The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-22 00:00:00

infa Itinff ,11414

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1844.

In the House of Lords the Earl of CLARENDON
asked Lord ABERDEEN if he had any objection to
produce the correspondence which had taken place
between the Go'Vernment and Don CARLOS, relative
to the marriage of his son with the Queen of SPAIN.
The Earl of ABERDEEN did not consider it expe-
a/.,nt to produce the correspondence, but, at the same
five, admitted a letter had been addressed to him on
the part of Don CARLOS, offering to resign his pre-
tensions to the Spanish Crown, on condition of the
marriage of his son with Queen ISABE LI. A. He had
minrunicated the fact to the Spanish Government,
withot# pressing for an answer.
Lord BROUGHAM moved the third reading of the
Insolvent Debtors' Act Amendment Bill. The
ob-
ject of the Bill was to screen unfortunate debtors,
and not those guilty of fraud or contumacious con-
duct. .

After mine discussion, the Bill was referred to a
Select Committee. Lord COTTENHAM then moved
the third reading of his Bill on the same subject.
The LORD CHA-ticELLoa moved that it be recom-
mitted. A division took place, when there were for
the third reading, 4 ; and against it, 28. The Bill
was then referred to a Select Committee, in com-
pany with Lord BuouonAsis,and the House Ad-
journed at Half-past Nine.
- After the presentation of petitions and some otherrr.
business of little importance in the Commons,
6IRISTIE asked the SOLICITOR-GENERAL whether the
currant report was true, that, at the election for
A.bingdon, the Hon. and Learned Gentleman had
distributed 50/. arnzng the crowd from a bag of money
In his lap. The speech of the Hon. Member on this
Ev,bject.is very amusing and instructive. The SOLI-
CITOR-GENERAL did not deny the charge, but he found
Fault with the mode of putting questions to Members.
ale could not deny, however, that he had
received due notice ; for he candidly ad-
shifted that Mr. CHRISTIE had informed him
week ago that he would put the question, but
6t the same time he must state that he could not
4give his sanction to such a practice, and that he must
ecline answering the question. Is everything going
Lo wreck in this Conservative GOvernment ? The.
fend law-officer of the Crown is charged with a
heinous offence, and he tosses up his head and says,
ai I will not plead." We hope Mr. CHRISTIE will
riot lose sight of the question. Of what use is it for
the Commons to order the law-officers of the Crown
,go indict Sudbury for bribery and corruption, ifj

the SOLICITOR-GENERAL is charged with the same
offence, and cannot deny the charge ? Sir FREDERICK
THE 3IGER is much mistaken if he thinks that any
class of the community will suffer such insolence.

In answer to a question from Mr. SHEIL relative
to national education in Ireland, of which he had
given notice, Sir R. PEEL cautioned Hon. Members
not to place implicit confidence in newspaper reports,
and asserted that the instructions to the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland were to give the patronage of
the Government to those who had the best claims on
the ground of professional merit and character.
On the report of the Sugar Duties Bill being
brought up, Mr. EWART moved that slave and free-
labour sugar be admitted on the payment of equal
duties. A division took place, when there were for
the motion 65, and against it 183. The Bill was or-
dered to be read a third time on Monday, with the
understanding that the Bank Charter Bill should
have the precedence.

The House went into Committee on the Dissen-
ters' Chapels Bill, when the principal clauses were
agreed to, the amendments being rejected. The House
then resumed, and the report was brought up and or-
dered to be received on Monday.
The County Coroners Bill was read a third time,
after an amendment, proposed by Mr. HumE, had
been rejected by a majority of 18.
The other orders of the day were then disposed
of, and the House adjourned at Half-past Twelve
o'clock.

In reply to a question put by Captain LAYARD on
Thursday in the House of Commons, with regard to the
r Amoured resignation of Earl DE GREY, the present
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Sir ROBERT PEEL said,
that there was no truth whatever in the report, but
added that at the same time he did not mean to say
that his Lordship's state of health had not for some

months past made him anxious to be relieved from his
present office. "At a later period of the evening,"
observes a morning Contemporary, " the Premier
further qualified his first unqualified statement by an-
nouncing that an immediate change in the Irish Go-
vernment was in contemplation, but that it was solely

in consequence of Earl DE GREY'S health."

Lordship's indisposition has occurred at a most fortunate
season—just in time, in fact, to save his political cha-
racter, and rescue him from the annoyance and humi-
liation of an abrupt recal. He will now, we presume,
be speedily disembarassed of the toils and resposibi-
lities attending his Viceroyalty—far luckier in this
respect than Lord ELLENBOROUGH, who has no con-
venient illness to plead in explanation of his hasty
recal from India. Ministers seem to be peculiarly
unfortunate in some of their most important appoint-
ments, for their Viceroy in the West appears to have
given them as much trouble as their Governor-
General in the East ; and as the former has added
to the weight and multitude of their perplexities in
Ireland, so the latter has very nearly got them into
a squabble with the East India Company. As re-
gards the particular case of Earl DE GREY, we look
upon his resignation as a matter imperatively called for
under the existing circumstances of the sister country,
and we are only surprised that it has been so long
delayed. Had his Lordship retired some months
earlier, he would have better consulted his own
dignity'; for, from the first moment of his entering
upon the Viceroyalty, his administration has been one
long blunder—or rather a series of petty, provoking
blunders, which have occasioned quite as much
ridicule as indignation. Professing the strictest im-
partiality in his conduct, his legal and other appoint-
ments were all, with but one or two unimportant ex-
ceptions, of a one-sided character. Then, the mode
in which he arrayed himself in hostility to the Re-
peaters, and the nature of the military precautions
he adopted against their apprehended insurrection—
could anything be more absurd—more calculated to
increase the general discontent of all parties, Orange-
men as well as Catholics ? We say nothing of his
fortification of the Dublin Pigeon-house —of his
placing a couple of extra sentinels at the gates o
the Castle, in order to drive away the invading army
of the Corn Exchange—of the hurried voyage of
troops, per steam-boat, without their dinners, to
Waterford, and of their still more hurried voyage
back again, after finding, to their infinite disappoint-
ment, not a single insurgent in the city, but only a
deaf old woman selling matches on the quay—
of the rebuilding of the crazy old forts on
the Shannon, and the late miserable and
truly dignified crusade against the Repeal
buttons ;—we say nothing of all these multiplied fool-
eries ; but think of the summary dismissal of many
of the most respectable and efficient Magistrates in
Ireland, a proceeding whose only effect, as might
have been anticipated, was to increase the Repeal
ferment ; think of the forbearance shown for months,
during the hottest periods of the agitation, towards
Mr. O'CosTNELL and the monster-meetings; and then,
when these meetings were just about to terminate for
the season, and the Liberator had announced his in-
tention of retiring for a time into the privacy
of Derrinane—of the sudden exhibition made of
official vigour in the putting down of the Clontarf
meeting, under circumstances which—had it not been
for the exertions of O'CONNELL and his indefatigable
colleague TOM STEELE—might have caused the blood
of the people to flow in torrents, and made quite an
Aceldama of the field of Clontarf;—think, we say, of
these things, and then, reader, whether you be Whig,
Tory, or Radical, you will scarcely fail to agree with
us in opinion, that Earl DE GREY'S Administration
was throughout one long blunder, and that a more in-
competent Viceroy could scarcely have been selected
for Ireland at such a feverish crisis. When his Lord
ship first entered on his high post, he found—thanks
to the enlightened sway of the Marquis of NORMANBY
and Earl FORTESCUE—the country in a comparatively
tranquil state ; but, before he had been six months in
office, it was in a state of agitation from one end to
the other; and when he leaves it, he will leave it
overrun with troops, horse, foot, and artillery; vigi-
lantly watched by steam war-ships; and treated with
little less ceremony than if it were a conquered pro-
vince, instead of en integral part of the British
Empire ! Such is the legacy which a Tory Lord-
Lieutenant will leave, on his resignation, to insulted
and oppressed Ireland! We shall be exceedingly
curious to know whom Sir ROBERT:PEEL will appoin
as the successor of Earl DE GREY.

'We shall not be suspected of any extraordinary
affection for Sir ROBERT PEEL, On general princi-
ples, and as to many prominent departments of his
ministerial policy, we have ever been decidedly op-
posed to him. If we have freely given him all credit
for some important relaxations of the screw of mono-
poly, and for his not unfrequent exhibitions of a spirit
of conciliation and liberality in dealing with religious
dissent, and the political disabilities formerly conse-
quent thereon, we have never disassociated him from a
party hostile to the intellectual improvement, the mo-
ral amelioration, and the political progress of the
people. But we would willingly see his Government,
so long as it is destined to last, available to these great
objects, whether he himself feel a personal interest in
their achievement or not. Neither the Right Hon.
Baronet (were his public services or merits double what
they really have been), nor his party (were its preten-
sions to the advancement of a generous and enlightened
statesmanship tenfold all that can be predicated of its
actual career), will weigh with us for one moment
against what we consider to be the true interests of
the people. In the name of these interests we must,
renew our protest of Wednesday against the principle
and the tone of Sir Ron Ear's proceeding on the sugar
duties question on Monday evening last.
We will assume, for the purposes of this protest,
that owing to the delay which must be interposed, at
the present critical conjuncture of affairs, to the trans-
action of the public business from any change of ad-
ministration, by reason of difficulty in finding parti-
cular individuals in the ranks of Opposition sufficiently
qualified for particular offices, or, being so qualified,
sufficiently willing to accept them, such a change of
administration would be politically inexpedient for the
nation. This is an hypothesis surely not unfavourable
or unfriendly to the case of Sir ROBERT ; and yet we
contend that, in reference evfm to this, the whole
speech and deportment of the Right Hon. Baronet, on
the occasion in question, were not only calculated to
prejudice, but must have inevitably damaged his cause,
and the duration of his tenure of office.

Sir ROBERT PEEL complained, on Monday night,
that " there was a combination of parties against
him ;" and he showed himself at once irritable and
unwise in denouncing the attempt which had been
made by the West India interest to enlist the agricul-
tural or landed interest under their banner, on that
occasion, by proclaiming the common danger that

would accrue to both these great bodies in the event
of Ministers being enabled to carry a certain scheme
of duties, which in practical operation must be fatal
to the one immediately—and, in the application. of its
principle, must ultimately prove just as fatal, to the
other. Why, the West India body, in that :appeal,
were only paying the compliment to the Pfeinier of
accurately copying his own tactics ! By wl tat, other
arts did the Right Hon. Baronet carry his Currency
Bill in 1819, or his Tariff two years ago,.. or the
Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1829, or 'the No-
Confidence votes against former Governments to which
he was in opposition, or his most unconstitutialal In-
come and Property-tax in 1842, or his Bank 'Charter
Renewal Bill of the present session—but by e Misting
the apprehensions of one class in aid of the (-lc 'sires of
another ; or by operating on the alarms of :separate
sections of political opponents, through the ar:gument
that the interests of each must be sacrificed to, -those of
another, unless the whole would consult their common
advantage by concurring in the propositions su 'milted
by him for their adoption ? In these puel re-
proaches Sir ROBERT did injustice to himself', as the
Great Original Artificer of these successful a malga-
mations of heterogeneous materials of hostile t action
into one mass of flexible supporters. He had, already
worked Protestants and Dissenters, Calvinis is and
Roman Catholics, manufacturers and farmers, opera-
tive labourers, and master millowners, Rad;:c als and
Tories, bankers and bullionists, debtors and er editors,
mortgagees and mortgagors, into a concordTa discors
on the above-named occasions, and as often tart others
as occasion required. Why should he quarrel with
Mr. PHILIP MILES for doing a little kneading of the
same kind, on his own account ; and flavouring with
the sugar of our 'West Indian colonists the col .n pro-
duced here by British growers?
Sir ROBERT PEEL, moreover, talked on IV ronday
night as if it were in the nature of mere factio' as ob-
struction to Ministers of the Crown, to propose a mend-
ments on fiscal regulations which those Minister s, " in
the exercise of their highest duty," and with t he ad-
vantage of all the official information in existfx ace on
the subject before them—had, after mature tul d an-
xious deliberation, recommended to Parliatme:at for
adoption. But this notion is grounded on 8 mere
childish absurdity of assumption ; namely, th it the
Ministers of the Crown must necessarily have mas-
tered the whole bearings of such official inform ation ;
and, by a species of patent infallibility, have tr.-rived
at the soundest possible conclusions upon it. Rut; this
impatience on the part of the Premier of the eLaalreisa,
on the part of representatives of the people or that
which is—constitutionally and positively, net con-
ventionally, only—their first duty to their con-
stituents—is the most unreasonable, the most umlike
an English Statesman, we remember to have re ad of.
The fact seems to be that Sir ROBERT PEEP, is so
spoiled with the success of his dictation in some :recent
and memorable cases, that he anticipates, fror a the
House of Commons at large, the same blind, u nrea-
soning deference which he habitually extracts fro .m his
supporters within its walls, but which Mr. D'lss
with equal spirit and emphasis, indignantly repudiated
for himself and the friends who usually vote witi i him.
TI e last and most commonplace artifice to which
the Premier resorted, whilst still under the 'nal! uence
of his fears, and before the result of the incredible
division of Monday had re-assured him—was, the
threat of abandoning office if the House should ne-
gative the Government scale, and affirm that pia )posed
by Mr. MILES. We will not weaken the effect of the
manly and indignant castigation which this threat
received from Lord JOHN RUSSELL, who remarked
that such a process of attempted intimidation con-
sisted neither with the constitutional demeanour. of a
Member of Parliament, nor the responsible positir.n of a
Minister of the Crown—its obvious design being-Ito deter
Members from the free and frank expression aif their
opinions, by considerations extraneous to the, merits
of the • question really before them. But -tv e would
remind Sir ROBERT PEEL himself, that he adopts the
surest means of losing his personal influence with the
House at large, of enfeebling his own party, and com-
promising his own control over it, by these ill-timed
ebullitions of an unbecoming vexation, and these
vexatious airs of an unbecoming authority.

Madrid journals of the 13th have been, received.
According to some of them, reports prevailed that the
Cortes would be dissolved on the 10th of July, and the
new Cortes summoned for the 10th of October, when
the QUEEN would attain her real majority. A re-
view of troops, on a grand scale, was to take place at
Madrid in a few days. Deputations from many of
the surrounding provinces had arrived at Barcelona
to have audiences of their MAJESTIES to present ad-
dresses of congratulation. During the procession of
the Fete Dieu at Barcelona, their MAJESTIES, who
had been visiting some of the churches, met the pro-
cession in the street. They immediately alighted
from their carriage, and prostrated themselves before
the Host in the midst of a large crowd, who were
much moved by this display of religious zeal.
The Three per Cents. were done at -27 i for cash,
and 271 at 60 days ; and the Five per Cents, at 19-1,-
for cash.

The Freneh Chamber of Deputies, after tedious
discussions, continued for eight days, passed the
Orleans and Bordeaux Railway Bill, on Tuesday, by
a majority of 218 to 56. This Bill authorises the
Government to construct the line only when it shall
be let by public auction to a company, who are to
lay down the rails, build the carriages, &c., according
to certain conditions. The lease is to continue for 45
years, and the party contracting are to give security
for the due performance of the work, to the amount
of 2,000,000 f. (80,0001.) 'Cowards the conclusion of
the debate M. CREMEUX, a lawyer, moved the follow-
ing singular resolution, "that no Member of either
Chamber can be an administrator or contractor on
any line fur which a concession is granted.'
The resolution, strange to say, met with little oppo-'
sition. Two of the Government papers, the Journal
des Debats and the Globe, are decidedly opposed to
the resolution, awl little doubt, therefore, remains
that an attempt will be made to rescind the vote. The
former journal thus' points out its absurdity :—" If
the members of both Chambers are not to have the
right of taking part in the administration of a rail-
road, what are the employments or occupations with
which Deputies or Peers may be invested ? Why is
this work to be prohibited more than any other ?
What is there particularly suspicious in the carrying
on of one of those undertakings, which everybody
allows are most highly important for the prosperity
and strength of the country ? And if incompatibi-
lity results from their personal participation, why
should it not be also applicable to that of a bro-

tiler or friend ? In a word, to be a legislator,
according to this amendment, the first condition
shall he to possess neither moveable property,
nor landed property, nor manufactory, nor any
business whatever. Nor will this be enough—
a member must also be without family and without
friends. Such is the upshot of this system—it leads
direct to absurdity. The Opposition had, it must be
allowed, without disclosing their design, cleverly
prepzred men's minds in favour of this vote, by a
proceeding of which several of the majority, not
perceiving the snare, had become the accomplices and
supporters. A paper had been hawked about, 'in
which the signers declared themselves to have nothing
to do with any railroad undertaking, and several
Conservatives thought it right to sign. They must
now comprehend what was the object of the paper
thus presented• to them. They have had placed be-
fore them to-day the measure of that independence
and patriotism which seize on all pretexts, and avail
themselves of all kinds of passions, to bring about the

failure of those enterprises from which the country
expected the happiest effects for the advancement of
its welfare and of the national power."

The dispute between the judges of the Cour Royale
and the 'French bar still remains unsettled. On
Tuesday the Court opened at the usual hour. No
advocate was within the bar but several were stand-
ing in plain clothes at the bottom of the hall. Several
cases in consequence were postponed for a week.
The President at the same time announcing that if
no agreement was come to within that period the
Court would hear the simple statement of the soli.;
citors and give judgment without the assistance of
barristers. The following are additional extracts
from the papers :---
" The health of the Minister of Finances imperatively re-
quires his departure to take the waters very shortly. The
Minister of the Interior will take the direction of his depart-
ment during his absence. Should the benefit he expects to
derive from the waters not be sufficiently decisive to enable
M. Lacave Laplagne to resume his portfolio on his return,
there must be a change in the Cabinet ; but nothing will be
done before the close of the session. The seat of M. Lacave
Laglagne in the Court of Cessation is, as well known, re-
served to him."
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