The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-07 00:00:00

sacte in the teeth of Ministm. Why revive ti e
affair, it was said, But the precedent is Lot
forgotten, .we, see,, _ but producing its
_fruits.---
Morning Chronicle.

We:noticed on Saturday last some curious
information
,afforded by Mr. Cobbett, respect-
ing ,the mode by, which the tenants of Penn-
sylvania were induced to oppose the British
Government, on the breaking out of the re-
volution. Under the circumstances, a better
expedient could not, perhaps, have been hit
on, than to declare that the tenants should stand
fast. Mr. Cobbett thinks, that in endeavouring,
to show that no such precedent could be follow-
ed in this country, we wish to embolden the
Peers to reject the Bill. We had no such in-
tention ; and we are much mistaken if our ob-
servations had any such tendency as Mr. Cob-
hett ascribes to them. The state of Europe is
so widely different from that of America, that
what is practicable in the one is often quite im-
practicable in the other. The Assembly of
Pennsylvania might pass an Act that the tenant,
should stand fast, without much difficulty ; but
in Europe, all such sweeping confiscations are
unknown. Even in the French Revolution,
the estates only of those Nobles who emi-
grated, or fought against their country, were
confiscated ; and it is stated by French writers
of good authority, that the greater part of the
lands which belonged to the French Noblesse
before the revolution still belong to that body.
The estates of the Church were deemed public
property. Mr. Cobbett is very much mistaken
if he suppose that, in a civilized country like
England, anarchy could be of long continuance,
or that any persons would he allowed to occupy
lands or houses merely because it was convenient
for them to do so. The overthrow of one Go-
vernment would soon be followed by the esta-
blishment of another, which would enforce the
laws existing at the change till they were altered
in a regular way. There might be pillage
and bloodshed but though in times of
disorder houses may be burnt, ships plun-
dered. &c. land is a more stable commodity,
and no man would be suffered to retain an
estate in land or houses, without a legal title. It
has always been customary for the party who
gain in civil broils, to confiscate the property of
their antagonists; but there has hitherto been no
it stance of a general scramble. If the Anti-
Reformers, by their folly and wickedness, should
throw things into confusion, their property ought
to be taken from them as an atonement to their
injured country; but confiscation is quite diffe-
rent from allowing each man to take what suits
him. What the value of the property of the
landlords of Pennsylvania, transferred to their
tenants in the woods, mentioned by Mr. Cob-
bett, may have been, we know not ; but, if his
information be not more correct with regard to
America, than the Church property in France,
it is not worth much :

" What inference," says he, in his Register of this day,
" do you mean to draw from the fact, that the Church of
France had most riches in Alsace, Burgundy, and Lor-
raine, and that this made those provinces the most staunch
supporters of the Revolution ? Both facts are false. The
Church had the greatest riches in the richest provinces,
;Ind the richest of all was in the north, and in Normandy.
The most staunch supporter's of the Revolution were in
Provence and in Normandy ; so that botch the facts are
false ; and if they were both true, they make directly
against your own position ; for they only show that the
people were zealous fur the revolution in an exact propor-
tion to the quantity of property distributed amongst them.
This paragraph, therefore, contains a string of statements,
which, whether true or false, make against your argu-
..Tient and in support of mine."

What ‘ve-said was; that " it happend fortu•
nately for the new order of things in France,
that the provinces in which there were most
Church lands were the provinces bordering upon
the most powerful of the enemies of France, and
the distribution of these lands made the people
of Alsace, Burgundy, Lorraine, &c., the most
staunch supporters of the revolution." Mr.
Cobbett says the Church had the greatest riches
in the richest provinces, and the richest of all
was in the north and in Normandy. He is quite
out in his reckoning. The Church had the
greatest property iu land in the provinces added
to France since 1655, called the provinces con-
guises. According to the work of Rozet, on
ecclesiastical property, published in 1790, " the
Church possessed in Le Cambresis seven•eighths
of the lands, besides the tithes ; in Le Hainaut,
les Trois-evechn (Lorraine), and L'Artois,
the three-fourths ; in L'Alsace, la Franche-
Comte, and Le Roussillon, the half ; every
where sloe the third, or at least the fourth ; and
the revenue of the clergy of all these pro-
vinces known under the name of the new clergy
is estimated at the half of that of the old
clergy of France." Thus the lands of the
clergy of a comparatively small part of the king-
dom were estimated at one-half of the lands of
the clergy of old France. Our object in noti-
cing the statement of Mr. Cobbett was not to en-
courage the opponents of Reform, but to expose
exaggeration. The sale of Church lands and
confiscated estates in France attached the pea-
santry to the Revolution. The provinces
where there were most Church lands, were,
naturally, the most liberal. If the Church
lands in Spain had been sold in small
lots to the peasantry, Ferdinand would not have
become absolute. The inference which we
meant to be drawn was, that men who possess
large estates ought not to act in such a foolish
manner as to force a nation for its own safety to
confiscate them, and distribute them by sale to
new owners. The purchasers of such confis-
cated estates, judging from the conduct of the
inhabitants of the northern and north-eastern
provinces of France, would not be the least at-
tached to the new order of things.—J.llorning
Chronicle.

The importance of the West Indian question
cannot be denied. It is important, as affecting
the well-being of a large portion of our colonies—
important in relation to the interests of com-
merce, the support of our mercantile marine,
and the rights of humanity. We have frequently
adverted to some of the leading topics connected
with this question—more especially that most
painfsl and perplexing subject of negro slavery;
but the meeting ofn West Ind a planters,
merchants, and others, held at the City of
London Tavern, in reference to the matters at
issue between the colonists and his Majesty's
Ministers, calls for some observations on our
part. In one of the resolutions passed at the
meeting the following passage occurs, touching
the master evil, which has been the root of
much bitter affliction to the West India
colonies, as it has been to every country in
which it ever existed :—" That this meeting
is anxious fcr the adoption of such further
measures of amel: oration as may, on due in-
quiry, be found necessary to the real welfare
of the negro, and consistent with the
.Parlia-
mentary resolutions of 1823:" The above pas-
sage makes it necessary to inquire " what were
the Parliamentary resolutions of 1823 ?" for,
Wi bout knowing what they were, it is impossible
to understand exactly the points upon which the
Government and the colonists are at variance,