The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-30 00:00:00

present proceedings of Lours PHILIPPE'S Government,
and they may depend upon the fact, that the other
nations of Europe are not disinterested spectators of
these aggressive schemes. England, thank GoD, is
able to d&'end herself. She is not easily moved—she
preserves for a long time that silence aifreux which
the French army can appreciate, but when her dignity
or her interests are in danger, no country rushes to
the contest with more determined courage. We
should regret to see it put to the proof—we wish to
live in peace with the French people, who have many
good qualities, but the gasconade of their press, and
the encroachments of their Government, in a sphere
which affect our possessions both in the Mediterranean
and India, have increased to such a pitch, that even
the warmest friends of peace can no longer be silent.

by their posterity, and it is, we repeat, no very aus-
picious sign of the times when a proposal to erect a
public monument in their honour is received with
comparative indifference. Such, unfortunately, ap-
pears to be the case at present as regards the Scottish
Reform martyrs ; for though Mr. Hums and those
who think with him have been laudably zealous in
their endeavours to awaken a proper feeling of grati-
tude in the public mind, yet we fear we must confess
that they have hitherto failed of success, and admit
with the Morning Post, that "the position in which
the Martyrs' Committee find themselves placed
is due mainly to the deficient sympathy of the people
in their cause." Our Tory Contemporary, of course,
chuckles hugely over this fact, but for our own part
we regard it with no ordinary degree of apprehenssion.
When public spirit is boldly and actively on the alert,
there need be no great cause to dread the encroach-
ments of authority ; it is only when it is tame
and apathetic that results may be anticipated unfa-
vourable to constitutional liberty. We do not say that
the PUL Ministry entertain the slightest notion of in-
vading the acknowledged rights of the people, but were
they inclined to do so, we fear that the temper ofthe times
is such that they would meet with but a languid re-
sistance. For months past scarcely any stir or energy
has been exhibited, whether within or without the
walls of Parliament. The conflict of principles seems
to be at an end, and the public mind has become as
stagnant as the waters of a Dutch canal. The
consequence has been, that during the session
Ministers have carried everything their own
way ; and judging from the cold, sluggish
feeling manifested by the people for the last six
months, we da verily believe that if Sir R. Pm,
was to come forward next year with a proposition for
increasing the pressure of the income-tax, a few
faint growls of dissatisfaction would be the utmost
amount of hostility that would be brought to bear
against him. If this political apathy on the part
of the public were the result of a general and fast
increasing state of prosperity, there would not
be so much cause to deprecate it; but it is the
result, rather, of distrust—of doubt—we might
almost add—of despondency. Dissatisfied with the
present condition of things, and bewildered with the
extraordinary confusion, incertitude, and inconsist-
ency prevailing among parties, the people know not
how to act, on whom to rely, or in what direction to
make a decided more. They see Tories professing
Whig principles, and Whigs every now and then ex-
hibiting a sneaking predilection for Toryism ; they
see Radicals tame and acquiescent, and Chartists
quitting one by one the field of political
controversy ;—and seeing these strange things,
they are naturally filled with distrust of all
public men, a fueling to which must be attri-
buted their present state of lethargy, and calm
and half contemptuous indifference. But it is not in
the nature of things that this drowsiness should be of
much longer continuance. A reaction must inevitably
take place ere many months have elapsed, and when
it does, Sir R. Pim, and his obsequious supporters
will find that the time is come when they must
abandon the system of expediency, and advocate
something like a principle, if they would hope to
maintain their station at the helm.

It would be a short-sighted and unwise policy in
the present Government, indeed, to persevere in that i
fatal neglect of the most important of all the inte-
rests connected with our coasting trade, which so
many preceding Governments, equally with them-
selves, have been so justly chargeable—on any plea
of having their attention exclusively engrossed by
the present aspect of our foreign relations. There
are popular occupations in the welfare of which—
albeit they rank among the most hardy and pre-
carious which are followed by the humbler classes of
our maritime population—matters of the most essen-
tial and immediate concernment to the security and
honour of the empire at large are indissolubly bound
up. Among these our FISHERIES are entitled to take
the very first rank. We place them, avowedly, before
even our Royal Navy, for the Fisheries are the
school which form the sailors who are to man our
ships and to protect our coasts. Whether we con-
sider them merely in reference to this destination, or
as the purveyors of that vast proportion of healthful
and nutritious food which they supply fur the, daily
consumption of an immense portion of our abound-
ing population ;—whether we reflect upon the ready
and effective reinforcement they supply to us in time
of war, on an element to which they may be said- to
be native, and amidst whose tempests they can pur-
sue with spirit and confidence the service they are
appointed to, whilst less practised hands shrink ap-
palled from the execution of any duty, through the
fury of storms and the consciousness of surrounding
perils--or we look upon them, only, as ministering to
the first great and universal wants of all human
society ;—we are bound to regard the brave and
hardy seamen engaged in our fisheries with pecu-
liar favour. But it is notorious that we have for
many years greatly forgotten our duty in this re-
spect. They have complained, by memorials, to the
Board of Trade—petitions to Parliament—remon-
strances to the influential people of their vicinities;
they have shown how the larger boats of the French-
and Dutch fishermen have committed successive en-
croachments on their fishing grounds from tine to
time, accompanied sometimes with acts of violence to
the person ; at others with the destruction of their
nets and tackle. Their complaints have been too
often wholly disregarded, or replied to by measures
that have proved wholly ineffective : such as conven-
tions negotiated between our own and other Govern-
ments whose boats have presently treated them as
mere waste paper—and been permitted to do so with
all but absolute impunity. It is curious to remark
how much the national value of our own Fisheries was
underrated—how dimly suspected the policy of en-
couraging such nurseries of our maritime strength—
before the days in which our PETTYS, and TEMPLES,
and CIIILDES, Our CAMPBELIS, ANDERSONS, OSWALDS,
and SMITHS, succeeded in awakening and fixing
public attention to the subject. If a wholesome
jealousy was aroused for a brief season, under the
first of the STUARTS, to prohibit to all foreigners the
right of fishing on our coasts, in twenty-seven years
afterwards, under his successor, 30,0001. were ac
cepted from the Dutch as the price of rescinding that
prohibition, and leaving them at liberty to monopo-
lise the fisheries of a large portion of our coasts. The
wiser Scotch had already extended and protected
their herring fishery for five centuries when the
" Herring Statute" of 1357 was passed; but al-
though with the English this invaluable fish had be-
come an article of extensive commerce since the dis-
covery of the process for pickling them in 1390,
nearly four centuries elapsed before the incorporation
of our British Herring Fishing Company. In that
interval the aggressions and encroachments our fisher-
men had to sustain had been repeatedly pressed by
the Crown on the attention of Parliament as fitting
objects for its intervention, and as calling for more
effectual protection at the hands of the Executive.
Of our ancient fishery at Newfoundland, which we
have pursued in that distant colony ever since 1577,
we only speak here because it has notoriously proved
often a grand feeder of the Navy with able-bodied
and excellent seamen, and because foreign encroach-
ments on the cod fishery grounds around that large
island have been the actual cause of fierce hostilities
and subsequent treaties between this country and the
Crowns of Spain and France, the States of Holland,
&c. Our whaling fishery, like the others, has fear-
fully declined of late years, and with it the profitable
employment of some of the stoutest merchant ships,
ping, and the most thorough and intrepid sailors
which this country could produce.
It occurs to us that it would well consist with that
policy of nautical preparation on which we dwelt at
large in a recent article, and at the same time operate
as a boon of well-deserved encouragement to a set of
men whose claims upon the favour of their country
have been too often and too long slighted, to adopt
some immediate and general plan of registration that
should include a perfect calendar of every fishing-
boat on every part of the coast, its tonnage, names,
and numbers of present owners, and crews, occupation
(or branch of fishing), limits of its usual fishing, &c.
The value of this craft, when information of what is
passing in the harbour on the other side of the Channel,
is inappreciable. For these services, and for bounties
on their volunteering into Queen's ships when re-
quired, &c., &c., funds should be appropriated ; and
the same operation might likewise include further
provision for wounds, pensions for long service, &c•
We are confident that, in the disastrous event of a
war, a previously-matured scheme of this sort would
prove of the most essential benefit to the recruiting
reserves necessary for the maintenance of our naval
arm in its full vigour and readiness. For the
happier object of preserving the continuance of
peace, it would be an emphatic demonstration of the
completeness of our preparations for war. In either
case it would secure the active and energetic vigilance
of a body of men whose local knowledge of the
coasts of both countries, and the incidents of tides,
currents, shoals, &c., at various points, would render
them the best adapted corps of marine observation, if
we may so speak, that we could possibly hope to
organise. And not the least curious fact connected
with this notion is, that the plan of such an organisa-
tion, and the machinery for registering such a force,
are already set out in the " Second Annual Report of
the Commissioners of Ireland" (presented to Parlia-
ment pursuant to 5 and 6 Vict., c. 106, s. 122).
We shall have occasion to give some extracts from
this document in a day or two, and we will on that
occasion more particularly commend the simple, but
effective plan, of registration devised by the Commis-
sioners to the reader's attention.

Accounts from Madrid of the 21st inst. announce
that the Emperor of Morocco had yielded to all the
demands of Spain, and that peace had been established
between the two countries. Spain is to receive a
compensation for the wrongs of which she complains,
all the expenses are to be paid, and also an extension
of territory on the side of Ceuta. The following
letter announcing the fact appears in a Madrid jour-
nal. It is addressed by the Spanish Consul at Tetuan
to the Governor of Ceuta:—

-
" Consular Agency of Spain at Tetuan.
"I have the honour to inform your Excellency that
the Pacha Sidi Ashash has had a conference with the
agents and Vice-Consuls residing in this town, at which
he communicated to them a letter from his Imperial Ma-
jesty of a very recent date, in which he congratulates
himself in the most expressive terms on the perfect and
sincere reconciliation that has taken place between Mo-
rocco and all other nations, except France. His Im-
perial Majesty expressly recommends to all the Go-
vernors and public functionaries to give every assistance
and protection to the agents and subjects of those nations.
The Pacha has invited me to communicate to you those
tidings without delay, and to inform the captains of the
feluccas of Ceuta that they may come to Tetuan in all
safety. " ABM) I.I.APAN.
" Aug. 12."
All the Spanish ♦easels of war, except one, had, in
consequence of this arrangement, left Ceuta for
Algesiras.
The QUIEN, accompanied by her mother and sis-
ter, made her entry into Madrid at four o'clock on
the morning of the 21st.

The Three per Cents. were done at 27i at 60
days, and the Fire per Cents. at 20 at 48 days.

The Paris papers, and especially those of the Op-
position, are loud in their praises of the bravery and
skill displayed by the Prince DB JOINYILLB at Moga-
dore. The affair has caused quite a sensation through-
out France, and even Republican and Legitimatist
journals begin to regard the Orleans dynasty in a
more favourable light. There is no accounting for
tastes, but really we cannot see what great cause
there is for rejoicing. The Moors had no more
chance against the French than the Chinese against
the English. These primitive people are unable to
contend against the skill and discipline of European
warfare, and victories obtained over such contemptible
opponents cannot furnish any test of military genius
or real bravery. They are to be regarded with satis-
faction only as far as they contribute to peace, and
the civilisation of barbarians. That was the light in
which we ♦iewed our successes in China, though
England was contending with an empire containing
a population of three hundred millions. France
has attacked successfully a little empire containing
a population of a few millions, yet the writers in
the journals make as much noise about the affair as if
the best troops of Europe had been conquered by a
handful of Frenchmen. One of the Ministerial
journals, it is true, is silent on the subject, but the
other, the Globe, breaks forth in these strains :
" There cannot be a heart unmoved at the multiplied
recitals of the feats of arms of our soldiers and seamen.
Three victories in nine days! On the 6th, Tangiers
bombarded; the 14th, 20,000 Moors beaten ; and on
the 15th, Mogadore ruined and taken! Such are the
humiliations of France during the month of August.
Let no one imagine, however, that this will change a
word in the language of the Opposition journals.
Their businesa is to have it believed that the Govern-
ment is sacrificing the dignity of the country, and
they will say so unceasingly. What do parties care
about falsehood? Dolus an virtu:, quis in hoste re-
guirat f Such is their morality. These journals,
too, are truly unfortunate in their predictions. They
declared that England had forbidden our fleet to
meddle with Tangiers, and it was there that it com-
menced its operations. They said that England had
interdicted the landing of a single man at Mogadore,
and, lo! it is occupied! As to the English press, it
will allow, we hope, that our gunners have improved
from the 6th to the 15th; that, for ignoramuses, our
pointers do not aim too ill ; and that, for cowards, our
officers come close enough to the enemy."
The Constitutionnel expresses equal satisfaction, and
rejoices that the imputations cast on the naval tactics
of the young Prince and his officers have received
such a speedy and triumphant refutation. " This
new feat of arms," says M. Turass's journal, " ac-
complished by the PaiNca and our seamen, will im-
pose silence, we hope, en the shameless correspon-
dents of the Times—on those maligners, full of envy
and ignonance, whose gross invectives are disavowed
by all honourable men. It is not probable that the
bombardment of Mogadore will cause any satisfaction
in England; but it will at least command, with re-
spect to our navy, that courtesy on which well-bred
men of all countries pride themselves in similar cir-
cumstances. France will rejoice that at both extre-
mities of Morocco our brave men have entered on a
struggle of honour and courage. Whilst Marshal
BUGBACD, with 8,000 brave followers, put 24,000
cavalry to the route, the Prince DB JOINVILLE was
placing his foot on the soil of Africa, and battering
down the old city of the pirates."
" The bombardment of Mogadore," says the
National, " was the necessary consequence of that of
Tangiers, and the means of obtaining satisfaction
could only be rendered efficacious by taking posses-
sion of one or several points of the coast. We con-
gratulate the French authorities, whoever they may
be, to whom the initiative of this resolution belonged,
and we wait tranquilly for the opinion of the English
journals on this new feat of arms, which has added
honour to our nary. There is, however, something

It is no very encouraging sign of the times when
the memory of those who have suffered in the cause
of freedom fails to excite a lively feeling of respect
and gratitude in the mind of the community at large.—
The Scottish Reform martyrs—for it is to their case
we are alluding—were men who, in days when
Government was but another term for despotism, and
prerogative was pushed beyond the limits of
the Constitution, made a bold, unhesitating stand
against the encroachments of authority and
freely sacrificed their all in the patriotic, but
unsuccessful endeavour to maintain the rights of
the people unimpaired. Though beset by
spies, and encompassed on all sides by dangers of the
most alarming kind, their high moral courage never
once deserted them ; and though they failed in their
attempts to rouse public spirit to such a degree as
might enable it to shake off the PITT and DUNDAII
yoke, which then pressed so heavily on the best ener-
gies of the country, yet the example they set of pa-
triotic resistance to arbitrary power was not barren
of good results, for it served in some degree to keep
alive the flame of liberty which otherwise might
have been wholly extinguished, and paved the
way for that measure of Reform which was wrung
from a reluctant aristocracy in the memorable
year 1832. The memory of such men, there-
fore, should be held in profound reverence