The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-01 00:00:00

44tt ..Ant.

LONDON:
SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 1842.

That the Ministry have resolved to send Lord
ASHBURTON, taking him from the Exchequer
Bill Commission, to which he has just been ap-
pointed, on a special mission to the United
States, indicates a critical, not to say an alarm-
ing, state of our diplomatic relations with that
country. The publication of the Correspond-
ence between the American Minister and
the Secretary of State for Foreign Af-
fairs, on the RIGHT OF SEARCH, comes
unhappily to confirm the worst apprehensions
which Lord ASHBURTON'S appointment excites.
We pointed out, when we adverted to the Ame-
rican PRESIDENT'S Message, the danger which
threatened us on this question, and the com-
plaints of the Americans of the manner in
which the right is exercised by our ship Captains,
men for the most part accustomed to adminis-
ter to their own people an odious tyranny,
confirms our remarks, and tends to justify the
Americans in refusing to submit their vessels to
the rude visitation of such arbitrary police
officers. The dispute between the two coun-
tries on this question has now assumed
a very formidable and unfavourable appearance;
and, consequently, the character and fitness of
the Noble Negotiator for the delicate and im-
portant task he has undertaken, has become a
public matter of very considerable interest.
Lord ASHBURTON, let it be remembered, was
Mr. ALEXANDER BARING, a great merchant for
the best part of his life ; for many years a Mem-
ber of the House of Commons ; created a
Peer by the Tories, a few years ago, after
professing Whig principles through the greater
part of his career; and at present remarkable, for
an old man, for a somewhat senseless ambition, to
be a great statesman as he has been a great mer-
chant. He seems stimulated by the success in
this line of Mr. P. ThomsoN, and as he aspired
to preside over the trade of the country in imi-
tation of that merchant, he now aspires to eclipse
his glory in pacifying Canada by settling all dis-
putes between this country and the United
States. The motives of the man, we arc afraid,
are unworthy ; and the situation and abilities
of the negotiator do not warrant the national
confidence.

The I/cm/d of this morning alludes to Mr.
BARING having been an American merchant,
and says " that his mercantile services have pro-
voked not the gratitude, but the animosity and
ill-will. of the agrarian democrats of that stranere
country." Mr. BARING, now Lord ASHBURTOX,WaS
not only a merchant, he was also a loan-contractor;
he was also an extensive proprietor of the United
States Bank Stock, that is a partner; he, or
his mercantile firm, was the agent of that
swindling body, and long considered its chief
European adviser and prop. At present
the inhabit tats of the Union are suffering most
dreadfully from bank and mercantile swindlers,
and nearly the whole domestic policy, and most
of the party feeling in that country turn on the
honesty and on the credit really due to bankers,

merchants,and money issuers. Now Lord ASHBUR
TON, closely connected all his life with one of these
parties as the representative here of such men as
BIDDLE, must be, on this account, as the Herald
says, unacceptable to the most numerous and in-
fluential portion of the Americans.
Judging of Mr. TYLER'S opinions from the part
he has acted, we must conclude that Lord Asu-

BURTON, from his unfortunate connexion with
what the Americans call the "Shin-plaster," or
" shaving" interest, must be unacceptable even
to the head of the Government. He is further
connected with American parties by an alliance
with an American lady, and must be, on these
accounts, biassed, partial, and wholly unfit to
represent this country at Washington.
Lord ASIIBURTON is said to have retired from

trade, but no person will believe that his connec-
tion with the house of BARING, BROTHERS, and
Co., of which his, sons, we believe, and at any
rate his relations, are the chief members, will
not bias his judgment. Suppose that house
should at this moment be involved in the

loans for the different States, which are
repudiated; suppose that it should be con-
cerned in cot ton speculations, and be smarting
under a recent loss of 200,0001., caused, it may
be asserted, by sonic act of the PRESIDENT, in
refusing his expected, and some say, promised,
assent to a banking scheme—will such a circum-
stance not be expected to influence the money-
sensitive mind of Lord ASHBURTON, and
make him anything but an independent and
impartial negotiator? A man, with the strongest

mind, and of the most straightforward cha-
racter, placed in such a position, would ex-
cite unpleasant suspicions ; there would be a
want of confidence in him ; he would be unfit

for that particular negotiation and Lord ASH.
BURTON is neither a strong-minded, nor a straight
forward man.

On every question not concerning his
own pocket he sees it in such a variety of
lights, that he never expresses any decided
and clear opinion. He cannot, it is said,
give a plain answer to a plain question
without same limitations or qualifications. He
never makes a speech in which he does not say
almost as much against as for his own view.
He always doubts, and balances, and argues
every question as, if there were nothing positive
and certain, nothing decidedly right or wrong.
He splits hairs, refines, mystifies, and contradicts
himself. In a negotiator frankness, or at
least the appearance of frankness, sincerity, or
its semblance, to win confidence, are essential ;
and of frankness and sincerity, of all earnestness
and directness of purpose, except to gather
wealth, the_ mind of this ennobled merchant
seems wholly destitute. All his propositions will
be regarded with suspicion, and the object of
sending him will most probably be defeated by
the opinion that he has purposes ,of his own to
serve.

In what spirit can he be expected to conduct a

negotiation ? In that of a merchant higgling for
a bargain. That is the habit of the man's mind,
it is natural and confirmed by long practice. To
succeed with the Americans, the most unreserved
openness and simplicity are requisite. Lord
ASIIBURTON, we are afraid, will carry to the
negotiation the habitual sharpness of a
loan contractor. Through his whole political
life, when he pleaded for free trade in the House
of Commons as a merchant, and when he advo-
cates the Corn-laws in the House of Lords as a
landlord, this man has made his political prin-
ciples subservient to his interests and his ambi-

Lion, and is alike undeserving of the confidence
of the Americans or the English. He is now one of

the foremost advocates ofrestraints and restrictions
on commerce, a matter in which the Americans
are almost as deeply interested as in the right of
search, and on this ground as well as on account
of his political character, and his connection
with the loan interest, he will be most unac-
ceptable to the Americans, and a most unfit re-
presentative of England at Washington.
We cannot conclude this subject, to which we
shall probably recur, without throwing out a
suggestion which may possibly lead to a favour-
able result. The Americans profess a wish to
put an end to the slave trade, but they wish, from'
very substantial reasons, to preserve their flag
from being visited by our men-of-war. Let the
visitation or search then be made under
their own authority. How ? Place an American
officer, we say, on board every English man-
of-war employed to repress the slave-trade, and
let every ship which shows American colours
be examined and answered for by him? That
would satisfy the honour of the Americans, pro-
tect the flag from insult, and their people from
injury, and secure the end of suppressing the
slave-trade by American vessels, so far as that
can be secured by the employment of our men-
of-war.

In casting a glance over the past year, with an
endeavour to pry into the future, we shall
direct attention to principle, rather than parti-
cular facts. We shall speak little of party inte-
rests, and much of those of the public. We
shall consider men, not things; and the words
" Whig" and " Tory," and the names " MEL-
BOURNE" and " PEEL," are to be considered
more as signs for principles than the names
of men.

The change of the Ministry, the triumph of
the Tories, and the defeat of the 'Whigs ; the
substitution of PEEL for MELBOURNE, and of
one set of men for another in all the offices of
Government, is the great event of the past year.
Happily for England, her Ministers are not
changed so frequently as to make those changes
unimportant; and, considered as a change, not
only in men, but in the principles on which our
affairs are to be conducted, after the Whigs had
been ten years in office, we agree with the
Tories in considering the change in the Admi-
nistration as the most remarkable domestic
event of the year 1841. What does that inform
us of the past ?—what does it indicate for the
future?

The Tories say, great honour and great hope
for them. Conservatism has triumphed and will
continue to triumph. We read the lesson some-
what differently. Lord MELBOURNE and his
friends grew lukewarm in the Liberal cause—
they became Finality-Conservatives, and natu-
rally, therefore, gave up their places to the heads
of. the Conservative party. They could not go-
vern on Conservative principles; and Liberal
principles—making progress with the age—they
had discarded. Party and public necessities, in-
deed, made them concede sundry measures de-
manded by the Liberals, but they had gene-
rally adopted Sir R. PEEL'S policy ofstanding still,
and of that principle his friends, not the Whigs,
are the organs. The change of Ministry was in
fact no triumph of Tory principles ; all the tri-
umph which they could achieve they had gained
when the MELBOURNE party declared for finality,
and declared emphatically against the total repeal
of the Corn-laws:

But after they had so declared, the necessities
of the State compelled them, though still at the
head of the Government, to make concessions to
the popular demands. They became quasi
Ballot men, and quasi Corn repealers. There-
upon the Conservatives took the Government
from them, and they were forced to give up their
newly embraced Conservatism. They became
then re-converted to Liberalism, and will now
probably march with the spirit of the age.
The change of the Ministry was therefore much
more an accession of strength to the Liberal
cause than it was a triumph of Conservatism. To
thoSe who still believe that the Government re-
gulates society, to get
possession of the Ministry
is all in all. To those who know that Government
must submit to society, the fact that the Con-
servative Whig 3 have been obliged to adopt more
advanced principles, and therefbre made way for
the Tories, is evidently a triumph of those prin-
ciples. So we read the past—what for the future ?
From no trick of statesmanship, but from
sheer and stern necessity, the Whigs were obliged
to take up the question of commercial reform,
and the reduction of monopoly-taxes. That
brought the question to issue, and will fix it on
the public mind till it be finally settled. We

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