The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-03-08 00:00:00

A CHILD'S DEATH-BED.

She breathed not a sigh, not a word did she speak,
As the spirit of death passed o'er her,
But a brilliant flush lit her cold pallid cheek,
As she smiled on those kneeling before her.
Her white hands were rais'd towards heaven in pray'r,
Her lips gently moved in devotion,.
And scarce could you tell that the spirit was there,
So slight was that young heart's emotion.
He blue eye once bright, was now dim with a tear,
•She gazed calmly and sweetly around her,
But none could have deemed that death was so near,
So mildly his fetters had bound her.
Each small hand was clasp'd in her parents', who kneeling,
Strove vainly their grief to repress.
But down whose care-worn cheeks, fast and silently stealing,
Were tokens of bitter distress.
Not a feature was changed, but a heavenly smile
On the sufferer's lips seemed to play,
As her gaze fondly turn'd on her parents awhile,
Ere her spirit should speed on its way.
Yes, that lovely child died, and returned to its God
The spirit that He had not given,
But lent, till released from mortality's sod,
It winged its bright flight up to Heaven.

LATE OUTRAGE ON THE BRITISH FLAG.

(From the Morning Herald.)
Another account, and a more detailed one, of the
circumstances attending the recent outrageous. attack
bn the British naval flag, has been published on the
authority of a correspondent of the Falmouth Express,
and will be found in another column. That account,
it will be seen, is not only more particular than the one
originally published by the Falmouth paper, but gives
rather a different view of the matter as to the party
primarily responsible for that flagitious insult to the
honour of Great Britain, from what anybody inferred
from the previous statement, or from the official com-
munication made by Lord Minto on the subject in the
House of Lords, and echoed by Mr. C. Wood in the
House of Commons.

If the correspondent of the Falmonth Express be
correct in this amended, or rather more circumstantial,
report of the transaction, there can be no doubt that
Admiral Baudin is himself the party primarily respon-
sible, the outrage having been committed by his or-
ders, the French officer who boarded her Majesty's
packet to force away the pilot having alleged those or-
ders as his authority, and directed attention to the ad-
miral's signals in confirmation of what he stated. If
this be so, Admiral Baudin is the real culprit, and
must be made to know, or his Sovereign must be made
sensible, if he dares to screen him from the conse-
quences, that although an English ministry, destitute
of manhood or patriotism, may be willing to slur over
this national wrong, there is still a spirit in England
which will not allow insult to be offered unavenged to
the once-glorious flag of our naval dominion. The
flag emblazoned with the names and achievements of
Blake, of Effingham, of Rodney, of St. Vincent, of
Howe, of Duncan, of Nelson, and of other " lions of
the deep"—

" The flag that braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze"—
that flag was first_ disgraced and degraded by the
whigs for the sake of a French alliance by entering
into that vile Anglo-Gallic convention to intimidate and
coerce England's old ally, the King of Holland—a
convention so base in its origin, so inglorious in its re-
sults—a convention which the Dutch King and his
people treated with defiance and scorn, and which be-
came the ridicule of Europe when the combined fleet
sailed back to the Downs, bringing with them from the
coast of Holland not even a basketful of sea-shells,
such as Caligula collected and carried to Rome, as the
testimony and trophy of his Batavian conquests.
This disgrace the British flag was made to endure
for the advantage of Louis Philip and his barricade
monarchy when the crafty old Talleyrand used to boast
of leading the genius of the Foreign-office like a
French poodle in a silken string. Behold the reward !
The same Louis Philip picks a quaff rel with the Mexi-
can republic because it is a weak power that he can
bully, and a great outlet for British trade in Southern
America, and, while carrying on this little better than
piratical warfare, compels—aye, let England feel it as
Lthey will—compels the flag of England to be accessory
ito the slaughter of her own customers, by using it as
"a decoy for a Mexican pilot, who, by placing confidence
in that flag, is allured on board of one of her Majesty's
vessels, and is thence dragged on board the French
fleet to steer the enemiee of Mexico to the murder of
his countrymen—a refinement in cruelty worthy o
Gallic civilization.
Still, though Admiral Baudin gave the order for this
atrocious outrage, we by no means abandon the opi-
nion that the officer who executed the. order ought to
have been allowed to escape " scot-free." 'We quite
agree with Captain Pechell, who, though a "liberal,"
has the high feeling for the honour of the flag and of
the country which distinguishes the true British " tar,"
that the French officer who dared to board her 'Ma-
jesty's ship to execute the order, whether he was the
Prince de Joinville or any body else, " ought to have
been instantly bundled into the sea, to swim back with
that answer to his insolent superiors.
It -was very recently that Marshal Soult, as Louis
Philip's ambassador extraordinary to the British court
on the occasion of the Queen's coronation, was re-
ceived in this country with a feeling of attention and
hospitality carried to an extravagant extreme. Even
our own Wellington seemed almost a secondary,per-
sonage for a time, while English liberalism was lavish-
ing its honours upon his oft-times vanquished antago-
nist. Behold the reward ! The admiral of Louis Philip
issues an order the most insulting; to the British flag
that can possibly be conceived, and the son of Louis
Philip carries it into execution.
The British ministry took so kindly the " kicking"
inflicted upon the honour of " the flag" by the Rus-
sian autocrat in the case of the Vixen, which is so dis-
gracefully mixed up with the inglorious history of Lord
Durham's embassy, that it naturally invited a " kick-
ing" from our treacherous French " ally, " whose
" secret" understanding with Russia is now no secret
at all. If such insults are put up with by England,
the great naval anthem, whose chorus is
" Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves ! •
For Britons never shall be slaves."
will appear to breathe only the language of mockery
and derision.
The insult was most public arid humiliating, and
most public and humiliating ought the apology to be.
It would not be beyond the measure of the office to in-
sist on the dismissal of Admiral Baudin from the ser-
vice in which he has done that, with deliberation and
design, which seemed like a wanton provication to War,
for it would most assuredly have justified a British
admiral in sweeping his piratical flotilla from the seas.
This thing must not be slurred over as our pusillani-
mous ministry wish to slur it. We do it, at all events,
trust, and the public will expect it, that the conserva-
tives in parliament will not neglect any proper and
constitutional means to obtain ample reparation for the
insulted honour of the country. When the honour of
the flag is concerned, let them recollect that the last
order of that naval chieftain who carried that flag to
the highest pitch of glory, leaving it without a rival on
the ocean, " England expects every man to do his
duty." Let them do theirs, and such an insult on the
"-meteor flag of England" will not be soon repeated.