The Sun.
London, England, 1845-09-17 00:00:00

PENNSYLVANIAN STATE BONDS.

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in the United
States, to his friend in London, received,by the Hibernia,
dated Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Aug. 27, 1845 :
"I have the pleasure to acknowledgz,- the receipt of
your favour making various inquiries, and especially re-
specting Pennsylvania State Bonds. The debt of the
State, foreign and domestic, varies but little from
40,000,000.d011ar5, say 8,240,0004, and very nearly all
this amount bears an interest of five per cent. The State
had been unable to pay the interest for about three years,
up to February and August of 1845, at which periods
payments were. made. Our entire population have the
best disposition to pay the public creditor ; and certainly
a young and wealthy, and otherwise unincumbered,
people, of 2,000,000, will not suffer the fair fame which
they have inherited from Penn to be sullied, and
their plighted faith violated,, without a manly,
and, as I believe, a successful effort to main-
tain their honour and integrity. But in regard to
what Pennsylvania will do in the coming year, I con-
fess lam riot altogether without my doubts; but should
she not pay with entire punctuality, my belief is that
ultimately both principal and interest will be liquidated.
The Commonwealth is now recovering from the twelve
years' scourge of Jacksonism and Van Burenism, which
has been more wasting arid demoralising in its influence
than would have been a six years' war. The public im-
provements, canals, and railways are every year giving
an increased gross and net revenue; the management of
them is becoming more and more efficient and econo-
mical, and with the increase of internal commerce the
people are more confident of their own resources and
ability to pay. As regards hostilities with Mexico, which
you appear to apprehend, although few know the obstinacy
of the Mexican character better than myself, I have
no doubt the difficulty between the two countries will
end in weakness and bravado on one side, and in our
retention of Texas on the other. In fact, it would be
absurd to suppose that two nations situated as Mexico
and the United States are—the one ignorant, enervated,
and superstitious, weighed down to the earth by a bigoted
priesthood, and the heavy exactions of a corrupt govern-
ment, a century behind the age in the advancements of
civilization, and almost in the last stage of decadence ;
tbe other, the pioneers in everything, including the art
of self-government, doubling their , population., and
quadrupling their wealth and resources e•;ery twenty-..
five years, and possessing Saxontlood and Saxon
hearts, that the latter, -aiould not ultimately
become the possessr_u,:a and masters of this continent.
Whilst we he'N3 followed the example of our mother-
country in the acquisition of foreign territories, so far
Teaceably, we have repudiated the expensive, doubtful,
and unequal colonial system of our ancestors, and at
once admitted our new possessions into the full enjoy-
ments of all the rights and privileges of toe parent State.
The people are at once entitled to a full pro rata repre-
sentation in the national councils, to equal honours and
benefits, and the full protection of the laws. Hence,. on
the admission of Louisiana, and subsequently Florida,
into the Union, the French inhabitants of the one, and
the Spanish of the other, became American citizens, and
their course has been one of honour to themselves, and
usefulness and attachment to the land of their adoption.
The acquisition of Texas is a bitter cup to a very large
portion of the people of this country, and for which many
of us feel that we are mainly indebted to those who are
called enlightened statesmen on your side of the water
acting in unison with Mexican blindness and obstinacy:
Had Mexico acknowledged the independence of Texas
when she was so de facto, or had Lord Ashburton been
instructed to settle, what was so strongly urged upon
him and the British Government by Mr. Webster, the
Oregon question at the same time the Maine boundary
dispute was adjusted, Texas would never have been ad-
mitted within the pale of the. Union. The Oregon
controversy, I fear, is now incumbered with many ex-
tensive difficulties which then did not exist, from
which it can only be freed by the reflecting portions of
the people of the two countries taking their own business
into their own bands, and saying to their respective
Governments that it shall be settled without s. resort to
war, for the madness of which they and their children must
suffer and pay. The public press here is less violent and
exasperated in its tone towards England than your news-
papers are towards us, especially the Times and the
Morning Herald, which, I suppose, may be taken as the
exponents of the feelings< and opinions of. the two great
sections of the Conservative party of England towards
the United States. Passing over these party organs, it
is most singular that the politics of Europe and America,
and the question of peace or war, should now turn on
the Oregon dispute. But we know that in 1785 the tran-
quillity of the world turned on the right of ownership
and occupancy of the Falkland Islands, and more re-

cently on Otaheite; and why, you mayask, is not Oregon
entitled to the same dignity and consideration, or the
rocks of Diego Rameriez, south of Cape Horn ? The
public mind, I am persuded, is 'much misled in relation
to the fertility and value of the Oregon territory. I have
what I deem the best information from well-informed
and impartial sources—from persons who have been in
the country—and they assure me that it is a mountain-
ous and broken district, with comparatively but little
land that can ever be cultivated, with summer droughts
which parch the soil and greatly injure the crops and
vegetation, and an winters cold and inhospitable. The
bar at the mouth of the Columbia river renders
the entrance at all times difficult and dangerous,
and often impossible ; and many of the settlers
are already abandoning the country for Upper
Calafornia. And are the doubtful and conflicting
claims to this broken and inhospitable waste to estrange
and desolate two great Christian and highly-civilised
nations like England and America ? It may be easy
for statesmen, diplomatists, and the public press, to in-
volve the two countries in war, but will peace and pros-
perity return at their bidding ? You and I may see the
beginning of a war, but'who-can foretel its end or conse-
quences ? Both parties would invoke new and potent
auxiliaries I the novel adjuncts of war, steam and gal-
vanism, would spread death and desolation in their path.
robbing the lightning- of its wings, and Heaven of its
thunderbolts.

THE LATE M. ROYER COLLARD.
The following character of this celebrated Frenchman
is attributed to M. Gaizot

" France has just lost, in M. Royer Collard, a great
citizen, an illustrious orator, a severs writer, a profound
thinker, and, above all, an honest man. The termination
of noble lives, however long and well spent, always
strikes us with a shock, as if it were unexpected. We
feel that it ought not to be, and we cannot restrain our-
selves from contemplating bitterly the void left by the
loss of such men. The memory of their deeds, the au-
thority of their words, assume then a solemn character.
The country receives the bequest with a feeling of piety,
.and the instructive example of such lives mingles with
unanimous expressions of sympathy and of regret.
" Born at Sompuis, near Vitry-le-Francais, in 1763,
M. Royer Collard died the 4th of September, at his resi-
dence, Chateauvieux, in Berry, in the eighty-third year ,
of his age. Few public men have ever preserved,
'throughout so long a career, such persevering and com-
plete consistency of principle. In that' especially eon-
'sags his glory. From the earliest days of the Revolu-
tion of 1789 to the end of his life; M. Royer Collard re-
mained faithful to the same view, devoted to the same
convictions. That which he desired "in the first strut-
gles,,of his youth, at the commune of Farb, of which he
was a memberiuntil , the 10th of August, and then at
the Council of the Five Hundred, Where he sat for the
department of the ,Marne, he proclainied with all his
might under the. empire, and again ,under the restora-
tion; and that whether .he was on; the side of the Go-
vernment, or whether he was in opposition, and amidst
those rough combats which a power whose fall was pre-
pared by its faults, 'obliged him to. encounter.
" The eonciiiitiloh -Or"order with liberty, of rights
with duties, 06 establishinent of constitutional mo-
narchy upon therului of the,ancient regime, alike' re-
moved from royal despotism and popular anarchy=
such were at- all periods, in all situations, alike in success
or in defeat, the aim, the object, the public passion of
this firm and convinced soul.' Faction of all kinds he
looked upon with the horror of a good citizen, and for
all excess 'he felt the contempt of a wise man. He de-
fended the, liberties of his country, after having laboured
long to restore the throne ; he combated intriguing
fanaticism with the same energy he had displayed in
sustaining. .the rights of religion. Tyranny, n
is ono
matter what shape, found' him an adversary.
that account that the ungrateful restoration struck him,
as the Directory had struck . him before. He was ex-
posed to hostilities from quarters the most opposite ;
the morning saw, him neglected and insulted by those
whom the evening before he had protected and suc-
coured. But nothing could shake him ; he was ever
consistent with himself; armed as he always was with
moderation and with principle.
" A sound Christain education had prepared M. Royer
Collard for all positiOns; thus was he not taken unawares,
when,in 1811, side Fentriines, charged with the organi-
sation of the university, named him dean of the faculty
of
letters,. and
whosehoic a bourses
was
a t once were attended
of philosophy to the faculty,
e sanctionedreattede b
dbyy allthe nthoermaballesset and hgol. The
cbest
men of the day. AL Royer Collard, during the two years
of his professorship. with the double authority of consci-
ence and of reason, began an attack upon the sien
system of the last'age ; with him commenced the renova-
tion tion which was accomplshed afterwards, and with so ra.muck
brilliancy, under another master. some portions of this
coarse have been 'published ; and, in considbring the
language, at once copious end severe, alike admirable for
depth and clearnsss, in which these fine lessons are con-
leyed, we think we hear an "tell'o'fiaril the Solitydes of