Star. — London, England, 1830-02-08 00:00:00

i I THE LETTERS OF SIDNEY TO THE STAR. LETTER FIRST. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE PEOPLE. December E. Sta—Amid all the concurrent signs of political and moral deterioration which rise around us, it is impossible not to be struck—even more than with the late prosecu tions of the Press, though I shall speak of these presently—with the Petition of the KENTISH GRAND JURY to the Duke of WELLINGTON. Such a spectacle, in such a country as England—Gun be thanked—is still equally novel as it is extraordinary : but it depends upon vs—the People—by our manifestations of sympathy or abhorrence at such a proceeding, to make it common and notorious as the daylight, or prevent for ever its humi liating recurrence. Great Gon, Sir, who and what is this Duke of WELLTNGTON, that his name is to paralyse a whole nations manliness, and hold the minds of millions in such a passive and ignominious thraldom ? Let us analyse the man : is he, indeed, supreme in this much-abused land? Is Ae MAXIMUS INTER MAXIMO.? Are Englishmen, then, so degenerated, as to bow the head and bend the knee, before an ambitions, usurping subject—the equal of them all by pature—superior to some among them, by adventitious circumstance alone ? Tbis train of ideas—these self-asked questicras—do they not force theme/to meg us, eollas asairsposi that fat- sumo and abject composition which has made its round in all the diurnals, purporting to emanate from the Grand Jury of that County which glories in the boast of its invincibility ? • Invicta !—lleu, spes mendacissima ! What a lesson is here presented to this once great people, if they will but rouse from their lethargy, and profit by it? If they will but read, in this letter to the great DUKE—for it is recorded there in damning characters—how degenerate their condition is become, how unhealthy the working of the public mind ! How long will men, and Englishmen, blindly permit others to think for them ? How long will they thus tacitly subscribe, thus niggardly assent to any doctrine, which shall spare them the trouble of investigation ? This indolence—this criminal apathy—this dangerous slothfulness—how truly are they colleagues and helpmates of corruption ? Bro thers of mischief—offspring of the devil—how mutually do they contribute to each other's delinquencies ; how lovingly are they found reciprocating in alternate pulsa tions' But to the letter itself—that letter, which already dis- seminated through this degraded empire, must have car ried shame and indignation to the hearth of every free man who loves his country : let us consider a moment this letter from the Max of KENT—this rescript of the self-styled " Invicti !" And who is it, in this crisis of eur deatinies—ibis hour, perhaps, of al extermination —who is it whom these constitutional men address ? Their KtwG ? No. The representatives of the nation—such as they are ? No. The two Houses of Parliament ? No. The Ministers of the Crown—as e responsible body ? No. Whom, then ? I blush for my country, while recording with my pen the answer—lt is their fellow-subject, the Duke of Wet.- :_ • tixoTon, whose leniency these invicti of Kent now supplicate with prostrate bodies ! It is their fellow-sub ject, the Duke of WELLlNGTow—conqueror by favour ing combinations at Waterloo, victorious by connivance it the Old Bailey—whom Englishmen and freemen now implore as a demi-god, .now would conciliate as the sole arbiter of their destinies ! Pass, we, Sir, from these reflections—painful and humiliating—to the speeches of the ATTORN sir-Gz t4 &lux., on the occasion of the fourth Government Prosecution against the freedom of the Press. %t -railing and luxuriating in previous success—grown bold sad daring, by reason of the ready compliance of three termer Juries—we here find the astute lawyer metamor phosed into the insolent tyrant. Speaking of ALEX AN DER'R partners, we hear him state, " that these men at last thought fit not to continue with Mr. ALax A N DER, W share either in his perils or his crimes." His crimes! By what right dares the ATTORNEY-GENERAL desig sate—previous to conviction—the act of any man as eriminal ? By what right presumes he thus to prejudice the minds of the Jury, then sitting in judgment upon the 4efendaht ? Let Sir J AMES SCA RLETT explain that. Look, again, at the threat of this Whig ATTOR ET- GaN ERA', respecting the publication of the names of the Jurymen : If any person dared to publish such a list, he - the Attorney-General—would bring the indi vidual so offending to condign punishment 1 Truly, this Sir J AM'S SCARLETT is a prodigious fine fellow— wonderfully clever—but I question much, whether a little Talked= upon his past language will satisfy even !}is mind, that he hits discreetly exercised the power of speech. His exultation at his monstrous successes has led him astray. He is drunk with his un-English tri mph, and reels to and fro. la his unguardedness of in crimination, the cloven foot has been too palpably ex posed, to suit either his or his Master's ulterior aim. Bat the COUNTRY, Sir, will rouse itself—who, now, .an doubt it ? and seeing the abuse to which these laws eliibel may be carried, will indignantly demand an enact ment, which shall wipe away from our code powers so atrocious—statutes so disgraceful in a lead of liberty. SIDNEY. THE DUKE or WELLINGTON axe nut PARLIAMENT. LETTER SECOND. Januar, ?. SlR—You may 'middy inragine—feeling as I do for As sue of our common country—that the temptation ro address it through a channel so unpolluted as the kolurmis of the STAR, ii too powerful for ma to resist 4 luch a crisis. When exempla of prostration roe alarming as thit afforded by the Kent Letter, give token a the mental servitude—the bondage—tg which this ogee high-minded and generous nation is reduced, it is time fur those, who not participating is the column de geueracy, still feel that their iountry can ble razisonsid primary a estiena , be permitted to avail myself of your instrumentality, the purpose of directing to this important—this over whelming subject—the attention of him, under whose almost absolute controul circumstances seem to have spired to compress the mental energies of a whole empire. It may be profitable to investigate the probable working, and the possible issue, of this all-pervading principle ; and while we deplore its emasculate character, and hideous proportions, to endeavour to extract from the unwholesome weed a salutary balsam ; a powerful and efficacious—who knows ? perhaps, a renovating remedy—a strong discutient medicine for the cure of the disease now feeding on the vitals of the body politic. If, Sir, the contemplation of the slavery to which e have beOn brought—quite as much by our own crimi nal supineness, as by his unparalleled usurpations—excite us at last in shame and anger to burst the bonds of our unseemly vassalage, it may issue even to our advantage, ultimately, that this slavery has been put upon us. For without that keen stimulant which the deep sense of our humiliation now supplies, who knows whether we might not have sunk inglorious below the mark of possible re generation, beneath the slow and tempered encroach ments of a lees glaring—and therefore, more undermining —ambition ? Humbled and fallen as the souls of Englishmen now appear, the point of revulinon—l am persuaded—lies closer to the surface, than this lordly minister imagines. I call, then, on the Duke of WELLINGTON—whiIe he yet possesses it—to turn to good account this ascendency that he holds over men's minds. I call upon him to be honest to his countrymen—l call on him to be honest to himself. I tell the Duke of WELLINGTON that the hour is at hand, when neither special Juries can avail to repress the demonstration of public opinion, nor con- RUPT MAJORITIES in his Parliament, to extricate him from the self-chosen and awful responsibility to which he stands committed. Let him, then, if be will be wise in time—if he will not turn quite a deaf ear to one, who would proffer honest counsel—if be would not wholly spurn the dictates of prudence, let him pull .up, and check his dangerous career. Let him know, and feel assured, that his fellow subjects will no longer pas sively assent to bear the continued pressure of unde served wrongs ; that they will no longer tamely witness his invasion of the public liberties, nor submit unresisting to the fraudulent denial of rights, too long injuriously withheld. Let him not lay to his bosom the fallacious hope, that—without the intervention of some extraordi nary legislative enactment—the Vessel of the State can ever again right itself; but opening his mind to the ad mi,,sion of a great truth, to the clear and forcible conviction of the imperative necessity under which he lies, to strengthen his administration by some bold and all-heal- ing measure; let him announce to his MASTER and his Colleagues, his determination to use the unbounded pre valeve by which he governs—if that prevalence have not ylt deserted him—to introduce as a Cabinet measure the all-paramount question of REFORM, in the represen tation of Us—the PEOPLE—in Parliament. Then, indeed, may the Duke of WELLINGTON at tempt the arduous task of endeavouring to put things in order. Then, may he hope to repair the effects of a calamitous policy, and to succeed in unra velling the web, which a continuance therein will but the more intricately entangle : and then—but not until then—may he look to regain and secure the affec tions of a much abused, but ever indulgent, poople. Ant mat tollere male et non potest, out pates! et non volt: out segue volt neque potest, ant et mat et potest. Si wit et non potest, imbecillus est—Si potest et non volt, invidus est—Si negate wit neve potest, et invidus et imbeeillni est —Si melt et potest, uncle erri, mot make? Ant car ilia non to/lit ? If the Duke of WALLISVOTON refuse his tongue to these interrogatories, in his conduct we may read the answer. THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON AND THE PEOPLE. LITTIR THIRD. Jansiuy 13. Sea,—The moral infection generated by the . exansple of the Kentish Letter is profiling its boastful effects, and , he have noir before us a corresponding trait of abject, servility on the part of the county of Derby. .Thi. the tito riot of alls county—keeping tree to its @lariat precedent —pima by 'aids an Liquidly ettsoliisary tilted* !kw! Const*tional Authorities of ,the seals. It is sot ad tbrosoed to the Ministers! .nor to the Ridiames* sow to the s : bat To ki Gra*, co. MA Witztuts TO*;"-.6410aeipabs" OK al/ LS all. Lietius VI- tional distresses, which even upon their own showing, would enfold/to almost idiot. into eloquence. Good Goo, Sir, whither are the people's senses fled? How shall the country rid itself of such an incubus ? How dare we hope—to whom, or to what dare we look— for the atom of leaven, which shall be ef f icacious as well to the regeneration of the public mind, as to the restora tion of decaying institutions, and surreptitiously ab stracted rights ? Possibly, I dare offer to my countrymen the consolation of the flattering—and let me trust, not fallacious—hope, that the evil carries with it the seeds of its own dissolution : not, however, that I would build upon this expectation, unless the dominion of our present rulers be suffered yet a little to continue its unchecked career. I would have the arbitrary bearing of the swordsmen, yet more odiously and unambiguously de veloped—more strongly contrasted, even than it now is, with the public feeling, and national prejudice, and con stitutional usage. On these grounds it is, that I deprecate a Rica Noun Ministry, and indeed any Ministry—just now—but the actual Ministry : for I differ from you toto ccelo in the opinion which you have expressed, that the continuance of the Noble Duke in power is to entail the certain over throw of our Institutions. No, Sir : I regard the con tinuance of this man in power, as the only chance which opens a door to our political salvation—the proximate cause, from which must emanate ere long the re-assertion of our popular independence—the only foundation on which to rest the shade of the shadow of a hope, that our rights and liberties shall not be utterly and irredeemably ravished. Steel--as you eloquently remark—ought net to glisten, where civil intelligence alone should congre gate ; but if the glitter of this steel shall reflect such a light, as shall direct honest men into the right path—if the peremptory government of the swordsman should rouse the lethargy, and dissipate the torpor in which the plain common 'sense of the country has been so long sealed and buried—the attempt at the Rae asssiv z SYSTEM may issue to the people's advantage: the in wardly exciting• germ of inflammation may event in healthy character, and suppuration restore soundness to the morbid body. I argue, therefore, that it will be wholesome for as, to creep about yet for a brief season, " under the huge legs" of this overbearing Premier—for Me fester is not yet ripe, and he would show himself an unskil ful surgeon, who prematurely would prick the pus tule. The suffering frame would not be relieved by such precipitancy, nor the malignity of long standing disease imbibe from it any mitigative principle. No, Sir ! the day-star of regeneration•beams not over the House of L•tr box ; and fatal would be that change, which—under the insidious mask of a revival of Old English feelings— should but rivet afresh those fetters, which have so long peded the nation's energies : fetters, every link in estich—from overstraining—is ready to bunt asunder, aid• requires but an extra turn of the screw to maid eat disruption which shall for ever set free a deluded and Oppressed people. Not lees, therefore, onprincipk, than on sound piney, *Mast I deprecate the idea of a" Hitt' s()); Administra tit*" He is the sworn enemy, I conceive, to renova lib*: helms openly declared his hostility to Parliamen tary Reform. Such a Cabinet as the Duke of Men tos* D could organise, would but bast the•eifect of pierponing regeneration—without which, we die. He sod his patty could only exist by berrUption. Besides those weighty considerations, the false glare bf mu- Witty, which any administration, following that which now scourges us, would in great probability stink% would be used by the people's oppressors to blind asm* their political perceptions, and blunt those sensibilities, to which the haughtiness of the present men has hap pily given so exquisitely keen an edge. Let es, thou, not be precipitate, nor hurry overmuch advancing snots, which are bringing redemption with them. SIDNEY. SIDPIIII. SIDNEY TO THE KING.. Lltri'Kß Plittr. Sian —A plain dealing, but loyal sabject—one of 'plain understanding, but inaccessible to the troikas inartistic; :yr./sun—feels it hie duty, in this crisis of hie. conutty's fate, fearlessly to .address his_ Kato. When perceive around me so away viessentaetoesial tgeorgunisaikoni DP litany signs of political eontuhrion—nor onasfsetuting classes reduced to naeodicity, oelterinsitaval iperatipa, deo-dint the Viinhoust—eislaibti utak* *OA* 49,, aiiiimares of the WO* M.OO i U Silk--! Dna Do elass Of your MD.IROPT:o poops; *artist pietas. K. • -4 '""•... - ^ • 14 fixed annuitants ; turiffected by the enivereal pros when I see, moreover, Saidit MI6 • concurrence alarming symptoms, the power of the State incapably wielded, its authority abused, its rnsources corruptly ex -a season of public emergence, like ibis, is no for complimentary formalities and vain raspect. veneration for your august suprestacy--tn allegiance your sacred Person—in enthusiasm for that Constitu , of which the Kingly office is the fundamental pri9- ciple-1 yield to no man in your MAJ urea dominions : proportion to the intensity with which ! surrendur to these attachments, is my disquietude lest by . of yours—yet by acts purporting to maniac lima tie between King and People may be dissevered. ‘s, a fellow-subject has been convicted of a Ws,/ your 'lame, because he has hed the temerity to maintain truths, unpalatable to the Duke of Wxs..ta 6- ii this an endurable proCeeding Is it conatitu thus to identify the Sovanaiaw witk an act of . outrage, and make him a party to a fierce affront against the people—to an odious invasion of one of their invaluable and chartered rights—because a tfoseineer- functionary can ill brook the ceitsure which his ag gressions have provoked t I know that, by this indi example, your Minister seeks to intimidate tho country—by the summariness of this► man's ruin, to stifle to conceal from your knowledge the dreadful state of oar unparalleled sufferings. With such evidence of successfully-practised oppression before him, one of less daring than he who now addresses you would tremble, lest he incur a similar vengeance: for his language—though respectful—will approve itself not less bold ; his statements—not lest alarming ; hi:, censure—not less severe : Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient mina. Stitt, it is a duty which I owe to my country, to declare to yon—if you are not already acquainted with the truth —that the people's sufferings, arising out of manifold acts of oppression ; excessive. partial, and unjust taxation, and the follies of a fanciful philosophy, have boom,. nearly insupportable ; and that, by reason of this de plorable state of things, the monarchy itself is exposed to a perceptible danger. The men whose iatereets are bound up with the maintenance of the present unconstitutional system, who live by and upon corruption, and who thrive while the country starves--tbose who direct the councils of this deeply-injured nation. your MAJESTY'S Mi nisters, will not permit you to know and feel what is thought and said—and I may add, threatened— by a justly exasperated people. Know, then, SIRE, that among a very influential, a very powerful and most respectable, and—if your Mi nister would permit it—a most loyal class of your sub jects, I mean the YEOMANRY of England, this sentiment is extensively obtaining—" Death—Relief—or Mis chief l" Aye, SIRE, they are the words—they are the feelings and anticipations of your subjects—such the awful and painful prospects of once " merge England," Is it not, then, time to undeceive your MAiIEFF, when alternatives so dreadful as these are matter of notorious proposition ? Nay, more—when the people throughout all their gradations. ackhowledge that it is come to this— that one of these three alternatives must be adopted ? The first of them. who does not deprecate ? Your MA JESTY'S paternal heart, I am convinced, would. blood at the contemplation: The last, what lover of his country would not strive to avert, while a prospect—however . faint existed, that the remaining alternative would not be wickedly withheld by those, who have it in their power to grant it ? What, Sirs, then, is to be done? Where will you turn for that RELIEF, the want of which is dissolving the last links that bind society together? Where will you seek support for the Crown, if at length you shall feel it tottering on your bead Whither will your. MAJESTY betake yourself, in this hour of usurpation, and peril, and need? Whither—but to the affections of yoareves faithful people ? Throw yourself upon them, and: they will uphold you firmly, But dismiss those evil: Councillors, who have brought themselves into deserved contempt, and the constitutional authorities to reproach : who have done all they can—though they have not dons it successfully—to alienate from your sacred Person the allegiance of your constant people. Sire, slake cossemou cause with your people : return to them : they are anxious to receive you, to honor you— to protect you from the factious oligarchy, which they have too muc► reason to feat oppresses you. Custos gratis, abes jjns ;finalist ditl-7 Luce* redde tre, Dui bone, patria : Isom veris ening wits. übi haw Afulsit popule, gratior it dies, Et soles =chi, ;West. Ltrritli 81tCOtiD. gamin% SARI— Yow sqbjects in County Meet* aseeesbled your ancient City of Lincoln, bare spoken in *wog* not to be inissindenstood—much lees, to be conteired : " Our burden ere istqtruble, sad !eve? is liphcaurd 1' , Tbue,to their immortal homer, hove usi chime of Lin coln spoken : thus bare they, openly and intrepidly. meads boons their determination.; sod other., lawmen of your MAJIWT tee People --InCt !Offther in metitotional convention—will speedily *beta the stiziag exomple. Sitio, there is a phis overtodkeo byre, royal towers. which moot fail to read interestiog rotolhiftioutt t yoLr 14 A J BST T's mind. I usasi *if ?fats: , A LA I, MOM 0 origittato4 a natioa'S.4ilmit7;-;,fllaf,plifirst Am. witness el 7,' /I to * alliielei. alaPlidol Yd , , , "Alre 1 crigNibeh* barons *allot peiligitgAlle . iitMcitettasiitier4 is 44 esiz.o l l 6 : tot. iv* lbw*. 40101• iblitffis pcpmebteg,... orklstiefikaave ,rlOktli RA Ow Orly lowa 4 liffoilf.11ed.4„.111"•• • and fin 1. 6„ --- ----.. ____lls 1 - 1 t 4111" --- ' •. _ . d\. SUM: I 'f‘ciOr - -., of gars 141 1.. 1 ( 7 - . ..f.i, ( )y-____ , ~. - -.. -.- ill.) V Nl ' ' wielded ( peeled season , In vent .. , X to your „ , cOlga rr uTzn iy . ... 203 ..ro Tzar% b colt. .: ll _ 4 , lca .... a LIU lion, of •-i 1 • ciple— t but in 1 _N_Ai I I _ _ _ myself Ncs• 13,392. MONDAY •EV :r , ING, FEB. 8, 1830 PRICE 7D. no act ' you—tl • • SIR' by their exertions, to make a stand by her yet and to their recorded language, and say if ever freemen upon y 'jibed institutions :to show a faltering and faint- supplicated in such a tone before ? Analyse the apirit . ntai people that there are yet among them spirits, of their remonstrance, an d sa y w h e th er our endangered mai and willing to undertake their salvation—minds yet liberties can look with hope to these craven addressers ? T SO . terrified' at the freaks of power, yet undefiled by Let their blind subserviency stand exposed ; let their l ' t civil ou mammon of corruption. • i• crouching degeneracy be written upon the walls —and this . Cordiilly acquiescing in an opinion Which I find ela second instance of the moral deg ra d a ti on o f Englishmen against in most pressed in your paper of Monday last, and letensely be held up to the scorn and avoidance of their fellows. ins- fin sensitive of the trash of the doctrine therein enforosiC " Sincerely impressed'—say they—" with these RE- that the REPRESEPTATIos of the People in ,Parliamel* IPECTFUL sentiments, 'chick we hope cannot • be other- gressio vid id IS the master-hey to all the grievances which now afill4 wise than SATISFACTORY to his ilajesty't Government, _, US : convinced, as I am, Sir, that on this pivot all we Imo to intonate to Taal:34mm with Id ELairetrave countr] pima) , exertion! mitt to be made q :--and (lien .` lgarrialiiiitni; 4 a.. - i„._ your k , be permitted to avail myself of your instrumentality, for tional distresses, which even m um th e i r own s h ow i ng . ' _ i _ .. ~,,, I