The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-24 00:00:00

triening nit

' LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1850.

During the last few months the British Squadron,
commanded by Sir WILLIAM PARKER, in the Me-
diterranean, appears to have been rapidly moving
hither and thither along the northern and eastern
coasts of that inland sea, for the purpose of awing
the different powers into some sort of subserviency
to the policy of the English Government. When
the Italian movement of emancipation convulsed the
whole of the Roman peninsula, from the mountain-
ous frontiers of Germany and Switzerland to the
most southern recesses of the Abruzzi, the naval force
placed under the authority of that distinguished
Admiral was continually on the alert to proceed, at
a moment's warning, in any given direction. When
the banners of CHARLES ALBERT were shaken to the
winds, and the clarion of war was sounding through
Piedmont and Lombardy, and finding a responsive
echo in the Venetian territories and among the ma-
rine palaces of the Adriatic, the maritime energies
retained by England _in the Mediterranean were
directed with unusual vigilance towards those northern
provinces of Italy were disaster after disaster was
falling upon the Austrian soldiers under RADETZKT.
When a separate movement of an insurrectionary
character manifested itself among the Genoese, Sir
WILLIAM PARKER turned his attention forthwith,
almost exclusively, in the direction of the Sardinian
dominions- 'When the musketry of the lazzaroni
was desolating the streets of Naples, he watched with
a scrutinizing regard the progress of the dispute
between King Boatnz. and the Neapolitans, When
the Sovereign PONTIFF was bombarded in the Quirinal,
and was ultimately induced to fly before the presence
of those who were preparing the way for MAZZINI and
GARIBALDI, namely, before such men as CANINO and
CICBROACCIIIO, seeking a shelter at Gaeta, and sub-
sequently proceeding to Portici, the British Admiral
allowed not a single event then transpiring in the
Eternal City to pass unnoticed, and himself arranged
that an English vessel should cell tinue in the vicinity
of the spot where the POPE had taken refuge, accom-
panied by the Foreign Ambassadors. When a noble
and patriotic demonstration was being made by the
Sicilians, he kept a steady gaze on the pro-
gress of occurrences at Palermo and Messina
from the time when the star of RUGGIERO SETTING
was in the ascendant until its eclipse by the evil vic-
tories of 71LANGIBRI. When LEOPOLD HMS ignomi-
niously driven from his palace at Florence, the Medi-
terranean squadron hovered in the neighbourhood of
the coast of Tuscany, prepared for any emergency
that might arise to require the interposition of Great
Britain in favour of one of her most faithful and en-
lightened allies. On the transmission of the crusad-
ing forces of the French Republic to Civita Tecchia,
her Britannic ISIAJESTY'S naval representative in the
Mediterranean observed with unwinking attention the
advance of that remarkable enterprise from its
outset up to the period of the restoration of
the Pontifical authority by the combined forces of
France, Spain, Naples, and Austria. Subsequently,
on hearing of the insolent demand made by the
AUTOCRAT upon the Sublime Porte for the instant
extradition of those Hungarian refugees who had
taken shelter within the boundaries of Turkey, the
British squadron, under Sir WILLIAM PARKER—as
cannot be very easily forgotten—proceeded with
singular promptitude to the mouth of the Dardanelles
fur the purpose of encouraging the young Sultan
ABDUL-MESCHID in his heroic and magnanimous re-
fusal ; and but for the reluctant withdrawal of the
ultimatum presented by M. TITOFF to the Divan,
the guns of our war vessels would have pro-
tectively surrounded the Golden Horn, and effectively
have obstructed the passage of the Bosphorus against
the Russian fleet approaching from the Black Sea and
the Sea of Marmora. Accordingto the most recen t
intelligence from those quarters, it would now appear
that the same active squadron has proceeded from
Cape Colonne in the direction of the Piraeus, with a
view to test the accuracy of certain rumours to the
effect that Greece was about to commit some act of
iggression against one of the smaller islands depen-
dant on the lonian States.

Even from this rapid and incomplete retrospect of
the doings of Sir WILLIAM PARKER and the import-
ant squadron under his authority, it will be
sufficiently manifest that neither that eminent officer,
ner his subordinates, have been in any respect indolent
during the progress of the great events which have
agitated the world, but more especially Europe, dur-
ing the anni mirabile IE4B and 1849, up to the com-
mencement of the new half century. On the
contrary, it requires no very great effort of an argu•
mentative nature to demonstrate that the presence
and the proceedings of the British naval force in the
Mediterranean have exercised a peculiar and benefi-
cent influence over those gigantic occurrences. Tne
principal characteristic of that influence, in-
deed, must be regarded as having been decidedly
corrective—corrective in the way of restraining, in
a great measure, the arm of power when raised
over the ruins of either monarchical or republican
misfortune. But for the respect inspired by the
contiguity of the war-ships of England, under a
commander so energetic and so observant as Sir W.
PARKER, the bloodshed throughout the Italian Pe-
ninsula would, doubtless, have been yet more ter-
rible than it was in reality. Nor is it idle to cal-
culate that the presence of the Mediterranean squa-
dron materially diminished the force of those expiative
punishments inflicted upon the subued Genoese by the
Sardinian SOVEREIGN, upon the conquered Lombards
by the German Generalissimo,upon the panic-stricken
Neapolitan: ;by the Bourbon BOMBA, upon the Ro-
mans by OUDINOT, and variously also upon the Sici-
lians, the Tuscans, and the Venetians. low far the
approach of Sir WILLIAM PARKER and his naval
armament towards Constantinople induced the main-
tenance of the CALIPH'S defiant attitude towards the
AUTOCRAT, it needs not any one to indicate. For it
is notoriously self-evident that but for the timely
appearance of that force at the entrance of
the Dardanelles, the Ottoman Porte would,
in all human likelihood, have been com-
pelled to yield to the requisition of so formidable an
opponent as the Russian Essrenos, notwithstanding
the moral support afforded to the first determination
of the SULTAN by Sir STRATFORD CANNING and the
French Ambassador. Such a supposition is more
than justified by the recent revelation of a fact,
proving the fierce and ruthless policy directed against
the humane intentions of ABDUL..MESCIIID by the
Russo-Austrian Coalition : considering that it has
lately been discovered by no less credible a personage
than Sir T. NEAL, the British Consul at Varna, that a
conspiracy had been formed at the instigation of M. DE
STUEMEB, the Austrian Internuncio, whereby a band
of Croats were to proceed to Shumla far the purpose
of assassinating the leaders of the liungarian
revolution. KOSSUTH, in particular, it has
been declared, to have been eurificed

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