The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-02-19 00:00:00

'ME LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

took one single position from which they were not, in
succession, dislodged by the first shot that was directed
against them. The learned civilian doubtless acted
wisely, and with great good taste and feeling towards
his constituents, when he indulged in a contemptuous
sneer at the great meeting of the mercantile interest
which was held in London to express their opinion upon
this iniquitous proceeding; a meeting of which it may
not be too much to say, that, seldom has one more
numerous, never one more respectable or unanimous
been assembled upon any -question of public interest.
The language of the three learned coadjutors of the
noble Secretary, as well as his own, consisted, in no
small degree, of lamentations that the right hon. bart.
and his friends should have been bold enough thus to
come forward, and endeavour to redeem the good name
of England from the odium which their impolitic mea-
sures are calculated to fix upon it. Let us give a few
of their arguments. Dr. Lushington "was quite pre-
pared to agree with the right hon. bart. that if an
embargo was laid on without any intention of hostilities,
it was contrary to law and justice;" but, "without
giving any opinion on the wisdom or policy of the
general question at issue, he would say that the embargo
was perfectly justifiable." After quoting an expression
from the treaty of 1831, to the effect that " any further
delay in the adjustment of the question would tend
seriously to affect the peace of Europe," the learned
gentleman "concluded, therefore, that this country had a
right to adopt every means, whether by embargo or by
war, to maintain the peace of the country !" Further,
the learned gentleman tells us, that " this embargo was
not a civil embargo, but it was imposed in expectation of
hostilities, and it was, therefore, no infringement on the
rights of individuals." Once more,—" was it right, he
would ask, that the right lion. baronet should, in the
present state of that question—when Holland, seeing the
position of England and Fiance, might think fit at last to
yield to a spirit of concession—was•it right, he repeated,
of the right hon. baronet to select this very•time for the
purpose -of deprecating the policy of His Majesty's
Ministers? Was this a time. for the right hon. baronet to
complain of injuries and- injustice inflicted by Great
Britain upon llolland Even if the fact were so, he
(Dr. L.) conceived it to be the duty of every goad sub-
ject of the King, who 'had the welfare of his country, at
heart, to refrain from indulging in observations that
might retard conciliation, and thwart' the exertions of
government to procure an adjustment of the differences."
So—because England (we mean the English ministers)
and France look big and bluster, " Holland may think
fit, at last, to yield, and submit to the infliction of injuries
and injustice." This .is the language 'of a learned
civilian—a judge in 'Doctor's Commons—the ministerial
interpreter of international law to the House of Com-
mons! Grotius, Vattel and Puffendorf, hide your
diminished heads ! An English luminary outshines you
all!

" The next in turn on the ministerial side was His
Majesty's Attorney-General. The only part of his
speech which was not demolished by Mr. Pollock, Ivho
succeeded him, was' alogical deduction, which,' from its
proximity to the-Close of his speech, was, we presume,
of the nature of a peroration. The learned gentleman
describes what was do:ie by England and France under
the Convention ;—we hate that word ; it smacks so much
of Revolution ;—h -then tells us,—we here quote the
Times—that " the first stipulation of this treaty between
the two powers was a notice to the two separating powers
to:withdraw their troops within their own territories, as
specified in the treaty of 1831, by a certain specified day;
explicitly telling them that, on their refusal to do so by
a particular day, France would march a force by land,
and England and it a conjoint naval armament, for the
purpose of carrying the terms of both treaties into effect.
Well, the Dutch refused to evacuate the Belgian territory,
and, as a consequence, Antwerp surrendered to the French
Arms." Excellent reasoner ! Admirable logician ! Now
we, poor simple souls, have been all along labouring
under the impression that the surrender of Antwerp was
not a consequence of the refusal of the Dutch.to evacuate
the Belgian territory—but that it resulted., from the
friendly presence, during a whole month, of an army of
100,000 Frenchmen, with some 10 or 20 batteries of
cannon and mortars. This shews to how little advantage
we have studied the doctrine of cause and effect.
Then comes Mr. Solicitor-General—who " for his own
part, should have no difficulty in taking all the responsi-
bility of the measure upon himself, so convinced was he
of its justice and propriety"—and he "referred to the
Iliad to prove-the antiquity of reprisals:" This brought
up the learned gentleman's father-in-law, Sir James
Scarlett, who " contended that Holland had done nothing
to warrant the commencement of hostilities on the part
of this country, for we had taken Dutch ships and brought
them into our ports ; and if that was not war it was
piracy. Had Algiers or Tripoli acted in the same way,
no one would have hesitated to declare it piracy." We
suppose that Sir James, after the Iliad had been advanced
as an authority, thought it would be quite anti-classical
to imagine such a thing as that either antient or modern
Greece ever encouraged piracy ; so he just steps across
the Mediterranean for his hypothesis, and finds it at
Tripoli or Algiers; which, by the way, considering the
present position of the last-named place, was almost as
hard upon the Government of the Citizen King as it was
upon the argument of his own son-in-law.
Lastly, the dapper Lord himself advances to the charge;
and with all that elegant insouciance which distinguishes
his Lordship, condescended—a—to inform the house—a
—that "an embargo, as a measure of precaution, con-
sisting of the detention of ships, and reprisals, were two
different things ;"—and " Vattel had laid it down, that
one mode of obtaining justice from a foreign state was
the detention of its ships ;. and if hostilities followed and
those ships were condemned, then the reprisals were
complete: But, at present, no measure constituting an
act of had been taken. It had been contended
by some hon. gentlemen opposite, that the embargo was
an act of war. He denied the correctness of the asser-
tion: We were not at war with Holland; and the very
existence of the embargo was a proof of the fact, for

that was incompatible with a state of war. If we were
at war, no embargo would be placed on ships ; they
would be confiscated at once." His Lordship admiti,
that " when the embargo was imposed it was not beyond
the reach of possibility that hostilities might occur. He
did not mean a war of retaliation on the part of Holland,
but he intended to say that those differences which led to
the imposition of the embargo might have rendered a
recourse to hostilities necessary." Another piece of in-
formation which the Noble Secretary thought proper to
give the House was, with reference to the embargo on
American ships in 1812. When Sir Robert Peel stated
that the embargo on the vessels of America was not
placed until after a declaration of war on her part, his
Lordship " admitted that the right hon. baronet was
right, but to constitute a war, the consent of two parties
was necessary." Therefore,—we presume that is the
sequitur—and we still quote -the Tlmes,—if we could
only obtain the consent of Holland, we should be engaged
in a snug, comfortable war, according to the latest ver-
sions in the Salons FLAHAUT and DE Milo. His Lordship
was somewhere reminded in the course of the debate, of
his having used such an expression to his Hampshire
friends, as that he would "take the Bull by the horns."
We do not know, if, in his Lordship's modern vocabulary,
"Bull' and "dilemma" are synonimous terms. If so,
we epn understand what is meant by the expression—and
all we can in that case cede to his Lordship is, to grant
him our permission to choose his horn,—for upon one or
the other he will very soon be fixed.
In sober seriousness, this mummery was, last Friday,
enacted in the British House of Commons. An enquiry
is made into an act of his Majesty's ministers, the black-
est that has been placed upon the diplomatic annals of
Great Britain for the last century—an act equally remote
from the wishes, as it is from the interests of this coun-
try—undertaken, we repeat the words, in subserviency to
a foreign policy, alien to those interests—an act which
sets at nought all principles of honour, good faith, and
the law of nations, and such an act is thus at-
tempted to be—we will not say justified, for justice has
nothing whatever to do with the question, except on the
side of Holland, but is thus attempted to be—extenuated
by a British Secretary of State and his legal advisers !
We will close this summary by asking our Townsmen
two simple questions. Suppose the government of Hol-
land were to issue orders for reprisals upon our ship-
ping, and grant letters of marque—and that we should
receive intelligence of 5 or 10 British East Indiamen
being -carried into Batavia, and some 30 or 40 West
Indiamen safely lodged in the river of Surinam—would
that be war or would it be peace ? And yet we appre-
hend that taking vessels bound from Batavia or Surinam
to Amsterdam into the Thames, and there detaining them,
is an act of much the same character as peaceably re-
quiring the same number of vessels bound from Calcutta
or Demerara to Liverpool to anchor in Batavia roads or
at Paramaribo. If this be so, to what are we indebted
for an exemption from such
_occurrences ? To nothing
but the strict honour, pure sense of justice, and long
forbearance of an old Ally—a monarch who, fortunately
for our commerce, is capable of discriminating between
the acts of a British Whig Ministry and the wishes of the
British Nation.

IRELAND.—We know not whether we should more la-
ment the folly or pity the weakness of the Government
in sending Lord Anglesey to Ireland, to correct, if pos-
sible, in 1833, and by military coercion, the errors of 1831
and 1832. It is a painful commentary upon the former
proceedings of the noble Viceroy, and one of a self-abas-
ing nature, to seP him undoing his own work, and draw-
ing his sword upon that agitation which he encouraged.
Statesmen are liable to err like other men; but in the
whole history of Ireland, inglorious as that has proved to
be, there is not another instance of such afflicting humi-
liation.

On the one hand Lord Anglesey is made the instru-
ment of sequestrating the property of the Protestant
church, and nullifying nearly one moiety of its dignities
—that church which the King on the throne, and the mi-
nisters who surround the throne, have sworn to maintain
inviolate, while, on the other, he is deputed to suspend
the laws and erect military tribunals in every district of
that unhappy country: This is the price of " agitate !
agitate ! agitate r —this the reward of loyalty and rebel-
lion. For your loyalty, says the King's Lieutenant to
the Protestants of Ireland, we deprive you of your bi-
shops; and for your agitation, which we ourselves en-
couraged, you, the whole people of Ireland, are placed
beyond the pale of the constitution, and are liable to
transportation for being found beyond the threshold of
your doors between sunset and sunrise!
What a lesson is this to the wise men of our times !
What a delightful proof of an enlightened age ! We
admit the necessity for strong and arbitrary measures—
we do not say that Lord Grey's bill goes too far—perhaps
in some respects it hardly goes far enough—for it does
not touch the priests—but while we admit the necessity
of the case we cannot help lamenting at the same time
the fatal and mistaken policy, and the illjudged and con-
ciliatory measures, which led to those crimes and dis-
turbances, now to be punished so severely, and in which
the innocent are doomed to suffer equally with the guilty.
The secret, however, is out at last; Lord Grey dis-
closes-it in these few bitter words of self-reproach and
self-condemnation. " I had fondly imagined," says the
noble Earl, " at one period, that the redress of grievances
under which the Roman Catholics of Ireland so long and
unjustly laboured, would have led to the pacification and
prosperity of Ireland, but it is .with pain I feel myself
obliged to admit that all my hopes havf3 been disappointed
—greviously disappointed !" Ay, this is the sore point.
For more than thirty years have the Whigs and liberals
been constantly telling us that Catholic emancipation
would heal all the wounds, correct -all the vices, and
drown all the discords of Ireland. The "healing measure,"
as it was called, was to convert a turbulent country into
the most tranquil and happy country on earth. It was
to he governed without a standing army by the mere
force of moral influence; and we were further assured that
the gratitude of the emancipated would be so unbounded