The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-01 00:00:00

A,R Y 1, 1850.

'pestilence." "Her MAJESTY is persuaded," continues
'he Royal Speech in terms eminently noble, and in
a spirit at once rational and humanizing, "that we
sh %.11 best evince our gratitude by vigilant precautions
age inst the more obvious causes of sickness, and an
en' ightened consideration for those who are most ex-
pos sd to its attacks." In that sentence is pronounced
an indirect eulogium upon those sanitary improve-
ments , which are declared, further on, to be developing
thems elves in all quarters of the United Kingdom
in a manner highly satisfactory to their promo-
ters. Comprehensive but, at the same time,
cautious diminutions of the national expenditure are
hinted at by the Royal Speech in that portion of it
wh err, on commending the yearly estimates to the
Ge ntlemen of the House of Commons, it is intimated
that those estimates " have been framed with a strict
regard to economy, while the efficiency of the va-
rious branches of the public service has not been
neglected." Meanwhile, in making that concession to
the popular ambition for financial improvement, it is
rema.-ked, as if in justification, that " her MAJESTY
has seen with satisfaction the present state of
the ra•venue." In reference to Ireland, the allusions
of the Royal Speech have :n this instance acquired
an especial interest from the circumstance that the
Monarc.h is enabled to observe, that in her late visit
to that portion of her empire, her MAJESTY " de-
rived the highest gratification from the loyalty and
attachment manifested by all classes of her subjects."
Those allusions, moreover, have happily become on
the present occasion fraught with some degree of
encouragement, seeing, that while they announce the
effects of former years of scarcity to be considerably
mitigated by the general abundance and the prevailing
tranquillity, they intimate various measures for the
improvement of the condition of Ireland, particularis-
ing those ameliorative measures by name, and asserting
that they will be brought in due succession under the
consideration of Parliament. Besides announcing to
the country the probable speedy resumption of all
postponed improvements, the Speech from the Throne
contains two important paragraphs not yet speci-
fied, the most remarkable and felicitous portions
of this most remarkable and felicitous document.
The first of these admirable divisions of the Royal
Speech is the following reference to the increased and
increasing prosperity of the country, to the vociferous
and interminable complaints of the agriculturists, and
to the latent determination of the Government to
maintain their Free-trade policy in opposition to all
the noisy demands of the Monopolists :
" Her Majesty has great satisfaction in congratulating
you on the improved condition of commerce and manu-
factures. It is with regret that her Majesty has observed
the complaints which in many parts of the kingdom have
proceeded from the owners and occupiers of the land.
Her Majesty greatly laments that any portion of her sub-
jects should be suffering digress; but it is a source of
sincere gratification to her Majesty to witness the in-
creased enjoyment of the necessaries and comforts cf life
which cheapness and plenty have bestow el upon the
great body of her people."

Than this nothing could by possibility have been
more admirably, more justly, or more emphatically
expressed, indicating a sympathy for whatever
sufferings have really fallen upon the landowners, but
intimating at the same time mesolute determination
to adhere to a cause upon which the comfort and hap-
piness of the "great body of the people" are entirely
dependent.

The other important paragraph of the Royal Speech
not yet particularised is the following majestic and
eloquent peroration—language worthy of a constitu-
tional SovzaziGN, worthy of the Patriot Monarch
idealized by BOLINGBROKE :-
" The favour of Divine Providence has hitherto pre-
served this kingdom from the wars and convulsions
which, during the last two years, have shaken so many
of the States of the continent of Europe. It is her Ma-
jesty's hope and belief that by combining liberty with
order, by preserving what is valuable, and amending
what is detective, you will sustain the fabric of our in-
stitutions as tho abode and the shelter of a frog and
happy people."

Regarding the Royal Speech as an augury of the
session just commenced, we are now more than ever
sanguine of its proving one calculated to advance the
interests of the community, and to conduce to an ex-
traordinary improvement of the Constitution ; a hope
materially heightened by the masterly speech deli-
vered last night in the Commons by the Hon.
CHARLES VlLlamas, and the noble and decisive
oration pronounced in the Lords by the Earl of
CARLISLE.

Notwithstanding the many proofs which have been
afforded during the last twelve months of the reckless
misrepresentations in which the partisans of the
reactionary movement habitually indulge, we cer-

tainly were not prepared for the assertion which

has recently been put forth by the friends
of obscurantism and liegemen of King BOMBA,
that Great Britain never guaranteed to the
Sicilians their constitution. We had imagined
that the debates which took place in the House of
Lords last session, when even the Earl of ABERDEEN
only ventured to hint a doubt, and when Lord
HETTESBURT was compelled to admit the authen-
ticity of the memorandum of 1814, had set that
question at rest. It would appear, however, that
King BOMBA and partizans in this country are pre-
pared again to raise the issue of guarantee or no
guarantee, and they found their pretensions on the
following note from Lord PALMERSTON to Lord
Nonmennv, which will be found in page 2 of the
Parliamentary Papers:—

No. 11.
" VISCOUNT PALMERSTON TO LORD NORMANDY.
" Foreigc-office, January 13, 1848.
" My Lord,—Reports have of late been circulated
that, in some way or other, the constitution, which was
granted to the Sicilians in 1812, was guaranteed by
the British Government. I think it right to inform
your Excellency that the correspondence in this Office
with Sicily in the years 1811-12, while the reversion cf
the constitution of the island was under consideration,
and in the year 1813, after that constitution was finally
sanctioned by the King, contains no mention of any pro-
posal for the guarantee of Great Britain to that consti-
tution having been either required or offered; nor does
that constitution, which was finally sanctioned by the
King of the Two Sicilies in February, 1813, allude to
any such guarantee.—l am, &c.,
(Signed) "PALMERSTON."
There can be no doubt but that no written gua-
rantee on the part of Great Britain of the Constitu-
tion of Sicily was required either in 1811, 1812, or
1813, because during the whole of those years the
forces of Great Britain were in military
possession of the island of Sicily ; during
those years Great Britain guaranteed the
Sicilian Constitution by her acts, and so far were
those acts carried, that when the intrigues of the
notorious Queen CAROLINE of Naples for the over-
throw of the Sicilian Constitution were detected
by Lord W. BENTINCE, his Lordship did not
hesitate to deport her from the island, wife
though she was of the idiot Bourbon who at that time
wore the Sicilian crown ; it was not therefore before
1814, the date of the evacuation of the island by the
British troops, that we should expect to find in the
British Foreign-office any record of a guarantee of
the Sicilian Constitution on the part of Great Britain,
and that such guarantee was then given appears from
the memorandum, dated Palermo, October 20, 1814,
signed WILLIAM A'ConaT, addressed to the Neapoli-
tan Government, and published to the Sicilian people;
which memorandum was never presented to Parlia •
ment until 1849, when it was laid before the House
of Peers on the motion of Lord BEAUMONT. This
memorandum had been withheld from Parliament
rtbe.
by
Lord CASTLEREAGH in 1821, when other p
lating to Sicily were presented; and when questioned
on the subject by Lord W. BENTINCE, his Lordship
inuendoed rather than asserted its non-existence.
Copies
of it, which had been circulated in Sicily,
arrived in England in 1849, and search Ives again
made for it at the Foreign-office without effect, the
Sicilian copies not bearing any date which
could guide the searchers; at length the date
was ascertained, and on searching again in
the Foreign-office the memorandum was found.
In this memorandum (which is published in extenso in
the correspondence relating to Sicilian affairs, presented
to the House of Lords, pp. 3 and 4), in speaking of the
appeal made to England by the Sicilians in 1811 on
behalf of the Constitution, the British Minister says—
, " England could not be insensible to the appeal
which was made to her, and whilst she charged herself
with the protection of Sicily from any foreign invader,
she at the same time lent herself t) the invitation she
had received, and became the protectress and supporter
of alterations founded upon principles so just in them-
selves and so creditable to those from whom they had
originally emanated."
This surely reads not very unlike a written
guarantee of constitutional government to Sicily.
The memorandum then proceeds thus :

" In any temperate and prudent modification of the Go-
velment, England would willingly lend that aid and sup-

port which it may bo in her power to afford. Sho ex-
acts only, a 3 a condition of this assiwance, that it be
done by the Parliament itself--that it Ee awomplisiled
in a legal and constitutional manner, end as far removed
from any direct int •rvention of overbearing authority on
the one hand as from any undue exertions cf popular
int-IT-Tenet, on tha other,"

From the aly;ve pissage it is clear not only
that constitutional government was guAranteed by
Great Britain to Sicily, but that Gre-at Britain
claimed a right of interfering between the KING and
his Sicilian subjects, should the former attempt to in-
troduce any modifications in the constitution
without the consent of the Parliament, and
the reservation of this right of interference on
the part of Great Britain becomes still more clear
from the tenor of the note of Lord CASTLEREAGH to
Mr. A'CouaT, of the '3 11 of September, 1816 (Lords
Papers, p. 5). In speaking of the interference of the
PRINCE REGENT of Great Britian in the affairs
Sicily, Lord CASTLEREAGH says—

"You may apprise chN Neapolitan Minister that the
Prince Regent would c:►nsider such interference imposed
on him as a duty, if (which IP: persuades himuelf, efer
the assurances he has received from his Sicilian Mjest,
ern never happen) those individuals who acted with the
British authorities during the late difficult times in Si
oily, should be exposed either to unkindness or persecu-
tion on account of such conduct.

" His Royal Highness would frel himself equally
compelled, hooves or reluctartly, to inter fo.e, if he had
the mortification to observe any attempt made to reduce
the privileges of the Sicilian, nation in such a degree as
might expose the British Government to the reproach of
having contributed to a change of system in S;cily,
which had, in the end, impaired the freedom and happi-
toss of its inhabitants, as compared with what they fir-
merly enjoyed."
These conditions were communicated to the Nea-
politan Minister, the Marquis of CIRCELLO, and the
following is his reply (Lords' Papers, p. 8, No. 5.) :

"THE MARQUIS OF CIRCELLO TO WILLIAM
A'COURT, ESQ.
"Naples, Dec. 6, 1816.
" The Marquis Circello has tlken into his mature con-
sideration the verbal declaration which his Excellency,
Mr. A'Court, his Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraor-
dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, has made to him.
" It was stated in this declaration, as nearly as the
Marquis Circello can remember, that his Royal High-
ness the Prince Regent, from motives of friendship to
his ally, the King of the Two Sicilies, wished that
these changes should be wisely and prudently effectuated;
that as to his own conduct, his Royal Highness the
Prince Regent would abstain from all interference in the
internal affairs of a foreign and indepenee4 state, pro-
vided his own honour and the good faith of his Govern-
ment-did not otherwise require it ; and this would be its
the two following cases :—First, if the Sicilians, who,
during the last few years, had acted in concert with the
British authorities, were exposed to a reaction ; and,
secondly, if the condition of Sicily should be rendered
worse than it was in former times.

" The Marquis Circello having submitted, as was his
duty, this declaration to his Majesty the King, his
master, must assure Mr. A'Court, that his Majesty
acknowledges in this declaration a new proof of the
particular regard and friendship of his august ally; and
he desires that Mr. A'Court will express his most lively
gratitude to his Royal Highness."

Can the authenticity of theEe documents be denied ?
It would, we think, require more than even a
Bourbon power of mendacity to attempt such denial. If
their authenticity is admitted, then we have the gua-
rantee contained in the memorandum of 1814, in which
England declares herself the pro' ectress and supporter
of the alterations introduced into the constitution in
1812, and declares that as a condition of any modifi-
cation to be hereafter introduced into the constitu-
tion, she exacts that such modification should be made
by the Parliament itself. We have the declara-
tion by Lord CASTLEREAGH, of 6th September, 1816,
that the PRINCE REGENT would feel compelled to in-
terfere if he should observe any attempt made to re-
duce the privileges of the Sicilian nation in such a
degree as might expose the British Government to
the reproach of having contributed to a change
of system in Sicily, which had in the
end impaired the freedom and happiness of
its inhabitants, as compared with :what they
formerly enjoyed, and we have the acceptance, on
6th December, by the Marquis of CIRCELLO, on the
part of the Neapolitan Government, of the right of
interference on the part of Great Britain, as reserved
in the note of Lord CASTLEREAGH. It is admitted
on all hands that the Constitution of 1812
had been modified without the consent of
the Sicilian Parliament. There can be no doubt but
that the effect of that modification has been to render
" the condition of Sicily worse than it was in former
times." The case provided for in the note of the
Marquis of CIRCELLO has arisen, and the right
of England to interfere is incontrovertible.
Equally incontrovertible is it that the Sicilians have a
right to call for such interference, and that England
is bound in vindication of her own honour and to
save herself from reproach, to interfere, by arms if
necessary, to secure to the Sicilians the restoration of
their constitutional form of government.