The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-18 00:00:00

little
they had to do with the principle of the case.—
(Hear, hear.) The practice of all countries, and more
especially commercial countries, had been to procure re-
dress from other countries by force. The Noble Lord
must himself know full well that France and the United
States were from time to time in the habit, without
consulting anybody, without thinking it necessary to
invite the opinions of other powers, to proceed to make
good their claims when an injury bad been sustained
by threatening force, and obtaining those claims by
the use of force when not otherwise settled. In the
course of thirty years he found that in tha ease of Francis
not less than fourteen, and of the United States not less
than sixteen or seventeen such instances had occurred,
and in almost all by the application of force on justice
being denied. The Noble Lord's language on this sub-
ject had been somewhat studiously guarded; but did he
mean to say that there was no difference' in the re-
sponsibility of the Greek states as compared with the
responsibility of other states similarly circumstanced?
The Noble Lord had spoken of a certain guarantee—a
guarantee which he seemed to think had created the pe-
caber position of that country. The guarantee was ter-
ritorial—(lean hear)—not only was it territorial, but
it was admitted by the Russians to be a territorial gua-
rantee, and a guarantee only. The Noble Lord would
find in the papers a most distinct admission upon the part
of Count Nesselrode that she was to be considered as
an independent state; and how was it possible that she
could be considered an independent state unless she was
also a responsible state? Give him a state whose inde-
pendence had been tals-en away—give him a state which
had a peculiar connexion with a federal Government,
liable only for what they did only through the medium
of that federal Government, and then there would be
some force in the Noble Lord's argument; but there
had nos been in the present case, iu a single trans-
action, nnything that took horn the country the cha-
racter of an independent state. She had so considered
herself; for she had ence or twice, during the period re-
ferred to, been on the ere of going to war with Turkey.
He contended that this was a case precisely parallel to
that of other states, which had been compelled to repair
injuries committed. He had already told their Lord-
ships that other states had adopted precisely the same
mode which England had adopted with regard to Greece
of vindicating the rights of their subjects. He would not
fatigue the House with many references, although he
held a memorandum in his hand of some forty or fifty of
such cases, some of them peculiarly apposite to this par-
ticular transaction. In the case of one of the states of
South America (and he selected this case because there
subjects had been protected in a manner similar to that
adopted by England in this instance)—in the case of
Venezuela a law was passed preventing creditors from
recovering their debts. The parties thereby considered
themselves aggrieved. They had entered the country
on the faith of having a very different sort of protection
extended to them ; they had entered it on the
faith of having their business and property rendered
secure. They remonstrated, and a naval force inter-
fered. The Noble Lord seemed to feel great horror at
the idea of interference upon the part of a naval force;
however, a naval force interfered, and redress was im-
mediately afforded. Let their Lordships take another
case—the case of Peru. In the year 1844 the people
resident in Peru were disturbed in their vocation, their
amusements, and their pursuits, and the House would
most probably recollect the various acts of outrage and
injustice which were committed upon them at that time.
Now, redress was obtained in that case. But how was it
obtrined? By the presence of a naval force tied by a
very peremptory demand which had been made that
that injury shculd be apologised for and that the per-
sons who committed it should be punished. He knew
not whether the Noble Lord considered the case of Peru
a weaker or a stronger case than that of Greece, or
whether he considered the application of force
was more justifiable in Peru than it had been in Greece.
But, very probably, the Noble Lord was not prepared
to go the whole length which the French Government
had gone in a certain case, to which he would just
briefly refer. Was the Noble Lord acquainted with
what had passed souse years ago with respect to ren-
dering protection to French subjects? If not,
be ought to have made himself acquainted wtth it,
He (the Marquis of Lansdowne) had no hesitation in
saying, though he did not take upon himself to disap-
prove the acts of the French Government in that respect,
and though he knew that Naples had finally acquiesced
in it, that the case in question was an infinitely stronger
interference on behalf of French subjects than England
had put forward on behalf of English subjects. If the'
Noble Lord was not acquainted with the case, he (the
Marquis of Lansdowne) would inform him of it. At
Naples there had been an insurrection. There were bar-
ricades. In the course of an attempt made by the Go-
vernment—finally a successful attempt, to pull down these
barricades, certain houses were broken open. Of course
the principal part of them were Neapolitan houses, but
some of them were French houses; and, after they had
been broken open,,the mob entered and plundered them.
The French Government instantly sent to Naples to
say—" These are French subjects, they have had
their houses broken open and plundered by means
of the civil power ; the Government were unable
to prevent the outrage, but we hold the Government
responsible for the property destroyed." And, upon
that ground, but not without a naval force being sent,
reparation was made by Naples, and the French subjecte
obtained redress, though the Neapolitan subjects whose
houses had been broken open and plundered obtained no
redress. What, then, became of the Noble Lord's "law
of nations?" The French Government said in the
Neapolitan case—" there is a general law cf all nations
which entitles subjects in their lawful callings to protec-
tion," and on that protection they insisted.—(hear.)
What was going on at that moment? Was the Noble
Lord acquainted with what was going on? An outrage
was Enid to have been committed upon American ships
at Lisbon. The strongest remonstrances had been
made by the Government of the United States against
that proceeding; and, at this moment, as he (the Marquis
Lensduwne) had reason to believe, vessels of war
were on their way from America for the purpose of ob-
taining redress. These, then, were a series of instances
in which fiat mode of resolving this question, which the
Noble Lord seemed to think constituted a new sort
of law, had been adopted—which he had called a
wilful law, but which wilful law was the approved
law for obtaining redress ; in fact, every power
would consider that it was a degradation if it were
to ask leave of a second or third power whether it
might or might not enforce its claims in different quar-
ters of the world.—(Hear, hear.) And now be came to
the particular case, which he would discuss as shortly as
possible, on which the Noble Lord had dwelt at such
length, and which formed the subject cf the present mo-
tion. In the first place he must premise, in consequence
of some observations which had been made by the Noble
Lord, that, however entertaining all the observations ho
had been induced to make for the amusement of the
House might be, whilst referring to the minutest details
of M. Pacifico's furniture, he (the Marquis of Lans-
downe) would naturally exclude them from considera-
tion in a case in which justice and principle were in-
volved.—(Hear.) He hardly expected that the Noble
Lord, whatever he might have read in newspapers re-
specting the minuteness of the claims, would have con-
descendsd to rest any portion of his arguments upon
those details.—(Hear, hear.) Because, if the Noble Lord
referred back to the history of this country, and of the
world, he would find that great principles, upon which
the honour, happiness, and glory cf nations de-
'
pent,. al, hod had their origin in the meat
contensp!ible claims ,19 respectsd particular indi-
viduals. Oa ono occaaien, tar instance, in Eng-
land, a paltry claim was made, which apparently,
perhaps, ought not to have agitated the country,
aa it did, from one end to the other, but that claim,
of very small amount, would, if not enforced, have in-
volved the scandal of the Constitution for years; and,
accordingly, the party politicians of that day recog-
nised in it one of those great principles in which they
conld embark their fortunes and their lives.—(Cheers.)
Now, the Noble Lord bad alluded to character, and he
had taken great pains to damage the character of the
unfortunate M. Pecifico. The character, however, of
M. Pacifico' had nothing to do with the case.—(Hear,
hear.) Every one would remember the time when this
country was agitated by the unlawful proceedings di-
rected against Mr. Wilkes. He (the Marquis of Lans-
downe) would not enter on the present occasion into the
character of Mr. Wilkes, but it certainly was asserted of
him at the time that his character was open to many
charges—charges of immorality, scandal, and others
of that class. But did that character of Mr. Wilkes
prevent the men of that day —Lords Chatham and
Campbell—from interfering? No. Thongh he might
be a gambler and a chi at, though he might be au infidel
or an atheist. God knew whether these charges were
true—it never entered into the heads of the men to
question to say they would summon a jury to ex-
amine into his character before they determined to
interfere in other respects. And so with regard to
M. Pacifico ; whatever his character might be, he
was entitled to redress, if he possessed a rightful claim.
A most respectable resident at Athens, however, knew
him, and he not only considered Pecifico to be the sub-
ject of the most unjust persecution. but he said that '` he
was astonished at the assiduity with which charges had
been got up against him to
prove that his house ahonld
have been burned. —(Hear, hear.) He added that it
put him in mind of a bad case which
vin which,seshichha in the brief
d once come onfieor
hearing in Westminster-hall,f
•
lowing remark.—
" When you come to this part of the
given to the counsel for the defendant, there was the fol-
business, the case very bad, but you may abuse the
plaintiff's
,attorney. —(Bear, bear, and a laugh.) Now,
o stsh, bue ptrestehnetn chat: ew—tt ssi a" ism al itruoef
trhaeoiNficooblehaLsordsuaffseidredin
dreadfully bad character." This was not the way to /nest
a man's claims; or, rather, were the claims to be dis-
allowed, because the man who preferred them happened
to He (the
be considered bad in character?—(Hear.)
Marquis of Lansdowne) frequently referred with delight
and pleasure to a work which held an immortal place
in the literature of this country—he meant the work
published under the name of " The Judgments of
Lord Stowell," which might be studied with profit and
advantage by every man of taste and judgment. They
would find there great principles laid down and great
acts recordei; but, it they went and analysed that work.
and, passim; by the beauty of the general principles
there enunciated, looked at the characters of the persons
concerned, they would find most of those persons to
have been slaveholders, slavedealers, adulterers, persona
of every description and shade of crime and of moral in-
capacity, but, nevertheless, all of them entitled to claim
justice before the tribunals of ;their country, and to be
protected in the assertion of their most important prin-
ciples. This remark applied to all the Noble Lord's ob-
servations respecting Pacifico's character, and all the
discoveries he had made relative to the minute details of
Pacifico's hear.) Now, there was one
circumstance which distinguished this claim from ell
other claims. It was—not the amount of the claim itself,
nor the manner in which it was enforced—but, it was
the great length of time that had been allowed to elapse
before the claim was enforce. Some portion of it bad
arisen so far back as the year 1836. -(Hear.) The Noble
Lord had made an exception in the case of Mr. Finlay.