The Sun.
London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY., AUGUST 8, In 7

Another Eastern difficulty is homing in the
future—an ominous cloud is gathering on the
It( litical horizon. The flags of Russia, Prussia,
France, and Sardinia have been lowered at Consan
tinop'e. >matic relations are suspended with
the Sublime Porte by these Powers, and that for
a matter in which the Turkish Cabinet is sustained
and supported by England and Austria.
We regret that Sardinia should have joined the
malcontents. We entertain a high respect for
VicTor£. EMMANUEL, and should always desire to
hive the only other free monarchy in Europe
svrayed on our side and struggling under the same
standard. We suspect, however, that the course
pursued by the Government of Turin is in-
fluenced rather by its very natural animosity
to Austria than by the real merits of the
CASO. It has sided with France rather than with
Russia or Prussia. It might perhaps wish to
support the Ottoman Government, but the oppor-
tunity of snubbing Austria affords a temptation
too strong to be resisted, and the weight of Sar-
dinia has consequently been cast into the op-

posing scale.
As to the conduct of Russia we cannot feel the
slightest surprise ; we never expected anything
at her hands. All her professions of moderation
were, to use a familiar phrase, mere " bosh."
The snake was scatcheJ, not killed. Wo had the
Power in our own hands, and foolishly relin-
quished it. We might have exacted valid secu-
rities, but were contented to bind her over in her
own recognisances. The natural result has
followed, perhaps a lit le sooner than might
have ;been anticipated, but, sooner or later,
fresh complications Were inevitable in conse-
quence of the lame and impotent conclusion
of the contest in which We uselessly sacrified
50,000 English lives, and 100,000,000/. of
English treasure.

The co-operation cf Prussia with our eeanuitsi,_
indicates the true value of those dynastic
anew, on which so much stress is laid by the ad-
vocates of Germanism, The ink is scarcely dry
in which the act, granting the Princess R,)yal's
dowry is written, before we find the representa-
tive of Cliquot striving to diminish the prestige of
Great Britain, and already acting with a degree of
hauteur and insolence that might more fittingly
be displayed towards a third-rate Power. W"
witnessed s) witch of Prussian duplicity
vacillation during the la.e war, that perhaps tau
most favourable eyinptom that e3uld be displayed,
is her unequivc,cal demonstration against us in
the first instwnce.
But,FranoJ's conduct is more perplexing. We
h ad hoped that the ties 'of amiiy and mutual

good will had been cemented by the blood of the
gallant soldiers who had perished side by side in
the Crimea—that we should no longer hear of
"Perfidious Albion," or of the unrelenting hatred
to English institutions and the English people.
We regret to say that our faith is greatly shaken
by recent events. As long as we submit to be
patronised and led by the nose—as long as we
weakly consent to play second fiddle, and `se accept
with bated breath and deep humility the orders
of the EMPEROR, so long shall we be graciously
suffered to go on, but should differences arise, we
mist be prepared to " eat humble pie," or
submit to the consequences. We fear that
matters cannot proceed much longer in the same
manner, and that sooner or later we shall have
to struggle, not for our superiority, for that we
do not seek, but for that full and perfect equality
which no true-hearted Englishman will surrenderf
should it cost the shedding of the last drop of his
blood, and the expenditure of his last shilling.
There is a Congress now sitting at Osborne
House in which important decisions may be
L
• arrived at. It would be absurd to suppose that
the visit of LOUIS NAPOLEON was one of mere
ceremony, or that attempts are not being made to
induce England to yield on points in which her
Ministers have hitherto stood firm. The main
point at present is, probably, that relating to the
un ion of the Danubian Principalities, which France,
in conjunction with its new friends, Russia
and Prussia, seems resolved to accomplish at any
cost, per fees ant nefas. This is the first step
towards the dismemberment of the Ottoman
Empire—the creation of an opponent devoted to
Russia, and prepared to do all its dirty work at
the very threshold. It was to preserve these
provinces to Turkey—to avert that Muscovite in-
fluence, that we entered into the war, and our
saciffices would, indeed, be made in vain, if we
should now tamely yield to the pen what the
sword could not subdue. The people of Moldavia
have, so far as the Lite elections can be received
in evidence, testified an invincible repugnance
to the Union. But their wishes are to be set at
nought, and everything carried with a high hand.
It was not sufficient that the SULTAN changed his
Government to please the overbearing representa-
tives of France and her coadjutors---that the
new Cabinet offered to institute a strict in-
quiry into all matters connected with
the Elections. No, because there was not
immediate submission, because these elections
were not instantly annulled, the flip wore hauled
down, and the peace and tranquillity of Europe
I seriously endangered. The annoyance and inso-
lence of such conduct sufficiently proves that the
parties are influenced by no considerations of
equity or justice—that their chief anxiety is to
injure the Porte and humiliate Great Britain and
Austria. Will LOUIS NAPOLEON induce the
Osborne Conference to connive at such a course ?
We hope not ;we believe not. We have still
confidenee in Lord PALMERSTON and Lord CLAR-
ENDON ; and until we are convinced to the con-
trary, on the most unquestionable evidence, can-
not believe that they will strike their colours in a
matter where the honour and interests of England
are so deeply concerned.
There are other matters that may also be touched
on. The coercion of the Press—the dismissal of
political refugees. These will, doubtless, form
topics of conversation, and we confess that it is
not without considerable anxiety that we await
the results of the pealing Conferences, which
time alone can fully and completely develope.

I A. few days will now bring fresh intelligence
I from India. We shall know whether Delhi has
rea'ly fallen—whether the sanguinary rnicreants
who have murdered and insulted our countrymen
and countrywomen have ex-diated their inha!nan
atrocities, or whether the mutiny has spread fur-
ther and assumed even more formidable dimen-
sions. We shill then know whether the people
have joined the military ruffians, and whether
we have again to reconquer India, or merely to
disband and punish a number of insurgent sepcys,
and those by whom their discontent has been
€cited or fomented, and who can be convicted on
unequivocal evidence of complicity in the vile
c- nspiracy.

Hitherto the people, with few and. rare excep-
tions, have remained true to their allegiance, and
we hope and believe that they will still be found
faithful. Much will depend on the manner
in which the mutineers are dealt with, and
the stringency of the examples that may be
made. As yet, it has been merely the military
element that has occasioned the disturbance, and
those others Ni ho have joined have been merely
the miscreants who would not permit any oppor-
tunity for plunder or murder to pass away with-
out taking full advantage of the chances. The
question then naturally arises, what can have oc-
casioned or led to t'lis deplorable feeling on
the part of men who have " partaken of °III salt,"
—who have been petted to the utmost extent,
have had all their prejudices respected, and their
interests carefully attended to ? The man who
CALL lift the veil and dispel the mists in
which the matter is involved will render valua-
ble service to the nation. And there are
many who are prepared to give the benefit of their
Indian experiences. Amongst these the Hon.
Member for Weymouth a,stmies a prominent
position. Ho has already published a very able
and well-timed pamphlet* ou the causes of, and
remedies for, the 1111.1tii,y. Mr. CAMPBELL
seems to have studied the Indian character with
assiduity and effect., and to have possessed him-
self of a large fund of available information, pe-
culiarly valualle at the present crisis. And we
earnestly hope that the Government may
avail itself of the well-considered sugges-
tions which he tenders for their acceptance.
Mr: CAMPBELL has, iu an appendix, given a
remarkably clear and graphic historical sketch of
the Bengal army. Ho has pointed out the various
mutinies that have broken out, and even of the
discontents that have existed among the Sepoy
troops. From the data thus supplied he
has arrived at the conclusions which he has sub-
mitted to the Premier. Every one of these con-
clusions—eleven in number—seem to be fully
warranted by the premises, and to lead naturally
towards the proposed remedies by which, having
suppressed the revolt, we may obtain security for
the future.

Oue of the chief causes of the insubordination
his been the deficiency of European officers, and
the consequent influence attained by the native
Commissioned officers—" Men who have invari-
ably risen from the ranks, grown old and
imbecile, and either become the tools of the
soldiete, with whom they formerly associated
on Equal terms, or the listless spectators of all
that passes around them." Their conduct seems
t') have been oue amongst " the primary causes
of the dilapidated discipline of the Bengal Infantry."
The Sepoy has also found that every manifestation of
pay- and allowances.
discontent has led to Extra

* "The Indian Mutiny : Its CaUSCR and its Remedies.''
A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Palmerst
K.G. and G.C. 8., First Lord of the Treasury, &,.,
By R. J. R. Campball, Esq., M.P. for Weymouth. Lon_
don: Charles Evans, United Service Gazette office, 6,
lington-street South, Strand.

His religious prejudices could always be assuaged
by a few rupees, his wounded conscience healed
by the application of a silver plaistor. Any
pretext that afforded a favourable oppor-
tunity for extortion was anxiously sought
after, and worked to the utmost. The more
yielding were his employers, the more
avaricious he became, until at last he severed
every tie, and rushed into open rebellion.

We commend Mr. CAMPBELL'S brochure to the
attention of our readers. It will be found well
worthy of attntive perusal. and may, when the
first impedimenta have been overcome, provide a
clue towards an extraction from the labyrinth in
which we are at present involved.

The clergy are making a vigorous effort for .
liberty of conscience—a rather new thing this in 1
English history. All of a sudden they have found '
out that for time out of mind they have sinned
by law ; several times in each session the law has
required them to marry divorced persons, should
these persons present themselves for marriage.
They could not help themselves, and they gave
no indication that they wished to help themselves.
The thing they could help doing, taking the fees,
they did as readily as in other cases. They mar-
ried, if they did, not give in marriage, all the
violaters of the great principle of the indissolu-
bility of marriage who might demand to be united
by them in the bonds of holy matrimony. Never,
that we ever heard of, did any clergyman, while
appealing to others to declare any "just cause or
impediment" with which they were acquainted,
himself proclaim that divorce was a just cause or
impediment in the case before him. He made the
matrimony as holy as priest could make if, and
declared the parties joined together by God, and
not to be put asunder by man.
All at once, however, they have gained new
light. It is proposed to simplify the process of
lave, not to alter its powers. It is proposed, also,
to make it more easily accessible to all who live
under it, and to abolish entirely the parts of the
process most offensive to decency and most ieju-
rious to public morals. A considerable number,
some thousands, of the clergy, have on this occa•
sion discovered that marriage is absolutely indis-
soluble, and that therefore it is sinful for a
clergyman to re-marry persons whom a court of
law has separated. Why this change ? They
used, in the years of their innocence, to re-marry
the separated man and woman, "and were not
ashamed." " Who told them that they were
naked ?" The answer is not far to seek. Rome
was the serpent. She told them that matrimony
was a sacrament, whatever that word of ecclesias-
tical conjuration meant ; and as Papal magic has
been at an advancing premium of late years at
Oxford, the c:ergy have tried to believe that the
words they read at the altar create some myste-
rious tie, or lay the united parties under some
spell, which no State enchanter, nor even an ec-
clesiastical one, can ever break. The married
patties may violate any matrimonial pledge, one
or both of them—the physical, the religious, the
sentimental relations of matrimony may all be
annihilated—the whole thing, body, soul, and
spirit, may be gone, hopelessly gone ; but no one
may pronounce it gone. It remains by a kind of
matrimonial transubstantiation. To the senses
no holy matrimony, but rather an unholy contrast,
is there ; but He of Oxford, and his dapper or
demure Puseyites, tell us that the mystic thing is
certainly there, for the priest once put it there.
We may not, indeed, perceive it—nay, we per-
t.ceive the reverse—but faith must tell us that a
miracle exists ; that an unholy adulterer or adul-
teress, or a pair equally guilty, are living in a
mystic and holy bond! So, toe', thieks that emi-
nent fir:ancier, Peelite, th,.ologian, casuist, sophiA,
and we know not what besides, Mr. GLADSTONE.

These gentLicnen, accordingly, now demand
liberty of conscience for their newly discovered
creed. They want liberty not to marry those
whom the law of the lend allows to marry. All
fair and right if they were not the servants of the
Stite ; but under what pretext they first " eat
the salt." of the State, and then mutiny when
called on to fulfil the duties it requires, we can-
not conceive. These Clerical Sepoys, like the
Brahmin Sepoys of India, have in truth been also
petted till they do not know what they want.
Like the latter they have been long secretly dis•
affected to the Supremacy of the Civil Power, and
now the Bill before Parliament is like the greased
cart ridges to their ill-suppressed discontent.
The pretext, however, is not so good for the
Clerical as for the Brahmin mutineers ; since the
firmer are merely required to keep up their old
drill, while the latter had, presumably at least, to
incur a new pollution. To us the case seems very
char. No servant of the State should have any
option as to fulfilling the duties which the Stato
at-aches to his office. The principle i 3 so vicious
that no honest servant could wish it. A clergy-
man is not permitted to refuse the Holy Sacrament
of the Eucharist to any man not legally debarred
from it, however bad his life may be ; nor to de-
cline to read the Burial Service over the grave of
the worst parishioner he may have had ; why
should he be allowed an option to marry or not
parsons who may legally intermarry ?
We see Mr. GILPIN, "the Friend," in his cre•
ditable zeal for liberty of conscience, will support
an amendment giving liberty to Puseyita State
clergymen to refuse doing the work of the State.
But is Le consistent or wise ? The practice of his
sect is to dispense entirely with State pay, indeed,
almost to dispense with a clergy. It would, there-
fore, be the height of oppression to require a
Quaker minister, in that capacity, to de anything
for the State. The Puseyites can follow the
Friends in declining St tte emolument-3, if they
please. They can have, like the Catholics, a
hierarchy and priesthood independent of the
State, and may then properly refuse a
religious service in connection with marriage if
they like. The alternative is simple—State emo
luments and State Services, or voluntary suppert
and voluntary service. To us it appears inexcus-
ably ignoble and sordid to want liberty without
being willing to pay its price. Dissenters, Catho-
lics, and Free Churchmen set them an example at
which they ought to blush.
Adverting to Dissenters, we would remind these
matrimonial mutineers that there are such things
as Church-rates. That Dissenters have always.
complained of them as unjust, and that that they
have often alleged, too, that it went against their
consciecces to ply tiern. Any fair-minded man
will own that there is something in the latter
plea. A man who seriously makes a conscience
of his particular creed, who thinks it at least
worth while to pay considerably, in order to
maintain worship in accordance with it—such a
man may be excused, surely, in feeling it rather
galling to his conscience to pay a shilling towards
the creed and worship he repudiates, and, perhaps,
deems superstitious. He may be an enthusiast, a
fanatic, or what you will, but that does not excuse
ourgrieviug his conscience. He can hardly be more
superstitious than these matrimonial mystics or
matrimonial transubstantionists. Yet what was
the answer cf every one of these mutineers against
State law when Dissenters have talked of consci-
entious objections to paying Church-rates ? One
and all they have always exclaimed, not only