The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-29 00:00:00

/yin.

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1844.

In the House of Lords a brief discussion took place
relative to the late State trials in Ireland, which
leaves no doubt that the subject will be brought
judicially before their Lordships.
The report on the Ecclesiastical Courts Bill was
brought up and received.
The Duke of WELLINGTON gave notice that on
Tuesday next he would move that the House do ad-
journ on that day till the 16th of April.

The Commons did not make a House, there being
only thirty-four Members present at Four o'clock.

An eccentric, but not unamusing, article, appears in
the Post of yesterday, on the subject of " Mr. JOHN
CADE"—as Sir ROBERT PEEL respectfully calls that
great practical philosopher—and his political principles.
The object of our Contemporary is to show that, for
the last hundred and fifty years and upwards, the House
of Commons has been, to all intents and purposes, a
close follower in CADE'S footsteps, and that a pro-
digious number of his most zealous disciples may
still be found gracing the Conservative benches.
"By virtue of its Constitution since the year 1688,"
says the Post, "the House of Commons has been
a giant JACK CADE. Since that memorable period, the
most valuable forms of property have, in truth, been
stiipped of all security by the direct agency of the
House. Was CADE a revolutionist ? The constitution
of St. Stephen's is the spawn of revolution. Did JACK
CADE propose to confiscate the possessions of the rich ?
Since 1688 the House has been chiefly occupied in pil-
laging the poor. In 1688 the Commons robbed the
Crown of all the prerogatives of sovereignty. Subse-
quently they robbed the Crown of its pi,ssessions in
land." It is in the two last sentences ae this notable
passage that our Contemporary's animus breaks out.
He cannot forgive the House of Commons for its
injustice and audacity in having ventured to inter-
fere with the sacred doctrine of—what POPE calls—
" the right divine of kings to govern wrong." He is in
arms to resent its tyranny in having dared to cashier
JAMES 11. Though the matter is one of such long
standing, yet the Post is just as irate as if he had
himself been one of the leading organs of Absolutism in
the year 1688. We suppose we shall next find him
defending the encroachments of a TmEnius and a
CALIGULA on the rights of the Roman senate and
people ; or launching the heavy thunders of his indig-
nation at the head of the democratic DEMOSTHENES for
having oppOsed himself to the despotism of PHILIP of
Macedon. The Revolution of 1688 has long been a
sore subject with our eccentric-minded Contemporary.
He sees nothing in it but a flagrant breach of good faith
and justice on the part of the Legislature. He passes by,.
as a matter far beneath his lofty consideration, the no-
torious fact that JAMES 11. was a violator of all the
laws of the realm ; that he trampled upon liberty of
conscience, treating the people just as if they were so
many brute beasts to be dealt with according to his own
sovereign will and pleasure ; that he promoted discord
among the different religious sects in the community for
the purpose of furthering his own fanatical views ; and
that he was only deprived of his Crown when every
other means of reclaiming him had been tried and found
utterly unavailing. Had this Royal tyrant—this
gloomy, ferocious bigot, who, except in intellect,
was a perfect lac-simile of PHILIP 11., and whose na-
ture never felt one redeeming touch of humanity ;—had
this anointed vagabond been allowed to remain in unmo-
lested possession of his throne, the commonest rights of
Englishmen would have had no existence but in fiction ;
Popery in its most disgusting and intolerant form, would
have been the dominant religion of the country; other
LATIMERS, and RIDLEYS, and CRANMERS would have
been burned at Smithfield, and other BONNERS and
GARDINERS would have been found to exult in their
martyrdom. But our Contemporary can see nothing
of all this ; in his purblind view JAMES the SECOND
had a perfect right to do what he pleased with his
subjects—to decimate them even, if it suited his caprice
to do So ; and the House of Commons was bound in
honour, common sense, justice, and law, slavishly to
submit to the caprices of its Royal master. For having
scornfully repudiated all idea of such base submissions
in 1688, and for having, from that time to the present—
more especially of late years—kept a n atchful eye on
the rights of the people, the House of Commons is
sneered at by our Contemporary as neither more nor
less than an assembly of JACK CADES I

The claim preferred in the House of Commons, on
Tuesday night, by Sir GEORGE STAUNTON, in his mo
tion on behalf of the widow of the late Rev. Dr. MOR-
RISON, and of the Doctor's eldest son, the late Mr. JOHN
ROBERT MORRISON, IS one which ought not to be
allowed to expire under the cold official negative and ,
special pleading of Sir ROBERT PEEL. Neither should
a just and generous public accept the shabby discharge
from obligations to which it is bound by all the prin-
ciples of equity and humanity, that the ingenuity of a
Prime Minister has suggested. There should be no
compromise in national ethics between honesty and
revenue. Public servants, of no more than an average
elevation of character, may rely on this middle term
" expediency," as a convenient and safe retreat from the
occasional pressure of "eternal principles." The pub•
lie itself cannot afford to prejudice its reputation by
sanctioning doctrines which, in the social intercourse of
private life, individuals of loftier views and sounder
morality would reject with scorn. In short, public jus-
tice will disdain to peer through precedents and Acts of
Parliament for statutable grounds on which to repudiate
the claims of public servants upon its bounty, where it
admits those claims to be founded in truth and justice.
Sir GEORGE STAUNTON was the mover, on Tuesday,
of an address to her MAJESTY, praying that, in consi-
deration of the eminent public services rendered by the
two lamented individuals in question—the father and
the son—in China,--(by the former, in a career of six-
and-twenty years of indefatigable study and exertion ;
by the latter during a shorter bat equally well sustained
and admirable discharge of the same public duties)--
and because both the one and the other had successively
fallen victims to the effect which those duties had pro-
duced on them in an exhausting climate—" Her MA-
JESTY would be graciously pleased to direct a suitable
provision to be made for the widow of the late Doctor
MORRISON, and for the other surviving members of his
tastily ; and to assure her MAJESTY that the House of
Commons would make good the same." In the advocacy
of a claim which had so properly devolved upon one of
the most profound of living Orientalists whom Europe can
boast, Sir GEORG 4 STAUNTON delivered himself with
that habitual modesty which has won for him the
respect of all parties. He alone seemed to be uncon-
scious of the authority with which he must be speaking

_
on such a question in the House of Commons, in refer-
ence to his own long residence in a portion of the
Chinese empire, to his extraordinary proficiency in the
Chinese language, and to that peculiar knowledge of the
Chinese people and the policy of their Government, which
he had evinced, under the most trying circumstances
that could test his judgment or tax his discretion.
Now what was his testimony ? That the Rev.
Dr. MORRISON, the father, went out to China, simply as
a minister of the Gospel, with no desire for public em-
ployment ; but being, from his peculiar qualifications,
selected, by the unsolicited act of the East India Com-
pany, for their confidential service as Chinese interpreter,
he had given them, for more than a quarter of a century,
the full benefit of his prodigious attainments, still pursuing
the discharge of his high spiritual mission, which had been
his original exclusive object. In this period he had ac-
complished two of the most stupendous undertakings ever
achieved (we venture to remark) by the Oriental scholar-
ship of an European. He produced his English and
Chinese Dictionary (which the Honourable Company ap-
preciated so highly as to expend 10,0001 upon its
preparation, and printing) ; and he produced a transla-
lation of the Holy Scriptures—" a labour," added Sir
GEORGE, with no less eloquence than truth, "which,
under DIVINE PROVIDENCE, would be the means of ulti-
mately spreading the blessings of Christian civilisation
throughout the whole Chinese Empire." On the cessa-
tion of the Company's exclusive privileges in China, the
Doctor's services were transferred, of course, to the Bri-
tish Government. Entitled as he would then have
been to return to his native land upon an ample
pension (his salary was 1,2001. a year) after twenty-five
years' service, he responded to the call which the press-
ing exigencies of our position in China then made upon
him. He remained ; his labours were signally success-
ful and beneficial ; but—he speedily became a sacrifice
to them. The son of this amiable, and good, and gifted
man, succeeded (as Sir JOHN HOBHOUSE remarked, on
warmly and ably seconding Sir GEORGE'S motion) to the
father's mantle. At the almost incredibly early age of
fifteen, he was called (said Mr. HUGH LINDSAY) "to the
responsible situation of interpreter Ito the East India
Company in China ;" and discharged all its duties from
that period (in the year 1832) to his death, with the
most extraordinary ability and merit. Our excellent
Plenipotentiary, Sir HENRY POTTINGER, derived from his
counsels and his services—in addition to the indispensable
aid of his masterly acquaintance with the Chinese
tongue—so much advantage that, in acknowledgement
of Mr. MORRISON'S eminent capacity and usefulness, he
appointed him a Member of the Legislative Council of
Hong-Kong. Within a few days after this appoint-
ment, Mr. MORRISON, who had not hesitated for the
good of the public service to abandon the two years'
leave of absence in Europe, which his declining health
had compelled him to ask for, and which he had ob-
tained—perished in the prime of manhood, a sacrifice to
the zeal and the intensity of his exertions. Let it be
observed here that Sir GEORGE STAUNTON, Sir HENRY
POTTINGER, and Mr. LINDSAY, were all personallg Cogni-
sant of the talents, the spirit, and the devotion of these
distinguished civilians. But, as if to crown and confirm
their eulogy, and to prove the consistency and strength
of the spirit in which Dr. MORRISON had never ceased
to labour in the original mission he had assumed—the fact
incidentally transpired, that this truly Christian labourer
had " employed a considerable part of his salary in
founding a college at Malacca, for the education of per-
sons in the Chinese language, with a view to disseminate
the Gospel in China."

Sir ROBERT PEEL resisted the motion for an address
to the Crown, with every minute, microscopic atom of
an objection, which he could detect amidst the worthless
dust of his official depositories. With that callous and
profound eyoisme, however, which makes him, to our
thinking, the most Frenchified of any English Minister of
our times, he evidently thought he was pouring balm and
consolation into the cup which he refused to commend to
the bounty of the State, by assuring the House " in the
first place, and he did it with the greatest pleasure, that
he would admit the justice of the eulogium which Sir G.
STAUNTON and Sir J. HonHousE had passed on the cha-
racter and services of the late Dr. MORRISON and his
son." Admit it ? He could not dispute it !. The be-
reaved widow and her five children may turn, with
honest pride, to the affecting and conclusive testimony
rendered to the faithfulness, the services, the abilities of
their lamented relatives, by such practical judges, and
personal witnesses as Sir GEORGE STAUNTON, Sir
HENRY POTTINGER, and Mr. LINDSAY ; but the " ad-
mission" of Sir ROBERT we should think they will esti-
mate at the value of the smallest Chinese coin ; a price
not very flattering to a Premier's vanity. We pass over
the extravagant encomiums with which he proceeded to
come to his buts :—"But there are certain duties imposed
on public men which they could not shrink from," &c.
&c. (the usual common-places, and trite platitudes of Sir
ROBERT'S didactic pieces, which we need not repeat, for
anybody can supply them). " In the civil service the
grant of pensions had been discontinued to widows and
female relations of public servants dying in such depart-
ments. A First Lord of the Treasury, as he was, was
constantly having the strongest claims for pensions of
this kind urged on him in cases of the highest merit ;
and in cases of widows, &c., of clerks in public offices.
It was true that in the case of the army and navy a
power did exist of granting pensions to widows of
officers; but then, they were very limited in amount'
Public civil servants were paid large salaries, with the
view of enabling them to make provision, after their own
deaths, for their wives and children." (The Right Hon.
Baronet never thought of Dr. MORRISON'S noble dona-
tions, yearly, to the College at Malacca.) " Even of go-
vernors of colonies, the widows now get no pensions.
Then, the only fund left at the disposal of the Crown for
new pensions was 1,2001. a-year, and this was at present
appropriated." Again, "Mrs. MORRISON was the widow
of Dr. MORRISON, who died in 1834, but she was nct the
mother of the Mr. MORRISON who died lately in the
performance of public duties at Canton !" We are
almost ashamed to bring such quibbling, unworthy
casuistry as this before our readers. What does it
amount to? If it mean anything, it amounts to this—
" Dr. MonarsoN was, I allow, a great and good man;
an invaluable public servant. This lady is his widow.
I deeply regret that our practice does not allow us to
grant a pension to her, her husband's services having
been thus important.- Mr. MORRISON, in talent, zeal,
assiduity, and usefulness, rivalled his father, and died
in the discharge of his duty. The widow of his father
and the surviving five children must feel his loss
severely ; but he was his father's son by a
former wife. Therefore the widow cannot suffer
sol [materially, nor her children be so afflicted,
that I ought to recommend her and them for a pension
in respect of their double bereavement." The Jesuitry
of all this consists in the irresistible inference, from Sir
ROBERT'S own admission, that if the widow had been
Dr. MORRISON'S first wife, and Mr. MORRISON her son
by him, the Government would have equally refused a
pension to her. What possibly ground, then, could Sir
ROBERT assign for having mooted the fact at all ? The
Premier went on to show that Mrs. MORRISON was
already allowed 2001. a-year, as widow of the Doctor,
and 25/. for each child till they should have respectively
attained the age of 18. Sir GEORGE STAUNTON reason-
ably asked, why, since the utmost permanent provision
secured to the widow was but 2001. a-year, another 200/.
per annum should not be given to the family?
But we have another question to ask Sir ROBERT
PEEL. Here is the case of a widow and surviving fa-
mily, left, as it were, sacred claimants om the bounty of
a country which has been, by the universal admission of
all parties, so admirably served by the husband of
the one and the father of the other. Why is not
some more adequate allowance to be made to them,
than the pittance they now receive, rather we may say,
through the interposition of an East India Company
precedent and minute, than by the spontaneous
act of the Government ? He relied on the defi-
ciency of Government precedents. Find us, said he,
precedents of such services as those of the two
MORRISON& Why are other services, of far more
doubtful character, so much more magnificently re-
warded, in defiance of the practice and precedents of the
public departments on which Sir. ROBERT so much re-
lies? Is it because Dr. MORRISON was not only the
upright, intelligent, and civil servant of the public,—but
a simple-minded, self-denying, conscientious minister of
the Gospel of Peace, which, knowing, he taught, and,
teaching, travelled sixteen thousand miles to disseminate?
Is it that his gifted son was not only—like his father—
an accomplished and devoted public servant, in his own
peculiar sphere; but of such varied capacity of useful-
ness as to have been selected by one of the most remark-
able diplomates of the day as a member of his Council,
and to have had his death recorded, by that celebrated
functionary, as a " public calamity?" Shall the claims of
such men—represented by the widow and her children—
be thus passed over by a Government which acquiesced
in the grant of an hereditary Peerage and a pension of
2,000/. a year, for two or three lives, to Lord KEANE and
his successors, for military services in a sanguinary
campaign, the merits of which services are now as much
matter of doubt to a vast proportion of the British
public, as their utter inefficiency to secure the subse-
quent peace of Central Asia, and the British supremacy
north and west of the Indus, is matter of certain and
disastrous notoriety ? The costly campaign of Sir JOHN
KEANE, destructive and ruinous as it was to the forces
and the commissariat employed, was distinguished by a
few brilliant combinations, but left to the Anglo-British
army the disgraceful legacy of the massacres and eva-
cuation of Caubul, and the wholesale extirpations of the

passage of the W'yber and the Bolan passes; reverses that
could Orly be, as they ere, avenged in blood and desola
tion by the intrepid conduct of SALE and PoLLocx. But
the labours of the man of peace and the man of business
—Dr. MORRISON and his son—enabled Sir HENRY POT-
TINGER to spare an incalculable amount of human car-
nage, and materially aided the counsels and the policy
which have established for us a powerful and honourable
and respected position of permanent commercial influ-
ence and authority, on the coasts and in the islands of
China, to the mutual benefit of the Chinese people and
the British natiun !

According to accounts from Madrid, of the 20th, the
QUEEN, with her mother, was expected in that capital on
the 23d. The Madrid journals bring no news of the
slightest interest. and the intelligence from the pro-
vinces is nearly of the same character. In a Barcelona
paper we find the following description of the executions
which had taken place in that town :—" The execution
of the conspirators was particularly solemn. The Con-
gregation of the Blood,' with the holy crucifix, assisted
at the execution, which took place in the presence of an
itrmense crown. Four men were shot."
On the Madrid Bourse, the Three per Cents. were
dor e at 35} for cash, and 361 at 60 days ; and the Fil e
Cents. at 231 at 60 days.

Most of the Paris papers contain articles on the re
svlis of the division which took place last Friday on
Lord ASHLEY'S motion for shortening the hours of la-
bour, and, on the whole, discuss the important question
at issue with moderation and impartiality. Even the
Opposition writers throw aside their hostility to England
when they see the general voice of the country roused in
the cause of humanity, and Tories even preferring the
interests of the poor to their political principles. In ad-
verting to the division the Courrier Francais says
" Nothing is more curious than what took place. The
period of twelve hours, upheld by the Ministry, was re-
jected by 188 votes to 183, whilst, by a sort of compen-
sation, 188 votes to 181 rejected the period of ten hours,
which had previously obtained a majority of 9. The
House would have neither ten nor twelve, and it is not a
case where two negatives make an affirmative. This
hesitation of the English Parliament is easily explained.
Humanity declares that 12 hours' work exceeds the
strength of human nature. Manufacturing and com-
mercial interests reply that a diminution of labour
involves both a falling off of profit and a diminu-
tion of the general prosperity of the country. After
having yielded to a movement of charity, they now
cling to considerations of self-love and State reasons.
It is not useless to show in what proportion these two
sentiments were exhibited amongst the manufacturers.
Gni; of 150 from Lanchashire, who sent a deputation to
S'r J. GRAHAM, only 13 accepted the ten hours pro-
posed ; 17 would agree to eleven, and 120 called for the
continuance of twelve hours' labour. They declare that
oven with twelve hours they are scarcely able to sustain
ihe competition with the produce of America and Ger-
many ; if two hours be lopped off, the day would be in.
sulicient. Unfortunately, this consequence is only too
probable ; several workmen declared to Lord ASHLEY
that they would accept the change with terror. Would
they not have the next day to repent it ? Such is,
therefore, the state of the question between the work-
ing classes and the manufacturers—to the one less money
to satisfy the most pressing necessities of life, to the
others less profit. Work, then, your twelve hours ;
wear out your feeble bodies with an over toil, which
expects no old age ; be the devoted slaves of those in-
defatigable machines, which would stand still during
your rest ; let the young generation be worn out in the
service of those instruments of production, which crush,
torture, destroy, like instruments of destruction and
ruin ! War has its food for powder ; manufactures,
peaceful as they are, have their food for machinery in
that class of factory children decimated by a precocious
conscription. However, it is not in vain that humanity
raises her voice, for the words of Lord ASHLEY have
roused England ; and a part of the English Press, let us
render justice where it is due, examines the matter with
courage."
The National makes the following remarks on the
subject :
" With the present Constitution of England, there is no so-
lution possible for even a slight amelioration of the condition
of the working classes. For what is the real question under
discussion ? To reduce by two hours a day's work, already
very painful and very long. To give two hours' rest to
women and children already worn out, to respond to the cries
of a population which suffers and sinks, to satisfy those sen-
timents of humanity which always exist in the heart of even
those nations where selfishness has its most brilliant altars.
Was this so enormous a matter? And yet the whole manu-
facturing community takes alarm, and capitalists are in com-
motion. They speak of emigration, and cry out that there
is a design of ruining manufactures. Profits ant' '9SSeS are
calculated before the House of Commons, and it is a ted that
this reform threatens the British Constitution. 'I speakers
affirm, figures in hand, that these two hours taken away de-
prive the capitalist of the only profit of his production. The
greatest interests of business are placed at stake, the duration
of the English nation is attached to the measure, and the
prospect of an irremediable misery for the wretches whom it
is intended to protect is pointed out 1 And the House, hesi-
tating and uncertain, decides and undecides in the same even-
fng, declaring that the present situation appears to it in-
tolerable, and that it can neither declare in favour of it, with-
out offending humanity, nor destroy or ameliorate it, without
giving a shock to all the interests of manufactures. Are we
then too severe, when we accuse the constitution of a society
where such results are officially stated in the face of the
whole world? And would to God that this frightful struggle
between capital and labour was peculiar to Great Britain !
But let any one look round him here, and cast his eyes for a
moment on our own territory. We are well aware, and
we declare it with pride, that the odious abuses which the
late discussion has brought to light in England, will not be
met with here to the same degree. Thanks to our revolution
thanks to the sentiments of equality spread amongst us, there
are certain things impossible in our country. But is there
nothing to be done to render the condition of the labouring
classes amongst us less wretched ?"
The Moniteur announces that by a Royal order, dated
the 3d instant, on the report of the Minister of Marine and
the Colonies, Rear-Admiral Laplace has been appointed to
the command of the station of the Antilles, in place of Rear-
Admiral Moges ; and Rear-Admiral Hamelin has been ap.
pointed to the command of the station of Oceania, and the
western coasts of America, in place of Rear-Admiral Dupetit
Thouars. By another Royal order, dated the 17th, Rear-
Admiral Turpin is appointed Major-General of Marine at
Toulon, in place of Rear-Admiral Hamelin.
The following are additional extracts from the
papers :

"On the 27th ult. M. Durand, responsible editor of the
Nation, was condemned by default to six months' impri-
sonment and a line of 6,000 f., upon a process founded cn
articles published in that journal on the 28th of October,
28th and 30th of November, and 14th and 15th of December
last, r gainst the reigning dynasty. M. Durand having moved
in arrest of judgment, and obtained a new trial, the case
came to a hearing on its merits yesterday befiße the Court
a Assizes. The result was a conviction by the jury upon the
articles of November and December, and his re-condemnation
by the Court to the same penalties—of six months' impri-
sonment, and a fine of 6.000 f.

,
The National states, that—
"A great number of Ministerial Deputies have quitted
Paris since the vote on the Secret Service Money. Every
question which could place the existence of the Cabinet in
danger is now decided, and nothing remains to prevent those
men from returning home, who, when in Paris, are not easily
satisfied."

Letters from Naples of the 17th inst. announce the
arrest of Messrs. BOZELLI and DE AUGUSTINIS, tw•o dis-
tinguished men for their Hterary works, of M. CHARLES
POERIO, the son of the celebrated Deputy and orator of
the Neapolitan Parliament of 1820, and of two nephews
of General PEPE.

The Courrier Francais states that Lieutenant-General
PI REE, who was lately superseded in the command of the
9th military division, having published the correspon-
dence that had passed between him and the Minister of
War, had been ordered to repair to Lille, and constitute
himself a prisoner for two months in the military prison
of that city.
The French funds fell considerably on Tuesday, the
Five per Cents. closing at 121 f. 60c., and the Threes
at 82f. 75c.