The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 9, 1844.

BOROUGH, to Lord AUCKLAND. His remarks about
the " old friends" of Sir HENRY POTTINGER, and the
manner in which Sir HENRY treated his friends when
he was among them, formed a strong contrast to the
lamentations of Lord AsEILEY. Mr. EMERSON TEN-
WENT followed, and demolished all the castles built in
the air by Lord ASHLEY. He treated the letter said
to have been written by Sir H. POTTINGER as a for-
gery, and could prove it from Sir 11. POTTINGER'S
own words, who had described his " old friends" as
a vicious and wicked race, and ..predicted their pre-
sent destiny.
After speeches from Sir C. NAPIER, Sir R. PEEL,
and Lord J. RUSSELL, the House divided, when the
motion was negatived by a majority of 134.
Mr. DIVETT then made his motion for an address
to her Majesty to dismiss Mr. BONHAM from his
situation in the Ordnance-office, but not being se-
conded, it fell to the ground.
The House adjourned at Five Minutes to Two.

'The last charge in the warfare has commenced,
and the Solicitor-General for Ireland has begun his
reply to the speeches for the defendants, and his ge-
neral summary of the whole case. It will require all
the talent which he possesses----and that is well-known
to be not a little—to bring the minds of the jury back
to anything like a favourable state for the prosecu-
tars. Conviction, or acquittal, or no verdict at all,
fortunately signifies not one single iota, for the public
has decided upon the case long ago, and no finding of
the jury will alter the decision of the country. But
the opinion to be entertained of Irish juries, of their
subserviency to official purposes, or freedom from
party bias, will be greatly influenced by the result of
this trial. And if the Solicitor-General succeeds in
averting a verdict of direct acquittal, or in compass-
ing the finding of no verdict at all, he will do great
things for his employers. Should he succeed so far as to
give any plausible pretext for a verdict of guilty,
and, should the jury avail themselves of such a pre-
text to carry out the purpose for which they were
put into the box, great will be the laudation be-
stowed upon the Solicitor-General. He will not, in
his attempts, use the weapon of offence, nor follow
the example of his Learned Leader by producing his
fire-arms in Court ; but he will aim, by slow, in-
sidious poison, to gain his ends, and to compass the
destruction of O'CONNELL and his fellow-defendants.'
Thus the pliability of an Irish jury, and the talent
or jesuitry of an Irish Solicitor-General, are, in
truth, the only issues about to be decided by the
State prosecution of the Government of Sir R. PEEL.
Did any Government, in times past—did any Ad-
ministration upon record,- ever" put itself into the
position that the present Government has as-
sumed on this occasion ? Legal preparation un-
equalled, in more senses than one—unequalled
in extent, unequalled in absurdity : trickery
and artifice unknown in legal annals ; employed in
the suppression of jury lists, and in the fraudulent
packing of a jury : intolerance and bigotry, in
making a religious test the ground, for exclusion from
the panel chosen out of the mutilated list. And yet
after all this preparation, this trickery, this intoler-
ance, all that the Government has been able to do, is
to put themselves on their trial, and to place their
own conduct, their own misdoings for adjudication,
whilst those of whom they sought to make criminals,
are comparatively free from all care as to what the
final ending of these trials may be.
So will it always be, when Governments suffer
themselves to be dragged from the beaten road of
justice into the tortuous paths which petty malignity
and private malice prefer to tread. To gratify the
dogged pertinacity of a WELLINGTON, the demoniac
hatred of a STANLEY, and the paltry pettifogging
acerbity of a GnituAm, the Government of Sir R.
PEEL has been led into this maze of persecution, and
has perilled its VE ry existence upon the putting down
of O'CoNNELL. The cause of Repeal has been ad-
vanced more by the proceedings of r. the Government
than by any thing that years of agitation 'could have
effected. Sir P►., PEEL has nobody but himself to thank
if he should find, no matter what the verdict of this
fraudulently-selected, unfairly packed, and infamously
concocted jury may be (a selection, a packing, and a
concoction, in which the jury are no sharers, and
from which, perchance, they may yet gloriously vin-
dicate themselves), that the cause of Repeal has gained
a strength, and acquired a force, which, but for these
prosecutions, it could never have attained.
Repeal of the union is the child of Tory parents—
it has been fostered by them, and nursed until it has
gained its present stature, by their care and superin-
tendence ;—and if ever a repeal of the union, which
we sincerely deprecate, should be found unavoidable,
to Tory misgovernment, obstinacy, and imbecility
alone will such an event be attributed.

Though the discussion raised by Lord ASHLEY in
the House of Commons on the affairs of Sinde has led
to no immediate result favourable to the Ameers, it
has been of great service tit the cause of truth and
justice. It has dispelled the calumnies heaped on Sir
CHARLES NAPIER—it has placed before the public
the real position in which he stood ; and it has
elicited from all parties the highest tribute to his
foresight, skill, and bravery. It has done more ; for
the statements made by authorities competent to
judge leave no doubt that if a General of less
penetrating mind and less decision had been ap-
pointed to command the Sinde army, we should
have had a repetition of the Affghanistan
tragedy, the whole of the British troops and their
auxiliaries would have been surprised, and every
officer, soldier and follower, put to ari ignominious
death. No praise, therefore, is too great for conduct
which saved the nation from such a calamity, and
prevented a general rising of all the discontented
States adjoining the British possessions in India.
Lord AsnLET's motion, to parts of-which there can
be no objection, was lost by a great majority, and a
mixed majority, too, consisting of Whigs, and
Radicals, and Tories. Three of the leading members
of the late Government voted in the majority,
namely, Lord P
ALMERETON, Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
and Sir J. C. Honnousz, the late President of the
Board of Control. This is fair and honourable, and
removes all suspicions that Lord PALMERSTON or any
of his colleagues would join in the wild cry of execrat-
ing a line of policy which was forced on Lord ELLEN-
BOROUGH and Sir C. NAPIER, and which could not
be condemned without involving that of Lord Aucx-
LAND and Sir JOHN KEANE in the same condemnation.
Lord AsuLEr has the character of being a
very humane and impartial man in all his con-
duct, both public and private, but it is singular
that a Nobleman with such a character
should waste all his commiseration and tears only on
one party, the hunting and tyrannical Ameers, and
would again subject to their iron dominion thousands
of emancipated slaves, and tens of thousands of in-
dustrious Hindoos, brought down to the lowest mi-
sery by their exactions and oppressions. Every
author, almost without exception, who has written
on Sinde, has described the sufferings of the people
under the late Ameers as intolerable, and their go-
vernment as the very worst to be found in
all the East. Has his Lordship no sympathy
for oppressed subjects and slaves, and is it
consistent with his professed humanity to call
upon the Indian Government to direct the " imme-
diate restoration of the Ameers to liberty and the
enjoyment of their estates ?" While he laments the
fate of a few chiefs, allowei 20,0001. a year, and, with
one exception, comparatively at liberty, he forgets
the sufferings, the civil war, and the murders which
their restoration, even for six months, would entail
on their unhappy victims. Let the Ameers be treated
with due humanity, let everything consistent with
prudence and security be done for their Comfort ; but
keep them at a distance from Sinde, and leave the
inhabitants to the blessings of a civilized and paternal
Government.

Madrid papers of the Ist inst. have .been received,
and bring intelligence of vast importance. Another
revolution in Spain has commenced whieb,in all pro-
bability, will lead to a bloody civil war. .On the 28th
of last month a revolt of a formidable character broke
out in the seaport town of Alicante. The provincial
regiment, stationedat that place, joined in the insur•
rection, and the general cries were--q Long live the
Constitutional. QuEEN !" " Down -with the Ministers!"
The military authorities were completely taken by
surprise ; the General Commandant, snd the Political
Chief were arrested by the Custom-house Car-
biniers, and a Junta formed. On the intelli-
gence reaching Madrid, a Council of Ministers
was immediately summoned, the troops were all
placed under arras, and orders ids y% for tk arrest of