The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-11 00:00:00

imposed on us, but merely record what
• well-known in almost every political coterie of
• any consideration. Having, then, evidence of
an order from Sir Jasper Nicholls to General
Pollock to withdraw, will any one venture to
suggest that the General Commanding-in-Chief
in India was so insane as to issue such directions
—involving. an entire change in the policy of the
supreme Government of that empire—without
the most express, intelligible, and complete au-
thority from Lord Ellenborough ? Theidea
that Sir Jasper would so act is monstrous; it
, cannot be entertained for an instant. What so
natural as that Lord Ellenborouoh should issue
such an order? He went to India publicly de-
claring that the termination of the Affghan
" folly " and "crime" was the primary object
of his government —he made an attempt to
terminate them—and he is now engaged hi re-
perpetrating them. Away with such a mi-
serable fallacy as that the treachery and
cruelty of the Afthans have converted what
was " folly " into wisdom, and what was
" crime " into duty. Lord Ellenborough's
order for withdrawal testifies that in his opinion
no such harlequinade revolution •was accom-
plished ; that order was issued long after he knew
of the reverses we had suffered—subsequently to
the rising at Caubul—the murder of the Envoy
—the capitulation of the Affghan capital—the
Elphinstone treaty—and the Slaughter of the
retreating army; and it was issued after General
Pollock's division had advanced through the
Kyber Pass—after General Sale had repulsed
the Affghans before Jellalabad—after ample
time had been afforded for the most deliberate
reflection and the coolest decision. The issuing
of that order amounts, then, to a solemn declara-
tion by Lord Ellenborough, that the calamities
which had occurred—the retribution which had
befallen us, did not alter the character which he,
in the House of Lords, had affixed to the
Affghan war, and ought not to cancel or shake
the determination which he left England to
execute.

A D VERT [SER.—We warn the public
against attaching any credit to rumours which
may be afloat, or may hereafter be put into
circulation, respecting alleged conspiracies
against the person of the• Sovereign, or the Con-
stitution of these realms. The Queen might
travel alone by night or by day, from one ex-
tremity of her kingdom to another, without any
one seeking to hurt a hair of her head. It is
true, that two or three fools, aspiring at a noto-
riety which they knew not else how to obtain,
have made blank discharges of pistols, not at
her Majesty, but as she was passing along; but
the number of these idiots is now exhausted.
Nor would either of them, we will venture to
say, again seek to offer the slightest molesta-
tion to her Majesty were they again at large.
Equally safe from treasonable designs is the Con-
stitution under which we live. That Constitution
stands in crying need of repair from the dilapi-
dations which time has made upon it; and there
are thousands, ourselves among the number, who
arc anxious to see it restored to its primitive
state. But that there are any persons in the
land—any number of persons, we mean, whose
influence is sufficiently great to make them
men of importance—who are aiming at the de-
struction of that Constitution, we do not and
cannot believe. Hence we put no faith in those I
rumours which ever and anon buzz in our ears,
about extensive and deep-laid schemes to re-
volutionise the country—overthrowing the Con-'
stitution' and erecting on its ruins the throne
of anarchy. These we have always regarded as
vain imaginations, as the wild forebodings of
frenzied minds. We have no apprehensions
of political revolutions of this sweeping cha-
racter. The rebellion we principally dread is
the rebellion of the belly. And even such a
rising would not be directed against the Consti-
tution, but against the unsightly excrescences
which a vile oligarchy have engrafted on that I
Constitution. Caine what changes may, come
when they will, and how they will, we have no
fears fin. the Constitution. It will escape—it
will only be made more stable and more pleasing
to time eye by the ordeal through which it will pass.
It is important that the public mind should be
disabused on this point. We perceive a disposi-
tion in certain quarters to magnify the most tri-
vial incidents into events of the greatest impor-
tance ; and, where no materials exist out of
which, by the magnifying process, to manufac•
ture a cock-and-bull story, wherewith to frighten
persons of feeble nerves—to put their inventive
powers into exercise to vamp up some terrible
apprehension.

GLOBE.—The defence of the Ashburton
treaty has at length been undertaken in a quarter
which we presume may be regarded as official,
fur the individual who volunteered the task de-
clares himself to be in the enjoyment of " the
confidence" of the Government. Great dramas
arc sometimes acted on rather insignificant
stages; and we ought therefore not to be startled
by the attempted vindication of the honour of
England, at a meeting of the Cornwall Poly-
technic Society—an institution, we presume, on
the plan of the Adelaide Gallery, and the similar
establishment in Regent-street. The gentleman
upon whom the task has devolved of restoring its
lustre to the tarnished honour of Great Britain is
Mr. Featherstonhaugh, the surveyor employed in
inspecting the locality of the proposed boundary
line between the English and American territories.
It is true, that having seen and examined the
country may qualify one surveyor better than
another to enter on the great political question
involved in the consideration of the treaty that
has just been concluded; but if a laudatory
speech was required, we wonder that the Cabinet
did not employ Mr. George Robins at once;
whose powers of imagination would have amply
made up for the drawback of his not having per-
sonally visited the spot he would have had to
talk about. We have every respect for the pro-
s fissional talents of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, and
we bow at once to his opinions on " the physical
character of the territory in dispute ;" but we can-
not take the judgment of a mere survey or on
the question of " British honour and interests."
When Mr. Featherstonhaugh departs from
tical speculation, and comes to fact,
we feP.lPt°h‘al-t
what he Rays deserves the " attentive eolns.idera-
tion'l which the Times of this morniilgcm.s.for
it. The opportunity he has had of making him-
self acquainted with the circumstances of the
case has not been thrown away ; and so far as
46 detail of occurrences eau exonerate the Go-
vernment, they are entitled to the benefit of
what can be advanced in their favour. He be-
gins his statement of facts by declaring that
" nq claim has been preferred by Great Britain
which was not founded on the clearest right,"
and no demand has been countenanced by the
preceding as well as the present Administration
" WhiCh it would be necessary to maintain at the
expense of good faith and strict justice." If all
that the Government of Great Britain ever
asked was in conformity with, " right," good
thitli" and a strict justice," it. is clear that all
Whieh has been conceded is a compromise of those
:iigh principles which it is allowed that the claims
of &Lifland were based upon. The line deter-
mined on by America was, after a careful geo-
wAphical survey, deliberately declared to. be
" entirely inconsistent with both the physical
geography at' the country, and the intentions of
the language of the treaty of 1783 ;" so that
what the United States demanded was not only
txintrary to good faith, but utterly impracticable,
owing to the physical impossibility of carrying
out its object. Nothwithstanding the moral
strength of the position of England with respect
to this dispute—notwithstanding the conviction
of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, who had surveyed the
territory, " of the exclusive right of Great Bri-
tain to the whole of it"—yet lie adds, in his own
wards "On my first interview with the Earl of
Aberdeen upon his taking the seals of the Fo-
reign-office, I ventured to recommend a compro-
mise as the most sensible course to be pursued."
STANDARD.—We are not the advocates
often of
ve
the Governor-General of India, as we ha
betbre explained; it would be, therefore, most
fesponsible for
unfair to hold him in any respect
Our. position is
our arguments or opinionsivei
strictly that of amid curice— cttssl:;thteo
ejauses:
tiee, wholly uninstructed in the
and the motives of parties, bu.t, still
competent
judges of manifest inconsistencies and contradic-
tions, and of plain perversions of the principles of
justice. It :is in this capacity that on Saturday
we ventured to reason
gested not by us, but urn a hypothesis, sug-
spondent of the y tile Bombay corre-
Norning Cirronicle, the hypo-
thesis, namel
at Lord Ellenborough had
designedly issued
1 them in a.certain orders, and issued
parttcular shape, with the intention