belgium." This is Prince Talleyrand all over.
You see, Gentlemen, however eager we are for the
success of the King of the Netherlands (and we
have all along left no doubt on this point), were
there to be an armed interference by other nations
in the affairs of Belgium, the people of France
might take it into their heads that the interference
would not stop with Belgium, and reduce Louis
Philip to the alternative of either abandoning his
throne or going to war with his allies. By such
an armed interference you would only give the
ascendancy to the republicans, from whom you have
much to dread, while you have nothing to dread
from 11F. We are well disposed towards the King
of the Netherlands, arid would gladly see an end
I put to the independence of Belgium.; but we must
Jat he same time take care not to allow our par.