The Sun.
London, England, 1827-06-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC, JOURNALS.

A message from the King was delivered last
night to both Houses of Parliament on the pro-
vision which was to be made for the longer con-
tinuance of our troops in Portugal. The public
will observe that this is merely the technical ac-
complishment of Mr. Canning's vote of credit for
500,0001. for the same purpose. The amount
of the sum is, therefore, fixed. We cannot,
however, quit the subject without noticing the
absurd rumours which were circulated in the city
in consequence of the expectation of a message
from his Majesty. It was said that the purport
of the message would be, to state his Majesty's
determination, in conjunction with his allies, no
doubt, to bombard Constantinople, in case the
Turks refused to make peace with the Greeks !
We have no right to bombard Constantinople
whatever, neither do we conceive that any thing
so barbarous and unjust will be undertaken by
us. Our Journal of Monday prescribes what
we should think the utmost extent of our inter-
ference a 4 a nation in favour of the suffering
Greeks—" that, in the event of the remonstrances
on the part of Russia, France, and England,
backed by those of Austria and Prussia, being
rejected by the Divan, the fleets belonging to the
Governments of the three first Powers would in-
tercept any communication between the Turks
and the Greeks, and thereby shelter the :latter
from any new act of hostility." Between these
precautionary measures, or measures of a similar
character, and such an act as bombarding the capital
of an independent State, to which civil rather than
military persons would fall a sacrifice, it is evident
how wide a difference subsists. It is greatly to be
wished that the sanguinary and savage contest be-
tween the Turks and the Greeks were terminated;
but the termination must not be attempted by an act
which might fail of success at last, but which would
exceed, in the destruction of human life and the sa-
crifice of unoffending persons, all that have preceded
it in the course of the war. If, as we believe, we
.justly state, humanity be the sole cause of our inter-
ference in the quarrel, we shall not proceed to an
act by which humanity will be so grievously out-
raged.--Times.
In another column will be found an article
from the Portuguez on the state of Portugal,
and in reply to one class of arguments and hy-
potheses on the same subject, which have been
transmitted from our Lisbon correspondent to
this journal. Our own observations on the let-
ters of that correspondent were delivered as an
antidote to some of their contents, where he pre-
sented (as was his obvious duty) the quibbles
and subtilties on the Regency case, resorted to
by some of the anti-Constitutional jurists, and
eagerly seized on and adopted by certain diplo-
matists, who have signalized themselves else-
where as well as in Lisbon, on the side of arbi-
trary power. We have felt for a long time past,
that such refinements were dangerous inmates
with a question so vital to the existence of Por-
tuguese-liberty—that all the pretences set up
from day to day in favour of lenity to the rebel
leaders, and of the " rights" asserted by Miguel
or his partisans to the exercise of a power which
would enable him to destroy the Constitution,
were but so many false devices to aid the Court
of Nfadrid against our liberal ally, and 4leserved
to be swept away like cobwebs, when the sub-
stantial interests of king, and people were at
stake. Although, however, it was the business
of a gentleman communicating public intelli-
gence to England to describe with fidelity, as our
colleague has done, the views which are taken of
every great question on the spot, we rejoice to
see Oat so strong a spirit of dissent and animad-
version vith regard to the underhand suggestions
of the Serviles displays itself in any Portuguese
journal. This is a symptom of new-born energy
in the agents of the Constitutional Government,
and, we doubt not, has been assisted by the grow-
ing certainty that Mr. Canning, as Prime Mi-
nister, would be enabled to continue and ex-
tend tha powerful support which, but for
him alone, the former British Cabinet, it is
evident, would never have thought of grant-
ing to a country whose distresses arose from a
struggle in the cause of liberty. The character,
indeed, and the honour of Mr. Canning's Ad-
ministration, are bound up with the overthrow
of the Spainsh House of Bourbon in this its un-
holy quarrel. Portugal is the instrument
through which that base family, with its abettors
at home and abroad, seeks to wound the moral
ascendancy of England, as Spain and Portugal
conjointly were, under the usurpation of Napo-
leon, destined to a similar use. It behoves the
new Prime Minister, therefore, now that he is
less fettered in his movements, to push, with
prompt and vigorous resolution, that masculine
policy which, under restraints the most dis-
couraging, he has already so meritoriously at-
tempted. The question is—Bourbon, with su-
fierstitious despotism, and an entire alienation
fiord England ; or Braganza, with an advance
towards human liberty and happiness, and an in-
dissoluble English alliance. The question for
Mr. Canning personally is, the fame of having
reaped in Europe the harvest, of which in Ame-
rica he scattered the seeds—of having done
this, when he had the British Government, with
every other in the old inhabited world, against
him ; or of abandoning results so profuse and
magnificent, when he is released from all do-
mestic opposition, and when he reay, by a sim-
ple declaration of the will of England, see every
foreign obstruction to her triumph and his own
vanish in a moment. How far Mr. Canning
may have been sincerely supported, or coldly and
ambiguously served, by his diplomatic delegates
in all parts of the Cabinet, is more than we can
pronounce. It will be seen by the following letter
from the Constitutionnel,what stories are in circu-
lation respecting that particular Ambassador, to
whose activity and integrity in the cause, so much
of its success on the side of Portugal has been en-
trusted. Perhaps Sir William A'Court has been
chosen as the subject of these inauspicious rumours,
from the prima facie verisimilitude which would be
attached to them by the former achievements of his
Excellency against the Constitutionalists of Naples
and of Spain. If it be true, which we trust it is
not, that Sir Wm. A'Court has been fairly repre-
sented by the writer of this Lisbon letter in the
French journal, the only wonder is, that Mr. Can-
ning has shut his eyes so long to conduct so incal-
culably mischievous; and the natural remedy is the
immedirte .appointment of a sincere and able suc-
cessor.

TRACT or A PRIVATE LEITER FROM LISBON, DATED
MAY 19.
(From the Constitutiorrnel of the sth inst.)
" The friends of the Constitution cannot avoid feeling
the most lively uneasiness, on reflecting that Sir William
A'Court has never ceased repeating, from the hour of the
Princess Regent's installation, that her Royal Highness
would he bound to transfer the regency of the kingdom to
the Infant Don Miguel, on the 26th of October, when the
Infant would have completed his 25th year. This erro-
peons opinion of the British Ambassador has contributed
powerfully to check the progress of the Constitutional
cause, to repress the public spirit, and to retain the bulk
of society in Portugal in a languid and sickly state. This,
likewise, has been the principal origin of the misunder-
standing between Sir Wm. A'Court and Dr. Abrantes, at
the moment when the Princess Regent, on assuming the
reins of Government, announced, in a manifesto drawn
up by Dr. Abrantes, that she would resign her power to

the Queen Maria TI. so soon as her Majesty should be of
age. Sir Wrn. A'Court disapproved of this declaration,
which he pretended was at variance with the rights of the
Infant Don Miguel, and he made it the subject of bitter
reproaches to Dr. Abrantes."
If this, or half of it, be correct, we shall only re-
peat that Lord Wm. Bentinck ought not to lose a
day in setting sail for Lisbon.—lbid.
In a discussion on the subject of the Secret
Service Money, last night, in the House of
Lords, Lord Dudley and Ward observed, " It
may not be improper to remark, that at this
period of political excitement, when persons
disregarding known facts, and actuated by no
fair or rAional principles, were induced to have
recourse to rumours and speculations, and mis-
representations, a rumour has very generally
gone forth that a part of the secret service money
has been employed to buy the Press. The as-
sertion has been made so broadly and unequivo-
cally out of doors, that I think it right to advert
to it. Your Lordships are aware, that in strict-
ness, I can have no details of the secret service
money previously to my coming into office. At
the end of the year the amount is sworn to by
the Secretary of State, and there is an end of
it ; the same thing takes place when a Secretary
of State goes out of office. I have no regular
cognizance of the details therefore previously to
my coming into office. I did, however, inquire ;
the documents were still preserved ; and I can
assure your Lordships, that the inspection of
these documents has left upon my mind the
strongest conviction which a man can have with
respect to money which has not actually passed
through his hands, that not one shilling of it has
been applied to the purpose of influencing the
Press of this country." This absurdity origi-
nated with Lord Londonderry, whose overween-
ing vanity inspired him with the ideal that the
only way of accounting for the Press not think-
ing him a paragon of Statesmen was its corrup-
tion. To those who know any thing of News-
paper property (though their Lordships gene-
rally, as well as their brethren of the other
House, know as much of the subject of News-
papers, as they know of the habits of the man in
the moon), the idea of corrupting Newspapers by
money must appear supremely ridiculous. Why
the whole year's salary of all the members of the
Cabinet, if expended in an attempt (which after
all might or might not succeed), to establish
one _Morning Paper in London, would not
be more than enough. And would any man,
whose ears are not so long as those of a certain useful
quadruped, imagine that the proprietor of a news-
paper, for such a sum as might, perhaps, tempt some
needy Austrian, or Russian, or Spanish Government
Secretary to furnish a copy of the secret articles of
a Treaty, but which would not serve to keep the
wolf from his door one day (there being, perhaps,
four or five hundred human beings immediately de-
pendent on him for subsistence), sacrifice his pro-
perty, by offending those who are his subscribers,
not from any favour to him, but from coincidence in
principles ? No Ministry, no Party in this country,
can protect a newspaper against the consequences of
offending its readers. In revolutionary periods,
which of course are, with respect to the Press,
periods of despotism, writers, like other individuals,
have only the alternative of being silent, or advocat-
ing the opinions in vogue for the time. In a country
like America or this, a writer, like his readers, at-
taches himself to the Journal which accords with
his principles. There are a few ugly exceptions now
and then, but it would be invidious to name them ;
but the transmutation is not effected by bribery; but
is the result of speculation as to the greater popu-
larity of certain principles, or such a change as that
produced by the late Ministerial split, when a new
organ became necessary for the new Opposition, and
part of the rats ran over.to the new building, all of
them looking for a time, uncertain whether to run
or stay. We have often been astonished at the
gross ignorance of distinguished senators in this
country of an instrument which has had so much
power in forming the character of the people, and in
influencing the destinies of the nations. The trashy
and libelous publications to which Lord Dudley and
Ward alluded, have repeated ad nauseant the gross-
est falsehoods. Great industry has, no doubt, been
used in dispersing them ; but Noble Lords are sel-
dom long in the humour of spending money in that
way; and when the cause ceases, the effect will
cease also.—Morning Chronicle.

The ideas which we lately threw out respecting
the Scotch Marriage Laws, are in accordance
with what fell last night from those Peers best
aequainted with the subject in the House of
Lords. It will be necessary, _ as Lord Lans-
down observed, to prevent the subjects of Eng-
land from evading their own Marriage Laws in
Scotland. Lord Lauderdale said, " people
never went from England to Scotland to get
married till after the passing of the Marriage
Act, and he thought it would be better to repeal
the Marriage Act, than to make any alteration
in the Scotch Law." However unpopular the
Marriage Act might have been when it passed,
so much is man the creature of habit, that we
believe no proposition would be more unpopular
than that of repealing it. Indeed, we suspect,
from the restraint to which females are subjected in
England till marriage, and their consequent want of
prudence (for the virtues of caution and pru-
dence, like every other, can exist only under inde-
pendent exercise), the first fruits of a repeal of the
Marriage Act would be far from consolatory. The
habits of the two kingdoms are, in this respect, dia-
metrically opposite. The period of youth is that of
freedom in Scotland; in England it is that of re-
straint. Marriage in England is, comparatively, a
return to freedom ; in Scotland it brings with it care
and austerity .—lbid.
The observations which Mr. Peel made in the
House of Commons, on introducing the Bill to
dissolve what the law calls a marriage between
Miss Turner and the culprit Wakefield, were
exceedingly pertinent and just. The Hon. Mem-
ber said, " the person who was the chief offender
was now undergoing a punishment which showed,
more than any modern case, how inadequate hu-
man legislation was to human crime, the crime
in question being, in point of moral turpitude,
more enormous than many, for the commission
of which offenders yearly pay the forfeit of their
lives on the scaffold." But who is to blame for
this inequality of crimes and punishments—the
public or the legislators ? Certainly not the
public, for the opinion of the nation is strongly
in favour of a Criminal Code more consonant ,
with the principles of reason and justice ; but
somehow or other Parliament still continues to
be satisfied with a Statute-book which contains the
most sanguinary enactments against pettyoffenders,
and in many instances regards the more daring
and atrocious criminals with comparative lenity.
Is it not preposterous, that a man who steals a
single sheep or lamb out of a flock, shall, by
that act of theft, forfeit his life, while a villain
who feloniously'carries off the only child of a
family, suffers, at the utmost, three years of
imprisonment ?—Nay more, that such a person
is allowed, after conviction on the clearest evi-
dence, to come before the highest tribunal in
the land, and complain of hardship and cruelty,
because a legislative measure is in progress
to deprive him of the future chance of pecuniary
advantage from his infamous crime—a crime, as
Mr. Peel said, which originated in " the basest of
all motives—that of avarice." But why should
this legislative measure be at all necessary ? Be-

canoe the law which pronounces every other con-
tract void that is bottomed in fraud, declares that
neither fraud nor force can vitiate the most solemn
of all contracts—that of marriage. We are glad to
see that Mr. Peel has taken advantage of the pre-
sent occasion to animadvert on the absurdity of the
law in this respect. We endeavoured to direct the
attention of the Legislature to the subject some
time ago, and we trust that Mr. Peel, who has
already done so much towards a revisal of our Cri-
minal Code, will not be satisfied with merely express-
ing an opinion on this grievous defect in our Civil
Jurisprudence, but will himself bring in a Bill to
remove this reproach from our civilization. Such a
state of the law is not only repugnant to reason, and
at variance with Christianity, but it absolutely holds
out a premium to a certain class of conspirators and
swindlers to plot against the innocence of portioned
young women, and destroy the peace of families.
Nature, common sense, and religion, equally re-
nounce so absurd and vicious a principle of law.—
Morning Herald.

Referring to the remarks relative to the re-
duction of the duty on Foreign Sugar, which
appeared in the New Times of Wednesday, we
can state that the following is the arrangement
under which it is to take place :—Refiners of
sugar will be permitted to take out of the bond-
ed
warehouses, within six weeks from this time,
any quantity of foreign Muscovado sugar, at a
duty of 295., provided the Board of Customs are
satisfied, in the first instance, that the quantity
applied for is necessary to keep the premises of
the party so applying at work. The quantity in
every case is to be limited to ten tons weekly,
for each pan employed, the proper officers of the
Crown having previously certified that the sugar
so to be taken out of the warehouses is admis-
sible for home consumption, under the existing
laws, and that the quality is not superior to the
British plantation now generally in use by the
refiners. Before the entry clan be passed,
however, it will be necessary for the party to
enter into bond to export or place in the
warehouses for exportation, within three
months, 731bs. weight of refined, or 631bs. refin-
ed, and 18Ibs. bastard sugar, for every 1121bs. of
the raw sugar admitted at the reduced duty.
We believe the measure to be experimental, as
the duration is so limited ; and, viewing it in
that light, very little importance need be attached,
to it ; but if it be the precursor of a more exten-
sive alteration with regard to this article, when
imported from foreign countries, we confess that
it is not without some feeling of alarm that we
contemplate the effects that may probably result
from it. We are no enemies to the removal of
the restrictions and prohibitions which encumber
our commercial relations ; on the contrary, many
of the measures pursued by the President of the
Board of Trade have met with our most zealous
concurrence ; but we conceive the welfare of our
Colonial possessions is so intimately connected
with the prosperity of the country at large, and so
many and various are the interests that would
be affected by any depression that might arise
in those Colonies, that we cannot but pause be-
fore we'give our assent to any alteration by which
they might be prejudiced. It is contended, that,
from the excess of production it; our West India
Islands beyond the demand for consumption
in this country, the additional duty of 10s. paid
on East India, and of 365. on Foreign, affords no
protection to our West India Planters; this may be
correct, and acting upon this assertion,.the late alter-
ation certainly' tends to do away with it, if any does
exist ; because every refiner can at all times cover
the amount of the foreign sugar entered by him (even
though the exports were less than at present), by
substituting that which he already refines from the
plantation sugar for the quantity which he is re-
quired to enter into bond to export, and thus bring
the foreign into the horn. market, as it is not, we '
believe, so well calculated for the purposes of the
refiner. We are aware it may be urged, that it
would be unjust to protect one portion of our do-
minions at the expellee of the remainder; but, how-
ever correct this may be, as a general principle, it is
not applicable to the present case. We doubt not
that Great Britain would amply compensate itself for
any loss it might sustain in the defalcation of the exports
to the West Indies,by an enlarged trade with Foreign
Nations, but then it should be remembered that our ex-
ports consist chieflyofmanufactured goods, the demand
for which is increased in the same proportion that we
take the productions of foreign countries in exchange
for them ; and if we no longer seek our supplies in
the West India markets, the trade of which consists
entirely in the export of the raw produce, we either
destroy the market for it entirely, or so diminish its
value, that the cultivation of it becomes no longer
profitable ; and, under these circumstances, it is not
merely the temporary prosperity, but the future ex-
istence of the trade of those Islands, which is in-
volved in the consideration. We are led to believe
that such would be the consequences, because we
cannot imagine, for a moment, that a merchant hav-
ing a certain quantity of manufactured goods to dis-
pose of, would not take them to those markets
which, from local circumstances, would he enabled
to offer the largest proportion of raw produce in ex-
change.—New Times.

We direct the attention of our readers to the
proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas,
yesterday. The case was one of libel—that non-
descript, undefined, and undefinable, branch of
English law. We know not whether the plain-
tiffs sought to recover damages or establish cha-
racter. If the former, the Jury gave them
twenty-five pounds a piece ; if the latter, that
sum represented, we presume, the value of the
thing restored. We do not quarrel with the
verdict ; but we cannot help wishing, as regards
the defendants, there were some less expensive
way of giving a man five and twenty pounds.
Regarding the verdict as a declaration of the
quantum of injury clone, or of character de-
stroyed, it is a grievous thing that ten or twenty
times that amount of injury should be inflicted
upon those who are adjudged to make this re-
paration.—lbid.