The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-24 00:00:00

etrailaw *au

j.eNDCII, TIIURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1844.

The universal stir among the agriculturists of
England, from the Land's End to the Tweed, is a
feature of no ordinary occurrence in the history of
the country. Formerly the aristocratic landowner
followed religiously in the footsteps of his predecessor
—left " well alone"—hunted during the day—spent
the evening in libations—kept the peasantry as igno-
rant of any real knowledge as the beasts that perish
—mortgaged part of his property as dowries for his
daughters—supported the Tory Government, because
the Tory Government was bound neck and heels by-
the landed interest—cried for war, because war pro-
vilied situations for his sons, and raised his rent-rolls
.--opposed with a fury approaching to madness every
species of reform—and declared all men traitors to
their Goo, their KING, and their country, who dared
to touch one pin of that sacred ark —the Constitution
in Church and State. What an awakening has been
since! It can be likened to nothing so aptly as the
scene described by the inspired Prophet, when " there
was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones
camp together, bone to his bone, and they stood up an
exceedingly great army." The reformers, which in
bygone days were scarcely visible, are now to be met
with in every part of the island, and in every depart-
ment of the State. But even great and unexpected
as has been the change, no portion of it is so sur
prising, and so pregnant with happy prospects, as
the resuscitation of the old, sleepy agriculturists of
England. In almost every county and town meetings
have been held, for promoting agricultural improve-
ments. The landlords now tell their tenants they
must be up and doing—" the Philistines are upon
them." The burden of the speeches is " tile-draining,"
"guano manure," "subsoil ploughing," " turnip
drill," and many other new-fangled systems- imported
from thii north, or from the best cultivated plains of
the Netherlands And Lombardy. '.The speech of
Lord STANLEY, at the - Liverpool. Agricultural
Association on Tuesday, is in excellent keeping
with the late movement. " In every quarter of the
kingdom," said his Lordship, " we find, within the
last few years, that societies similar to this have !Ken
springing up, and agriculture is partaking of the
great movement which has been pervading all the in-
dustrial branches of this country. Farmers are find-
ing out that it is necessary for them, with a view to
their own interests, to take a very different course
from that which was followed by their grandfathers
and great grandfathers. In these days no man is allowed
to stand still Irnprovermat must go on. And I
see throughout the country, in every part of
it, gratifying proofs that improvement is going on
as actively in the agricultural as in the manu-
facturing districts and operations of the country.
Now we ask his Lordship what has
scaused this
movement, this rattling of dry bones,revivifica-
tion of a race which, generation after this
g
followed the preceding race like automatonesn
the cry for cheap bread—the universal shout raised
by the friends of the poor, and, above all, by an as
but a few years old--the National Anti-
Corn-law League. If Mr. COBDEN and his sup-
porters never do another good act in their lives—if
they should fail in carrying into full effect their grand
object, which we deem impossible, they deserve to be
immortalised for rousing into activity a body of men
idle and haughty, yet vainly claiming for themselves
_ . ~P sha;e enuntrv. and

the source of all its wealth. The League—the abo-
minated League--is the main cause of this extraor-
dinary commotion. But there are many others en-
titled to great merit in furthering the good work.
The skill, ingenuity, perseverance, and industry, of
the manufacturing classes must come in for a large
share. Their labour has obtained its reward.
Merchant princes have sprung from the lowest
of the people—the Cotton Lords are tread-
ing upon the heels of the titled Lords ;
the intelligence of the operatives of Birmingham
Manchester, Leeds, and fifty other great hives of
industry, stands out in broad relief, when contrasted
with the half-fed, the uneducated, the helpless and
almost hopeless children of the soil. The speech of
Lord STANLEY, and his Canada Corn Bill, are sign
of happy omen to men who have struggled so man-
fully in a noble cause ; well-grounded hopes of vic-
tory will cheer them on to further exertions, and the
day, we trust, is not far distant when the landowner
and his best customer, the manufacturer, will view
this great question in the same light, and settle it by
an amicable arrangement.

Whilst we, in London, were deploring, on Mon-
day last, the lifeless apathy with which that anniver-
sary of the glorious battle of Trafalgar, and of the
almost consecrated death of our Great Admiral,
seemed to be regarded in the very Capital whose
streets had so often echoed to the thunder of ths
guns—and glowed with the festival lights—which
celebrated the succession of his brilliant triumphs by ,
land and by sea, over the enemy, there were other
hearts still throbbing to the immortal recollections
associated with his name, other hands, performing
grateful and reverential homage to his illustrious:
memory, within the same stout walls of British oak,
from whence be achieved his last and crowning vic-
tory, and where he encountered his heroic fall with
the sublime constancy, and simple grandeur, of a
hero ! Often as we have been called upon, in common
with all our fellow-subjects, to commend the truly
national prepossession which her MAJESTY so pointed]
manifests, at all times, for the Naval Service of the
country, and the fine manifestations of that dauntless
hearing on the waters which so well becomes the
QUEEN of the Islands, we have never experienced
a feeling of more enthusiastic admiration for het
MAJESTY'S personal character and deportment than
has been excited in us by the account of her unex-
pected visit to the Victory, on the 21st instant. 1:
seems that, attracted by the unusual decorations of
that majestic vessel—(every timber of which, like
that of the adventurous " Argo" of old, or of the
craft which carried DRAKE in safety on his memorable
circuit of the globe, ought to be carefully preserved
as an heir-loom to our posterity)—her MAJESTY—in
the act of proceeding in the state barge of the Port-
Admiral to the Royal Clarence Victualling-office at
Portsmouth, where the Lords of the Admiralty were
awaiting her arrival—inquired the reason of the
Victory's being dressed with lautels ov©r her taffril,
decks, sides, round-tops, and figure-head, and of the
firing from her guns ? On being apprised by Captaie
RowLEY that these honours were paid to the anniver-
sary of the day of Trafalgar, on board NELSON'S
own Victory, her MAJESTY at once exclaimed, "
will go on board that ship." The course of the berg(
was accordingly altered, and the QUEEN presently
stood upon its quarter-deck, animated by emotions
which, as none could feel more keenly, so, assuredly,
none could give more graceful expression to. The
signal devotion, the incalculable services which the
early friend of her royal uncle, and predecessor on
the throne, ha-I exhibited and performed throughout
the whole of his mighty career to the country which
idolised him whilst living, and can never, without
signal ingratitude, be wanting to his posthumous re-
nown ; the disinterested and chivalrous intrepidity of
his character, and the eventful success, though sealed
with his heroic blood, which signalised his last ex
hortation to each of his followers "to do his duty
—these remembrances and others, awakened by the
passing scene and its associations, seem to have arisen
vividly to the mind of the young SOVEREIGN. ShY
was profoundly affected. She plucked an impressive
and apt memorial—a leaf or two from the spray of
laurel which garlanded the spot where a brans tablet
still records, with touching simplicity, the fact—
Hero NELSON fell ;"—and descended, after a brief
pause of sympathising regret, to the dark and silent
cabin, on whose walls a homely, but still more solemn
legend, apprises each patriot pilgrim to the locality
that had witnessed the departure of his heroic spirit,
that " Here NELSON died." On this hallowed sites
the QUEEN dropped a generous tear ; and she lingered
:ome minutes, in the indulgence of feelings that may
more easily be imagined than described, from the
conflict of spirit-stirring recollections with more
painful and saddening sympathies. At her departure
from the stout old ship, the tars ss ho manned the
yards, or were distributed throughout the various
shipping and the large flotilla of boats in the harbour,
testified by their boisterous, but honest cheering, how
highly they appreciated the grateful respect which
her MAJESTY had testified for one of the boldest, of
the most intelligent, and able, and fortunate com-
manders, who had ever vindicated, on its ocean home,
the glory of her flag, and, with it, the rights of her
crown.

We are convinced that, had her MAJESTY pur-
posely devoted the mature deliberations of an entire
year's privacy to the determining by what course of
action she could best ensure a permanent impression
of enthusiastic loyalty and personal attachment to-
wards her, on the part of her people—and of the
Naval Service more especially—she could not have
arrived at a happier conclusion than that which was
the result of her spontaneous resolution, adopted on
an unexpected and accidental communication made in
answer to her own casual, inquiries, on the thirty-
ninth anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar I

We cannot discover, in the last files of Australian
papers which we have received, any much more sub-
stantial grounds of encouragement as to the prospects
of our various colonial possessions in those distant
latitudes, than we detect in the present aspect of our
West Indian Islands. Sir GEORGE Gires, indeed,
at the opening of the Legislative Council of New
South Wales, on the 24th of May last, pressed into
the service of the sessional inauguration speech every
possible topic on which ho seems to have thought
that he could raise a touch of hopeful sympathy in
his audience. But these scattered touches of conso-
lation have no more principle of sustained vivacity
about them than the motions of the " Platypus"—
the paradoxical otter-duck of the territories he
governs—bear to the energetic action of veritable
birds, or genuine quadrupeds. His Excellency con-
gratulates his Council on the commencement of their
second session; but the business he cuts out for them
supplies little or no matter of congratulation. His
admissions, his facts, and his qualifications, both of
the one and the other, are in the nature, politically
speaking, neither of fish, nor flesh; nor fowl. He
owns to the "large number of mechanics and labour-
ers, out of employ," and then in Sydney, " who have
been long in the colony," and yet felicitates the Coun-
cil on the arrival, during its previous recess, " of an
additional two thousand immigrants from the United
kingdom." He exults in the fact that these latter
have, for the most part, subsequently obtained en-
gagements in New South Wales; but he forgets
that, in the same proportion, and to at least the same
amount, must the labour have been displaced by those
Sydney idlers, of whose case lie remarks that "he
shall be happy to concur with the Council in any
measures it may judge expedient for their relief."
Another source of his exultation is drawn from the
opinion he has arrived at " that there is nothing in the
state of the public finances to create alarm." But he
acknowledges, on the other hand, "the pecuniary dis-
tress which has so long prevailed in the colony."
For the fact proclaimed by his Excellency, that the
" decrease of the revenue of New South Wales had
been very large in the second half of the past year,"
we can hardly accept as a countervailing quantity!
his "disposition" to "hope that the ordinary revenue
had now passed its lowest point of depression." It
is rather a bitter qualification of the positive evil that
" the territorial revenue of the Crown (only) is en-
cumbered with a debt," to be assured of the negative
good, " that the ordinary expenditure of the whole
year had not exceeded the ordinary revenue." The
alchemyeontagiouosf
atmheong theoptimism,Utoianoffieia
colonies—can scarcely extract comfort,
from so sombre a tail-piece to a
as this : i functionaries
of
distantis s so
we apprehend,
address
ppreh

" Although I am satisfied that there is sufficient
vigour in our resources to enable us to overcome the
difficulties still affecting all classes of the community,

and to lay the foundation of a secure and lasting pros-
perity, I cannot but deeply lament the reverses which
have so grievously, during the last three years, injured
the fortunes of individuals and the credit of the colony ;
and I shall continue, with your assistance, to give my
most anxious consideration to the means by which per-
manent relief may be afforded.
Really this is a chilling portrait of the actual con-
dition of a magnificent colony, whose advance,
hitherto, in agricultural improvement, the develop-
ment of a native staple, and the commercial rela-
tions consequent on such advantages, and the inci-
dents of its geographical position, have been hitherto
almost without a parallel in the history of European
settlements. It is important to the best interests of
civilisation, and to the great cause of colonial policy,
that the erroneous principles which, alone, can have
worked out so lamentable a conclusion as this from
beginnings so auspicious, should be corrected, or re-
placed by others of a sounder and more beneficial
character. To this end, as we argued in a former
paper, some weeks ago, the absurd and suicidal dis-
abilities and amercements proposed to be inflicted on
the great flock owners, or squatters—the pioneers of
territorial discovery, and the true founders of Aus-
tralian greatness and opulence—must be at once re-
pealed, and the notion of reimposing them for ever
abandoned. Tho Colonial Government must relax
and diminish its tariff of official license fees, and

other duties and imposts; and with the other must
deal out more sparingly and discreetly the grants, of
which the liberality and the extent have hitherto
been followed by results so little commensurate.

The Dutch mail, which arrived this morning,
brings us the Speech of the King of the NETHER-
LANDS on opening the States-General at the Hague,
on the 21st of October. The general state of the
country is represented to be flourishing, the only ex-
ception being the West Indian Colonies. After al-
luding to the saving effected by the reduction of the
interest on the National Debt, and by the Convention
with Belgium, the speech announces an intention to
make certain alterations in the tariff in the
following words :—" The tariff of import, export,
and transit duties, already provisionally communi-
cated to you, will now Iwcome a subject of your de-
liberation. Holland will not confine itself to bare
words, when the successive improvements of our com-
mercial legislation shall have to be considered." This,
and the announcement of the necessity of a reform
in the monetary system, are by far the most impor-
tant portions of the speech, which will be found at
length in another column.

The following telegraphic dispatch from Madrid
was received on Tuesday by the French Govern-
ment :

" MADRID, OCT. 18.—The Bill relative to the re-
form of the Constitution has been this morning pre-
sented to the Congress. .

" The Ministry have, at the same time, demanded
of the Senate permission to decree some organic laws."

These two measures—the reform of the Constitu-
tion:and new organic laws—excite great interest.
Every friend of liberty believes there is a deep-laid
scheme not to reform, but to overturn the Constitu-
tion. The result will soon be seen, as the " Reform
Bill" was the first to be discussed by the Cortes. In
the Senate scarcely any business had been transacted.
The following is the speech of the President, Mos-
CORO DE ALTAMIRA, on his taking the chair :
" Senators,—Upon occupying for dna fifth time this
eminent post, it is a pleasure to me to reflect that I owe
this honour to the kindness of her Majesty. My posi-
tion as President will recal without ceasing to my recol-
lection the imperious duty imposed upon me to protect
the rights and liberties of each senator in this meeting,
by faithfully observing the regulations of the assembly.
The prudence and wisdom of the Senate will probably
render my task a light one. I trust that without re-
nouncing his independence of opinion, each senator will
know how to reconcile it with his elevated position and
lignity. Such a line of conduct is the only means of in-
suring this illustrious body the consideration and respect
that arc due to it."

The inquiry respecting the sinking of the Rayo
.appears to exonerate the English officers from blame,
is the Spanish vessel was proved to have been within
the limits of British water.

Madrid Bourse of the 16th.—Three per Cents.,26
for Account ; Five per Cents., 20a for :Account ;
bloating Debt, 62} for Account.

The trial of the Duke DR MONTMORENCY for the
distribution of seditious medals took place on Mon-
day before the Paris Court of Assize. The Duke (or
Prince Du ROBECQ) was defended by M. BERRYER,
and was accompanied to Court by the Duke of
FITZJAMES, the Marquis DE LA ROCHE JAQUELIN,
and several other distinguished members of the Legi-
timatist party. It is needless to give any details of this
trumpery trial. M. BERRY ER asserted that there
was nothing political in the affair, and the jury coin-
cided in his view, for, after consulting only five
minutes, they returned a verdict of "Not guilty."
The Prince was loudly cheered when ho left the
Court. The speech of the Prince is the only inte-
resting part of the proceedings, and does honour to
the ancient and noble House of MONTMORENCY :
" Gentlemen," said he, " the charges which have just
been brought against me by the Avocat-General will
certainly not be deemed by you of a nature to justify
the abuse which the Government have made of th•
law. What is the question submitted to you ? My
devotedness to the Prince to whom (and I do not
wish to conceal it) I have sworn fidelity inviolate—
some busts made in the court-yard of my house
since 1840—busts which have been exhibited to every
body, in a house open at all hours—and a sale that
never had the secresy just ascribed to it. Did
this require that my dwelling should be visited by
the police, that my locks should be picked or
broken open, that my seals should be torn up, that
my family papers should be read, and that a
parcel of documents, which was to be opened but'
after my death, should be carried away, in order to
,iet at these busts ?I. do not think so. If I had been
applied to, I should have at once avowed
All I had done. These searches have been
hut a pretext. What makes me suppose it is
that, at the same moment similar searches were made
At the dwelling of a Lieutenant-General who broke
his sword in 1830, and, also, at the dwelling of a
;rave officer, who has since appeared before a jury
Ind been acquitted. That gentleman's only offence
was, that he had been a member of a charitable asso-
ciation, whose objects he had admirably promoted.
['his work of charity has been impugned, and it is
mot the first time such an attempt has been made, for
they have expressed a determination to crush it. I
take this opportunity of appealing to the generous
►nd humane feelings of such as may be disposed to
promote this charitable association which I am doing
lily best to promote. I hope that our defence will
merge victorious from this severe trial. Already
have the jury duly disposed of an accusation which,
AS I have already observed, was but a mere pretext.
What is aimed at and expected is, that you will strike
it convictions which all honourable men respect—
'aith in adversity—attachment to glorious past times.
['hey wish to attain all—to venture everything—to
lefy public opinion—and to drive us to a despotism
the more dangerous as they will cover it with the
mantle of legality. For us, they may persecute and
brand us, but they never shall accomplish thar
ibject."
We really thought the Opposition journals had
lone with the royal visit, but as they have not yet
found another hobby they will probably ride this one
to death. The National, so bent on war, of course, is
nighty indignant at the KING for presuming to say,
before the Knights of England, at the investiture of
the Garter, " I swear to abstain from unjust wars."
Phis honest men consider a very honourable and hu-
none vow. Not so this rabid journal, who thus
,ttacks his MAJESTY, while professing to attack M.

;MOT :-

" M. Guizot assisted officially, in his quality of Mi-
nster, at the investiture. We have the right to make
:am account for the imprudent words spoken on that
,ecasion. At the moment the Chancellor read the
.vords, I swear never to make an ruling
or unfair war
tgainst the Sovereign of the Order,' the King interrupted
urn by exclaiming, more than once, with the greatest
nergy, Never, never. I never will.'
"As Louis Philippe is not at an age when men are
.arried away by their feelings, all that he said was no
loubt arranged beforehand with M. Guizot, and we can
to more render the King accountable for these words,
aid of the warmth with which they were spoken, than
we can attribute to him alone the discourse pronounced
')3T him from the throne on the opening of the session.
Therefore, we say, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has
.hought proper, before the British aristocracy, to allow
thieeveCtitrotnosinauktieownaarl
agKianignsttot
ht
ea kseo
vae
rseoilgenmonf etinl
eg aogr edme
re no
ft
the Garter.

" In order to give another meaning than that of a vain
otiquette to this pompous comedy, it was necessary for
Louis Philippe to interrupt the Chancellor by a new