The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-05 00:00:00

int- -> UM

LONDON!
THURSDAY MORNING, MAY 5, 1842,

All circumstances considered, the news from India
and China is decidedly favourable. Sir HENRY
POTTINGER is prosecuting the war in China in a
right proper, commercial spirit. He wars against the
Government, but spares the people. He does not
confound the civilians with the army, or fall into the
error, that by ruining poor traders in rice and rhu-
barb, along the coast of the Celestial Empire, he will
he able to bring the haughty Tartar, who sits behind
the yellow curtain in the imperial palace of Pekin, to
speedier terms. His account of the capture and tem-
porary occupation of three cities, in the vicinity of
Ningpo, will be found in another part of The Sun.
We observe, with pleasure, that he dwells chiefly
upon the moral influence which their occupation will
give him. He found in one of the cities an immense
store of rice, but, instead of wantonly destroying it,
he caused it to be distributed among the poor Chinese.
He has thereby convinced these poor people that the
English are not their enemies, and have no quarrel
whatever with them. Other accounts say that he
put a stop to the seizure of the salt and rice junks
along the coast, in consequence of which the trade in
opium was more flourishing than ever: An expedition
against Pekin was to be undertaken, whenever the
season would permit. The Plenipotentiary had re-
turned to Hong Kong on the Ist of February, to
prepare the force intended to visit the EMPERoR in
his capital. He could not have adopted a wiser or
better course.

With a few hundred blue-jackets to act as referees
Sir HENItY and the EmpEßottwill not be long settling
the point of etiquette included in the ceremony of the
Ken Tou. We are very sure that the EMPEROIL will

prefer waiving the long-disputed point to witnessing
the British fashion of hard knocking.

Things appear to be no worse in Affghanistan, and
this, considering the previous state of our affairs, is
consolatory. • True there was a report of the destruc-
tion of 1,000 British troops in the Bolan Pass, and
the refusal of two of the Bengal Native Regiments to
attempt the Kyber Pass under the command of
General POLLOCK, but we cannot trace them to any
trnstwoithy authority. Some money had been re-
mitted to General SALE at Jellalabad, which enabled
him to •purchase forage, of which his gallant soldiers
were in great need. We subjoin a few extracts from
the India papers relative to Affghanistan :
The Calcutta Englishman says---" Our troops continue
t) assemble at. Peshawar, preparatory to the movement
t evards Affghanistan that may be directed, as soon as
the season admits of operation ; and letters sometimes
reach India, giving intimation of the existence (in du-
rance) of some of the officers and men who escaped the
general massacre at Jugdullock ;, but beyond these al-
leged facts, we hear nothing on which the smallest de-
pendence can be placed. We have had more excitement
than usual in the heart of India, during the last four
weeks. There has been a mutiny in some of the Madras
reg ments, which, however, was promptly put down.
And the new Governor-General, Lord El lea borough,
has arrived and taken upon himself the duties of his
office, giving promise, by his activity and close personal
inquiry, of a vigorous administration. It is believed
that lie will carry out the measures deemed necessary by
his predecessor, in relation to Afighanistan. At all
events, no orders countermanding any of the preparations
made by Lord Auckland, have as yet appeared."
The Bengal Hurharu observes :—" In the meantime,
whilst General Nott, after having made a successful
attack on the enemy, remains unmolested at Candahar ;
whilst General Sale, with Isis gallant little band. mm-
Jellalabed in safety, and Colonel Palmer holds his
own at Ghuanee ; a fresh force, under the command of
Generul Pollock, of the artillery, has congregated at
Peshawar. At present it is inactive. The troops have
suffered severely from sickness, and have been much
straightened for ammunition ; but these impediments to
an advance have, ere now, been removed, and we ex-
pect soon to hear of the force having marched to the re-
lief •Of Jellalabad. This accomplished, it is difficult to
say what the , next movement will be ; for, during the
present uncertain state of our political information,.Go-
vernment must be sorely puzzled to decide against whom
to proceed.
A new r.der has, since we last wrote, been placed at
the head of affairs. Lord Ellenhorough has arrived,
and Lord Auckland has departed. This may make a
material difference in our future policy towards Afighan-
istan. The preSent Governor-General, who has secu,
and from the very first, as clearly as any man, the
wrAched folly of the expedition beyond the Indus, will
be loth to adopt a modus operandi, which will have the
effect of inducing so mighty an evil as the permanent
occupation of Affghanistan. Whatever measures he
may resort toewe have good reason to hope that they
will be final, the present movement being rendered only
the precursor of a withdrawal of our troops to the other
side of the Indus. Let us only have an opportunity
of withirewing with good grace, and the sooner we
withdraw the better."
The Bombay Courier says :—" Of Affghanistan we
have but little to say more than that we do not labour
under the disagreeable necessity of recording any fresh
disasters of an important nature. Major-General
l'olleek was, by our last accounts from Peshawar, en-
camped with a large force at a place between that city
and the entrance of the Khyber pass, called Kawulsur.
It ie`feenerally believed that no attempt will be made to
penetrate the defiles until the arrival of fresh reii6a-ce-
ments of European cavalry and infantry, which, together
with some native corps, are now moving through the
Punjaub. They will not arrive at Peshawar until the
10th of the present month.
All appears to be going on pretty satisfactorily- at Jel-
lalabad. Some of the bastions were much injured by the
shock of an earthquake. The enemy took advantage of
the accident, and endeavoured to force their way into
the Place. The British agents have managed to trans-
mit a small sum of money to Major-General Sale, by
means of which he succeeded in obtaining a considerable
supply of iisrage ; an article, the scarcity of which had
previously been severely felt. -,Negotiations have been •
opened with the view of inducing the Khyberees to keep
the passes open for a pecuniary consideration. It would
appeer, however, that there is little chance of a successful
termination to the treaty. Should it fail, force will be re-
sorted to as soon as Col. White's brigade joins Gen. Pol-
lock. In the mean time the latter officer is said to have
made every preparation for a forward movement at the
shortest notice, with the troops already at his disposal,
in time _event of General Sale finding it necessary to
'make an urgent requisition for prompt assistance.
The British hold their own at Ghuzni and lihelat-i-
Ghilzie. At the former place they are confined to the
citadel, the enemy being in possession of the town.
Tito Atighans are collected in force near Candahar,
and lay the last accounts from that place General Nott
w is preparing to move out against them, with from ten
•to twelve thousand men. There is no doubt that this
force will. speedily defeat the insurgents in its vicinity,
After which it will move on to the relief of Ghuznee and
edfiniately to Caubul." ,

In. the debate on Mr. T. DUNCOMBE'S motion on
Tuescfay, Sir ROBERT PEEL said he had never seen
-
anything of-those passages of certain journals which

said that England would be as great without as with t
the manufacturing districts. He is, therefore, in- ,
tensely ignorant of the heated and hostile feelings
which pervade society, of which those passages are
the exponents, and, therefore, he has prescribed, with
the most solemn confidence, the milk-and-water of
his Corn-law and his Tariff, as a cure for the low and
and malignant fever which rages in every vein of the
community. The persons who wished to be called to
the bar were competent to enlighten him on this
important matter; but with that insensibility to his
own deficiencies, which is the characteristic of besot-
ted ignorance, he was forward in refusing to hear them.
Forsooth, it would stop the public business.
Forsooth, it would excite hopes that the
Legislature did at last mean to do something
to relieve the people, and Sir R. PEEL would, by no
means, encourage such a wild and unfounded delusion.
Is any public business, too, let us ask, of equal im-
portance to that of satisfying the masses—of relieving
their distresses, and of restoring their confidence in the
Legislature ? Their welfare is the end and aim of
legislation, and if that could be attained by hearing,
them, public business would be more promoted than
by passing the Income-tax and the Tariff.
There was in Sir ROBERT PEEL'S speech one re-
markable phrase, calculated to rouse and alarm even
his insensible ignorance. Mr. ROEBUCK had stated
that the law was omnipotent in England, while force
or violence governed on the Continent. Sir ROBERT
PEEL explained, that the reason of this was a convic-
tion that " the law was just." Did they think, he
asked, "that the people could have the respect which
they ever paid to the law, if they did not feel that it
guaranteed the safety of property, and secured
liberty—that it was a law for the poor as well
as for the rich." But he asked that question with
a petition lying before him, bearing more than
3,000,000 signatures, complaining of the law, and de-
nouncing it in the very strongest terms. There must
have been present to Sir R. PEEL'S mind the alarm-
ing fact that the bulk of the people are dissatisfied
with the law ; he stated that on their satisfaction

with it depended its power, and yet he refused to
hear those who could explain why the people no longer
entertain the conviction that the law is just, and no
longer rely on it as guaranteeing property and
securing liberty. If he betrayed by the first observa-
tion we have quoted, for the community, most alarming
ignorance, his refusal to hear the statements of the
people against the law, so that they might be parried
and counteracted, while he is sensible that the authority
of the law depends on their conviction of its justice,
seems to us sheer infatuation.

There was another Right Hon. Gentleman who took
part in that debate, whose observations do not meet
our approbation. We pass by Mr. MACAULAY'S
strained inferences that the petitioners would apply a
sponge to the national debt, and would put an end to
landed property, to property in railroads, and to ma-
chinery, as totally unwarranted either by the conduct
of the patient and long-suffering people or their lan-
guage. The petitioners did not complain, be it observed,
of being injured in their persons. They did not say
that they had been shut up in dungeons, or had their
ears cut off, or been maimed and maltreated by any
tyrant ; but they said that they were over-taxed and
under-paid. They complained, from beginning to
end, of their property not being secured, but conti-
nually violated by the Legislature. In the teeth of
that just complaint, Mr. MACAULAY mocked them
with a homily about the advantages of security of
property, all of which he refused to them. So far as
the people are concerned, his remarks were unfounded
in fact ; they were neither philosophy nor common
sense, and no better than heartless pedantry.

The Nottingham Election Committee, before which
a serious contest was expected, has at once reported
that Sir JOIIN HOBROUSE and Sir G. DE LARPENT
were duly elected. We are quite sure that this de-
cision is the result of a compromise between the con-
tending parties, by which bribery and corruption are
concealed, and the rights of the electors trifled with.
The same observation applies. to several other recent
and quickly formed decisions of Election Committees.
For example, Mr. RUSSELL, it has been said, as the
consequence of such a compromise, is to give
up his seat for Reading. We know that other
Members are also to resign their seats after a
short period. We would have the constituencies,
therefore, wherever a return has been disputed, to
be on their guard; and we would recommend them in
no case to allow their rights to be bartered away by
any agents. The compromises before Election Com-
mittees are not binding on the electors, and we hope
that they will not allow a single seat which may be
vacated in consequence of mutual agreements, to be
filled up at the pleasure of the compromising parties.

The late Postmaster-General, the Earl of Lich-
field, is gone to Naples with his family, and his
establishments in England are entirely broken up.
The magnificent contents of Shugborough-hall and
St. James's-square, are both announced in our
columns, and, next to the far-famed sale at Straw-
berry-hill, its splendour and variety will produce an
excitement unexampled for many a long year. Of
course Mr. George Robins will preside on each occa-
sion. The gallery of pictures and statues, it is con-
fidently urged, will eclipse any sale that has taken
place for the last twenty years.
Our columns this morning will show that we have
resumed our acquaintance with our old friend George
Robins. It presents a tolerable repast for all those
who have money at command.