The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-01 00:00:00

ebtningjitit

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1845.

The Lords met at Four o'clock.
The royal assent was given, by Commission, to seve-
ral Bills.
The Earl of BESBOROUGH drew the attention of their
Lordships to the evidence which had been given before
the Committee appointed to inquire into the petition al-
leging fraud against the promoters of the Dublin and
Galway Railway Bill, with a view to promoting a prose-
cution against one of the witnesses for perjury.
Lords CAMPBELL and COTTENBAM thought there
would be great difficulty in conducting the prosecution
to a satisfactory termination.
Lord MONTEAGLE and the LORD CHANCELLOR thought
the House ought to proceed against the individual, and
eventually, on the suggestion of the Earl of BESBOROUGH,
the matter was referred to a Select Committee.
The Merchant Seamen's Bill was committed pro forind.
In answer to a question from Lord BEAUMONT, the
Easl of ABERDEEN went into a lengthened statement
relative to the affairs of Greece. He admitted that the
present state of Greece was anything but tranquil and
orderly, but still the excesses said to have been-com-
mitted on the frontiers had been grossly exag.
gerated. Ile gave such advice to M. COLLETTI
as he thought prudent and useful, and he did not at
present feel called upon to interfere further. It was un-
true that the Greek Government had encouraged in-
cursions across the Turkish frontier, and the supposi-
tion that a bankrupt State like Greece anticipated going
to war with Turkey, was most absurd. It was also
untrue to say that the English interests had declined in
Greece. There were English, French, and Russian
parties in that country—the great misfortune was, that
there was no Greek party.
The Coal Trade of London Bill was read a second
time.
After a short discussion, in which the Marquis of
LONDONDERRY, the Earl of DALIIOUSIE, and the Marquis
of WESTMINSIER took part,
The Lunatics Bill was read a third time and passed.
The other Bills on the table were advanced a stage,
and the House adjourned.
The Commons met at Four.
A new writ was moved fur for Kirkcudbright, in the
room of Mr. MURRAY, deceased.
Mr. TUFNELL gave notice that Lord JOHN RUSSELL
would move for a return of the Bills which had passed
during the present Session.
The reports of the Committee on Ways and Means,
and of the Committee of Supply, were respectively
brought tip.
On the order of the day being read for bringing up
the report ou the Brazil Slave 'Trade Treaty Bill,
Mr. M. GIBSON said he oomidered the measure calcu-
lated to excite hostility and resentment ag..dnst this
country, and he wished to know whether any remon-
strances had been addressed by the Brazilian Govern-
ment to the British Government on the subject, and if
so, whether they would be communicated to the House.
Sir R. PEEL assured the Honourable Gentleman there
was nothing in the present treaty at variance with inter-
national law. It merely recognised a principle already
incorporated in previous treaties and acted on by other
nations.
After a few remarks from Mr. HUTT and Captain
PECHELL, the report was brought up and the Bill ordered
to be read a third time this day.
After several other measures had passed through
their respective stages, the CHANCELLOR of the Ex-
CHEQUER moved that an Address be presented to the
Crown, requesting the grant of 20,0004 in aid of the ,

sufferers by the late fires in Quebec. The motion was
affreed to, without opposition, and shortly afterwards
the [louse adjourned.

In four or rive papers on the " Oregon" questiol, we
have, from time to time, endeavoured to lay bt fore our
readers a general outline of the incidental points con-
nected with its principal bearings. On the last occasion
of our adverting to the same Yery important subject
we undertook to demonstrate the unsoundness and
futility of the title set up by the United States on every
one of the grounds upon which it had been asserted and
argued by Mr. GREENHOW—by far the ablest champion
which that title has yet found, and himself a salaried
servant of one of the civil departments of the American
Government. Want of room and the press of more
urgent matters have since combined to prevent
us from recurring to, or fulfilling our pledge.
But we read in The Journal (a Washington
paper, generally understood to be the official organ of
the President's party and opinions) the following pas-
sage ; and we find it so apropos for our purpose of refu-
tation, that we will, on the first occasion that offers to us,
take each of the several assumptions that we print below
in italics, and prove, by incontrovertible facts and docu-
ments, the absolute and utter falsehood of such assump-
tion. We may, then, feel disposed to inquire what must
be the condition of moral feeling among the readers and
supporters of a "Journal" which can wilfully propagate
such gross misstatements and deliberately attempt to
deceive and irritate the public mind of America into
hostile excitement upon them ? We must entreat our
readers not to lose sight of the grave and malicious of-
fence thus perpetrated, in the merriment which we may
be tempted to indulge in by the bombastic egotism of
this arbiter of the disputes of nations.

"As the property of the United States has been fully proved
and rightfully attached, bold must be the Executive, and Anti-
American must be that Cabinet officer who would draw, or
recommend the drawing, of the American Boundary Line
below the line of the Russian American Settlement (54 deg.
40 min.), and thereby give the British Government an out-
let, even, to the Western Ocean. From 42 deg. to 54 deg.
40 min. N. latitude, the United States by discovery, by occu-
pancy acknowledged on the art of Great Britain, by the
.p
French cession of 1803, and by the Spanish cession of 1819,
IT IS THE OWNER."

Some men, it is said, have greatness thrustupon them;
and of this class we presume that the present Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer—we have had, ere now, to
make the same remark of a Comptroller of the Exche-
quer—is one of the most astonishing individuals. He
fills—and not for the first time in his life—that exalted
and responsible office which has, ever since the Revela-
tion, been assumed to indicate the highest class of official
ability, financial knowledge, and general statesmanship.
His robe is a mantle which has clothed, in succession,
the shoulders of men who have rendered their names an
illus'rious bequest to posterity. Without distinction of
party, it has ever been one of the most honourable ele-
vations that an English gentleman could attain to in the
service of his country. To exemplify this fact would be
to name almost every great political leader who has
appeared in Parliament during that interval. Nor is
this sort of general rule marred by such occasional
exceptions as have been afterwards pitch-forked into the
House of Lords—in times past, and in our own espe-
cially—by titles which it might seem invidious here to
recapitulate. Whether or not Mr. GOULBURN is des-
tii.ed to increase the number of these anomalies we do
not purpose now to inquire. But we wish to show how
unworthy sentiments may be avowed in the House of
Commons, by so high an officer of the Crown, with
perfect impunity in the year 1845.
Mr. FIELDEN brought under the notice of the
QUEEN'S Ministers and of the House the vexatious,
unjust, and arbitrary usage which he had received under
the operation of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Income-tax Act.
The house in which he was himself a partner, FIELDEN,
Brothers, had been assessed for profits at the capricious
valuation or exactly 12,0001. a-year—not, for aught that
appears to the contrary, that the assumption might not
have been made with just as much probability, that
these profits were 8,2001., or 9,150 L, or 10,6701., or
11,7604, or 12,0001. a year. But the local " Commis-
sioners," or " Assessors," or by whatever other name
the people are called who do the dirty work of the Paul-
Pry machinery created under this odious and inquisito-
rial statute, preferred to take the amount of 12,0001. in
the fist instance—as a round number, we suppose. Mr.
FIELDEN and his partners protested and appealed against
this assessment of income, and offered to produce their
books to the Commissioners, and proceeded to show that
for the year over which the assessments demanded ex-
tended, they, so far from realising profits, had, in fact,
sustained large losses on the balance of the year's trans-
actions. Another notice was served, accompanied with
an intimation, in the usual Imperative style, that it must
be paid forthwith. Again•the Messrs. FIELDEN remon-
strated ; and what was the reply ? That they were im-
mediately served with notice of assessment, increased in
the proportion of exactly 100 per cent. ; that is to say,
on an assumed income of 24,000/. per annum. Very
arbitrary—very insolent, beyond all question—in the
officers, whoever they were, who presumed to try so un-
authorised and impertinent an experiment en the easi-
ness or the purse-strings of the Messrs. FIELDEN.
Doubtless there was the same excuse for this, as for the
original assessment—that 24,000/. was " a round
number." But there was even less defence to be
made for this second assessment ; and we do trust
that the Messrs. FIELDEN will not relax their ex-
ertions till they discover, and pursue to punish-
ment (if any punishment have been reserved by
our constitutional Premier for such an offence, al-
though we suspect the common law would not be slow to

deal with it as a conspiracy to defraud), the authors o
this gratuitous impertinence. Like most of those

over-a, alous and offewive subaltern authorities who are

called " Jacks in office," they grew alarmed the instant
they discovered that these gentlemen were in earnest in
their resolution to resist this unheard-of and most dis-
graceful attempt at extortion, and when Exchequer pro
ceases were issued against the firm, they were issued for
the assessment, lid on the 24,0001., but, strange to say,
for the original one on the 12,0001. Can any fact more
clearly demonstrate than this the arbitrary, despotic
system, on which the commissioners and surveyors fabri-
cate their assessments of income derived from profits on
trade ? And yet it is to these people that Sir ROBERT
PEEL has the serene assurance to refer the tax payers

for redress, forsooth, who may feel themselves aggrieved
by over assessments I It is almost as bad as constituting
a Board of Officials for the assessment and levy of a tax ;
pa) ing them by a per centage on the aggregate product
of that tax realised through their devices and exertions ;
and then intimating to the over-charged tax-payer that
he will always be secure of redress at the hands of the
same disinterested functionaries. The Exchequer pro-
cesses were enforced against the Messrs. FIELDER, they
still refused, on the principle of " no profits realised,"
to pay ; and chattels and goods, their property, were
taken and sold in execution by the QUEEN'S officers, to
the amount of the claim of the Crown. This is, shortly,
the grievance of which Mr. FIELDER complained in the
House of Commons. In replying to his speech, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer was betrayed into an ob •
nervation which we trust will not be lightly forgotten by
the British public. The difficulty in which Mr. FIEL-

DEN found himself, quoth Mr. Got:minim, " would not
have arisen, if the Hon. Gentleman had shown a hale less
of that 131itish viy tue which had led him to resist, with
more than ordinary firmness, what he considered an im-
proper intrusion into his private affairs."

This " sneer," as Mr. 11Awts well called it, at " Bri-

tish virtue," was uttered with singularly bad taste in
reference to Mr. FIELDEN, than whom a. man of higher
probity in private life, or of purer purpose in his public
career, is not to be teund within the walls cfif the House
of Commons. The architect of his own fortune, and
himself the centre and mover of an enormous amount of
industrial labour, in the very district which has wit-
nessed his gradual advance from the position of a simple
artisan to the head of one of those enormous private
establishments which are the wonder of their age and
country, Mr. FIELDEN has long acquired, and enjoys,
unclhillengtd, an enviable reputation for his kindness,
his charity, his liberality, and enterprise. To have "re-
sisted," as he has done, the assessment of the Income-
tax Commissioner, on the principle incorporated in words,
though not, it should seem, in spirit, into the very Act
of Parliament under which that assessment was made
out, and to have risked and suffered, too, so costly a
sacrifice of property as he has endured in contesting a
demand which, either in its original or its subsequent
shape—as charged on an income of 12,000/., or one of
24..0001.—must have been iniquitous and illegal—was,

indecd, a reach of " British virtue " such as an over-
pensi, fled official might challenge, in a tone of disparage-
ment the more sarcastic from the consciousness, perhaps;
of inability to imitate it. But is this "British virtue

expounded by him who reflects upon it even, as having
been elicited by " what the party considered an im-
proper intrusion into his private affairs "—is this con-
stitutional principle to be twitted and mocked at, in
that House of Commons which is to this day conse-
crati d by the memory of that HAMPDEN whose resist-
ance to tho payment of an illegal exaction for ship-money
was the first step taken in the great work of consolidating
the rights and liberties of Englishmen, in respect of the
limitations of their liability to taxation, on their present
broad and constitutional bases ? Let us hope that this
ill, timed sneer Hiil arouse, even at this late hour, the
Common, t.. a sense of their duty to their constituency-_
that it may teach them haw little they can be justified
in trusting to the pledges or the promises of a Govern-

ment particularly with .regard to: ale, duration of
so odious but productive an impost—one of whose chief
offiers can thus venture to ridicule a principle of action,
which our fathers not only recognised, but were prepared
at all times to vener.ite as " British virtue." We do not
permit ourselves to imagine for a moment that Mr.
FIELDER will be cajoled by the hollow and meanless
civilities of Sir ROBERT PEEL (who probably perceived
the slip which his "managing man" had made) into the
abandon= nt of that claim for redress which he is as-
suredly able to establish in this case ; or forego the satis-
faction of discovering on what principle his assessment
was raised from one upon 12.0001. to an ass,;ssinent on
24,000 L ; and again dropped from 24,000/. to 12,000/. ?

The Mad: id journals of the 24th and 25th have arrived.
The ileraldo advocates the marriage of the Infante Don
HENRY with the QUEEN, and states that a letter from Ma-
laga, of the 16th, mentioned the fact that a courier had ar-
rived there, with au order fur Don HENRY to repair imme-
diately to Bilboa.
The Glob() and the Tiempo both urge upon the Government
to follow the example of Brazil, and to retaliate on England
fur her exclusion of Spanish sugars, contrary to the just re-
clamations of the Duke of SOTOMAYOR.

Accoiding to the Castellano, the only object of the
QUEEN'BI journey to the Basque provinces is to meet the
Duke and Duchess of NEsioun.s.

El Clamor states positively that the Count of MONTE-
MOLIN, the son of Don Cant.os, had received passports for
Behobia, close to the Spanish frontier, and within a quarter
of an hour's walk of Irun.

According to El Espectador some modification was likely
to take place in the Ministry—tianvAEz, however, would
still remain at the head of affairs.
The QUEEN reached Saragossa on the 23d, and would re-
main there a week.

An extensive conspiracy has been discovered at Malaga,
according to La Esperanza, and several arrests bad taken
place in consequence. The conspiracy originated in the pro-
vincial regiment of Jaen, the officers of which wished to bring
about a Progressista pronunciamento.

The Three per Cents., on the 24th, closed at 29 for cash
and 29i at sixty days. The other securities were not quoted.
The 25th being the feast of St. Jago, the patron saint of
Spain, there was no Bourse on that day.

We have received the Paris Papers of Wednesday, that is
to say, the Debces, the Presse, and the Courrier Francois,
these being the only papers published on that morning, in
consequence of the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the
revolution of July the day before. These papers are filled
with descriptions of the concerts and balls, and fireworks and
illuminations, of the day before. Fortunately the evening
was fine, and the people therefore thoroughly enjoyed them-
selves. The KING was present at the concert monstre in
the Tuileries gard, ns. We are rejoiced to learn that he
looked "hearty and well."
The Presse, which on such a subject may be considered
as an authority, states that the object of the QUEEN'S visit
to the 13asque provinces is to endeavour to procure a settle-
ment of the much vexed question of the fueros, a question
which it states " may one day call forth grave discussions."

The Duke and Duchess DE NEMOURS were at Gueret on
the 27th, and set out the next day for Limoges. Through-
out their progress they have been received in the most en-
thusiastic manner.

Admiral Baron LA SussE is named inspector of the ships
of the line at Brest and Rochefort.

The Toulonnais quotes a report from Admiral TURPIN,
Commander of the French naval station in the Levant,
addressed to the .Minister of Marine, in which the Admiral
expresses his regret that the commercial interceurse be-
tween France and Patras, which is one of the most im
portant of the Greek ports, has been suffered to dwindle
away to perfect insignificance, while between seventy and
eighty British ships arrive and depart every year. Some
years back, the report says, the whole of the trade was
carried on in French bottoms.

The same paper contains the following news from Algiers,
to the 20th ult. :

" Affairs seem to have taken a serious turn in the east (of
Algeria). For some days past troops have been moving it.
that direction. Six battalions of infantry have embarked
for Dellvs. The cavalry and artillery proceed by land. The
brigade, under the command of General Gentil, had sonic
sharp work with the enemy on the 18th ; however.
they finally routed them ; but it appears that Ben-Kassem
bad caused it to be-announced in the interior that he had
gained the victory, and this had created great enthusiasm
among the Kabyle tribes of the mountains near Bougie. The
cause of the present move towards Dellys is owing to Ge-
neral Gentil's having informed the Governor that the enemy
had received considerable reinforcements, and that the in
surrection daily gained ground, and, consequently, that he
found the small brigade under his orders insufficient for
the protection of the allied tribes encamped before Dellvs. It
is generally believed that Abd• el-Kader bad promised Ben-
Kassem that lie would come into Kabylia, but the Kabyles
are too jealous of their independence voluntarily to take a
master, except in the case of urgent danger."
The Paris Bourse was again animated on Wednesday, the
Share market in particular. Fresh vigour appeared to have
been imparted to the speculations in those securities. The
improvements in the Funds are also somewhat important.
The Three per Cents. closed at 83f. 80c. ; the New Loan,
at 84f. 10c; the Five per Cents. at 121 f. 90c.; Orleans Rail-
road Shares, 1,235 f. ; Rouen, 1,0771. 50c ; Vierzon,
7871. 50e.; Havre, 9001.; Avignon, 1,0351. ; Basle, 270 f.;
Spanish Domestic Debt, 29k..
The following are the quotations for the new lines
Orleans and Bordeaux, WE 50c. prem.; Boulogne, 1401.
ditto ; Troyes and Montereau, 15f. ; Paris and Lyons
( Laftitte), 3:3f. 75c.; ditto (Calon),par; ditto (Ganneron),
GI.: 50e. ; Northern Line (Laffitte), 47E 50c. ; ditto (Rosamel),
1 If. 25c.; Tours and Nantes (Mackenzie), 13f. 75c. ; ditto
(Drouiltard), par; ditto (O'Neill), 2E 50e. ; ditto (Jacques
Lefevre), par ; Lyons and Avignon ( Lecointe), 20f. ;
ditto (Talabot), 361. 25c.; ditto (Cosnpagnie Meridionule),
61. ; Bordeaux and Toulouse (Mackenzie), par; ditto and
Cette (Espeleta), Bf. ; Creil and St. Quentin, par ; Paris
and Strasbourg (Ganneron), 131. 75c.; Dijon and Mulhouse,
par; Ditppe, 21f. 25c.

We are confident that our readers will peruse, with
much satisfaction, the speech of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, last night, in moving an address to her
Majesty praying her Majesty to recommend the appro-
priation, of the sum of 20,0001. to the relief of our
suffering fellow-cc untrymen—victims of the two dis
astrot4 cooff sgratlons that have recently desolatrd
Quebe. The terms of sympathy in which the Right
lion. Gentleman introduced the motion to the House,
and the unanimous affirmative with which his appeal
wa3 respondi d to, were honourable to all parties. We
sincerely trust that such an exhibition of condolence,
and so munificent a contribution to the private funds
already subscribed for the relief of this large body of
houseless, and homeless, and ruin,•d outcasts, will cement
the reciprocal affections of the colonists, and their com-
patriots of the mother country in indissoluble bonds of
good will and respect.