The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-10-10 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

alone; the two remaining branches of the constitu-
tional fabric are to be insultingly passed by, and the
voice of the masses is to be raised, in threat, to de-
mand the exercise of the power of the Crown in dis-
solving the present Parliament.
There may, we admit, be much of this bombasti-
cally-devised scheme of operation, which is hopeless
of immediate execution. We see, however, what
the League has already effected. We know the
daring ambition of its leaders, and their utter want
of scruple as to the instruments with which they
work; and we are compelled, therefore, seriously to
ask of the Conservative party, is this an agitation
which they should content themselves with despis-
ing?

We have received several pieces of poetry, but none of
them are suitable for our columns.
We intended to have inserted the letter of " A Resident
of Mount Vernon," respecting " the spiritual prison"
in that neighbourhood, but we have not been a- le to
make the necessary inquiries to enable us to append our
own remarks on the subject.

Ebr Eiberpool gPtantiarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 10, 1843

The British packet has arrive,l, bringing letters
from Buenos Ayres to the 20th July, and from
Monte Video to the 29th July. Mention is made
in letters from the latter place of the total defeat of
600 men, under the command of General Nunez,
who himself, with only 20 men, escaped to Calaccia.
It appears that he had been sent out by General
Oribe to endeavour to bring in cattle for the supply
of the Buenos Ayrean army, which is represented
by numerous deserters to be so badly off for provi-
sions as to be under the necessity of eating horse
flesh. It was fully expected that the Monte Video
Government would be'kiccessful in farming half the

Are these designs which Conservatives should
regard without fear ? They are not. On the con-
trary, they demand from us, if not a counter-agita-
tion, at least a watchful energy, and the adoption of
every legitimate weapon within our reach, to guard
the mind of the public from the attacks with which
it is threatened. Lethargy now becomes not only
mad, but criminal. Every man who loves his country
and his country's liberties must now be at his post,
to aid in snatching them from the rock ahead which
threatens them with destruction.

custom's duties for the year 1844, and this, it is
said, would supply the means of carrying on the
war for six months, by which time it was confidently
believed that Oribe would be compelled to retreat,
if, indeed, retreat should then be practicable. The
trade of Monte Video continues at a complete stand,
nothing is being sold and not a shilling paid on ac-
count of outstanding debts, and hence the losses to
merchants generally of that city cannot fail to be
most serious.

But in what direction, it may be asked, are the
efforts of Conservatives to be made ? We answer,
they must throw off that fatal lethargy in which
they have been held since they succeeded in over-
throwing the domination of the Whig and Radical
faction. They must show to their fellow country-
men that it was not to carry out Whig crotchets or
to feed Whig rapacity, that they were placed in the
possession of place and power. They must carry
out a Conservative policy; and, above all, they must
rely upon Conservative aid to maintain them in so
doing, rather than endeavour to strengthen them-
selves by buying of their opponents. They must no
longer pander to a hostile press and neglect their
own. They must no longer court Radical applause,
whilst they grieve and alienate their most faithful
friends and supporters. By such a course, their
position may be held in security, and the institutions
of their country kept intact and whole. By any
other, they are slowly, but surely, preparing the way
for a fall more utter and fatal than ever hefel any
great party, with the certainty before them that their
prostration will be alike unpitied and unaided.

From a perusal of the Britannia newspaper of
22nd July, it would appear that, notwithstanding
the united representations of the French and British
admirals to General Oribe, he continued to
treat his prisoners with the most relentless cruelty,
characterized by the British Admiral (Purvis) as
being such "as would disgrace even the petty states of
Barbary." But we extract the following remarks as
to the murder of two Frenchmen, taken prisoners
by Oribe on the sth July :

" We must, however, not omit to mention the atrocious
murder of two Frenchmen, who were taken prisoners by
Oribe on the sth instant, seven days after that General
bad conveyed a solemn promise to Commodore Purvis

and Admiral de Clerval that he would no longer persist
• " sacrificing his prisoners of war. The

:n his practice

We have given elsewhere a full account of the
proceedings of Government in their effort to put
down the repeal agitation in Ireland ; and, although
we have not withheld our admiration of the vigour
and excellent arrangement, with which that effort
has thus far been conducted, we cannot even now
withdraw our past expressions of dissatisfaction at
the want of promptitude in adopting the step which
it has now at length been found necessary to take.
If meetings, such as that which was, on Sunday
last, to have been held at Clontarf, are now, in the
words of the Government proclamation, "calculated

manner in which these two unfortunate Frenchmen were
put to death, and the nature of the torments they were
previously made to undergo, involve details of sodis-

strous a character, that decency obliges

" Admiral de Clerval is understood to have sent to
General Oribe to inquire into the truth of what has been
here stated relative to those individuals, and the answer
given by Oribe was simply, that they had been executed
by his orders. On the following day M. de Clerval dis-
patched a vessel to Buenos Ayres, it is supposed with
communications on the subject to the French minister,
Count de Lurde. It remains to be seen whether he will
thainefully indolent course adopted by
or if, by some energetic demonstration,

Mr. 31andev

the pestilent influence of Rosas has

iestroyed in him likewise

the common feeli

and intended to excite discontent and disaffection in
the minds of her Majesty's subjects, and to bring
into hatred and contempt the Government and con-

umanity

We again find reference made in the above paper
to the letter of the British Minister, at Buenos Ayres,
of 16th December. 1842, addressed to the Buenos
Ayrean and Monte Videan governments, demanding
a cessation of hostilities ; and if it be true that such
a letter was written to the two belligerents, of which
we are told there is not a doubt, we are altogether at
a loss to know why the conditions of this letter have
not been enforced by the British Government, as
peace would at once have been established, the trade
to Monte Video pre-erved and extended, and very
serious losses avoided. Indeed we can only see in

stit talon of the country as by law established," they

were so calculated months ago. If such meetings
are seditious and dangerous to the public peace now,
they were equally so months ago. Why then, we
ask still, were they not put down ? Why has the
miscreant agitator been permitted, week after week,

to plunder a misguided people;—to plunder them
by his cruel exactions, and doubly plunder them by
the compulsory idleness to which he has submitted
hundreds of thousands, who must, during the ap-
proaching winter, be plunged into misery unparal-
lelled even in his own unhappy country ? To these

the con inuance of this war the utter exhaustion of

Wee Ani,lntirgentro‘getir
further
'—e.;;li-gri-je d upon''
the
subject by its ulterior proceedings.
It will be urged, no doubt, by the thick and thin
adulators of the Ministerial policy, that Sir Robert
Peel and his colleagues waited to complete that vast
amount of precautionary arrangement and military
preparation, which we now see so effectively brought
into action. Such an argument might hold good,
if it could he shown that at any moment we were
not prepared to assert the supremacy of the law in
that country. But is this the case ? No ; for whilst
the Government has been concentrating its strength,
the Repeal agitation has been growing in the power
of its organization and the daring of its leaders.
We predicted, after the success of the Anti-Corn- I Some months ago the same vast effort now making
law League at Durham, that in the first borough would not have been required. A proclamation of
where a blow could be effectually struck the the illegality of these monster meetings, now become
entire energies and the vast organisation of this so threatening, would then have shorn the cowardly
band of conspi ators would be at once devoted to rebel of his strength, without more than a tenth part
the task of perverting the judgments or overawing of the military demonstration, of which Dublin was
the will of the constituency. And we are not mis- on Sunday the scene. An entire people driven to
taken. In the metropolis itself the agency is now the verge of outbreak—prepared for blood and vio-
at work, which is destined ultimately to spread lence—contemplating it day by day, with passions
throughout Great Britain ; to break down those excited by the constant iteration of imagined wrongs,
constitutional barriers, which hedge the Church, and with a winter of wretchedness, the result of
the Monarchy, and the Liberties of the People, and their own folly, and their betrayer's scoundrelism
to render the representative principle a farce, by vir- before their eyes, require no doubt all the force now
tually handing over the choice of the majority of arrayed against them, to secure their subjection to
the House of Commons to the dictation of a body the law; but the same people, disorganizad and
of men, leagued in pursuit of their own selfish ob. comparatively unexcited, might have been repressed,
jects, and inveterately hostile to the established in- f with a hand less strongly armed, and with even less
stitutions of their country. In every ward of the danger of ultimate failure. •
city, the hireling missionaries of this body are busily Besides we have ever maintained, and we must
circulating their mendacious statements, to mislead continue tc maintain, that a numerous portion of
and betray the citizens. In every ward they are the population of Ireland have for months past
erecting influences to enable them to coerce those panted for such an opportunity of escaping from
whom they cannot convince ; and, as the result, it O'Connell and his priestley myrmidons, as a firm
appears to us almost inevitable that the Conservative position on the part of Government would have
feeling of the metropolis of English commerce will afiorded them. If we mistake not, the truth of this
be stifled, and a Radical member of the council of opinion will now be seen. There may be some
the Anti-Corn-law League will be elected to repre- fiery spirits in that country who will not be disposed
sent, or to misrepresent, the interests of its mer- to sit down quietly in subjection to the dictates of '
chants, its bankers, and its traders, in the House of the great agitator. There may be men who will say
Commons. to their cowardly betrayers, " You have led us thus
In addition to this merely desultory effort of the far on the road to civil convulsion, and you shall
faction, what is their declared intention, with respect not now hold us back from our meditated prey, the
to future proceedings. Last year we saw fifty thou- Saxon whom you have taught us to hate." For• such
sand pounds, and upwards, raised and expended for there is nothing but the arm of the law; and should
the purpose of disseminating throughout the coun- it fall heavily upon them, we fear that the Govern-
try those mendacious tracts, in which the aristocracy ment which permitted them to be misled, and their
and the agriculturists of England are painted as feelings to be exasperated to this pitch of despera-
robbers and virtual murderers of the poor, whilst tion, is scarcely to be excused for its unhappy error.
the millocracy are lauded, as the only source of the But that the bulk of the population of Ireland will
nation's strength, and the only party who care for I thus determine we do not believe. There are hun-
the people's happiness. This year it is proposed to dreds of thousands, we believe, who have all along
double the amount of this contribution for seditious been repealers only from the necessity of their posi-
purposes. A hundred thousand pounds are to be Lion—from the compulsion to which they were sub-
raised ; and mark the changed purpose to which I jected : and these men will rejoice to be emancipated
they are to be devoted ! It is not in the circulation and permitted to return to the peaceful avocations
of weekly tons of mendacity; it is not in the inva- of industry; and they would have rejoiced to have
sion of the pesceful villages of England by hired been thus emancipated half a year ago !
sowers of sedition; it is not in the getting up of But the most important question which now pre-
fraudulent petitions to the House of Commons. sents itself respects the further proceedings of Go-
More definite ana direct are now to be the operations vernment in Ireland. Of course, we may now ex-
of this powerful body. The League is now at pect to see those meetings, which are declared to be
length to assume the unconstitutional position of an dangerous to the public peace, repressed by the exe-
electioneering body. Its vast organization is to be cutive. But is the mercenary fellow who has now
devoted to a simultaneous action upon the consti- aided cowardice to his other crimes—who is only
tuencies. Its agents are to enter into immediate preserved• from the fate of a rebel, by a fond regard
communication with the electors of every borough for the safety of his body—is such a man to be per-
and county throughout the kingdom ; and when mitted to retire to obscurity, to chuckle over his past
" the pear is ripe"—when a sufficient amount of ill gains and to brood over fresh robberies, unvisited
feeling has been created, and some check in the Iby the laws which he has violated ? We trust not.
prosperity of the country lays open the passions of a j The very proclamation of the Government is itself
suffering people to the operations of the incendiary an acknowledgment of his guilt. That proclama-
and demagogue, the cry is to be raised to the throne I Lion declares that "at several of the meetings"—of

nufactures they consumed, must, in the end, be
most seriously felt by our merchants and manufac-
turers engaged in trade to the River Plate. We
would earnestly call the attention of our Govern-
ment to this destructive and long protracted strug-
gle, impressed as we are with the conviction that it
is our duty to ascertain if the letter of the 16th Dec.
was written by our minister, and if so, then at once
to act upon that letter according to its tenor. No

other course, in our opinion, remains open to the
British Government, without the srcrifice of the ho-
nour of the British nation.