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

aTtidita git L

LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1850.

During the last few months the British Squadron,
commanded by Sir IVILLum 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 plicy of the English Government. When
the Itilian 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

moment's warning, in nay given direction. When

re banners of CHARLES ALBERT were shaken to the

winds, and the clarion of war was sounding through

Piedmont and Lombardy, and finding a respuniive
echo in the Venetian territories and among the ma-

rine palaces of an 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 wai
falling upon the Austrian soldiers under ltanurzKy.
When a separate movement of an insurrectionary
character manifested itself among the Genoese, Sir
WILLIAM PARKER turned his attention forthwith,
almost exclusively, is► the direction of the Sardinian
dominions. When the musketry of the 13zzlroni

was desolating the streets of Naples, he watched with
a scrutinizing regard the progress of the dispute
between King Bo:ant and the Neapolitans. When
the Sovereign PONTIFF was bombarded in the Quirinal,
and was ultimately induced to fly befire the presence
of those who were preparing the way for Mazzirir and
GARIBALDI, namely, before such men as CANINO and
CICEROACCIIIO, 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 et itinue in the vicinity
of the spot where the Porn 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 SETTIMO

was in the ascendant until its eclipse by the evil vic
tories of FIL.I-NGIERI. When LEOPOLD was ignomi

niously driveo 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. Oa the transmission of the crusad-
ing forces of the Trench Republic to Civita Vecchia,
her Britannic MAJESTY'S naval representative in the
Mediterranean observed with un winking 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 ins)lent 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, tinder Sir WILLIAM PARKER-2S
cannot be very easily forgotten—proceeded with
singular promptitude to the mouth of the Dardanelles
for the purpose of ercouraging the young Sultan
ABDUL-ME SCHID in his heroic and magnanimous re-

fuels'; and but for the reluctant withdrawal of the
ultimatum presented by M. TITOFT to the Divan,
the guns of our war vessels would have pro-
tectively surrounded the Golden llorn, and effectively
passage of the Bosphorus against
the R uapproaching from the Black Sea and
have obstructed e t
fleeted
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
aggression against one of the smaller islands-depen-
dant on the lonian States.
Even from this rapid and incomplete retrospect of
the doings of Str WILLIAM PARKER at ,d the import-
ant ?quadron under hie authority, it will be
sufficiently manifest that neither that eminent officer,
nor 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 1848 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. The
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 Bad so observant as Sit 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 expletive
punishments inflicted upon the subued Genoese by the
Sardinian SOVEREIGN, upon the conquered Lombards
by the German Generalissimo,upon the panic-stricken
Neapolitans by the Bourbon BoMUA, upon the Ro-
mans by OUDINOT, and variously also upon the Sici-
lians, the Tuscans, and the Venetians. How 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 EMPEROR, 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-MESCHID 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
STURMEB, the Austrian leternuncio, whereby a band
of Croats were to proceed to Shunele far the purpose
of assassinating the leaders of the liungarian
revolution. KOSSUTU, in particular, it has
been declared, was to have been sacrificed