The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-09 00:00:00

illarnilm 'AM

LONDON, FRIDAY. AITGUST 9, 1814.

On the Marquis of NORMANBT presenting a peti-
tion from Leeds, drawing the attention of the House
of Lords to the efforts of the Protestant Missionary
Society for the last fifty years in the island of Ota-
heite, and complaining of the violation of the law of
nations by the French authorities, the Earl of .ABER-
DEEN said he would say no more on the subject than
was absolutely necessary, but he must, at the same
time, state that though Mr. PRITCHARD was divested
of his official character, he was no less entitled to the
protection of his country. He still believed that
mogieration and justice on. the part of the Govern-
ments of England and France, would disappoint the
object of the war parties in bOth countries.
A brief conversation took place about Spanish
finance. The Earl of ABERDEEN seemed to have
great confidence in the honour and ability of
Senor MoN, the Chancellor of an Exchequer which
is empty; but we doubt much if one Spanish creditor
agrees with him.

The Poor-law Bill was read a third time, and
passed.
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE gave notice that he
would this day make a motion relative to the pro-
gress of the Houses of Parliament.
On the motion of Lord IN-uARNcIaFrE, a discussion
took place on the amendments of the Commons t• the
County Coroners' B►ll, and, on a division, the numbers
were equal—fourteen on each side. The question
was decided in favour of the non-contents, and the
amendments were rejected.

After passing some Bills of little interest, the
House adjourned till Half-past Three this day.

In the Commons, the amendments made to the
Merchant Seamen's Bill by the Lords were agreed to.
In answer to a question from Mr. NYSE, the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER Said it was not his
intention to consent to the return of Stamps issued to
each individual newspaper. Dr. BC/WRING said he
would bring the subject before the House. next
Session. Mr. WAKLEY hoped
,the return would
never again be inczde, as by these returns the grossest

~ y

frauds were committed on the public and on adver-
tisers.

A brief discussion took place between Mr. T.
DUNCOMBE and Sir JAMES GRAHAM, relative to the
affairs of Guernsey ; but the main facts being
purely personal, it was of no interest to the public.

Sir J. GRAIIAM obtained leave to bring in a Bill
for the alteration of the law of settlement, the main
object of which was to repeal all the laws on the
subject and begin anew, and that birth only should
give a settlement. The measure was received with
general approbation. _

- - The Lords' amendments to the Poor-law Bill were
brought up and agreed to.
The House adjourned at Nine o'clock till Half-past
Three this day.

We really know cot what to make of this wild out-
cry in France about the Otaheite islands, and the
public seem to Ie in the same predicament. What
would the French be at ? Do they wish to go to war
with England'? Without the possibility of a doubt,
that is the great object of the Opposition papers, and
we regret to say also of some of the most influential
men on the Opposition benches. It is a strange
mania. We have notoffended the French in any way.
We have not interfered with their occupation of the
islands in the Pacific. The British Government have
assented to all their plans of colonization in that dis-
tant region; they have allowed them to take posses-
sion of an island which is associated with the early re-
collections of the present generation, from the inter-
esting
accounts given of it by missionaries who
established themselves there forty-five year ago,
and when the natives rebel against this usurpation,
and fight against the French, England is denounced
as the cause of all the mischief, and "one PRET-
' CHARD," as M. D'AUDIGNY designates him, one of
the oldest settlers, and almost up to the moment of
his arrest the British Consul on the station, is treated
with great indignity. No proofs are adduced that
he was an active party in the insurrection, yet, when
our Government complains of this strange proceeding,
the whole of the Opposition press of Paris become
furious at the presumption of Englishmen. It is
painful to witness such an exhibition. It is lament-
able to see a powerful nation planted in the heart
of Europe, which has such means of doing good,
and which can afford to be magnanimous, thus im-
pelled by blind rage against a neighbouring country,
anxious to live with it on peaceable terms. Is France
still to be the general fire-brand, and the world to be
thrown into commotion to gratify the vain aspirations
of Republicans and the hopeless worshippers of the
Bourbon dynasty ? We confidently trust that the
rational men of France will take a different view of the
question, and not rush headlong into a scheme which
cannot benefit their country, which would entail great
calamities on the human race, and would, to a cer-
tainty, end as most wars with this country have
ended. Great battles, of course, would ensue, and vast
destruction of property and human life, and when ex-
haustion took place both parties would sit down
quietly to arrange the differences, and probably leave
off precisely as they began. The nation which
commences such a terrible contest incurs a fearful
responsibility in the eyes of all Europe, and it would
he well for it first to, consider whether it can justify
its conduct, and whether in these days it is not more
honourable to settle disputes by calm reason and
judicious negotiations, than by an appeal to the sword.
Lord ABERDEEN last evening justly observed that it
mattered little whether Mr. PRITCHARD had or had
not resigned his official duties. He was still a Bri•
thh subject, and must be protected. Sir ROBERT
PEEL has not altered or in any way modified his
expressions which have given such offence to the War
party in France; and we therefore presume that the
British Government have just grounds for demanding
reparation, and that they will not be deterred from
their course by men who are equally enemies of
England and their own Sovereign.

In utter disregard of all the funereal laments of the
Morning Herald, which has, over and over again,
nannounced to its readers the fact of the Anti• Cor-

raw League's demise—affecting, even, with a Phari-
saical affectation of s 3 mpathy (worthy of the Bishop of
LONDON himself), to celebrate its obsequies—this
idomitable body is still alive and in the flesh. It
still survives in all the vigour of its or,,►anisation, to
shock the conventional prudery of our Contemporary's
politica by the liberal tone of its principles, and its
open addiction to the scandalous facilities of free-trad-
ing! What will be thought, in Shoe-lane, of the li-
cense which Mr. COBDEN allows himself in Covent-
garden Theatre, in toying with such disreputable topics
as political economy, and in irreverently insisting on
the duty of increasing the number of mouths fed, as
prior and paramount to that of devising new churches
to be built ; we dare not trust ourselves to anticipate.
Enough for us, that the League, last night, held its
four-and-twentieth meeting, being the last for the
season, in the noble edifice whose walls hare been so
often thronged by thousands of eager auditors of both
sexes, assembled to hear the ♦iews of the League
developed and illustrated; and perhaps on no former
occasion were greater numbers ever congregated at
these remarkable reunions, with more impressive
effect. For the interesting details connected with the
composition and aspect of the meeting, and its im-
portant proceedings, we must refer the reader
to the careful report we have given in another part of
our impression. No one can peruse that report with-
out the conviction that the power of the League--
whether for good or evil—has become an enormous
one. If this conviction should operate, as we think
it almost certainly will do, to prompt the public
at large to a serious examination of the causes
which can have given birth to so formidable
a creation—this " Earth-born Myrmidon," as
we may well term it, from its connection with
the soil—the L eague—will have accomplished the
most important end and the most legitimate
object of its existence. It will have aroused that
spit it of inquiry, and ensured that elimination of
truth to which it has devoted its marvellous energies,
its untiring industry, and its still unfailing means.
The ultimate and not distant result will doubtless be,
to secure the concurrence of the nation and the fiat
of the Legislature in favour of the views it has so
forcibly advocated and so widely diffused.
Mr. G. WILSON, the Chairman, aptly illustrated
these three points—the energy, the unwearied
exertions, and the increasing influence of the
League—by showing that in the interval which
had elapsed since its last public meeting, it had been,
addressing itself, almost exclusively, to the important
object of watching and stimulating the electoral
registration. He showed that their able agents had
been dispatched for this purpose to no less than 140
boroughs, " in which they thought there was a reason-
able expectation that an impression might be made,"
prior to the advent of a general Parliamentary
election. And he instanced the City of London
and the Southern Division of the county of Lancaster
as localities in which these efforts had been already
attended with gratifying indications of success
Seeing that the House of Commons, as at present
constituted, presents, according to the observation
of Mr. VILLIERS, on a former occasion, no re-
flection of the public mind on this question of
corn-law monopoly, he justly argued that it
devolved upon the Council of the League to
adopt all possible measures that might prepare
the electoral body, in due time, for a wise and
discriminating► exercise of their franchise in return-
ing, when the occasion should. offer, such representa-
tives only as would carry out the two main ob-
jects of abolishing the corn-law restrictions in parti-
cular, and of establishing a system of free trade in
general.

The principal speeches of the evening were those of
Mr. M. GIBSON, M.P. (whose improvement, in all
respects, of matter and manner, forces itself upon our
observation with every fresh address which he de-
livers), and Mr. COBB,EN' M.P. Mr. GIBSON rallied
the Protection people very happily on the magniloquent
failures of the British Agricultural Protection So-
ciecty, and the still more unfortunate break down of
the Council of the Society for the Protection of
British Agriculture. lie contrasted their progress of
retrogression with the advance of the League ; and
the backwardness of their supporters with the fervour
that had induced upwards of 1,200 freeholders of
Northamptonshire, supporters of the League, to sign
a requisition to Mr. COBDEN to come among
than to discuss these monopoly questions in an open-
air meeting. But no proposition was enforced with
more vigour or effect by Mr. GIBSON than that which
we ourselves have always desired to keep before the
public in its true light—namely, that the relief and

' supply of physical wants must precede all attempts to
establish any extensive and efficacious system of moral
instruction or religious education. All experience of
human nature—all the deductions of common sense
—show that this is an immutable truth. The
mind is in no condition to be disciplined, or
informed, or expanded, whilst the physical
machine is suffering under privation, and dis-
ease, and all their consequent derangements. Now
laws which make bread artificially dear are at the
very root of these evils of physical disorganisation.
That the landowner, whose exorbitant rentals are
identified with the maintenance of monopoly restric-
tions, or the importation of cheap grown corn of
foreign soils, should keep up the scale of their incomes;
it is now,by an imperative statute, required, that the.poor,
whose health of body and consequent powers of intellect
are dependent on an adequate and economic supply
of wholesome bread, should be kept down to a

minimum, insufficient, proportion of the first necessary

of human subsistence, and abandoned in the mean-
time to the misery, the suffering and feebleness, and
moral degradation and torpor, which are the inevit-
able adjuncts of such privations. In this fact consists
the first and greatest of the many crimes chargeable
on the existing corn-laws. But this is the solemn lesson
which the League (whether in a rough or an accep-
table manner—a tone of conciliation or a language of
defiance—no matter) has persisted in teaching, by the
c )mmon confession of its enemies and its friends. The

lesson is one worthy to be written in letters of gold
in the same page of history which shall
con sign to contempt the canting, one-
sided, Sabbatical, wailing of the Bishop
Of LONDON over cheap fares of third-class railroad

travelling on Sundays ; and to scorn, the bigoted and
unchristian fulminations of the Bishop of EXETER
against all other creeds and shades of religious pro-
fessions, but his own. Not less vigorous was the
hit which Mr. Ginsom dealt at the sensitiveness of

those pro-corn-law landlords who are so marvel-
lously jealous of our national honour, and so gene-
rously indifferent to the responsibilities of any war we
may plunge into to vindicate it, but the genuine mo-
tive of whose readiness for war is to be qualified, as
he observed, by the reflection that war is the mother
of high agricultural prices. We need hardly com-
mend, again, the cutting irony with which he con-
trasted the spirited rivalry of landowners in feeding
their "stalled oxen," to a degree of obesity which
made it necessary for them to be assisted in getting
on their legs, and their indifference to the craving
pangs of famished peasants, who cannot use their
limbs from the very langour of physical inanity and
hunger. Mr. COBDEN'S speech was one of those
manly efforts of a. remarkably compact and ready
mind, stored with all information on the question
to the elucidation of which its best powers
are directed, that admit of no descriptive analysis,
which would not tend to impair their effect. We
earnestly recommend it to the careful perusal of
every reader. It _must gratify men of all parties,
from its vigour and simplicity, unless we ex-
cept, indeed, the writer of an article in the Morn-
ing Post, of which pleasant mention was made by
th• Hon. Gentleman, in tracing the philosophy of
incendiarism to the misapprehensions of a psuedo-
political economy. We suppose that the public will,
by next session, confirm the judgments and services of
this crusade against monopoly, by a verdict equiva-
lent to complete success ; a well-merited reward for
so much consistency and perseverance as the League,
under such able leaders, have shown throughout all
fortunes.

Madrid papers of the 3lst ult. have been received,
but they do not bring later intelligence than that
which appeared yesterday in a telegraphic dispatch.
More arrests had taken place, and a conspiracy was
said to have been discovered at Barcelona among the
troops, the object of which was to seize on the fort of
Montjuich, and that several officers and under-officers
hare been arrested and imprisoned as being implicated
in the affair.

The following is the latest intelligence from Gib-
raltar, and is stated to be official :
" GIPRALTA ft, JULY 28.—The Chancellor of the
Consulate and all our countrymen have retired from
Tangiers, with the consent of the local authorities.
The Albion was sent on the 27th to Tangiers, with an
officer, to take charge of the squadron in the roads,
under the title of Commodore.

" All the Consuls have quitted Tangiers. The
English Vice-Consul has returned there. The arrival
of Mr. DayststoilD Hay is hourly expected."

Madrid Bourse, July 31.—Three per Cents., 27
at 60 days; Five per Cents., 19} at 60 days.

The close of the French Chambers has given M.
GUIZOT some relief from the attacks of Members re-
specting the Otaheite affair, but none from the press.
Most of the journals continue their rage and fury
against England, as if France had sustained some
.grievous insult from us. They are not even satisfied
with the result of the court-martial on Lieut. GHAT.
Nothing, indeed, will satisfy the insane writers in
these journals but war, or the utter humiliation of
England. A determined attack was prepared against
M. Gunor, at the sitting on Monday, which was to
have been commenced by M. BERRTHR, supported by
M. BILLAULT, but the impetuosity of M. DE LA
IlocutEJAcquaust defeated their object. M. GUIZOT
took advantage of his indiscretion, and gave such an
answer that no further questions could be put with any
degree of propriety. " I shall hold here," said he, " the
same language I have held in the other Chamber.
Allusion has just been made to a question which is,
indeed, pending between the two Governments.
There are in it conflicting facts and rights which
must be cleared up and made to agree before they be
discussed in this llouse. This question must be
treated and solved between the two Governments.
Such is what I have to do at this moment; 1 shall do
it, having due respect to the rules and forms which
preside over friendly international relations, and
maintaining the rights, honour, and dignity of the
agents of France, and of her naval officers in parti-
cular. When the question shall have been solved, I
shall have to justify before the Chamber both what
the Government shall have done and the motives for
which it shall have thus acted. At present I should
be wanting in every duty to the Kiwo and the coun-
try if I said more on the subject." The National thus
raves on the subject :
" The situation of England towards France, with re-
gard to Otaheite, is openly hostile. At Morocco she
imposes on us her imperious will ; at St. Petersburgh
she threatens us : we everywhere find her usual jealousy
and perfidy, and this is precisely the moment chosen to
compromise the King by an act of courtesy to which
malevolence may give a serious bearing, Does not the
Minister fear that France will consider this as an insult
to all the sentiments she feels at this inopportune visit ?
Is this the time for the French Government to play the
part of a devoted friend to England, when perhaps the
future may contain a striking and approaching rupture
hetween the two States ? The Government has already
sacritied enough to that falsehood which it calls entente
cordiale.' It is time, in our opinion, even in the interest
of the dynasty itself, which the Minister pretends to
serve, that no one should be put in peril but himself ;
it is high time that M. Guizut puts a stop to his continual
policy of humiliation."
Various reports were current at Paris of the course
which the French Government proposed to pursue
relative to this troublesome affair. Among others,
it was said, that M. Gutzor had forwarded a com-
munication to Lord ABERDEEN, in which he admits
that the conduct of Captain D'AUBIGNY was rather
hasty, and perhaps harsh, in sending Mr. PRITCHARD
to prison, and keeping him from communicating
with his family and friends ; but he considers him
perfectly justified in the circumstances in sending
Mr. PRITCHARD out of the Society Islands.
Viewing the whole bearings of the question, M
Guizor comes to the conclusion that, although Capt.
D'Auniores conduct may merit a reprimand, it was
not so far beyond the limits of his duty as to warrant
the Government either in dismissing him from the
service, or even in withdrawing him from his post in
the Pacific.

The Journal dee Debates makes the following re-
marks on the result of the Court-martial held on Lieu-
tenant GRAY :

" This judgment, if it shows anything, proves that the
English Government, far from encouraging its agents in
their irregularities, does all in its power to prevent such
acts, and takes every means to repress them. We shall
not bestow any praise upon the English Court-martial,
for this would be out of place, as it has done only its
duty by rendering justice ; but, under existing circum-
stances-, there may be perhaps some merit even in per-
forming a duty. The sentence has already been warmly
attacked in England. It is pretended there that the
officer was sacrificed to political feelings, and that the
severe reprimand inflicted upon, him was a concession
made to the remonstrances of France. It is clear, how-
ever, that some one must be responsible, and this the
English Government is well aware of. So long as

treaties exist, all are bound to execute them with fide-
lity, and the' precautions taken by the British Govern-
ment to guarantee the exercise of the right of search
from all cause of irritation and dispute, ought to be
accepted by us, in the same spirit of conciliation and
harmony."

The papers bring no fresh intelligence from Tan-
giers. It would appear that the French squadron
under the Prince DR JOIN Tula was still in the Bay
of Cadiz on the 28th ult.

THE BOURSE—TUESDAY, AUGUST 6.
First Iligheet Lowest

Price. Price. Price. Price.
French Five pere:nts•• •••• 120 30 .. 120 65 .. 120 60 .. 320 60
Four per Cents. ••••• 106 .. 106 .. 106 .. 106
Three per Cents.•• .• 81 50 SI 56 .. el 80 .. 31 58
LaMtte Bank, 5,000 f. Sharesso7o —5070 ..5070 ..5070
Bank of France... 3075 .. 3073 .• 3075 —3075
Belgian Bank ...• • • •• •• •• •• 675 .. 675 .. 675 .. 675
Belgian Fives, 1631.. •••• • •• lon .. 103 f • . ion .. 103 i
1840 lO5 .. 105 .. 1041 .. 103
1842 •• •••• •• 168 .. 10111 .. 101 10,41
Spanish Threes • • ...... •• • • 34 32: 324 • . 32:
Active • 30: .. 301 .. aof • • 30f
Portuguese Five per Cents 43 .. 43 .. 43 .• 43
Neapolitan. ..... • •• 98 so .. 91 83 .. 96 80 .. 98 85
Roman ........•• ..... 1031 1031 .. 1051 .. 104