The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVEN

supreme power without the sanction of the majo-
rity. Jealousy will always arise at the creation of
any new authority, but the Marshal appears to be
very successful in keeping order, and any indica-
tions of tumult have been repressed. The Avenir
National of Paris states that the Provisional Go-
vernment has determined to pronounce the enfran-
chisement of the children of negroes in the
Spanish Colonies as a preliminary to a law which
is completing the abolition of slavery. This
will be laid before the Constituent Assembly, and
the change will be one decided gain for the new
order of things which has obtained precedence at
Madrid. We may now look forward to the extinc-
tion of slavery everywhere, which is indeed a de-
lightful prospect, and speaks well for the sentiment
of the age.
If any lingering doubt should exist in the mind
of a devotee to old customs, we should think that
the perusal of the QUEEN'S proclamation must
speedily disabuse him, and reconcile him to the
change that has taken place in the country she has
left. The document in question shows nothing
more plainly than that the ex-Queen of SPAIN was
totally unfit to be a ruler, and that far from
acquiring wisdom of late years she was retrograd-
ing. The conspiracies which were ever met with
in her kingdom appear to have given her very little
concern, and she had never one doubt on the im-
portant truth, that when the confidence of a people
is withdrawn from its Sovereign all the faults can-
not be on one side. At any rate, her language on
this occasion fully explains the principle upon
which she has acted—a principle false, in every
sense of the word, to the best interests of the
nation ; and now, that it has been put to the final
test, proved most worthless and unsound. In some
respects this protest seems almost a mockery, for the
verynotion of Queen ISABELLA talking of the sacrifices
which she has made for the Spanish people is
absurd, and we should be puzzled to find in what
they consisted if a very minute search were made.
The records of the past life of the QUEEN contain
sad and strange tales, but nowhere can they indi-
cate that devotion to duty and that willingness to
give up selfish motives for which she now seems in-
clined to demand praise and acknowledgment.
Another thing she has entirely forgotten is that if
she had " sacrificed herself," as she calls it, she
would only have been doing her duty, because if a
ruler has rights, he has also responsibilities, and
cannot skake them off to suit his will and pleasure.
Perhaps the best way to account for the ignorance
displayed is by saying that QUEEN ISABELLA be-
longs to that class which will not learn, and not to
that which cannot. Tempests and trials might await
her from without, and within the citadel her most
trusted defendants waver, and falter in their alle-
giance, it was all the same to her. Never did she.
yield an iota of her prejudices, or reform the errors
of her own private life, which now show she en-
raged the public voice of the country. Now that
she has had to resort to the last and most vexatious
expedient that a Sovereign can choose, and fly be-
fore her rebellious and indignant people, the old
leaven still remains, and from her refuge
in another land she sends her parting words
to them, and it seems she is resolved to show the
world through them that she has learned nothing,
and will learn nothing, by her fall. It is no ex-
aggeration to say that the friends of Queen
ISABELLA, if she has any, have far more cause to be
ashamed of her protest than of the disasters which
led to it ; the one might have been beyond her
control, the other was her spontaneous act. The
history of past ages has not been without instances
of sovereigns who have risen in the estimation of
their fellow-men when they fell from their high
estate, who have been greater in adversity than in
prosperity, and adorned the dark hours of their
exile with wisdom and patience that be-
came them more than the Crown they
had lost. Such a fate does not, how-
ever, attend the last of the BOURBON lino who
will probably ever hold sway in Europe. 'lhose
who would willingly pay her the tribute of respect
which belongs to adversity are precluded from so
doing by the egregious folly and arrogance she
displays, and they turn with interest to the new
creation which is springing up in Spain, rather
than with regret to her who has left it stripped of
all outward show and semblance, but still more
bereft i❑ lacking that innate dignity which the
splendour of thrones can neither give nor take
away in their possession or loss. The scorn and
contempt which the QUEEN hurls at her rebellious
subjects shows but too plainly the feelings which
have actuated her in her dealings with them,
and out of the materials which her character con-
sists of, how can we wonder that so little good
emonated? We must make all proper allowances
for the faulty education and bad example which
attended her childhood ; but still something de-
pends on the individual, and she has had experience
enough had she chosen to avail herself of it.
Europe, however, can give little or no heed to her
disappointments and her follies, she has made her
choice, and must abide by it; and all we have now
to do is to congratulate her quandam subjects on
the quiet and sensible manner in which they have
made the change so much called for.

LATEST INTELL MENGE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

AMERICA.

NEW YORK, OCt. 6.

The Cunard steamer Java arrived here at seven
a.m., and the Hamburg and American Company's
steamer Ilammonia at eight a.m. to-day.