The Sun.
London, England, 1832-10-09 00:00:00

'Arlo
g

LONDON,
TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 9, 1832.

We insert a letter on the Belgian question,
and will take this opportunity of making a few
observations on the subject.
That the chief object of Lord DURHAM'S
mission to St. Petersburgh was to induce the
Emperor of RUSSIA to show a greater disposi-
tion in favour of Belgium, is now admitted by
those who sent him. That he has succeeded in
that object has not been proved by any one cir-
cumstance. NICHOLAS is now, as he ever has
been since his accession to the throne, moderate
in word, and grasping in action. With the words
of peace in his mouth, he has all the vice of
tyrants in his heart. Ambition is his god----
aggrandizement the end and aim of his govern-
ment. If he should fail in his designs upon
the liberties of France and Great Britain, as
signally as he has succeeded in his invasions of
Persia, Turkey, and Poland, we shall not have
to thank the policy of our Foreign-office for our
deliverance. When France entreated our
Cabinet to declare itself in favour of Poland, it
turned a deaf ear, and yet at that moment the
united armies and fleets of Great Britain and
France could have dictated terms to all Europe.
When Don PEDRO solicited the intervention of
this country in favour of the Queen of PORTU-
GAL, all he could obtain was a declaration of
cold neutrality, fettered by a condition that no-
thing was to be done by him which could lead
to the overthrow of Spanish tyranny ; and yet
an alliance with PEDRO would have given
us a control over the whole Peninsula.
And now that the King of BELGIUM demands
justice at our hands, we merely withhold from
him what was solemnly promised, and bit by bit
sacrifice him to the dictation of Russia. Yet
the King of BELGIUM, with an army of more
than 100,000 men, would be a formidable ally
against those countries to which his own is a
sort of barrier.

What a chance has Lord PALMERSTON
thrown away I What an alliance of free states
might not have been formed against the despots
of the Continent—France, Belgium, Portugal'
liberated Spain, in union with Great Britain for
the protection of constitutional freedom ! Hu-
manity and policy alike dictated the course to
be pursued ; but the old Tory leaven has pre-
vailed, and if we should avoid the danger which
menaces us, and obtain the good which we
might at one time have commanded, it will be
to the force of circumstances, and not to the
right direction of our Cabinet, that we shall owe
a result so much to be desired by every lover
of freedom.

And it is not only in refusing the aid of friends,
but also in assisting the views of enemies, that
our Cabinet has distinguished itself. We have
now before us a letter from Paris, in which we
are assured that Louis PHILIPPE iS less op-
posed to the promotion of a liberal Cabinet on
account of his own prejudices than from a desire
to please Lord PALMERSTON, by appointing
none but peace Ministers—men who would not
venture to provoke war by any assertion of na-
tional independence against Russia, Austria, and
Prussia. Thus, at the very moment when per-
manent peace might be secured by a display of
vigour on the part of France, the Holy Alli-
ance are to be conciliated, and war is to be
averted only until they can commence it with the
certainty of succeeding in their attempts to put
down liberty in Europe. In the same letter we
are told that it is only through the correspondence
maintained between Lords BROUGHAM and

GREY, and some of the distinguished friends of
liberty in France, that a twill prostration of
freedom at the feet of Russia has been avoided.
We believe this statement, but if it be true, why
do not Lords BROUGHAM and GREY direct the
foreign policy of the British Cabinet ?

A Tory Contemporary is full of praises of the
valour displayed by the troops of Don MIGUEL,
and deduces from it that the enthusiasm of the
Portuguese nation is strongly exhibited in his
favour. Without attempting to deny, or consi-
dering it surprising that in a country so much
under the influence of the priesthood, the igno-
rant and turbulent mass is as favourable to the
usurper as the wealthy and educated are in heart
opposed to him, we shall show the character of
the troops now in the service of the monster who,
to the disgrace of civilized Europe, has been so
long permitted to hold the reins of power in
Portugal.

Of the army now before Oporto not o►►e fourth
is composed of regular troops, and of that portion
the officers only, being deeply compromised in
the usurpation, are faithful to the Usurper. The
private soldiers desert at every opportunity, and in
every attack they have been so placed as to be
compelled to fight, or fall under the fire of the
Miguelite guerillas and militia. The guerillas
are composed of the refuse of society—of mur-
derers, robbers, and vagabonds in the pay of the
priesthood, by whom they are headed ; and the
militia, far from being what it was during the war
with France, is a selection from that body of all
%sho have rendered themselves remarkable for
their attachment to the predatory warfare in which
MIGUEL indulges them. As the Portuguese
are not physically cowards, is it surprising that
men who know that the restoration of the Con-
stitution would be followed by the vigorous exe-
cution of the law against those who subsist by
plunder, should display a courage worthy of a
better cause, and that they should continue to
make up to the cannons of Oporto over the
bodies of their fallen comrades ? But if I)on
PEDRO can hold his ground a little longer, this
description of force will soon be at an end. MI-
GUEL has collected into a body all that was most
vile in Portugal, and as they fall off, the regular
troops will have an opportunity of declaring them-
selves in favour of the Constitutional charter.

Despatches were received yesterday at the
Foreign-office, from our Minister at Berlin.
They state that the Prussian Cabinet had shown
recently a strong disposition for the settlement
of the Belgian question. The British and
French Members of the Conference, therefore,
expect a favourable answer to the commmunica-
tion of which M. DOHNOFF was the bearer.

In another part of our Paper will be found an
article from the Herald against free trade,
much in the usual strain, and displaying about
as much knowledge of the_subject as ever. We
suppose that the first half column is kept in
stereotype, for we are pretty certain that we
have read it in our contemporary's lucid columns
some hundred times. The droll of the affair is

that the Herald in the last half column appears
to have some vague idea, that the plan of impo-
sing heavy duties on the goods of foreign
countries, which impose heavy duties upon ours,
is absurd, and would totally annihilate our com-
merce, except with the Sandwich Islands,
where the people are so foolish as not to have
adopted the Herald's maxims of encouraging
their own manufactures of matting, by imposing
heavy duties upcn our cotton goods. There is
one singular hallucination which the Herald
shares in common with all the opponents of
free trade. They all highly laud the conduct of
Foreign Sates, who laugh at us, and take such
care of their own manufactures by imposing du-
ties upon ours. One would think from this
that France, and other countries acting with it,
are in a high state of prosperity, that the system
causes their manufactures to flourish, and that,
therefore, we ought to adopt it. So far, how-
ever, is this from being the case, that all the ma-
nufactures of France are in the most wretched
condition, not excluding that of silk, which of
thet h e pretendedre were
any
course ought to be benefited by the amount of
flrgime
ictsiuipaos of ourncurs,
if
h in the inflicts
contemporary.