The Sun. — 1845-12-26 (London, England)

THOMAS WILDE. Sir THOMAS WILDE'S opinion has been confirmed by the recent decision of the Judges in the case of the Exeter prisoners. The gist of the protest is the point urged by Sir T. WILDE, and affirmed by eleven of the Judges against two,—that an agreement by treaty on the part of the Brazilian Executive that Brazilian subjects carrying on the slays-trade shall be deemed and treated as pirates is not sufficient, without an Act of the Brazilian Legislature, making the carrying on of the slave-trade piracy, and liable to the punishments of ordinary piracy, and punishable by English tribunals, to justify interference by our Courts with Brazilian subjects or their property. Fiat justitia, real aelum. Deeply as we should deplore any diminution of power to suppress the slavetrade, we are bound to discountenance any illegal exercise of power ; and, in admitting the reasonableness of the important protest of the Brazilian Government, we are no more justly open to the charge of abetting the abettors of the slave-trade, than, when we recently justified the reprieve of Mr. PALMER'S murderers, we could have been supposed to be insensible to the cold-bloiided atrocity of their conduct, or to the sad, untimely fate of a brave and meritorious young officer. The terms of the convention with Brazil for the suppression of the slave-trade are thus correctly and clearly stated : "By Art. 1 of the convention, concluded between Brazil and Great Britain on the 23d of November, 1826, .i.nd ratified on the 13th of March, 1827, it was agreed that, from and after the expiration of three years from the date of the exchange of the ratifications, it should )e no longer lawful, under any pretext or in any manner whatsoever, for Brazilian subjects to be concerned in the carrying on of the slave-trade, and that the carrying on of the slave. trade after that period, by any subject of his Imperial Majesty, should be considered as piracy. " By Art. 2 of the said convention the high contracting parties agreed to renew, as effectually as if the same wore inserted word for word in the convention, the several articles and provisions of the treaties concluded be. Lween his Britannic Majesty and the King of Portugal on this subject, on the 22d of January, 1815, and on the 28th of July, 1817, and the several explanatory articles which had been added thereunto. " One of the conventions thus adopted and renewed by Art. 2 of the convention of 1826, having been that of the 28th of July 1817, which established the right of visit and the mixed commission, and one of the expla. natory articles likewise adopted and renewed by the aforesaid convention of 1826, having been the separate article of the 11th of September, 1817, by which the right of search and the mixed commissions were to cease after the expiration of fifteen years from the date of the abolition of the slave-trade, it is evident that the right of visit and search exercised in time of peace, by the British cruisers against Brazilian vessels, and the mixed commissions established for the adjudication of prizes made by British cruisers, or by Brazilian cruisers, expired on the 13th of March, 1845, the period at which were completed the fifteen years subsequent to the total abolition of the slave-trade, conformably to article 1 of the convention of the 23d of November, 1826, which was ratified on the 13th of March, 1827." The right of visit, and the mixed commissions established by treaty, ceased on the 13th of March last ; and all that remains is the agreement of the Emperor of BRAZIL that it shall be unlawful for his subjects to carry on the slave-trade, and that if they do, they shall be treated as pirates—which agreement of itself is worth just nothing. We do not suppose for one moment that the Brazilian Government, when it became a party to the convention of 1826, intended that it should thus come to nothing, any more than we suppose that the English Government made that treaty, with its eyes open to the insufficiency of treaties for lawmaking. Possibly the expiry of fifteen years without the two contracting parties being able to agree as to the machinery for carrying out the abolition of the  The accounts from Algiers are said to be favourable, and some anticipate the speedy capture or death of