The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-10 00:00:00

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF SATURDAY.

GLOBE.—With that acuteness of perception, and fe-
licity of phrase, for which its political discussions are
distinguished, the Herald yesterday denied the dul-
ness of Sir V. Blake and others, who are unable to see
that " the Irish rebellion" is crushed by the Irish At-
torney-General ; and who have not foresight enough
to discover that " by August all the angry symptoms
will have abated ; and before Michaelmas it will be .a
question whether Mr. O'Connell be dead or living."
Now, considering that the law proceedings have not
quite terminated ; that Mr. Justice Perrin, who is
supposed to know something of law, thought that Mr.
O'Connell ought to have had a new trial ; that per-
sons, not of the lowest order either in station or intel-
lect, openly state that he has not had a fair one ; that
the Court of Queen's Bench here, on a similar objec-
tion as to one point, granted a new trial, without call-
ing upon the counsel who moved for it to reply ; and
that the House of Lords will require the aid o the
judges in deciding upon the writ of error ; we submit
that the exultation of our Contemporary is somewhat
premature, and that the prediction, so confidently deli-
vered, is little likely to be fulfilled. We would entreat
our Contemporary not to use his giant strength so like a
giant. If conscious of triumph, let him not overwhelm
the vanquished with a volley of hard words and ugly
wishes. Though ho be mighty, let him be merciful.
Sir V. Blake is asked--" Whether he ever met any
Member of any Irish or British Government, Whig or
Tory, Radical or Conservative, of the last thirty years,
who did not, from the bottom of his heart, wish that Mr.
Daniel O'Connell was hanged, or transported, or
imprisoned, or otherwise put out of the way,
according to his deserts ? Assuming that Sir
Valentine answers by an unqualified and empha-
tical never, we apply the same question with a
trifling variation. Has Sir Valentine Blake, within the
last thirty years, met with any Irish nobleman or gen-
tleman, merchant, trader, farmer, or artisan above the
very lowest rank—whether Protestant or Roman Catholic
—any one, in short, but a priest or mere creature in the
savage state, who would not, in his secret heart, most
cordially echo the wish that Mr. D. O'Connell might be
hanged, transported, imprisoned, or otherwise put out
of the way in some manner, according to his merits ?"
A few years ago, " aliens in blood, language, and
religion," was thought a strong expression. " Savages"
is a step beyond "aliens." What, Sir V. Blake's
powers of penetrating to the "secret hearts" of his
countrymen may be, we do not know. But we can
assure our Contemporary that many persons not re-
puted " savages," of various " ranks," from " noblemen"
to " artisans," have never expressed any such " wishes."
We submit hat it is not consistent with either good
manners or prudence, when so many have expressed
exactly the contrary, to impute to them hypocrisy, which
cannot be proved. In England, readiness to part with
one's money is generally held to be proof of sincerity ;
and the possession of money, though not a proof at
civilisation, shows that its owners are not of " the
lowest rank." These " mere creatures in the sa-
vage state " sent in two thousand five hundred and
ninety-six pounds to the last week's repeal
rent. The bar of a nation is not generally
taken from " the very lowest rank ;" and yet when
Mr. O'Connell appeared on the floor of the Court to re-
ceive judgment, a large majority of the bar ruse and
cheered vehemently. The Peers of a nation are surely
not of " the lowest rank ;" yet the names of several
Peers will be found in the list of subscribers to the
repeal rent. The world will require some stronger
evidence than has yet been given of the Herald's skill in
reading " secret hearts," before it will believe that nine-
tenths of a nation are combined to do honour and pay
money to a man whom " all but priests and savages"
wish to be hanged or " otherwise put out of the way."
STANDARD.—Mr. John Bolton O'Neall, the judge
of South Carolina, who passed sentence of death upon
Brown, for aiding in the escape of a female negro slave,
has addressed a letter to Mr. Bernie thistle, of Glasgow,
explanatory of his conduct. Brown, it appears, was
not hanged, or even whipped, as his commuted sen-
tence ordered —he received a free pardon, upon the
representation, it is said, of the public of the
province. We rejoice at the man's escape, and cer-
tainly cannot rejoice the less if he owes his impunity to
the improved temper of the people of South Carolina.
It is true that Brown, though described by his judge
as a thorough scoundrel, is not an abolitionist. His in-
terference to rescue the woman whom he aided to escape
Was prompted by a selfish and not very moral feeling.
Had he been an abolitionist, and acted upon pure
grounds, his fate might be different. Still, from what-
ever cause the escape has arisen, we are glad that
our age and our race have escaped the infamy of
punishing a man for assisting a woman to escape
from slavery. Mr. Judge O'Neall dwells with proper
force upon the immorality of Brown's conduct, but we
must ask, is not such conduct among the earliest and
most constant effects of slavery ? When women are
made slaves—we really cannot follow out the con-
sequences—but every one who has lived in a slave
country knows what they are, and others who have any

just estimate of the corruption of human nature can
easily conjecture. We confess that the rarity of such
acts—we will not call them offences—as that for which
Brown was sentenced to be hanged, seems to us the
worst feature in the whole disgusting story. Brown
had formed an attachment to a young mulatto slave, as
likely as anything the child of her master—for these per-
sons are very oriental in their habits—he, a free man and
an anti-abolitionist, could not marry a slave; Lynch law,
if there was no other law, would punish with dealt
such a mis-alliance. The consequence that too ora)
follows love, where marriage is forbidden, followed
in this case ; and Brown, possibly not desirous to
add a little slave, entitled to call him father,

to the stock of cattle in which his paramour
was numbered, stole the future mother from
her slavery. Now, in a slave country, which
not only always is, but always must be a coun-
try of lax morals, attachments like that in which
Brown was entangled muss be frequent ; but
how gross, how sordid, how unmanly must be the
prevailing feeling when it so rarely happens that
the object of love" and her offspring are rescued from
bondage ; ere confess that we are unable to comprehend
such an abject abasement of proper manly feeling as is
Proved by the rarity of such rescues. There is one other
point, however, upon which we must-have a word with
Mr. Judge O'Neall. That person speaks of the law under
which he proposed to hang his victim as a law
passed in 1750, when "we (the people of Caro-
lina) were under the government of King, Lords,
and Commons." Now, the purpose of this remark is
to imply a falsehood, under cover of a sneer. The
falsehood is, that the King, Lords, and Commons of
England, had something to do with the abominable law
in question ; whereas the King, Lords, and Commons
had no more share in that execrable law than they
have in the Suttees of India, which they tolerated,
for peace sake, a great deal too long, but in
which their portion of guilt is merely that of
those who permit crimes which they might pre-
vent by a rude exercise of power--a portion of guilt suf-
ficiently heavy, we allow, but far lighter surely. than
that of the actual criminals. In 1750 South Carolina
had its own Legislature—a very democratical, and there-
fore a very tyrannical and cruel Legislature, and so tur-
bulent that more than one scire 'arias was issued to
annul the charter of the province between 1720 and
1750, on the special ground of the brutality of some
of the enactments of the Legislature, as well as
because of the constant neero insurrections and In-
dian wars, provoked by the insolence and rapacity
of the provincials. No doubt the murderous
law of 1750 received the Royal assent, through the
medium of the Governor (Bull, we believe), but in
those days governors were obliged to do many
things for peace sake which British governors would
not do now. And now, giving Judge O'Neal!
all advantage of the date of his sanguinary law,
May we not ask him why, during the sixty-two
years of their republican liberty, the free citizens of
South Carolina have allowed such a law to disgrace
their statute-book ? The country from which the
people of Carolina derive their descent, and what-
ever is good in their laws, has not been idle
either in mitigating her criminal code generally or
in relaxing the bonds of slavery. We have net on
our statute-book, at this day, one law imposing the
.penalty of death, except for crimes clearly capitally
punishable by the law of God, and we have no
slaves. Mr. Judge O'Neall, we think, must allow that
we have, even with the incumbrance of King, Lords,
and Commons, rather better employed the last sixty-
two years, than they have been employed by his " free
and enlightened fellow citizens" of the model com-
monwealth. Meanwhile let us be just. Mr. O'Neall's
letter, we think, is complete as a personal defence ;
it leaves us under the impression that he. is a humane
and just man, administering an atrocious system in a
very bad state of society—that is, as humane and just as
a man can be who lends himself to the administration of
such a system ; but if we were disposed to censure Mr.
O'Neal!, the remembrance of the judge who left Mary
Purley for execution must stop our mouths.