The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-13 00:00:00

The speeches, in both Houses of Parliament last
night, on the affairs of Sinde, may he regarded as the
most interesting of the session. The question was,
not whether we had a right to occupy that country,
whether we had a right to open the navigation of the
Indus, and form a strong boundary to our Indian
possessions on the west—but was simply confined to a
vote of thanks to the gallant men who had upheld,
and, as some speakers well entitled to judge, said,

surpassed,even the renowned valour of British troops. Of
course Sir CHARLES NAPIER was the great object of
attraction. He was the life and soul of the battle;
he led his men on under difficulties unparalleled, in-
spired every officer, soldier, and camp-follower, with
his daring spirit, and achieved a victory which casts
all others in India, however remarkable, into the
shade. With what exultation this Gallant Officer,
who bears a name so celebrated in the history of
the country, will read the tribute conferred on
him by such a man as WELLINGTON. "
must say," said his Grace, " that on giving the
fullest consideration to the operations, I have never
known an instance of a general officer who had shown

in a higher degree all the requisite qualifications to

enable him to conduct great operations. Sir CUARLES
NAPIER had manifested the utmost discretion and
prudence in the formation of his plans, the utmost
activity in perfecting the preparations necessary to
success, and, finally, the utmost zeal, gallantry, and
science, in carrying these plans and operations into
execution." Such a tribute from a veteran General,
so little inclined to praise even the most gallant
actions, and so well qualified to judge both
of operations in India and Europe, may compensate
for all the vile calumny and the wicked reproaches
which have been heaped by certain parties on the
head of this distinguished member of the NArua,
family. The speech of Sir ROBERT PEEL was in the
best taste. It was, as might be expected, more pro-

lix than that of the Noble Duke, but it entered into
details which will be read with the highest interest.
He paid just compliments to Sir CHARLES NAPIER
and did not forget his illustrious brother,
who, as some one said (General For, we be-
lieve) had written the best " French " his-

tory of the Peninsular war, but who, while

doing justice to a brave enemy, did not for-
get the merits of his countrymen. In adverting

to the deeds of the NAPIERS, he seemed to direct his
speech to a Member of the House who has rendered
his name immortal on the Syrian coast, and the way
in which he associated him with his gallant rela-

tives, and combined the deeds of a family so remark-
able, elicited the loudest cheers from every part of the

House. This was only an act of tardy justice. But
for the utmost skill, zeal, activity, and gallantry of
Commodore Sir CHARLES NAPIER, the battles which
commenced at Beyrout and ended at St. Jean d'Acre
might have been protracted for another year, and in-
volved the world in a general war. These praises
are well bestowed, and they will be responded to by
every friend of his country. On the origin of the
war in Sinde we have nothing to add. We have ever
taken the same view of the subject. We main-
tained, in opposition to all our Contemporaries,
that it was a war in self-defence ; that the free

navigation of the Indus was absolutely ne-
cessary for the security of the vast In-
dian territories under British dominion; that
the plan which has been carried into effect was in-
finitely preferable to the occupation of Affghanistan ;
and we now rejoice to find that we are not singular in
our -opinions. It is the 81 uatebt achievement of the
present day, and in that opinion both Whigs and
Tories agree.

The Earl of CLARENDON last night entitled him-

self to the best thanks of the public at large for the
course he adopted, the British sentiments he avowed,

and the statesman-like views he announced in re-
ference to the present condition of affairs in Spain, and
to our relations with that kingdom. The Noble
Earl, after a speech delivered by the Earl of ABER-
DEEN, in reply, declared himself perfectly satisfied with
the explanations of the Foreign Secretary; but we
must take leave to protest that the discussion thus excited
has not at all relieved our own mind from the painful
impression which passing events in Spain—and,
above all, the unprincipled excesses indulged in by
the de facto authorities of that outraged country—
have produced upon it. Lord CLARENDON truly de-
scribed the result of the late extraordinary move-
ments to have been—the overthrow of all her former
institutions, and the establishment, in their stead, of
" a military despotism of the most ferocious descrip-
tion." He observed, with great truth, that this
" revolution had been brought about by one of
the most wicked and profligate confederacies
which had been ever organised ; and he foresaw
that a re-action must soon inevitably follow,
the certain tendency of which will be a chronic state
of civil warfare:' His Lordship expressed an opi-
nion that foreign influence had been extensively used
to bring about the downfal of the ex-REGENT, and
he referred to the extreme solicitude that had been
manifested in France—especially in Paris,- for Es-
PARTERo s removal. Many circumstances of grave
suspicion corroborate the existence of the feeling; and
more notably, the facts that the intended outbreak of
the late discontents in the Basque provinces had been
known, in Paris itself, long before the event.
and that the same agency seemed to be apparent in

We think so too, and never felt a doubt on the
matter. The Noble Secretary for Foreign Affairs
remarked, that in the ten years which had elapsed since
the death of FERDIN AND VII. there had been so many
political movements and constitutional changes in Spain
that it was impossible for anybody, he believed, to give,
as to many of these, any intelligible account. He was
one who thought that there had been a disposition at
all times, in the government of this country, to inter-
meddle too much with that of Spain. He was quite
satisfied that the French Government had had
nothing to do with the downfal of ESPARTERO'S
authority; and since, in the short space of six weeks,
there was not a village in Spain which had
not joined in the insurrection against it, the
origin of so powerful a feeling must be sought in'
causes more domestic and more popular, within the
Spanish kingdom itself. The marriage of the QUEEN
he looked upon as a purely Spanish question, on
which the Spanish people and Government only were
entitled to decide. As for the remaining question of
the Noble Earl, he had been asked by him on what
basis the good understanding subsisting betwean
France and England was raised ? " It was raised on
the basis of an anxious desire to maintain the
complete independence of Spain—(Hear, hear)—a
desire to promote in Spain the establishment
of the constitutional system—a desire to check.'
by all proper and legitimate means, every description
of violence and revolution—(Hear, hear)—a desire
to develope the just natural resources of that fin(
country—(Hear, hear)—and to promote and extend
its happiness and prosperity." On a future occasior
we shall inquire how far these objects are likely to be
attained by the policy of Lord ABERDEEN.

The business of Parliament has begun—not with

out the exhibition of some incipient symptoms of
languor even at this early stage of its sittings, if wt
may judge from the adjournments and "No House"
interruptions that have already interposed in
the progress of public business. The debate on
the affairs of Sinde appears to have interested al'
parties in a degree commensurate with the import
ance of the transactions upon which it was founded
But, without disparaging the gravity of the topics
urged on Friday night, or on the discussion upoi
the " Address" to. the Throne at the re-assembling
of the two Houses ; or the subjects of any speeches
delivered, subsequently, in either of them, we must
own that we had expected to find, ere this, one of
two vital questions of nearer domestic concernment.
and of even superior interest, occupying the primary

attention of the Legislature. Let us instance one o

these—the income, or property-tax (for, like the object
of CLEVELAND'S apostrophe, it is " both or either.")
We can but marvel at the fortune of a Minister
who, after such an experiment as he has induced the
country to submit to in this monstrous infliction,
permitted by the Legislature, in the second or third
year of its protracted application, to pass unchal-
lenged for his hazardous empiricism. Yes ; this
statesman-like expedient for arresting the internal
decay of our financial system, in the nine-and-
twentieth year of an unbroken peace between Great
Britain and all the other Powers of Europe. is the
very "Elixir," that none but a political empiric,
would have ventured to recommend to his distracted
patients. Sir ROBERT PEEL has caught the mantle
of the late Mr. ST. JOHN LONG. His treatment is
founded on a theory of counter irritation. Has the
Public Treasury a morbid tendency to decline, year
after year ? His first care is to exhaust the
sources which alone sustain it. Is the public
income, with a taxation of more than 43,000,0001.
sterling inadequate to meet the public expendi
ture ? He claps on another tax-blister, in the
technical hope that "it may RISE." Do the
Customs and the Excise, and other lwanches of
direct and indirect contribution, annually decrease
in productiveness, becoming " small by degrees and
beautifully less," and showing diminished means as
to our capacity, both of foreign and domestic con-
sumption ? Our Premier draws upon the remaining
capital of those diminished means to make good the
deficient product of their contribution to revenue.
Since the fiscal duties of all kinds appropriated to the
public service, and paid out of the profits of the
capital invested in the trade, or absorbed by the con-
sumption which yield them are already too heavy to
permit of that consumption, or to carry on their
trade to the former extent of either, the " State
Doctor" (it is his own soubriquet) depletes the capital
still further by drawing off five millions of what he
must really suppose to be superabundant vitality in
his unhappy patient ! When a man complained to a
quack of the counter-irritant school that he suffered
from severe shooting pains in his shin bone,
the quack applied himself to the case by an external
exasperation of the complainant's shoulder-blade, or
his cranium—no matter which. It was evident that
the artificial or superinduced agony, must either
expel or neutralise the original pain. It was like an
equator of powers in algebra ; plus skin, minus
shoulder =O. In this manner Sir ROBERT proceeds
to prescribe for the financial evils resulting from
diminished consumption of exciseable articles, by
diminishing the means of consuming them, as to the
largest number of consumers ; and he seeks to bring
up the waning revenue of the Customs, derived en-
tirely from the energy with which commerce may be
enabled to pursue its active functions, by further in-
cisions into the capital that represents the legs upon
which it walks, and by persisting to retain the
clumsy fetters which, under the notion of preserving
the straightness and vigour of its limbs, have absurdly
cramped and deformed them.

Let it be conceded that, like other empirics, our
modern Dr. WARD is very lucky. His " pills" have
not yet killed whom they cannot cure. Nay, more
—the constitution of the patient, which, on their
own candid and manly admission, had assumed some
alarming aspects under the attendance of such men
as MELBOURNE, RUSSELL, and PALMERSTON, has ac-
tually rallied under the perilous operations of PEEL.
This is one of those fortunate vindications of physical
strength against physic, of which the rarity makes
us sceptical as to the reality. Yet the fact is, that
trade is reviving, that the Customs are improving,•
that the Excise is on the " look up." Is the im-
provement organic and constitutional, or accidental,
only and transient ? Can the " patient" retrieve his
former condition under the exhausting processes he
is subjected to, aggravated by the additional bleeding
of the income-tax, and the paralyzing ligatures of so
many tight monopolies ? We doubt and dread the
issue. But if any think it dangerous at this time ex-
tensively to alter the treatment and utterly to discard
the " doctor," at least let us entreat of the Legisla-
ture to watch the effect, if it will not discontinue the
annual practice of this " income" phlebotolnizing.

Surely some Member of the House of Commons
will presently call on the Premier for an explicit
statement of the views entertained by her Majesty's
Government on these points. The country has a
right to demand how much longer it is intended to
charge upon her a growing tax, which she consented
to bear only on the express assurance, that it would
be so charged for a very limited period, and on the
express assumption, that its annual produce would re-
present a sum greatly inferior to that which it is now
realizing. And should the Member, who may make
this demand, be met with one of those petulent "flings"
of official ill-humour, or personal arrogance, with
which Mr. PATTISON, the representative of London re-
turned, instead of "BARING the preferred," was res-
ponded to the other evening, on his question touching
the sugar duties, we trust he will not lose so fair an
opportunity of apprising the Premier with what sen-
timents of disgust and indignation the public at large
regard the Right Hon. Baronet's whole scheme of
income-tax—with what hostile suspicion they scan all
his acts in connexion therewith. Let him lay bare to the
Right Hon. Baronet's observation, and the judgment of
the Legislature, the whole iniquity of that character-
istic selfishness and egoisme which must have devised
the principle and determined the scope of this tax—
a principle and a scope of common application to the
ducal rent-roll of hundreds of thousands per annum,
and the starving salary of 1501. a year. Let him
show how the inheritors of splendid patrimonies, the
recipients of large public salaries, the dispensers of
)fficial patronage, have responded to that " impera-
tive State necessity" which has been relied upon for
the justsfication of this intolerable expedient. Let
him illustrate the fairness and equity with
which only sevenpence in the pound is abstracted
prom the redundant income of the great proprietors
and large capitalists, and wealthy nobles, in whose
revenues this amount creates scarcely any
.sensible
diminution ; and so much as 7d. in the pound is
equally taken from the small tradesmen, the ill-paid
clerk, the toiling artisan, or the thrifty small annui-
tant, to diminish their respective pittances below that
point at which they had hitherto managed to maintain
themselves out of the reach of debt and its concomi-
tant disquietudes. The tyranny of Sir ROBERT, as a
financier, is the exact converse of Procrustes as a
destroyer of his species. The tyrant lopped off limb
and member from all whose proportions exceeded the
limits of his iron bed. The Minister cuts down, after
one and the same measurement, all incomes which
can be made to come within the limits of his not less
cruel " standard."

F Accounts from Madrid of the sth, leave no doubt
that Carthagena had followed the example of Ali-
cant, and that the movement had been successful.
the garrison, together with about 1,200 military
prisoners, who had been marched to the place from
Catalonia, for safe custody, had joined the insur-
gents. Reports prevailed at Madrid, and supposed to
be well-founded, that similar risings had taken place
in Valencia, Murcia, Jareda, Elche, Santander, and
Bilbao. According to the Government papers, how-
ever, Murcia, up to the 3d remained quiet. One of
these journals, the Castellano, says the gold of Eng-
land has done it all.
The following is the extract in which this wicked
accusation appears :

" General Roneali has left Valencia with 10,000 men. He
is marching to Alicant, whither he must have arrived on the
3d or the 4th. The Council of Ministers sits continually,
and is adopting the most vigorous measures to stifle the in-
surrection which has broken out on those two points, and will
perhaps break out elsewhere, for it is evident that the Ali-
cant and Carthagena movements are but the execution of a
plan concerted at Madrid, whence the emissaries of the Re-
volutionists had started a few days before, nor isdt doubful
that these movements have been provoked with the gold of
England, which is interested in subverting the monarchic
and religious institutions of our country."
The same journal relates another story equally en-
titled to credit—namely, that the Finance Minister
had received offers for a loan of 1,000,000,000 of
reals, on good conditions, but that he refused to enter
into any negotiation of the kind until the funds were
much higher than they are at present.
On the sth the Three per Cents. were done at 27i
for cash, and 281, at 60 days ; and the Five per Cents.
at 20, for cash, and 20 15-16, at 60 days.

The intelligence in the French papers, of any in-
t,
ts relative
relates
Dc bha to Spain, but it furnishes no
l
o y
the outbreak at Alicant. The
h
itsetflinfers, from the preparations of
.Itee)r:eivrs
facts
d e
the Spanish Government, that a vast conspiracy ex-
tends its ramifications throughout the south-east of
Spain—a conspiracy directed by M. LINAGE and
other Esparterists residing at Gibraltar, and acting
in concert with the Exaltado party against the com-
mon enemy, which is the Government. The Com-
merce states that the French and English Ambassa-
dors at Madrid had applied to the Minister for Fo-
reign Affairs for explanations relative to the arrest of
the Deputies, and the reply was, that letters had
been seized which compromised them; but it is not
said whether the letters had been written by the De-
puties. According to a letter in another paper, Lo
PEE and MADOZ had made their escape from the
BRAVO Government, and numerous arrests had taken

place in the provinces. Great complaints are made
against the French Ministers for delaying the publi-
cation of the telegraphic dispatches, and well-
grounded suspicions are excited that the state of
affairs in Spain is worse than they would lead the
public to believe. It is said that Queen CHRISTINA
will not leave for Madrid for some weeks.

On Sunday the Funds remained stationaiy, the
Three per Cents. closing at Blf. 90c.

The vacancy created in the representation in Parlia-
ment of the northern division of the county of Wilts, by
the death of Sir Fracis Burdett, Bart., was yesterday
supplied by the election of Mr. Sotheron, the late Con-
servative M.P. for Devizes. Mr. Eldridge, of Puckeridge
House, in the same county, who had stood forward to
contest this honour, as the avowed advocate of free trade
principles, and in compliance with a requisition to that
effect, which had been addressed to him by the North
Wilts Reform Association, declined to go to the poll.
Ile has alleged, in a frank and handsome manner, his
reasons for this determination. They seem to have been
the indifferent chances of ultimate success, which his late
appearance in the field held out to him, and his unwil-
lingness, under this impression, to subject his opponent
to the expenses which a continuance of the contest would
entail, without any countervailing benefit to the great
principles advocated by Mr.
.Eldridge and to their pro-
gress. It is thought, however, in the county, from the
very questionable character of many among the signa-
tures attached to the requisition forwarded to Mr.
Sotheron, and the strong fueling which the Anti-Mo-
nopolist party have created in the great body of the
Wiltshire people in favour of their doctrines, that had
not the nomination of yesterday been unopposed, and
the election thereupon consummated, Mr. Sotheron's re-
turn would have been very doubtful.

DESERTION or FAMILIES BY THEIR PARENTS.-
In the parish of St. Mary, Islington, there have been offered
(luring
the week rewards for the apprehension of seven men
who have deserted their wives and families, leaving them bur-
den., upon the parish.