The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATUADAY, JULY 13, 1844.

In the House of Lords a conversation took place
on gambling at horse-races, in which allusion was
made to the unjustifiable attacks of some young Mem-
bers of the House of Commons, on the parties who
had been meet active in bringing forward the Gaming
Bill. The Duke of RICHMOND defended himself
against the charges, evidently with the approbation
of the House.

The Earl of RADNOR gave notice that on Monday
he a_liould move that a petition from Signor MAzzoir,
relatling to opening letters atthe Post-office, should be
referre..l to the Secret Committee.
In an% wer to a question relative to Indian affairs.
fioro the Marquis of CLANRICARDE, who made a
speech on • the 'occasion, the Earl of RIPON said
the report Oat 80,000 men were collected on the
Sutlej, was entirely without foundation. He knew
of no army in that quarter except the army of Sir C.
"NAPIER; and he could assure the Marquis of CLAN-
IIICARDE that neither the authorities in India nor at
borne had any wish to obtain an inch of territory in
the ,Punjau b.
The Noble Earl then moved the order of the day
for going into Committee on the Bank Charter Bill.
to give a summary of his speech—the
It is needless'
affair was settle: in the Commons.
The Bill passed 'llrough Committee.
TII6 Sudbury Disi?anchisement Bill was read a
second time, and the Mouse adjourned.
In the Commons, Mr. PLUMPTRE presented two
petitions for the better observance of the Lord's Day.
We believe these are the only petitions of the kind
presented this session. Mr. YLUMPTRE, without Sir
ANDREV AGNEW, is nobody.
Sir G. CLERK gave notice that on Friday- next he
should move the grant for Maynootk College.
In answer to a question from Mr_ M. GIBSON, re-
Wive to the new Brazilian tariff, Sir 11. PERI, said no
communication luid been received at the Foreign-
office on the subje Vt, but possibly on the arrival of

the next mail, he might be able to give a satisfactory

answer.
In answer to a question from Mr. S. WORTLEY,
Sir J. GRAHAM said he should be obliged to abandon
the County Courts Bill for this session.
The House then went into Committee on the re-
maining clauses of the Poor-law Amendment Bill.
Clauses up to 34 were gone through, and the
House resumed.
The Actions for Gaming Discontinuance Bill was
read a third time. Leave was given to bring in
several Bills, and, at a Quarter past One, the House
adjourned.

The case of WILLIAM BROMLEY, formerly a soli-
citor in Gray's Inn, and now a prisoner in some gaol,
is another instance of the reckless, profligate, and un-
feeling conduct of men, who, by some means obtain a
certain standing in society, and use it for the most
wicked purposes. The people of this country very
foolishly boast that they are the most honest people
in the world; that all our merchants are men of
strict integrity; that our solicitors would not conde-
scend to any dirty act, even for the mines of Peru;
and that our bankers may be trusted with untold gold :
every day brings out some new fact to prove
that, as regards honesty, we are far behind the Chi-
nese, and not even on a level with the Turks. With-
out adverting to FAUNTLEROY, and some other egre-
gious scamps of bygone days, it may be useful, in
order to correct this national vanity, to state, that in
no country in the world are such enormous rob-
beries committed by respectable men es in England.
Look at the robberies committed by respectable
merchants in passing their goods through the Custom-
house. Possibly the revenue,has been defrauded at least
a million a year for some time by these merchant's,
and the well-paid officers, who took a solemn oath to
perform their duty honestly. How many have been
engaged in these nefarious transactions we cannot
tell. A Commission was appointed to ascertain the
number, but unfortunately that Commission sits,
or rather sat, with closed doors, and their object
seems to be rather to screen their friends and the
delinquents than to serve their country. Can the
public, then, be surprised that men like WILLIAM
BROMLEY carry on a small trade of plunder ? SMITH,
who robbed the country of 300,0001., by forging Ex-
chequer bills, was banished, it is true ; but he was
made the scape-goat--he was the only victim caught,
because no means could be found for his escape, all
the rest—all those who neglected their duty, and
those, too, who connived at the most enormous robbe-
ries ever committed, walk about the streets at the
p-esent day, and would be sadly offended if
they were told that they are no better than
Frenchmen and Italians. This BROMLEY is the latest
character which stands forth to bear these delin-
quents company. He has robbed a few individuals
of at least 92,0001. One of these persons has been
obliged to apply for parish relief, and is now com-
pelled to enter a parish workhouse. Another, who
had trusted him with money to the amount of 8,0001.,
is compelled to sell her furniture to pay house-rent,
and will probably have no other resource than the
same asylum ; yet this respectable solicitor appears
only as an unfortunate bankrupt ! He has squan-
dered, or we would rather say, hoarded up, this
vast sum in some secure place, and after he
has " passed the Court," to use the legal phrase,
he will be a gentleman at large, while his mi-
serable victims are immured in workhouses.
What will the maligned nations of the Conti-
nent say of England, when they learn that the
most infamous arts are committed by persons in
what are called respectable classes, and that they
escape with little or no punishment, while a poor,
unfortunate peasant, who cannot find bread for his
children, is transported for stealing a penny-loaf.

We concluded our yesterday's notice of the debate
on the " Danish claims " by quoting the doctrine laid
down by the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, touch-
ing the distinctive character of the circumstances
under which their property ...lad been taken and confis-
cated by Denmark. This character, the Right Hon.
Gentleman contended, took this case out of that class
of claims for property confiscated by A foreign State,
in consequence of acts done by the British Govern-
ment, in which the law and the practice of Parliament
would grant compensation to the aggrieved owners.
It is clear, however, as Mr. CIIRISTIE stated, that, in
consequence of our preeeedings in the present ease,
"Denmark made reprisals, and seized the property of
British subjects, taking our merchant-ships in the
Baltic by way of reprisal," It is not less clear that
the distinction thus attempted to be drawn by the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, is one without a
difference" as to any justification it supplies for the
resistance of her MAJESTY'S Government to the
present motion. Mr. Hawes thus summarily dis-
posed of it :—" The Right honourable Gentleman has
added nothing whatever to the present subject.
He looks at the case on two grounds. He says,
the
.capture took place in time of war'; and Wither
that the law officers of the Crown have given several
opinions adverse to the claims. Let the House re-
collect that with whatever j_orce tine Right Hon. Gen-
tleman's arguments ,12ply to this third class of i
claimants, they apply with equal force to all former
claimants." That .s, to the two other sections of
Danish claimants with whom the Government has I
already settled, under the especial recommendation
of the House of Commons. Now this question. of
" war or no war" being common to the three classes
of D'anish claimants, has been disposed of by the act
of her MAJESTY'S Government in dealing with two of
them—and cannot be revived in order to repudiate
the.third. It does not appear to us worth while to
dwell more largely on the Right Hon. Gentleman's
legal refinemelts, albeit he attempted to establish
!hem on F.C.lne fancied analogy in the fact of the
Waterloo in 1815. That was fought
witboat our having made any declaration of war
against France in the period that had inter-.
vened since the peace of 1814 : yet who, the
CnaNcer..Loa of the Exeuzeuza triumphantly asked,
would deny that we were at war with France
when this great battle took place ? But the force of
this analogy was demolished by the Hon. Member for
Lambeth, in reply to it, referring to our late hostile
operations on the coast of China. " I will ask," said he,
" were we at war' with China ? We took towns
and ships there ; yet the navy have been refused all
prize money in that instance, because there was no
war.'—(" Hear, hear," from Sir C. NAPIER.)
Will the Right Honourable Gentleman condescend to
meet me on this ground? It is all very convenient
to the Treasury to say that in the China business
it was no war, but in the Danish business it was a
war. In both cases there are, doubtless, conflicting
declarations or opinions ; but it now suits the purpose
of Government to meet these honest claimants with
a pretence of this kind—thus inconsistent with their
own declarations." There are two additional circum-
stances carefully to be noted, as applicable to the pre-
sent class of claims, as well as to the two others,
which are no longer in question ; the first is, that our
captures of ships and stores from Denmark realised a
fund of upWards of 1,000,0001. sterling. If British
subjects, damnified by this extraordinary and
almost unprecedented act of aggression by our
Government, were not to be compensated, in
the intention of the English Ministers of that day,
for the loss of their property consequent on the " re-
prisals," or " the war" (the quibble matters not),
made upon us by the Danes in revenge for such ano-
malous hostilities, why were those prizes and stores
sold at all ? (Our captures, if we rightly remember,
consisted of some eighteen sail of the line, fifteen
frigates, six or seven brigs, and more than twenty gun-
boats, with an immense quantity of naval stores.) 2.
If it was not in the contemplation of our English admi-
nistration, within three years after the memorable ex-
pedition to Copenhagen, that the present, and all other
such rightful claimants should be indemnified for
such losses, what was the meaning of Mr. PER-
CEVAL'S announcement in 1810 (in giving ,Fertain
explanations in Parliament, that had been demanded
of him, as to this affair, and the subsequent measures
that had been adopted in relation to it), " that a sum
of money had, in the first instance, been set apart
for the satisfaction of those British merchants who
bad suffered by the way in which the war had broken
out," The ease put by Mr. CHRISTIE, in alluding to
this announcement, is irresistible. "If that sum was
thus set apart ,for such a purpose, I submit that there
is no body of claimants who come with stronger
arguments for compensation from the British Govern-
ment, than those whose goods were cos fiseated during
the time the war was being carried on." And, in
truth, let us add, the British Government have irre-
vocably affirmed the principle that the present claims

are binding upon them by what they have done, or
1 have been compelled to do, in reference to the other
classes of claimants.
But the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER affects
not only to have found a justification of the Govern-
ment's refusal to pay this legacy of their Tory prede-
cessors' precipitation, but a justification (still more
difficult) of the renegade voters on these very claims
for the apostacy with which, conformably to the politi-
cal ethics of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S highly honourable
Government, they now turn round upon the claim-
ants, and either desert, or act against them, after
having formerly supported them by their recorded
votes in the House of Commons. For this justifica-
tion he relies on the opinions of the law officers of
the Crown, which are all adverse to the claim-
ants. To be sure they are. In the little
world beyond Downing-street it is a notorious.
fact that you may get any opinion you
want from any counsel—if you have sagacity
enough to shape the case you submit to him accord-
ingly. But the Right Hon. Gentleman, with an
amusing simplicity, admits the apostacy, and actually
takes credit for it, of the parties who vote in the teeth of
their former avowals and convictions, since they have
ceased to be in opposition, or have taken office under
the present Government; because "they have now the
benefit of information which they could not get be-

fore," and " of course" their opinions are so much the
beLter founded. In the little world beyond Downing-
street, Mr. GouLnuaN, all your ingenuity will not
make this tergiversation pass for anything but what it
really is—a shocking sacrifice of conscientious
opinion to interested considerations of place or ex-
pediency. Since all the leading members of a Ca:
binet may be supposed to take their tone from the
Premier, we suppose we shall not err in assuming
that Sir ROBERT PEEL must have stood sponsor for
the lofty and dignified sentiment embodied in this
admonitory exhortation from Mr. GOULBORN to
Parliament :—" If you accede to it, you open a
door, not merely to the payment of this 235,0001.
but to all cases of a similar kind in future
wars." And, if the payments be justly due,
by reason of your own misconduct, or your
owa policy—no matter which—or that of your
predecessors in Government, why should they not
be made to righteous claimants ? Sir ROBERT thinks
that such questions are best disposed of by being left
to Governments, instead of Parliaments. What did

the Government of GEORGE IV. do with the money
realised by sales of Danish captures ? Will Sir
ROBERT object to ascertain how much of it, and
under what orders, was appropriated to [palace build-
ing, furnishing, and decorating? He will not tell
us ! Yet the claims of British subjects are as much
consecrated by 37 years of unsuccessful agitation, as
the menus plaisirs of a Sovereign by as many of
concealment. These are odd ideas of- honesty and
justice in a statesman. What are Mr. GOUL.-
EUAN'S opinions of the constitutional uses of a navy ?
That our ships of war should be exclusively devoted
to the transport, backwards and forwards, of Royal,
and Seren2, and Imperial visitors, or the attainment
of any given object of offensive warfare by
separate or combined operations on the coasts, or
against the fleets and harbours of an enemy
Certainly the protection of our vast and beneficial
commerce and mercantile marine would seem not to
enter into Mr. GouLnuures category of a fleet's occu-
pation or uses,:—" The Hon. Gentleman has said that
the claimants. in this case are entitled to compensation
because the British Government withdrew their fleet
from the Baltic at an early period, instead of leaving
it to protect British subjects. Why was such a thing
ever heard of, as that a British armament, stationed
in a sea like the Baltic for rarlike purposes, should

remain there exposed to all the dangers of such a
situation, in order to protect British ships, and that
if it did not remain, and any loss ensued, the
merchants should be entitled to compensation ?"
These horrors of such an ignoble appropriation of
naval service we could understand in some inferior
clerk at the Navy-office or: in the Admiralty, whose
technical notions they might reasonably outrage, but
in a Privy Councillor of the Sovereign in the first
commercial 'empire in the world they are ludicrous.
Passing over the manly speech of Col. Surriloar,
of which we must say that it was distinguished by a
spirit of justice, and an uncompromising vindication of
what he deemed to be the rights of a certain body of
his fellow-countrymen, which reflect upon him a
degree of honour not assailable by any suggestions
of personal or party dislikes ; we must next notice
the valuable 13 ,ssistance the claimants derived from the
consistent advocacy of Mr. HUME. His rapid review
of former debates and former votes on these claims

will be acceptable, we should think, to every reader
of the debate, excepting the little knot of " Jim-
Crow junipers," noticed in Mr. CHRISTIE'S muster-
roll of deserters, absentees, or new opponents.
Among these (proh puck/. I) were Lord.EmoT, Mr.
MILNES, Mr. E. TENNENT, Mr. PRINGLE, Captain
BOLDEUO, Sir F.-TRENcu, &c. On the prudential
argument of Sir R. PEEL and Mr. GOULBURN, we
beg to ask whether they intend to take a leaf
out 'of the book of certain Federal States,
on the other side of the Atlantic ? Do they call upon
the House to repudiate these claims in reference to
their amounting. to a quarter of a million—not to

their justice or equity—with a view of cancelling the
political guilt of such a measure by the merit of
supplying future Governments with a precedent
for similar repudiations under similar circum-
stances ? Sir ROBERT PEEL, however, we con-
dole with. He tumbled down in the middle of
a sentiment which was meant to be very
effective Sir C. NAPIER having complained of the
treatment our naval forces had received by being de-

nied prize money for their services in China, Sir
ROBERT got up one of his most plausible and in-
genuous gesticulations, in protesting that hg was sure
these gallant men would always acquit themselves
with honour, and not fail in their duty because of
their not being rewarded in the manner alluded to.
"I did not fay," interrupted Sir CHARLES, " that
the sailors would not do their duty. That they will.
always do. But I said, if they bad known you would
treat them in thi3 way, they would Da have en-

tered your service." Sir ROBERT made a feeble
but fruitless attempt to carry through his misunder-
standing. The Gallant Commodore would not let
him ; and so poor Sir ROBERT fell through his in-
tended " effect," protesting angrily against being
diverted (which he had not been) into a discussion
of the war in China on a question of Danish claims."
This was not his only peccadillo of the evening. .He-
raised a cry of "out of time" against the claimants.
On a former occasion, Lord MoNTEAome, we re-
member, beaten from all the grounds he had occu-
pied in resisting these claims, put this touching con-
sideration to the Legislature, as one which (judging
from his own impressions probably), must operate
conclusively against the case of the petitioners,
" Look at the amount. Why it is about 250,0001."
Well, too, we remember Lord BROUGHAM'S indig-
nant retort. " Was national justice to be done
or withheld, according to the tale and measure
of the claims upon it ?" But Sir ROBERT PaRL...-
improving even upon the lofty tone of Lord MONT..
EAGLE'S political morality—throws in a lapse of time
as an additional plea to excuse the defrauding these
claimants of their rights. " The real question," said
the Premier, "is—whether the House of Commons
shall vote a sum of upwards of a quarter of a
million on account of alleged captures upwards of 37
years since." The perfection of Ministerial justice,
then, it would seem, consists in closing the
doors of the public treasury on those who have suf-
fered vast losses, by no laches of their own, but by
the acts of the predecessors of her MAJESTY'S
Government or the Councils of the Crown—for
thirtyseven years consecutively against the entrea-
ties and reproaches of the creditors themselves, the re-
monstrances of the public, the recommendations of
the Parliknent, and the favourable consideration of the
Crown, as intirms.tc. 4 by the Crown itself; and then
turning round on the claimants with a dignified
sneer at the remote date of the wrongs en which they
claim compensation and redress !
We exhort the claimants- to a determined ,un flinch -
ing perseverance. The majority of four against the
motion is a legion in favour of the justice of their
claims. They must triumph : and they have had the
glory of compelling the present Government to record
their own want of generous policy and humanity by
the most humiliating victory a Government pyer
achieved !

Accounts from Madrid of the 4th inst. stata that
the Government have given orders for the march of
6,000 troops for Cadiz, where they are to embark for
Ceuta. A brigade of mountain artillery, con-