The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-16 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sir,—When I first received the intelligence of an
amnesty my thoughts at once embraced the murde-
rous climates of Guiana and Africa, that will only
retain too many tombs already, and I exclaimed,
" At last!" and I rejoiced sincerely.
Then I said to myself that for a great party there
is something less sterile than mental indignation
and disdain—deeds.

Why, then, renounce ourselves these deeds, this
activity, whenever they may prove possible?
Banished without right, recalled without right,
through mere force, every one of us, in my opinion,
had to ask himself this question : Am I likely to
act more usefully, to serve our cause better, if, in-
stead of protesting, I put at once to profit an exist-
ing fact, or at least reserve to myself the faculty of
benefiting by it, at my own day and hour, accord-
ing to the offerings of chance ?
Such was, to my understanding, the most practi-
cal, consequently the most politic, conduct to be
kept ; and therefore I did not protest myself—
therefore my advice went to not protesting, when-
ever, from the various regions of the proscription,
my friends did me the honour to ask for it.
Withal, as far as I am personally concerned, I
followed apparently a right inspiration. It so hap-
pens that any and all protestation at my hands
would have proved not only inopportune but even
ridiculous ; inasmuch as the threshold of France,
reopened to all, was to remain closed to me, the
Government declaring that I am not comprised in
the amnesty.
Not, however, that I am excluded nominally—
that would have been an appeal to public sympathy.
I am thrown out without noise, jesuitically, by
means of one of those unexpected distinctions which
Tartuffe might have envied. lam simply refused
to be considered as a political convict-4 am but a
common murderer. 0 hypocrites !
If the shift is, on the face of it, too clumsy to de-
ceive a single individual, at least it reveals one
odious character more of that prosecution in contu-
maciant got up against me some two years ago, and
the real meaning of which, at the time, appeared to
many people unaccountable. Why, then I ask, con-
demn him twice to the same punishment P

In fact, it was not intended to have me con-
demned more amply, but under a different head, in
order, first, to deprive me, if possible, of every
right of refuge, and, at all events, to exclude me,
without even mentioning my name, from a general
amnesty, sooner or later unavoidable.
I will not revert to that legal enormity ; publio
feeling has condemned it. What could it avail,
indeed, to mention again, to the lasting confusion
of the French courts of justice, that a man whom I
never saw, a man whose name I was ignorant of, ,a
man who himself was never able to articulate my
own name, having declared he thought he had seen
me at a certain place whence I departed without
even pronouncing a single word—that was deemed
sufficient to strike me as one of his accomplices P
True, for this service he was soon afterwards par-
doned.

Once more, it would be useless to insist any
longer upon that grotesque and wretched sham, in
which nobody ever believed, not even the British
Cabinet of the time. Certes, they seemed readily
disposed to hand me over. We were at that mo-
ment yet in the happiest days of concessions and
the alliance. Nevertheless, they have since pub-
licly recognised through Lord Clarendon's mouth,
that the allegations brought against me were of
such a futile nature that extradition could not but
be at once refused.
Such are the fundamental facts of the case.

As to its formal character in point of law, I was
arraigned for a plot (complot)2 tending to a felonious
attempt (attentat) against the chief of the State.
Now, under the French law, a plot (con2plot)
means necessarily a political offence.
An attentat likewise implies of necessity a politi-
cal crime, both words being specially introduced,
in legal parlance, in order to better designate a
crime of an exceptional and public character.
It is even only by dint of the most forced, the most
outrageously impudent of all imaginable political
fictions, that such an offence (attentat) was raised
in the scale of penalties to the height of parricide.
[The man of the 2d of December a father of his
subjects !] Ah, forsooth, it is not nature, it is poli-
tics alone that is capable of indulging in such
monstrous assimilations.
Let me add, in fine, that deportation, the very
punishment inflicted on me, is a penalty exclu-
sively political.
Therefore, accusation and penalty clearly charac-
terising the offence, such a crime, even supposing it
had ever e-:isted in substance, never was, never
could be, anything else but a political crime.
I challenge any and all French lawyers to deny

the strictness of this conclusion, without even ex-
cepting such as have, through their baseness, now
disgraced that respectable title—a Dupin, a Ba-
roche, or a Troplong.
Now, the fraud being unveiled, what remains in
reality ? Two political enemies, face to face, the
one of Whom thinks it useful to visit the other
with ostracism.

Well and good. But is not this hatred so
grossly enraged against one man somewhat carried
away, and wanting in cleverness ?
'He that proclaims himself unshakeably enthroned,
who has the audacity of hewing out of granite and
porphyry the long line of his dynasty's mausoleum,
he, above all, who pretends to making Europe
tremble before him, does he play a clever game in
appearing to tremble himself before the sound of
a name ? Public opinion will decide. •
As for me, but for the powerlessness to which

I am reduced in serving the cause of liberty, I
have no occasion to complain of this new blow.
I am served the same policy I applied myself to
M. Bonaparte, with this difference, however, that
I acted openly, frankly, without organising false-
hood as a system, and setting to work the most
perfidious machinations.
Minister of the Interior, I ordered the body of
M. Bonaparte, yet an outlaw,• to be seized;
Member of 'the provisional government, I voted
against repealing the laws that banished his family;
Member of the executive commission, I was en-
trusted with supporting, in parliament the pre-
servation of those laws.
And I did fulfil this task with eagerness, be-
cause I felt it was necesary to shelter the masses
against their own_mistaken impressions: be cansA I
foresaw the people, scarcely emancipated, would,
under the deluding charm of tradition, soon be re-
plunged into the servitude of the first Empire.
History will tell whether I was wrong.
One thing, at any rate, I am forthwith entitled to
affirm as being manifestly evidenced : If M. Bona-
parte had been far away from France—if all hope
of returning had been closed to him for ever—he
would neither have had the leisure nor the means
of preparing,in concert with the re-actionary, party,
those bloody and nefarious days of June, 1848, that
entombed the republic.
If, for evil and tyranny, this strength has con-
sisted in acting slowly, patiently, but incessantly,
why then should we, who have public welfare and
the triumph of liberty in view, deprive ourselves of
the means of acting ?
Let us not forget that every republican who re-

turns to France without having degraded himself
is, in spite of all, a light-spreading focus and a sol-
dier ready for the coming day,—l am, &c.,
' Sept. 14. LEDRU ROLLIN.

LIFE-BOAT SERVICE.—CASTLETOWN, ISLE OF
MAN, Sept. 14.—A few clays ago the Norwegian brigantine
Opreisingen. of Arendal, 69 tons, laden with timber, struck
on a a rock in Castletown Bay about 5 p.m. It was blowing
at the time a gale from the westward, but being then off
shore a harbour boat was enabled to reach her. The rudder
was soon carried away, and it was decided to procure warps
to try to get her under weigh. For this purpose the master
and carpenter went ashore in the harbour boat, leaving the
rest of the crew, three in number, on board. Before they
could return the gale increased and the wind veered round to
W. S.W., when it soon became impracticable to communicate
with the vessel in an ordinary boat. At 11.30 at night it was
decided to launch the new life-boat stationed by the Royal
National Life-brat Institulion at this place, which was
effected at midnight. The night was very dark—tide four
hours' flood. On reaching the brigantine she was found to
be full of water, and the crew in great danger. Notwith-
standing the fury of the elements, the poor fellows were safely
lauded at 2 a.m. The above-named valuable institution has
promptly paid, through Mr. Burman, its hon. local secre-
tary, the gallant crew of the life-boat £1 each man for their
laudable services,

THE BALLOT IN AMERICA.