The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-20 00:00:00

PMIT a the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM Tin EVENING PIPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The Emperor Nicholas has made up
his mind to starve us. It is a fact—the Post says
so. "If this step has not already been taken, there
is reason to believe that it is seriously contemplated."
But this annunciation is, if possible, even less start-
ling than the comment of our Contemporary : " And
there could be scarcely more substantial evidence,"
he continues, "of paternal solicitude for the people's
welfare, on the part of a Monarch and a Govern-
ment, who have the honour of being selected as the
special objects of abuse and denunciation by all the
turbulents and malcontents of Europe." Rather hard,
though, to visit the sins of all Europe upon the
unlucky head of this country ; and a special
evidence, it must be confessed, of " paternal
solicitude" for the welfare of his people—videlicet,
Poland—to destroy,her whole trade at one blow. But
there may be deep policy in this scheme. The Em-
peror is capable of great sacrifices for great ends.
How much in men and money has he not thrown
away—is he not still throwing away ?—in the con-
quest of Circassia ! lie has, however, evidently
given up the idea of attacking us in India. People
used to talk of Russian influence on the North
Eastern boundary ; and not a few thought it
quite enough success for Lord Palmerston,
even had he done no more, to scare away the Rus-
siin agents from Peshawur and the Court of Post
Mahotned. But the state of things is reversed. The
question now is—or rather has been—not whether a
Russian agent is exceeding his written instructions at
Caubul, but whether Lord Ellenborough has yet
taken it into his head to march upon St. Petersburgh ?
The Emperor, therefore, with that intuitous self-
adaptation to circumstances which distinguishes the
Autocrat, has given up India for the present. War
in Europe, against this country especially, is to be
carried on, not by hostile troops, but by hostile tariffs.
Hunger will tame a lion ; and this " Great Wizard
of the North" will soon have the British Lion crouch-
ing at his feet. We really wonder that this " fright-
ful" danger left the Post self-possessed enough to ad-
mire the " substantial evidence of paternal solicitude."
To be sure, the Post tells us, a few lines afterwards,
that when there is "a scarcity in England, the unfa-
vourable quality of the harvest in Poland would," of
itself, we presume, "shut out the possibility of a sup-
ply," from that quarter. So that, after all, the Em-
peror's prohibition may not extend further than that
Pqland is not to export when the country has a full
supply. In this sense there certainly is substantial
evidence of paternal solicitude in preventing his pros
pie from losing their money. But to be serious, we
thought that by this time the bugbear of dependence
on foreign supplies had been laughed down. Foe
some years past we have averaged a supply of I,ood
quarters from abroad. According to the gennerally
understood consumption of this country, these would
supply a thousand individuals for a year. Al
great proportion of them, at all events, would starve
but for our " supplies from abroad." And we presume
that the ability to starve that number is as serious 0
consideration with our legislators, in determining
the. question of foreign dependence, as if the nums
ber were to any amount greater. For the life
of a single citizen assassinated abroad, a strict
account is rigorously exacted by us at the
hands of the State under whose protection hel
happened to be residing. We presume that
that life would be the subject of no less anxi-
ous solicitude, because it happened to be destroyed
by starvation at home. We are, in fact, as muds
dependent on foreign supplies as we ever can be. If
these improvements in farming continue—which, by
the way, the Post does not seem much to admire—it
may be a question how far we shall not get rid of it
altogether. The idea is too ridiculous. The Post
must remember the time when the Russian nobility
forced the Emperor Paul to make peace with this
country, that they might regain our trade with them
in 'the Baltic timber. If in that article our trade was!
so necessary to them that they could not afford to
continue at war with us, and the Emperor Nicholas
really has confided to the Post his fixed resolution to
starve us, we shall wait with most exemplary patience
for his success.
STANDARD.—The French Government has
promptly followed up the successful termination of
the war in Morocco, by giving a decisive proof of its
pacific intentions. Orders have been issued to suspend
the preparations in progress at Rochefort, Cherbourg,
L'Orient, Toulon, and est. The expenses of the expe-
dition to Morocco are rated at about 800,000/. ster-
ling, and it is not intended to add to them by fur-
ther
preparations, when no new movement is con-
templated. Were it not that men sometimes en-
tertain apprehensions of evil, after they have for
gotten,the grounds upon which these apprehensions
were first conceived, we should be ashamed to recur.
so often as we do to the arguments which we em-
ployed from the first to combat the predictions of
those, who held that the war in Morocco must end
in the conquest of that empire by France, as terri-
torial aggrandisement was its only conceivable
motive, and that Morocco was to be made the step-
ping-stone to an attack upon England. Such no-,
tions may, no doubt, have found their way into
the imagination of the mad blockheads who write
the National, but it is impossible to believe that any
sober-minded Frenchman could entertain them for
one moment. Morocco could not be securely con-
quered by any one European power, or by any,
two European powers, though all the other
States of Europe should maintain a strict
neutrality. But if the aggrandisement of France,
by an acquisition so great and so near as,
the empire of Morocco, is calculated to excite the
jealousy of this country, were not such an aggran-
disement calculated to excite still stronger jealousy in
other nations of Europe, not only by the preponder-
ance which it would give to, perhaps, already the'
most powerful nation of the Continent, and by the
recollection which the very name of extensive
French conquests would inevitably awaken ? These
are considerations which cannot have escaped the.
wise statesmen who govern France ; and these are
considerations which must for ever restrain our
neighbours from enterprises like that imputed to
them.. Now that the ruffle of alarm has blown
over, we cannot help thinking that it will prove
in the end to have been productive rather of good than
harm, if it has taught our neighbours to contemplate
a little more closely and a little more carefully the
probable benefits and the possible losses of war. In
this country, where the people have, for more than a
century, exercised the habit of thinking for them-
selves, and where we have had pretty generally
fairly divided among the people the blessings of
peace as well as the burdens of war, peace is always
popular, although, by our insular position, and
other circumstances, we are better protected than
others from the worst effects of war. In
France,, on the other hand, the people had, until
lately, too little share in the conduct of the affairs of
their country to think very seriously about them ;
and in the matter of peace or war they had scarcely,
any pacific interest ; for while war held out the pros-
pect-of glory to all, and of employment to a great
many, peace proffered nothing. For fourteen years
the French people have, for the first time since
France was a nation, been in the enjoyment of free
government, and for nearly four of these fourteen
years in the enjoyment of good government, and now
•that it is for the first time the choice of peace or war
has been presented to them even in the distance. To
'suppose that a whole people of thirty-four millions
would in four, or even fourteen years, change'
all it predileCtions, would be indeed extravagant ;
.but still we have every reason to think that very
.nearly all of the French people who have as yet
learned to think—a great majority, and certainly all
without exception who have learned to appreciate the
blessings of good government, a majority also—are,
like ourselves, friendly to peace—more friendly, be-
cause of the calculations which the late events have
forced upon their attention. Under a good system
of goY'Crnment, patriotically administered, peace is
alwayi ablessing to all—and it is only under such
goverannent that all the blessings of peace
are developed. But France has pow such
a government for the first time since she was a
nation, as we have remarked, and is now also in
the enjoyment of peace, as far as Europe is concerned,
and no Frenchman in possession of his senses will
risk the loss of either, with the fair account of profit
and loss before hire. Peace is the interest of all
nations--of Great -Britian as much as of others,
though certainly not more—but of peace the prospe-
rity and the contentment of France are the guarantee
to Europe. Every interest, general and particular,
binds us to, promote the prosperity and to cultivate
the friendship of the neighbouring country. France
cannot be rich without making us richer in propor-
tion. France cannot be free and happy Without
confirming the peace of Europe. We are encouraged
to hope that rich, free, and happy, she will be, from
the 'effect of four short years of good government that
we witness.

THE LATE UNFORTUNATE EX-
PEDITION TO BORNEO.

FURTHER PARTICULARS.

(From the Friend of China, May 4.)
After leaving Semmirendan, we dropped down until
we felt' the effects of the flood tide, when we anchored,
still lashed together, watching the boats that several
times attempted to close in. At daylight we weighed,
the boats firing at us from a point above ; but having
a fair wind, we made sail, followed by the boats,
until we reached that part of the river where the bar
is situated, about thirteen miles from the sea. Here
we had to anchor in one of the four branches into
which the river divides, separated from each other by
narrow islands covered with jungle. Captain Hart
Went in his boat to sound, but found it would be
,some hours before we should be able to cross. The
boats now took advantage of a point above -us, and
opened a well-directed brisk fire upon us, raking both
veesels, cutting up the rigging and completely hulling
the brig. It was so severe that at one time Captain