The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-31 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1844.

The apathy with which the destruction of the
Spanish Constitution is viewed by the people of this
country, forms a new feature in the history of free
States. When the Duke D'ANGOULEME, at the head
of French troops, marched into the Peninsula to put
down another Constitution, and to take under his pro-
tection the beloved FERDIN AND, who, on the approach
of his royal cousin, was amusing himself in flying
kites from the roof of the Custom-house at Cadiz,
there was a general outcry against this interference
with the affairs of a neighbouring State. English-
men took some interest in the event, and to the last
entertained hopes that such a wanton act of aggres-
sion would rouse the people in defence of their coun-
try. A similar feeling prevailed when, in 1826,
British troops were dispatched to Lisbon to
Protect the new-born Constitution. All wished
the Portuguese Liberals success, and rejoiced
when Don ItliotrEt's troops were driven across
the Tras-os-Montes. A wondrous change has
taken place since. The destruction of the Constitu-
tions of both countries is regarded as a matter of
perfect indifference, and the hosts of Spanish refugees,
loaded with money, and openly let loose by the
French Government—an act of aggression more
atrocious, because less open and candid than that of
the Duke D'ANGOULEME—attracted no more notice in
England than the ordinary passage of smuggling
hordes across the Pyrenees. This arises from no
want of sympathy on the part of Englishmen. They
have still the same veneration for free institutions, for
municipal government, and a Parliament consisting
of three states, more or less under the control of
each other,. and would gladly see the same bless-
ings. enjoyed by all their neighbours • but they have
given up Spain and Portugal in despair, 'and apparently
have come to the conclusion thaabt, in
fthes.ed.ays at
least Southern States are incapable
outbreaks
the
blessings of liberty. constant
tsho.f the
people in the principal Provincial towns, and
the
Centraleir
re-
peated attempts, often successful, to se'
Government at defiance, were bad omens for the pro-
gress of freedom, but even these were nothing com-
pared with the want of principle in every leading
statesman without exeiTti n, the desertion of offi-
cers of high rank from their own party to that of
the enemy, the total incapacity for business evinced

by their senators and representatives, and the end-
less factions and intrigues which ( very year
were concocted, as if for the very purpose of
proving that Spaniards had no real conception either
of liberty or patriotism, and that they could be kept
down only by the iron hand of thspotism. These are
the real causes of the apathy of Englishmen, and
many years will elapse before the words " Spanish
patriots," " Spanish liberty," and " Spanish credit," be
even mentioned in England but with contempt and de-
rision. In all the phases of constitutional as well as des-
potic government, one deplorable proof of debasement
stood out pre-eminent, a fixed determination to skulk
from the payment of just debts. Money borrowed
under one regime was disowned by the next, and even
during the brief period of constitutional government,
no rational plan for meeting the claims of public creditors
was ever seriously entertained. Schemes in abund •
ante were hatched, promises of the most flattering
description were held out, and every now and then
some celebrated financier or money-jobber, and occa-
sionally a Spanish grandee, the richest of course in all
Spain, were announced as on their way to Engl and to do
justice at last to the public creditor and restore
Spanish finances to a flourishing condition. Eng-
lishmen, however, were not to be taken in a tenth
time; they justly regarded these schemes as swindling
tricks, sanctioned, too, by the Government, and they
have at last rather generally come to the conclusion,
that on the other side of the Pyrenees, promises, pa-
triotism, and public faith, are words without meaning.

We find, in the last files of American papers
which have reached us, very intelligible indications
of a desire, on the part of some of their conductors
and correspondents, to get up an Anti-English ex-
citement—in humble imitation of that which has
been cultivated with so much success in Paris, and in
other of the prime cities of the departments of
France. The American article, however, is a clumsy
and ill-devised affair. Its spurious metal and coarse
workmanship are developed on the surface. There is
no glitter and finish about it, to make it pass, almost,
for the gold of truth itself—like the clever Parisian
counterfeits stamped "English perfidy" and " aggres-
sion," with the details so minutely and circumstan-
tially made out that they stagger the most deter-
mined incredulity. The mint of a petty, vindictive
jealousy, a morbid and quarrelsome envy, is alone
apparent on the face of the American fabrications,
unqualified by the astute and masterly suggestions of
craisemblance which the hand of the French " de-
signer" so skilfully introduces into his work. Ye
have, in the Jornal do Comercio (of Rio Janeiro),
I details of an affair, in which the skipper of the brig
Cyrus, of New Orleans, describes himself as having
been overhauled, off Cabinda, by her AlAJEsry's brig
of war the Alert, on a suspicion, which the skipper's
own account tends to show had every probability
which appearances and his conduct could give it, of
r the Cyrus being, in some way or other, connected
with a slave-trading venture. The course which this
transaction took, according to the master of the
Yankee craft (whose account only is, as yet, before
us), was this :—On Captain BosaNeuEr, of the
Alert, insisting on coming on board—the skipper
(Dumas) tried to intimidate him by a little small
shot of the jus gentium kind—be rowed that "a
protest should be made for the captain's violation of
the treaty !" The captain, very properly, persevered,
went down the hold, and finding " nothing but water
ballast" (a suspicious preparation enough for a slaving
cruize), desired to see Dumas's papers. DUMAS,
after some expressions of personal impertinence to the
British officer, refused to produce them, and made a
speech very much after the style of some Pau.
JoNEs in a melodramatic spectacle at A STLEY'S.
Captain BOSANQUET, taking no heed of this balder-
dash, said he must now go into the cabin and make
further search ; and that he believed the Cyrus had
been sold. Hereupon Dumas (who must certainly
have dabbled in small theatricals) got up a tableau
vivant after this fashion :—"lmmediately I placed the
American flag before the cabin door, which was held
tight by myself, the mate, and two of my men ; ani
I observed to him that he could not step into the
cabin without trampling on the United States flag."
(T. P. CooKE could not have done the thing more
handily.) "The answer was, It made no difference
to him ; and he rushed into the cabin, followed by
his officer and a negro, who trampled the flag under
their feet, in presence of my crew." (The negro is
t capital hit, in an appeal to a Yankee public in a
Southern State.) " Then I said, Boys ! our flag is
insulted. It will cost dear to the English na-
don.' " (! !) The three seditious tailors who hung
)ut in Tooley-street a brown paper placard, com-
mencing, " We, the people of England," and signed
it with their own signatures, were modest and rea-
sonable men compared to this " awful smart" skipper,
who thus devotes the whole English nation to the
vengeance of the United States, fur the disrespect
shown to his little bit of stage property and decora-
dons, so uncivilly treated after the manner he had
himself challenged. A demand for his log-book is
met, in a like vein of ranting bombast—but the

sequel is rich. The skipper and his crew had seen
-he British officer, his mate, and one negro, go down
the hold—in spite of their protest and D umas's
foolery—and overhaul and return. But now--the
Yankee boys fall back, on the skipper's desiring them
to stand to their arms—" handspikes and knives"—
Ind the captain of her MAJESTY'S ship Alert turned
pale 00, and, with the voice of a coward (!), said,
Stop your men. I don't want to see any bloodshed
1r butchery !" Whether Captain BOSANQUET, with
that humanity so constantly allied to the calm, but
intrepid, courage of our service, did make any ob-

nervation with a view to avert the inevitable destruc-
-ion in which the men must have involved themselves

by more active resistance, or whether this speech so
attributed to him be matter of pure invention, we
need not inquire. The deliberate and palpable false-
hood of the noisy ruffian who tells this impudent

story, has probably been an after-thought, to resent
some personal chastisement administered—or some
contemptuous notice taken, and exposure, of his in-
solence, by Captain BOSANQUET. The latter taking
away his papers, maugre all the death-and-glory
vaunting of the redoubtable JONATHAN DUMAS (who

had just before sworn to die, in that event, " with the
ensign-halliards in his hands," the New Orleans
skipper bethought him of a " tarnal 'cute" move, to
found a grand claim on the English Government for

compensation, to a tune which all the ventures of the
Cyrus would never have come up to. So, he says,
" Thereupon me and my crew abandoned her, leaving
everything on board—trunks, chronometer, instru-
ments," &c. Now, the pendant to all this is amusing
enough, "if true," as they say in the States ; for
another account adds—" The Cyrus had been sold to
some Portuguese traders, who, immediately after the
•kipper and crew had quitted, filled her with slaves."
How very remarkable a coincidence that the Cyrus
should have had, when boarded by Captain BOSAN-.
QUET, "nothing but water ballast in her ;—no-
thing else !" Was the water intended for the slaves ?
Or were the slaves procured to consume the water ?
From an amusing article in the Boston Daily
Times, with the taking heading capitals of " One
Thousand Mexican Tents Manufactured in Boston,"
we learn, that in consequence of a statement made
by that journal, in September last, "that a mercantile
house in Boston had contracted to supply this number
of tents to the Mexican Government within 30 days,
and that the contract was understood to have been
made through British agency ;"—a real State func-
tionary—a Mr. DEXTER, "United States District At-

torney"—had written a most affable letter to the
Boston Daily Times, begging to be favoured, on the
part of the Secretary of State, with any evidence that
could be furnished to prove this fact. The editor,
with much self-complacency and solemnity, does ac-
cordingly deliver himself of hii information, from
whence it results that the house referred to was
that of GREELY and GUILD, of Boston ;—the vessel
that carried off the tents, the Ramon de Baldo;—and
the instrument of payment was a draft on the great
house of BARING, BROTHERS, and Co., in this country.
" The whole case is one," writes the Boston Times,
" which reflects no honour upon the ' liberal' institu-
tions of our country. We should like to know 'by
what right' Mexico or England fits out munitions of
war in our city, and manufactures and exports in our
very midst the means of defeating the gallant little
republic of Texas, which is striving to maintain its
national independence against the despotic Govern-
ment of Mexico and the insidious and grasping
power of England?" This is really pretty wellfor the Boston
D
no impropriety in theaily Times, which could see
cannon, and other ordnance
andateadratmraunnsiptoiornt, of arms,
tibie