The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-28 00:00:00

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‘-',SSiI3III Tilde, is one article, however, which, 1
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ti7:ongt tte')toted to French affairs, has been written :..gin
'an especial eye to this country. el e allude to
an aincle on Robespierre, Ever since Lord Grey's
memorable reference to the spirit of the age, the Tones
have endeavoured to show that that spirit, if iert to it-
self—if not controlled by some body of hioll 'who can
afford to set it at defiance—hurries a nation on to

perdition. Our Contemporary (the Standard) has
compared the counteracting power to the escapement
Of ft watch

" Combine," says our contemporary, " this part of the
mechanism (the escapement) with the elastic., WI otherwise
unruly power contained in the other parts of the watch—com-
bine all, if we may use something like an antithesis, in har-
monious counteraction, and you have the perfect work of art—
power on one side, duly moderated and distributed—inert parts
on the other, put into useful activity—and the whole presenting
a valuable monitor to aid us in our walk 'through life."
Our Contemporary furtl:.:,:t elucidates his proposition
by reference to Dr. 11.,avdner's late narrow escape on the
Liverpool and Manchester rail-road, when the machirie
was put it; full speed, trusting to the breaks attached to
the Tiinchine

" When it was thought necessary to resort to the breaks,
they, being attached to the engine, and whirled along with it,
were kindled to a flame by the rapidity of its motion. The
machine was, as we remember, with all its living freight, sated
from destruction by an external and independent cometeracting
power."
Can there be a better reason for opposing public
opinion ? The Quarto-1g Review, in the article bti
Robespierre, endeavours to show that he was the imper-
sonation of public opinion ; that the movement of the
social machine requires an escapement ; and that if
public opinion be not counteracted in England, wo
shall have in turn our Robespierres and a teigkl or terror.
" It is very natural," says the Reviewer, " that the French
nation—when it in some degree recovered its senses--shouß
have been anxious to exculpate itself from all lose entratous
and unparalleled crimes. The share and remorse of his col-
leagues—the party rancour of Lis adversaries—and the natural
vanity of all, nearly contained to load Robespiere's memory
with the accumulated and undivided guilt, and concurred in
representing 'nim as the head of a small faction, which, by
some der',orable accidents, had been enabled to dictate their
eodc, of 'blood to a reluctant and indignant people ; in short,
as we noticed in the outset, he is made the scapegoat of
the Revolution. Every Frenchman has an interest In adopting
this exculpatory hypothesis, and even the more recent Eng-
lish writers have been too apt, instead or going back to the
original and contemporaneous sources of informatim to
content themselves with compiling from the compilations of the
French—all of them prejudiced on this subject, and some of
them—the smart coxcomb Thiers, for instance, of no individual
authority whatsoever. But is it not evident that as to the
French people such excuses would be as inadequate in reason
as they are false in fact ? Would the national character be
much mended if we were to admit that they were such dastards
as to allow, from sheer cowardice, a kandful of villains to
commit such crimes, and to execute in one day, a greater
number of persons than—if we believe these apologetical his-
torians—Robespierre's whole faction contained ? Robespierre
was neither a Cromwell nor a Buonaparte. His power was
not founded on an irresistible military force. His force was
the people itself. He was really their child and champion—
the incarnate type of public opinion, which in revolutionary
times means the opinion of the most violent of the public."
And now to the application—
" Happy for us, to whose present condition much of what
we have related bears a fep..-Ild analogy—happy for us if we
could be taught prudeni:e by such lessons—to see that when a
people departs stuklcnily and violently from its ancient ways,
there is no lin t to error, extravagance, crime, and misery—
that under the phrenzy of a revolution the original dispositions
and intentions of no man can be depended on--that by vanity,
ani.eition, and, above all, cowardice, (the main-springs of re-
volution) those who, under happier circumstances, might have
been innocent, respectable, amiable, and useful, become per-
verted, depraved, demonized—abhorred of God and man—
the scourges of their kind, and the tormentors and execu-
tioners of themselves • • • • • *
If the miseries of the over-gay and good natured people
of France, wero a Divine chastisement, what claim have
we to plead for a lighter punishment ? If they were the
mere work of human frailty and crime, what reason have we
to plead for a lighter punishment? If they were the mere
work of human frailty and crime, what reason have we to
expect that we shall be less guilty ? Let us then endeavour
to curb the curiosity of innovation—to restrain the phrenzy
of presumption—to humble the arrogance of self-confidence—
to control, by constitutional checks, the extravagances of poli-
tical ambition and popular fury—and to maintain, through our
ancient and approved institutions, the respect and reverence
of the people for their laws, their King, their Churfa, and
their God."
The plain English of all this is—we must have
rich Bishops, clerical sinecurists in abundance, to sa-
tify the cravings of the aristocracy, and curates doing
the work for the income of a P:acbanie—that we must
retain all the abominatins of the Church of Ireland
—that we must keep -tip useless places at home, and
in our numerous 'colonies, for the children, legitimate
and illegitimate, and other connections and hangets-
on of the same aristocracy—and that, to secure all
this, we must have a House of Peers, having no corn-
P:amity of interest with the nation, and irresponsible
to it.—Morning Chronicle.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

(FROM THE HAMPSHIRE TELEGRAPH.)

PORTSMOUTII, Sept. 26.—The Dispateh sloop of war,
Commodore Daniell, arrived on Tuesday, in fourteen days
only from Halifax. We are not aware that a shorter pas-
sage was ever made. The only man-of-war left at Halifax
was the Pyramus, with Sir Thomas Usher's broad pen-
dant. The President, 50, with Admiral Sir George Cock-
burn's flag, left on that port on the 10th, and the Forte,
46, Commodore Pell, on the 14th ult., both for Quebec, to
bring ordnance and ordnance stores from that province to
Bermuda. The Belvidcra, 42, Captain Strong, had already
conveyed eighty large guns and a proportion of shot, to
Bermuda, and was about to go a second time to Quebec
for a further supply. The Pique, 36, Honourable Captain
bons, with Lord Gosford and the Canadian Commissioners
on board, arrived at Quebec on the 21st of August, but
having been detained by quarantine and bad weather did
not land till the 23d. His lordship itnmaliately issued a
Proclamation, announcing his powf:,-cs and authority, and
though, through an accidental omission at the Horse Guards,
he was not furnished with credentials to supersede Lord
Aylmer in his military office of Commander-in-chief,
a little diffi,7,-Laty occurred, yet the latter Noble Lord
waived Pl't ceremony, and immediately gave up both civil
and military power, and would at once have embarked for
F:dgland, but that the illness of Lady Aylmer prevented
him. It was hoped, however, that by the 15th of this
month her Ladyship would be enabled to leave Canada ;
the Pique may, therefore, be expected in England in the
first week in October. The Champion, 18, had gone to
the West Indies, and the Racer, 16, was expected at Ha-
lifax. The Dispatch, during her three years' service in the
West Indies, has lost only one man, and that by an acci-
dental casualty. The Spey packet was going into Halifax
as the Dispatch was coming out. The Dispatch sailed on
Wednesday to the Eastward to be paid off.
The Vestal, 26, Captain W. Jones, recently got aground
on the coast of La Guayra, when she was obliged to start
her water, and throw her guns overboard. She fellunately,
however, floated off at the expense only P 4: sixty feet of
false keel, and she recovered her gulls, having the precau-
tion of buoying them.

By the Firefly steam-ve,:,A, which arrived at Falmouth
on Sunday, from the Mediterranean, we have accounts
from Malta to +.1.1e 4th inst. The following is from our cor-
respondent,

I" 3‘.;IALTA, Strr, d, 1835.—0 n the 31st of July Vice-
A'_;miral Sir Josins Rowley, having his flag in the Caledo-
nia, got out of Malta harbour, along with the Canopus,
Thunderer, Malabar, Edinburgh, Endymion, Sapphire,
Childers, and Medea, and remained cruising on and off,
loolikig out for the Pluto steamer from England until the
7th of August, when he was joined by the Vernon and
Columbine, and having sent off his despatches to England
by the Tartarus steamer the day before, he despatched the
Columbine to Tenedos, and then made all sail for' Corfu,
where the whole squadron eame to an anchor on the 14th.
After despatching the Orestes to Malta (on her way to
Tripoli, to relieve the Favourite), he again got the squa-
dron under way with the exception of the Sapphire, to re-
main at Corfu, and stood for Zante on the 18th, after a
short stay of only four days, during which Sir Howard
Douglas, the Lord High Commissioner of the lonian
Islands paid the Admiral, and in fact all the officers, very
marked attention, and gave them a splendid ball. On the
19th, in the Channel of Corfu, the Hind joined from Malta
with despatches brought by the Pluto, which had arrived
there from England seven days previous, and the contents of
them were such as to induce the Admiral to order the Mala-
bar and Endymion immediately off to Cadiz. These two
ships reached Malta on the 26th, and sailed for their destina-
tion on the 28th August. On the 11th the Childers was
despatched to Zante for the mail by the Firefly, which had
already gone on with it to Corfu, and on the brig's return she
was sent also to Cadiz. On the 28th of August the whole
of the squadron was off N:svarin, standing north, apparently
for Zante. The Portland reached Malta, on the Bth of
August, from Salamis, with E. J. Dawkins, Esq., late his
Majesty's Resident Minister in Greece, who proceeded in
her to Naple.s,
m after performing quarantine, on the 22d
idem.
Tke Barham, having on board the Right Honour.
able
Er, ::L of Durham, on an extraordinary embassy to
I'll'Bl°4ldt this port on the 19th, with the Alban in corn-
par-
-cvlose services may be useful in case of the Barham's
aerng detained at the Dardanelles by adverse winds or
calms. The Pluto, with the Right Hon. H. Ellis, Minister
to Persia, sailed for Trebizond on the 15tb, Imp wheal,