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

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1850.

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 dis-
cussion was conducted. The 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—so
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,
above 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 in opposition to all truth, in
opposition of Lordsto al voted,
argument, in opposition to all l
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 MAJEsTx's Principal Foreign Secretary.
&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
withouthe tori
nan w displaying
hioh have many of those capacities as a
long since gained him a name
r
among the masters of eloquence, and in the brilliant
manifestation
dazzle
of
which
he knows
Senate. Yet we are
the
judgments
bold to say that never before, in the annals
of the Parliament, was pronounced any oration more
o f the
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 matter 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 bad 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 than frivolous, on the part
of Lead STANLEY, to endeavour to demonstrate the
un vvarrantableness of demands which have been bowed
to as most rational by the several negotiators in

the late correspondence. Especially frivolous was it
of Lord STANLEY to depreciate the force of such a
claim as the one advanced in reference to the seizure
of the boat's crew of her MaJEsTY's ship the Spitfire,
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 gallimaufry 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 MAJESTY'S ship
Spitfire—it WAS as absurd as to ask why a bum-

•
fore heaped together within the compass of
a single discussion. Beyond which, throughout the
whole of these attacks upon the Greek policy of
Lord PALMERSTON, and consequently by implication
of her MAJESTY'S Government, the real matter
of debate was entirely overlooked. Hence,
after wading through this terrific series of
vituperations, and after witnessing the exultation of
my Lord STANLEY and his admirers over the majority
of 37—it is with an irresistible sense of the ludicrous
that we find the whole subject of their onslaught
dissipated by a very simple letter from Mr. WYSE,
the Ambassador, and Viscount PALMEESTON and
the rest of ber MAJESTY'S Ministerial advisers fully
and explicitly exonerated by a single intimation re-
ceived from a Paris correspondent. The epistle
from Mr. WISE to which we refer, dated
Athens, May the 31st, after expressing astonish-
ment and indignation at the false charges contained in
General LA HITTE'S letter of recall to M. DROUYN
DE L'Hurs, exposes the folly of those accusations in
the following counter-statement
It is true that the Vauban,' French steam-frigate
arrived here on the 24th of April, with dispatches for
Baron Gros, and equally true from the statement of Mr.
O'Brien to Mr. Griffith (whose letter on the subject
I have the honour to inclose), that these dispatches con-
veyed to him the important intelligence that a Conven-
tion, the essential bases of which were made known, had
been agreed upon in London by the two powers, and was
already on its way to Athens, and it is quite possible that
he may have communicated this information as soon as re-
ceived to the Greek Government and to the King,—to M.
Thouvenel, and, for aught I know, to other members
of the Corps Diplomatique. But it is entirely and
emphatically untrue that he made any such commu-
nication to me. On the 24th of April he wrote to me three
letters, copies of all which I have already had the honour to
enclose to your Lordship, and on referring to them your
Lordship will find that though he therein informs me that
the 4: Vauban' brought him good intelligence from
his own Government, he makes no mention of a
Convention agreed upon in London by both Govern-
ments being on its way to Athens, and likely to arrive in a few
days, still less of any of the' essential bases' of the same, nor does
he use any energetic representations' to induce me to await for
a few days longer its arrival. On the contrary, the whole ob-
ject and end of these letters was at direct variance with such
a communication. They urged me, not to wait for a Conven•
tion which was coming out, but to refer for fresh instructions,
which that Convention would have rendered altogether un-
necessary, and to which, had I acceded, they could have
answered no other purpose, nor had any other effect, than to
embarrass, delay, and perhaps prevent, unless further
modified, the acceptance and execution of that Convention
by the Greek Government. He did not ask for the delay of
a few days only, but of nearly a whole month, for such
would have been the time required before I could receive an_
answer to this proposed application for fresh instructions.
" Baron Gros made me no other communication than these
three letters, excepting the letter of 30th April (inclosnre in
No. 3 of papers presented on 17th of May), nor did I see him
after my last conference with him on board the Inflexible
(April 21st) until the day (May Ist) when he dined at my
house in Athens with Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker and
other officers, after the whole affair had been fully and
finally closed. _ _ .

" further, I had not the slightest intimation until after such
close, of the existence or probable arrival of such a document
as the Convention, nor can I for a moment believe
that its bases' stated by General Lahitte 'to have
been already known at Athens,' were ever heard of
beyond the Court, Government, and some members of
the Corps Diplomatique. Had I had such intimation, or a
suspicion to that effect, I, in conjunction with Sir William
Parker, would of course most willingly have continued to
suspend coercive operations and have been happy to
avail myself in a more formal manner of the sanction
already given by the French Government by their signa-
ture of the treaty, to the justice of our demands on the
Greek Government"

The intimation spoken of above, as coming from a
Paris correspondent, is to the effect that General La-
lIITTE and the Marquis of NORMANDY have had an
interview, which, coming after similar conferences
between the English Ambassador and the French
PRESIDENT, has resulted in the amicable settlement
of existing difficulties.

Such is the consequence of last night's formidable
attack in the House of Lords upon Viscount PAL-
MERSTON : the adverse majority of thirty-seven and
the rhetoric of the redoubtable STANLEY are simul-
taneously quashed by a letter and a paragraph.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
A Cabinet Council was held at the Elyse.) on Sun-
day, on the subject of the report of the Committee on
the Dotation Bill. MM. BAROCRE and Rotunja.
proposed that the Ministers should at once resign, a
proposition that was stoutly opposed by M. FOULD,
the Finance Minister; and after a long discussion
the Ministers sent for M. TRIERS. On his arrival
the discussion was renewed, but the Council separated
without coming to any decision.
It is said that office was offered to M. VATISMENIL
as an inducement to the Legitimatists to support th e
Dotation Bill, but that gentleman declined.
Three horses and a beautiful mare, sent as a
present to the PRESIDENT of the Republic by
the Itnaum of MUSCAT, have been landed at Mar-
seilles.

Mr. SWINBURNE, an English engineer, has ar-
rived in Switzerland to make the preliminary pre.
parations for laying out lines of railway previous to
the arrival of Mr. STEPHENSON, who is expected in
August.
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