The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The reported punishment of the Greek fleet (by
the way, it is great nonsense to call a few transports
by so pompous a title) off Scio, by one of the Allied
Admirals, is naturally enough exclaimed against by
the extra Tory prints. Their first. complaint had
be; n, that the affair of Navarin was a needless, cruel,
and most inconsistent attack of a body of professed
'mediators, upon ,one of the belligerent parties. It
was asked, why do not the mediating Powers deal
out impartial justice ? " The Greeks have solemnly
accepted the armistice, and therefore surrendered to
the Allies the right of further hostility. N.ret they
forfeit their pledge, and make active war upon the
Turks wherever they can find them. Then why
not repress their treachery ?" Well, if Admiral
Rigny has destroyed a portion of the Greek fleet,
he has acted upon the counsels of the 'reties.. Again,
we were told, and truly told, that the Greeks pur-
sued a system of audacious outage and plunder
against the commerce of their 'mediating protectors;
and it was asked, why chast!ise the Turks, who ab-
stained from all offc,nce to you, while you spare the
Greeks, by whom, you are daily and indiscriminately
robbed ? We';,, Admiral de Rigny has inflicted a
severe punis'Aßteld on this pirate navy ; and the
clamour of the opposition press increases, because
nothing can be more ill-timed or unfortunate than to
have rfne's whole argument as unmercifully demo-
lishe4 as were the Turks at Navarin, and the re-
fractory and faithless Greeks at Scio.--Times..
The dispute between the Assembly of Lower Ca-
nada and Lord Dalhousie has assumed a character

very serious in the eyes of those who are interested
for the preservation of the British Colonies. His
Lordship, it appears, has persisted in twice rejecting
Mr. Papineau, whom the Assembly had most una-
nimously chosen for their Speaker. His Lordship
bad not long ago disolved the Canadian Parliament,
and sent the members to a new election. The re-
sult is, that a Parliament has been returned, more

adverse to Lord Dalhousie and his administration

than the old one, and that a proof is thus afforded of
an increased hostility to the Government in the
minds of the people of Canada. The country has a
Tight to ask why this should be? We, the people
of England, pay profusely, not alone for the main-

tenance of our dominion over Canada, but towards

the commercial affluence and prosperity enjoyed by
the Canadians themselves. The defence of the

Colony is out of the pockets of the Englishmen,—
the great public works projected and carried on

. .
there, are at the national expense—a most lucra-
tive preference in the timber trade is enjoyed
by the Canadians, and secured by a heavy
impost ow Great Britain, which consents to
pay a higher price for the far inferior growths
of Canada than for the unequalled timber of
the north of Europe; and this for nobody's benefit
but for that of the colonists themselves. There
exists, therefore, we beg leave to say,. good cause
for demanding why it is that Canada should exhibit
such alarming symptoms of apparent alienation from
the British Government. Certainly, where a colo-
nial possession so favoured by the laws of the mother
country, and to the obvious detriment of the people
at home, instead of being conciliated, is more and
more excited against the power which thus cherishes
and protects it, we must presume that there are in-
cidental, and perhaps personal grounds for the crea-
tion of a feeling in the colony so little correspond-
ing to that on which the legislation of the parent

state has been framed, in which, likewise, it muse
be the desire of his Majesty and of Podia.
ment that the existing laws should invariably be
administered, and the patronage at the disposal of
the Crown, or its representative, be divided. We
do not know how far the Canadians are justified in
complaining that Lord Dalhousie's personal conduct
has not been the best fitted to procure him popu-
larity,or to engage the good-will of the Canadians in
a zealous support of his Majesty's service, and of
the collective interests of the empire at large. This
dispute respecting the choice of a Speaker seems
rather the effect and the indication of a series of
preceding differences between the head of the Exe-
cutive Government and the colony, than an original
and substantive quarrel. But we are sure, that ex-
eept in the instances of Lord Dorchester and Sir
George Prevost, the latter of whom was himself a
Canadian, and no lesA successful in his civil admini-
stration than he was unfortunate in his attempts
as a soldier—with perhaps these two exceptions,
we have understood that Canada has never
enjoyed, a government productive of much
sat4chment in the native population to the
Crown of England. That the vulgar and unsym-
pathizing Ministry of Lord Bathurst may have been
calculated to afflict many others of our colonies be-
sides the miserable Cape of Good Hope,with a growing
sentiment of anger and distrust towards this coun-
try, we do not believe to be improbable. There
never was tolerated a worse Colonial Minister than
that unrespected Lord. But we doubt very gravely,
whether military men ought ever to be employed as
civil governors over any portiOn of a free people.
They have one and all an instinctive jealousy of pri-
vileges which set their own power at defiance : they
are habituated to command, but not to persuade or
reason : they dread freedom of speech, and hate a
deliberative assembly. Their tone, therefore, is for
the most part that of haughty and uncompromising
power. By taking captious exceptions at every,
form of language but that of submission,
they teach the colonists to be as sore and ir-
ritable as themselves; and we see in some of our
West India islands the same temper towards their
Governors(being military men) as has been long dis-
played in Canada, to the extreme embarrassment of
the King's service, and a general relaxation of the
ties of deference on one side, and of kindness and
protection on the other. We heartily wish that
Lord Dalhousie were recalled, and that if Sir Francis
Burton be really appointed Governor-General of
Canada, he may speedily enter on his important
trust ; for sure we are, that if he succeed in restoring
the affectionate and loyal temper of Lower Canada,
by an application td its inhabitants of the same
sound principles of mild, considerate, and.equitable
government as haVe procured for him so much popu-
larity in the Upper Province, and for the people of
that province such tranquillity and contentment, Sir
Francis Burton will'have conferred upon his country
a signal and memorable good.—lbid.
The destruction or the Greek fleet will establish
the character of the Allies for impartiality between
the contending .parties. We observe that the
Courier Francais laments the measure. We also.
lament that it should have been necessary to recur
to the measure, but we cannot shut our eyes to its
necessity. The Greeks could have no pretext for
continuing their operations, after the distinct notifi-
cation which they received; and the hard measure
which was dealt out, to the Turks ought to have
prepared them for a similar chastisement, should they
persist in neglecting the warning given to them. We
fear this is not the only chastisement which the
Greeks are doomed to receive from the Great
Powers. The long continuance of the hostilities,
conducted as they have been .With such savage cru-
elty on both sides, has led to- a dissolution of all
social ties throughout the greatest part • of Greece.
Piracy and plunder have become the order of the
day. While we lament that events should have
wrought this distressing change in the character of
the people, we re not the less sensible that terrible
examples must be made in order to
.arrest the evil.
Favoured by their situation, skilled as they are in
navigating the seas of the Archipelago, it will be no
easy matter to put down these buccaneers of our
times. However, the attempt must be made, for it
is one of the first duties of a Government to use the
resources with which it is entrusted for the protec-
tion of its peaceful and industrious citizens, who are
following their lawful pursuits.—Morning Chronicle.
By the late treaty of Peace made between Russia
and Persia, by which the Araxes is made the new
boundary between the two empires, we see, by re-
ferring to the inEip. of Persia, that a considerable
portion of that country is ceded to Russia, and that
the latter Power has, in consequence, the complete
command of the Caspian Sea, Russia appears to

be proceeding in her conquests upon the same prin-
ciple Rome did ages since—and as we have of late
years done in the East Indies :.--that is, stirring up
s war with a neighbour—then gaining a battle or
two—making peace—and procuring a large tract of
country every time such war was made,-and peace
effected. It is not improbable but that, in the course
of a few years, our Statesmen will have to look about
them so far as further advances are made by the
Rugsians in this part of the world, towards our East
InTta possessions.—Morning Herald.
We have given in a preceding column the con-
tents of the Paris Papers received by an Extraordi-
nary Express on Saturday morning, and which we
then published in a Second Edition. It is stated,
on the authority of advises from various quarters,
that the French Admiral de Rigny had destroyed
the Greek fleet before Scio, in consequence of the
Greek fleets having refused to . obey the injunction
of the Allied Admirals in regard to the suspension
of hostilities. Should this fact prove to be correctly
stated, (of which, as it now presents itself, there ap-
pears little reason to doubt), it will offer another re-
markable and very important incident, arising out of
the new schemes of policy adopted at the same
time by England, France, and Russia—We say
schemes of policy, because every thing attests that
each of the Powers, parties to the Treaty of Inter-
vention, had distinct objects of its own—that
.nothing was conceived in unison, but all in
mutual jealousy and hatred. The only legiti-
mate pretence for the Treaty was the ex-
istence o( piracy in the Levant to an extent
which rendered its prompt suppression an object of
importance to the commerce of the three nations
who became parties to it. To be sure no such
league could have been necessary for the attainment
of this object, for either England, Russia, or France
singly, and at a very small expence, might easily
have accomplished it. A few small vessels properly
equipped, under active, and zealous, and vigilant
commanders, the erection of a suitable tribunal at
Malta or Toulon for the trial, and of a gibbet
for the execution of pirates, were all that the case
really required. 'We do not hesitate to say, that by the
vigorous application of means so easyand simple as those
we have mentioned, piracy might have been abolished
in three months. But as if to show that the sup-
pression of piracy was merely a pretence, and that the
parties to the Treaty were utterly indifferent to the
interests of commerce—piracy, which served as a
convenient apology for the Treaty, has been per-
mitted to flourish and to extend, itself with greater
vigour and with less of restraint or apprehension,
since the execution of the treaty than before. In-
stead of directing any part of their attention to the
destruction or capture of pirate vessels, the first ex-'
ploit performed by the Allied forces, in consequence
of the Treaty, was to destroy the Turkish fleet when
anchored at peace in a Turkish harbour, although
the Turks had never been even accused of piracy—
although they were the foes of the Pirate Nation,
and the only foes of whom that nation was in dread.
The second exploit we this day record : It is the
destruction, not of an armament of Pirates, but of
the national fleet of Greece, fitted out to fight on
behalf of Grecian freedom—by the naval, force
of one of the Allies. Surely, considering what
benefits the Allies profess to confer upon
the Greek Nation, and the dreadful fate
from which they say they have rescued it, they
might have- had influence enough to cause this
fleet to be employed in the suppression of piracy, and
have made it the instrument of rescuing the name and
the cause of Greece from the foul reproach which
now cleaves to both, and which can never be effec-
tually removed unless the public power of the Greeks
at least assist its the extirpation of that crime which
is the opprobriam of their race. Of this chance to
redeem their national character, and the only one
which remained to them, the Greeks are now de-
prived., by the exploit of Admiral de Rigny ; and as
the only fruits yet yielded by a treaty which invoked
the names of Religion and Humanity—which, as we
said from the• first, impiously, prostituted those sa-
nurses,cred nurses, we are presented with two appalling
spectacles of bloodshed and destruction, wrought by
the, peace-giving Mediators upon the persons and
properties of—first one, and then the other, of the
parties Whom they pretended to reconcile, to eu-
lighten, and to preserve. It cannot be disguised
that this exploit of Admiral de Rigny'renders the
moral aspect of the whole affair, horrible as it was
before, still more horrible ! But it is in vain to
examine the moral features of a transaction which
seta every notion of public morality at defiance from
its commencement, and will continue to do so to its
end. The exploit, as to its motives and its conse-
quences, Must be viewed exclusively in reference to
the diplomatic relations so far as these are known,
(and they sufficiently complicated and obscure),
that now exist between -the several Powers directly
or indirectly concerned in the affairs of the East.
The motive to this exploit is, we think; sufficiently
intelligible. It was no doubt intended to propi-
tiate the Ottoman Government at this critical mo-
ment, when the destruction of the Turkish and the
aggrandisement of the Russian Empire hang sus-
pended on the •balance, or rather to afford the
Grand Seignor an opportunity for the more
calm re-consideration of a question upon which
his interests as a • Monarch suggest one conclu-
sion, while his just indignation still more forcibly
suggests another. It was to furnish him with the
pretext ao least of believing that the peace-giving
destroyers had so much sense •of justice as to be
impartial in their work of destruction. It was to
pour balm into the maddening wound which had
been inflicted upon his pride. To what extent it is
likely to influence the future policy of the Ottoman
Court, is a questioa upon which, with our present
very imperfect information, we refrain from offering
an opinion. It is not improbable, however, that it
may be seized as a favourable opportunity to escape
from the imminent dangers which would attend a
conflict with Russia, unrestrained by the other
European Powers, or that it may even for sometime
to come give the French Anibasiador a paramount
influence •at Constantinople. If these should be
its results, Russia, so far as respects the most
important of her designs, will. have been cir-
cumvented, and hence arises another very difficult
question, viz. whether Rtissia will quietly submit
thus to be defrauded of the prize 50...10ng and
anxiously sought, and which appeared already with-
in her grasp. All the results of the Tripartite
Treaty are in short involved at this moment in the
darkest obscurity, and the most inextricable confu-
sion. Nothing is known but that the Treaty, atro-
cious in its principle, has been followed only by
atrocious acts; that it has caused human slaughter
to he employed as an instrument of diplomacy; that
professing to put down piracy, it has made piracy
flourish and increase ; that the havoc and destruc-
tion at Navarin,
.in subserviency to the ambition of
Russia, has given occasion for the havoc and de.
struction at Scio to circumvent Russian ambition—
and that both these atrocious acts of havoc and de-
struction have been perpetrated in the abused names
of liberality, and humanity, and peace.—illern. Post.

The Gazelle de France of Friday, Which arrived
on Saturday; communicates the highly important
fact, that Admiral de Rigny, after vainly summoning
Colonel Flivier •to cease from hostilities, had de-
stroyed the Greek -fleet in the road of Scio. This
news was given in the Gazette,. on the authority of
letters from. Trieste, of the 18th, where the report
was current so early as the evening of the 14th, • ) No
date,.howcver, iS.Ossigned to the attack, although no'
' doubt is expressed on the subject. It must be in!
the recollection of our readers, that the three Ad-:
mirals addressed, on the 24th of October, four days'
after the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarin,!
a note to the Permanent Committee of the Greek
Legielative.l3ody, in which they declared that the
armistice at sea having been de facto established by
the recent battle, it was absolutely necessary for the
Greek fleet to observe it. They also stated
pointedly, that if the Greeks refused to do so, their
fate should be the same as that of their opponents.
The Government most willingly co-operated with
the Allied Admirals, and agreed to ‘econd their
views to the utmost; but the Government of Greece