The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-19 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1844,

The Pust, usually so calm and decorous in its lan-
guage, and so like a lady'&-maid in its notions of the
genteel, is this morning in—what Sir ANTHONY
ABSOLUTE would call —" a thundering passion.'
O'CONNELL and the Repeal question have, between
them, fairly "scared it from its propriety," and it
expresses itself with a vehemence that may be almost
sad to border upon frenzy. " Great wits to mad-
ness nearly are allied," says DRYDEN ; but here we
have a proof that " small wits" have quite as close a
connexion with insanity, for our Contemporary's
sagacity is anything but remarkable for its enlarged
character ; and none can doubt, who peruses the fol-
lowing strange, wild passage, that his mind is just at
present in that state of hallucination, which no generous
or susceptible nature can witness without emotion :
"It is the merest folly in English statesmen," re-
marks the Post, in the intensity of its wrath, "to
trust longer to the effects of conciliation. Ireland must
be abandoned to the disloyal Romanists, or re-con-
quered. Ireland never can be governed by conciliation.
She must be surrendered at discretion to the enemies
of England, or governed by force. Nor let squeamish
people start at this doctrine. Force is the principle
to which the Romanists have appealed. What else
meant the monster meetings of last year ? What
meant O'CONNELL'S speeches breathing, as they did,
blood and vengeance? The Repealers have, in fact,
admitted that they will, if they can, carry their ends
by violence. By violence, therefore, is England jus-
tified in maintaining her supremacy!" Is it the
placid and sentimental Post, usually so studious in
the cultivation of the gentilities, that holds this fe-
rocious language ? Is it the Post, so conspicuous by
its high-toned theories and its strenuous inculcation
of a lofty political morality, that thus advocates the
most demoralising of all evils, civil war ?—that re-
commends England to draw the sword, and once
again let loose the blood-hounds of rapine and car-
nage through the length and breadth of un-
happy Ireland ? We can scarcely credit the
evidence of our senses; and can only account
for our Contemporary's language by
supposing
that his excessiveindignation against the
Re-
peal agitators has ohnuhilated his judgment,
and blunted, if not wholly destroyed, that fine sense
of humanity of which he is continually Making such
a parade. But to say nothing of the mingled frenzy
and absurdity of the above passage, what can be falser
than some of the. statements contained in it ? " Ire-
land never can be governed by conciliation !" Why,
she never has been so governed, except perhaps
during the brief period when she had a NORMANDY
for a Viceroy, and a MORPETH for her Chief Secre-
tary, and then she was notoriously more tranquil
and contented than she had been for ages before ;
the demand for a Repeal of the Union, if

made at all, was made only in a faint,
languid whisper, and excited little or no public
wsitkiitaVpli. and the Irish Judges on their different
re....7eirp*lcilatulated their countrymen on the great
Aminution" crime among them. If we except this
thoibrief—period, Ireland, we repeat, never
has been go‘etned by conciliation. On the contrary,
she has been governed on the principle of coercion,
for the high Tories----the CASTLEREAGLI and the

E Li:Km party—were for a long series of years toge-
ther her sole, absolute governors ; and we need not
explain to our readers what was the character of
their Irish administration, for it is written in letters
of blood on the page of history, and has engendered
a feeling of distrust and impatience of English
sway in the sister country that it will take
more than one generation to obliterate. The
experiment, then, of conciliation is an experiment that
is yet to be made; and as it is one based on justice,
and in strict harmony with all we can conceive of en-
lightened statesmanship, it should be made forthwith
by Ministers, and in such a spirit, as shall oe an un-
erring voucher for their sincerity. But Heaven for-
bid that Government should ever adopt the Post's
recommendation, and resort to the sword as a means
for tranquillising Ireland ! The sword ! What a
world of atrocities is conjured up by the mention of
this one little word ! The imagination shrinks aghast
at the variety of appalling spectacles which it spreads
before its gaze. But, fortunately, the tendencies
of the age are decidedly opposed to such barbarous—
and, we may add, ineffectual—schemes for putting
down the free spirit of a people; and though at:
English Cabinet, true to old instincts, may still con-
tinue to neglect, harass, or even to coerce Ireland, we
have not the slightest apprehension that it will ever
again venture on the desperate step of letting loose
the demon of war against her. As regards our Con-
temporary's assertion, that " 01CoNNELL's speeches at
the monster meetings, breathing, as they did, blood
and vengeance," recommended an appeal to physical
force, never was there a more unblushing falsehood !
Mr. O'CommEnn studiously repudiated the idea of
appealing to physical force ; peace, order, and for-
bearance were invariably the burdens of his song;
indeed, it was his constant—his favourite boast,
that not one single breach of the peace took
place during the whole time when the " mon-
ster meetings" were being held: and so far were his
speeches from "breathing blood and vengeance,'
that be asserted not once, but a hundred times, that
no revolution was worth making that could only be
made by the shedding of blood ! If our Contemporary
must needs fall foul of CeCoNxisix, let it at least
attack him fairly, and not charge him with errors that
he has never committed, and never dreamed of com-
mitting.

From the Times of yesterday we extract a highly
interesting letter on the affairs, government, and
civil and political administration of Sinde. We
strongly commend it to the serious attention of every
reader who would justly appreciate either the im-
portance of that territorial acquisition on the north•
western frontier of Hindostan—or the talents and genius
of the intrepid soldier who could only have surpassed
the greatness of those achievements which effected
its conquests by the consummate prudence and vigour
with which he now governs it. Fertile as the cam-
paigns of our soldiery in those distant regions •have
ever been in military successes, we know of no in-
stance in which the laurels of victory have been
gathered, under an Indian sun, with more daring, or
with happier results, than those which adorn the
career of Sir CHARLES NAPIER. He is one of the feu
commanding officers who has felt, in its full force—
at the head of British and native troops, flushed with
the renown of their triumphs over forces and re-
sources of the most disproportionate magnitude as
compared with their own—the depth and truth of
the political axiom, "that our empire in India is an
empire of opinion." Under this salutary conviction
he seems ever to have made it his first object, after
reaping the fruits of his rapid, but always fortunate
and well-combined movements against an enemy, to
inspire confidence, regard, and even attachment in
the native mind, by an intelligent respect for cus-
toms and usages not incompatible with the great
principles of morality or civilisation--by a nice ad-
justment of the efficient exercise of his own powers
and authority to the ostensible demands of Oriental
etiquette and decorum ;—by a bold and soldier-like
confidence in the good faith of a vanquished foe who
has once entered into other and more pacific and pri-
vileged relations with the government of his con-
queror. This happy combination of the highest
ability for civil administration with the clearest fore-
cast and vigilance, the most untiring energy, promp-
titude, and courage, in military movements and
operations, constitute Sir CHARLES NAPIER'S title
to rank among the most gifted soldiers and diploma-
tists of his day. In answering certain passages in a
previous letter from a " Deccan Correspondent" of
the Times, "an Officer" has really developed these
excellencies in the character of his hero, Sir C.
NAPIER, with much spirit, and in a style of truthful
simplicity.
It is difficult, no doubt, to satisfy the expectations
of an Anglo-Indian resident, who talks of an as-
semblage of twenty thousand armed Beloochee chiefs,
at Hyderabad, at the simple bidding of Sir CHARLES,
as a " poor affair." But those who know the in-
domitable spirit of the Rajport and Beloochee races,
their impatience of all foreign authority, and their
habits of military license, will rather perceive, in
this memorable incident—(especially when they call
to mind the modest amount of effective forces, after
all, under the command of Sir CHARLES)—a strong
confirmation of the axiom we have already cited.
The sagacity and firmness of an European com-
mander, under whose administration such an evidence
of the moral force of opinion among such a turbulent
and formidable oligarchy of feudal leaders is elicited,
cannot be over-estimated. But when we contemplate
our gallant NAPIER'S mode of resenting the bar-
barous treachery of ADI MORAD ;—the emphatic
astonishment and sudden allegiance of GOOLAM
KHAN ;—the signal act of retributive vengeance,
quietly inflicted on some highland chieftain in the
heart of his own mountain domains, with two of his
followers, for the robbery and murder of an Armenian
merchant ;—the abrupt intrusion into the General's
presence of the old Beloochee who had traversed a
distance of two hundred miles only to see the man,
the renown of whose inflexible justice had penetrated
to the wildest haunts of the tribes who had retired
thither from the lawless cruelties and oppressions of
their own Ameers ;—and when we mark homage paid,
by the great Governor (the "Padisha," as they some-
what extravagantly term him), to the personal rights
and property of the meanest native, in the punish-
ment and expulsion of the policeman ; we seem
carried back to the primitive days of Mussulman
simplicity and sternness, good faith, and chivalrous
devotion. It is like reading some of those passages
which GIBBON has transferred from the Arabian
Annalists of the unflinching justice of ABU ("ERR,
the immovable loyalty of OMAR, and the enthusiastic
confidence of Au. These anecdotes are really most
picturesque and dramatic. But the truth is, that the
merits of Sir CHARLES'S civil administration of
Sinde, as illustrated by "an Officer," may well rank
with any upon record, in respect of Governments as

sumed and established under such extraordinary cir-
cumstances. To have established a rapidly increasing
revenue on firm and yet expanding bases—to main-
tain all the effective establishments of his Govern-
ment on a scale of expenditure as marvellous for its

economy, as its own working is for efficiency; to
have made the authority of justice not less respected
throughout his wild and mountainous province, and
its fierce and heretofore turbulent people, than the
terror of his military prowess, which he has so often

and so amply signalised upon their choicest forces ;
to have inspired implicit confidence in his own go

vernrnent and the beneficent nature of its tendencies ;
—to have secured the personal attachment of the
chiefs whose power he has curbed, and whose ex-

cesses he restrains ;—and to have impressed, by the
magnanimity of his own character and acts, an entire

people, semi-barbarous and fanatical though they be,
with feelings of reverence for, and obedience to, the
distant nation and the mighty SOVEREIGN whom he
represents among them ; these, surely, are no ordi-
nary triumphs to have been accomplished against all
physical odds and disadvantages, within a few 'short
months of incessant and zealous devotion to the most
varied and difficult of public duties. We take no
credit to ourselves for having endeavoured, from the
first intelligence of his masterly operations in Sinde,
to direct attention to the consummate prudence and
wonderful fortune of Sir CIIkRLES NAPIER ; but we
will venture to exceed the terms of our former com-
mendation of this distinguished officer, by remarking,
that to have performed such services to his country
—minference
fe civilren csee rtvhiacte , as we shall
thecall s
individual
tihlietamr—y,
by whom they have been rendered must be animated
idsiptloom raisea ti;aann
by no small portion of the inherent genius and