The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-05-05 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

PRINCE ALBERT A LAWYER.—The name of Prince
Albert appears the first in a recently-published list of the
henchers of Lincoln's-inn.

In the Court of Queen's Bench, on Thursday, Bernard
Gregory, for libel on the Duke of Brunswick, was brought
up for judgment, when he was sentenced to be imprisoned
in the Queen's Prison for eight months.
On Thursday a conditional rule for a criminal infor-
mation against Mr. Frederick Jackson, solicitor, Dublin,
for writing a threatening letter to Mr. Butt, Q.U., was
granted by the Queen's Bench.
LIABILITY OF CAB PROPRIETORS FOR LUGGAGE.—
The Ccurt of Common Pleas decided on Thursday that
the proprietor of a hackney-carriage is bound to carry,
" safely and securely," the luggage of any person hiring
his carriage, and that he is liable for any loss arising from
his negligence.
IMPORTANT TO MEDICAL CORONERS.-At the Wigan
Borough Sessions, last week, before Mr. Segar, Recor-
der, upon the coroner's bill being presented, Mr. William
Ackerley objected to the costs of an inquisition held on the
body of William Kenyon, when it was proved that the co-
roner, who is a surgeon, had been attending the deceased
previous to his death. The Recorder deemed it a case
that did not require an inquisition, and disallowed the
claim.
REPUDIATION IN THE IRON TRADE.—BAILEY AND
OTHERS V. DICKER.—At the Court of Exchequer, on
Thursday, the above action was brought to recover da-
mages for a breach of contract. The plaintiffs in the
case were Messrs Bailey, Brothers, and Co., of this town,
and the defendant, J. C. Dicker, Esq. It appeared that
the defendant, who was fearful that the prices would fall,
had sold, through the agency of Mr. Short. a retired
ironbraker, to the plaintiffs, 2,000 tons of Scotch pig_
iron, at 675. 6d. per ton. Prices, however, suddenly
rose to 80s , and the defendant repudiated the contract.
The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff—damages,
£l,OOO.

LOSS OF THE COLONIES OF ENGLAND.

Glasgow, 2nd May, 1846.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL TIMES.

SIR,—My attention has just been drawn to your re-
marks of Tuesday last on my opinions, and your insinu-
ations as to my loyalty.

I am sure you will not refuse me the privilege of setting
myself right with your readers, and I wish you and they
could be brought as easily to see that you have no more
reason on your side in opposing my opinions, than you
have facts, or even appearances, with which to question
my devotedness to the British Government.

If, in Canada, I have not done as much as any one
individual, in sustaining MONARCHY IN AMERICA, in its
hours of danger and extremity, 1 have the equally proud
feeling that on these occasions I have uniformly done all
I could.

And no one has used greater, or perhaps so great, exer-
tions for the last dozen years in a more difficult and, to
my mind, ano less patriotic duty—l mean, the purifying
and popularising of the administration of the colony, as
the best, as the only, hope of perpetuating the sway of the
British crown over its North American dependencies.
I have always objected to every abuse that I saw to be
endangering the bold of England on Canada, just as
warmly as I now object to free trade, or rather free im-
ports only into the mother country and the colony.
As a proof of my former position, permit me to give
the following extract from a defence I wrote of Lord
Metcalfe, in December 1843, which was the first blow
struck in Upper Canada for that most illustrious repre-
sentative of her Majesty, and at a time when Canadian
public opinion had set in more strongly against his Ex-
cellency than the tide of British public opinion is now
against protection to British industry :
"'Situated, as Canada is, alongside of the United States,
we known that Republicanism will, at times, become an
alarming element among us, and its power here is to be
dreaded just in proportion that wrong or illiberal princi-
ples, exclusiveness or Toryism, are fostered and increased
in the colony ; and we believe that, left in its present un-
popular Episcopal state, King's College is little better
than a hotbed and nursery of provincial Toryism, which
we have always found, both in Upper and Lower Canada,
just as impatient of British control, and just as anti-
British in its views of its peculiar interests, and the pre-
scriptive importance of its individuals, as is the Repub-
licanism of either province, although the members of the
former faction have certainly this in common with us
(which the Republicans have not), that in the hour of
the country's need, they stood with us in support of the
British principles."
I have already said more than I could have wished about
myself, but I hope your readers will see that the public
object I have in view demanded it.
With regard to the loyalty of the population of Canada,
I have to request you to republish my letter to the Colo-
nial Gazelle, of 23d March last.

To see, however, the imminently critical situation of
Canada, if its material prosperity comes to be interfered
with (by its connection with England giving the Ameri-
cans the run of the Canadian markets, while the Canadi-
ans continue to be debarred from selling in the markets of
the United States), you have only to consider what I said
(in the above extract) of the unavoidable danger of the in-
crease of republicanism in a country so situated. In fact,
unless the moral effect of the British government on the
population be happier, and unless it is shown not to stand
in the way of the material prosperity of the country, we
cannot perpetuate monarchy in America, nor, as friends
of humanity, ought we to desire to do so.
The Canadians, (I speak of Upper:Canada, more espe-
cially,) would long ago have thrown off the British govern-
ment, but that their devoted attachment to its high and
philanthropic principles enabled them to believe that the
evils, under which they have so long lain, could not be
consequences of the operation of our principles of govern-
ment, but are only evidences of their not being in opera-
tion in the colony. _

The endurance of practically bad government, purely
through their devotion to British principles among those
of British origin in Canada, may be judged of by the
following facts, which all go to show the danger of our
doing away their peculiar advantages in the English
market :

Ist.—Prior to Mr. Ponlett Thomson's administration
of the government, so little vitality or popular power and
activity was there in our colonial decoction of monarchy,
that every man in the country knew that his property
would be worth four times as much were Canada made a
state of the American union.

2nd.—Even to this moment, the want of active or
business-Pke government, not to say misgovernment, is
such, that even the improved value of property in Canada
would be doubled by its now becoming a state of the
union.

3rd.—The population are soured by the British govern-
ment winking at things being attempted to be forced
down the throat of the colonists which dare not be origi-
nated at home in the present day. I allude to the former
almost successful attempt of the Church of England to
grasp for her own exclusive use the whole ecclesiastical
endowment in Upper Canada, although the members of
the Church of Scotland, together with the evangelical
dissenters, are more than twice as numerous, and to her
present more audacious attempt to do the same thing with
an immense educational endowment granted by George
111. to the people of Upper tanada.
4th.—The Canadians know that, while a colony of Eng-
land, their farms are the natural battle-field for the settle-
ment of European and American quarrels—a disadvantage
so great as to be in itself the greatest proof of their loyalty,
_althouali they feel that in Eusland it secures for them no
greater consideration.
I do not however argue for England giving Canada
advantages at the expense of the people of England. My
idea is that Free Trade (not being a system but a mere
departure from system) will come to be departed from
after a few years trial, and I therefore think it a monstrous
pity, in a national point of view, that to make what ap-
pears to me so baseless an experiment, the risk of the loss
of that noblest appendage of the British Crown, British
America, should in the meantime be run.
The following extract from my letter of the 14th March,
in the Scotch Reformers' Gazette, will show exactly' the
views I expressed :
. . .

" In a farmer number it was shown that free trade must
necessarily, in its very nature, lose us the colonies, be-
cause, the principle of protection abandoned, the colonial
system (which is a mere branch of it) falls also, or, what
is to my mind far worse (and could only last a year or
two), the colonies become a drag on the empire, having
ceased to benefit the mother country in any way after they
have thrown off the Imperial Parliament's right to legis-
late for their trade, and commenced free trade with all the
world.

" But I argue for the retention of the colonies only,
because it is the interest of England.
"I hold that it were better for England to lose her colo-
nies, magnificent though these be, than to forbear doing
anything which is shown to be clearly in favour of the
oppressed population in this country.
" Though I before pointed out that the adoption of free
trade would necessarily lose the colonies (whose markets
there is no reason for us going to the expense of defend-
ing, unless our manufactures are protected there), I do
not pretend to argue that, to save the colonies. for their
own sake alone, should prevent us adopting free trade in
England, if the greater and more immediate interests of
the mother country would be advantaged thereby.
Far, however, from this being the case, I view free trade
as tending to reduce the extent of our own manufactures,
to degrade the condition of our own manufacturers. *
* * * 35 *

" You will thus see clearly my position to be, that (as
it is only by their labour that the people can attain pro-
visions) the self-evident proposition is, that no amount of
"FOOD IN THE COUNTRY" would be of benefit to the
poor if it is n?t paid for in BRITISH LABOUR."
If I have any reason for anticipating that the loss of
British America will flow from the adoption, by England,
of Free Trade, it becomes a very serious matter when we
consider that the following will be among the effects to
the mother country, even though we be prepared to put to
one side the consideration of the outrage to the feelings
of the Loyalists in Canada of our forcing them, (for it
amounts to no less, situated, as I have explained them to
bed into the arms of the American Republic.
lst.—The vastly extensive region, now British America,
which is scarcely begun to be peopled, will, instead of
every year taking more and more goods, take British ma-
nufactures only to the comparatively insignificant amount
of the average per head that the United States now take
them.

2nd.—England would be cut off from a supply of tim-
ber, even in time of peace, for the timber lands are Go-
vernment property, and the United States want it all, and
more, tar their now twenty milions of people. It is
therefore evidently Canada, and not Oregon, that the
Americans are now driving at.
3rd.—The command of the St. Lawrence and the Bay
of Fundy, with Halifax as an impregnable depot, would,
in less than ten years, make the United States a greater
naval power than France, and, in less than twenty years,
a greater naval power than what England, without Colo-
nies, will be, or have any object in being.
4th.—ln giving up, or doing anything which practically
is giving up, British America, we cede millions of acres
of the finest wheat lands in the world, the birth-right of
the poor of the mother country, and of which, to the dis-
grace of the Government, it is found that little or no use
has hitherto been made for their benefit.

I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant,
ISAAC BUCHANAN.

[The letter addressed to the Colonial Gazette, referred
to by Mr. Buchanan, was formerly published in the
Standard.]

THE ELECTION FOR THE FALKIRK BOROUGHS.—
This election took place on Friday, when, at the close of
the poll, Lord Lincoln was declared elected by a majority
of eleven. The votes for his lordship were 506, and for
Mr. Wilson, a radical, 495. The Montrose Standard,
whose opinion we give as coming from a quarter not far
distant from the scene of action, says—" Lord Lincoln's
peculiar situation as a member of government, without a
seat in the House of Commons, and his somewhat offensive
opposition to his father, the Duke of Newcastle, during
his late contest for Nottinghamshire, invested the election
with some interest. It is certainly a somewhat curious,
if not an humbling spectacle, to see the Secretary for
Ireland taking refuge in a Scotch burgh, and entering
into negotiations with Radicals and Free Traders for the
purpose of strengthening the hands of a Conservative
government! The inconsistency of such conduct is ren-
dered still more striking, from the circumstance that his
proposer at the nomination, while he introduced him as a
fit representative for the burghs, nevertheless took an
opportunity of declaring that he differed with him on the
subject of those measures which, as a member of govern-
ment, Lord Lincoln was desirous of supporting—this
consistent gentleman thus recommending a person to be
sent to Parliament for the purpose of opposing, not for-
warding, what we are bound to believe are his conscientious
principles. This is fitting logic to be advanced in support
of a member of the present government."