The Sun. — 1850-01-25 (London, England)

THE RUSSIAN LOAN. TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.  expressing your just abhorrence of the audacious aid the house of Barings is about to give to despotic Russia you have (if I mistake not) cited the excuse which is brought as an argument in favour of such aid, and have condemned it, but have not shown the distinctive difference of circumstances wherein the argument is sometimes good, or wherein, as in this instance, it is as false as it is atrocious. I refer to the argument or proposition that "Barings are not responsible for the purposes to which Russia applies their aid"—that " one person is not responsible for the evil which another commits through the means given him."  Now, Sir, you, and many of your readers, know full well that this is sometimes true and sometimes false ; but there is as important portion of your readers (the honest but illiterate) who may, in the instance before us, be misled by the vile Mammonwrought hypocritical misapplication of this argument. Let it then be distinctly set out under what circumstances it is right and under what it is wrong. It is, I apprehend, right when it embraces the following characteristics :Ist. Whenever the aid or deed be benevolent and moral.  2d. Whenever the agent is ignorant of, or does not suspect a bad application. 3d. When the act itself is in compliance with an imperative duty. Thus, under the first, if I send or sell my afflicted neighbour " a little wine for his stomach's sake," and he drinks it to excess, I am not responsible. If under the second, I send him arsenic for his rats, and and he take it himselfs• I am not responsible, fur I was ig,  .norant of his intention. ♦nd if,, under the third; I pay my taxes, and " render to Caesar the things.which are Caesar's," and he devotes them to bloodshed, I am not responsible, for I obeyed a Divine command. Or, if in saving the life of my friend I chance to disfigure him I am not responsible, for I performed a duty. Under all such circumstances the principle is "Do right, leave Heaven to answer for the rest ;" hut reverse the circumstances, and a man is responsible fur the consequences of his deed. If the druggist knew that the arsenic was for the purpose of suicide, or (what perhaps is worse) for the murder of a third innocent party, would not the villain be responsible ? And, mark you, Sir, that so fully has the very Legislature of this country recognized this principle of responsibility, that every druggist in our land is, I believe, prohibited from selling poisons except under certain regulations, or he is held responsible for their misuse. But what, Sir, are the case and circumstances of Baring Brothers ? They are lending money under a false pretence. They are aiding a despot in his suppression of truth and butchery of innocence. They are sending money abroad that their neighbours require at home. They rob this nation, and render our expensive fleet necessary, by aiding the very power that fleet is maintained to keep in check. They hold up the odious Jesson, the vile example to a suffering people, that they are not responsible for  the powers they possess and confer. They force a dangerous = wish into every noble breast, that if this privilege be allowed to wealth, the sooner the rich be brought low the better. .►nd Baring Brothers! hear it ye slaves of /tam mon and Despotism ! ye do all this for the accursed selfishness of a little gain. You not responsible ? No benevolence demands this aid; no ignorance of the purpose for which it is wanted palliates it ;;no Divine command calls it from you. Not one circumstance which frees a moral agent from responsibility belongs to your case ; but you stand out before the whole world, once and for evermore, a blackened voluntary abettor of cruelty and oppression, hellish in its character, and universal in its object. —I am, Sir, &c., Cheltenham, Jan. 23, 1850.