Incidentally to the debates in the French Chambers has been
• pablished, a mass of diplomatic correspondence between English -and French officials, on the subject of Tahiti and Morocco ; and, 'worn as the subjects are, the documents have been seized, both in London and Paris, for a party use : on each side Ministers have been branded by their countrymen as cowards. But one official person, the Comte De Jarnac, the French Charge d'Affaires in London, has been assailed by both sides : by his own people, he is held up to shame as a " trembler " panic-stricken at the angry -aspect of England; by journalists here, he is treated as a fellow of infinite cunning, who vulgarly wheedles Lord Aberdeen into a shameful compromise. It appears to us that both sides are very disingenuous. The gravamen of the difficulty with which he had to deal lay in the rough treatment which Mr. Pritchard received when he was expelled from Tahiti : had Pritchard been handed out with formal politeness, as many notes might have passed, but there would have been no real irritation. M. De Janne was dently most anxious, and most laudably so, that two great nations 'should not go to loggerheads for the mutual absurdities of two obscure persons at the Antipodes ; and his endeavour was to repre- sent to each Government the urgency of the other in such manner that neither should fly out into needless offence and embroil the countries irretrievably. He succeeded. He thought that Mr. -Pritchard's mouth might be stopped with an indemnity in cash, and that the technical offence might be satisfied with an apology. Money is not a very " dignified " peace-offering ; but the national dignity was concerned alone in the fact that a British subject should not suffer unredressed wrong. Mr. Pritchard's mouth was stopped—he did not resign his official post—he did not refuse the coin : England saw its citizen indemnified ; and expressions of regret satisfied official punctilio. M. De Jamac has done both -states much service. And if we blame Lord Aberdeen, it is, not for suffering Mr. Pritchard to pocket the smart-money, but for sending that firebrand out to another group of islands in Poly- nesia; again, perhaps, to be discovered by French navigators, and again to breed new troubles.
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