The Sun.
London, England, 1845-09-22 00:00:00

Al malt A'7l/M4

LONDON, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1845.

The policy of our Foreign Department is certainly the most
inexplicable problem—and has been, for some few years past
—which the science of modern Government presents to our
observation. It is perfectly impossible to calculate, before-
hand, the point to which the forbearance of Downing-street
may be extended, or the insignificance and tenuity of the
power which it will allow with impunity to heap insults upon
our flag and outrages on our fellow subjects. It may be the
evidence of a very high strain of generosity, but it is not less
the evidence of a very questionable policy—that in propor-
tion to the insignificance of the quarter from whence these
affronts proceed is the degree of indifference—we had almost
said of favour—which our Government extends to them-
We are great favourers of the general principle of'non-iuter-
vention, so long as it can be persevered in without the sacri-
fice of the first duties of states, which, as with individuals,
are identified with those of self-defence and self-vindication.
To carry it to any point beyon l that at which it can only
bs persisted in through such a sacrifice, is like the
attempt to compel respect by manifesting a dignified
indifference to the ignominy of a blow. To endure such in-
solence without chastising it, on the ground that it is offered
by some mushroom offspring of political excitement, in
every sense cf the word weak and contemptible, is to act
with that sot t of discriminating indulgence which would
proMpt a passenger by a railway train, mischievously over-
set, to decline posecuting the detected culprit, on his proving
to be only an overgrown boy. We make no scruple to as-
sume a determined attitude with France, or Russia,
or the United States, whenever their demeanour becomes
menacing. To some wretched machine of old and worn-
out government, like that of Spain, some mass of incongruous
factions and opinions, institutions and establishments in the
Old World, only cohering together in virtue cf the ene-gy
that sustains the conflict of one of its elements with another ;
to some ephemeral republic in the New World, which, since
its emancipation from the feeble dominion of an exhausted
monarchy, has passed through every stage and fluctuation of
political change, ever storm of revolution, every degree of
moral guilt, every excess of popular anarchy, every sangui-
nary outrage of a remorseless and irresponsible des-
potism—we show a contrary bearing—we are all
placability, all forgiveness. There is no falsehood, however
gross, which we do not accept as an apology for the
offences committed, when we complain of them. There
are no promises, however hollow and without guarantee for
their redemption, to which we do not lend a willing and ready
ear, when they are proffered. But of all the petty states at
whose hands we have thus unaccountably and for years
together tolerated unheard-of indignities, to our flag and to
the lives, aid fortunes and liberty of British subjects, the
miserable federation which is represented by the Government
at Buenos Ayres is at once the most flagitious, cruel, and in-
sufferable. The interests of humanity and civilisation have
appealed for years past, but in vain, to that British protec-
tion which till our time was scarcely ever withheld under such
exigencies as those in which that appeal has been made.
The measure of those offences is now full. The career of
those crimes is now consummated, and we cannot, and will
not, believe that this country will venture any longer to sus-
pend the infliction of a signal and righteous vengeance on the
ruffian chief, Rosns, whom she has too long permitted with
impunity to perpetrate crimes that are a scandal and disgrace
to our common nature, to our age, to our civilisation.
We need hardly recal to the recollection of our
readers the unheard-of barbarities perpetrated by the
troops who, under the command of this execrable chief,
in the course of that war which has associated
his name and the name of Buenos Ayres, in company with
the desolation of the wars of the Uruguay and Argentine.
Republic to the latest posterity, with reminiscences of revolt-
ing tortures, of slaughters in cold blood, and destruction
undertaken and persisted in for its own detestable gratifica-
tion. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the infamies com-
mitted on the unfortunate Argentine prisoners, who
were captured during the investment and siege of Monte Video,
or the sport made with the heads and skulls of the
massacred Monte Videan soldiery; or the sufferings to which
the English residents in that city were, and still are exposed,
together with the enormous losses of property sustained by
them during these long-continued operations against
it. The more recent sufferings of our countrymen
in Buenos Ayres itself; the avowed hostility of
Ros.ts for foreigners of all kinds, but for the
English
in particular; the plunder, pillage, and assassination to
which the latter have been long exposed, without one bond.fid e
effort on the part of ROSAS to prevent or to punish such enor-mities; and all the extravagances of his pretensionsivtoorito,
after accomplishing as a preliminary theu ruin mono-
polise for Buenos Ayres the whole trade of the.
11
of Monte
ships
of sroefunsiauleh netoarearlltool.vitstimieo
merchantttm.han Buenosh.
of France and England to discharge their cargoes,
or even to break bulk at Buenos Ayres, on the preposterous
ground of offence assumed " that they had taken in pilots
at Monte Video" (and without them they could not hope to
reach Buenos Ayres in safety)—these are matters which
being, as it were, but of yesterday, mud be still more
freshly within the public remembrance, But, accustomed as