The Sun. — 1822-11-23 (London, England)

PROVINCIAL JO UIINA LS.  (From the Bury- Gazette, Nov. 20.) At every Radical Assembly it has of late been k. the fashion to tell the gullible auditors, that England is a degraded nation ; that, once the refuge of a suffering world, she is now sunk, debased, anti powerlesss ; and all this because her councils,have not been guided by those who thus traduce her,. because she has not abandoned a system which led her to glory and secured the peace of Europe. But a few dayS. arepassed since the Red Lions of Cambridge re-iterated the lamentable tale of England's degradation, and now we find this debased.! wretched ! powerless ! country dictating 'in the Congress of Empires the line of policy that shall be adopted by her Potent allies ; alone protecting Spain and Portugal from the aggressions of less conscientious powers, and deciding singly the important question of peace Or war to all the States of Europe. If this be debasement; we should wish to be told in what national honour consists. If to be the arbitress of the fate of empires be degradation, will the people who luxuriate in their country's imaginary shame condescend to make known their ideas of a nation's glory. Madbrained reformers of una existing ills would have plunged England into a war of barbarism, solely because it was a war of rebellion : Sovereigns who rule unrestrained by laws would have involved her and them, selves in blood and homicide, to check the march of the lin:. man mind ; but Britain is 'too high-minded, too generous, too free, to be made the tool of traitors or despots. Her go., vernment will neither engage her in a mad crusade to fight the battles of half.:cl-reistian Greeks, at the will of unchristian demagogues ; nor, suffer her glory to be sullied, by preventing neighbouring natioUS from achieving that liberty she loves and prizes so highly.—That the civil dissentions in Spain should 'excite much solicitude in the several Governments of Europe is not at all matter of surprise. With the fearful example of Prance in their .recollection, who bat must view with awe the', internal convulsions of a mighty empire, rent by contending. factions, and - suffering under the united horrors of war, want, superstition, and misrule—the slave alternately of a weak King and a blood-stained cligarchv. But, whilst the. Cortes and their adherents confine their deadly doings to their own soil ; ,whilst in working their own deliverance, however unjustifiable their means, they seek net to make pro-selytes and disturb the .security- of happier nations,,as Prance did' in ber hour of madness, there can be no just reason for other countries to combine and sweep her iron the earth. The law of nations should be the law of reason, like the laiv between man and man ; and no man can be justified in interfering with the acts of his neighhour but where those acts are prejudicial to others; then indeed. ' and then only,'it is the common duty of all to declare open hos 7 tility to, purposes openly injurious. The war of Europe against revolutionary Prance was a war of necessity, for France sought to revolutionize the world. The peace of,Spain in the changes of her goverrmient is preserved by England, because those changes trench not upon the 'eights of others—exceed not the limits of her own domain. And shall ive be told that our country, possessed of power and .guided by principle, is degraded? —that, in alliance with the mighty, yet protecting the weak, Britain is a dis=graced nation ? les the absurd falsehood will be repeated, and there will be found 'fools to believe and applaud the slander; let such men pursue their course of error; reform in them is hopeless, fur they close their senses against , conviction.