The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-02 00:00:00

THE DUBE OF

poaderous or jaunty, had drawn together an unusual
concourse of senators, fair ladies, political fops, and
critics and gossips of every degree. The Duke of Nsw-
CASTLE, it was understood, had undertaken not only
to defend himself against the imputation of having
by his incapacity brought obloquy and rain on the
Cabinet of which he was a member, but, as his friends
gave out, be was, by the reading of private letters,
and the disclosure of private conversations, to blast
for ever Lord Joins RUSSELL'S character for manli-
ness, veracity, and honour. A morning oonteroporexy,
whose diligent and untiring rancour against the late
President of the Council has never been concealed,

strove hard, with its customary love of fair-play, to
prepare the pnblio mind beforehand for the belief of
any tale of treachery or tergiversation which might
be told to the Peers. Commenting on a substantially
unfair, though literally correct, statement of Mr.
GLADSTONE, on Monday last (and which, perhaps, it
was unwise in Lord Joie; to have suffered to I
pass for the moment unexposed), the Times broadly
accused the noble lord of having used equivocation
in his recent statement regarding the War Depart-
ment; and the Duke of NEWCASTLE was ill-advised
enough to insinuate that on more than one point
Lord Joint had misstated the facts of his own con-

duct and language regarding him. We frankly own
that were such charges capable of prcof we should
not only join unreservedly in pitying the luckless
ex-Minister of War, but we should unhesitating!,
acknowledge that Lord JOHN was not the man we
have long been accustomed to take him for. What-
ever may be deemed his faults, the noble member for
the City of London hu never been suspected of in-
sincerity or meanness. The reproach of many
amongst his Whig followers has often been that he
was imprudently out-spoken; that he was apt
to offend the prejudices of lukewarm sup-
porters by his unconscious keenness of phrase;
and that his chief defect as a party leader was

that he wu not versed in the histriooiC arts that en-

able some of his competitors to seem all things to all
men. And this may be a deficiency and a want
in cliques and clubs, and coalitions of really incon-
giuous elements. To the people it is and will ever
be his best recommendation. They believe that he

is in earnest, and even where they think him wrong,
the people respect and trust him. But what is this
we hear—that the veteran leader of the Liberal
party in the House of Commons has suddenly
turned liar and coward, and that in order to escape
the consequences of his own too great forbearance
towards a colleague, who had no particular claim on
his personal consideration, he has had the folly and
wickedness to make a fraudulent statement of facts,
recorded in wtitingb to the House of Commons!

The accusation is almost too absurd to merit de-
tailed refutation. But, u the impenetrable dulness of
the Duke of NEWCASTLE, and theunrelenting antipathy

of the contemporary to whom we have above alluded,
have driven us to notice the matter, we will fearlessly
say that, if the whole truth be told, the miserable
insinuations of duplicity and equivocation will vanish
like the morning mist, and utterly disappear. The
charges of equivocation are threefold. Lord Joint,
when speaking of the original nomination of the
Duke to the War Department, happened to use the
expression, "I yielded to hie commendable ambition"
to have the post of most difficulty and distinction;
although, as he added, be thought it should have
been offered to Lord PALMERSTON. "This cannot
be true," exclaims his ungrateful Grace," for nobody
ever proposed such a competitor in the cabinet ; and
I made a flourish of professing to be content with
either Colonies or War, or with neither, if the public
interest, in Lord ABERDEEN'S opinion, required it."
Why what does this prove, except that when the
public voice last May was calling aloud that Lord
PALMERSTON ought to be new War Minister, the
imperturbable conceit of the Peelite Premier in
expectancy never heard the national shout? and
that because Lord JOHN refrained from urging
in the Cabinet his comparative inexperience
and inferiority in every point of view to
Lord PALitansrow—therefore he must really

approve the fond and unfortunate preference
shown for him by Lord ABERDEEN ? Lord JOHN
could not have " yielded," because he neither
insisted beforehand that the Duke would fail,
nor tried to realise his foreboding by embarrass-
ing or thwarting him. By the Doke of NEW-
CASTLE'S own suicidal confession, last night, the
ex-President of the Council acted cordially with him
while they were together in consultation respecting
the war; and, when at a distance from town during
the autumn, he wrote to him in a friendly tone,
pointing out what he thought erron and suggesting
remedies. These instances we are told were few;
and when the attempt to apply them proved in one
particular cue impossible at the moment, Lord JOHN
wrote, frankly admitting that the obstacles were in-
surmountable, but generously adding, " You have
done all that could be done." Will our readers
believe when we tell them that these words consti-
tute the second count in the indictment for men-
dacity, equivocation, and fraud ?
"Why did Lord Joust RUSSELL suppress the fact
that on the Bth of October he addressed to me these
words of commendation ?" In other words, his Grace
would have the world believe that the expression
was used in • general and comprehensive, not a
special and limited sense; and he gives the extract
so shorn of context as to render the meaning ambi-
guous. And this is the candid man wbo has been
made a victim by the wily and perfidious Whig
leader I But the crown and climax of all is that
which the dexterous muter of Oxonian dialectics first
called attention to.
When Lord JOAN RUSSELL found that no
storm of national indignation could make the
Palm Minister understand that a new Secretary
In War wee required, and when he despaired
d .neisding matters in any other way, he
amegoisi various changes in the department. He
had asipaded, sole maths previously, a consolida-
tion al do lisordserbiribe War and the Secretary-
ship at War into one office. He had done so by the
advise d • nobleman who had himself filled the latter
sfwr end on whose practical judgment he relied.
1 individual subsequently changed his opinion,
sad satisfied Lord JOHN that what he had originally
recommended had better not be attempted. Mean-
while, the disasters of the Crimea began to convince
eves the Duke of NIWCASTLI that some great change
was desirable. In a moment of penitence, or panic,
it occurred to Lord ABERDEEN to recur to the old
suggestion foe the eonsolidation of the two Seem
taryships, and Lord lons was asked did he
wish to revive the proposition. Hs replied that he
did not, and stated his reasons. " Therefore we were
entitled," says Mr. GLADSTONE, " to believe that
oil idea of any important change in the War Depart-
ment wee a defunct proposition t" Was ever sophistry
like this? Because Lord lonic changes his mind on a
question of tape, the ex-Chancellor of the Exche-
quer coolly ignores the fact that a change of
hands and heads was urged by Lord JOHN—
when the misfortunes of Balaklava were
beginning—and never revoked or withdrawn.
We do not hesitate to declare that this will turn out
to be the case; and that the fact will so appear the
instant Lord Joan has an opportunity of replying to
the esvillings and quibbling. to which his words
have been subjected. Too forbearing we have before

Loan Auirarsx's statement in the House of
Lords last night, regarding the late administration,
and Lord DERBY'S announcement of his failure to
form another, will doubtless be read with more
interest by the public at large than they were listened
to by those who were present on the occasion.
Nothing very new or very striking was expected by
those who have been accustomed to hear the dis-
courses of the ex-Premier ; and mat of those who
crowded the galleries and the bar of the Howe of
Peers bat night had previously learned from various
sources that the mission of Lord Delay wee, at least
for the time, at an end. Beyond the formal avowal
of this fact, the Tory leader's speech contained
nothing of any significance or importance. He
made his hearers laugh more than once in-
deed at the expense of the out-going Mi-
nisters, and entered a general demurrer to
the aka pronounced by Lord Anima= on the
success of his policy and the prosperity of the nation.
But neither from the Premier that was, nor from the
Premier that many believed was to be, did a thought
or a sentiment fall, upon an occasion sufficiently sug-
gestive, which any one will be able to recollect if he
should try a weak hence.
In truth, however, it was not the expectation of
anything tithe sort that Ailed the House last evening
at an early hoar. Something mach more racy and
provocative to the jaded appetite for parliamentary
Emission than ministerial declarations, whether

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 2, 1855.

said we think be was; and a precious recompense he
has received.

But now let us in our turn ask those wbo talk of
supprenio yeri, whether a fact of no trivial weight
has not been held back in the discussion hitherto,
which, when known, will show the unfairness of
attempting to ascribe the proposal to supersede the
incapable Duke to personal or patty motives P
Did no other member of the Cabinet write to Lord
Aberdeen to the same effect f—Daily News.