The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-11 00:00:00

enough—it was for papers merely ; the Right
Hon. Gentleman was not " the advocate of
Pedro or of Miguel ;" he wanted not " to aid
any particular dynasty." We believe him. He
wanted nothing but to delay the Bill,—to try the
strength of his party to attempt to fish for
papers on which to ground some yet undefined
charge against his Majesty's Government, and
"to aid" the Opposition in expelling the Mi-
nisters from office. It is rather curious that Mr.
Courtenay should have inserted among the ob-
jects of his proposition the wish to prevail upon
the present Government to pursue a course of
policy " conducive to the maintenance of peace,"
and this at the commencement of a speech in
which, and throughout the debate which fol-
lowed it, the mover and his friends made it the
chief topic of their accusations against Ministers,
that they had abstained from a system of mea..,
sures which must beyond all human power of
prevention have long involved this country in a
war with France ! It may not be difficult to
understand such a seeming paradox, or to recon-
cile it with the views of a certain party. The peace
so much desired is a peace at all hazards, and under
every contingency, with the European Holy Alli-
ance ; while to insure tranquillity on that side, and
to improve it into a fast and indissoluble friend-
ship, the Right Hon. Gentleman's old associates
would make little objection, we fear, to a " war
at all hazards," with that nation against which
the former Holy Alliance was directed, and with
purposes not over favourable to which another
Holy Alliance, if any exists, has been framed.
Mr. Courtenay dreads the growth of republi-
canism in Europe—the possible growth of des-
potism is a theme on which he delights not to
dwell. If the Anti-Reform party were sincere
in their doctrine of non-interference with foreign
Powers, how comes it in a matter vitally affecting
the honour of the French Government and the
rights of its subjects, they have raised such an
outcry because the King of England did not de-
feat the efforts of Louis Philip to obtain redress
of multiplied injuries from Don Miguel ? After
Great Britain had set the example of forcing
Miguel to make reparation for his wrongs against
herself, was there ever any thing so monstrous as
would been an attempt on our part to interfere
between France and a similar demand of justice?
It is needless to ring the changes, as was
done in the House of Commons, on the pre-
cise amount of tyranny practised towards French
citizens by the Portuguese usurper. That most
inhuman oppression was inflicted upon citizens
of France is on record ; and the paltry and low-
minded tricks and artifices by which Miguel
struggled, first to conceal the crimes of his
agents, and afterwards to evade the application
for redress, were only less obvious in the case of
France than in that of England, because the
proceedings of the latter Government in the na-
ture of remonstrance and negotiation had been
more prolonged than that of her neighbour, al-
though the final resort to maritime coercion by
the English Minister was perhaps more prompt
and decisive than that of the Ministers of Louis
Philippe, so loudly inveighed against by Mr.
Courtenay and his friends as an attack upon
Portuguese independence. In fact, the pretext
for censure upon Ministers is twofold,—first,
that they have not protected Miguel against
France, whose honour he had insulted,—next,
that they have not taken part with the same
Miguel against his brother, whose confidence he
had basely betrayed, against his niece, whose
Crown he had wickedly usurped, and against
the cause of constitutional liberty in Por-
tugal, of which all the best friends, and
advocates, and supporters, he had banished
to Africa, immured in dungeons, or mer-
cilessly butchered. It is singular that in
one instance Miguel should be represented
as having claims to British protection founded
on the policy of upholding the ancient
friendship between Portugal and this country—a
friendship which Don Miguel, by every act of
his Government, showed an inveterate anxiety to
renounce ; and in another instance, that Mini-
sters should be called upon to strain the law of
nations, or indeed to violate it, in favour of him
whose usurpation of the Crown of Portugal, not
England, but all Europe, has openly condemned,
and against her whom the same England ac-
knowledged as the rightful Sovereign ; we say
it is an odd coincidence, that where either an
undue infraction of the rights of other indepen-
dent Powers, or an unworthy sacrifice of the
rights of England, has been called for by certain
anti-reforming gentlemen, in both cases, whether
of outrage or of meanness, the party for whose in-
terest and advantage it would operate, happens to
be the same virtuous Don Miguel. Is there not
something more in this than can be explained by
vulgar philosophy ? One point is clear. By
the course which Lord Palmerston has adopted,
peace has to this hour been happily preserved ;
whereas, by the course which he is arraigned
for not following, a war with France would have
been inevitable. The value of the policy which
has been pursued may be judged from a single
truth, which probably will not be disputed,—viz.
that if England and France were separated in
their European objects, the apprehension which
restrains the despotic monarchies of the conti-
nent would be instantly removed, and an imme-

.....
diate attack on the principle of free Government,
in the person of Louis Philip, would be made
by common acclamation, whilst now that the Fo-
reign Secretary speaks in cheering terms of a pro-
longed maintenance of cordial friendship with
France, it is difficult to imagine from what ex-
isting elements a general war could be concocted.
—Times.

It is eminently deserving of public observa-
tion that one of the crimes for which human Oft
is ordered to be taken at the scaffold of the Old

Bailey on Monday next is one of the three spe-
cified 9ffences contained in Mr. Ewart's notice

of motion for a repeal of the punishment of
death, those offences being horse-stealing, steal-
ing in the dwelling-house, and cattle-stealing.'
It is for the last-mentioned offence that Henry
(Veils is doomed, within a brief number of hours
from this time, to die by the hands of the exe-
cutioner.
The notice which Mr. Ewan had
given of a motion for leave to bring in a
Bill to abolish the punishment of death for
the offences above stated, was first entered
upon the Parliamentary paper many months
ago. It has been *repeatedly postponed—so
often, indeed, as to excite in the minds of sonic
persons doubts whether Mr. Ewart was sincere
in taking up the subject at all ; while others
thought it might be to make way for the Reforth
measure. Whether the latter may be the true

certain
cause or not we cannot Say ;but
it v

does not appear to us to be a sufficient
one. The French Chamber of Deputies
found time to revise and make considerable
improvements and ameliorations in the cri-
minal code, although the important and corn-
plicated questions which the Government
to attend
and Chambers had necessarily

:o since the revolution would, at least,