The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY MORNING-, MARCH 15, 1842

whether the arrangement is decidedly a ransom for the city of
Canton, to save it from the consequences of legal warfare ;
leaving out entirely the question of remuneration, compensa-
tion, aril security for the future, so long mooted, or for other
purpose.
I ask it to maintain the national honour and the credit s f
the British flag, that the success of the British arms in laying
the city ofSanton at the feet of the Queen's forces may not be
hereafter questioned, without certain contradiction.
(Signed) H. L. SENHOUSE, Captain, Senior Officer.
This letter seems to have nettled the Plenipotentiary
a good deal. He must have seen from it that meritorious
officers would no longer charge themselves with the ri-
dicule and the disgrace of his blunders. Accordingly,
on the 2d of June, he answers officially :
" Whilst I am unable to perceive the necessity for your com-
munication of the 28th ultimo, upon the ground that the late
arrangement at Canton can by any po.sibiliti or in any quarter
be construed into a general settlement of the questions at issue
between the two Governments,l certainly can have no hesita-
tion in officially declaring that it has reference only to the re-
lief of this city and province from pressure which could not
continue to be applied, casting ruin and distress upon a vast
unoffending population, at incalculable inconvenience to our
own well-understood interests, in forgetfulness of her Majesty's
gracious Purposes, and in defiance of the temper and feeling of
the British nation upon all such subjects. • •
We now come to the ignorance which Captain ELLIOT
allowed to prevail at home as to how he obtained the
ransom money. In a letter from the Lords of the
Treasury to the Foreign-office, dated the 2nd of Novem-
ber, we find the following
Having submitted to the Lords Commissioners of her
Majesty's Treasury your Lordship's letter of the 28th ultimo,
enclosing a despatch from Captain Elliot, her Majesty's
Plenipotentiary in China, in which he reports the payments in
money and securities received from the Chinese Government,
I have it in command from the Lords Commissioners of her
Majesty's Treasury to request you will state to the Earl of
Aberdeen, that it would be satisfactory to my Lords, if some
information could be furnished by Lord Aberdeen as to the
grounds on which the money in question was demanded, and
paid either by the Chinese Government or the authorities in
Canton.

To which, on the part of Lord ABERDEEN, -the following
reply is given : •
lam to state to you in reply, for the information of their
Lordships, that Captain Elliot's despatches to the Secretary of
State contain no explanation whatever of the grounds on which
this payment was demanded or received by him from the
Chinese authorities; and there Is only one expression in those
despatches which has any bearing whatever on that point.
Captain Elliot, in allusion to the quantity, of tea, which had
just been shipped from Canton, says—" The indemnity just
recovered from the Chinese is, perhaps, rather more than
double the charges and• duties they had received from the
trade of the season."

With his usual luck, however, . Capt. ELLIOT hit upon
an expedient for getting rid of part of the money, and of
getting himself into a new scrape. In the plenitude of
Plenipotentiary power he had drawn Opium Bills upon
the Treasury in faiour of DENT and Co., to the amount
of upwards of sixty-three thousand pounds, which bills
wero dishonoured when the Government refused to re-
cognise the opium contract. When, however, the Sycee
silver ransom of Canton was placed at his disposal his Ex-
cellency magnanimously paid these bills. But now comes
the unpleasant part of the business. The Lords of the
Treasury have decided that the ransom is a droit of the
Crown, and therefore that every shilling of it, except
what is paid in gratuities to the officers and men at the
discretion of her MAJESTY; must be handed over to the
Consolidated Fund, to be dealt with by Act of Par-
liament. This places poor Captain EI,LIOT in a very sad
predicament, from which it will require an Act of Par-
liament to relieve. him.
The House of Commons, being dissatisfied with the
first returns, ordered on the 7th instant copies of any
additional communications from Captain ELLIOT, " ex-
plaining or having any bearing upon " his mysterious
transactions with the Chinese authorities, addressed by
him to the Foreign-office. to this order a return has just
been made, consisting of an extract from a letter
dated " 55, Cadogan-place, 25th of January, 1842," and
addressed by Captain ELLIOT to Lord ABERDEEN, which,
if possible, involves the question of the object of the
ransom in still greater mystery. All that the Gal-
lant ex-Plenipotentiary says about it is, that knowing
there was a good sum of money in the imperial
treasury at Canton, he thought he could not do
better than get it, and having gotten it he was satisfied !
Taking the whole of Captain Ehuo;r's career in China,
and overlooking the cost which his blundering hast cost,
and will yet cost this country, we must say that it ex-
hibits the richest specimen of the farce of diplomacy ever
acted on the theatre .of this world. In his best days
GRIMALDI was a bore compared with the Plenipotentiary
ELLIOT.

The Parliamentary Report of the conversation be-
tween Sir ROBERT PEEL and Mr. SHIEL relative to the
occupation of Algiers, which appeared in The Sun, dif-
fered in a word or two, which did not in the slightest
particular affect the meaning of the conversation, from
the report of our morning Contemporaries. To soothe
the self-love of the French, which was very much
wounded by the Report, the French Government com-
pelled the Journals which copied it from The Sun to
re-copy it from the other papers, wishing thereby to
create an impres.sion that all reports of speeches disa-
greeable to France were liable to be erroneously
reported. The ruse of the Government has not been
understood by the Ministerial Press, for the Journal des
Debats has thought proper•to caution- the French public
against the reports in Ihe Sun, as garbled to suit party
purposes. "In England as in France," says the Debuts,
" there are Journals which snake it a point of honour
and patriotism to sow. the seeds of hatred and defiance
between the two countries, by irritating and keeping
alive national prejudices. The Radical Journal The
Sun, is of that number. 'lt is filled with an absurd
animosity againit France, and it is from it—which
arrives first in paris-7-that the French Journals copy
the proceedings in the English Parliament. It is not
therefore, surprising that a -tone is given to the reports
in that Journal to suit its political prejudices ." Now
we tell our French Contemporary, that however little
surprising such a custom would be in France, it
would be very surprising indeed in England. Such
a custom is altogether unknown to the British
Press of every shade of political. opinion. The
business of a reporter on the London Press, is to
report faithfully, without any regard to the political
opinions of the journal upon whoSe establishment he is ;
and we appeal to the whole of our Contemporaries,
Whig and Tory, whether any reporter, daring to garble
reports of proceedings in Parliament to suit party views,
would not instantly be discharged ? The political
opinions of reporters are, in nine casos out of ten,
utterly unknown to, and never in any case inquired af. er
by the Editors of the London press.
With respect to the absurd charge of The Sun being
hostile to France, the best answer which we can make is
to refer to our columns for the last ten years. Of the
London daily journals, The Sun is perhaps the only paper
which on every occasion advocated the policy of a close
alliance with France. True, we never lent ourselves
to support the nefarious acts of the French Government
perpetrated in violation of its solemn engagements,
but in this we manifested no more hostility to France
than did M. °DILLON .13A RROT, and the whole of the
Opposition Members of the French Chamber of Depu-
ties. Nay, our very remarks upon Lord ABERDEEN'S
correction in the House of Lords .of the statement of the
French Ambassador, showed a kindlier feeling towards
France, than those of any other London Journal, inas-
much as we observed that we gave more credit to the
assertion of the Ambassador than to the recollections of
the Noble Foreign Secretary. We did even more. We
expressed ourselves opposed to .all controversy on the
question of the conquests of France in Africa.. But the
truth we take to be this, the writer in the Debats never
read a syllable of English in his life, and judged The
Sun by occasional translated extracts from it. Were he
a regular reader of this Journal he could not manifest
the gross ignorance that is shown in describing The Sun
as filled with animosity against France.

We received yesterday, by the French Papers,
M. GUIZOT'S version of the conversation between the
French Ambassador and Lord ABERDEEN, relative to
the recognition of the Conquest of Algiers. M. G UIZOT
point blank contradicts Lord ABERDEEN'S statement in
the House of Lords.

i
It blew a hurricane in Paris on Wednesday night and Thurs-
day morning. It began about 11 o'clock, and blew from the
west in strong squalls, doing a great deal of damage to roofs,
chimneys, and trees. Ott the bridge of Neuilly, two vehicles were
blown over, and on the road to Saint Denis, a man was killed
by the sudden fall of a tree. In the court of a house, Rue de
l'Abbaye, a gentleman was nearly killed by the fall of a chim-
ney-stack' close at his feet, just as he had come out of the door.
Nouumv reperl oahucaessvce: b and
have been blown down in various parts of
Paris, and several persons have been injured. Scarcely any
of the churches and public buildings have escaped without da-
mage to their roofs. The Pavillon de Flore and the Pavillon
de Munn, at the Tuileries, have had the lead rolled up in se-
veralenedn
laidthe bare.roofs of the gallery and palace of the
L
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Dutch Papers, March 12.