The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-08 00:00:00

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THE SUN.
LONDON, FRIDAY, FEB. 8, 1861.

We are, of course, pleased to see our Foreign
Secretary speaking the sentiments of his country
and of common sense, respecting the temporal power

of the POPE and the French occupation of Rome ;
but it should be remembered, the noble lord him-

self should remember, that if right now he was not

always so. The occupation of Rome by LOUIS
NAPOLEON, then President of the French Republic,
was undertaken with the express sanction of Lord
JOIN RUSSELL'S Cabinet. He appended the
requirement of reformed institutions from the POPE,
it is true, but it is notorious that the EMPEROR
tried every means short of the right one—that of
leaving the POPE and his subjects to settle their
own institutions—likely to effect the object. Saving
always the occupation, the EMPEROR has been un-
doubtedly in earnest in pressing on th© Holy

Father the secularisation of his secular government,
and the Holy Father, in the hands of ANTONELLI,
as firm in resisting the proposal. Lord JOHN, we
fear, so intensely hated MAzzINI, Republicanism,
universal suffrage, and the ballot, that he sold the

liberties of the Romans to the man, who needed them

as the thirty pieces of silver, with which he might
and did bribe the turncoat French clergy to sell
their own Republic and to tear up the trees of liberty
they had planted and consecrated before they

began to sprout.
By the 22d of December, 1860, according to the
despatch of that date to Lord COWLEY, he had
learned to regard the French occupation of Rome in
a different light. By that time the inhabitants,
seeing no hope of gaining the admirably admi-
nistered Republic which LOUIS NAPOLEON and
Lord JOHN agreed to crush, although resisted to
death in so doing by the Romans, were ready to
throw themselves into the arms of a Constitutional
King ; they, doubtless, also shared with all Italy
and the world, the opinion that unity was their
strength. The magic words Constitutional Govern-
ment, perhaps changed Lord JOHN'S views entirely.
The Romans were now as wise, as they were mad
before; they had adopted his Lordship's
watchword, and now they deserved liberation from
their secular Pope. Accordingly he can argue in
the despatch referred to, " regret that the French
occupation of Rome ever took place," can prove at
length its undesirable character ; can shew that
instead of obtaining what the Catholics ask, inde-

pendence for the Pope, it makes him entirely de-
pendent on the troops of a foreign sovereign ; and
as to the Romans, though they ought not to be
free to choose their form of government when
they were so crazy as to prefer Republicanism,
now, they ought to be left free to act.
" The French military force," says his Lordship,
" in the City of Rome occupies a most commanding
position, and the reinforcements now about to be
sent thither are a practical admission on the part
of the Government of France that if the subjects
of the POPE were left free to act for themselves,
with such assistance as they might receive
from their fellow-countrymen in other parts
of Italy, they would soon relieve themselves
from the oppressions under which they have
so long and so grievously laboured." He even
goes so far as to recommend the POPE'S being raised
to the Bishopric pure and simple of Rome under
VICTOR EMMANUEL. "If such," he says, "be
the POPE'S condition, it would be far better that
his troops should be protected by the troops of an
Italian sovereign, who would respect his spiritual
authority, and give relief to his temporal subjects."
In confirmation of which his Lordship quotes an
extract from a despatch addressed to him from
Rome by Mr. ODO RUSSELL. It is as follows :
" In Rome the population hope so ardently for
King VICTOR EMMANUEL and his army, that every
family in every house, from the poorest upwards,
has secretly prepared, on the chance of his arrival,
a national flag wherewith to welcome his Majesty.
The police detected, but too late, the sudden sale of
every bit of red or green stuff in every linen-
draper's or haberdasher's shop in Rome that could
be turned into a national flag ; but they could
not punish the offenders without putting nine-
tenths of the population into prison."
We are, as we have said, well pleased with this
great change of opinion on the part of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL in regard to the Romans, and that having
agreed to chose what his lordship thinks the best
form of government, he now thinks they have
arrived at the age of discretion in government
choosing. We hope he will insist upon this with
the French EMPEROR till he has convinced our
iron-frigate-building ally. But if he would con-
♦ince him it must be before he has built many more
Gloires. His speech on Wednesday was as sound
on the Roman Question as need be. After praising,
we believe sincerely, the personal character of the
PoPE, and even his disposition towards Italy,
and referring to his liberal commencement of
his reign, he said—" I trust that the feel-
ings which then inspired him will recur to
his mind, and I do not at all despair of
seeing him again show his sympathies for Italy
and make some agreement with the King of SAR
DINIA, who has been chosen by the almost unani-
mous voice of the Italians to be their temporal
Sovereign, by which, while resigning his secular
power, he shall retain the homage which is due to
him even from those who are not members of the
Roman Catholic Ghurch, and the spiritual autho-
rity which must belong to one who is the head of
a faith which is professed by so many millions of
Christians. If he takes such a course he will not
only preserve his dignity as a Sovereign Prince,
but will at the same time establish a claim to be
considered the first of Italian patriots, preceding
even those men who have done so much for the
liberation of Italy."
On the rest of his speech we shall say but little.
Mr. FITZGERALD gave him the opportunity of an
easy defence before a liberty loving nation,
for the honourable member attacked the despatch
in which all England exulted, and hardly cen-
sured the one which made us all ashamed of him.
That despatch (No. 63 in the Blue Book; of the
31st of August, we wish, for Lord JOHN'S sake,
could be blotted out of existence. But Mr. FITZ-
GERALD spent the whole of his Conservative
strength in damaging his party, by trying all the
logic of a lawyer and all the sophisms of a special
pleader, in controverting the principles of the
Recanting Despatch, as we have ever viewed it, of
the 27th of October—the one which asserted the
rights of peoples to imitate what we did in asking

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