The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-04 00:00:00

BOW-STREET.

George Smith, a twopenny post letter carrier, was
placed at the bar before Mr. Twyford, charged with
stealing a it tter containing 10s. 6d., the property of the
Postmaster-General.
Mr. Phillips, chief clerk to Mr. Peacock, conducted
the case for the Post-office.
The first witness was Mr. G. Sculthorpe, who stated
that he was a president of letter carriers in the General
Post-office. In consequence of numerous complaints of
the loss of money-letters on the Kingsland road beat, he
on Friday marked half a sovereign and' a sixpence, which
he inclosed in a letter, and addressed to Mrs. William-
son, Kingsland-crescent, Kingsland-road. He put it
into the post in Cheapside, and in due course of time it
arrived at the chief office, where he again saw it. It was
stamped and forwarded to the Shoreditch branch ameng
other letters, preparatory to Its delivery. Witness
shortly after went to that office, and met the pri-
soner coming out with his letters for delivery.
hi consequence of some conversation witness had
with the superintendent of the office, the prisoner was
soon after recalkel and requested to
show his letters.
He, in reply to a question whether he had any more let-
ters, replied only a few he had tried to deliver, but could
not find the persons to whim they were addressed. He
produced them, and among them witness found the let-
ter he was in search of, addressed to Mrs. Williamson.
The prisoner was then taken to the Post• office in custody.
Mr. Walker, superintendent of the Shoreditch branch,
proved that on Friday he received the letter in question
among others for the delivery at one o'clock. The pri-

soner IN as on duty at the time, and witness gave him the
letters to sort for the various beats. His own (pri3oner'&)
beat or walk was the Spitalfields beat. After they Nv
duly sorted the prisoner set out to deliver his packet,.
but was called back immediately, and witness saw the
letter produced taken from him by Mr. Sculthorpe. lie
had no right with it in his possession, as it was not in
his delivery.
Mathew Peake, the constable, proved taking the pri-
soner into custody. He said nothing about the charge.
The prisoner, who declined making any defei;ce, was
ordered to be committed for trial.
There was another charge against him of mi,:de-
meanour in detaining numerous letters which ought to
have been delivered.
Mr. Welcome Cole, a president of the General Post-
office, proved that after the prisoner was in custody, ht
went to his lodgings in Waterloo-town, and found twelve-
letters, all of which ought to have been delivered on
Thursday last. The prisoner, on being asked about
them, said he could not find the persons to whom they
were addressed. Witness had, however, since delivered
them all himself. _ .

The prisoner said in his defence he had left them at
home by mistake.

On this charge ho was remanded for a week.

HON.

RICHARD RUSH ON
OREGON.
(From the New York Tribune).
Mr. Rush has done the public a timely service in this
publication. A 'part of it, indeed, is rather agrveable
than important—accounts of great men visited, good din-
ners eaten, &c., while there is evinced throughout an
anxious desire and study to exhibit the author in a fa-
vourable light, as a vigilant, sagacious, and devoted
champion of his country's rights and interests. Natural
as this is, we think it might have been effected less ob-
trusively. Yet the book is a good one for all times, and
especially for this time. Mr. Rush was long on terms of'
intimacy and mutual regard with many of the great men
of the last generation—among them, with Castlereagh,
Canning, Wellington, and their compatriots, who had
just carried Enp.land triumphantly through the mightiest
struggle in which any nation had ever been engaged.
Mr. Rush shows that the Tory ministry of the day was
ardently desirous of preserving and increasing friendly
relations between their country and ours, and that on
one Occasion (the hanging of Arbuthnot and Amb.:ister
by Gencral Jackson), when the ministry opposed and
defeated a motion by the Marquis of Lansdowne, look-
ing to belligerent action on the subject, Lord Castlereagh
privately assured him (Mr. it) that, such was the tem
per of parliament and such the feeling of the country,
that war might have been produced by holding up a
finger, and he thought an address to the Crown recom-
mending one might have been carriud by nearly a unani.
mous vote.

An 1 now of Oregon. Five years had passed, and with
them Lord Castlereagh, to whose place us Secretary to
Foreign Affairs George Canning had succeeded. Mr.
Rush had instructions from our administration (Mr.
Monroe's) to press the se, dement of a several open
questions, among them that of our boon lary westward
of thy: Rocky Mountains. Mr. Canning invited him to
a personal interview, expressly on thl subject. Mr.
Rush went at the appointed time, and f uad Mr. Canning
confined to his befit by an attack of the gout, but still
ready and anxious to proceed to business. lie desired
first to be put in possession of the American claim, and
the grounds on which it was based. Mr. lite=h (having
been five years minister at London, and fully instructed
on the subject by our Government) stated our claim, and
traced on a map of America, laid on the bed, the
boundary we required. Mr. Canning, barely able to
follow the delineation, only remarked that " our claim
seemed much beyond any that England had anticipated."
Mr. Rush answered that he hoped to be able to show a
good foundation for it. After some further but general
conversation, Mr. Rush took leave, having at Mr. Can-
ning's request submitted " a brief informal statement or
memorandum of our claim in writing." Mr. Canning
sent a similar note in the evening, expressing surprise
at that portion of Mr. Rush's memorandum which
suggested an interdict of British settlements on the
coast north of 55 deg., which led to explanations; but
all this is immaterial. Our business is here with the
main question.
Now, will not our people who have been told in the
resolutions of reckless, shameless party caucuses, that
" our right to the whole of Oregon [that is, to 54 dem.
40 min, north] is clear and unquestionable," be astonishedr
to hear that we did not even claim so far, by 200 miles,
twenty years ago ? Yet such is the solemn, officially
demonstrated fact. Mr. Rush was not asked to propose
a compromise, or to say how little we would take. He
was asked to set forth familiarly the extent of our claim
to territory west of the Rocky Mountains, and he (act-
ing under ample instructions from Mr. Monroe's Cabi-
net) only claimed to the 51st degree of north latitude.
When the negotiation was opened, lie came down to the
49th degree, but even this was deemed inadmissible by
the British Ministry, who proposed the middle of the
Columbia river as the boundary, the navigation of said
river to be at all times free and open to both parties.
This was in turn rejected on our part, and finally (1827)
Great Britain offered to concede in addition a small de-
tached district on the Strait of Fuca, so as to give us a
good harbour on the Pacific, there being no harbours
deemed safe sad easy of access for large vessels, either
at the mouth of Columbia, or in Oregon south of it.
This is the nearest approach to an agreement which has
yet been made. The tract really iu dispute, lying be-
tween lat. 49 deg. and the Columbia river, has very little
intrinsic value, but the navigation of the river is a mat-
ter of prospective importance. Such is substantially the
case as it stands. _ . .

vv
Now we-ask V every candid, intelligent being, in view
of these undeniable facts, to judge whether the asser-
tion that "our right to the whole of Oregon is clear and
unquestionable " is not a flagitious, monstrous false-
hood ? If there had been a colour of truth to sustain
it, would our Government have commenced the negotia-
tion by claiming only to 51 deg., and from this have
'speedily offered to compromise at 49 deg. ?
In one case, indeed, in reply to remonstrances against
Mr. Monroe's famous declaration that this continent
was to be regarded as no more subject to European co-
lonisation, Mr. Rush intimated (as we find in his report
to his own Government) that our claims extended as
far north as the 60th degree, but we find nothing an-
swering to this in the pretensions which astonished Mr.
Canning. On the other hand, Mr. Canning very forcibly
urged, in resisting our claim up to the 51st degree, that
Great Britain had been obliged to resist this very claim
of exclusive jurisdiction when preferred by Spain her-
self, and attempted to be enforced against Meares at
Nootka. Having thus resisted and compelled a relin-
quishment of this claim when set up by its original
author, she could not recede from the ground then•esta-
blished and admitted at the demand of a purchaser or
legatee. And it is deserving of remark that this Nootka
treaty of 1790 was first appealed to as evidence by Mr.
Rush on our part—not proffered on that of Great Bri-
tain. But neither party dreamed of questioning the
validity, subsisting and active, of that treaty or conven-
tion. Both sides clearly regarded it as we have ever
regarded it, and as all who consider the nature of that
treaty and the acknowledged principles of the law of
nations, must regard it. The contrary assumption affords
a striking evidence that " Necessity is the mother of in-
vention."

And now consider under what circumstances our Go-
vernment is urged to take military and formal posses-
sion of the whole territory, including many British
trading posts of 10 to 30 years' standing. We com-
menced by claiming 51 deg., offered to be satisfied with
49 deg., were refused that, and are now urged to take
the whole at one dash, without negotiation or compro-
mise, and, it was even urged, without giving the year's
notice which we have solemnly stipulated by treaty.
Would not any formal taking possession of Oregon,
without the year's notice, be a flagrant violation of
national faith ? Would not the taking forcible posses-
-sion of all Oregon, after having formally offered to be
colltent with halt of it, be an act of the clearest aggres-
sion arid hostility, sure to be resisted as such ? To' these
questions there can be but one honest, intelligent answer.
He who urges our Government to take possession of all
Oregon urges the commencement of a distant, expensive,
and bloody war, with one of the great powers of the
earth, for so much of that territory as lies north of the
Columbia River. Now, if the American people choose to
begin such a war, they will do it ; but they shall not be
led into it blindfold

We do not doubt that it is profitable rather to hurrah
our people on to unjustifiable and unfounded pretensions
than to undeceive and warn them. Let a stranger come
along, telling each family that a great estate had just
fallen to it by inheritance, and he would be welcomed
and feasted though his news might be doubted ; but he
who came after to disabuse the general credulity would
hardly be thanked, even though he could not be dis-
believed. Thus, we have just received two papers, the
Ohio Stitesman and the Buffalo Pilot, which repeat the
parrot slang about " taking the British side," &C.,
without offering one particle of evidence to invalidate
our positions. The Pilot is mean-et:mgb to talk of our
"mental vassalage to ,English teaching and opinions,"
our "contracted° i
trade views from the importing atmo-
sphere you breathe,"
rethe subservient r ne, antdo
volent, is not ignorant that the importing interest. has
&c. The editor,. however male-
that interest, are all hot for taking Oregon.
ntheavterthe journals
oorfbLenr city,uPl"wrfrhidch*a'
And the Ohio Statesmen says, we "show the cloven
foot" in the ground we take on this question, and that
"since the first organisation of this Government, in all
its difficukies with foreign nations, Federalism has shown
its consistency_ by invariably taking sides against the
United States."
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sta vwoepi
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sle,dratih iee a
France
course
rlsceig
9cht
8)
f:9oi,tu
r; was Government
uot t be Federal
ia
our
neither was it the
party the Statesman calls Federal which took the part
of Great Britain in the West India trade contr3versy of
1826-7. How was this, Statesman ? But for our part,
we hold it the part of a good citizen first, to keep his
country in the right, and warn her when demagogues
would put her in the wrong to subserve their own selfish
ends. This duty we shall fearlessly discharge, at what-
ever cost. We stand for justice and peace ; whoever
would tempt our country to do wrong is her deadliest
enemy, though thoughtless millions huzza at his keels.
Success in wrong is a guilty and illusive triumph, sure
to result in direct calamities. \Voc to that people which
dreams of aggrandizing itself by encroaching on and de-
spoiling others.

FATAL ACCIDENT.—It is our very painful duty
this week to record the accidental death of the youngest son
of S. C. Whitbread, Esq., aged six years. It appeared that on
Thursday morning last some men were employed to cut down a
fir tree near Mr. Whitbread's villa at. Cardington; the child
was near the spot at the time, and the tree unfortunately fell, in
the direction in which he stood, and struck him on the head..
Surgical assistance was immediately obtained,; when it was
discovered that the child's skull was most dangerously frac-
turrd, and the opinion formed at ()Übe that the result.muSt
be fatal. This prognostication unhappily proved too accurate,
for, notwithstanding all the appliances which skill or affottiou
could suggest, the boy died on Friday from the injuries he lta~
received.-11ettOrd ,Reformer.

MEETING OF THE PROPRIETORS

OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

On Satur.lay there was a general assembly, in the
saloon of Drury-lane Theatre, of the company of Pro-
prietbrs, for the purpose of receiving the annual state-
ment of the accounts from the Committee, to elect an
auditor for the ensuing year, and to elect six members
of the general committee, in the room of six gentlemen
who go cut by rotation.
The meeting was but thinly attended.
Mr. BOND CADDELL presided, and expressed the deep
regret he, as well as the other members of the committee
felt at the continued indisposition of the Noble Earl
(Ghligall), who had so often occupied the position the
meeting had just done him the honour of appointing him
to. The Noble Earl, he found, was still detained in Ire-
land by illness, or he would, as heretofore, been present
on that occasion.—(Hear.) He would now call on the
secretary to read the report.
Mr. DuNN then proceeded to read the following