The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-11 00:00:00

tening Ant

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1845.

If it was Sir ROBERT PEEL'S intention to waken
the Irish Catholic party by dividing and sowing dis•
sensions among them, it must be confessed that he
has succeeded to the fullest extent he could have an-
ticipated. The Charitable Bequests Act, like the
apple of discord which ATE flung down among the
assembled deities, has had the effect of producing a
decided split among those who, till now, were united,
and separating them into two distinct sects, each of
which bears the same sort of goodwill towards the
other which a High Church Bishop bears towards a
Dissenter. But notwithstanding the untoward re-
sults that have attended the Act in question, it is in
truth a very judicious measure—yet, in fact, what
Doctor MURRAY described it to be, not devoid of
blemishes which require a speedy removal, but sound
in the main, and calculated to put Catholic charitable
bequests on a safer foundation than they have yet been.
had it been projected and passed by a Government
in which Ireland had the slightest confidence—had it
emanated, for instance, from the Whigs during the
Viceroyalty of Lords NORMANBY or FORTESCUE, it
would not have been received by the more liberal
members of the Catholic party with the scorn and
indignation with which it has now been met, nor
would Mr. O'CONNELL have deemed it expedient to
denounce it in an elaborate epistle as long as that
which TIBERIUS dispatched to the Roman Senate
from Caprm. But it has, unfortunately, proceeded
from a wrong quarter. It is a " good " that has
" come out of Nazareth "—a boon conceeded by the
Greeks—and on the principle of Timeo danaos et
dona ferentes," the great Agitator considers it
to be his bounden duty to oppose it by
every means at his command. His letter on the sub-
ject, which will be found in another part of The Sun
of this day, enters at considerable length and with a
world of circumstantial minuteness, into the one-
sided character of the Charitable Bequests Act; but
the " head and front of its offending" appears to be
that it is a measure passed by a Tory Government—
the enemies, from time immemorial, of Ireland—and
therefore it is wholly impossible that a liberal spirit
can pervade it, or that it can be productive of the
slightest substantial benefit to the interests of the
sister country. " I object emphatically," says lkfr.
O'CoNNELL, " to-any connexion between the Catholic

Prelates and the present Government. Was not the
Duke of WELLINGTON bred up in the worst school of
No-Popery politics ? And when he yielded
Emancipation, did he not expressly retain all
his prejudices against Catholicity? Is not Sir
ROBERT PEEL the man who organised. the
Orange system in Ireland ? and ought he not to hate
those who could not overcome the errors of his judg-
ment, but forced him against his inclination to grant
them their political rights ? We have humiliated
PEEL, and it is utterly impossible he should ever for-
give us." It is here the shoe pinches. A Charitable
Bequests Act conceded by Whigs might have been
tolerated ; but conceded by Tories, it is—as honest
DOGBERRY would phrase it—" most tolerable, and
not to be endured." Now, we must beg to enter our
most earnest protest against this course of proceeding
adopted by Mr. O'CoNNELL, and the more inflam-
mable portion of the Catholics, over whom he exer-
cises an all but sovereign ascendancy. If a measure,
despite a few acknowledged imperfections, be sound
in the main—and we contend that the Charitable Be-
quests Act is of this character—it should be received
with favour by those for whose benefit it is intended,
no matter whether its originator be Whig, Tory, or
Radical. If the man is always to be taken into consi-
deration aid not the measure, there must be an eial
to all chance of political improvement. The Irish
Catholics were glad enough to accept Emancipation at
the hands of the Orangeman, PEEL, why, then, cannot
they accept without a murmur the present Bequests
Act ? Having swallowed the camel, why do they now
strain at the gnat ? We foresee that this determined op-
position on the part of Mr. O'ComtELL and his myr-
midons to a measure which has already received the
sanction of three of the most eminent among: the
Catholic Prelates—to say nothing of a large portion►
of the more moderate and enlightened among the Ca-
tholic laity—will occasion a world of jealousies and
heartburnings in Ireland; but assuredly no party
will suffer so much by these dissensions as that of the
more ardent Repealers, who are unanimous in their
hostility to the Bequests Act, and who will disgust
many, who might otherwise be not ill-disposed to-
wards them, by showing how perverse, unjust, and
ungenerous is the character of their opposition.

The " defunct" Anti-Corn-Law League—to quote
the often repeated phrase of the organs of Monopoly
—held a great free trade meeting on Thursday morn-
ing last at Manchester. An immense number of
ladies, who appeared to take a deep interest in the
proceedings, attended at this meeting—an auspicious
, omen, for never do our fair and intelligent country-
women embrace a public cause with ardour, but they
are sure in the long run to carry it triumphantly
through all opposition, as in the memorable instance
of the great slave trade question, the success of which
was not a little owing to their strenuous and benignant
exertions on behalf of suffering humanity. That
vast numbers of ladies, more particularly in the
manufacturing districts, are now warm advocates of
free trade principles, is infinitely to the credit of their
judgment, their patriotism, and that quick, active
sensibility so characteristic of the sex ; for free trade
is not—whatever its opponents may choose to allege
to the contrary—a mere narrow question of pounds,
shillings, and pence, adapted only to the views
and interests of the counting-house;—no, it is a
question of far loftier character—of far more com-
prehensive application ; it is a question of increased
intercourse and good-fellowship of nation with nation
—a question of the civilisation of remotest humanity
—of the spread of intelligence, and concurrently with
it, of virtue and morality. Give free trade —that is
to say, liberate commerce from the ignominious
shackles with which the giant is now encumbered;
let her be free to rove wheresoever and whensoever she
wills—east, west, north, or south—do this, and you
do more in one year to promote the august interests
of humanity than the statesmen of combined Europe
could do in a dozen. To give free trade, is to give
guarantees for the rapid advance of intelligence
throughout the globe. It is to leave human nature
in a happier. and wiser condition than that in which
you found it ; to bind kingdoms together as families ;
to root out the ignorant, obstinate prejudices of cen-
turies, and sow in their stead the seeds of common
sense and good-fellowship. Free trade is the direct
antagonist principle to war. The one elevates, the
other degrades; the one benumbs, the other gives
increased action to the intellectual faculties ; the one
scatters abroad the seeds of pestilence, famine, and
squalid, hopeless destitution ; the other, like Amal-
thea, sheds from her horn of plenty blessings of
every description. What are the sanguinary con-
quests of NAPOLEON compared to those beneficent
and peaceful ones which Sir ROBERT PEEL might be
the means of ensuring to his country men, were he at
once to abandon his halting expediency-system of
policy, and boldly hoist the banners of free trade ?
The victories of the French Emperor are already but
a dead letter, existing only in the pages of history—
those of the Premier, could he but make up his mind
to the glorious task, would be an active, living prin-
eiple, whose moral influence would extend to remotest
generations. " The triumph of free trade," observed
Mr. COBDEN, at the meeting to which we have been
alluding, " was the triumph of pacific principles
between all the nations of the earth. It was a death-
blow to the old system of diplomatic intrigues be-
tween the Governments of countries. It was making
them and the industrious fabricators of this district
the ambassadors and merchants of this country ; it
was giving to them the title-deeds by which they
would secure to themselves and all nations the bless-
ings of peace for all times. He saw in the distance a
world's revolution involved in the triumphs of free
trade principles." This is now prophecy, but at no
distant period it will be fact, and Mr. COBDEN'S pre-
diction be realised to the letter. Free trade is, indeed,
the one great want of the age, as much so as the
Lutheran Reformation was the want of the sixteenth
century, and no matter how numerous and apparently
invincible may be the obstacles thrown by influential
and interested parties in the way of its success, its
eventual triumph is inevitable. Sir ROBERT PEEL is
fully aware of this " great fact;" the Monopolists,
notwithstanding their swaggering demeanour, are
aware of it also; hence the one is gradually paving
the way for the ultimate accomplishment of, what he
feels to be, a necessity, and the others are making
every possible effort to thwart him in his views
respecting free trade. Meantime, we wait with con•
fidence the advent of the wished-for hour. Le ban
temps viendra.

The tone assumed in the pretensions put forth by
,he Government of the United States in so much of the
diplomatic correspondence between their Secretary of
State, Mr. CALHOUN, and their accredited Ministers at
Paris and at Mexico, on the subject of the proposed
annexation of-Texai fo their territory and federation,
is too remarkable to be passed over in silence. The
Minister of the Goverment of Mexico, in replying to
it, has riot exceeded, however strong the terms in
which he has expressed himself, the bounds of a just
and natural indignation. Senor REJON broadly com-
plains of the " falsehood" and " treachery" which are
apparent in the whole bearing of the American Go-
vernment in reference to this question, as they are to
be collected from the declarations and admissions of
its own agents. It is amusing, we must confess, to
consider the political ethics avowed and vindicated by
Mr. CaLuovri, by the instructions of his Government
to its resident servants in Mexico and in France, and
by the communications addressed by those servants to
the Courts at which they are so resident. The noble
region of the Texas formed—and, as Mexico con-
tends, still forms—an integral member of the Mexican
dominions. The independence and authority of
Mexico, and of Mexico as thus comprehending the
Texas, were long ago recognised by the United
States. Some citizens of the latter, with some
refugees of other nations, settled on the thinly in-
habited prairies of Texas, formed, in process of time,
some political as well as Commercial connexions there,
and following the example of all American societies
among which changes of Governments appear to
develop themselves with almost as much frequency,
and as little moral sensation, as changes of the
seasons, erected a sort of republic, which they de-
clared to he :independent, and on behalf of which
they exercised various acts of state authority, and
established with various foreign Powers state relations.
But Mexico was not one of those powers. She
could never be brought to acknowledge the inde.
pendence of Texas, however fruitless her efforts have
proved, from time to time, to bring back the revolted
territory under her de facto dominion and control.
Those efforts have been paralysed by her own internal
disorganisation, her civil broils, and the fierce struggles