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

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1850. I

A reference to our report of last night's proceedings
in the House of Lords will show 'the disingenuous
spirit in. which the whole of that extraordinary

cussion was conducted. Tile obvious intention of the

Noble Lord, who yesterday brought forward in an
elaborate harangue his motion of censure upon the
British Government in regard to the Greek question,
was to elicit from the assembled Peers of England a
division condemnatory of the foreign policy
of Viscount PALMERSTON. Such, we repeat,
was the purpose held in view by Lord
STANLEY, and fully must Lord STANLEY have
been satisfied by that majority of thirty-seven
which decided in favour of his proposition. Let it not
be considered, however, for a single instant that the
Cabinet have through this disgraceful division expe-
rienced the slightest discomfiture. On the contrary,
the circumstance that out of three hundred and one
of our hereditary legislators, either "present "or
" proxies"-169 were in favour of, and 132 opposed
to, the Noble Lord's most invidious resolution--4o

far from militating in any manner against Lord
PALMERSTON individually, or against his Ministerial
colleagues collectively, tends directly and de-
cisively to elevate them yet higher in the
scale of public estimation. For—the majority was a
majority in the Upper House of Parliament. It was
a majority in that assembly whose sympathies are,
with scarcely one exception, on the side of the most
arbitrary and despotic governments of Christendom.
The House of Lords knew well enough that by
voting as they did vote last night they would further
the wishes of the Russian Cabinet and subserve their
own consciences to the gratification of the Russian
AUTOCRAT. The House of Lords knew, moreover,
equally well that by so acting they would
most effectually irritate that vast body of the
liberal• minded population of England who respect,
aLove all things, the inalienable claims of justice, and
who recognise in the illustrious statesman at the head
of the Foreign Department the boldest, the ablest,
the wisest, the most adroit, the most experienced of
the vindicators of our national honour and of the con-
servators of our national reputation. Hence the
House of Lords voted, in opposition to all truth, in
opposition to all argument, in opposition to all can-
dour, in opposition to all fair-dealing and common
sense, in favour of the motion brought forward by
Lord STANLEY, in condemnation of the Greek policy
of her MAJESTY'S Principal Foreign Secretary.
A distinguished orator, such as the Noble Leader of
the Protectionist Opposition, could not of course
deliver a speech of such extraordinary length as the
one with which he opened last evening's discussion
without displaying many of those capacities as a
rhetorician which have long since gained him a name
amongdamanifestationzzle the
thejudgments
of which masters
o f e
heknows eloquence, qo uf etnhce Senate. Yet we are
bold to say that e'
and in the brilliant
so well how
t o
never before, in the annals
of the Parliament,
was pronounced any oration more
shallow in logic, or more shamefully evasive of the
real facts under examination. Almost all the min-
gled irony and vituperation levelled by Lord STANLEY
against Viscount PALMERSTON for his conduct to-
wards the Greek Government was restricted to the
ridicule of the various claims for which England has
been demanding reparation. A more impudent
blinking of the real }natter at issue between the
Cabinets of Athens, of Paris, and of London, could
not, by any possibility, have been devised. Why, the
question was—not whether the claims put forward
by Great Britain were good, bad, or indifferent—but
whether France had, or had not, been treated in a
shuffling manner by the diplomatists acting on behalf
of our Government. As to the claims—their justice
have been recognized over and over again, both by
the French Republic and the Greek Monarchy. It
was consequently worse th an frivolous, on the part
of Lord STANLEY, to endeav our to demonstrate the
un warrantableness of demano..s which have been bowed
to as most rational by tho several negotiators in
the late correspondence. E.p ecially frivolous was it
of Lord STANLEY to depreciate the force of such a
claim as the one advanced in refarence to the seizure
of the boat's crew of her MAJESTY'S ship the Spi fire,
by remarking that the authorities at Patras could not
be supposed to recognise that boat's crew as seamen
in the Royal Navy of England, seeing that they were
without uniforms ! Are the British sailors ever pre-
sumed to be decked out in a gallimilufry of profes-
sional masquerade ? Then again, as to the inquiry
why summary compensation for the insult bad not
been required by the officers of her 311A.resTr's ship
Spitfire—it was as absurd as to ask why a bum-