The Sun.
London, England, 1832-12-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We alluded on Saturday to one of a serie•
of experiments now going forward in the United
States to try the force of their political institu-
tions, and the stability of their federal union.
Two of the southern states—namely, South
Carolina and Georgia—have already refused to
pay custom-house duties according to the tariff
fixed by the federal Legislature ; two or three
others are prepared to join in this fiscal revolt :
and Congress will have in the present session to
decide whether it will permit its authority to be
renounced with impunity,—whether it will re-
peal from fear thole imposts which it renewed
last year from policy,—whether it will delay the
enforcement of its acts till a general convention
shall deliberate on the new limits of obedience
due from each individual member of the union
to the majority,—or whether it will, without
any previous examination, order the President to
draw the sword of civil war and secure prompt
submission by military coercion. " Money," it
has been said, " is the root of all evil," and it
will be instructive to see a confederation formed
from a body of colonies, which had combined to
resist illegal taxes, itself broken down or dis-
united by the hands of the tax-gatherer. The
southern or plantation states have certainly as
strong a reason, if not as good a right, to se-
parate from their confederates of the north as
the whole colonies had to renounce their alle-
giance to-their mother country some 50 years
ago. The Tea and the Stamp Act were no'
nearly so oppressive to the colonists as the Tariff
Act is to Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and Ala
barna ; and with respect to the grievance—the
great undeniable grievance—of being taxed
without being represented, how can the present
aggrieved members of the union protect them-
selves by-their representatives against the votes
of 19 or 20 states which profit by their oppres
sion any more than the unrepresented colonies
Suppose the 13 English colonies, before the)
hoisted the standard of resistance, had obtained
seats in the British House of Commons for as
many representatives as their wealth and popu-
lation entitled them to send across the Atlantic.
such delegates could not have prevented the
passing of the stamp or tea duties, and these
duties would not have been rendered just (if un-
just before) by the protesting presence of a few
American planters. All political writers in this
country have visited with censure the present
policy of the American general Government, in
attempting by high protecting duties to force the
establishment or to encourage the extension of
manufactures in the American union. With
the high price for labour which exists in the
United States,—with their scanty supply of mo-
neyed capital,—with their unlimited range of un-
cultivated or half-improved soil, it was almost a
crime against society to divert human industry
from the fields and the forests to iron forges and
cotton factories. Nature had pointed out the
course which they ought to pursue for perhaps
half a century to come, till the plough and the
spade had followed the axe of the woodcutter
into their " primeval wildernesses of shade,"
and till happy plantations had been formed on
the deserted domains of the Indian huntsman,
from the Atlantic to the 'Ohio,—and from the
Mississippi to the Pacific. She had directed
them to cling to the bosom of " Mother Earth "
as the most fertile source of wealth and the most
abundant reward of labour. She had told then
to remain planters, farmers, and woodcutters,—
to extend society and cultivation into new re-
gions,—to practise and improve the arts of the
builder, the carpenter, and the naval architect,—
to facilitate every means of internal communica
tion,—to promote every branch of internal trade,—
to encourage every variety of landed produce, but
not to waste the energies of their labour, or to in-
terrupt the course of their prosperity, by forcing at
borne the manufacture of articles which foreigners
could supply at half the price for which the)
could be made. Such is the policy on which i,
was the duty and the interest of the America'
general Legislature to have acted, though the
whole States of the Union had composed only
one homogeneous mass, and had contained no
source of division or disturbance in the oppo-
sing commercial claims or views of its separate
members. This last consideration, of course.
strongly fortifies every argument and reasoning
against a tariff of import duties on foreign trade
—imposed, not for the purpose of increasing
natior.al revenue, but of protecting particulai
applications of industry. The chief exports from
the United States are the productions of its
soil, their chief imports are manufacturers
commodities. Of exports to the value of
more than 80,000,000 of dollars, or between
16,000,0001. and 17,000,0001. sterling, more
than the value of 65,000,000 of dollars are the
fruits of American agriculture. In cotton-wool
and tobacco alone their exports amount to up-
wards of 35,000,000 of dollars. Corn and
flour, with staves, potashes, and the other pro-
ducts of their forests, constitute a large item of
their export trade, into which, for the sake of out
argument, we need not enter further at present.
Now, it cannot fail to be observed that the chief
part of this large mass of export commodities is
the produce of the southern or plantation states,
—that the northern states, though they include
the greatest body, or nearly the whole of the
great merchants and ship-owners of the union,
produce comparatively few articles for foreignl
consumption, and that thus, if the tariff did not
exist, or were abolished, the former would re-
ceive the returns for their produce duty free,
instead of being loaded with heavy taxes to pro-
tect a species of industry with which they have
no connexion, and from which they can never
derive any profit. They must either obtain the
commodities for which they exchange their pro
duce from their customers abroad, or from their
fellow-citizens of the union ; and in either case
they must pay a disproportioned share of the
national taxation—for the tariff on foreign ma-
nufactures,, imposed to protect domestic indus-
try, comes chiefly out of their pockets, even
though they purchase home-made articles, as the
price of the latter is maintained high by the 25,
or 35, or 40 per cent. ad valorem duties le-
vied on the former ; that sum is therefore the
amount of the sacrifice which they are required
to make for the benefit of their federal union
over and above what the other states interested
in domestic manufactures are called upon
to contribute. Statistical facts seem to
accord with the result of a priori rea-
soning, and support unequivocally the com-
plaints of the southern states. By add-
ing together ,the amount of produce exported
from the four members of the Union which at
present threaten a separation, we find, if out
memory does not deceive us, for we have not
the official account before us, that their exports
exceed in value 34,000,000 of dollars, and that
their imports are only about 9,000,000. All
the remaining returns for this immense difference
must, thus come to them through the ,other
states, and must consist of articles supplied them

either from their . own fellow-citizens of the
North, or from foreigners through the medium
of Northern dealers, on the scale of protecting
prices. Having thtis briefly explained the
grounds of this dissensioh between the general
Government of North Ame'r'ica and four impor-
tant Members of the America; Union, which,
though much talked of, is little undeystood in
this country, we must postpone some fuither ob-
servations on the past history of the dispute, its
present aspect, and its probable consequences, to
a future opportunity. The President must make
it the subject of a communication to Congress,
in his address at the opening of the Session, and
though the Session is to be short, some legisla-
tive measure must be introduced to answer so
pressing an emergency. Georgia has already
dismissed the Custom-house officers of the
Union, and the State Government of South
Carolina has resolved to pay no more duties ac•
cording to the existing tariff.— Times.

A whole volume of letters has been addressed
to us upon the vote by ballot,—a question
which seems to have called into play much more
violence and intolerance of opposition on both
sides than can in any manner conduce to the
development of truth, or consequently to a pre-
ference by the Parliament of that policy which
might be, in itself, the wisest. We are not par-
tisans either of the ballot or of open voting, and
the few remarks which we have thrown out upon
the subject have certainly not borrowed anything
from a bias unfavourable to rational experiments
in legislation merely because they are experi-
ments. The Reform Bill was an experiment
on a majestic scale, and the country was right
in encouraging and supporting its authors ; it is
not, therefore, from a childish fear of what has
been invidiously termed "innovation" that sober
and disinterested persons, who have been stead-
fast advocates of Reform, feel compelled to hang
hack amidst this popular eagerness for the privi-
lege of voting in the dark. Our own impression
with regard to it is one of doubt and distrust,
rather than of positive condemnation. We are
not blind (who can be so ?) to the glaring
abuses of influence and power which show them-
selves in the proceedings of almost every election
throughout the kingdom, nor is it possible for
an honest man to restrain his indignation at
their iniquity and frequency. But when we are
told with infinite confidence of an expedient
which is to operate like a charm for the
destruction of all such practices, must not every
reasonable person be anxious to know whether
the proposed measure is likely to prove in
reality the charm which it pretends to be,—
whether it will be, in fact, any remedy at
all, or a mere verbal nostrum, of no sensible
efficacy towards the removal of a single evil now
complained of, though probably creative of one
or two others from which we are at present free ?
This, we repeat, is a just subject of inquiry, not
of headlong declamation and invective. If the
ballot be recommended as a safeguard against
the menaces of the powerful towards the weak,
by reason of the secrecy in which every voter
may envelop himself, it is surely fair to ask some
assurance, by argument as well as asseveration,
that the ballot will afford that secrecy and that
safeguard against intimidation. Our opinion
has been already declared that men's votes under
the ballot will be as well known as they now are,
or, at least, that their promises will be exacted
with as much importunity as ever, and that he
who gains anything in the way of security by the
ballot must be he does so at the expense of his
integrity and good faith. Even granting (what_
we think most unlikely) the soundness of the
protection obtained for timid men through the
ballot, is there, let us ask, no countervailing mis.
chief in the introduction of a principle of dis-
guise and mystery into the enjoyment of an
Englishman's noblest rights, under which the
most honest and high-minded man in the empire
cannot shield himself against the suspicion of hay- ,
ing exercised those rights unworthily? We admit,
and let it never be lost sight of, that influence has
been, as we fear it will ever be in some
cases, employed for selfish purposes,—that
evil stares us in the face. It would be unjust in
any one to charge us with a blindness or indif-
ference to that revolting abuse ; but even, once
more, assuming that influence, not merely by
threats but by promises, to be fulfilled in the
event of a certain candidate's return, might be
greatly curtailed—demolished it never could be
—by the ballot—assuming this, our fear is not
unreasonable that the advantage might be dearly
bought. The elective franchise is understood by
the constitution to be a trust. Is a political
trustee to be wholly irresponsible, by shrouding
himself in darkness, and laughing to scorn the
superintendence of his countrymen and the con-
trol of public opinion ? If reprehensible things
be done in open day, things more shameful may
be reckoned on when there are no witnesses to
fear, and there is no account to be rendered.
Now, the public eye scans the vote of every
elector, and takes cognizance of his app:trent
motives, are there no malignant passions to be
indulged by a recourse to the balloting urn ? If
it be of importance (and it is inappreciable) that
representatives should always have in their recol-
lection the views and principles entertained by
their constituents, is it not essential to the ac-
curacy and usefulness of such a recollection,
that where differences of sentiment exist, as they
must for the most part among electors, the
Member of Parliament should be able to satisfy
himself and others that such and such opinionsare
in truth and practice upheld by such and such indi-
viduals or classes of the constituency, so that the
weight of the authority which supports each Mem-
ber may be correctly assigned to him and estimated
by him ? There is no doubt that public meetings, so
long as they are the fashion in this country, may
form (in spite of the ballot) an instrument for
ascertaining the degree of sympathy between a
Member of Parliament and the several subdivi-
sions of his constituents. Far be it from us,
above all men, to undervalue that great national
institution of popular assemblies freely called to-
gether to discuss either local interests or ques-
tions affecting the whole state itself; but is there
no probability that with the ballot (provided it
did secure secrecy of suffrage, which we do not
credit) might creep in a taste for general isola-
tion and concealment, to the gradual decline, and
ultimately the exclusion, of that fearless publi-
city which has been heretofore the distinction of
our English political system,—a substitution, as
it were, of midnight, with the mask and stiletto,
for the cudgel, the open defiance, and the broad
face of day? On this highly interesting and
critical question of the ballot, all that we would
now suggest to our countrymen are dispassionate
inquiry and patient consideration before it be
irrevocably adopted. It is not clear that many
of those who clamour for it have much acquain-
tance with its results and operation elsewhere.
In North America:o.tlron o
bronfghbrtibweisth; itn nowhere
secrecy nor the h
.loes more rancorous bitterness arise out of the
notoriety of each citizen's vote,—nowhere are

more impure and flagitious means resorted to
for the gaining over a majority. Does the bal
lot, then, guru d the weak against intimidation ?
and if it really possessed that advantage, which,
as we have seen, is far from indisputable, might
it not be too dearly purchased ?—Times.
There is no subject more interesting to a
reflecting individual than the state and condition
of the labouring population ; but we are com-
pelled to say that there is also no subject which
`is more calculated to fill an individual with ap-
prehension. Every now and then the public
attention is arrested by transactions which indi-
cate a most alarming state of demoralization.
Let us take, for instance, the recent murder a,
Enfield Chase. Murder is comparatively rare
in England ; and it is not to the murder itself
that we wish to draw attention. But what ought
to make a strong impression is, the cool and
easy manner in which a number of individuals
seem to have discoursed on the robbery of the
sailor. We fear that in almost every parish
throughout a great part of the country will be
found a number of individuals whose notions of
right and wrong hang equally loose about them,
and who keep each other in countenance in evil
doing. The tendency of the treatment of the
labourers, as was observed by Mr. Baron Gur-
ney, in his charge at Lewes, " was to drive the
labourer to the beer-house, where he soon
learned to become a participator in all sorts of
vice, and ultimately of crime." Where men are
spirit-broken, their morals must necessarily be
bad. Men are everywhere driven in herds tp
work in the high roads, or in gravel pits, where,
being without the stimulus of a proper reward
for their labour, and, consequently, incensed
against society, they soon learn to look, if not,
with complacency, at least with indifference, on
what men in good circumstances view with hor-
ror. The labourers have discernment enough
to see, that they themselves are the victims of
fraud and injustice. They see everywhere their
employers engaged in a game of cheating each
other, warping the law to their purposes ; and,
though they have not themselves the saving
power of warping the law, they know that they
can easily elude it. In an article on the Pout
Laws, in the last number of the Quarterly
Review, we have the following too faithful pic-
ture of English village life :

" It is sufficient to observe, that these payments (i. e.
out of rates) to labourers already in full work, are at,
illegal and fraudulent device of the large farmers, for shift
ing a portion of the necessary wages of their labourers op
the small farmers—who have little or no labour—the
tradesmen, householders, and clergyman of the parish ;
that they tend to reduce the nominal wages of labour to
the bare maintenance of a single man, the wives and fa-
milies being turned over to the parish, and thus to con-
vert the where labouring population into paupers, receiv-
ing their means of maintenance at the parish pay-table as
eleemosynary relief; and in portions determined, not b)
their relative industry, or the value of their labour, but
by the number of months in each family. The gross re-
c..ipts of the working class, wages and relief together,
may be, and in some places are thus cut down to the
minimum on which the lives of the individual men,
women and children can be sustained, according to a nice
calculation from the price of necessaries !
" Those who have not personally witnessed the work.
ing of this deleterious practice can scarcely form a con-
ception of the scenes which take place almost daily, before
a Magistrate, in those rural districts where the Alpe is
countenanced. Let us give a sample; the dramatis per.
sonce are the Justice, the overseer, and the able-bodied
labourer :

" I.lbourer—` I'm come for relief, your Worship.
I've a wi'e and four children, and work for farmer
Clark. He gives me eight shillings a week wages, but I
can't keep my family on that. I have been to the Over-
seer to have my pay made up, but he won't give me
nothing.' _ _

" Justice—' Well, Overseer, why don't you make up
this man's wages? A family of six cannot be expected to
live on less than ten shillings a week at the very lowest.'

" Overseer—' Your Honour, the rest of the farmers,
all but Farmer Clark, give ten shillings a week, and if he
did the same, this man might keep his family well on his
earnings. But the rest say, that if they are obliged to
support the families of Clark's servants out of the rates,
why they must lower their wages to eight shillings too,
and throw tbe families of their labourers upon the parish
likewi•e.'

Justice—' It can't be helped. The wife and children
of this man must not starve ; and I have no power to
make Farmer Clark pay higher wages than he chooses
to offer ; so you must allow the two shillings necessary
to make up his pay.'
" The consequence is that the other farmers are com-
pelled, in self protection, to lower their wages to eight
shillings; upon which farmer Cl ak reduced his to six,
and the same scene is, perhaps, re-enacted at the next
Petty Session., with the substitution of six for eight
shillings as the lowest rate of wages, and eight for t •n
as the higher. The final result is, that in some district.
the wages of farm labour are reduced during the winter
mouths to three or four shillings a week for an able man ;
anti almost every individual of the labouring class is, as
a thing of course, on the parish books a pauper. We
have known an able-bodied single man set to thrash corn
in a barn at sixpence a day, by the side of another not a
whit stronger or better workman than himself, but who,
because be bad a wife and five children, was receiving
two shilings per day. Judge of the feelings of the first
min, of his probable inclination to work on such terms,
and then wonder who can that he preferred a vagabond
and criminal life to one of industry—so rewarded.'
We have not space now for entering on the
consideration of the remedies for this horrible
state of things. But by way of contrast, we
shall lay before our readers an account of the
state of the peasantry in what is considered the
very worst Government in Europe—Turkey—
as given in a clever work just published, " Re-
cords of Travels in Turkey, Greece, &c., and of
a Cruise in the Black Sea with the Capital)
Pasha, in the years 1829, 30, and 31, by
Adolphus Slade Esq." Speaking of the Bul-
garians, he says—
" No peasantry in the whole world are so well off. The
lowest Bulgarian has abundance of everything ; meat,
poultry, eggs, milk, rice, cheese, wine, bread, gooti
clothing, and a warm dwelling, and a horse to ride "
Where then, it may be asked, viewing the above true
statement, is the tyranny under which the Christian sub-
jects of the Porte are geaerally supposed to groan ? Not
among the Bulgarians certainly. I wish that in every
country a traveller could pass from one end to the other,
and find a good supper and a warm fire in every cottage,
as be can in European Turkey—the result of its being
thinly inhabited ; for in the same ratio as population
adds to a nation's greatness, it subtracts from its happi-
ness. The soil, when over occupied, fattens on man ;
when under tenanted, man fattens on the soil—that is, in
the former case unremitting labour is requisite to m ,ke
it yield barely sufficient for the sustenance of numbers ;
in the latter case Nature requires very little aid to afford
plenty for the few. The principal grievance of the Chris-
tian peasant in Turkey is the harratch ; oftentimes lie cannot
pay it. What can the collector do ? It is useless distraining
his cattle, for on the plain are others wild. It is useless taking
his furniture, for their is no vent for it. It is useless
ejecting him, for no other occupier will be found for his
tenement, every man having already more land than be
requires in a country without herds to consume the sur-
plus of his produce. It is still more useless putting him
in prison, for money is never gained there. lle gives him
the bastinado, or nut, according as he believes that the
man's poverty in specie is real or feigned. A few dozen
blows decides the doubt, and he is undisturbed for another
year. I venture to say that many a freeborn man, who
boasts of liberal sentiments, of chartered rights, of equal
laws, would gladly compound for his rent with a licking;
a d instead of grumbling at his fate, bless heaven that he
is not turned out on the high road with his family. At
the same time, I do not deny, that the lower classes in
Turkey often suffer grievous oppression under a rascally
Pasha or Aga ; but take their position in the worst view,
distorted by the film of slavery, they never see the
lyrist ruthless of tyrants—hunger. e
Their rulers cannot check the fertility of nature—cannot
prevent the beasts of the field from m :
the trees of the forest from sprouting—nor the seed
thrown on the ground from springing up into ear•

They may have tile mortification of seeing many of their
children die, when young, for want of medical aid ; but
they are certain that those who grow up will not be re-
duced to follow their career of vice—the eons on the high-
way, the daughters on the pavS—for subsistence. They
ire not tantalized by the constant sight of enjoyments be-
yond their reach ; are not tempted by easy modes of con-
veyance to leave their quiet villages for the fancied plea-
sures in the capital; are not made discontented by reading
with the state of life wherein destiny cast them ; and to
mm up the advantages which the poor have in such (bar-
`.arous !) countries, it is worthy of remark, that the
pu-
nishment of death rarely falls on them. For one poor
man who loses his band in Turkey, five hundred rich men
lose theirs. How contrary to the practice of highly ci-
vilized States—elysiums for the wealthy, purgatories for
the indigent—where the hungry and the naked—wretches
whose greatest crime was want—are the principal offer-
ings at the shrine of justice."
This account of Mr. Slade exactly tallies with
the descriptions given by Hacquet, one of the
Emperor Joseph's Professors, who travelled ex-
tensively in the European provinces of Turkey
for scientific purposes. Speaking of the misery
in every part of the West of Europe, from ex-
cessive population, he says, " In many countries
of Europe the privations of the people from ex-
cessive population are intolerable. We are every-
where crowded with human beings, and the
wretchedness increases every day, especially since
all have been allowed to marry, without knowing
how they are to be maintained. How happy,
on the other hand, are the people in the fertile
provinces of the Turkish empire, where there
are still few people ; all the means of subsistence
abound—the forests abound with game, and
there are the noblest meadows where the grass
reaches the height of a man.! The fields lie fallow
for a year, and no dung is required. In such
countries, epidemics are deemed the wholesome
restorers of the equilibrium in nature." If we
are to believe these gentlemen, the problem of
the Utilitarians is solved in Turkey, where
we find the greatest happiness of the greatest
number.—Morning Chronicle.
Every friend of humanity—every one who is
anxious for the advancement of the civilized in-
terests of mankind—every one who abhors the
havoc and violence with which reckless politicians
afflict mankind, and desolate the earth for their
selfish purposes or mere pastime, must rejoice
that the scenes of slaughter which the " me-
diators" of the Belgic and Dutch quarrel
enacted in the vicinity of Antwerp have been
brought to a termination, at least for the present.
The only result which has flowed from the san-
guinary purchase of the citadel is, that the con-
flict has raised the character of the Dutch for
bravery and military skill, while, in the latter re-
spect, the: reputation of the French army has se-
verely suffered—it having taken 75,000 men
three weeks to reduce a garrison of little more
than 4,000, while, in the year 1793, it took a
smaller French army only three days to reduce
both Antwerp and its citadel ! Much is said
about the probability of the surrender of the
dependent forts. It is anticipated by some that
the King of Holland will not give a pretext for
the longer delay of the French troops in Bel-
gium, by refusing to give up those forts, now
that the citadel is gone ; but if the King of
Holland intended that they should follow the
fate of the citadel, it is strange that he should
have taken the chief command of them away
from General Chasse just before the French
commenced the siege, that it might not be in
the power of the General to surrender them if
he would. In making this arrangement the
King evidently calculated upon the fall of the
citadel, and on the possibility of still being able
to retain both Lillo and Lief kenshoek, both of
which have been inundated to an extent of two
or three miles in circuit, and which would of
course offer great difficulties and delay to the ope-
rations of a besieging army. Whether the King
of Holland will now abide by this determination
remains to be seen. Possibly the same merciful
consideration which induced him to stop the effu-
sion of blood, by instructing Chasse to strike his
flag before the dreadful carnage of the assault
began, may ineline him to give up the de-
pendent forts—the Dutch troops having now
done sufficient, in the face of an overwhelming
force, to establish their character for prowess and
intrepidity. If not, it is impossible not to be-
lieve that some ulterior operations are in view,
which makes the Dutch King not at all anxious
that the French army should recross the Belgian
frontiers. But, supposing the dependent forts,
as well as the citadel, placed in the hands of the
Belgians, the question of the navigation of the
Scheldt, of the capitalization of the debt, and
the freedom of the inland waters of Holland,
remain just where they were before—only with
this difference, that the temper of the King of
Holland must be rendered less practicable than
it was, on the disputed points by the injuries
and provocation which he has received. It will
be well, indeed, if Lords Grey and Palmerston
ambitious
can now have the terms which Prussia offered on
behalf of Holland just before the infamous ag-
gression against that country, which will inflict
thee.
tl of
i )
ep Eon
an indelible stain
commerce
w
uponit w
cie
to h
we say
character
s y
land, whose Ministers sacrificed Dutch alliance
andcy
oif of
trthheGe Eon Government,
repudiatedirhc
Cabinetm o:
terms
afterr
can now be obtained by
of so much blood as Lord Palmerston's " fan-
ciful war has occasioned. And here we cannot
avoid remarking on the gross inconsistency of
those Treasury journals that tell us, on the au-
thority of the sapient and facetious Secretary
for Foreign Affairs, that there is, or has
been, no Dutch war at all ; that the thou-
sands of French who have been buried in the
trenches, or are now maimed and mutilated in
the hospitals of Antwerp, Berchem, Brussels,
Malines, &c., have only been slain or mangled
in " lively sallies of the imagination," and that
even the Belgians who have suffered from the
balls of their French allies have only mistaken
their fancied afflictions, brought upon them by
their own friends, for the real calamities of
war. Those very Journals now tell us that the
Dutch garrison of the citadel remain as " pri-
soners of war" in the hands of their captors.
How there can be prisoners of war, when, in
fact, there is no war, we leave to the ingenious
parasites of Lord Palmerston to explain. If the
French army, having by the reduction of the
dependent forts fulfilled their ostensible mission,
should forthwith recross the frontiers, how is
Leopold to be supported on the throne, it now
being proved beyond all doubt, that he and his
" brave Belgians are utterly incapable of main-
taining a conflict with the Dutch ? If he can
only be kept on the throne by French power,
Belgium can be considered nothing else than a
province of France ; and thus our attack upon
the King of Holland will only have served to
aggrandise our great rival at the expense of the
best interests of this country.—Morn.Herald.
We received last night Dutch papers and
letters to the 26th instant. The latter describe
the gloom which had been cast upon the spirits
of the people by the intelligence just received as
these advices were leaving of the critical position

of Chasse and impending fall of the citadel of
Antwerp. But though disheartening, the firm•.
ness of the Government does not appear to be
greatly shaken by the ominous communications ;
and these papers speak of the new arrangements
of the naval forces upon the Scheldt, for the
better repelling future aggressive movements of
the French in that particular quarter. This in-
telligence had arrived too recently to leave time
for judging, or even collecting any trustworthy
materials for speculation as to the ultimate in-
tentions of the King with respect to it ; but at
present every indication appears to favour a
perseverance on his part, as far as his means
will allow, in the course of resistance which
he has hitherto pursued. The destruction of the
fleet of gun-boats by the Dutch Captain, on the
fall of the citadel, is one fact which seems
strongly indicative of the intention of Holland
not peaceably to give up the Forts Lillo and
Liefkenshoek. That would have been a wan-
ton and senseless act of destruction, if it were
not to prevent the French from making use of
those boats in attacking the inundated forts.
Another fact is, the order given to the Zeeuw
ship of war to return to Flushing, and there
take up a position of observation for any future
emergency. A question quite new, and it ap-
pears unconnected with that of Antwerp, now
arises respecting the two forts which we have
mentioned. It is known that these forts are
isolated by extensive inundations of the polders,
and, as the waters remain unfrozen, it would re-
quire a maritime force to enable the French to
reduce them, provided the King of Holland re-
fuses to give them up, on learning the capitula-
tion of the citadel. That he will quietly surren-
der them is very improbable, inasmuch as, when he
withdrew them from the command of Chasse, it
was in contemplation of the event which has
just occurred, and with the determination of
retaining them after that event. If nothing has
since occurred to alter that determination, the
French must go on with the campaign. The
Dutch, notwithstanding the late reverses, seem
to be in no haste to finish it. Several ships,
which had been suffered to escape the blockade
in England, had arrived in Dutch ports—a cir-
cumstance which appears to have given great
satisfaction, as well for the sake of the property
saved, as that it shows the people begin to flatter
themselves that the English Government has at
length seen its error, and would withdraw from
too open a sanction of the French outrage.
These accounts fairly admit a repulse in the
attempt at Doel, of which our readers have al-
ready heard through the Belgian correspondence,
and a loss of 14 killed and 60 wounded upon
their side. Their candour throughout upon
the vicissitudes of the short campaign does them
great credit.—Morning Herald.

The cannon of the Invalides at Paris were
fired on Monday last for the first time, in token
of triumph, since the capture of Algiers in 1830,
about three weeks before the just and necessary
revolution which expelled the Bourbons from
France and placed the existing dynasty on the
French throne. For the first time since the
establishment of the general peace in 1814 has
the tricolour led a French army to victory. The
first time since her revolution of 1830 has France
exerted her military power beyond her own ter-
ritory, under the dominion of a strong and faith-
ful Government—and in concert with an honest
and powerful ally, solemnly renouncing for each
and for both all objects of territorial aggrandize-
ment,—all purposes of commercial monopoly,
—all interference with internal institutions,—and
acting solely as the arbiters of peace and the pro-
tectors of national independence. The French,
having accomplished the object of their expedi-
tion, are about to retire to their own country,
and to show the force of their institutions by-
their moderation in success. The King of
Holland has thus at a cheap rate for the Go-
vernment of Louis Philip, given him an oppor-
tunity of proving what a powerful army he can
in a few weeks bring into the field, how promptly
and zealously his commands are obeyed and his
attacks sustained by the nation—and, what is
more, with what courageous self-denial his troops
can retire when they have conquered, and falsify
the predictions of their ambitious usurpation.
Do we grudge the French army and the French
Cabinet the praise which each in their turn
seems to deserve for the conduct of their enter-
prise ? By no means. We are convinced that
this expedition to Belgium will be more useful
to Europe, in averting the chances and calami-
ties of a general war, than glorious to France in
conferring a trifling addition to her military re-
nown. But if any party, if any faction, or if
any political coterie is precluded from expressing
a murmur of complaint or dissatisfaction at the
turn which affairs in the Netherlands have taken,
at the renewed career of French military success
in that quarter—if any body of politicians are
justly prevented from evincing any alarm for the
future independence of Belgium by seeing the
necessity of its establishment, in the first instance,
by foreign bayonets—or if any persons have sur-
rendered their right to announce an appre-
hension that the tricolour, 44 fanned by victory's
crimson wing," may march beyond the walls of
Antwerp to the east or the north, it is surely
not the Reformers of England, nor the liberal
members of the London Conference, but the
obstinate members of the Dutch Government,
deceived, duped, or misled by the dispised Tory
intriguers of this country. Every man of com-
mon sense or common candour who knows
anything of the course of the late negotiations
must admit the reluctance which the English
Government always manifested to undertake
coercive measures against Holland. Everybody
admits that the French Ministry desired to be
equally quiescent. Everybody is aware that all
the means of persuasion, of entreaty, and of
menace, were exhausted in vain before the treaty
of October 22 was signed, the combined squa-
drons sailed, or the French army advanced. Even
at the last hour, when that extraordinary cor-
respondence which we lately published was forced
upon Earl Grey, and when it appeared, on the
showing of the Dutch Government itself, that
the whole ostensible difference lay between one
guilder and three of a toll on the Scheldt na-
vigation, the French troops would have been
arrested on the frontier, and the half-drawn
sword would have been for ever sheathed,
had the Dutch Plenipotentiary been allowed
or empowered to surrender the citadel of Ant-
werp—now taken—as a pledge of Dutch sin-
cerity, anti a commencement of executing the
treaty which had been agreed upon after two
years' negotiation. The faction of the English
Conservatives, then, who basely wrought upon
his Dutch Majesty to hold out
.that they might
get in, are not only to blame for all the losses
which King William has sustained, and for all
the blood that he has caused to be shed—but
for all the renewed eclat which, according to
their complaint, the French army has acquired,
and for all the additional impulse which he has
given to the military genius of the French

people. It would be too late now to discuss the
principles on which this armed intervention 01,
France and England between the two contend-
ing Sovereigns in the Netherlands has taker*.
place, even though we had not, on many former oc-.
casions, sufficiently explained and defended thew;
but we beg it to be constantly and distinctly borne
in mind, that our intervention had no reference
.
to internal government,—that it had not for its
object either to establish or modify internal insti-
tutions—that, if it enables two nations to separate
themselves without fighting, Europe had for'
merly forced them to combine without desiring
union ; and that in all cases where the dispute
lies about external boundary, or the amount of
territorial dominion, nations whose vicinage ev
poses them to be affected by the quarrel have
right to interfere. The interference of England
and France on this occasion has been of the

most disinterested and generous nature. Thelill
capitulation of the citadel of Antwerp gives 0' J I.'
thing to France ; all its articles evince a noble
concession to the spirit of peace in which the e't' el
pedition originated. The Dutch garrison are 'h
not even to be prisoners of war longer than ther I
surrender of the two forts of Lillo and Lter L....,
kenshoek, whatever may be the ultimate result ()i.
the present dispute. His Dutch Majesty o'4 ihi
be dead to every feeling of honour and llti'i
manity if after this, for the paltry purpose t' II:LT
gaining a few pence more of a navigation tollt°r)titti
with the senseless hope of recovering his, forme (1,
power, he resists the amicable overtures of his allies, a
In order to point out to our Conservative fomenters . •
of foreign war, and our unpatriotic libellers 0' ht,
French honour, how vain are their hopes in the 'fit
former case, and how unjust their aspersions'" •
the latter, we need only allude to an expression ,
ii
or two in the Gazette de France, the leader Oi,
the legitimate party against the existing Fre",4Bl
Government. " The French have been brave' %;
I i .
. fo re
says that print, " before Antwerp as ue !v
Algiers. What a misfortune that Antwerp does NA!
not remain with us like Algiers, and that t"- tii
alliance of England, which prevents us front ri.e.!pi
taming the price of French blood, should:: IM i
more powerful now than her menaces in 181 111
which could not prevent us from keeping t'u,; tbi"lj
African conquest !" " But, thanks to Heave°, t:,,,
adds the Gazette, " French blood will flow i!c) -..--..
more, and the phantom of a general war is d'
sipated." Let our Conservatives read this pas
,44,
sage,—not the less just in its statement because El
intensely French in its sentiment,—and theu R/
let them talk of our Ministerial Gallontanta: re,
t
and of our having endangered the peace of Eti Pt
rope to promote the interests of France l V 131
Times. '-'
th