The Sun.
London, England, 1829-07-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We find it affirmed by the Prussian Stale
Gazette, that an outwork of Silistria had been
taken by storm, and with it some Turkish stand-
ards. The standards are of little moment, even
As evidences of success, for a Turkish force at
all times abounds in them ; and if ever so few
prisoners be taken, the chance is that military
ensigns will be captured also. But the outwork
is a more important thing. If no effectual relief
be given to the garrison of Silistria, supposing it
to have been attacked by a besieging army deem-
ed adequate to the service, according to the rules
of war, there is almost a mathematical certainty
that the place must fall within a definite period ;
and an experienced engineer will predict, with
great accuracy, the day on which, making due
allowance for the utmost efforts of skill and
courage in the garrison, any known number of
defenders may be considered incapable of longer
maintaining a fortress. The Russian letter-
writers appear to think that SiliStria would capi-
tulate on the 29th ult. If so, we shall hear of
it by the next German mail. As for the stories
circulated on Russian authority, that the garrisons
of Shumla consists only of 4,000 Arnauts, they
seem calculated for no meridian but that of
St. Petersburgh itself. A report, at once
more satisfactory and more credible, is, that
the Emperor Nicholas declares his dispo-
sition to ask only moderate and reasonable
terms from Turkey. Should his Imperial Ma-
jesty be pleased to act upon so laudable a deter-
mination, every honest man in Europe will wish
success to his overtures of peace whenever they may
be tendered ; and if the point of honour forbids
(which we trust it does not) a Prince so power-
fill to make the first advances towards accommo-
dation, there is, no doubt, enough of wisdom
and humanity amongst the Christian Courts of
Europe, to raise up a host of mediators and
peace-makers, eager to smooth difficulties, and to
approximate the hostile Monarchs. If Russia
wants nothing but the secure navigation of the
Euxine and narrow seas for her merchants, we
have always considered it a right which Turkey
ought to be forced to acknowledge, and for
which England and every other upright State
would be justified in combining with the Court
of St. Petersburgh to secure the most substantial
guarantees. It is quite intolerable that any ex-
ercise of arbitrary or capricious power should be
suffered to interrupt the peaceful enjoyment by
the subjects of his Imperial Majesty of a benefit
so necessary to them and so useful to the world,
as the transport of their native productions by a
route which forms the only practicable commu-
nication between the most fertile provinces of
Russia and the rest of Europe. It is a diffe-
rent question, however, whether Russia ought to
be allowed the command of the Exuine for
other purposes besides those of inoffensive mer-
chandise. We say, indubitably not.—Times.

The accounts from Ireland, to the full extent
to which they embrace the proceedings through-
out that country on the 12th of July, and on the
13th, which being a week-day was selected more
generally for the Orange commemoration, have
dissipated whatever fears had been entertained,
that the public peace would be much disturbed,
and person or property outraged. Dublin, with
its vicinity, was never known to be so peaceable
on any former occasion. In the north, we have
intelligence from Down and Armagh, where,
though the time was critical, no mischief of any
kind occurred. In the county of Wicklow
there was a meeting and procession, but they
went off well. The magistracy of Belfast are
blamed by our correspondent for having parleyed
and negocisied with the Orange leaders, in the
hope of dissuading them from a tumultuous dis-
play, when the law ought, he adds, to have been
fearlessly enforced against them. Considering
the state of the population in the north of Ireland,
and the strong ground for trusting that in a year
or two all these wild and mischievous follies will
subside of themselves, we approve the endeavour,
although it was an unsuccessful one, to avert any
disturbance by quiet expostulation. The Ca-
tholic priests, it is said, were throughout the
country most anxious to tranquillize the threaten-
ing spirit of their parishioners, whom they ad-
dressed from the several alters on Sunday, en-
joining them to forbear from violence, and to
treat the wanton provocations of the Orangemen
with contempt. We pray devoutly that the
charitable counsel may, in all instances, have
been wisely taken.—/bid.
No recent publication seems to have disaP.
pointed expectation so much as the Travels in
the United States of Captain Basil Hall.
Cleverness he unquestionably disi?lays on many
occasions ; but his leading defect is want of
sagacity. His eternal, comparisons are silly ;
because the differences between the people of
the United States and the people of England
float naturally from the circumstances in which
they are respectively placed ; and when once the
•
peculiarities in their situation are seized, all - the
rest is obvious. There is throughout the work
a constant display of self-sufficiency and self-
gratulation which might be in character in a
prim Dandy, but which one is not prepared to
find in a Naval Officer, who has been :buffeted
about the four quarters of the world. Volney,
in his admirable description of the gene:.-al
aspect of the United States, observes, that c, on
a coast of three hundred leagues ex!..ent, there
are ten or twelve cities all built nt brick, or of
wood painted of different colours, and con-
taining from ten 'to sixty thousand inhabitants ;
round these cities, farm-houses, built of trunks
of trees, which they call log-houses, in the cen-
tre of a few fields of wheat, tobacco, or Indian
corn ; these fields, separated by a kind of fence
made with branches of trees instead of hedges,
for the most part full of stumps of trees half
burnt, a; stripped of the bark, and still standing ;
while both houses and fields are enchased as it
were in mas2es of forest, in which they are swal-
lowed up, and diminish both in number and ex-
tent the farther you advance into the woods, till
at length, from the summits of the hills, you
perceive only here and there a few little brown
Or yellow squares on a ground of green." The
cities have since increased in size, and the culti-
vation has extended, but still America is an im-
mense wilderness, in which partial openings have
been cut on the sea, hoard and along the banks
of rivers. For ages to come the great business,
will be clearing of land, and as, except in the
neighbourhood of a few great towns, land is of
little value, and, labour everything, the people
arc all necessarily on nearly the same level, and
independent. In the Slaw States, where la-
bout roibehcis w
becomes the
a differentpr
oertyiiootrdeofr th
the labourer,
bu
ofthings pre-
vails, and something like the Aristocracy of
Europe may be seen. The very circum-
stance of labour giving to land nearly its whole
value in America, renders any disquisition I aeout
Aristocracy and Primogeniture supremely idle.
What is the use of leaving an estate to our son,
if no rent can be obtained for land ? The fol-

lowing observations by Captain Haill, fliereiore,
in which he endeavours to trace the absence of
Primogeniture and of Aristocracy to a levelling
principle in the people, is a curious instance of
a disposition to look a great way off for what
lay at his feet. " The Law of Primogeniture,"
lie says (primogeniture was only the law in
some of the slave states), " was abolished long
g3O ; and though there be at present no positive
legib!dive enactment against as definite a dis-
posal of property by descent as in England, the
general feeling of the American community is so
decidedly hostile to a:‘, such settlements, that in
practice they are rarely if ever attempted. The
property of the parent, therefore, is generally
divided equally amongst the children. This di-
vision, as may be supposed, seldom gives to each
sufficient means to enable him to live inde-
pendently of business ; and, consequently, the
same course of money-making habits, which
belonged to the parent, necessarily descends to
the son. Or supposing there be only one who
succeeds to the fortune, in what way is he to
spend it ? Where, when, and with whom ?
How is lie to find companionship ? How ex-
pect sympathy from the great mass of the people
lie mixes amongst, whose habits and tastes lie
in totally different directions ?
" When this language is held in America, the
facts are too obvious to be denied; it is asked how
it happens that the same thing does not occur with
the money-making classes in England ? The ready
answer is, that the attendant circumstances are suf-
ficiently different to prevent like consequences
merchant, or any other professed man of business in
England, has always before his eyes a large and per-
manent money-spending class to adjust his habits
by. He is also, to a certain extent, in the way of
communicating familiarly with those who, having
derived their riches by inheritance, are exempt from
all that personal experience in the science of accu-
mulation, which has a tendency to augment the dif-
ficulty of spending money well. Sometimes this
acquaintance with the Aristocracy, whether it be of
wealth or of rank, arises from circumstances of birth,
more frequently from alliance, and still oftener from
talents or knowledge, or from some of those inci-
dents which the intermixture of all classes in Eng-
land, in spite of their marked distinctions, perpetu-
ally give rise to. At all events, while he goes on
acquiring property, the man of business learns al-
most as well, though more gradually and insensibly,
how to spend his money as if he had been born and
bred in one of those classes whose peculiar province
it is to distribute, not to accumulate, the riches of
the country. At length, when he thinks he has
made enough to entitle him to retire from his la-
bours, he at once enters the permanently wealthy
ranks, amongst whose members he is always sure of
finding sympathy and companionship, whatever be
his tastes or his future views.
" Any such accumulation and distribution of pro-
perty, however, in America, is abhorrent to the feel-
ings of the inhabitants, and of course entails, un-
equal divisions, or every thing like primogeniture,
are not to be dreamt of. They will scarcely allow
the words to be whispered in consideration; one
might as well speak of a coronet, or a close borough,
or any other abomination ! I remember hearing,
when I was in Virginia, of a gentleman whose elder
sons had displeased him so much, that he left all his
fortune to the youngest. The public, however,
were so universally scandalized at this act of injus-
tice as it was termed, though the father had earned
all the money himself, that he, after a year or two
of miserable badgering, was compelled, for the sake
of a quiet life, to divide bis property amongst his
disinherited children. It is by no means difficult to
point out whence all this springs. It is the legiti-
mate offspring of those levelling or equalizing prin-
ciples already discussed. In all countries it may be
observed, the great mass of people are without dis-
posable property, and live, as it is well called, from
band to mouth. This is decidedly the case in Ame-
rica ; for though it be easy for a man to keep him-
self and his family alive by bodily labour, the great
majority of the whole population possess little more
than enough for that purpose. Generally speaking,
very few persons amongst them have ady spare pro-
perty or surplus revenue—they have no fortune, in
short, which requires care and ingenuity to dispose
icr purposes beyond the immediate wants of life.
When, therefore, the democratical principle is fully
established in a society so constituted, and all the
elections are brought under the absolute controul of
the people at large, the legislators chosen by them
must, as a matter of course, be made up chiefly of
persons almost without fortune."
The idea of creating an Aristocracy in Ame-
rica seems to have haunted particularly Captain
Basil Hall. " I remember once (he says), before
I had much acquaintance with the subject, ask-
ing a well-informed person whether he did not
think it possible, by some device of entails, or
of rank or station, to interpose a counteracting
force to this popular torrent, it) order to check
some of the evils of such a wide-spreading de-
mocracy. He smiled at my entire ignorance of
tie feelings of the Americans on these subjects,
and assured me that any such thing as I alluded
to, or in the remotest degree approaching to an
aristocracy, ether of wealth, or title, or station,
or even of talents or experience, was absolutely
out of the question ; And, was fully as incon-
sistent with the whole spir;t of their system, as
an equal division of property wolihi be with that
of England." In all these remarks of Captain
Basil Hall, there is displayed a lamentable igno-
rance of human nature. The idea of entails
and aristocracy could never have entered into
the head of any man at all acquainted with
America. In the United States a system of
equality prevails, because where there is a
Boundless territory, land is of no value, except
where slavery is allowed. All this talk of
democracy, of equality, of aristocracy, and so
forth, is quite idle. The fact of the possession
of land: equal in fertility to those already grant-
ed, necessaf.qv puts an end to all.schemes of
aristocracy, excecj, when the labourers can be
made property. Captain Basil Hall is an in-
g ious man. He may hereafter institute a
oen
comparison between the people of Loo Tchoo
and the people of England, or the people of New
Zealand and the people of Holland. We have
no objection to his pictures of Loo Tchoo, of
South America; but we object to his compa-
risons of the Americans to an old people like
the English. The Legislators of the United
States may be ignorant,lut we do not see how
adding corruption to ignorance could mend mat-
ters. The Americans and English have hardly
anything in common, but speaking the same
language and living on the sea board. We are
quite satisfied with our own country, and would
rather live in England than in the United States
of America. But our preference is not founded
on the silly grounds urged by Captain Basil
Hall.— ornln Chronicle.
The country is again inundated with rumours
of expected cf:oges in the Administration.
One report states a noyai duke is determined
to oust the Government of the Duke of Wel-
lington altogether ; another, that the Royal dis-
iike to Lord Grey has been overcome, and th4lt
the Whigs are coming, one and all, into office ;
a third, that the old Tories are about to return
to power ; a fourth, that Mr. Huskisson has
declared that he will never hold office under a
Chief who cashiered him so abruptly and un-
ceremoniously ; and nearly all these reports make
it a sort of colndOiou tisat Mr. Peel should be