The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-15 00:00:00

EVENING SUN

N7Q)

LONDON:
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1842.

The case of the American vessel lately carried
into Nassau by the slaves
of embarked on board her,
about which the Times yesterday wrote a war
and defianne:-breathing article,) seems to us a
clear case which cannot
i 0 .b
cause any dis-
turbance between the two siGovernmentsT of Eng-
land and the United States. n it there is no
principle at issue which is assented to by one
party and denied by the other. All parties and
all powers are agreed that every igdividual So
vereign State may make what laws seemLeats they
what within its own dominions, without,.
what they may, justifying the interference of
another State. America does not, and
cannot,
contest our right to declare that the soil of our
dominions cannot hear a slave, and that by tread-
ing on that a man is, ipso facto, a free man. The
Times, in fact, quotes Judge STORY, an American
Judge, to prove that the 'doctrines of absolute
sovereignty -within its own territories is the
right of Xeither' State contend's

So, according to the Times, the Monarch who is
not a pimp and a spy at the Courts of his allies,
is no better than an idiot? An observance of the
laws of honour and religion in Kings, is mere
foolery! As for the first sentence in the above
extract, if the writer has not been in a position
to deduce it from his own experience, he ought
in fairness to have acknowledged that he stood
indebted for it to the matured experience of the
Jew FAGIN in " Oliver Twist," or his hopeful
disciple theprecocious-CuAnLEY BATES.

" Dishonour Waits on perfidy.
the crime

Of cowards."
But perfidy in the guest to the host tha
shelters and feeds him, is common sense,
worldly wisdom, according to the Times. So
steeped is the writer in the slough of this New-
gate system of ethics, that he cannot suppose
any one save an idiot could accept a gentleman's
hospitality without playing the spy and the
scoundrel in his house I
The Times does not stop here. All Kings, ac-
cording to our Contemporary, are arch-hypo..
crites, and the King of Paussie a still greater
one than any of his Royal confreres. Even at
the altar his face of sanctity is but a mask for
villany. We again quote the Times :--
To be sure the breasts of Kings, unlike the breasts of
nurses, are plaguy close. One always finds it difficult to
sound them. Oftentimes there is no knowing their real
drift, and especially when they come amongst us as spon-
sors at a royal christening, it is painful to think that
ordinary folks have no means of anticipating what tor-
tuous duplicity they may be guilty of—standing sancti-
moniously at the font, and all the while worming out the
secrets of the Cabinet—uttering responses to the Arch-
bishop, and in the internals earwigging the Foreign Secre-
tary—pretending to pore intently upon the Prayer-book,
but in reality peering into the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer's bag—in a word, joining with apparent single-
heartedness in all the attendant festivities, but in point
of fact—whether waltzing or worshipping, whether cha-
riotted in a State procession or regaled at a royal ban-
quet, whether talking about a Jerusalem bishopric, or
descanting upon railroad wonders—never for a moment
neglecting to elicit all sorts of important State secrets,
which foreign Sovereigns have no right to know, and which
British functionaries have certainly no right to disclose.
So the King of PRUSSIA is not honest even at

his prayers. With the prayer-book in his hand
the Times detects him peering into the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer's bag. Now this is a
trouble which his MAJESTY might very well

spare himself. The Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer has already toldi the world that
his bag is empty and his credit exhausted. More
than this, we cannot comprehend what dangerous
knowledge the King of PRUSSIA could extract,
not only from the empty bag, but the empty
head of the Right Hon. Gentleman. But—
" Only the base believe what the bale utter,"
and, therefore, we shall not burden ourselves
with crediting a syllable of the calumnies
against the King of PRUSSIA uttered by the
Times. However correct our Contemporary's
general estimate of the character of Kings
may be in the abstract, the article upon which
we are commenting demonstrates that his moral

axioms receive; confirmation more from what
he witnessed in the regions of St. Giles's than
St. James's. We rather think that his friendly
recognitions in Seven-dials would bear the same
proportion to his identification of equipages at
Buckingham Palace, that FALSTAFF'S ten shil-

ings' worth of sack did to his ha'porth of bread.
But the Times has discovered that the
King, of PRUS4IA intends appearing in three

characters at the Court of our Sovereign Lady
Queen VICTORIA. Having first perforrnedlhe
parts of a spy and hypocrite, he is next to
figure in that of a bUlly. The two forme

that it has a right to protect criminals, or
resist the demand of the other State to give them
up. The only questions -which can possibly be
involved in the Nassau case between the two
Governments are questions of detail, such as whe-
ther the whole •f the criminals have been given up,
and whether some of them may not have been
protected as innocent men. Details of that de-
scription must be the subject of investigation in
the spot by the proper authorities, or by a Spe-
cial Commission, and, when the facts are ascer-
tained, there can be no doubt whatever that
both Governments, agreeing as they do on the
principles, will soon arrange this trifling subject.
The case will be easily settled by the principles
known and recognised by both parties.
In its remarks on this subject, the Times has
supplied an ample justification of the resistance
given by the United States to our claim to search
their vessels, which that Journal has been loud,
and even bullying, in condemning. Even yes-
terday it sneered at the United States " claim-
ing a surly and novel independence, destructive
of all maritime security ;" which sneer has the
demerit of being unjust, for the concession would
put an end to security. At the same time,
it is asserted as a general principle that "we
claim most distinctly the right to pronounce
for ourselves, finally and irresponsibly, where
concessions to the comity of nations' shall end.
The very meaning of independence is the power
of so doing. There is an end of national inde-
pendence if we are not to say for ourselves, and
nobody else for us, exactly how far a man who
stands on English ground shall be governed by
English law."

A ship is, all the world over, and at all times,
according to international law, a part of the ter-
ritory of the nation to which that ship belongs.
1t is, therefore, for the American Government,
not for the English Government, to determine all

points concerning American ships. That all the
powers of Christendom have agreed to declare the
slave trade piracy makes no difference whatever
in the rights of the Americans, since " every
State is to pronounce for itself finally and irre-
sponsibly where concessions to the comity of
nations shall end." Though all the other sove-
reign powers of Europe should declare a new
maritime code, they cannot, united, without a
breach of duty, compel the Americans to submit
to it, for the "very meaning of independence is
the power in a sovereign State of determining
what concessions it will make to the comity of
nations." America refuses to concede the right
of search. She does that for herself, "finally
and irresponsibly," and England hastily and
arbitrarily trenches on the right of sovereignty in
the United States, when she persists, in spite
of the refusal of the United States, to visit and
search American ships.

We have already expressed our opinion that
he Times is a traitor in the Tory camp. An
article in that Journal of this morning, on the
intended visit of the King of PRUSSIA to this
country, exhibits such an utter absence of moral
principle on the part of the writer—such an in-
nate contempt for the Royal dignity—and such
a picture of regal depravity even in the person of
one of the most exemplary Protestant Princes in
Europe, that it is impossible the Attorney-
General can read it with any other view than
to deliberate how far it may be advisable to
make it the object of a Crown prosecution. We
are no great admirers of the King of PRUSSIA,
but,lbelieving him to be a Christian and a gentle-
man—characters of whom the writer in the
Times has evidently not the shadow of a con-
ception—we hold it to be impossible that he
should perform the vile part of a spy, assigned
him by the Oracle of Printing-house-square. Of
the JONATHAN WILD code of ethics which regu-
lates the conduct of the writer in the Times,
some idea may be formed from the following
extract from the first " leader" of the leading
Journal of—Old Bailey attorneys :
Nobody, now-a-days, thinks of passing a fortnight
with a neighbour without prying into his affairs, finding
out how he manages his tenantry, tampering withhis
land-steward, getting a peep at his banker's book, and
acquiring a tolerable knowledge of his private circum-
stances. A Monarch that would attend a christening at
the Court of one of his allies, and yet refrain from having
a confidential gossip with the upper nurses, must be
little better than an idiot. Such a precious oppor-
tunity for acquiring the means of circumventing and
undermining his Royal entertainer it would be mere
fatuity to neglect. hacilities for a baptismal intrigue
are much too rare to be lightly foregone ; and accord-
ingly, as self-protection is a duty not less imperative
than hospitality, every prudent State that solicits a fo-
reign Sovereign to become its guest even on occasion of
a religious ceremony, must see the necessity of keeping
an observant eye upon his movements—must endeavour
to ascertain in due time what he is likely to be after—
must try if possible to fathom his sinister intentions—
and must take every reasonable care that Mrs. Brough
and the Royal rockers be not too loquacious and com-
municative on State affairs.