The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1844.

The Lords did not sit last evening.
In the Commons Mr. BRIGHT gave notice that he
would this day call the attention of Sir JAMES GRA-
IL-1u to the foLaration of a troop of yeomanry in the
district of Rochdale.
The order of the day for the second reading of Mr.
$ E'LLY'S Bill for appeals in criminal cases was post-
poned till Wednesday, when the Hon. Member would
take the sense of the House on the subject.
Mr. T. Dinscourm gave notice that on Tuesday
next he woul move for a Select Committee to inquiue
into that department of the Post-office called
the Secret-affice. Mr. DLSCOMBE deserves the
supple t anti gratitude of the public in his ,
praise-worthy endeavours to bring the Horne Secre-
tary to justices and put an end to the spy system.
We hear but one opinion on the subject. Every man,
and woman too, denounce a practice which gave
POUCDE such unenviable notoriety'', and which, we
trust, will not disgrace this free country.
Mr. S. o'l3ltrEN resumed the debate on the repeal
of the corn-Jaws; he directed his attacks chiefly
against the League, and protested against its narrow
selfish, and uraconstitutional policy.
Captain LAYARD, though he would prefer a small
fixed duty, supported the motion. Lord RENDIE-
811AM opposed it. A number of speakers followed,
bid we see few arguments adduced by them that re-
quire notice. The only important feature in the
debate was t'ae determination of the Government to
aditere, for the present, to the sliding scale.
The House divided, when the numbers were —For
the Motion, 1.24; against it, 328.
th.. other business was disposed of; and the House
idgotztabNi at a Quarter to Two.
The

ey,lt°---.r.i"-b•'.4 admissions of the Secretary of State
tarille-Ja°l2l6'33ltPartment touching the violation of
pint& letters passing through the General Post-

office, under the authority of his warrant to the Post.
master-General for that purpose, continue to form an
absorbing topic of public attention. We are glad that
this is so. If the British public did not feel indig-
nant at the exposures elicited by the motion of the
Hon. Member for Finsbury from the reluctant ac-
knowledgements of Sir JAMES GRAHAM, we should
blush for our countrymen. The sacredness of private
communications, contained in sealed letters, has been,
ever since the Revolution, a subject of gratulation
among all classes of Englishmen, jealous of their own
honour, and alive to the eminent reputation of this
country for the good faith and integrity of its admi-
nistrative departments. The dangerous and disgrace-
ful profligacy of the Revolutionary Government of
France was in nothing so execrable as in its matured
and wholesale system of letter-violation. From the
closing years of the reign of Louis XV. to those of
the Emperor NAPOLEON, this political felony had at-
tained the maximum of its extent, its insolence, and
its impunity. FoucuE, in these latter daysi—
the unprincipled and unscrupulous FOUCHE—
has survived the termination of his natural
career, only to live in the recollection of this
generation as " the " arch letter-opener, purloiner,
eaves-dropper—" the" official burglar of a bureau,
" the " seal-breaker, " the " spy upon the thoughts
and hearts of social existence in France. Hitherto
the crafty ex-Minister of the most nefarious Go-
vernment which had ever been spawned by political
convulsion and anarchy, occupied an individual, ex-
clusive, isolated, unapproached notoriety. In the
year 1844, Sir J. GRAHAM, the Home Secretary in
the constitution of a Tory Government, being minded
to have a " little go" of his own in the lottery of
" Eminent Living Statesmen," put in for a chance,
and drew—the enviable distinction of a case or two of
seal-breaking "a la FoucHE," with a warranty for
practising in these new arts of a British Minister,
under an obscure clause in a forgotten statute of Queen
ANNE. This clause, it seems, has been revived
by, and smuggled into, the labyrinth of clauses in
a " Consolidating" Act passed in the first year of her
present MAJESTY.
In the House of Lords, however, on Tuesday, the
Earl of RADNOR, not at all satisfied with the defence
attempted for Sir JAMES, on the enactments in
question, moved the Peers to address the Throne,
praying her MAJESTY to direct to be laid before
them the several warrants which had been issued
by that functionary, authorising any letters to be
opened at the General Post-office. Although the
Noble Earl subsequently withdrew his motion, it
led to an animated and very important discus-
sion, upon which we have a few words to offer.
Had the matter been pressed to a division and
affit med, it is evident that their Lordships would have
got at the solution of the important question, whether
more than one warrant was issued by the Home
Secretary in this instance—and what were the specific
letters such warrant or warrants authorised and re-
quired to be opened. Sir J. GRAHAM has hitherto
been doggedly silent as to the main points pressed in
the interrogatories addressed to him in the House of
Commons ; but he is abundantly credulous if he
suppose that that silence is not accurately understood
by the public. They put their own unhesitating con-
struction upon it, on the principle that "dum facet
clanzat." Lord it ADNOR, in propounding his motion,
after a very cursory allusion to the complaints of M.
MAZZINI and others, stated that he
" Was riot going into a consideration of the subject as to
whether the Secretary of State ought to have this power;
his own opinion led him to the conclusion that he ought not
—that it ought to be confined to cases in which the security of
the State or the safety of the person of the Sovereign re-
quired such an exercise of it. But it appeared that it had
been used for other purposes, as letters of foreigners had been
opened and their contents examined—a thing unheard of
before."

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