The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-04 00:00:00

11-flt--11t1t.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1844,

The questions referred to the House of Lords on
the Irish State Trials may now be regarded as settled.
The Judges have given their opinions ; they are unani-
mous, with the exception of two; but we fear their
decisions will have little influence with the House
of Peers. Baron PARKE is an excellent Judge, though
it is singular that, in two important questions, he has
chosen to differ from his colleagues—men of the first
eminence in the law, and the majority of them never
suspected either of partiality or defect of legal know-
ledge. It is, however, a good set-off. The Tories are
trying to make themselves popular in Ireland, and these
Judges may possibly imagine that this opposition to
the verdict of their colleagues may have a good effect.
They are miserably mistaken. Two out of nine or
ten are nothing. They know well that the House of
Lords will pay every attention to their opinion, but
at the same time say, " We must be guided by the
general decision, and the Writ of Error must be nega-
tived." It has altogether been a most bungling busi-
ness. The Judges, according to the Writ of Error,
had no means of judging the most important points.
They had only some extraneous matters of law to de-
cide, and with the usual technicality of the profession
they confined themselves to mere dry details, without
entering upon the question of justice or injustice. Mr.
O'CoNsTELL's fate, however, is now sealed. The House
of Lords, which meets this day, will discuss the subject.
We shall hear speeches from Lord BROUGHAM, Lord
DENMAN, Lord LYNDHURST, and Lord CAMPBELL;
possibly some of them of great and unnecessary
length ; but, whatever they say, the result will be
this—the Writ of Error is negatived, so that after a
great display of justice, and an appeal against a sen-
tence in full operation, Mr. O'CONNELL and his
friends will find themselves in the position in which
they were left by the fighting Irish Attorney-
General and the bigoted Irish Bench. What Sir
ROBERT PEEL may do is a question of futurity, and
of little importance. He may advise her MAJESTY to
remit the remainder of the sentences, to which her
MAJESTY was from the beginning opposed; but will
that conciliate the Irish, or compensate for any one of
the grievances of which they justly complain ? Air.
O'CoNNEIL will issue from his prison only to be more
worshipped.

On a dispassionate review of all the circumstances
connected with the so-called adjustment of the mis-

uulerstanding between France and England on the
Otahite question, we are compelled to admit that
we arc by no means satisfied vs ith the nature or the
amount of the concessions by the French Govern-
ment, to the demand we have made of satisfaction
for " a gross outrage," committed by its servants,
on the personal rights, and the public authority of a
British Consul. There is nothing in all the special

pleading of the French journals—nothing in the
laboured explanations contributed by some of our own
daily Contemporaries—that has yet explained away
either the brutality and insolence of the French
officers, or vindicated, from the impudent slight
which they have put upon it, the honour of our flag,
and the dignity of our SOVEREIGN, disparaged in
the imprisonment of her Consular Representative.
With all our ardent love of peace, we consider that
its blessings may be purchased on too exorbitan
terms ; and the worthlessness of the cause of guar
rcl—the remoteness of tie scene of action—the
sani-barbarism of the party whom we had inter-
fered to rescue from an unmanly and disgraceful
aggression—these are elements that do not at all ne-
cessarily extend into the consideration of a subsequent
affront to our national honour. The Morning Herald
finds no more striking anology to illustrate
its notion of the absurdity of England and France
being betrayed into a rupture about so worthless a
matter, than "two Patagonians, fighting for a sea-calf,
claiming each of them the belligerent support of
eit'ker power." Whether, in this lively figure, Queen
POMARE or Mr. Consul PRITCHARD is to be taken for
the type of a sea-calf, as many a profound writer is
every day for that of a land-calf, we do not under-
stand ; but it is a figure quite inapplicable, unless it
could be shown that the misunderstanding between
England and France are about the property or possess-
sion of Otaheite itself. Diplomatic functions and
relations might have been equally violated on the high
seas—in the Consular-office—at a public festival—
even in a public theatre. Is the Herald prepared to
say there has been no violation of them in Mr.
PRITCHARD's case ? Sir ROBERT PEEL has:declared
the conduct of the French authorities to have
amounted to a " gross outrage." Is the simple cen-
sure or suspension of D'AUBIGNT or BRUAT to be
taken as an acquittance in full for, first, the imprison-
meat, and secondly, the expulsion of Mr. PRITCHARD?
This facility on our part will vastly enisance the im-
portance and influence of our consular agents in times

to come !
But, perhaps France is disposed to make us amends
by signalizing her forbearance and respect in other
quarters. We have old-standing relations of amity
and good-will with the Emperor of MOROCCO. She
invades his territories from her Algerine frontier,
under the pretext of their having afforded an asylum
to a very gallant native chieftain, who had long suc-
cessfully resisted her occupation of Algeria, and se-
verely chastised the French forces which had pushed
far and wide their campaign of wanton desolation and
extirpation, by fire and sword, over an independent
country of Africa. That country France had so-
lemnly pledged herself, in the face of all Europe, not
to occupy. That pledge she subsequently falsified,
with a degree of political effrontery almost un-
matched in the history of her monarchy. Was the
Emperor of Morocco—still an independent SOVE-
REIGN—to refuse the asylum of his dominions to the
valiant ABD-Er..KADER ? The French insist on
satisfaction for his harbouring that chieftain, com-
plain that he is in communication with him, and de-
mand his expulsion from the empire. In the course
of the events which rapidly ensue on the occupation
of Ouchda, they bombard Tangiers, and inflict the
same punishment on Mogadore. With both Tangiers
and Mogadore we had commercial relations ; exten-
sive ones with the latter. The bombardment is
inflicted in the presence of a fractional representation
of the British navy, with circumstances of very sig-
nificant application ; and our fractional force, acting
under orders, looks idly on at these vain but destruc-
tive demonstrations of European artillery, on the
towns and fortresses of our African ally. Instantly
the press ofFrance—Monarchical, Republican, Move-
ment party, one and all—teems with insulting sarcasms
at our patient passiveness ; with fierce gasconades
about the coming hour of French naval su-
premacy, and undisguised clamours for a
war with England, on the avowed ground of
our weakness and deficiency in that naval arm which
was once the terror of the world. The National, in
its overboiling zeal, commits, to be sure, the ludi-
crous error of treating four of our newest and most
formidable line-of-battle ships, which have not yet
been out of harbour,' but are " advance ships and
for sea," as
ready " old bulks, formidable only
in the names of Trafalgar, Waterloo, Le Foudroy-
ant, Vengeance." But the ani • mus of all this is plain
enough. Our neighbours draw their own moral from
the unaccustomed and undignified spectacle our
Mediterranean unity squadron has lately presented.
Let us not imitate them by seeking g consolation in
vain words. Ridiculous as their vaunting may be,
there is too much of truth in their depreciating esti-
mate of our naval force. Not the Mediterranean or
Levant squadron alone, whether cruising in that sea,
or running down the -western or Atlantic coast of
Africa, but the whole of our efficient force of ships of
the line, in commission, are scandalously, dangerously,
, inexcusably reduced, apd utterly disproportionate to