The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-09 00:00:00

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THIS DAY.—Morning, 12h. 46m.—Afternoon, lh. 4m.
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TILE SUS;.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1859

The announcement of the deadly Conspiracy against
the life of the SULTAN CALIPH startled Europe a few
weeks back like a detonation audible throughout
Christendom from Constantinople. The earliest
tidings were—although as vague and brief as the
flying rumour of a telegram—so vividly suggestive
of the magnitude of the peril but just (at the last
moment of the crisis) escaped, as if by a miracle, by
his Imperial Majesty, the Commander of the Faith-
ful, ABD-UL-MEDJID, that universal attention and
curiosity were awakened almost instantaneously.
Mail by mail from the Golden Horn has been scru-
tinised since then with eager solicitude—but as yet
the Golden Horn has in this particular proved any-
thing but a cornucopeia or horn of plenty in the way
of information. Gradually, however, the true par-
ticulars of this all but dire and fatal conspiracy have
been accumulated bit by bit, and the whole depth of
the atrocity brought to light. But for an oppor-
tune disclosure, in common parlance, in the very
nick, the head of the reigning Sovereign of
Turkey would have fallen before the scymitar of
his dastardly foes, the leaders of this unnatural
Conspiracy. Their plot was literally all but suc-
cessful. The train was laid, the match was
lighted, it was smouldering rapidly down to the
anal point of ignition. Comparatively speaking,
but one instant more, and the conspirators would
have had in their possession at once the palace, the
dead body, the sword and the sceptre of the ruler
of Constantinople. And the very Prince against
whom this detestable project was formed, was
all the while notoriously and undeniably one of the
most enlightened and magnanimous princes that
has ever sat upon the throne of the crowned suc-
cessors of MAIIOMET. The reigning Sultan has
the reputation, it is true, personally of being little
better than an exhausted voluptuary. He is at
this moment, if not in the flower of his age, at any
rate, in the prime of his manhood, and upon the
very threshhold of his maturity. Born in the
winter of 1822-23, he is no more than thirty-six,
although his reign may be•regarded as having been
even now—at least for a Sultan—somewhat pro•
tracted. This, however, is simply and obviously
attributable, of course, to the circumstance of' the
premature decease of his great father and prede-
cessor, a man of rare genius—one whose extraordi-
nary capacity in statecraft was evidence of his powers
as a resolute Reformer or Re-organiser of Govern
ment, Following in the broadly marked and colos-
sal footsteps of his great father, the young Sultan,
though endowed with scarcely one scintilla of his
Sire's genius, and possessing but few it
any of the attributes of an energetic and original
individuality, has, by the maintenance of. the
enlightened system inaugurated during the last
reign, and by the pursuance of the course marked
out by the last Sultan, " won golden opinions from
all sorts of men" in Western Europe. Insomuch
that hardly one lustre since when his dominion
was threatened with a violent dismemberment by
the legions of the Northern Autocrat, his capital
his very frontiers were defended by
was guarded,
the allied forces of the two Powers foremost among
the nations, and certainly
,facile princip es among
the Champions of Civilisation.
Repeatedly, moreover, during the reign of the
present Sultan be has given evidence of the nobility
of his disposition and temperament. He has done
so in several instances so signally that those who
appreciate him best may with reason laugh to scorn
the sneers of such as affect to rank him merely with
the effete princes and the roil faineants of the precee t

epoch. None but a monarch of chivalrous sym-
pathies and truly heroic nature would have with-
stood, as the world knows ABD-UL-MEDJID did
withstand, ten years ago, at the close of
the Hungarian war of 1849, the haughty
and combined and insolent demands made
by the two great despotic Governments of Russia
and Austria, then with their legions in arms upon the
Turkish frontiers, and flushed with the recent
triumphs gained through the treachery of GORGE/
—the threatening demands, almost commands,
made by the CZAR and the KAISER for the deliver-
ing up of the fugitive Leaders of that grand, and
for the time utterly ruined cause of Magyar inde-
pendence ! Hungary, England, Europe, especially
Western Europe, will not soon forget how that band
of heroes was sheltered under the lEgis of the
despised and dreaded Turkish Sovereignty—how
the SULTAN drew his Imperial mantle as it were
over the bowed heads of KOSSUTH and his com-
patriots! Prior to this ABD-UL-MEDJID had in a
noble spirit of sympathetic pity contributed his
quota to that humane fund which was accumulated
from all quarters of the globe for the relief of the
Irish nation, stricken down simultaneously by the
fatal ravages of famine and pestilence. And subse-
quently in a spirit of generous admiration this same
high-minded ruler of the Turks presented (as a per-
sonal tribute of regard) an estate to the pure and
dauntless poet-statesman of Franca—ALPHONSE
DE LAMARTINE. A sovereign of whom such acts
are recorded can be no more sated debauchee. He
may be an epicurean in his life—his existence may
be touched by the vices of the voluptuary. But he
is something more than that—he is at heart
capable of something better than a career of mere
animal enjoyment. Turkey under his rule
may improve slowly, but—it improves. Happily
the present SULTAN has enjoyed throughout the
chief part of his reign the advantages—of a wise
councillor in the person of the late British Ambas-
sador to his Court, Viscount STRATFORD DE RED-
CLIFFE—and of a wise Minister, not long since
snatched away by sudden death in the maturity of his
powers, ths most gifted of all the great Viziers of the
Sultan Caliph ABD-UL-MEDJID, the late REDSCHID
PACHA. Unfortunately for the Sultan, REDSCHID
PACIIA is now no more—and, so far also unfortu-
nately for his Imperial Majesty, Lord STRATFORD
DE REDCLIFFE has closed at length his long and
distinguished career in diplomacy, a career princi-
pally passed as British Minister at Constantinople.
But with Lord STRATFORD'S vacated post filled up
as it is by one of the most gifted and astute diplo-
matists now in the service of the CROWN of
England—with Sir HENRY LYTTON BULWER
there at the Ottoman Porte as her BRITANNIC
MAJESTY'S ambassador with the SULTAN
startled from his princely apathy by the discovery
of the astounding perils, but just escaped by him-
self and hislGovernment almost by a miracle—we
may yet hope that good will come at length to
Turkey I That again the flower safety may bG
culled from the nettle danger. That once
More the darkest hour will be seen to have
preceded the dawn, and that with no sinis-
ter result, though, by what at first appeared
but a most evil omen Coming events have
also in this instance, according to CAMPBELL'S
felicitous fancy, cast their shadows before. Sup-
posing all which to be the happy fruits ripened
upon the hotbed of this detected conspiracy, the
first reform adventured upon by the SULTAN must
assuredly be a Financial Reform. A wholesome
system of retrenchment must replace the profligate
expenditure hitherto the bane and curse of the
Turkish rule at Constantinople.

The whole mystery of the Harper Ferry affair is
now before us. We know how it began and how it
has ended. All apprehensions of anything like an
organised servile insurrection are now at an end, and
we know that the whole business is summed up in
the semi-insanity of one Captain BROWN, as his
neighbours had termed him—a name well-known
to Americans, though hardly heard of on this side
the Atlantic.

Yet the story of this " Old BROWN, of Ossowa-,
tomie," as he was often called, from the scene of one
of his victories, is a deeply interesting one, and well
worthy to be known for itself, and as an illustration
of what it was that the last two pro-slavery. Presi •
dents of America were supporting in Kansas.
BROWN, it appears, emigrated from the New Eng-
land States, a Puritan of the old sort, as described
by MACAULAY and CARLYLE. A man who believed
in a living GOD, who had no manner of doubt that
his most ardent desires and emotions were Divine
inspirations, and who, whether in battle with "the
thick trees on which he lift :d up his axe," or en-
countering " the Amalekites " of the day, was quite
sure that his arm was outstretched or withdrawn,
strengthened or weakened, by the decree of the
Omnipotent.

This man took with him to Kansas his family of
six. He had not long settled there before " the
'—and verily sinners they are—the slave-
holders, stirred up the much-talked of Missouri
Ruffians to do their work. These brigands were to
force on the free settlers of Kansas, by the terrors
of fire and sword, a pro-slavery Constitution ; and
we all remember how, by outrageous' violence, they
succeeded, and how PIERCE and BUCHANAN made
it their grand object to curse the new territory with
their infernal demon of slavery.
In the progress of this bloody work it was that
the Border Ruffians raised up a man to avenge the
wrongs of freedom, who regarded himself as one of
the old Judges of Israel. Under circumstances of
great atrocity, not to be paralleled on this side of the
Atlantic except by the savageries of Austriain Italy
and Hungary, the Border Ruffians had murdered
several of B nowN's children, and several of his neigh-
bours around him. This he regarded as his com-
mission from on High. He collects around- him a
small band of Ironsides likeminded with himself,
and now it is " the Sword of the Lord and of
Gideon." He met " the enemies of Kansas and of
the Lord" in any numbers and invariably routed
them. His countrymen conferred on him the name
of " Ossowatomie" by the same right as a new title
was given to the Dukes of MALAKOFF and MAGENTA ;
and though so much smaller the numbers engaged,
the merits of the Far West victories were not in-
ferior to these of this quarter of the world. Where-
ever he came the " Ruffians" fled at the very sound
of his name, and many of the worst of them were
surprised in their houses, and executed summarily
on the trees adjacent to them. Till the war was
over his was their name of terror.
But even Kansas troubles came to some sort of
an end. Peace was enforced ; but there was no
peace for slavery and slaveholders in the mind of
" BROWN of Ossowatomie." His brain, frenzied by
the murder of his children, could know of no mercy
to the infernal institution to which they had been
offered up as victims. lie now determined to be
the plague if not the subvertci- of slavery. Being
not far from the Free States, he employed himself
in aiding slaves to escape from American bondage
to British Freedom, and was eh:a guard of the
" underground railway" from the slave states to
Canada. He appears to have done a great deal in
this way, and no doubt vexed sorely the heart of
many a southerner, by enabling his " property" to
become its own property, and to exult in a freedom

sinners ".

equal to that of his old proprietor if not superior.
Well if he had continued this useful work !

But his holy ambition was to be the Liberator of
the entire captive people, and his fervid enthusiasm
blinded him to the horrors which must attend
Liberation by insurrection; worse, for himself, than
that, it blinded him to the fact that the negroes
were few in that part of Virginia, that the brutali-
ties of the slave gang were little, if at all, known
in that district, and that the slaves there, being for
the most part domestic servants, were better
treated. Had he commenced near to the Southern
plantations, and had he been at pains to diffuse
secret information of his plans among the gangs
who work the estates under the lash of the driver,
the consequenoes might have been awfully different.
One shudders to contemplate the scene in localities
where slaves vastly outnumber whites, where mas-
ters might resist, amidst the madness of thousands,
who were prepared any of them to receive the first
few shots of a planter's revolver or rifle, that the rest
might enjoy the horrid satisfaction of dealing with
their oppressors as he had dealt with them.
As it was there was nothing but the armoury to
favour a rising at Harper Ferry. No slaves rose.
For a year or more BROWN had been working on -a
farm he had taken, to avoid suspicion, but he had
only a party of 17 in all, including his own two
sons, to be the commencement of a second war of
independence in the United States. A second war,
not merely to deliver a few white Americans from a
few unconstitutional taxes, but to emancipate three
millions of sable Americans from the innumerable
miseries, degradations, and oppressions of slavery.
A better cause, truly, than WASHINGTON'S,
though not as yet to triumph by the means to
which WASHINGTON and the white Americans re-
sorted. WASHINGTON fought to free men from un-
constitutional Government ; poor BROWN fought
to free them from the denial of all human rights, and
from the cruelest oppression we know of yet, in a
world which has always abounded in oppression.
If courage deserve honour, BROWN has earned
the Victoria Cross, not only before the sad event,
but in his two days' fight with his brave little band
with all the force of the State, till all but two
were killed, and .these two, himself and son, severely
wounded. If a cause deserve honour, then BROWN
must be rightly numbered with all the heroes who
have sought at the sword's point liberty for those
who were unjustly deprived of it. If ill success in
a good cause deserve commiseration, then BROWN
deserves it ; and if imprudence springing from a
blinding but noble enthusiasm deserves censure,
then must he share that censure with hundreds
whom history taunts because their abilities were
unequal to their aspirations.
Righteous as would be the retribution of a
servile war, likely as it is one day to occur ; yet
must incitement to it be condemned by all men
whose wrongs, like those of BROWN, have not over-
, powered their judgment. Still, well may the
planter tremble. He sees BROWN standing at their
bar calmly, not vainly, confident in the righteous-
, ness of his cause. There lies the element of terror.
. BROWN and his little rash band may be speedily
offered up as martyrs to negro emancipation, but the
, cause is righteous still. Nothing can crush that fact.
; The infernal wickedness of slavery and the righte-
. ousness of emancipation are the spectres which will
survive the blood of BROWN and his associates, and

which will haunt the guilty consciences of planters
throughout the Union. Not all the sermons of a
clergy, worse than faithless to their holy calling,
can lay these tormentors of the slaveholder. lie
lives on in defiance of the rights of man and of the
frown of man's MAKER. He hardens himself like
another PHARAOH, and will not let the people go.
But his day must come. He will not seek to avert
it, will not, by any mitigation of his accursed
system, prepare his bondsmen for a liberty in
which he could even find his profit. On the bench
of justice, where oaths are taken in the name of the
GOD of Heaven, he pronounces that the fellow-man

whom his GOD has made of the same blood with

himself is his property, his chattel, that HE HAS NO
RIGHTS. Can the day be distant when those rights
will be asserted in the blood of those, who refuse
them, and who madly refuse to be warned ? If
BROWN fought madly for right, it may yet appear
that American planters fight yet more madly
against right.

ROYAL ENGLISH OPERA,

COVENY-GARDES:

Mr. Balfe's " Satanella" was given last night for the first
time this season The cast differed in three instances from
that of last year—Miss Pilling assuming the part of Stella,
heretofore filled by Miss Susan Pyne ; Miss Fanny Cruise
taking the place of Miss Rebecca Isaacs in Lelia; and Mr.
Santley appearing as Arimanes, in the room of Mr. Weiss.
All three substitutes acquitted themselves well, and left
little to be regretted in the absence of their predecessors.
Miss Fanny Cruise's debut was entirely successful.
" Satanella" is perhaps Miss Louisa Pyne's most incom-
parable achievement. Her singing of " The power of love"
alone would constitute a night's intense gratification. Mr.
Harrison's Count Rupt rt, too, is an excellent bit of acting,
while his singing is vigorous, finished, and manly in the
extreme. On the whole "Satanella," with all its drawbacks,
is likely to obtain a new lease of popular favour, for which
it has been, and no doubt will be, in a special degree, in-
debted to the artistic exertions of the directors.