The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-10 00:00:00

*tronlll2bition

SUN OFFICE Three o'Clock.

The accounts that reach this country from
China, India, and almost every part of the habit-
able globe, in such rapid succession, cannot fail
to strike the most careless observer with wonder
at the vast extent of her dominions, and the
activity and energy of her people. The rank
which she holds at the present moment among
the nations of the Earth, has no parallel in the
history of mankind. She has established colo-
nies and independent States, some of which are
larger than the Roman empire was at the zenith
of its power, her ships traverse every ocean, and

her sons are found in every clime. No country
ever equalled her in trade, commerce, or coloni-
zation, nor in gigantic undertakings commenced
with such slender 'neaps. The rapid increase of
her power is not less remarkable than its extent.
But two hundred years ago a few English mer-
chants established themselves on a small spot in
India, and that spot has increased to a mighty
empire. A little band of freemen fled from the
despotic rule and unjust exactions of an English
Sovereign, settled in the new world, carrying
with them the free spirit, the habits, the arts,
and the religion of their country, and their suc-
cessors now rank with the most powerful States
of Europe. Another colony of equal size, and
endued with the same love of liberty, and the
same ardent desire for improvement, is increasing
daily in strength, and in process of time will
become a powerful rival to its independent
,neighbour. From the Falkland Islands at the
utmost verge of the Southern hemisphere to the
Polar Sea, she has possessions on the Continent
and islands almost without number, inhabited by
people speaking our language, cultivating the
same arts, and imitating the mother country in
trade, commerce, and all those acquirements and
pursuits which distinguish a civilized race from
barbarians. In the East, England has under
her sway 100 millions of inhabitants, and while
these rest satisfied with her rule, is carrying on
war with a hardy and powerful people one thou-
sand miles distant from the seat of Government;
and at some 5,000 miles distance on the other side
of the vast continent of Asia a handful of British
soldiers is attacking successfully an ancient em-
pire, containing countless millions of inhabitants.
It is a singular fact, too, that these possessions,
with a few exceptions, were obtained less by war
and conquest than by the arts of peace. Unlike
Rome, " when she laid a country waste, and
called desolation peace," England began by
peopling deserts, by assisting and protecting her
offspring till it grew to manhood, or by civilizing
barbarians, teaching them habits ofindustry, ruling
them generally by mild and equitable laws, and
attaching them to herself rather by voluntary
bonds than by the violent and rude hand of a
conqueror. No country ever exhibited such a
rapid increase of power and wealth, and in the
development of her resources, one circumstance
gives rise to noble and cheering reflections,
honourable to the spirit of liberty and to the
thirst after free inquiry which distinguished the
beginning of the seventeenth century.' From
that period to the present the progress of arts,
commerce, and civilization, has been gradual and
sure. Then the English territory appeared on
the map not bigger than a man's hand. Now it
is spread over the world, not from any settled
plan, not from a regular system of aggression
like that pursued by the Romans, but by the
natural course of events. The genius of our Con-
stitution, the hatred of the people to slavery, and
their attachment to free institutions, must have
had no small influence in producing results of
such magnitude. The nations of the earth
cannot fail to respect a country which in one
day emancipated 800,000 slaves, at an expense
exceeding the personal revenues of mighty
Sovereigns, and which, by a magnanimous reso-
lution, declared that every human being, of what-
ever nation, or creed,or by whatever ties lie may
be bound, becomes a freeman on touching the
sacred soil of England. It is an instructive fact,

too, the period to which we refer,
shesustained
one memorable defeat, and
a r,sons, who rose as one man in
tt
ft .
rl i
o a t
m uei r. i t
o only,g

defence of that liberty and self-government for
which one English sovereign was sacrificed on
the scaffold, and his race for ever banished from
thte a beencountry.
rate during But marked as the change haS
the last century', it is still going on
a
n. By means of rail-
roads, steam-ships, improvements in machinery,
and important discoveries, the strength of the
i
therto unknown.
country within the last fifteen years has been
raised to aheight of which it would be impossible
to make anything like a proximate calcu-
lation, and no one can survey this wonderful
scene without entertaining the hope and the
conviction that all these great movements are
directed by more than human agency, and are
means in the hand of the Great Ruler for civi-
lizing and uniting in one great family the nations
of the earth.

Lord ABINGER, who was once a Whig, then
a Tory, and now bids fair to settle down into a
who spent the best years
confirmednfslifei
in
advocatingltra-l'or3; ,
the Freedom of the Press,
and afterwards, in his capacity of Attorney-
General to the WELLINGTON Administration, did
allstrangle that Freedom, multiply-
ing prosecutions to such a degree that
ex-officio
couldoffieo to
even his own party began to take the alarm and
discountenance his proceedings—Lord ABINGER,
who, like Sir JAMES GRAHAM, has boxed
the political compass, t delivered to Charge
alCsot on the opening of the
C Commission, in which much of
tolnile'cisn'ibt'ilor'lueerr;adrinaetycsi lapirit that might be expected from
such a man, is apparent—so apparent, indeed,
that none can fail to perceive it at the very first,
glance. instead of confining himself, as Lord.
Chief Justice TINDAL did, to the law of the;
case, the Learned Judge went out of his!
way to discuss the character and principles
of Chartism ; and this not in a calm, equable
tone, but in the earnest spirit of a party poli-
tician. " What)" he asked indignantly, "is the
object of the Charter, which these men are
seeking?? Annual Parliaments, Universal Suf-
frage, and Vote by Ballot! Yet, gentlemen,
you will find by the evidence which will be
produced before you, that it has been incul-
cated on many misguided persons that the
sovereign remedy for all abuses, and the
only means of putting themselves in pos-
session of such a share of power as
would enable them to vindicate their own,
rights, and secure themselves against oppression,
is by the enactment of what they call the People's
Charter?" Now we contend that in hazarding
these remark, Lord ABINGER was travelling
beyond the mark. Like the cobbler, he should
have stuck to his last. It was not expected from
him that he should enter into a political disqui-
sition upon Chartism.
of the but that, in his capacity
of Judge, he should restrict himself to an ex-
positionlaw-what business had
he with the points of the Charter ?
Where was the imperative necessity that com-
pelled him to launch his anathemas against Uni-
versal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments? He
wasdneolti
delivering
iasl
speanrfti ts o
}anot
rtisan, but
Judge. He was
the Tory side
of the House of Lords, but from the sacred
Bench of Justice. By
far the greater portion of
the Learned Judge's charge is taken up with a
denunciation of Chartism ; while the riotous
meetings, which were the occasion Of that
Charge, are disposed of in a very summary,
off-hand manner. We are told, indeed,
that such Meetings are illegal, and " should be
punished with the utmost rigour of the law ;" but
that js about the extent of information we obtain
on the subject, so eager is Lord ABINGER to record
at full-length his hostility to Chartism, and to
point out—what he conceives to be—the injurious
working of the democratic principle in the
United States. His Lordship's great horror
seems to be, that persons of property
legislated ` for by -spasong-
should he
no property. The legislation of the well-