The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-04 00:00:00

.0!1' )fi, ienntt _.Alit

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1844.

The intelligence brought by the Overland Mail
from India and China is altogether very favourable.
Ninth the exception of a slight insurrection in the
Mahratta country, and the capture of the fort of
Samunghur by the British troops, the utmost tran-
quillity prevails. Accounts from Sinde describe that
newly acquired district as increasing every day in
prosperity, and to such a degree, that the calumnia-
tors of Lord ELLEN BOROUGH and Sir CHARLES
NAPIRk are dumb on the subject. The revenue
was increasing, and more money had been
collected under the mild and legitimate autho-
rity of the gallant General than had been
obtained by the extortions and violence of
the Ameer:;. Kurrachee, u town situate towards the
mouth of the Indus, was daily rising in importance;
substantial buildings were springing up in all direc-
tions, water was abundant, and the climate healthy.
The people of India, and especially the inhabitants of
Bombay, were beginning► to see the vast importance
of opening the Indus for trade, and the advantages
which the occupation of Sinde would confer on the
extensive territories along its banks. We never
from the beginning hurl any doubt on the sub-
ject —ne defended almost alone the policy
of the Indian Government, and did justice
to the wise plans and the daring manceuvres of the
gallant NAPIER; and it is therefore gratifying to find
that the result has been such a 3 to convince even the
most obstinate that the annexation of Sinde to the
British possessions constitutes one of the most glorious
and beneficial events of the present day. We rejoice
to hear that Sir CHARLES NAPIER enjoyed good
health, and was about to visit some of the more dis•
tant portions of the country placed under his autho••
rity. From every account his wise measures, for
preserving peace and securing good government, ex-
cited equal admiration with his warlike exploits.

The Post of this morning, in an article suggested
by a meeting of the Somersetshire Agricultural
Society which took place last week at Wincanton,
speaks out in a frank, manly strain respecting the
present position of the Anti-Corn-law League, and
the degree of moral influence which it exercises over
the public mind. The majority of the journals which
espouse the cause of monopoly still continue to re-
present this great national confed(tra.ey as in a de-
clining state. According- to their statements it has
lost the strong hold which it had over the popular
jaini.l a year or two since, wit, 11 the distresses of the

country and the general discontent which they occa-
sioned conspired to favour its progress; with an im•
proved condition of things have come an improved
spirit —a more collected and sagacious judgment
on ,the part of the people ; and the League
is now suffering from this altered tone of the
public mind, and at no distant period it

will be numbered among the " things that once were:9
So say the journals that are favourable to monopoly ;
and the RICLIMONDS7 the BUCKINGHAMS, the BANKESES,
and all who think with them, make a point of echo-
ing the sentiment. But the Post—to its credit be it
mentioned—is too frank, too manly, too intelligent
to adopt this false, one-sided view of the case. Though
an uncompromising enemy of the Anti-Corn-law
League and of every single principle, without ex-
ception, which it advocates, our Contemporary is not
guilty of the foolish error of underrating its influ-
ence, but blurts out the strict truth, careless whom
it may offend. We wish the Post were always as
explicit and intelligible in its opinions as it is in the
significant passage which we shall presently sub-
join. But there is too often a vagueness a
haziness—an incoherency in its political views which
for the life of us we cannot understand. To-day it is
Young England—to-morrow it is Old England after
the fashion of Lord ELDON. Now, it advocates a
standstill system of policy with a dogged inveteracy
of purpose that would have endeared it to the heart of
a SIDINIOUTH or a CASTLEREAGH; and now, it is all for
stir and movement in the Church as well as in the
State. One moment it startles us by a bold theory or
suggestion that breathes the true spirit of Reform in '
its most enlightened and comprehensive sense ; the
next, it is a bigoted admirer of the " wisdom
of our ancestors," and scouts the bare idea
of every innovation, no matter how slight,
that should hays a tendency to bring that
wisdom into disrepute. Our Contemporary is
too sagacious to be a confirmed ribbon Tory, and he
is too honest to be a decided Conservative. What
then is he ? To what party does he adhere ? Who
is his " Magnus Apollo" in statesmanship? We
cannot answer these questions, and we now put them
respectfully to him, in the hope that he will vouchsafe
to enlighten our ignorance. But now for the signi-
ficant passage to which we have alluded, and which
we quote from his columns of this morning. After
expressing his satisfaction that the country people in
Sotnersetshire have not been misled by the erroneous
statements in the Ministerial journals respecting the
actual condition of the Anti-Corn-law League,
which journals have given out that nothing more
need be feared from it, inasmuch as it is effectually
crushed, our Contemporary goes on to observe :-
1
" They assume this fact, and endeavour to lead their
readers to the inference that the policy of the Govern-
ment has been so able as to have led to that result,
not Nithstanding all the money which the League has
collected, and all the efforts which it has made. This
is altogether erroneous. The Government has not
quenched the revolutionary mischief of the League.
The League still relies on compelling the Minister to
carry out by practical measures that principle con-
cerning buying in the cheapest markets and selling
in the dearest, which he has declared to be in the
abs!ract a sound and just principle." This direct ac-
knowledgement of the vitality and influence of the
Anti-Corn-law League will be anything but ac-
ceptable to the monopolist readers of the Post.
Mr. limas, however, one of the Members for Somer-
setshire, who is strongly opposed to the views of this
confederacy, holds pretty nearly the same opinions
as our Contemporary, and warns his constituents not
to put the slightest faith in the statements that the
League is crushed. We agree with these two com-
petent authorities that the League is not crushed and
is not likely to be crushed ; and we will go further
and add, that it will gradually increase in influence,
day by day enlarging the sphere of its operations,
until the great principles of which it is the exponent
and representative are fully carried out into practice.

The remains of her late Royal Highness the
Princess SOPHIA MATILDA will be interred in the
family vault in St. George's Chapel, at Windsor, on
the evening of Tuesday, the 10th instant; and, in
compliance with the wishes of her late Royal Highness,
the ceremony of lying in state will be dispensed with
and the funeral will be conducted with as much pri-
vacy as is consistent with the rank of her late
Royal Highness.

The intelligence which continues to reach us from
two European countries now sunk in the depths of
political turpitude and degradation, though they suc-
ceeded to an inheritance of historic recollections more
glorious than can be boasted by almost any other
two in the family of nations this intelligence is
calculated to excite in British bosoms the liveliest
emotions of indignation, contempt, and pity. But
the great social lesson which it teaches is one of such
infinite moment to the welfare and prosperity of
other States, who, thanks to a long enjoyment of
happier institutions, and to the salutary influence of
these upon their people, still preserve the noble pre-
eminence they have attained, that we cannot do
wrong in endeavouring to impress upon our readers
its singular force and application to a community
nearer home.
Of all the nations of antiquity, Greece may justly
claim to have transmitted to posterity the most
precious inheritance. In the divinest exercises of
pure intellect—philosophy, poetry, and metaphysics,
in logic and history—she has bequeathed exemplars
of such matchless excellence as to have served,
through the lapse of more than two thousand years,
for the models, hitherto unrivalled, of our reverential
admiration—as the guides, whom it has not yet been
permitted us to overtake, of our most ennobling
studies. If it be the just and gratifying pride of
modern times to have far surpassed our great in-
structress in the physical sciences, and the arts of
civil economy—to have measured the whole visible
field of infinite space, divined the laws and ascer-
tained the ellipses of planetary motion—to have cal-

culated the most eccentric orbits of the most remote
comets discernible from our own system, and to have
proved and established the revolutions of the satellites
that revolve around other solar centres, we must ac-
knowledge our obligations to Greece for those ele-
ments of political government under which, alone,
that ancient civilisation could have been attained by
her from whence we derive, at this day, the benefit
of her profound principles of domestic polity, and
the guarantees provided by them for the maintenance
of individual rights and public liberty. This is not
the place to speak of those all but miraculous embodi-
ments of Grecian genius, in which the Hellenic
mind almost thinks and speaks and acts to us, in
marble and in bronze ; but the refining and exalting
influences which these productions of a sublime
antiquity still exert upon our intellectual develop-
ment, must never be forgotten in any estimate
of the debt of gratitude which the Europe of our
days owes to the Greece of classical antiquity—its
generous rebublics, and their more renowned citizens.
Let us turn to another nation. If old Greece handed
down to us the theory, Gothic Spain re-established
and vindicated to us the practice, of free institutions.
When other European communities were humbled in
the dust beneath the incessant aggressions of feudal
tyranny--now vexed by the despotic cruelty of their
sovereign princes, now tormented still more grievously
by the insatiable rapacity of the still more powerful
nobles, the people of Spain, with indomitable per-
severance, contended for, and exacted from successive
rulers, large and ample popular privileges. Through..
out the different kingdoms between which their noble
country was divided, the same bold and independent
spirit asserted itself; now successful in forcing the
establishment of deliberate assemblies in their Cones
and their Municipal Councils, now wringing from the
reluctant heads of hereditary oppressors the fueros
of the maritime provinces. To Gothic Spain must
still be ascribed the solid glory of having success-
fully devoted herself to become the bulwark of
Christianity in Southern Europe, and of having, on
repeated occasions, turned back the invading tide of
French ambition and aggressiveness. The discoverer
and planter of a new world, however, can want no
other blazonry to distinguish her "escutcheon of pre-
tence" among the trophies achieved by the national
chivalry of Europe.
What is the present condition of these States, so
illustrious by their past associations ? A condition
of social misery, of civil degradation, of political
perfidy, of civic treachery, of royal duplicity, of
Ministerial profligacy, of arrogant favouritism, of
hopeless corruption in high places, of venal faithless-
ness in low ones, of successful faction, of defeated
patriotism, of triumphant intrigue, of pro- ,

scribed integrity, of a wealthy few, and a
pauper people ;—of unprincipled chiefs and tur-
bulent followers, under whose disorganising quarrels
and rapacity agriculture decays, trade languishes,
confidence expires, and love of country sleeps the sleep
of death. These are conditions common to the pre-
sent aspect of both Spain and Greece. Oruo is faith
less to his constitutional oath ; ISABELLA tramples
under foot, at the instigation of CHRISTINA, the con-
stitution which both have, over and again, solemnly
sworn to uphold. ISABELLA and 01110 receive into
their respective councils, protection, and favour,
the avowed enemies of the liberties of the coun-
tries they severally govern. The men who
have laboured, and fought, and bled to uphold
those liberties, they hand over as meet sacrifices to the
bloodthirsty hatred of the adventurers who have assassi-
nated freedom, and set up in its stead a ghastly idol of
tyranny attired in some of her habiliments. Is there,
then, it may be asked, no people to interfere, either in
Spain or in Greece, i❑ order to vindicate their own
rights, to reconstruct their own privileges, to pre-
scribe their own form of government, to control the
delinquencies of those who govern ? If the aristocracy
of the former, or the chiefs of the latter, still lack the
energy or the means to right themselves and the laws,
are there no true men, of the humbler classes, to inter-
pose and arrest the downfal of their tottering States ?
Alas ! the long prescription of defective customs,
or abused institutions, has so utterly atased, and so
enfeebled these humbler, though far more numerou.,
sections of the people, that they can accomplish
nothing of themselves, although they groan and
writhe under the bitterness of their bondage, the
shame of their degradation. Then why not make
common cause (it may be asked) with their lords or
their leaders, their chiefs or their nobles? Shall we
venture to answer for them ? Because nobles and chiefs
leaders and lords, have NOT made honest cause with
them. Because wealth has been willing to see them sa-
crificed to the treason or cabal of the day, provided only
it could secure and retain its own possessions. Because
rank and power have abandoned the natural and legi-
timate claimants on their protection, in their own
hour of aggrandisement and security, in order to
secure their own slippery footing in the halls of capri-
cious despotism, and to rivet still more tightly on
their own serfs or dupes the chains which their supe-
rior tyrant has permitted them to forge for that pur-
pose. What wonder, then, that the compatriots of
ElaamoDius or of PELAGIO, born and nurtured as it
were in the long descended hatred of royal oppression
and foreign authority; should look on with apathy at the
unbridled career of desolation and infamy which both
the one and the other are spreading headlong over
Spain and Greece in these their unhappy times ?
But there are yet other and greater States, still un-
cursed by foreign influence, still uninsulted and unpro-
voked by any movement of royalty towards despotism,
enjoying a general condition of extreme prosperity, with
certain modifications of extreme poverty and misery
—abundant in their free institutions, and enjoying
the free working of them—there are yet States of the
first rank and most signal power which exhibit some
fearful symptoms of internal derangement and dis-
eased action, manifesting themselves in the same ex-
tremities—namely, the lower orders. Let them learn,
betimes, the memorable truth which the close proxi-
mity of excessive opulence and abject destitution ;
vast accumulations of capital and every phase of
poverty ; horrible want and magnificent profusion—
ought never to proclaim in vain. The few, in order
to uphold even the most perfect and favourable of
human institutions, must depend on the many; and
since the many can have no common interest with
the few in supporting establishments under which
they derive no fair proportion of common
advantage, property must come to the aid of poverty.
The unequal distribution of wealth is an incident
which cannot be prevented ; but the pressure upon
those whose portion of it is absolutely, or but next to,
privation, may be relieved by property's placing a ge-
nerous and enlarged construction upon its own duties.
Let us secure the alliance of those who want not only
present relief, but timely confidence and encourage-
ment. There are political and social, as well as moral
benefits, of the most invaluable kind, to be secured by
the upper and middling classes who shall thus avert
the chances of such estrangement of the lower from
the higher orders, which now leaves Athens and
Attica a prey to Bavarian bad faith and mismanage-
ment—and humbles the pride of the Castilles and the
pomp of Madrid beneath the base intrigues of
CHRISTINA and her minions, or the arrogant brutality
of such an adventurer as NARVAEZ.

The Madrid journals of the 26th contain no news.
The fate of the son and brother-in•law of ZURBANO
was not known in the capital on that day, but it was
generally believed that orders had been lent for their
execution. The Clamor Publico states that orders
had also been sent to Cadix for the execution of
General ARNOZ.

AIADRID BOURSE, Nov. 26.—Three per Cents., for
cash, 31 9-16 ; for account, 34. Fiye per Cents.,
for cash, 23f ; for account, 21.

No official intelligence had reached Paris on Mon-
day of the execution of young • ZIINBANO and his
uncle at Logrono, but nearly all the journals regard
it as a matter beyond doubt, and justly comment with
severity on the atrocious policy of the Spanish Go-
vernment. Even the Ministerial Journal des Debats
is obliged to chime in with the general cry of indig-
nation, and would willingly keep out of view the fact
that the parties who are now committing such cruel-
ties in Spain are the creatures of the French Court and
Cabinet, and were established in power, if not by
French gold, at all events by French intrigue. Of this

no impartial observer can entertain a reasonable
doubt, and the Government and the Government press
of France must come in for a share of the odium ex-
cited by the despotic and cruel conduct of NARYAEZ.
That journal now seems disposed to cast him off, and
even denies that it had ever supported the party.
" Certainly," it says, " we had no great confidence in
the Government of Spain, but we were far from ex-
pecting such enormities, even from a Cabinet directed
by NARYAEZ. Are those the men who denounced
as a crime the execution of the unfortunate DieGo
Lnorf, who were to open to their country a new era
of reconciliation and peace, and who designed to en-
large the field of political discussion ? Now, more
than eirer, we congratulate ourselves on having re-
fused all adhesion to the acts of this soldier-Govern-
ment, which holds itself up to universal reprobation?'
The following particulars respecting the fate of the
unfortunate victims are given by the correspondent
of the Constilutionnel :
"We have related all the details of the arrest of

the son and brother-in-law of Zurbano in the environs
of Logrono, taken in an olive-grove, where they were
found concealed, but without arms. The son, a young
man aged twenty-eight, esteemed in the army, in which
he held the rank of major, excited a lively interest in
the inhabitants of Logrono, and even the Moderados ex-

pressed a wish that ttie Queen's Government -nunld spare
him. General Oribe, who holds the command at
Burgos, listened to these appeals, and considering, no
doubt, that the real, if not the only culprit in the eyes
of the Government, was Marti❑ Zurbano, and that the
circumstances attending the capture did not imperatively
prove the complicity of Benito Zurbano and his uncle,
therefore, notwithstanding the general orders issued by
Narvaez for shooting Zurbano and his confederates, de
ferred the execution, and applied to the Government for
express orders. The inhabitants of Logrono, profiting
by the respite, sent to Madrid a numerous deputation,
among whom were the most important men of all
opinions, to lay a petition for mercy at the foot of the
throne. The mother and mother-in- law of Benito Zur-
band also went to Madrid, and drew tears from the eyes
of the Queen-Mother, by throwing themselves in the
attitude of supplication in the road by which her Majesty
was passing in her carriage. Their ardent prayers and
bitter sobs were of no avail. The Government remained
implacable. An order was immediately dispatched to
General Oribe to consummate the execution, and, on
the 25th ult. Benito Zurbano and his uncle, with their
to o servants, were shot at Logrono. This was not all
the stern rigour of the Government ; General Oribe was
dismissed from his command for not having blindly fol-
lowed his first instructions, and it is even said that he is
to be brought before a court-martial."

The same journal thus contrasts the conduct of Es-
PART:EEO under somewhat similar circumstances with
that of NARVAEZ.:--.
" Let the deplorable details of the execution of Benito
Zsrbano, his uncle, and their servants, be compared
with the conduct of Espartero's Government towards
Diego Lem, and it will be seen whether the Moderados
have not deprived themselves of the right of exclaiming
against the cruelty of the ex-Regent. Diego Lion was
taken with arms in his hands, and yet he was granted a
trial ; his execution was the consequence of a judgment,
partial and pitiless no doubt, but at least invested with
the forms of justice. In the present case, there was no
judgment, no trial—nothing but an arbitrary and atro-
cious
act of power. The identity of the prisoners was,
it is true, established, but there was no proof of their
criminality ; anti, we add, nothing can be further from
proof than that there was any culpability inßenito Zur-
haw) than his being the sou of his father. lie was taken

slmost alone, concealed, and without arms. Can we,
therefore, be astonished if it be hereafter shown that he
disapproved of-the-insurrection, and that he wished to
Lvoid,• by flight, participating in those sanguinary acts
if reprisals which parties in Spain-reven those in pus-
session of the Government—perpetrate upon their eno-
nies ? Prim has escaped, thanks to a species of trial
which, from the very iniquity of ,the accusation, excited
universal opinion against it. The son of Zurbano has
been executed without any form or process, as if it was
letermined to hasten his death in, order to tear him from
public compassion. In civilised nations, to execute a
man without trial is not punishment, but murder."
The Journal des DOW* contains an article on the
quarantine laws, in which it strongly recommends the
Government to get. rid of the-false notions that pre-
vail respecting contagion, and-place French vessels on
an equ'alitY with those of England and Austria.
The Three per Cents. continued to advance, and
closed. on Monday at 84f. 15c.
THE BOURSE—Monist, DEC. 2
First • Highest Lowest Last
Prim Price. Price. Price.
French rive per cetits•• .• •• 119 30 •. 119 30 119 30 119 30
Three PerCents."-• 10. ••- 84 15 •• 83 3b 84 15
Dank or France •• 3150 —3155 „,3130 _3136
,s.ogisn Bank. ...... .
3eigian Fives, 1840 •••• • • • • 103} • . 193} .. 103} .. 103 k
Two-and-a-Half.. •• 61 60 •• .61 60 .. 6T-641-.. 61 60
Dutch Two and-a-Half.— • • 63 -63 .. 63 . 63
•pezish Threes •••• • ...... • 30 361 36
geapoutau:.. .
.... 1041 .. 104 f .. 1041 .. 184 f
RAILWAY SHARES.

. -----.
St. Ger=ln .. • • . • . • .. 937 50 .. 940
Versaales, 14.15. •
L.B. •••••• • • • • • • 320 . 320
Rouen. ••• • • • .
1015

937 50 .. 937 50
.. 445 .. 444
.. 320 .• 320
..1015 ..1014

_-
Rouen to Havre •• 783 75 •• 783 75 . 783 75 .. 783 T 5
Orleans •••••••••••••••••••1055 •
..1055 055 ..1055
strasburg to Bale .••• •• 27$ 75 278 75 278 75 . 27$ 75