When Ministers rose in both Houses, on Thursday night, to
propose the thanks of Parliament to the British Army and Navy, they had at once the advantage and disadvantage of stating facts! which everybody knew, and of expressing feelings which every- body entertained ; and we may leek for less force of eloquence irt the set speeches of the occasion than in the cheers with which the Members of both Houses united their voices to those of Ministers. But the form.of thanks. is accdinpanied with peculiar incidents: An unusual degree of homage was paid in expressed terms, and as certaihly given by the country, to the British common soldier, and to those officers whose chivalrous spirit elevated them from the rinks. Ministers completed their apology on the subject of Kars by announcing that the. Queen has bestowed a special and distinguished reward upon General Williams for his extraordinary exertions and services : he is created a Baronet, by the title of Sir William Fenwiok Williams " of Kars," with a pension of si thousand a year—an independent and honourable position for the rest of his life.
The opportunity has been seized, too, for performing an act of grace to which the Crown had been before invited, but for which the strictly fitting occasion was perhaps wanting. A general poli- tical amnesty permits Smith O'Brien, and John Frost, and other political offenders, to return to their country with the royal par- don. Mitchell,..fohn Meagher, and those who broke their parole by flying from Australia to America, are excepted ; an exeeptien of which the country will approve as strongly as it does the not of grace. These are good preliminaries to the rejoicing on the 29th.
