The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY'.

is pledged for the redemption of the debt owing to us
voted away and alienated under a system of coercion,
and of physical and moral duress.

CHRONICLE.—The Times seems to be just now
under the twofold influence of the genius loci and of the
genius tees ivoris—o Printing ll:Aix-square and of the
season of pantomimic transformations. The last feat of
our flexible Contemporary is a remarkable lour de force,
even for the practised skill of that literary harlequin.
On Monday last the public were informed of the imme-
diate cause of Lord John Russell's failure in his attempt
to form an Administration. The cause, as the Times
states, was this :—" Lord Grey most strongly objected
to the appointment of Lord Palmerston to the Foreign-
office, and for his own part positively refused to serve
with that Noble Lord as Foreign Minister." Lord John
Russell, "considering that he could not dispense with
either c f their LordAips," resolved " to return his
commission into ht r Majesty's hands." Yesterday the
Times statec that amongst Lord John Russell's
friends a conviction prevailed that Lord Palmerston
" stood condemned by the public opinion of Europe as a
man unfit to conduct the foreign affairs of England "
that " this conviction was '4 fatal to the formation of
Lord John Russell's Cabinet "—that it had led to " the
secession of some of his colleagues," and thus to the
failure of an attempt to form an Administration. Upon
the matter of fact with respect to the events of the last
week, we wish merely to say that the first statement of
the Times is strictly correct, the other the rev( rse. Un-
willing to provoke any controversy upon the sutject, we
confined ourselves to the simple announcement that Lord
John Russell had been obliged to abandon his task,
not in consequence of any difference amongst his col-
leagues, either upon the question which had led to the
break-up of Sir Robert Peel's Ministry, or as to
the individuals who should have composed the
new Cabinet. The difference related merely to the
distribution of offices, and was confined to Lord Grey's
refusal to act with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secre-
tary. We are now merely stating a matter of fact, about
which, for the present, we are not called upon to offer
an opinion. Whether the cnore recent statement of the

MONEY MARKET and CITY_ NEWS.
CITY, FRIDAY EVENING.
TIMES.—Among the leading and experit need brokers of
the Stock Exchange, whost; views of the state oft he money-
market are always worth listening to, there is great dif-
ference of opinion on the present reaction in the funds,
on the probability of its being sustained or otherwise.
Many of them are disposed to ascribe it in great mea-
sure to the late excessive speculations for the fall, and to
the extensive demand for stock which has been pro-
duced by them ; and these ask, with some emphasis, in
what way is our situation changed for the better, with
the single exception of the return of Sir Robert Peel to
por. er ? Have we not still to contend with the efficts
of scarcity of agricultural produce, the intended repeal
of the corn-laws, with the action on the currency of the
large importations of grain which must follow that mea-
sure ? Is there any better prospect of overcoming
the baneful influence which the railway mania has had
in deranging the operations of the money market ?
And has the Oregon question lost any of its political
importance within the last week or two ? The par-
ties who reason thus are persuaded that the whole,
or the greater part, of the late rise is fallacious, and
that a counter reaction is all but inevitable. Those
who take a more cheering view of the state of pub-
lic credit, rely mainly on these considerations, viz. :
that the late alarm among the stockholders and specu •
lators was, in the first instance, greatly disproportioned
to the danger which really existed ; that nine-tenths at
least of the new railway companies were mere bubbles,
on which very little money was raised, and that little
sure to be spent before the meeting of Parliament ; that
the corn question need raise Ile alarm, because the stock
on the Continent, where alone gold would be the me-
dium of purchase, is notoriously so small that none
could be had there if wanted ; that Mr. Polk is of the
western states, and must play his game of brag well to
please his friends in that part of the American union ;
that Sir Robert Peel, made stronger by the manner of
his return to power, is not only a peace-msker, but a
great financier, who, if he understands anything, fully
understands the nature of public credit ; and, therefore,
to sum up all, as Consols were at or near:" par" in Anglia
last, there is no reason why they should not return to
that point. These, as nearly as may be collected, are
the reasonings of the Stock Exchange on the state of the
market ; the public will consider which has the best of
the argument, which time alone can actually determine.
There is something ludicrous in the various impres-
sions made upon applicants for railway shares, who
have thought it prudent quietly to back out by the
threat of the promoters of the schemes to publish their
names as defaulters. A great number content them-
selves by earnestly deprecating such a cause ; others
meet it with a counter threat of prosecution for
libel, should the parties carry this avowed intention
into effect ; few, if any, think of paying any money
for the purpose of averting the impending evil.
At present all seem to be under great alarm ; and as
the adroit managers of the hopeful projects do not
fail to discover this, it is not unlikely that they may,
in a few days, go a step farther, and proceed to ac-
tual hostilities. One correspondent has, however,
started a new view of the case, which it may be of some
use to those who are placed in a like predicament to men-
tion. He is willing, he says, perfectly willing, that his
name should be published as what these defeated
schemers term a " defaulter," but what others may desig-
nate as an honest, or at least prudentperson, who, like a
man tricked at a gaming-house, refuses to fulfil engage-
ments media with sharpers aryl swindlers, to which there
exists no law that can compel him. He could wish, he adds,
that the contrary course could be taken, and publication
made of the names of those who have yielded to such
threats as these by the payment of the sums levied ; he
has no doubt they would feel as much annoyed by the
exposure, and that they would be laughed at as simple-
tons, Rho from their money are " soon parted." These
remsrks only apply, of necessity, to those projectors of
companies who have so conducted themselves as to be
justly left in the lurch by the dupes, though there are
very few probably of a diffilrent character to whom it
would have occurred to put forth a threat of public expo-
sure as a means of enforcing payment from defaulting
applicants for shares. The world will, perhaps, never
know the whole truth of how many railway com-
panies have issued prospectuses, in which the whole
money, raised from the gullible and unfortunate persons
who were fascinated by them, has been spent in various
ways without the least chance that the project could ever
arrive at maturity. The bankers who have kept the
accounts of such money as they have managed to scrape
together, would be able to tell a tragic tale in this respect,
but could not tell all, nor is it likely that such official or
professional confidence will ever be betrayed as to lead to
the desired exposure.

Times is one of those distortions of truth produced by
the habit of bending and twisting facts to make them fit
particular views, or is the malignant suggestion of some
unscrupulous intriguer, we feel equally bound to tell the
public that it is altogether disentitled to credit. There

s a very wide difference indeed, though we care not just
now to dwell upon this, between the refusal of such a
man as Lord Grey to co-operate with Lord Palmerston
as Foreign Secretary, and " the secession of sonic of
his colleagues upon the important ground" that he
" was an object of general suspicion and alarm." It
is a stale artifice of those who, from various
and conflicting motives from factious hostility,
from larger party views, from personal pique or am-
bition, or, as some do, from the mere love of mischief
—aim at breaking any political combination, to assume
the existence of some difference, and then to enter as
auxiliaries and partizans of imaginary dissentients. " The
Whigs," it is said, "have acquiesced, for the most part,
against their own conscientious convictions in the foreign
policy of Lord Palmerston." Here is, if we may so say,
the trick of the Artful Dodger in politics. Our Contem-
porary would make it appear that the Whigs have one
policy and Lord Palmerston another, and he benevolently
interferes to protect the great body of his party from the
contamination of his principles. Now, whatever may
have been the merits or the faults of the foriegn policy
of England from 1830 to 1842, they belong not to Lord
Palmerston or to the Whig Cabinet, but to the people
who placed and sustained these men in office.
This we claim in justice to the Liberals of
England. It was the force of opinion in this coun-
try that enabled the Government of the day, and
would have compelled any other Government,
to recognise and heartily to support the throne and the
newinstitutions of France, then menaced by Powers
not even yet fully reconciled to the principles out of
which they sprung. In Belgium, in Spain, in Portugal,
in Italy, in Greece, the allied Governments of France
and England brought to pacific solution questions of
the greatest complexity—questions that had within them
the. seeds of that calamity foretold by one of the most
gifted of our statesmen—a war of opinion in Europe,
and which seemed so inevitable as to draw from an Op-
position leader the memorable declaration, that if an
angel were to descend from Heaven to write our dis-
patches,, it would be still impossible to preserve
peace." Peace was preserved though, and the
basis of its preservation ssas the alliance of France
and England. It is fresh in all men's minds
how that alliance was assailed—how the men who
stood by it were thwarted by every factious artifice
within reach of the most unscrupulous Opposition of
which the history of party gives record. Day after day
the columns of the very journal that is now treating us
to hypocritical homilies upon the blessings of peace and
good will amongst nations, teemed with incendiary ap-
peals to the vilest passions and the old anti-Gallican
bigotry of our people. Our Parliamentary records are
full of debates and divisions—so many pitched battles—
the hardly concealed object of which was to dislodge our
Government from the position they had taken by the side
of France. This spirit pervaded all ranks of the Tory party,
and such was its virulence that not the most respectable
of their organs could restrain its exhibition even upon an
occasion that lays all orcinary animosities at rest. A
man of European fame, come to do honour to a great
event in our history, was elaborately insulted, be-
cause he was a Frenchman—the representative of a
popular Government. And indeed so little has the
spirit of this hostility abated, that as in 1838 the
Quarterly Review insulted Marshal Soult, so in 1845 it
insults M. Thiers, who, whatever may be our quarrel
with him as a politician, was not here as a politician, but
as the guest of our country, the representative of the
literature and the civilization of his own. If there be
then in England any feeling at variance with the inte-
rests of peace, lay it not at the door of the Whig Go-
vernment, of Lord Palmerston, or of the Liberal press.
They who sow the wirlwind in opposition must not
expect to reap sunshine and tranquillity in office.
There is not a public man in France, no matter
what may be his party or his personal predilections,
who can entertain the slightest suspicion, that, up
to 1840 at all events, there prevailed in the Liberal
Cabinet any other than the most friendly feeling
towards that country. Does France complain of the
thing in 1840, or merely of the manner in which it was
done ? If of the thing itself—of the treaty of 184. 0, and
of the arrangement of the Eastern question which
.re-
sulted from it, then, at all events, it is but common pc- I
tice to the Government of Lord Melbourne, and to the
Foreign Secretary of that Government, that the people
and the public men of France should know that the
policy of 1840 and 1841 was essentially the policy of the
British nation, sanctioned at the time by the opinion of
the most distinguished men of all parties, supported by
newspapers of all shades of opinion (the Times amongst
the most strenuous), and since then more than once
adopted by the Tory leaders—the Duke of Wellington
declaring, with characteristic love of justice, that "he
saw nothing in the whole proceedings to blame."
ADVERTISER.—The American Minister has, it is
said, submitted the following propositions to the Mexi-
can Government :-1. The Rio del Norte to be the
boundary between Texas and Mexico. 2. An indem-
nity of 5,000,000 dollars to be paid by Mexico. 3.
Upper California to be ceded to the United States, as
far down as the head of the Gulf; the river Gila,
which empties itself into the Colorado of the west, to
be the boundary. If this arrangement should be car-
ried out, New California, embracing the splendid har-
bours of San Francisco, and Monte Rey on the Pa-
cific coast, would become part and parcel of the Ame-
rican Union. A glance at the map will show, that
the Americans would gain thereby an accession of
territory, including Texas, equal to more than one-
third of their present extent of conntry on the Western
Continent. The River Gila, one of the affluents of the
great river Colorado, runs from east to west, a little
northwards of the head of the Gulf of California ; and
if the Mexicans should cede the Rio Bravo del Norte,
which no doubt they will do, on the side of the Gulf of
Mexico, as the boundary line of Texas ; and after-
wards, which appears to us incredible, consent to run
the line along that river, till it reaches the parallel of
the River Gila, taking a westerly direction to the Colo-
rado, and thence to the Pacific Ocean—we say, unhe-
sitatingly, that modern history furnishes no example
of such aggrandisement, brought about by the influ-
ence of giant overwhelming strength, against pitiable
unresisting weakness. It' the Mexican Congress should
vote away this vast tract of country, it appears to us
that a more suicidal act could not be perpetrated. To
conceal from themselves for one moment the inevit-
able consequence, that Mexico Proper must speedily
afterwards be absorbed in the vast Anglo-American
Republic, would be the height of the blindest fatuity.
But the grave consideration which forces itself upon our
reluctant minds, and none can be better disposed than
we are to view favourably the acts of the United States
Government ; is it possible that France and England,
especially the latter, will remain quiet spectators of such
a vast acquisition of territory by
.the United States
people ?—without a murmur, without a serious
resistance ! The aggressive spirit of the Amen
can policy, veiled under the pretence of ex-
tending the sphere of their free institutions, now
manifests itself' in a manner which cannot but inspire
anxiety, if not alarm, for the consequences. 'Whatever
Mr. Polk may say, if France has already turned her atten-
tion to that quarter, and has lately, with great propriety,
broached the doctrine of a "balance of power" in America,
it is not the President's vain threat that " the United
States cannot in silence permit any European interference
on the North American Continent; and should any
such interference be attempted, will be ready to resist it
at any and all hazards,"—it is not such mere declama-
tory protests that will deter France and England from
exercising their equally undoubted privilege of acting
as they may deem wise, and politic, and just ; nor from
extending protection over the weak and the oppressed
amongst the distant nations of the world, in the sane
way as at this moment they are achieving real perma-
nent honour and glory by succouring and supporting a
much-wronged State in the southern part of the Ame-
rican hemisphere. To suppose that England would
yield the whole of Oregon, and allow, at the same time,
the United States to seize upon Upper California—after
having annexed Texas, by which the area of the
American territory would be at one mighty stroke
of policy actually doubled in extent —is something so
utterly beyond the bounds of imagination to conceive,
or for us to submit to, that we cannot regard these
monstrous pretensions and aggressive acts, without
feeling the deepest anxiety for the result. The self-
praise and egotism, the affectation of humility and for-
bearance towards the neighbouring states, sanctimo-
niously seasoned with grave appeals to Heaven—which
prevail throughout the whole of the speech of Mr. Polk
—contrast but too painfully with the settled determined
resolution, which, step by step, gains ground upon all the
countries conterminous with the republic, compels conces-
sion by overwhelming force—extorts vast territories under
the plea of compensation—and usurps the vast empire of
the North American continent, under the hppocritical,
plc of advancing the happiness of mankind. Whilst
Mexico stands indebted many millions to England, we
shall never look on supinely, and see the territory which

THE SUN, LONDON SATURDAY EVENT NG, DECEM BER 27, 1845.

sequently his Lordship entertained another large party,
including Master Henn. Sergeant Stock, Dr. liadchtf,
Q.C., ; Dr. Gayer, Q.C.; Mr. J. J. Murphy, Q.C.; Mr.
H. Baldwin, Q.C.; Mr. Butt, Q.C.; Mr. Napier, Q C,
and several others.

PROPOSED GRAND YACHT
REVIEW BY HER MAJESTY.
We (Knots Advertiser) are indebted to the courtesy of
Mr. Knight, the zealous Secretary of the Royal Southern
Yacht Club, at Southampton, for the following interest-
ing communication:—
" I beg to submit, through your columns, -a proposi-
tion to the Commodores and members of the Royal
Yacht Clubs of Great Britain for the display of their
collective force iu such a manner as, from its novelty
and beauty, would, I think, eclipse all other naval
sights, save those of fleets intended for actual conflict.
" Her Majesty, by selecting the Isle of Wight for a
marine residence, and extending her patronage not only
to the Squadron, but to so many Yacht Clubs, has
merited the especial gratitude of their gallant owners;
and that gratitude could not be, as I conceive, more ap-
propriately shown than in paving our Ocean Queen'
the compliment I will proceed to describe.
" I would advise that a meeting, on a grand sca'e,
should be held in London of all the members of Royal
Yacht Clubs in the kingdom, at- which the oldest Com-
modore, the Right Hon. the Earl of Yarborough, should
be requested to preside, to consider the most advisable
mode of getting up a magnificent Review of all the Yacht
Clubs in the Kingdom, to take place before her Majesty
in the yachting months of 1846.
" I would respectfully tender my opinion, in deference
to the judgment of such a meeting, that it would be ad-
visable for every Royal Yacht Club to rendezvous (say
in the month of August) at the desire of their Commo-
dores,:at Cowes, or its immediate vicinity, and go through
the necessary preliminary manoeuvres in divisions or
squadrons, in order to require the practice which would
make the evolutions of the combined fleet, when reviewed
by her Majesty, deserving of her approbation. I will
not presume to suggest any further details, but express
my hope that the idea may not be thought unworthy of
realisation by the noblemen and gentlemen of the Yacht
Clubs of Great Britain. Such a day would not only he
unprecedented, but the display would be honourable te
the national character.
" By no other instances of magnificence in their ex-
penditure, and taste in their sports, are foreigners of in-
telligence so much struck as in the profuse expense and
patriotic feeling displayed by the members of the Yacht
Clubs, the fit-out and discipline of many of these vessels
approaching to those ranking in their country's service.
The expenditure of the Yacht Clubs counts by hundreds
of thousands of pounds in building, fitting, wages, and
victualling. Ship-building, too. has greatly improved
by the patronage of the Clubs, -and they employ up-
wards of four thousand of the smartest seamen to be
found in the world.
" The Review I propose suggests feelings of the highest
gratification and national interest, and the assemblage of
visitors on the occasion would doubtless be the greatest
ever witnessed. I think I may venture to express con-
viction that our beloved Sovereign would be delighted
with such an appropriate and imposing sight. Of it;
magnificence some idea may be formed from the fact
being that there are more titan eleven clubs, cemmand-
ing a force exceeding five hundred yachts, and as the
statistics of such a force may be interesting to the lovers
of aquatic amusements, I will conclude by laying the
following before your readers :
Distinction of Clubs. No. of No. of No. of No.of Puincipally
Yachts Tons Men Guns Brass Pds.
Royal Yacht Squadron 102 9,000 1,600 400 from 2to 9
Royal Thames Yacht Club 146 4,400 540 220 from 3s to 6
Royal Western Yacht Club 74 3,000 400 260 from Ito 6
Royal Southern Yacht Club 67 2,800 350 230 fr;;ut Ito 9
Royal Victoria Yacht Club 38 3,200 420 250 from 2to 9
Royal Harwich Yacht Club 38 COO 120 40 from 16 to 4
Royal Cork Yacht Club 42 1,650 250 120 from Ito 6
Royal Mersey Yacht Club 45 1,470 240 110 from Ito 6
Royal Northern Yacht Club 40 1,459 230 110 from Ito 6
Royal Eastern Yacht Club

Royal Kingstown Yacht Club 29 1,360 230 70 from Ito 6

621 29,250 4,380 1,810
Deduct about 1-6th for the
same Yachts belonging to
different Clubs, you will
have a Grand Total of 530 25,000 3,900 1,500
" The seamen are exclusive of masters, cooks, and
stewards, which would give at least 800, in addition to
the foregoing numbers.

" The wakes alone for the masters and seamen ex-
ceed 120,0001. per annum, and the intrinsic value of the
yachts, with their armament complete, is more than
three-quarters of a million of money.
" All yachts (beside their broadside guns), are pro-
vided with small arms of every description, and the crews
in most cases are instructed in the use of them.

" The amount of outlay with regard to provisions,
Clothing, and other expenses, can scarcely be guessed at,
as the greatest luxuries are to be found on board, re-
gardless of cost.

"At the present time there are upwards of fifty
yachts of large tonnage in frame, at the several building
yards of White, liatsey, and Hanson, of Cowes ; Rubio
arid Biaker, of Southampton ; Wanhill and Penny, of
Poole ; Inman, of Lymington ; Moore, of Plymouth ;
besides the yards at London, Gravesend, Clyde, Kings-
town, Colic, and other private yards in the kingdom of
Great Britain ; so chat in the spring of 1846, 600 sail of
yachts may be calculated to be in commission.—Your
ob,dient servant, " JAMES KNIGHT,
" Sec. Royal Southern Yacht Club."
" Southampton, Dec. 12, 18-15."

CORN-LAW MEETING AT BURY

ST. EDMUND'S.
DEFEAT OF THE PROTECTIONISTS.
A meeting was held at the Guildhall, Bury St. Ed-
munds, on Friday last, convened by the Mayor (J. Deck,
Esq.), in compliance with the following requisition,
signed by sixty inhabitants:
" We, the undersigned inhabitants of the town of
Bury St. Edmund's, feeling impressed with the impor-
tance of the present question of a free trade in corn, more
especially as it affects this agricultural district, hereby
request; you will, at an early day, convene a public
meeting of the inhabitants to afford them an opportunity
of expressing their sentiments where their trade and
prosperity are so materially concerned.
" To John Deck, Esq., Mayor."
It being known that nearly all of the signatures were
those of protectionists, the free-trade party on Wednes-
day put out the following handbill

Fellow-townsmen,—The advocates of monopoly end
starvation purpose holding a meeting on Friday next,
at noon, in the Guildhall, with a view to assist in per-
petuating the existence of the present bread-tax.
" Those of you who are of opinion that this cruel
monopoly ought to cease—that the industry of the
country should be free and unrestricted—that the people
of England ought no longer to be dictated to by a selfish
minority where they shall buy the necessaries of life, or
dispose of the fruits of their industry—that the poor man
ought no longer to be cheated out of a cheap loaf, and
compelled to buy a dear one—attend that meeting, and
let it be seen that the public mind of this town is in
favour of free trade, and a cheap and plentiful supply of
bread to the poor.
" December 24, 1845."
At the hour appointed for meeting the hall was crowded
by tradesmen and mechanics, and several of the agricul-
turists in the surrounding neighbourhood were also pre-
sent at the proceedings.
The Mayor having taken the chair, the foll Owing reso-
lution was proposed by Capt.HElGH.cu (a landowner, cul-
tivating his own farm), and seconded, by JOHN WORL-
LEDGE, Esq. (an owner and tenant):—
" That in the opinion of this meeting the adequate
protection of British agriculture from foreign competi-
tion is essential not only to the prosperity of the classes
more intimately connected with it, but to the welfare of
the whole population ; and this meeting, therefore, most
earnestly deprecates any diminution of the protection
now enjoyed.:

Upon which Captain HUBBARD, R.N., and Mr. T. G.
WILLIAMS (draper), in very argumentative addresses,
proposed the following amendment :
"That in the opinion of this meeting it is to the in-
terest of the tenant-farmer, the labourer, and the land-
lord, that the corn-law question should be permanently
settled, the experience of the last thirty years having
proved that protection drives capital from the land,
narrows the home market by crippling the foreign trade,
and is injurious to all classes."
_

11. BEVA N, Esq. (banker), having spoken in support
of the original motion, he was replied to by a mechanic
named Punshon, in most truthful terms.

The question was then put by the Mayor, and the
amendment was carried by a majority of at least twenty
to one.

Bury St. Edmund's being the centre of the agricul-
turist district of West Suffolk, this demonstration against
protection" speaks volumes.

RAILWAY SHARE MARKETS.
EDINBURGH, DEC. 24.
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The sales are—Ayr and Galloway,
38s.—Edinburgh and Northern, 675. —Ditto, Newport, 235.
—Ditto, Lochgelly, 30s.—Forth and Clyde Junction, 40s.—
Glasgow and Dundee Junction, 41s. 6d.—Glasgow and Les-
mahagow, 595.—North British, Halves, 57a—Ditto, Exten-
sion to Carlisle, 43s.—Perth and Crier 'Direct, 355. 6d.—
Scottish South Midland, 40s.
HULL, DEC. 26.
The Exchange is closed until Monday next. What private
transactions have taken place, have been mostly at the
highest prices paid in London on Wednesday.
YORK, DEC. 26.
Our Exchange is closed, and consequently no lists will
issue until Monday next. Nevertheless, there are many
buyers of York Extensions, Newcastle and Darlingtons, and
Brandlings, at an advance on our last quotations. London
and Yorks and Berwicks are also sought after. There is, in
fact, a decided improvement at this moment in the aspect of
affairs, and a brisk demand for most of the better descrip-
tions of stock.

ANECDOTE OF WILLIAM THE FOURTII.—III a re-
cent memoir of the late Mr. Irving, M.P., an anecdote
is introduced, exemplifying in an interesting manner the
character of the honest and kind-hearted sailor King.
It is recorded as follows in the inscription on a splendid
silver salver, presented to Mr. Irving a few months pre-
vious to his Majesty's death :—(Royal Arms).—" King
William the Fourth has given this piece of plate to J
Irving, Esq., the representative of his Majesty's late
highly esteemed friend, J. Rae, Esq., in commemoration
of a review dinner, given by his Majesty on the 2d of
June, 1805, at Bedfont ; and in discharge of the suns of
251. s hich the King on that occcasion borrowed of Mr.
Rae, his guest—a debt which had not recurred to his
Majesty's recollectionuntil recently.-28th March, 1837.
Mr. Robert Peel, eldest son of Sir Robert Peel,
who is attached to the British Legation at Madrid, is shortly
expected to return to this country from Spain. Mr. Peel has
been abroad nearly three years.
The Earl of Ducie has, it is said, disposed of
Woodchester Park, the magnificent family domain in Glou-
cestershire, to an opulent merchant. The consideration
money is stated to have been 160,9001. It will be recollected
that the estate was submitted for public competition, but the
highest sum that was bidden for the property was considered
beneath its Talus.