The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-25 00:00:00

grazing and sheep, the climate being healthy.
The third region is a rude desert of steep rocky
mountains, intersected with very narrow valleys
called " holes, " and of wide sand-covered
volcanic plains. Climate dry in the extreme ;
very little rain, no dew, and an extra-
dinary difference of temperature between
the day and the night. It is a wilderness with
no means of supporting a population. As it is
only on the first region that these could be found,
the Reviewer justly infers" that, upon the whole,
the Oregon territory holds out no great promise
as an agricultural field ; that its value seems to
consist chiefly in the possession of the Colombia,
and of the harbours of the Strait of Fuca." He
shows that it is this last consideration which
really makes the exclusive proprietorship of the
Oregon an object of anxious desire to the Ame-
ricans. The territory contains no precious metals,
no valuable minerals; and the climate is too cold
for the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, rice, or
coffee. Its 20,000 aboriginal natives are savages,
incapable of useful labour ; so there is no pro-
mise of any productive article of export. "The
fur trade has hitherto been the only channel for
the advantageous investment of capital in these
regions ; but that trade is incompatible with the
progress of settlement, and must gradually cease
as the occupation of the country proceeds."
This is a profound and practical truth, and it
ably introduces what follows in the same article,
on the real objects of the United States' Govern-
ment in pressing its extravagant pretensions.
Leaving to a future opportunity, when the ques-
tion shall have been opened in Parliament, the
Reviewer's temperate but very forcible exposition
of the whole question of priority of discovery, of
possessory rights and of territorial rights, absolute
and derivative ; we close for the present with an
extract from his speculation on the ultimate de-
signs contemplated by America in her monstrous
claim to exclusive possession of a region in
which, except a few private settlements made by
permission of the British authorities on British
possessions, she has NO title, derivative, absoin.te,
or possessory. The claim she asserts undies: the
stipulations of her " Florida" Treaty with. Spain,
of February, 1819, is clearly vitiated by the
specific concessions and covenants of the: former
or "Escurial" Treaty of Spain with G reat Bri-
tain in 1790, which, together with intervening
treaties between the same Powers, prior to 1818,
disabled Spain from making any v,rants to the
United States of the Oregon tv:ritory coming
within the construction sought to be put upon
them by American—diplomacy.
" It is easy, therefore, to -understand that the
main point with the United States in pressing for
exclusive sovereignty over this region must be to
secure the command of the outlets:to the Pacific,
the importance of which is sufficiently obvious
when we consider the rapid extension of steam
navigation, the probability of a regular passage
being effected across the Isthmus of Panama,
and above all the recent opening of new commer-
cial relations with the East. It is true that a
formidable obstacle exists to the colonisation of
the Oregon from overland, for the country east
of the Rocky Mountains is, for several hundred
miles, an inhospitable desert, incapable of sup-
plying food except in the vicinity of the rivers
which flow into the Mississippi. The Americans,
however, propose to establish a line of posts be-
tween the Missouri and the passes of the Rocky
Mountains ; and they anticipate that the Lewis
and the Colombia rivers may one day become the
channels of traffic between the Eastern and
-Western coast. On the other hand, a passage
across Panama would bring this coast within a
few weeks' voyage from Europe, and so attract
emigration from the Old World, if the territory
had, in itself (which it has not), any remarkable
capacities for colonisation."

MONTEVIDEO and BUENOS A VRES
The accounts which have been lately published of
the state of affairs in Monte Video are at once dis-
tressing to humanity and disgraceful to our own
apathy. Monte Video has been exposed for about
twelve months, not so much to the more immediate
horrors incident to a protracted siege, as to the more
hopeless and withering process of a land blockade,
efficiently established, and rigorously maintained by
a bigoted and remorseless soldier. General RosAs,
commanding the troops of the republic of Buenos
Ayres, invests Monte Video with an army which cuts
off all communication between the beleagured town
and its commercial resources and connexions. Monte
Video contains not only a very considerable number
of English merchants and their families, but Spanish
and colonial mercantile establishments of extensive
connexions and character. It is believed that through
this body, in the aggregate, outstanding credits on
English account are due, amounting to upwards of
500,0001. The passion of RosAs having, for its pecu-
liar object, the extirpation of foreign commerce, he
will not permit the cordon which he has established
under the walls of the ill-fated city to be broken
through, on any pretence of communicating with the
native and colonial consumers from whom these
credits are due. The inevitable consequence, it would
appear, must be, that they can never be collected.
The Monte Videan houses must perish under the
continuance of the cruel duresse in which the con-
tending pretensions of Buenos Ayres and Monte
Video thus operate to keep all foreigners who are
shut up in the latter. They 'have especial reason to
complain, and do, accordingly, most vehemently com-
plain, that they have been made the instruments of
aggravating the losses which are likely to be sus-
tained by the strong assurances that were given to
them by Mr. MANDEVILLE, our Minister, when
visiting the shores of the Plata, that the British Go-
vernment would certainly protect British rights and
property in those regions, in the event of the
Buenos Ayrean armament entering the territory of
Monte Video, by repelling force by force. In conse-
quence of this assurance—so the correspondence, re-
cently received in London, declares—" large sales of
merchandise were made on credit, and orders transmit-
ted to this country for further shipments." When
ROSAS did cross into the territory, there was a
British force in these waters, more than five times suf.
ficient to have effected his instant discomfiture and
retreat ; but he was not interfered with, and has, ever
since, cooped up the unhappy residents at Monte
Video, within the bare walls of their strong posi-
tion, where the whole community experience the un-
satisfied cravings for the common necessaries of life.
In, the meantime the native and other consumers in
the interior of the country are becoming, every day,
less and less competent to pay for their purchases,
owing to the unrelenting destruction of all foreign
property, carried on by orders of RosAs throughout the
territory subject to his exactions and his vengeance. To
such an extent does RosAs indulge his stupid prepossee-
siOns against external commerce of any kind, that he
had very recently enforced the immediate return,
without unloading, of several vessels which had
arrived with cargoes of produce from Corrientes at
Buenos Ayres. These cargoes were composed, in
part, of returns of the native dealers and consumers
above alluded to, for the British merchandise and
manufactures supplied to them by the importers of
Monte Video. It seems, therefore, that no course
more effective could have been taken for sacrificing
all chances of reimbursing the shippers or owners of i
500,0001. of British merchandise, destined for that
market alone.
)srow, it is not without reason that the Monte Video
correspondent of the Morning Chronicle complains,
that if Mr. MANDEvix.I.E was authorised to give such
; .
assurances of protection as he did, the British Go.
vetnment is bound to do that instantly, which it
ought long ago to have done, namely—to interpose
its full authority for securing compensation and satis-
faaion from the ruling authorities in Buenos Ayres, on
account of losses by British subjects thus sustained :
that if Mr. MANDEVILLE had no such authority, the
fact ought to be immediately proclaimed,—himself
digthissed or otherwise punished,—and his proceeding
formally disavowed by the Foreign-office.
Vor ourselves we go further. Irrespective of the
Tiestion, whether Mr. MANDEvILLI had or had not
due authority for a certain declaration to British
subjects in the territories of a foreign State,—
is the grave consideration how far the honour
of our common country is involved in, and I
compromised by, such vexatious pantomimes of State
hostility and diplomatic duplicity, as these crude
and but half-fashioned States of South America are