The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-06 00:00:00

VOMIT

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1844.

In the House of Lords, the Criminal Justice
(Middlesex) Bill was read a third time, and passed.
Lord WHALINCLIFFB moved a clause in the Rail-
ways Bill, the effect of which was to compel com-
panies having any trains running on Sunday, to run
third-class trains likewise.

After some conversation, or what Lord CAMPBELL
called a " hurly burly debate," the clause was un-
derstood to be agreed to.
The Earl of MINTO, after adverting to the small
naval force kept up by this country, and to
the occurrences at Otaheite caused by the small-
ness of our fleets, moved for a return of
ker MAJESTY'S ships of war (other than those re-
served for harbour duty) in commission on the 31st of
July, 1844 ; and also a return of her MAJESTY'S
ships of war present at Otaheite from the Ist of Sep-
tember, 1842, to the latest period to which advices
:Nave been received, specifying the date of the arrival
there and departure from thence of each ship. The
Earl of HADDINGTON replied in general terms to the
topics in Lord MINTO'S speech, for which we refer to
The report. The motion was negatived without a
division.
The Common Law Courts (Ireland) Bill was

passed.
Lord WLTARNCLIFFE moved the committal of the
Nor-law Amendment Bill, and gave their Lordships
a summary of its principal clauses. After some dis-
mission, the Bill was committed pro forma, and
ordered to be recommitted this day.
Their Lordships adjourned at a Quarter-past One.
The Commons met at Twelve olcock, when after
moo routine business, Sir R. PEEL moved the second
reading of the Roman Catholic Penal Acts Repeal
Bill. He stated that the object of the Bill was to re-
vat certain old statutes 1,-,t ich were a disgrace to the
country—adapted to other times, ti" it calculated in
these days to throw ridicule on the Es::._hlished
Church. The Bill was read a second time, and i
ordered to be committtd.

tilt._

The Charitable Donations and Bequests Bill for
Ireland was read a third time and passed.

The Insolvent Debtors Bill went through Com-
mittee and the House adjourned. _ _ _

The House sat again at Five o'clock. when Mr.
GLADSTONE obtained leave to bring in a Bill to apply
to private Bills the same principles which had been
applied to Railway Bills. The object of it was to re-
duce the costs of private Bills. The Bill stood for
next session.

On the motion of Mr. GLADSTONE leave was given
to bring in a Bill to amend the laws relating to the
relief and support in certain cases of merchant sea-
men, their widows, and children, and the House ad-
journed at a Quarter past Seven.

We doubt whether a more important debate has
been raised in the House of Lords, since the com-
mencement of the session, than that which ensued
last evening on the motion of the Earl of MINTO for
the production of certain returns connected with the
present condition of her MAJESTY'S navy, and with
the amount of our naval force from September,
1842, to the latest period to which such accounts
could be made out, at Otaheite. The object of the
Noble Earl, in moving for the former of these classes,
of papers was to demonstrate the dangerous extent to
which the reduction of our efficient strength had been
carried in the peace establishment of this service,
settled by the present Government. The latter class
would have illustrated the weakness of the armament
which has at any time, since the departure of the
" Vindictive" from that station, represented the naval
strength of Great Britain, and upheld our national
dignity in the Society Islands. It is almost needless
to premise that both these motions were negatived.

But Lord MINTo is entitled to the best thanks of
the country for the powerful address which he de-
livered, and the important facts it had accumulated.
It was temperate and statesmanlike in its tone, to
the utmost verge of sustained abstinence from
inflammatory declamation, in dealing with topics
eminently calculated to provoke it. Whilst
he deprecated all unnecessary agitation of any hypo-
thesis which must assume a rupture of those friendly
relations at present subsisting between this country
and France, he soberly and gravely argued the duty
of looking such a contingency fully in the face,
though it might be (as we believe it is) rather to be
viewed as a possible than a probable one. But for
our own parts, we see in our foreign intelligence of
every succeeding day, only additional reasons for
betaking ourselves calmly to the consideration
of the best means of consolidating, improv-
ing, and fortifying our own position and re-
sources in the event of such a calamity.
We believe, as the Marquis of CLANRICARDE
happily phrased it, last night, " that we have
not sufficient naval force afloat to have the effect of
maintaining peace by presenting that ready front for
war, which on many occasions had prevented the
having recourse to war itself." And we cannot
understand that refinement of political delicacy
which should withold statesmen or journalists from
examining, with a prudent and anxious forecast,
the relations which the attitudes, offensive and defen-
sive, of this great country would present to certain
conditions of circumstances that we do not suggest
or invoke, but which are perpetually paraded before
our eyes, and suggested for our contemplation, by
the significant, not to say offensive, proceedings of
our neighbours and—allies. The enthusiastic re-
sponse to an anti-English appeal in an histo-
rical opera at Paris, on Friday last, we
are much disposed to think would have been as cor-
dially given in the Chamber of Deputies, in a barrack
on the Marquesas Islands, at head-quarters in any
part of Algeria, at the new " Government-house" in
Otaheite, or in the ward-room of any of the ships
forming part of the Prince DE JOINVILLE'S expedi-
tion against the coast of Morocco. It seems to us
high time—especially after the overt acts of the French
authorities, to which we thus lightly allude—to
look about us. And in this feeling we rather
marvel—not at the assurance of the Prince DE
JOINVILLE, but at the facility of the British Go-
vernor of Gibraltar, in reference to the modest
request of the former, that the latter would not
allow any English fleet entering the Mediterranean,
to appear off Tangiers, whilst he, the Prince, is
attacking that town and fortress. In the
name of British seamanship, and British in-
dependence, why should not our fleet sail to any desti-
nation that its Commander-in-Chief may deem it pro-
per to make for ? Have there been, of late years, any
such high principles of public honour—any such nice
regard for national rights—any such respect for the
usages and observances of civilised nations manifested
by officers in the French service, or by their Govern-
ment at home, that we should trust anything to their
generosity, their sense of justice, or their forbearance?
Have we forgotten the profligate falsehood
and duplicity—worthy of the worst days of the exe-
crable Directory—under which Algeria was "occu-
pied," and finally, in the teeth of their own solemn
promises and declarations, retained and annexed to
the French Crown ? Is it in their conduct towards
our Consul, Mr. PRITCHARD, or their chivalrous
bearing to the defenceless POMARE, that we have
guarantees for the respect to the rights of nationality,
which they will show towards Europeans or other neu-
trals who may be established in.public or private capa-
cities, at Tangiers? Or, in the petulance and arrogance
of the young commander—whose temerity in taking
away a Mexican pilot out of an English steamer, not
properly punished at the time, has intoxicated him
with a silly vanity ever since; are we to hope fur a
dignified vindication of an asserted insult upon his
own country, without trespassing on the rights and
authorities of others ? The statement of Lord MINTO
has astonished us. It would appear, for the Earl of
HADDINGTON did not attempt to deny his facts, that
we have but nine sail of the line in commission
—two of these in the East Indies, two in
the West, one about to sail for the Pacific (the flag-
ship of the Admiral commanding at Cork), two others
in our home ports, and one more, forming the whole
unit of our fleet in the Mediterranean ! Well might
the Noble Earl ask whether this, in reference to the
aspect of affairs on the coast of Morocco, or Algiers,
7as a safe, a fitting, or even a respectable strength for
our Afez_iiterranean fleet, especially seeing that, though
one other, a
ijst-rate, was on the point of being sent
out to join it, it Vc!ss impossible to provide reinforce-
ments for that station without taking our guard-ships,
and so leaving our coasts and harbours defenceless.
The " Queen," on her recent arrival from the Medi-
terranean, had been immediately paid off. lie re-
minded the House that when the late Government
retired, we had a fleet of twenty-six sail-of-the-line,
seventeen of which were stationed in the Mediter-
ranean. This was a force on which retrench-
ment, if such was the object of the pre-
sent Board of Admiralty, might have been
largely practised, without dismantling and dis-
organising the entire fleet, and then commission-
ing a few other ships. "It was much more easy to
keep up a fleet when once formed, than suddenly to
raise up one, when required." Adverting to the
Otaheite case, Lord MINTo said the native Govern-
ment had been deposed by an usurpation not recog-
nised " by France, and certainly not by us, by the
Captain of a French ship, who deposed the QUEEN,
and seized the island in the name of France." But here
we beg the reader to observe, that Otaheite remains in
the possession of France : that whilstthe disavowal of
that officer's act is feebly and jesuitically made by
M. GUIZOT, the Chambers—Baron Deism, of the
foremost among their members, especially—uphold
and applaud it ; and the Parisian public sanctions
and rewards it by the gift of a magnificent sword.
What we wish to know is—where is this principle
of territorial seizure and occupation on the part of
France to stop ? When are we, or other States,
to interpose effectually to restrain it ? Or
is it to be left to a subordinate (secretly
instructed probably, beforehand) to take forcible
possession of whatever lands he can get in what-
ever hemisphere; to a French Cabinet to can-
vass the feelings of the Chambers on the proceeding
and the acquisition; and to a French Minister, in the
event of finding that favourable, to go through the
formalities of a disavowal on paper, unscrupulously
false in intention—a fraudulent correspondence with
our Government, based on its asserted concurrence
in our reprobation of the measure—and in due
time, after a change or two of Ministry,
a diplomatic note, announcing the fact of the territory
so purloined being, by an irrevocable decree of the
KING and the Chambers, annexed to France. By the,
•—. our honest friends base established themselves in
e.,ast countries of the ancient Numedia,
--is. the Duke of WELLINGTON,
impowids sealed

some of the 1,.._
the Earl of HADDINGIv. ,
and even the Earl of ABERDEEN, yr-

correspondence in our Post-office, and the findings
of courts-martial on too vigilant and spirited officers
like Lieutenant GRAY, on the application of our
excellent Allies; will begin to have their suspicions,
we suppose, aroused. We have only room to direct
attention to this passage, towards the close of Lord
MINTO'S speech :

" Instead of the navy being in the condition in which it
was when we quitted office, the Government have left our
own shores completely defenceless, so that there was nothing
to prevent the French from sweeping the Mediterranean,
sweeping the Channel, and cutting off all our trade to the
West Indies. God forbid he should talk of such a state of
things as probable, but he talked of it as possible, at a time
when the state of affairs abroad forbade us to live in blind
security."
-

To this fearful remonstrance Lord lIADDINGToN, in
effect, replied only by contrasting the amount of former
peace establishments of our navy with the present; as
if former periods of peace necessarily resembled the
present : and the Duke of WELLINGTON, by expres-
sing his conviction that "somebody" would be made
responsible, some day, by some French Government,
for that outrage on our Consul, which the Gallant
Duke facetiously called "an eccentricity."

Our friends across the Channel are making a ter-
rible " hubbub " about Queen POMARE, Missionary
PRITCHARD, and Monsieur BROUAT. If we are to
trust to appearances, to orations in the Chamber of
Peers, and national songs at the Grand Opera, the
whole of Europe—nay, the whole of the civilised
world—is to be thrown into commotion about a paltry
island, which, till Admiral I) UPETIT THOUARS went
there, was
.regarded as a useless speck in the ocean,
that no nation would take under its protection.
Small as the island and its dependencies are, we ad-
mit our Government committed a great error in
sanctioning its occupation by the French ; not that they
were worth any thing, but because they were purely
British settlements ; they had been discovered by
CooKE ; they were occupied by English missionaries
forty-five years ago ; the inhabitants were trained up
in the tenets of the Protestant religion ; and any man
of common understanding might have foreseen that if
we did not cast off Queen POMARE altogether, a col-
lision must take place sooner or later between French
Catholics and English missionaries. The island of
Otaheite was the very last which should have been
placed under the protection of a Catholic nation.
Lord ABERDEEN, however, thought otherwise ; he
now reaps the result of his oversight, and he
and M. GUIZOT will have some difficulty
in arranging matters so as to please Eng-
land and France. If Algiers, or even Toulon,
had been occupied by the English, the event would
not have caused greater excitement than this mise-
rable squabble about a petty Queen, who rules over
some hundreds of half-naked savages. When Sir
R. PEEL made use of the strong expressions in Par-
liament relative to this affair, we felt convinced that
he had good grounds for his bold statements, and that
a Prime Minister of England would not have used
the phrase " a gross outrage, accompanied.with a gross
indignity " without sufficient reason. All the French
papers, however, assert that there was neither a gross
outrage nor a gross indignity ; that if there were
any outrage or indignity at all, they were
committed by Mr. PRITCHARD ; and here the
parties are at issue. •We only wish them well out of
the affair. But is it not a miserable spectacle to see
two great nations quarrelling about trifles ? While
the peace of the world hangs on the entente cordiale,
while the Governments of the two countries are on the
best possible understanding, and all the sober, reflect-
ing class, are anxious to remain at peace, a firebrand
is thrown into the midst of Young France, which it
will require all the skill of Louis PHILIPPE to extin-
guish. He has never been defeated yet, and we trust
his good fortune will attend him to the last. The
public have no means of judging of the real cause of
dispute, farther than this, that it is of the most paltry
description, and if any serious consequences were to
be the result England and France would become the
laughing stock of the world. We trust that Sir
ROBERT PEEL has not placed implicit confidence in
the statements of Mr. PRITCHARD, and that his future
policy will be guided by some better authority.

Accounts from Madrid of the 29th ult. state that
a great number of arrests had been made by
NAILVAEZ, on the plea that a conspiracy had been
formed to overturn the Government. Forty per-
sons had been thrown into prison for a slight com-
motion at the barracks, which every one believes was
caused entirely by Government agents, in order
that a pretence might be had for imprisoning
some of the leaders of the Opposition during the
general election.
Letters from Cadiz of the 25t1i announce the ar-
rival of the French Consul from Tangiers, but the
English Consul remained at his post.
On the Madrid Bourse the Three per Cents. were
done at 26 9-16 for cash, 26/ at sixty days, and the
Fives at 20i for the 23d of August.

The Paris papers are entirely occupied with the
affairs of Morocco, and the expulsion of Mr. PRITC lIARD
from;Otaheite. We find, however little new on the latter
subject. There is the same rancour displayed against
England. Indeed their language seems to become
every day more violent, and they complain and bully
as if Messrs. BRUAT and D'Aunrcarr were the in-
jured parties. The Presse, one of the Opposition
journals, asserts that England has no claim to any re-
paration, and adds—" What she demands is unrea-
sonable and unjust, and the manner in which she
requires it is imperious and insulting. We must op-
pose with firmness to the passionate reports of her
agents the reports of our own ; we must prove to her
the first violator of the law of nations was that same
PRITCHARD, at whose feet England wishes to make
the amende honourable. She must be made to under-
stand how wrong her Government was to attempt to
bring about so abruptly the denouement of an affair
respecting which the information hitherto received
was so incomplete. It must be finally demonstrated
to Europe that right and justice are on the side of
France, to whom such an audacious demand is made.
After that England may adopt whatever course it
thinks proper !" The Journal des Debats speak in a
more rational strain, but it blames Sir ROBERT PEEL
for the haste with which he prejudged the question.
"We must say," this journal observes, " that the
sentiments of animosity and irritation manifested at
this moment in the French tribune and press, do not
appear to us to be justified by the facts. To hear all
that is said in France, one would think that it was a

French subject that was incarcerated, and then ex

pelled by the English authorities. We ought to re-
member that the contrary is the case, and that it is
not for us, in the present circumstances, to show our-
selves irritated, or to pretend that we are humiliated
The representatives of the French Government, pro-
voked by the intrigues of a troublesome individual,
who has been called hot-headed by his own coun-

trymen, have taken vigorous measures with respect
to him, which were, no doubt, required by im-
perious circumstances. But since we have a better
position we ought, for that very reason, to main-
tain ourselves with dignity, and not add, by
aggravating words, to the very natural unplea-
santness in which England feels herself of being in
the wrong. It is not right to say that the English
Government has already judged the question. It
has prejudged it with a precipitation which we regret;
but the explanations which have been given are, we
believe, of a nature to modify its way of viewing it.
At all events, the question is one of fact; and, until
these facts are cleared up, the French Government
are right not to allow of any discussion on the
subject."
If this be the language of M. GUIZOT, he and Sir Ro-
BERT PEEL are far yet asunder ; for, if we are to credit
the Siecle, the British Government has delivered a note
containing the followingdemands :—" Firstly, the dis-
missal of M. D'AUDIGNY, the author of the measures
adopted against the ex-Consul PRITCHARD ; secondly,
the recal of Captain BRUAT, who, on his return, has
sanctioned the measures adopted by the ad interim
Government ; thirdly, the destruction of all the for-
tifications raised in the island whilst it has been placed
under the de facto sovereignty of France ; fourthly, the
establishment of an English station of equal force to
that of France, in order that in no case her Britannic
MAJESTY'S subjects may want sufficient protection."
We put little confidence in these statements. One
thing, however, is clear, the Paris press, almost
without exception, is doing everything in its power to
control the two countries. Possibly the writers may
be successful, and what then ? It is needless, how-
ever, to speak of the future, and it might be consi-
dered ungenerous to boast of the past.
According to the latest accounts from Tangiers the
disputes lntween France and Morocco still remain