The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-22 00:00:00

CRITICAL STATE OF CUBA.

(From the Anti::Stavery Reporter.) -
The intelligence from Cuba, brought by the last
mail, is one of the deepest interest ; and, while it is
calculated, on the one hand, to awaken sympathy for
the suffering negroes, is not less calculated, on the
other, to inspire animating hopes of some salutary
change.
It appears that the alarm excited by the
two insurrections of the slaves in the neigh-
bourhood of Matanzas, in November last, has
induced a course of extreme severity, not only
towards the parties known to have been im-
plicated, but towards the negroes in general.
The Government and planters have made ex-
tensive and rigorous inquiries, with a view to ascer-
tain whether any concert existed among the slaves,
and, if so, to what'objects it was directed; and it is
said that a negress on one of the five sugar estates
which followed the movement of the Triumvirato (the
sugar estate on which the revolt commenced) has re-
vealed to her master what in the letters is called " a
dreadful plot." In consequence of this there have
been arrested a large number of negroes, together
with three white men, the latter of whom were put in
prison at Matanzas.
More than fifteen hundred slaves were summoned,
in order to witness the execution of sixteen of their
companions, with the view of inspiring terror ; but it
is stated that these men went to their death with such
an air of intrepidity and triumph, that the effect pro-
duced on the spectators was the opposite of that which
was intended. From this it has resulted that the
Government has refrained from further public execu-

tions, and has rather given the negroes over in a mass
to be punished by their masters at pleasure, and with
as little noise as possible. The consequence of such a
measure may well be imagined, and yet imagination
must fail to realise it. The resentment of the planters,
aggravated by their fears, is without bounds, and
murderous cruelties are practised without scruple on
every hand. Many slaves have already died under
the lash, and the whole island is said to be deluged
with blood.
The investigations of the Government have elicited
the fact that four or five large estates between Guines
and Melena had been implicated in the plot said to
have been discovered. From the uniform declarations
of the negroes, it appears that the opinion has spread
among them that they either are free or ought to be
so. Some are persuaded that the Queen of Spain has
sent out two cartas to the Governor, giving them their
freedom; some have been told that they are free, as
having been imported since 1820, and therefore con-
trary to the treaty with England ; and some have
arrived at the noble sentiment that they ought to be
free, because they are men as well as their masters.
No doubt can be entertained that the emancipation
of the slaves in the British islands has become the
primary source from which these ideas have ema-
nated ; and the prevalence of them among the slaves
in Cuba demonstrates at once the impossibility of pre-
venting their diffusion, and the impossibility likewise
of preventing their influence wherever they are dif-
fused. They are now permanent elements in the
condition of Cuba, of a far more serious kind than
have ever yet impregnated the community. Several
free negroes are reported to have been implicated in
the plot, and its object is said to have been known by
all the negroes in the country.
The destruction of so many slaves, while it must
inflict on the planters a heavy loss of property, must
at the same time greatly reduce the amount of labour
available for the cultivation of the estates, and on
this account it might be supposed that the de-
mand for fresh ones would be increased. The
alarm felt by the planters may, consequently, be
measured by the fact that they will not add to the
number of their slaves. In the midst of this excite-
ment the brig Palmyra has arrived from Africa with
-a cargo of slaves, belonging to the notorious Pedro
Blanco, to the number of eleven hundred and four,
and not one of them can find a purchaser. Five hun-
dred of them are in a baracoon near Havannah, where

they cannot be sold; and five hundred are distri-
buted among some of his friends, who are to have
their labour for their keep. In one word, consterna-
tion reigns in Cuba. Already a reduced crop of
sugar is anticipated, and the value of real property
is reduced almost to zero. The Captain-General
does not dare either to disseminate his troops or to
allow the organisation of local militias. He has con-
tented himself with purchasing several hundred iron
chains for the feet, and distributing them among the
plantations !
In their distress, the immediate and most urgent
cry of the planters is, " Stop the slave trade ; bring us
no more negroes !" But to this the Captain-General
will lend no ear. The petitions on this subject, of
which our readers have already heard, were got up
and presented to him by men of the first rank and in-
fluence, some of them nobles of Spain ; but he re-
ceived them with the most repulsive discourtesy. It
seems that a political feeling is artfully connected
with this subject ; and that the Government chooses
to suspect all who object to the slave trade of dis-
affection to Spain, and a desire after the political in-
dependence of Cuba. The real reason, however,
why even the present calamities cannot inter-
rupt the slave trade is, that it yields such immense
wealth to the functionaries who possess the govern-
ment, and who are largely bribed by half-a-dozen
desperate speculators to connive at its continuance.
Another circumstance indicates the infatuation of
the Government. Amidst the state of things we
have faintly described, the Court abandons itself en-
tirely to pleasure. Grand balls and splendid amuse-
ments are the order of the day. The city of Havannah
is represented as " mad with rejoicing," in order to
celebrate the arrival of the young Queen of Spain at
her majority !
And to crown this melancholy business with an
element almost too farcical for the connection in
which we are obliged to place it, the Government of
Spain has sent out a royal order, constituting five per-
sons into a Committee, to investigate the truth of the
allegations made by the English Government as to the
continuance of the slave trade, and " if existing (!), to
check it by suitable restrictions, not inimical to
commerce and agriculture." Of this Committee the
Captain-General is President; and the other parties
named are Don Joaquim Gomez, the Marquis de las
Delicias (well-known partisans of the slave trade),
Don Juan Montalue, the Count de Vervandina, Don
Rafael de Quesada, brother to the celebrated Genera,
Quesada, and the Marquis de Donadieu. No doubt
cthoeunßtroi British sIl
theseC o npsruolceaetd
ilolgasv atno
hish Gwillo v egr give
eangtood ac-

The Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Bill was read
respects ects
disturbedtol.
in
ne
htionlia:
a second time on Friday night in the House of Lords.
BARON HUMBOLDT.—The house and garden which
this distinguished man occupies at Berlin was some time back '
sold to a merchant, who, forthwith gave notice to his tenant
to quit. The banker, Joseph Medclssohn, having heard of
the circumstance, immediately set on foot a negotiation for
the re-purchase of the property, which he effected at a very
high nhoist
habits and associations, and that the house and garden
at his disposal so long as lie chose to occupy th werebhoighlittp;riasces.urle-Ide
hfoinirthisiNe•
em.—llledical
Gazette.
TIIE ARMY.—On Friday the Coldstream Guards
(2d Regiment), stationed at the Wellington
Barracks,'
St.
James's Park, commenced their cricket matches for the sea-
son on the ground attached to the establishment,
and to the
right of Buckingham Palace. The match, which excited
s
ome some interest, was viewed by a considerable
per-
sons. The field days for the seas number of
on have commenced under
the usual military arrangements,
preparatory to the grand
reviews, which' will shortly 'be..
announced-with-the esta-
bliahed formularies of the service,

I may say, in this borough, for succ,3ss, and one which can
admit of no doubt whatever of my eventual triumph should
any other candidate appear before the, day of election, I de-
sire to return you my sincere thanks for the kind manner in
which you have, in every quarter, received my pretensions.
" I go, therefore, to the nomination on Monday next with
unlimited feelings of gratitude and confidence—gratitude for
_ _

your obliging priimises of support, confidence that, should an
opponent drive us to a poll, those promises are sure to be
faithfully redeemed.—l am, gentlemen, your most obedient
and faithful servant, " BLANDFORD.

Woodstock, Apil 19.1844."

BANK OF ENGLAND CHARTER.

The time is drawing near when Sir Robert Peel
must break his protracted silence respecting the mea-
sures to be proposed to Parliament, in connection
with the approaching expiration of the Charter of the
Bank of England.

If the rules which the Prime Minister prescribes
for others could for a moment be supposed applicable
to himself, we might wonder that the declaration of
his intentions on a subject of such magnitude should
be so long deferred. He has recently, in une-
quivocal language, stated to the House of Com-
mons what he thinks of those who delay the dis-
cussion of important measures till the concluding
months of the session of Parliament. If the repre •
sentatives of Ireland pray for a few days longer to
confer with their countrymen on a proposition which
is to convert their national representation into an
engine for registering the edicts of the Orange
landed proprietary, he gives a grumbling acqui-
escence, but under protest, and with an express
stipulation that no one shall hold him respon-
sible for whatever may be the consequence
of such blameable procrastination. But it would
seem that in his judgment delay is an evil only when
it is to be employed in deliberation ; when his
purposes have been made known, he deems it im-
possible that the nation should require any length
of time for the consideration of them. But he in-
variably reserves the declaration of those purposes
to the latest possible moment. It is becoming
the practice of the Government to have only one of
its measures before the public at a time, withholding,
if possible, until that one is out of danger, or re-
jected, or withdrawn, all knowledge of those which
are to follow.
The Bank Charter question has not taken the
Government by surprise. Since the last renewal,
in 1833, it has been known to every one that this
year, if not sooner, would be the tinie to legislate on
the subject. Having ample time to prepare, Minis-
ters accordingly gave early note of preparation.
The settlement of the Currency was among the
promises in the Queen's Speech ; and, certainly,
those promises were neither so many nor so brilliant
as to account for any tardiness in determining
how they were to be fulfilled. If the Ministers had
not made up their mind, during the recess, what
measure they should submit to Parliament on this
subject, they must be incapable of making it up, on
reasonable grounds, at all ; and if they had, what
prevented them from at once introducing their Bill,
that its principles and provisions might have been
canvassed, by competent persons, during the ten
weeks and upwards that have since elapsed, and the
minds of Parliament and the public prepared for an
adequate discussion, before the month of June, when,
as Sir Robert Peel tells us, it becomes a question
what portion of the Government measures the Go-
vernment intends to abandon ?
Instead of this, Ministers have maintained that perfect
silence which they seem to regard as characteristic
of statesmanship ; and we do not believe that there
is one, even of their Parliamentary supporters,
who can surmise, on just ground, what their pro-
position will be. The time, however, is past when
Sir Robert Peel's silence was supposed, even by
his own party, to conceal some great mystery of
State craft. He profited by this delusion while he
could; but, like most of the presages on which he
subsisted while out of place, it did not survive a year
after his accession to office. Most persons are now
convinced that when he says nothing, he has nothing
very valuable to say ; that, as was formerly observed
of another political character, when he shakes his
head, there is nothing in it.
From the remarkable absence of interest, and
even of curiosity, which prevails in almost all quar-
ters concerning the promised measure—a state of
the public mind so unlike that which has so often
before been experienced on similar subjects—it
may be inferred that, in the opinion of the public,
Ministers are not likely to propose any material
alteration in what exists ; but will renew the Charter
of the Bank of England, on its present footing,
without extension, but also without curtailment, of
any of its exclusive privileges. This conjecture is
doubtless a very probable one. That a Minister will
do nothing at all, when not urged to action by some
powerful pressure, is generally a safe enough guess.
But still this is only. a presumption, and sometimes
fails. What a Minister will never voluntarily do, is
to move in any direction that conflicts with the inte-
rests on which he relies for support. But where
none of these interests are implicated, the habitual
disposition of official men to leave things alone
alternates, especially since the Reform Bill, with
a rather strong occasional inclination to signalise
themselves by meddling. One of the principal
effects of that memorable measure, and of the general
break-up of old ideas and associations which accom-
panied it, was to diffuse a notion much more widely
than ever before, that the business of a Government
was not to sit still and receive the taxes, but to
look out in all directions for all means which could
be discovered of conferring benefit on the community.
The demand for improvement, and the spirit of it,
have been in far more active operation upon the minds
of rulers in the last eight or ten years than formerly.
But as the circumstances which stimulated the desire

for improved legislation could not all at once confer
the capacity of it upon men who had been occupied
all their lives with any kind of objects and ideas
rather than those which would have qualified them
for such a function, they are apt to come to their new
task with minds rather ill prepared; and the very
men who, when their purpose is to maintain things
unaltered, hare at their fingers'-ends all the, common-
places deprecatory of "speculative changes," are often
found, when they think the mii
the :crudest and come for being
reformers, to be ready: dupes a
most superficial theories.
We confess that in the case which has led us into
this line of remark, our fears are chiefly of this
latter kind. The present system if it can be so galled,
of the currency is, doubtless, far from perfect, as is
implied in the fact, that it is a medley of several sys.
sems, founded on conflicting principles. But we be-
lieve that the amount of practical evil fairly attri-
butable to its defects has been enormously exaggerated
by most writers on the subject; while we con-
fidently affirm, that no theory which has been pro-
pounded for its improvement is sufficiently matured,
or has obtained that general sanction from the
opinion of those who are entitled to be considered
authorities, which would justify Parliament in
making any considerable changes on the faith of such
a theory. Yet we feel by no means certain that some
attempt of this naturelfth will. not, on the present occa-
sion, be made. is at nof strong direc-
tion of public sentimentere favour of such changes,
neither is there any strong disinclinationo to them
while,
such is the diversity of individual opinion on
the subject, and so much that is plausible may be said
in favour of almost every view, that scarcely any plan
could be proposed of which, if brought forward by
Government, it could be affirmed beforehand to be im
possible that a considerable section of the mercantile
public might be induced to give it their support.—
Chronicle.

The announced reduction of the number of her
Majesty's Yeomen of the Guard, from one humilred to fifty,
is, we hear, forthwith to take place, but no diminution of the
number in the corps of her Majesty's Hon. Corps of Gentle-
men-at -Arms, consisting of forty, at .present in contem-
plation. The pay of a gentleman-at-arms is, we believe, 70/.
per annum, and this of a -eontan of the guaal aboutrthe
same amount.-

Of the French party, one is ii country banker, and Presi-
dent of the Tribune of Commerce of his city—a court which
pronounces upon all suits and questions of a commercial na-
ture, and of which men only of the very first character for
integrity and intelligence are chosen to the presidency by
their fellow-citizens.
The second is a member of an ancient and wealthy family,
proprietors of extensive estates, large forests, and various
minerals—himself the chief partner amongst them, and the
manager, also of two of the largest iron works in central
France, in which none but the best and highest priced de-
scription of iron is produced. It will be readily seen that he
must almost of necessity, be a good man of business.
The English interests are most efficiently represented in
the person of Mr. William Mackenzie, of Liverpool, whose
well-known celebrity as the constructor of various extensive
canal and railway works in Great Britain, has been further
increased by the colossal works he has already executed, and
has now on hand in France. The firm of which he is the
head (Mackenzie and Brassey) constructed the whole of the
works on the Paris and Rouen Railway, amounting to up-
wards of 1,000,0001., and finished them within two years,
under considerable disadvantages from delays and obstruc-
tions to the more rapid progress which they would have
made. They have contracts for works now on the Rouen and
Havre line, to the extent of 600,000/. and upwards. They
have undertaken to construct the whole of the works on the
line from Lancaster to Carlisle, in conjunction with Mr. John
Stephenson, of Derby, another first-class contractor, both as
to capital and experience ; and they have, moreover, large
interests in manufacturing concerns in England and in
France.

The names of such representatives of a Company, com-
bining, as they all do, ample means with great practical
experience as men of business, and an intimate acquaintance
with all that relates to railways, cannot fail to inspire public
confidence in the soundness of'this undertaking. Indeed, the
large extent to which Mr. Mackenzie himself, and his
friends and connections, are known to be interested, is a
sufficient assurance upon that head. In good truth, under
the present system the least productive of the French lines
cannot be a bad investment ; but there are advantages pecu-
liar to this line which, we doubt not, will in due time be
brought under the notice of those interested.
We understand it is intended in this Company to have a
Committee of Management, composed at first of four, and
ultimately of six acting Directors, whe will reside at various
points on this line, and devote the whole of their time to the
daily superintendence of the affairs of the Company, subject
to the supreme control of the General Board. The Directors,
first ten, and ultimately sixteen in number, will be chosen in
equal proportions from amongst the largest and most eligible
shareholders, both in England and France.

PARLIAMENTARY DIVISIONS.

(From the Votes and Proceedings of the House Commons.)
FRIDAY, APRIL 19.
SUPPLY.—(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
MAJORITY—AYES, 65.

Motion made, and Question put, " That a sum net ex-
ceeding 13,5001., be granted to her Majesty, to defray the
charge of the Civil Establishment of St. Helena, and of Pen-.
sions and Allowances to the Civil and Military Officers of the
East India Company's late Establishment in that Island, to the
31st day of March, 1845 :" The Committee divided :
Allix, John Peter Forbes, William' Nichol', Sir John
Antrobus, Edmund Forman, T. Seaton O'Brien, A. S.
Arkwright, George Gaskell, J. M. Peel, Jonathan
Baird, William Gladstone, W. E. Plumptre, J. 11:
Baring, W. B. Gladstone, J. N. Pringle, A.
Bentinck, Lord 0 Godson, Richard Rashleigh, Wm.
Blakemore, R. Graham, Sir James Rous, Hon. Captain
Boklero, Henry G. Greenall, Peter Sanderson, R.
Borthwick, Peter Hardinge, Sir H. Somerset, Lord G.
Botfield, Beriah Harris, .A. J. Stanley, Lord: , •
Bruce, Lord Ernest Hayes, Sir E. Staunton, Sir d. T.
Chapman, Aaron Heathcote, Sir W. Stewart, John
Chelsea, Viscount Hodgson, Richard Sutton, Henry M.
Clerk, Sir George • Hope, Charles Trench, Sir F. W.
Clive, R. H. Hughes, W. B. Trevor, Hon. G. it,
Coote, Sir C. . Jermyn, Lord Trotter, John
Corry, Hon. Henry Kemble, Henry Wellesley,,Lord C.
Cripps, W. Knatchbull, Sir E. Wood, ColonelT.
DicKinson F. H. Lincoln, Eatl of Wyndham ColonelDougla=, Sir H. Lockhart, William Young, John
.....- ...

Douglas, Sir C. M'Neill, 'Duncan
East, James Buller Masterman, John SELLERS
Eliot, Lord Maynell, Captain Fremantle Sir I'.
Flower, Sir James Neville, Ralph Baring, H. B.

MINORITY-NOES, 23.

Agllonby, B. A. Gisborne, Thomas Plumridge, Captain
Aldan, William Hay, Sir A. L. Tancred. H. W
Baring. F. T. Heathcoat, J. Thornely, Thomas
Bowring, Dr. Heron, Sir IL Warburton' H.
Brotherton, J. Horsman, Edward Yorke, H. Redhead
Browne, W. Marsland. H.
Busfeild, W. Napier, Sir Charles TP.LLERB.
Duncan, George O'Conor Don Hume, J.
Forster, Matthew O'Ferrall, R. M. Williams, W.
•

Motion made, and Question proposed, " That a sum not ex.
ceeding 7,5651. be granted to her Majesty, to defray the charge
of the Colony of New Zealand, to the 31st day of Marsth,
1845 :"—Whereupon, Motion made, and Question put, " That
a sues not exceeding 6,9651. be granted to her Majesty, to
defray the charge of the Colony of New Zealand, to the 31st
day of March, 1845 :" The Committee divided :

MINORITY—AYES, 19.
Berkeley, Hen. G. F Hawes, B. Wakley, Thomas
Bewring, Dr. Hindley, Charles Warburton, Henry
Brotherton, J. Marsland, H. Williams, W.
Evans, William Napier, Sir Charles
Gibson, T. M. Plumridge, Captain TELLERS.
GisborneAThomas Smith,lVernon Hume, Joseph
Gill, Thomas Stock, Sergeant Roebuck, J. A.
Hatton Captain Talbot, C. M. H.