The Sun.
London, England, 1832-08-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

In alludistlyesteidaytosthe state of affairs in
Portugal, we had not -room for a few intended
observations of a general character, which the
present aspect and probable result of the con-
test would appear to warrant, Our correspon-
dent " Lucitanus," in the letter which we have
published, has well pleaded the cause of his con-
stitutional countrymen ; but it did not require
his extensive knowledge of their sufferings and
constancy, or his profound acquaintance with the
villainy and perfidy to which they have been for
the last four years sacrificed, to raise a claim to
British sympathy, or even to British justice, in
their favour. In every word which he has said
of their merits in adhering faithfully to their
political opinions and engagements, through de-
sertion and persecution, we fully concur. In
his portraiture of the oppressions practised by
the Usurper in Portugal itself, and the justice
of his excommunication from the class of legi-
timate Sovereigns, we willingly admit the fide-
lity of his pencil ; and it would give us infinite
pleasure to learn that his anticipations of the
speedy overthrow of the oppressor, and of the
establishment of a rational Government under the
Veign of the young Queer., were realized. It is
:sheSene to the civilization of the 19th century,
Alo',d particularly to the character of the existing
free Governments of Europe, which, marching
in the van of political improvement, ought to
hate encouraged their elder but more infirm
companions in the same career, to find two an•
cient and renowned nations like Spain and Por•
tugal, to whom the world owes so much glor)
and so many discoveries, at the general revive
of knowledge, art, and enterprise, placed it
the circumstances in which they now exist. I
is disgraceful to think, that connected as the
have been with us in the grand struggle for na•
'Solid independence, and for the deliverance ol
terope from foreign thraldom, their internal
bondage has only been increased by their tempo-
rary alliance with freemen. But it is more espe-
cially disgraceful to reflect that their very victories
have been the means by which they have been
more intolerably enslaved; that their companions
in the noblest feats of arms which history can
record, have left them behind to the oppres-
sions of their domestic tyrants; that, while we
ascended the Capitol in triumph, they were de-
graded like captives in the rear of the conqueror,
instead of being taken as sharers in his glory ;
and that the leagues which we formed onl)
brought upon them the barbarous despotism of
the North, to add to the weight of their former
chains. By the establishment of the Holy Alli-
ance—which our joint success alone rendered
possible----the least civilized power of Europe
was brought from the neighbourhood of the Pole
to influence the destinines of the south, and
try dies-wing her sword into the scale in which
theis rights were weighed against the pretensions
of their tyrants, turned the balance against them.
England is thus inadvertently the cause of their
present degradation and sufferings—England is
thus the cause of that state of things, by which
the beet instructed and most respectable part of the
vote, nations are in exile or in dungeons—by which
confiscation has deprived them of their property,
and left them to the mercy of strangers. But our
connexion with the miseries and oppressions of
the Portuguese Constitutionalists is even more
recent than the formation of the Holy Alliance,
or the decrees of the Congress of Laybach and
Verona, by which so many constitutions wert
overthrown. The very existence of Don Miguel
on the banks of the Tagus, his return to Por-
tugal, after having been banished for attempting
to dethrone and murder his father—his vet-)
power of usurping the throne of his niece, and
of overthrowing the charter established by his
hrother—the flight of the Constitutionalists to
our shores—die judicial murders and massacre:
which awaited those taken at Lisbon and Oporte
for the last four years—all these atrocities and
calumnies may be directly traced to our acci-
dental interference, though not, of course, to
ottr intended policy. It was by our counsels
that Don Miguel was released from Vienna it.
the end of 1827. It was with our concurrence
that his pretensions were united with the right!
of his niece by a hateful marriage. It ww
through our advice that he was invested with the
Regency of Portugal. Our Ambassador at
Vienna ... attended all the solemn ceremonies
of contracting and swearing, by the breach o:
which so much perfidy and perjury was after-
wards committed. He was invited through
England to Portugal, that we might testify to
the Portuguese Constitutionalists our confidence
in their future ruler. He was escorted to the
Tagus by an English squadron, attended by am
English Ambassador—he took the oath to the
Charter, in the presence of the Chambers, and
before the diplomacy of Europe, headed by the
English minister. Our troops, who had beet
sent the year before out to oppose his partisans.
were present to protect his person, and to inau-
gurate his reign ; and he was seated on his
throne against the will of his brother, and amid
the darkest suspicions of the nation, chiefly b)
English influence or concurrence. Thus did we
almost become responsible for the horrors which,
immediately followed ; and we showed out
sense of responsibility by immediately re-
calling our ambassador when Don Miguel
broke his engagements,—by receiving with wel-
come the Constitutionalists, whom our polies
had inadvertently sacrificed,—and by refusing to
acknowledge the title of the Usurper ever since.
Even the Duke of Wellington, though he or-
dered the firing at Terceira, would not agree to
recognize the Usurper without a full amnest)
for those Portuguese, who, in reliance on our en.
gagements and support, had admitted the
" monster" to devastate their country and to
destroy their rights. Why do we recur to these
facts and reasonings at present ? Not, we an-
swer, for the purpose of urging our Government,
as a Government, to interfere directly in the
contest now going on in Portugal ; or to lend
assistance, in arms, to the cause of the young
Queen, whose tithe we have acknowledged ; but
for the purpose of showing, that this country
should lend all the moral aid it can to a faithful
people, whom we have so misled, and to whom
we so deeply owe reparation. An expression
of sympathy with the cause of the Constitution-
alists in the King's speech at the approaching
prorogation of Parliament, would only appear to
us to be a just atonement for the apparent in-
difference with which it has hitherto been
treated. We are convinced that the Por-
tuguese Constitutionalists must rely on their
own resources for their ultimate success,
but an allusion of our Sovereign to the
rights of her Faithful Majesty—to the gallantry
with which those rights are now sustained, or
to the interest which all free nations must take
in their establishment, would bind us to no ac-

tive interference, while it would be an appro-
priate encouragement to the champions of legiti-
macy and freedom, in their struggle with the
basest usurpation and despotism which ever
disgraced the earth. The English people would

form but a very inadequate idea of the import-
ance of the contest, if they considered it merely
as a struggle between two members of the family
of Braganza, or even between a charter and no
charter, in a country so small and so little quali-
fied at present to appreciate liberal institutions.
Legitimacy is indeed something when contracted
with a perfidious usurpation ; and the re-esta-
blishment of Don Pedro's constitution, though
it would not immediately regenerate Portugal, or
restore the conquerors of India to their former
colonial splendour, would be a considerable ad-
vantage to the kingdom itself, and to those who
are interested in its prosperity. But the chief im-
portance of the contest to Englishmen and freemen
arises from other causes. On its result depends
the fate of the whole Peninsula. To its progress
the eyes of all absolute Governments are directed,
as an ordeal of constitutional principles. It is
regarded at Petersburg') and Vienna with the
interest of a domestic event. It is not indiffer-
ent to the Diet of Frankfort ; and we have no
doubt that the whole coast of the Mediterranean,
from the straits of Gibraltar to the southern pro-
montory of Calabria, will feel the shock, as in
1820, were the cause of freedom again to tri-
umph in Portugal. Englishmen, however, are
not only interested in the result of the contest,
lout in its speedy termination. Our trade with
Portugal, though much reduced by the usurpa-
tion, is still considerable. Our factories at
Oporto and Lisbon are adorned by the names of
many of our most respectable merchants. So long
as the war continues,—so long as the blockade
of the Tagus and the Douro are enforced,—and
so long as armies traversing the country, inter-
rupt communications, business must nearly
cease. With an expression of sympathy for the
constitutional cause, Englishmen would therefore
be pleased to hear from the King's speech an ex-
pression of hope in the approaching termination
of hostilities.—Times.

Times are strangely altered indeed, when
Noble Lords can in their places in Parliament
coolly declare, as Lord Teynham (lid last night,
that " tithes are the property of the nation, and,
as such, came within the disposal of the Legii-
lature for national purposes," and in " depreca-
ting the employment of the military to collect
the salaries of the clergy." We remember the
time when even a hint that a commutation of
tithes would be advisable was deemed an offer c
never to be forgiven. The noses of the Bishops
used to be remarkably fine on the subject of what
was called, drolly enough, the property of the
Church. Most anxiously did they exert them-
selves to prevent the public from prying into the
state of their property. Sir John Sinclair very
naively informs us how he came to be in such
bad odour with the Church, that when he wished
to obtain, through the clergy, such an instructive
work as he obtained through the Ministers of
Scotland, the Archbishop of Canterbury for
the time positively interfered to thwart him.
Sir John had, among other matters, proposed
an account of Church property. That was deemed
tDo bad. No man could hope fir any advancement
who was suspected of heresy in matters of tithe.
The late Arthur Young used to sav, that rotwith-
standing he had the patronage of Mr. Pitt, by
whom he was employed to furnish data for the
Income Act, it was out of Mr. Pitt's rower to
do anything for him ; and while he remained
Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, lie had
the mortification of seeing an individual who
laboured under him while employed in the de-
tails of the Income Act, preferred to a situation
of 2,0001. a year. These were the days when
the Church could afford to persecute—days de-
parted, never to return. The Bishop of London
uttered a few words in answer to Lord Teyn-
ham, in a mild tone, when his Lordship said,
"He wou!d assure him of this, that if it was
possible to collect the tithes, that could only be
done by military- force ; and if the Noble Prelate
thought it expedient to resort to such means, let
him put himself at the head of the army. Let
him do so, and in Gibbon's Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire' he would find an event
recorded from which he might guess where his
bones would lie.—(Hear, and a laugh.)" Those
who like ourselves remember the Church in the
days of her glory have a difficulty in believing
all this is real. Had Lord Tenyham spoken in
this way thirty years ago, he would have been
enveloped by Spiritual Lords. With loud
voice and threatening gesticulations, they
would have so belaboured him as to strike
a terror in• him that would have stuck to
him for life.. But is the Church really be-
come humble ? It was Waller, we believe, who
observed to one who remarked that the Church
was fairly down, " Aye, hut she has a trick of
rising again." The Church of Rome has always,
in times of difficulty, yielded to circumstances,
and availed herself of the first favourable con-
juncture to recover her lost ground. The suc-
cess of the Church in question, in this respect,
has led to a sort of superstitious belief, that she
always succeeds in her object, sooner or later.
But will the Church of England ever re-
cover her high and palmy state ? Will
she ever be as she was forty years ago,
when no housekeeper in London durst
give shelter to Dr. Priestly, when, after the fire
at Birmingham, he wished a covert for only a
few days, till he could embark for the western
world, which contains his bones ? We think
not. A secular Church, like the Church of
England, flourishes only in the ignorance of the
people, and suffers from the diffusion of know-
ledge. An instinctive knowledge of this led the
clergy to persecute all those who wished to
diminish the numbers of the mob, and to dif-
fuse knowledge among the people. An instruct-
ed and reflecting people never can be the tools
of a priesthood. What a fertile subject for re-
flection will the history of the Church of Eng-
land prove ! Confident in her legal establish-
ment, she has neglected the only means which
can give security to a Church, namely, the at-
tachment and confidence of the people. The
Church of Rome, aware of what importance it is
that the Clergy should not be an object of dis-
like to the people, will not permit a Clergyman
to be in any way instrumental, as an accuser or
otherwise, to the death of a fellow-creature. In
England, the Clergy are almost the only acting
Magistrates of the country ; for though they are
outnumbered in most counties by Lay-Justices,
yet the latter, from being often non-resident, do
not so frequently appear in their magisterial ca-
pacity before the public. But how can the peo-
ple unbosom themselves to men whom they con-
stantly see armed with the sword of the law ?

It is not of the Clerical Magistrate that it can be
said, " A bruised reed shall he not break." It
may truly be said of this union of the character
of penal Judge and Priest, that the efficiency
of the former destroys the efficiency of the lat-
ter. But the great ambition of the Clergy is
not to conciliate the people, but to monopolise
the Magistracy. It is customary, when a De-
puty-Lieutenant recommends to the Lord Lieu-
tenant a gentleman for the Commission, to sound

first the Magistrates of the district. We know