The Sun.
London, England, 1827-08-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT or THI PiALIO fotiRAIUS;

Our Lisbon correspondence presents a pic-
ture of the condition of Portugal, which, so far
as that condition has been produced by the gross
misconduct of a vicious or senseless Government,
is the most deplorable that can well be conceived.
The late War-Minister, Saldanha, may not have
been—although we have no reason to suppose
that he was not—a man of more than middling
ability ; it is the fashion among some of his
countrymen to call him an indiscreet and me-
diocre Minister ; but on examining his acts as a
clue to his qualifications, there is one-only which
appears to us to be characterized by imprudence,
and that a species of imprudence which was more
likely to affect his own interest than that of
others,—we mean the application which M. de
Saldanha made to the Princess Regent in his
own person, to dismiss the servile Intendant of
Police, M. Bastos, without taking the prelimi-
nary and obvious precaution to obtain the co-
operation of all his brother Ministers, who had
already concurred in framing the official warrant
of dismissal for the signature of her Royal
Highness. But, to survey more at large, and
very briefly, the transactions recorded by our
Lisbon correspondent as a whole :—Here is a
Regent acting in the name of a Sovereign who
has given a solemn charter to his people, pro-
fessing also to act in the spirit of him by
whom the charter was granted, in support of
the free institutions which were founded on
the same Charter whence she, the Regent, de-.
rived her authority, at a crisis when she and it
were alike attacked by _foreign .enemies and by
domestic treason. A raging rebellion—the
joint work of Ferdinand, 'some powerful -families,
and the great' body of the monks—had just,
with great difficulty, been repressed. New
plots were discovered every day ; and in the en-
deavour to prevent the detection of one of them,
which had for its object the desertion and re-
volt of a band of soldiers, the treacherous dis-
loyalty of the Chief Minister of Police, on
whom depended the peace and internal safety of
the realm, was made manifest by the Minister
Saldanha. The proofs of this man's guilt were
laid before the Cabinet, who resolved, by a una-
nimous vote, that his peremptory dismissal
should be forthwith recommended to the Re-
gent. A similar spirit of hostility to the Con-
Aitution was found to animate the head of the
Department of Public Justice, through whose
corrupt interference every traitor to the Govern-
ment bad been acquitted of his crimes.' This
also, the Cabinet were nearly unanimous
in urging the Regent to dismiss from office.
The evidence of criminality against both these
Ministers was submitted to the Princess Regent,
who expressed her intention to act on the judg-
ment of her councillors. But Bastos got hold,
by bribes, as is presumed, of a female intriguer
in the Princess's Household.' The r assents
of dismissal remained without the Royal signa-
ture. Saldanha, instead of calling upon his eel-
leagues to accompany him in a body to the
-Regent, and press collectively for the completion
of a duty so essential to the existence of the
state, had the honest, though =reflecting confi-
dence to present himself alone, and offer the
abrupt alternative of his own resignation, or the
immediate disgrace of Bastos. , The Princess,
well prepared by the corruption of her gossips,
took refuge in the affectation of wounded pride,
and two days afterwards dismissed the tso frank
and uncourtly Saldanha, retaining and cherishing
in her service the traitors who aimed at the de-
:,truction of her Brother's crown.. What then
followed ? This shameful treatment of a con-
stitutional Minister—a brave and honest man,
devoted to his country—was received by the
inhabitants of 'Lisbon with natural and just con-
cern. The feelings of the people showed them-
selves as constitutional as those of Saldanha.—
They rent the air with cries of attachment to
Don Pedro (their Sovereign), to the Charter
which the Princess had sworn to protect, and
which she ostensibly represented—and to the
patriotic Minister who had fallen a victim to his
sense of public duty. There was no attempt at
violence—no thought of it among the people—
no outrage—no breach of the peace. It was a
loyal and constitutional assemblage of freemen,
declaring their affection for Ihe Government
under which they supposed themselves to live ;
and how were they rewarded ? Iu a strain of
bitter malignity to the Constitution and its
founder, and by an exercise of lawless force
which the first nowhere authorised, and the se-
cond would have signally punished. Above
fifty of these loyal subjects of Don Pedro have
been thrown into loathsome dungeons, for the
enthusiasm with which they applauded his name
at a dramatic representation a few days
afterwards, on the anniversary of the Charter.
—Other loyalists, who addressed the audience
and apostrophized their Sovereign's image
in terms of praise and gratitude for his
glorious gift of liberty—these, too, were pursued
by the police familiars of Bastos, in the name of
a pretended Constitutional Government, and
forced to save themselves by flight ! At Oporto,
the Englishman, General Stubbs, had received
the representations of the people in Saldanha's
favour kindly and graciously, and promised to
transmit them to the Regent. The report which
reached our corresponiedbleteneitnt
awsduamgs,igenitsshtteadt
bydG General
Stubbs Stubbs had, consequently, been .
dismissed from
office. Whether true or false, the _report was one
np ea ri an opinionlful reflection
w igill
strike Government
eyeevery
itself
fawovhretunate country torfe which. nwe
thwrialsiiitcmohri to the 'tlhodetSnetlayut State
one bot wasu
r nas
have now been speaking, An English Minister
is at Lisbon, accredited to the Recent Represen-
tative of Don Pedro, the Ally oF his Britannic
Majesty. It is evident that the measures of the
Deputy are directly calculated to undermine and
overturn the authority of her principal—to aid,
in the most undisguised manner, the efforts of
Miguel to usurp his throne, and of the House
of Bourbon to dissolve the alliance of his domi-
nions with Great Britain. Ought, then, the Eng-
lisht
f the p
e issuer
persuaded
oes
dtshthhiosautcl
idr 'sw
ilitse
Minister to have looked on, and refrained
from interposing, by friendly councils, at least,
their of o Englishcourse,
and remonstrances, while this work of ruin has
andwn
Miguel over Pedro
been completing ?
rmi-
will not be always resisted.
l, in
nate, as
As onme
unfavourable men
tineca an ds
et
hisrs triumph mpEepr
operating
iunoszfh
waSiuPlxiiihlinaries there will be a heavy
account to render on the part of those who have
see
macv.
eexelecfulttetdo tthaekeplans
indeed, be but of a transient nature ; there are
catastrophe may be postponed, but
so much the more dreadful. liumanitv leads us
to pray that it may be bloodless ; and Reason,
that it may be soon.—Times.
If ostensiblyeyen tsb

Now that the affected grief, and the cla.
mourous lamentations of certain noisy partizans
of the present Administration, upon the occa-
sion of Mr. Canning's death, have in some de-

gree subsided, and that these obstreperous blun-
derers or hypocrites begin to find that it is at
once wearisome and imprudent to disguise any
longer the selfish objects of party under the mask
.of affection for the memory of departed genius,
we think it due to the character of a host of
'tatesmen, the predecessors, the colleagues—
many of them the superiors, in all the essential
qualifications of Statesmen) of the late Premier—
to look back to the course of British policy for the
late few years; and if in doing this we shall in-
evitably dim the glory by which it is attempted
to surround the name of a servant recently lost
to the State, it is because other and more valu-
able servants of the State have been injured by
this fraudulent attempt ; because the rays of this
glory ought elsewhere to shed their brightness—.
because the precious ointment by which it is
sought to emb“l-» him, is ointment stolen from
the hallowed tomb of others, It is since the
conclusion of the late war that all the events
have occurred, and all the principles have been
asserted or established, upon which it is at-
tempted to found a claim on behalf of the late
Premier to an historical pre-eminence over his
contemporaries and his more immediate prede-
cessors. It is only necessary, therefore, briefly
to examine these principles and events, in order
to show that the pretension is at once the
most fraudulent, arrogant, and senseless, by
which it was ever sought to obscure and
distort the annals of a nation—in order to
show that there is not one occurrence in
the 'whole series of events, or one maxim in the
existing volume of national policy to which the
name of Canning can be appended as a solitary
name—not one even to which it can be appended
in the highest place. The first important event
to which we can refer was the formation of the
Holy Alliance—a league of Sovereigns, having
for its declared object to check the tendency to
revolution supposed to exist at that period in
many of the Continental States, and to gua-
rantee the world, agitated and almost torn to
pieces by antecedent revolutions, a period of
calm and of repose—a league of Sovereigns sus-
pected, and with much appearance of reason, of
having for its real object to perpetuate and ex.,
tend the sway of arbitrary principles, and to ex.!
tinguish among nations the hopes, thc aspira-
tions, and the intelligence, which lead to free
dom. This league was, it is now said, sane-
tioned by the British Government, the two most in.
fluential membersof which were at the time Lord
Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh ; and England;
chained by them to the car of this league, was
finally redeemed from the bondage and degrade)
tion by the bold, generous, and energetic mind
of Mr. Canning. Both assertions are noto+
eiously unfounded. England never was in tbe
trammels of the Holy Alliance, and never
• therefore, could be rescued from them. Frond
the first she stood aloof, in declared and une-
quivocal disapprobation. The form of thq
league, bearing as it does the personal signatures
of the confederated Monarchs, was not the cause
why England refused to become a party to it ;
that form might easily, and for sake of an acces-
sion much less important than England, would
have been changed. It was the refusal
of England more probably which suggested
the expediency of that extraordinary form, as a
means of concealing from the world the im.i
portant fact that the English Government sulel
stantially disapproved of the league. We are
warranted in affirming that the principles of the
English Government were the same at that
period as they continued to the moment of Lord
Liverpool's illness. What its principles are :1
the present moment, it is impossible for any
body to say. The conduct pursued by England
when the views of the Holy Alliance werd
practically illustrated—first, in putting down by
force of arms the new Constitutions adopted by
certain of the Italian States ; and next, in re-es-
tablishing the despotic authority of Ferdinand
in Spain—affbrds the fullest proof of the iden-
tity for which we contend. The language and
policy of Lord Londonderry in the former of
these instances, and of Mr. Canning in the
latter, were substantially and in effect the same,
But the merit of having determined the course of
national policy upon these and similar consei
quences, and the scarcely inferior merit of
having invariably maintained that dignified
consistency which ought always to subsist
between the policy of the State, and the
tone and manner of its highest functionaries
belong exclusively to the former. It will
in like manner be easy to show, as we
shall soon take an opportunity of doing, that
the praise which has been lavished upon Mr.
Canning on account of the recognition of the
South American States, is equally misapplied as
regards him, and an equally fraudulent substruc-
tion from the merits of other men. The same
thing may be said of the new commercial regu'.
lations. It is thus that for the purposes of party
the memory of the deceased Statesman is really
dishonoured under the shew of affection. The
statue of Canning might surely be crowned by a
wreath appropriate to himself; rather than by one
composed exclusively of mock materials—by one
containing in fact not a single flower but what is
a spurious imitation of such as flourish, and will
for ever flourish in unfading fragrance upon some
other brow. The object of this injustice is how-
ever sufficiently evident. The policy of the
English Government is to be nick-named the
policy of Mr. Canning, in order, if possible, to
shield the Whigs from the ridicule which must
pursue them when they imitate, as imitate they
must, in most respects, at however humble a
distance, the policy which is really that of Lord
Liverpool and the Marquis of Londonderry. A
thousand false distinctions are to be imagined
and asserted between these distinguished States-
men and the late Premier, to the manifest injury
of the latter—for the mere convenience or the
present Whig Administration.—Morning Post.
The return of the Duke of Wellington to the
command of the Army, a source, we will ven-
ture to say, of as general satisfaction as his re-
tirement from it was of regret, furnishes a fresh
opportunity for displaying that ready adaptatien
to existing circumstances of which the Ministerial
Press has of late shown such striking specimens.
One thing cannot be denied— viz. that if the
Duke of Wellington's retirement from the com-
mand- of the Army was a misfortune to the
country; that misfortune was brought on it by
Mr. Canning ; and if his Grace's return be an
advantage, it is owing to the absence (me
lancholy enough it is true) of the cause which
led to the other. But what we would allude to
me the fulsome eulogimns which are now show-
ering on his Grace from the same fountains,
14hnne streams are hardly dry, with which they
vomited forth all the filth and spawn of vitupera-
tion Upo-
n the very head they now so loudly
honour. These• convenient, but disgusting
changes of opinion, bring, it must be confessed,
more dishonour upon the Press than any cir-
cumstance whatever. If truth be immutable,
what kind of permanence has it in the eyes of

those who thus pervert its plainest dictator, and
to-day call the self-same thing white, which
yesterday was to their vision " black as jet ?"
But this is, and always has been, the result of fac-
tion'. Men and things viewed through the medium
of party feeling, lose their true colours to the
jaundiced eye ; and though the Duke of
Wellington of to-day is the self-same Duke
in all respects as him of yesterday, yet he is
on a sudden once more an angel in the sight of
those who, up to the very hour of his return to
office, depicted him in colours dark enough it is
true, but only disgraceful to themselves. Those
who conduct the press ought to remember, that
it has enemies enough ready to seize, with se-
cret exultation; on these discrepancies ; and, if
they t attic their own fame and interest at all, to
say nothing of the cause of truth and consistency,
they ought to hesitate before they commit them-
selves in such scenes of unblushing tergiversa-
tion as such instances as that in question involve
them in. For ourselves, though valuing the
Duke of Wellington's services most highly, and
rejoicing at his return to a post he is so emi-
nently, if not exclusively, qualified to till, we do
not rejoice at it the less from there being now a
personage at the head of the Admiralty, whose
zeal and attention towards that main pillar of our
national strength is calculated to rescue it from
the degree of comparative neglect into which it
had fallen. We do not mean to undervalue the
splendid and valuable services of the Army, or of
its great leader, when we say that it is well for
the country that during the Duke of Welling-
ton's temporary retirement a new era for the
Navy has arisen, and that there is now every
prospect of the one service being as much fos-
tered and attended to under the Duke of Cla-
rence as the Army has been under the Duke of
Wellington and the Duke of York. One thing
we must, in very homely language, recommend.
to both these exalted persons, which is, " to cut
their coat according to their cloth." It is a mis-
take to imagine, as is too much the case in all
public departments of this country, that nothing
can be done without unbounded expence. There
can be no doubt but that in both services, but
especially in the Army, great expence might be
cut down, with benefit rather than disadvantage.
It is from no feeling of beggarly economy that
we say this ; on the contrary, we are convinced
that we but reiterate the general feeling of the
country, when we declare, that we would on no
account see diminished one iota of charge, which
can in any way tend to the comfort and due
splendour of the two services, to which, under
Providence, we owe the preservation, the safety,
the welfare, and honour of the country.—Morn-
ing Herald.

We give in a preceding column a letter from
our Correspondent at Lisbon, which contains
mach interesting and important information, re-
specting the events that have lately taken place
in that capital. It would appear that illness had
broken down the spirit of the Princess Regent,
who originally met with so much energy the dif-
ficulties and dangers of the period when she was
first entrusted with the direction of public ffairs,
for she now displays a degree of timidity which
destroys all the strength of her Government, and
greatly increases, if it does not altogether create,
the divisions and disturbances to which Lisbon
is a prey. She is said to have threatened, in her
alarm, to abdicate her high office, if decisive
steps were not taken to suppress the expression
of popular opinion, and to have almost shown a
disposition to submit to the dictation of the
Mother Queen, who has throughout been the
most bitter enemy to the Constitution. In 'fact,
the Ultras begin to entertain the most sanguine
hopes. They see the Constitutionalists divided
into two parties, the Ministerialists and the Revo-
lutionists. They see them ready to come to
blows, and they wait patiently whilst their oppo-
nents are destroying their respective strength, in
order to rush upon the weakened combatants
when the signal shall be given, and to seize the
chief authority of the State, without the possi-
bility of meeting with effectual resistance. It is
lamentable that the friends of the Constitution
should be so blind to their own interests, and to
those of their country, as to throw away all the
advantages which they possess in senseless squab-
bles ; and the only gratifying feature in the whole
business is the steady neutrality of the British
force, which, though not uninvited to take part
in the conflicts of political antagonists, gives to
all parties an example of order and self-command,
which it would be for the welfare of the King-
dom that they should imitate. It was reported
that the arrests made to dissipate the apprehen-
sionS of the Princess Regent, amounted to 300
individuals, most of them of high distinction, but
our correspondent believes that they did not ex-
ceed sixty. He also states that Oporto was cer-
tainly the seat of disturbances similar to those
which had agitated the capital.—New Times.

It is stated in most of the daily Papers, and
we ourselves have inadvertently admitted, that
the foreign exchanges have " turned against us."
If, by " turning against us," means that they
have done so relatively to what they were a few
posts since, the position is correct ; but if it
means that the exchanges are absolutely against
us, that is below par, it is erroneous. The par
of London with Paris is 25f. 15c. ; the stilt
course of last Friday was 25f. 45c., that is to
say, about 14 per cent. in favour of England.
The late export of gold is, therefore, unconnec-
ted with the state of the exchange ; it has not
taken place as a substitute for bills, because
they are, in the above state of things, a preferable
remittance. The real cause of the export in
question lies in the relative price of gold and
silver in France. The par of 25f. 15c. is obtained
by a combination of the price of gold, the stan-
dard currency of England, and the market price
of gold at Paris in silver, which is the standard cur-
rency of France ; and this market price of gold is
variable. Napoleons are worth, intrinsically,
compared with the sovereign, 15s. 9id. They
are now at a premium of 12d., something more
than per cent., a profit sufficient to occasion
the transmission to France of sovereigns, and
still more of gold bullion, on which, at
3/. 17s. 6d., the market price, till within these
few days, there is an additional profit of about
one-third per cent. And yet, to this operation,
so easily accounted for, is traced the fall in the
funds ; from it the conclusion is drawn, that
" too much gold has been suffered to float upon
the market," mid that " the duty of the Bank
is," in this case, " obvious ; they must reduce
the paper circulation." In short, to believe
those who arc interested in exciting. alarm, we
are on the brink of another panic, unless
timely measures are taken by the Bank to
avert it ! We quote from a cotemporary, rather
given to dogmatizing upon most subjects,
and least of all entitled to dogmatize upon
this. The whole of that writers reason-
ings upon the currency apply to an in-
convertible paper ; they are good for nothing
applied to a convertible paper, which the
paper of the Bank of England is to all, intents

and purposes ; and of which it is an inherent
quality to adapt itself, with the greatest attainable
accuracy, to the demands of the circulation. The
slightest excess must produce a. demand for
specie, and that specie, be equally superfluous
with the paper which it had displaced, must merge
in the common market of the world : as, on the
other hand, the void occasioned by any deficiency
of such paper must immediately be filled up,
either by the additional issues of it, for which
there will be a demand, and which it is the inte-
rest and the appropriate function of the Bank to
supply, or by coin, which will be required from the
Mint, in exchange for bullion taken to it, at the
reduced market price, which must follow an un-
due contraction of the paper currency. Even the
case of the exchanges being absolutely against
us, by no means argues an excess of paper ;
it happens indiscriminately in countries or places
where the currency is wholly metallic, as at
Hamburgh, where it consists in convertible
paper, as in France and Austria—or in non-
convertible paper, as in Russia, it is occasioned
by the state of the balances of payments at the
time, or by the local and temporary demand for
the precious metals in any particular country,
forming an additional item of the payments to be
made by that country. This exportation of coin
is, therefore, no symptom of an over-issue : it
forms no ground of alarm ; and for the Bank of
England to take the hint of our cotemporary,
on such grounds, to contract its issues, would be
about as wise a measure as for a physician to
drug and debilitate a patient in whom nature was
working her own cure.—lbid.