The Sun. — 1847-02-22 (London, England)

MARIA DA. Gums and her people with such impartiality and indifference, wherefore do our line-of-battle ships float in the' bays of Pertugal? The inquiry is an obvious sequitur to the seeming counter movement and counter-statement of the Administration. It was partially from solicitude on this point and partially from sentiments of humanity that Lord BEAUMONT, on Thursday evening, excited a discussion as to the conduct pursued by Great Britain towards Portugal in her present state of embarrassment and confusion. We are, from many considerations, gratified that the Nobly Lord brought the matter directly under the scrutiny of the Legislature, and thereby elicited from the Marquis of LANSDOWNE an -explanation so peculiarly satisfactory. Whatever may have been the impres:ion hitherto prevalent upon the Peninsula as to the readiness of the British Government to side either with the Constitutional party or with their opponents, those erroneous impressions must now be dispelled by the explicit assurances of the Lord President of the Council. Notwithstanding the belligerent character of our maritime power in the vicinity of Lisbon and Oporto, there can no longer be a question that England is watching the revolutionary conflict in Portugal with sentiments of rigid neutrality, or that the British fleet has been dispatched to that portion of Western Europe, solely for the conservation of British interests and the protection of British subjects. Beyond this ulterior object our squadron is prepared to afford succour to any inhabitant of Portugal, whether royalist or in. surgent, when driven forth in the extremities o battle.  By this latter announcement we conceive that peculiar force is imparted to the virtual entreaties of Lord BEAtTmoNT, that the English Government should make a representation to the Government of the Portuguese SOVEREIGN in respect to the atrocious and despotic proceedings of that Government towards the unfortunate prisoners who surrendered at Torres Vedras. Are our intentions towards the belligerents in Portugal strictly neutral ? Then let neutrality be , preserved in a manner becoming the dignity and honour of Albion. We confess our willingness to afford protection to the young QUEEN, supposing her Majesty to require shelter from the storms of the revoiution ; and yet— coupling this with an avowal of our neutrality—we are to look on with indifference at the perpetration of a crime towards the insurgents of which history scarcely furnishes a parallel! Surely this is a most questionable neutrality, a most odious and dastardly neutrality SALDAN U A commits a political offence, not justified by the usages of honourable nations, and certainly not exceeded in infamy or treachery by the most barbarous states : he formally and deliberately signs a stipulation with a portion of the troops of the Conde BOMFIM that they shall be allowed to depart all the honours of war, on surrrndering the impregnable castle of Torres Vedras to the royalist commander; and, on the fulfilment of the latter portion of that engagement, he formally and deliberately acts counter to his most solemn promises. Instead of receiving all the honours of war, the officers of the duped insurgents are first  conducted to captivity in the metropolis, and are sub  sequently sentenced to be banished to Angola, one of those terrible settlements in Africa, which, like Sierra Leone, has deserved the appellation of the " White  Man's Grave!" Was ever conduct more infamous than this? The crime of SALDANIIA is such as to  almost justify an armed interference and a summary vengeance. It is a crime which can find no palliation, excepting upon the most diabolical system of Machiavellism. When NAPOLEON BONAPARTE ordered the massacre of the troops at Jaffa, he was  impelled to that rigorous act by the execrable dupli• city of those soldiers of DJEZZAR, in having broken the solemn oaths which they had previously taken ; by their murdering the French messenger carrying a flag of truce, in defiance of the holiest laws of nations; by the dearth of provisions in the desert, and the  possibility of granting such scoundrels their liberty without unnecessarily risking the lives of his own men, for the preservation of which he was responsible as Commander-in-Chief. In the prf,ceedin of