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

Atronbllic itiOn

SUN OFFICE, Three o' C7Geh.

Many of the rules laid down by the " Collective
Wisdom" for the regulation of their proceedings, are
regarded by those not initiated in the mystery of law-
making, as extremely abstird, and are retained, as far as
men of common sense can discover, solely because our
great grandfathers, in times of ignorance, thought them
expedient. The " wisdom of our ancestors," in fact,
sanctifies every practice. The rule respecting the right
of petition, announced by the SPEAKER last night, no
doubt, was considered absolutely necessary, in days of
old, to stop the mouths of those who disliked new taxes;
and though the most unjust and preposterous in
a country governed on Constitutional principles, it is
retained, in order that our lawgivers may not be annoyed
in their deliberatitms by the remonstrances and petitions
of the people. In answer to a question from the Hon.
Member for Liskeard last night, Mr. SfEAKER said it
was against the rules of the House to receive petitions
against any tax which had come under the consideration
of the House ; and it would therefore be impossible to
receive any petition against the tax in question (the In-
come Tax.) So that while the country is crying out
against this inquisitorial impost, and men of small in-
come, and all persons in *trade regard it with absolute
horror, they are to be gagged, not by law, but by
a resolution of the House of Commons. They are to
sit down quietly, and suffer unmolested their representa-
tives, falsely so called, to pass a law which they repro-
bate and detest—a law, compared with which, the
•
famous Assessment act of the French Finance Minister,
that raisad all but a
.general rebellion, is- Merciful
and just. Passing over the absuNity of such a re-
gulation, we look only at the unfair advantage it takes of
the public. The resolution of Sir ROBERT • PEEL
was anounced only last Friday ; the secret was
so well kept that not one in fifty of the clerks in public
offices had even a sus.pieion of the new tax; and it took
the people throughout the country absolutely by sur-
prise, so that no time-whatever has been given for them
to approve or disapprove of the scheme. An ukasi of
the Emperor of RUSSIA is not a more despotic act than a
resolution of the Prime Minister, against which the
people have no appeal. The voice of the country,
howesfer; is not to be stifled in this way. They will
set the rules of the House at defiance—they will
assemble and petition and whether they forward
their remonstrances to their representatives or
not, the effect will be quite the same. The
form of laying a petition on the table, or thrusting
it under the table, is of no intrinsic value. The
expression of public opinion is everything, and the
Government will be made to. hear it from the meetings
throughout the country more effectually than from ten
thousand petitions. Let the people stand to their rights,
and put an end at once to the practice of rejecting their
advice when it is most wanted.

Our disasters in Affghanistan are "cakes and ale" to
our French contemporaries. We could place no repast
before them which they would have devoured with half
the delight with which they gloat over every fragment
of the tragical intelligence from Cabool, brougkt by the
last Overland Mail. The National derives exceeding
comfort from the assurance that the massacre of six
thousand British troops in Cabool was but the
prelude to similar massacres of our troops at Can-
dahar and Khelat ; and what is still snore gratifying to
that Journal, to the total destruction of our power in
India. To show what friendly neighbours we have in
the French Republican Press, we quote an extract from
the editorial columns of the National
It is impossible for us, as Frenchmen, to see with sorrow
the power of England sustain so serious a cheek. Neverthe-
less, we cannot suppress a feeling of deep compassion when
we think of so many brave soldiers being sacrificed, so far
from their country, through the fault of the most ambitious

' and greedy aristocracy in 'the world. The British Govern-
ment had exgccted to open new markets for its wealthy mer-
chants in the extensive regions of Central Asia. The Eng-
lish had presented themselves there as conquerors, with a de-
itermination to change the manners, the laws, and the habits
of the people. They brought with them missionaries and
despots, who gave no quarter to prisoness. But the natives
of Cabool in no wise resemble those of the Indian peninsula,
who are such docile slaves. They have risen with sa-
vage energy against usurpers and destroyed them. This
is but a just chastisement inflicted on British ambition. We
must only pity the fate of the unhappy victims, whose
blood has expiated the faults of their masters. England sinks
under the weight of a disaster which deprives her of so many '
brave regiments, and occasions the loss of hundreds of millions
employed in upholding the power of an imbecile despot. The
energy, which she always evinced under similar circumstances
appears now to fail her. Are we to trace in this state of
public feeling the beginning of the decline of English power ?.
Should this prognostic be correct the world would soon forget
the sorrow felt at the death of Sir W. APNaghton and his
companions, for the humiliation and overthrow of British
oligarchy would be productive for mankind of the greatest
blessings."
The Sleek participates in all that indifference to sor-
row which the National asserts Frenchmen must feel at
the direst reverses of England. According to that
Journal, England is properly punished by the
atrocious indignity offered to the head of Sir
IV. .11‘.1NAoliTEN for the part which she took in ex-
citing the ferocity of the Spaniards against the
French in the Peninsular war ! In our simplicity
we had previously thought that the natural ferocity of
the Spanish soldiery was checked, and a civilised
character given to the war by Great Britain. But, ex-
cept for the animus of the remark, we may pass very
lightly over the charge of being ferocious by deputy.
Frenchmen cannot deny that our soldiers are brave, and
the truly brave are never cruel. What most concerns
our readers is the opinions expressed by the Siecle of
our reported reverses in Affghanistan. That Journal
says:—

64
Every conqueror who retreats is lost. Perhaps it was
t possible not to have crossed the Indus; but now it would be
disastrous to recross it. The British Cabinet is in the most
difficult position. Lady 11I‘Naghten ar.d fifteen other English
ladies are in the hands of the Affghans, who demand to ex-
change them against Dost Mahomed. If the English accept
the exchange, they dcthrune Shah Soojah with their own hands.
If they refuse, the Afighans are capable of killing their pri-
soners. Reprisals must be used against Dost Mahomed, or if
he be spared the English will pass for cowards in the eyes of the
people of Cabool, who have raised a temple to the goddess of
revenge.
"England is rich and energetic; she may re-establish her
dominion in India for some time longer, but the term of the
India Britannic empire is marked; it will conclude before the
quarter of a century." •
The difficulties of our position are verygreat, but w•e
can assure the Siede and the National, and the French
Press generally, that our empire in India is quite safe
notwithstanding. A great statesman formerly described

our empire in India as an empire of opinion. It was so
then, but now it has a less fluctuating basis. It is an
empire of fact, of force, and of power, as well as of
opinion. One reverse can as little drive us out of India,
as it could out of our own island home.

The Journal des Debuts, which rated us so sharply for
the supposed enormity of fomenting an ill feeling be- 1
tween the two countries, has an article intended to show
that we are no better than a nation of brigands, who
fight, not for honour, but for plunder. Not content with
Cabool, the Debuts goes to China, where it contends
that we have established a system of razzias, or plun-
dering expeditions, merely to fill our coffers. With a mo-i
desty that would become a bride on the morning of her
nuptials, the Debats does not so much as hint that we
must have borrowed the idea of razzias from the ex-
ploits of France herself in Africa. It is for us, how-
ever, to do justice to the military genius of France.
Hers was the glory of this mighty discovery in the
art of war ; and before it could be adopted by an
ELLIOT or a POTTINGER, the Moniteur had made
Europe familiar with 'the perfection with which, " at
the witching hour ofnight," it was carried on in many
an Arab village by 'the heroes commanded by a CLAU-
SEL and a BuotiAun. We have not forgotten those bul-
letins from Algiers, describing midnight razzias, in
which not an Arab escaped the swords, and not an
Arab's goat or sheep the stomachs, of the French. Hav-
ing done this justice -to the genius of France, we quote
the remarks of the Debuts, which affects melt a desire
for the maintenance'of the most friendly relations with
England : •
" When Captain Elliot having exhausted his resources, and
finding the period of command about to expire, adopted tie
idea of demanding some'imillious; of dollars from the mandarins
of Canton, as a compensation for alt the losses which the British
merchants experienced, a univesal cry of reprobation v.as
raised by every English .Journal from Macao to London. No
term could be found sufficiently strong to :tigmatise thesharae-
ful conduct of tke superintendent; they even went so far as to
say, that England was disgraced for ever. Now, however,
ortnions are changed, and no one condemns ibis system of
rzsem or razzias, which have the same meaning, and which
the 12'14i" generals appear to have undertaken to 4.pply
throw
t China. A proclamation signed by Sir H. Pottinff*er
and Admiralg"6 . uarker commands the officers of the British navy
to search all the .
Ing the others into tho ports cincuPied by
clunese vessels they may meet, to burn those
of no Ns-hal
garrisonsu e,a nd to t
ob .1-3 e ::(11.(4,:dnid,. the prodnee divided aii.^engst
icia9n.of campaign has been thetroops composing the exi..
expeditions against
al-
Thenygoam executionNeni
n(ge dpo,
&c.,1 this
it anlpvepewre
en solely with this
rceha4
were
1.r.5'.0 ,:rtt
at I::
object."
With the help of these extracts, and the iL
furious article in the Presse, :against any further coun-
tenance whatever of the anti-slavery policy of England
our readers can be at no loss to perceive that what with
Lord ABERDEEN'S blunders, and what with an inherent
jealousy of us, we have no sympath y in our distresses to
expect from France.

'ention of a

M. Walsh, Director of the Journal La Mode, has been eon •
deinned to three months' imprisonment, and a fine of 3,000
francs; and M. Varlet de St. Philibert, the editor, to two
months' imprisonment, and a fine of 2,000 francs, and both
jointly in the costs.
The hurricane in the night of the 10th did great damage in
the environs of Valenciennes, Lille, and Calais.
A letter from Granville says—" A dreadfful tempest, the
most terrible within the memory of man, has caused the greatest
disasters to our fishing, vessels, which were just ready to put to
sea, having their passangers, their crews, and provisions on
boaid • twenty or twenty-five of them having had their cables
and Chains broken by the violence of the wind, ran
foul of others that were in the road, and forced them to
the shore. Five of these ships thus thrown on the rocks
are entirely gone to pieces and lost, with their cargoes. Five
others are aground on the oyster beds. Some others have
been saved by the efforts and intrepedity of their crewo,
and have returned into port, but with considerable damage.
6. The loss of our merchants is estimated at above 300,000 francs,
and this sum will be doubled if the storm should return with
the tide this evening, as is feared. The old port has suffered
much. A great number of sailors are wounded, and many
have perished. Three dead bodies have been picked up; but
a great number of sailors are missing, for whom lively appre-
hensions are entertained. Nearly 3,000 persons are now
employed for three quarters of a league along the coast, in
saving the goods and picking up the wounded and the drowned.
It is a horrible sight."— Constitutionnel.

BELGIAN I/NM—became MARCH 12.
Actual Debt, 2 per Cent.
Rothschild's Loan, SperC.ut 102%
Loan of Thirty Millions, 1 per Cent. 03%
Sper Cent.

Tliirty.seyen--:---- ......„ 73%
----_---- 0 340) 103%
Loan of City, 1732, 4 per Cent. 143
Soclay of Cominvrce, 434 per Cent S2
Bank of Belgium, 5 per Cent.... ........
NationalSaciety. ........... ............ —
Exchange on Londe* (rho! t) —
—Brussels Papers, March 12.
AUSTRIAN FUNDS.—Viima, MARCK 5.-
peeper Cents. Netalliques
Four per Cente. lOll MI
Three par Cent 5.............. .................. •••••• ....... . 76
Bank Shares ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••• 1610

His Holiness the POPE has published another Allocu-
tion setting forth the deplorable state of the Spanish
Church, and invoking the public prayers of the faithful
on behalf of that benighted nation. The sins of Spain
consist in a determination to appropriate to the use of
the State those immense Church possessions which
ser~•ed to feed in ignorance, in laziness, and in filth, to
the scandal of honest men and good Catholics, broods of
useless- monks and nuns, of whose oTerflowing wealth
a continual stream was poured into the coffers of the
Holy See. GOD tests the piety of a nation by its heart,
but the Priest judges ,by the pocket. The deporable
spiritual blindness of Spain lamented by the Holy
Father, consists in an obstinate shutting of her eyes to
the comeliness of e money-gOrged Priesthood. But even
Priests are slow to derive wisdom from experience.
The of the. late Papal Allocution, which
actually consolidated the then tottering power
of EUPARTERO, ought to have taught GREGORY
XVI. the folly of promulgating a second. Yet
this has not been. the 'case. The second Papal Allocu-
tion is, if possible, more offensive to the Spanish Govern-
ment than the first, and will, of course, provoke a corre-
sponding spirit of hostility. We have only room for the
following extract from it:—

. It is already well known in what state the affairs of religion
are in Spain, and with what bitterness of soul we have been
forced, for several years past, to lament the ecclesiastical vicis-
situdes of that nation, whereof the people, far from abandoning
the holy precepts of their fathers, are strongly attached
to the Orthodox Faith, whilst the clergy, for the greater
part, courageously fight the battles of the Lord ; and whilst,
also, almost all the prelates endeavour with their whole
strength, to secure the safety of their own flocks, although
those prelates are most miserably harassed, are in exile, and
labouring under most pressing afflictions. Nevertheless, there
are in that country a number of abandoned men who, crimi-
nally leagued with each other, and, like the waves of a boister-
ous ocean, venting forth their disordered thoughts, wage a most
cruel war against Christ and his Saints. Having brought the
greatest losses on the Catholic religion, they now attempt, in
their impiety, to subvert it, could that but be effected.
We, in the accomplishment of the duties of our ministry,
raising our Apostolic voice, have not ceased mourning publicly
the wounds inflicted on the church by the Government of Ma-
drid, and denouncing as null and void all those ordinances of
the civil power which have been directed against the rights and
laws of this church. We have, moreover, with every demon-
stration of grief, vehemently lamented the atrocious injuries
and evils which have been inflicted on our venerable brethren,
the Bishops of that kingdom, and on the sacred persons of the
clergy of both orders; and we have seen, with sorrow, abomi-
tion set up in the holy place, and ecclesiastical property sa-
crilegiously robbed, sold, and turned over to the public treasury.
At the same time, we did not omit to recal to memory the
penalties and censures which the Apostolical constitutions and
the Ecumenical councils pronounce, ipso facto against those
who dare to commit such crimes.

The blasphemy of describing the appropriation sif the
monistical property of Spain by the Spanish Govern-
ment for national purposes, as a " war waged against
CHRIST and his Saints" must shock every well-consti-
tuted mind. In Spain, where the priesthood have
proved such a curse, it can only excite an universal feel-
ing of horror and.disgust.

The journals of 3Tadrid and Barcelona are of the

6th inst., and those of Valencia of the 2d inst. Infor-
mation having been received that a dozen men, whose
intentions were suspected, had just landed near Tarifa,
and had gone in the direction of La Serrama de Ronda,
a chain of mountains, orders have been given to the
Cortez frigate to cruise between Tarifa and Tanjen, and
to watch any movements that may occur on that part
of the coast

General VAN ll.iz who was at Madrid, on leave
of absence, set out on the preceding day to return to his
post! He has precise orders relative to the projects
of the emigrants at Catalonia. There is nothing new
from Catalonia, where FELOP and EL Muclactio only
infest with their bands the provinces of Gerona and
Lenda.
Tranquillity is restored at Valencia. •

BILL FOR CONSOLIDATING THE
QUEEN'S BENCH„, FLEET, AND MARSHAL-.
SEA PRISONS. .

This Bill, brought in by Sir James Graham, and now
amended by Committee, proposes : —l. To consolidate the
above three-mentioned prisons into one, whereby the prison of
the Court of Queen's Bench shall be thereafter called the
Queen's Prison, and be the only place for commitment of all
such as were before batik to incarceration in any of the three.
Clause 2 enacts the removal of prisoners by Judges' warrant
to the new adopted prison, who shall be in custody
at the time of the passing of the Act in the other prisons.
By clauses 4 and 5, officers, whose places are abolished by the
abrogation of the Fleet and 14Iarshalsea, shall be entitled to
compensation, which shall be paid out of the Civil. List.
6. 'l'he discontinued prisons, with all property appurtenant to
them, to become vested in the Crown. 7. That all acts and
provisions rela'ing to the abolished prisons, unless otherwise
altered or repealed, do exist in force in the Queen's Prison.
11. Prisoner's fees and gratuities to be discontinued.
12. Abolition of the Liberty of the rules, and any in-
fringement of the strict rule of confinement, by prisoners
being suffered to go beyond the prison-walls, to be punishable
as an escape. 18. ,That on the next vacancy of the
Marshal of the Queen's Prison, his successor shall be appointed
by ono of the Secretaries of• State, and thenceforward be called
the "Keeper of the Queen's Prison," with his office tenable
at the appointer's pleasure. The offices of Deputy-marshal
and Clerk of the Day-rules to be abolished, with other minor
official changes, among which the power of appointment of Tip-
staffs, heretofore in the hands of the Warden and Marshal, to
be transferred to the Judges of the respective Courts from
which the prisoners are committed. 17, 18, 19, clauses refera-
ble to the fixation and payment of official salaries.

THE OLD BATU BANK.—We understand that a
first dividend of .ss. in the pound will be shortly declared on the
estate of Messrs. Hobhouse and Co.—Bristol Mirror.

SUMMARY CU' NEWS

AND
C 134 eptitton.

" Who runs may read."

11,03iNZON.

The French papers attribute ottr disaster; in India to mis-
management and inordinate ambition. The Opposition prints,
particularly, do not fail toitaunt us on our mishaps. We have
elsewhere taken notice of them in detail.
The Presse contains onother violent article relative to the
Right of Search Treaty, which has excited such disgust amongst
the foreign diplomatists in Paris. It again coolly recommends
the French Government to break off, as soon as possible, the
existing treaties which bind it, in despite of the non-ratification
of the Convention of Dec. 20, 1841, to the right of search.
The Moniteur announces the presentation to the King of
the French, by Count d'Aonitr, the Prussian Envoy in Paris,
of a letter from the King of Prussia, notifying the birth of a
Princess, daughter of Prince Frederick of Prussia, and of the
Princess Wilhelmina, his spouse.
The Moniteur also states that the court of the Tuileries will
go into mourning for 11 days, on occasion of the demiqe of the
Grand Duke of Jfecklenburg-Schwerin.
The Augsburg Gazette of the 9th gives fiom the Turkish
frontiers a report that r.n insurrection had broken out at
Bucharest,apai which had compelled Prince Ghika to abandon his
it
A Correspondent at Constantinople informs us that the
c
Turkish Government appears determined to put down the pirates
of the Arctipepelago, and in addition to the eight vessels now
afloat, ten fast-sailing sehooner, and small brigs are to be em-
ployed on this service. The force to be under the command of
Admiral Walker.