The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-19 00:00:00

I`llX.

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1844

From the Times of yesterday we extract a highly
interesting letter on the affairP, government, and
civil and political administration of Sinde. We
strongly commend it to the serious attention of every
reader who would justly appreciate either the im-
portance of that territorial acquisition on the north-
western frontier of Hindostan—or the talents and genius
of the intrepid soldier who could only hare surpassed
the greatness of those achievements which effected
its conquests by the consummate prudence and vigour
with which he now governs it. Fertile as the cam-
paigns of our soldiery in those distant regions have
ever been in military successes, we know of no in-
stance in which the laurels of victory have been
gathered, under an Indian sun, with more daring, or
with happier results, than those which adorn the
career of Sir CHARLES NAPIER. He is one of the few
commanding officers who has felt, in its full force—
at the head of British and native troops, flushed with
the renown of their triumphs over forces and re-
sources of the most disproportionate magnitude as
compared with their own—the depth and truth of
the political axiom, "that our empire in India is an
empire of opinion." Under this salutary conviction,
he seems ever to have made it his first object, after
reaping the fruits of his rapid, but always fortunate
and well-combined movements against an enemy, to
inspire confidence, regard, and even attachment in
the native mind, by an intelligent respect for cus-
toms and usages not incompatible with the great
principles of morality or civilisation—by a nice ad-
justment of the efficient exercise of his own powers
and authority to the ostensible demands of Oriental
etiquette and decorum ;—by a bold and soldier-like
confidence in the good faith of a vanquished foe who
has once entered into other and more pacific and pri-
vileged relations with the government of his con-
queror. This happy combination of the highest
ability for civil administration with the clearest fore-
cast and vigilance, the most untiring energy, promp-
titude, and courage, in military movements and
operations, constitute Sir CHARLES NAPIER'S title
to rank among the most gifted soldiers and diploma-
tists of his day. In answering certain passages in a
previous letter from a " Deccan Correspondent" of
the Times, "an Officer" has really developed those
excellencies in the character of his hero, Sir C.
NAriER, with much spirit, and in a style of truthful
simplicity.
It is difficult, no doubt, to satisfy the expectations
of an Anglo-Indian resident, who talks of an as-
semblage of twenty thousand armed Beloochee chiefs,
at Hyderabad, at the simple bidding of Sir CHARLES,
as a " poor affair:' But those who know the in-
domitable spirit of the Raj port and Beloochee races,
their impatience of all foreign authority, and their
habits of military license, will rather perceive, in
this memorable incident--(especially when they call
to mind the modest amount of effective forces, after
have
European alreadyan cited.
The ted
The sagacity and
com-
mander, under whose administration such an evidence
of the moral force of opinion among such a turbulent
and formidable oligarchy of feudal leaders is elicited,
cannot be over-estimated. But when we contemplate
our gallant NAPIER'fi mode of resenting the bar-
barous treachery of Au MOW ;—the emphatic

astonishment and sudden allegiance of Go DLAM
Kuaer ;—the signal act of retributive venge space,
quietly inflicted on some highland chieftain in the
heart of his own mountain domains, with two off his
followers, for the robbery and murder of an Arm eenian
merchant ;—the abrupt intrusion into the Gen eral's
presence of the old Beloochee who had trave!sed a
distance of two hundred miles only to see the man,
the renown of whose inflexible justice had penet rated
to the wildest haunts of the tribes who had rotired
thither from the lawless cruelties and oppression s of
their own Ameers ;—and when we mark homage !paid,
by the great Governor (the "Padisha," as they name-
what extravagantly term him), to the personal nights
and property of the meanest native, in the pi resh-
ment and expulsion of the policeman ; we seem
carried back to the primitive days of Mussuilnian
simplicity and sternness, good faith, and chivaltrous
devotion. It is like reading some of those pas sages
which GIBBON has transferred from the Arabian
Annalists of the unflinching justice of Anu Busa,
the immovable loyalty of OMAR, and the enthusle stic
confidence of Au. These anecdotes are really most
picturesque and dramatic. But the truth is, that the
merits of Sir CHARLES'S civil administration of
Sinde, as illustrated by "an Officer," may well rank
with any upon record, in respect of Government ; as-
sumed and established under such extraordinary cir-
cumstances. To have established a rapidly increstsing
revenue on firm and yet expanding bases—to ;main-
tain all the effective establishments of his G•o vern-
ment on a scale of expenditure as marvellous for its
economy, as its own working is for efficiency ; to
have made the authority of justice not less respected
throughout his wild and mountainous province., and
its fierce and heretofore turbulent people, tha.n the
terror of his military prowess, which he has so often
and so amply signalised upon their choicest forges ;
to have inspired implicit confidence in his ow n go-
vernment and the beneficent nature of its tend€tncies;

—to have secured the personal attachment of the
chiefs whose power he has curbed, and whose ex-
cesses he restrains ;—and to hare impressed, by the
magnanimity of his own character and acts, an entire
people, semi-barbarous and fanatical though they be
with feelings of reverence for, and obedience to, the
distant nation and the mighty SOVEREIGN whom he
represents among them ; these, surely, are no (ordi-
nary triumphs to have been accomplished against all
physical odds and disadvantages, within a few short
months of incessant and zealous devotion to the most
varied and difficult of public duties. We take no
credit to ourselves for having endeavoured, from the
first intelligence of his masterly operations in Sinde,
to direct attention to the consummate prudence and
wonderful fortune of Sir CH ARLES NAPIER ; but we
will venture to exceed the terms of our former com-
mendation of this distinguished officer, by mu-waking
that to have performed such services to his country
—military, diplomatic, and civil services, as we shall
call them—is to raise an inference that the individual
by whom they have been rendered must be animated
by no small portion of the inherent genius and
heroism of a CLIVE, and the disciplined and profound
statesmanship of a WELLESLEY.

At the last weekly meeting of the Repeal Asso-
ciation, Mr. O'CominnL—as appears by a report in a
morning Contemporary—took The Sun gravely to
task, for recommending that he should for a time
abstain from agitation. With all due deference to his
better judgment, we still persist in that recommenda-
tion, and we think we can perceive indications, even
in the Hon. and Learned Gentleman's own speech,
that he will not lose sight of it. For we hear of no
more monster meetings—no more proposals for simul-
taneous gatherings—no more ardent appeals to the
passions and prejudices of the people; there are
merely to be a, few Repeal dinners given—quite as a
matter of course—in honour of the Liberator's escape
from the stringent embraces of the Richmond Peni-
tentiary ; and then he will, no doubt, close the cam-
paign for the season, and set out for his mountain
home at Derrynane. As for the projected scheme of
the Preservative Society, this is a matter quite in
embryo as yet ; it may, or it may not, be carried
into execution ; but, at any rate, it will require
no inconsiderable time for its full development.
Long before it can be matured and brought
into active operation, Sir ROBERT PEEL will
have explained to his " faithful Commons "
the nature of his Irish remedial measures ; and we
conceive, therefore_ that w are inctifinil in nun hal;af
that tor some months to come, the agitation for Re-
peal will be carried on in a languid and decorous
spirit, to be revived, however, in all its original in-
tensity, should the Premier's plans be such as to dis-
appoint the just hopes of the sister country. A
word here, as respects Mr. O'CoNNELL's new
project of the Preservative Society. His object in
originating this aristocratic confederacy is of
course that it may act as a check on the unruly
passions of the masses, and control their movements,
should they be too rapid, or made in a wrong direc-
tion. This is no mere notion of our own, for the
Hon. and Learned Gentleman himself avows that he
intends his new Society to act as a sort of House of
Lords—that is to say, as a curb on the blind, head-
strong impetuosity of the people. Yet, strange to say,
this same people—whose feelings, he thinks, now re-
quire rather a curb than a stimulus—are the same
whose patience, subordination, docility and exemplary
forbearance he has been daily praising for the last two
years and upwards ! Not less than forty-five monster
meetings, he tells us, have been held, yet not a crime
has been committed—not the slightest symptom of a
wish to break the public peace exhibited ! Surely
there is some little inconsistency here ! What need
can a people, thus patient, orderly, and strictly ame-
nable to discipline, have of a Preservative Society ?
They constitute in themselves a Preservative So-
ciety on the most comprehensive scale, and
any more restricted or exclusive one is
clearly superfluous. But let us suppose
this Irish House of Lords established and in full
operation ! Well, what then? Will it, though no-
m:nally so, be really and truly independent of the
more popular Repeal Association ? Will it be able
to control the movements of that body, and exercise
a superior authority over it ? Undoubtedly not.
The first time the Preservative Society, presuming
to think honestly for itself, comes into direct,
serious collision with the Association, it will
be cashiered at once— scattered to the four
winds of Heaven. But this it will never
do, and for the best of all possible reasons
namely, that its sagacious originator clearly intends
that it should be nothing more than the creatures of
his own sovereign will—a sort of multiplication of
himself! "I am France !" said NAPOLEON. "I am
the Preservative Society 1" may Mr. O'CONNELL say,
with equal truth, when once this confederacy is em-
bodied and fairly set a-going.

The Madrid journals of the 10th have arrived.
M. MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA had not yet declared whe-
ther or not he would accept the office of Minister for
Foreign Affairs, which had been offered him
by the QUEEN, and it was thought he seemed
but little disposed to join an Administration
headed by so violent a man as General NARVAEZ.
The retrograde policy pursued by CHRISTINA and
NARVAEZ is producing its natural results, and the
Carlists are now become so influential as a party that
they have been enabled to return no less than forty
Deputies to the Cortes. This is one of the effects of
CHRISTINA'S endeavours to curry favour with the
priests, who are Carlists to a man. It would seem
that the Government is becoming seriously alarmed
at the growing influence of the Carlist party. The
elections at Barcelona passed off quietly. NARVAEZ,
who was at the head of the poll, only got 900 votes.
The Progresistas took no part whatever, and have
abstained throughout Spain from taking any part in
the elections.

We have received the Paris papers of Monday. On
that morning, at eight o'clock, the guns of the " In-
valides" fired a salute in celebration of the conclusion
of peace between the King of the FRENCH and the
Emperor of MOROCCO. The conclusion of the peace
is the subject of comment in all the Parisian journals.
The Ministerial organs comment on it in a tone of
the highest exultation. The Globe says :
" This grave affair of Morocco is nobly terminated.
The Emperor Muley Abderrhaman has yielded to what
he saw before him ; he has comprehended the magnani-
mity of France, after having experienced her power. We
consider it superfluous to dwell on the consequences of
this important event ; all men of sense understand them.
A glorious peace, with all its consequences ; Algeria
freed from annoyance; the impulse of great public works
confirmed - France employed more than ever in further- '
ing the happiness of her populations ; parties disap-