The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-30 00:00:00

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SLY OFFICE Three o'Cluelt.

We are happy to observe, in the several files of Ame-
rican papers received this morning from New York and
Washington, the return to a friendly tone in the discus-
sion of questions jointly affecting British and United
States' interests. In none of them do we find a word
about war, or the necessity of preparing for it. Lord
ASHBURTON appears to have entered upon the delicate ne-
gotiations with which he was entrusted with ability, good
temper, and a wish to conciliate such Members of Con-
gress as were under the delusion that England desired
rupture with the United States. The consequence has
been a marked improvement in the public feeling to-
wards us throughout the Union. The Secretary of
State, Mr. WEBSTER, addressed a circular letter to the
Governors of Maine end Massachusetts,.. calling upon
them to take measures for constitutionally settling the
North-eastern Boundary question. This document appears
at length in another part of The Sun. The Governor t,f
Massachusetts stated that the representative body of that
State had given him full powers to adjudicate upon the
question; and the Governor of Maine convened by procla-
mation a meeting of the Legislature on the 18th of May.
As the people of Maine are the most difficult to be
dealt with, Mr. WEBSTER intended to be personally
present at the meeting of the State Legislature, with a
view to employ the influence of the Federal Government
in the removal of any difficulties in the way of a pacific
and speedy arrangement.
The Secretary for the Treasury, the Hon. Mr. Foe
wAktn, had made a Report to • Congress of his Bill for
settling the new tariff. It is a long, and to English
readers, exceedingly uninteresting document. The
new duties will be in several instances more than twenty
percent., and he calculates from this source to supply
the deficiency in the revenue, and pay off the public
debt in three years. Many branches of trade will be
completely ruined by it ; as for example that of
sugar refining, ten per cent. of the present drawback
duty: upon which is to go into the Treasury. Redun-
dant importations-are to be checked by the duties being
required to be paid in cash. Need we say more about
the Bill to show its utter absurdity? True, if passed as
proposed, it will greatly injure the commerce of England
and France. But it will do ten times more injury to the
Americans themselves.

Rhode Island continued in a very diiturbed state.
One party was for maintaining the old constitution
and the other for universal suffrage. The President of
the United States had interfered, but to little apparent
good purpose. It was not expected that the conse-
quences would be serious. Moderate men were for re-
storing harmony by extending the suffrage to the whole
of the male population above 21 years of age. This
would satisfy the disaffected.
The New York Commercial Advertiser of the 14th of
May, says that the merchants in that city were doing
very little business. The activity in trade which existed
fur some weeks before had disappeared. For some years
mercantile transactions had not been so few during the
spring months. Merchants had large stocks on hand, of
which they sold but little during the winter, and as the
policy of the sound banks is now restrictive, they receive
little assistance from them towards emptying their ware-
houses. In the meantime the unsettled state of the tariff
was playing the deuce with all parties. Some weie doing
nothing because they dreaded to hazard purchases for
importation, and others were, idle, in expectation that the
tariff would raise the price of goods already imported,
and locked up in their warehouses. The Journals, as
little conversant with the true principles of commercial
science as their readers, cry aloud for the protection of
clasS interests, just as the Ultra-Tories are doing in the
House of Commons. Could the American press foresee
what evils it is about to inflict upon that country, we
have sufficient confidence in the integrity of its conduc-
tors to believe that it would adopt a very different
course. The error that is now about to be made, cannot
be rectified without inflicting severe hardships upon the
fictitious interests created by it.
From Canada the news is cheering. The people were
peaceable, and gradually becoming more prosperous.
The rebellion had taught the Government to look more
to their wants, and in this instance it really appears to
have acquired wisdom from experience.

, .
The Session of the General Assembly of the Church
of Scotland closes this day, when the last of its acts for
this year will be a vote of censure, or perhaps deposition,
against seven of the Members, for taking part with the mi-

nisters of Strathbogie. Dr. GRANT, Dr. STIRLING,
Dr. BRYCE, and a great number of the most pious
and excellent clergymen in the Church, sympathising
with seven of their brethren who had been cruelly
deposed by the last Assembly, visited them in their
affliction, and assisted at the celebration of the
LORD'S Supper, in the different parishes. For this
religious act of charity they were denounced
by the Commission at Edinburgh, and being summoned
to appear and answer for their conduct, they were placed
at the bar like culprits on Thursday last. The parties,
from respect to the Church, accordingly appeared, ad-
mitted the charge, and a Committee was appointed to
" deal with the said Ministers." What may be the
nature of this dealing we cannot tell, but the proceeding
altogether was considered so unjust and arbitrary
that not one clergyman or elder on the other
side would sit on it, wisely leaving the
whole odium to the Non-Intrusionist party. But
why did they not go farther ? Four hundred
ministers at least are equally guilty, they deny the
validity of the judgment, and have declared their firm
determination to set it at defiance. Dr. CHALMERS and
his brethren should not do the business in this miserable,
- timid manner; they should have brought the main ques-
tion to an issue-at once, and arraigned the whole of the
.four hUndred at the bar of the Assembly. This, no
doubt, would have been the reductio ad absurdum, but
they know the affair must either come to this at last, or
the authority of the Assembly will be utterly annihilated.
A great number are anxious to imitate the conduct of
Dr. GRANT and his friends. One gallant elder (Captain
DALarmeLE) said he had committed the offence with
many others. Professor ALEXANDER denounced the
principles of the dominant party as essentially Popish.
" These principles," he said, " were
,subversive of the
law of CHRIST, and of the rights of the people of Scot-
land, which they would override and overbear in an un-
checked, irresponsible, and spiritual despotism." This pithy
sentence was loudly cheered. Another member charged
Dr. CHALMERS and his colleagues with " preaching sedi-
tion, and stirring up rebellion." The Church of Scotland is
reduced to a melancholy condition She is indeed a
house divided against itself, and unless the hearts of
those who direct her councils be speedily turned to
wisdom, nothing but the most disastrous consequences
can be anticipated. Lord MONCRIEFF and Dr. CHALMERS
must now lament the day when they threw that firebrand,
the Veto Bill, among a peaceful, religious, and moral
community. From 1834 to the present time there has
been but one continued series of battles, increasing every
year in animosity, destroying the usefulness of the
Church, alienating from one another the best friends
and rendering the most excellent ecclesiastical establish-
ment in Christendom a bye word among the nations,
The result has only been what we anticipated. This
Journal has ever taken the same view of the question.
Four of our London Contemporaries at first supported
the Vetoists, and contended that their claims were just,
and `that the Legislature would do well to pass an Act
against Non-Intrusion. The madness of CHALMERS,
CANDLISH, and CDNINGHAME soon convinced them of
their error. Three of them are now silent as the grave
on the subject ; and a fourth, the Times, is decidedly
opposed to them. The principle of election and an
establishment are declared incompatible. CHALMERS is
justly accused of seeking only the aggrandisement of the
clergy, and mocking the people with a shadow. This
has been our doctrine all along, and as our Contemporary
so cordially concurs with us in this view, we quote with
pleasure the following extracts:—
As friends of the Church of Scotland, with no di position to
underrate the advantages either in the abstract, or to that
country, of the Presbyterian form of Church government, we
deeply lament that the General Assembly have precipitated mat-
ters in that country to a result which we may safely assume ren-
ders the preservation of the Establishment a very difficult matter.
At the present moment, when all mankind, except apparently
themselves, are alive to the difficulties in which the Church
of Scotland is placed—while all feel the ext:aortimary
forbearance which has been shown to that Church as an esta-
blishment—when it has contirued systematically and boast-
ingly to act on and enforce the veto which the House of Lords
found to be a violation of the statute law of the land—while
hitherto they have been professing to contend solely against
the intrusion into parishes of improper presentees without
adequate ehecks, and had been inducing their friends
to unite in support of the Duke of Argyll's Bill,
which was based on the maintenance of patronage
as a matter of principle, the General Assembly in
one of these tumultuous debatea, in which (as in the French
Constituent Assembly) the most vital matters are carried by
clamour, at one sitting have voted, on the motion of the Rev.
Mr. Cuninghame (without modification), that patronage is a
grievance, have declared that it is " the main cause of the dif-
ficulties" in which h Church iiinvolved, and that it ought