The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-11 00:00:00

ROYAL ENGLISH OPERA, COVENT i lured Lord PALMERSTON to his fall, and who have
GARDEN, under the sole Management of Miss Louisa I done Lord MALMESBURY and the Cabinet to which
Pyne and Mr. W. Harrison

THIS EVENING, Auber's opera of' the THE CROWN
DIAMONDS : The characters by Miss Louisa Fyne, Miss
Susan Pyne, Mr. Harrison, Mr. G. Honey, &c.

Conductor—Mr. Alfred Mellon.
To conclude with the new Pantomime of LITTLE RED
BIDING HOOD ; or, Harlequin and the Wolf in Granny's
Clothing.

he belongs no little injury?
We do not see why any one needs doubt Lord

MALMESBURY'S good will to Portugal, but it was a
sleepy good will ; neither need we imagine him
indifferent to the honour of England in a contro-
versy with French Ministers ; he could not
well forget that he stepped into Lord CLA-
RENDON'S place last year just because the
latter had notoriously failed to sustain his coun-
try's honour against the fire-eating colonels
and a bullying count. But he did not, unfortu-
nately, perceive how deeply our honour was at
stake. We had induced the Portuguese Govern-
ment to make strenuous exertions, and strict regu-
lations, for the suppression of the slave trade, in
any form, on the east coast of Africa. Portugal
had had no little trouble with some of her own
unfaithful servants there ; and now, just as she had
compelled these servants to act with vigour, some
French smugglers of human flesh and blood were
caught by the Portuguese, flagrante delicto—for
such was the fact. If ever there was a case in
which a mighty old ally was bound to strain every
nerve in aid of its weaker ally, here was
one. Lord MALMESBURYJ not only failed to do
this, but he allowed Count WALEwsKi to
practise all kinds of diplomatic knavery with Portu-
gal, and finally to implicate the French Government
beyond the possibility of dignified retreat, either
without notice, or with but the feeblest remon-
strance ! He let France place herself in the posi-
tion of a highwayman towards Portugal, and then
whispered to the latter, " to avoid being shot, you
had better give up your purse."
It is, of course, mortifying that the Foreign
Minister who handled so properly the King of
NAPLES, should have been so perfunctory, if not
timid, in regard to the French EMPEROR. It would
of course have been unwise to get up a European
war because France made unjust demands, in a
case like this, on Portugal ; but timely firm-
ness would have prevented all that have
saved the honour of England, and ward
off from Portugal a flagrant wrong. At the
commencement of the affair Lord MALMESBURY
might have apprised the French Government that
our relations with Portugal, as an old ally, and as
a weaker power, whom we had induced to take
energetic measures in regard to the slave trade,
compelled us to regard very sensitively the position
of Portugal in a case of suppressing the slave trade.
Whatever the faults of the EMPEROR, he has shown
no unwillingness to respect the necessities of our
position. Had his Ministers been, with due diplo-
matic politeness of course, warned not to commit
themselves till he and we understood each other,
all must have ended well. Neglect of doing this
is the head and front of Lord MALMESBURY'S offend-
ing. No one, not Portugal herself, would have
wished us to make the dispute into a casus
The error was in allowing France, unwarned, to
make it so with Portugal.
The Ministerial plea that " all is well that ends
well"—that the EMPEROR has now suppressed the
traffic—will not quite do. We are all, of course,
glad of such a result. It only shows, however,
what might have been done had Lord MALMES-
BURY but acted in time. A little more promptness
on his part might have saved France the indelible
disgrace of overbearing vielence towards a
small nation in refusing all appeal to arbitra-
tion, and resorting to brute force, and Por-
tugal the painful feeling of being wronged by
a stronger neighbour, and deserted by a yet
stronger ally, and England the dishonour of ap-
pearing to succumb to Count WALEWSKI, and to
accept as a favour afterwards the abolition of the
French slave trade.

Precisely, at one of the most startling moments
that could well have been selected for the date of
its transpiring—a most romantic incident has just
now come to light at Queexstown. Recollect, for
an instant, the peculiar conjuncture at this time, in
regard to our own national interests ; and yet more
remarkably, if possible, in regard to the interests
more or less of entire Christendom. The incident
we are going to specify then comes to light, ex-
actly at the period when the political orb of Europe
is hardly less threatening than a bombshell charged
with detonating powder, with a fuzee burning
slowly down to the point of ignition ! Meanwhile
at home here, we are in the crisis of a party con-
test upon the irritating theme of a series of Parlia-
mentary reforms involving a comprehensive reor-
ganization of our whole representative system, and
with it, possibly, the entire reconstruction of Her
MAJESTY'S Government. Abroad—the European
powers appear to be mustering their forces, and
marshalling them into opposing ranks, preparatory
to a life and death struggle for supremacy. At
home—our leading statesmen seem no less deter.
minedly to be gathering their forces together with
a like intent; accepting, at last, as the convenient
battle-ground of party, the hitherto evaded ques-
tion of Parliamentary Reform. At this imminent
period, during the first momentary truce conse-
quent upon the postponement, yet awhile, of the

second reading of the Government measure, the
isle is startled from its propriety by a very un-
wonted occurrence, which, as we have said, trans-
pires precisely when the public mind is agitated
by so many conflicting interests.
• In the midst of the stormy discussions in the
Lords and Commons upon the case of the
Charles et Georges ! In the thick of all

the warlike rumours coming to us from
the direction of Turin, of Paris, and of
Vienna ! Simultaneously with the resignation of
the Prince Minister of Algeria, with the return of
the right hon. member for Oxford University from
Corfu, with the progress of Lord COWLEY'S mis-
sion to the Austrian Government ! Exactly at this
very moment of varied hope, anxiety, and trepida•
tion, an incident takes place on the high seas that,
really and truly, reads less like the account of an
actual occurrence in the spring of 1859, than like
an episode taken from a romance by Mrs. RAD-
CLIFFE, or a stray chapter from the autobiography
of BENVENUTO.

course to the escape of
lAllusion is here made of
henceforth live in the popular'
recollections of Italy, together with
POERIO and his patriot companions.
ro-
mantic history will
that of the
Their
of Amalfi,
rapid rise and fall of the fisherman
MASANIELLO-With the pathetic
narrative of the
incarceration of SILVIO PELLICO-with the record
of the vicissitudes of PEPE at Naples, or of AlA.Nttrx
at Venice—with the picturesque and stirring annals
of the deeds of prowess achieved by the bold hand
and heart of the last of the great condottieri,
General GARIBALDI.

The previous history of CARLOS POERIO and his
fellow-sufferers we all know too familiarly. Their
protracted sufferings require here no detailed reca-
pitulation. Those sufferings, we need only recal to
mind, have been extended over a period of ten
years—the ten years last passed. Confined during

those ten years in the Neapolitan prisons,
they were at length " pardoned" by the
State at the close of that extended period
of incarceration. Deported from their native

country on board a Neapolitan transport,
they were conveyed in the first instance by