The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-14 00:00:00

(From the Daily News of this day.)

Lord John Russell has resigned. The public may pos-
sibly learn the fact with feelings of surprise : they will
learn the cause with sentiments of mingled astonishment
and disgust.
When we noticed yesterday the ill-concealed efforts
that were making by a certain section of those who have
heretofore been reckoned amongst the friends and followers
of Lord John, to induce him to retire on the eve of the
coming struggle, confessedly in the hope that they might
thereby propitiate their assailants and save themselves
from party humiliation at his expense, we intimated our
disbelief in the success of a manoeuvre at once so miserable
and so mean. We could not persuade ourselves that,
under the peculiar circumstances of the case, and with the
memorable warning afforded by the events of January
last, the noble lord would voluntarily quit his post under
fire. Nor has the event falsified our anticipations as far
as he is concerned. Lord John cannot, in point of fact, be
said to have manifested on the present occasion any anxiety
to shirk the responsibility which he had incurred. He in
truth hugged himself in the belief that he had made a dex-
terous and successful coup ; and, utterly unconscious of
the obloquy he had drawn upon himself, fancied that he
could reconcile the discrepancies and prevarications of the
last two months. At all events he was ready to stand
the brunt of the threatened assault and to abide the con-
sequences. Not so the men by whom he has been sur-
rounded. Scared at the sound of the rising storm of popular
indignation, andlsolicitous only for the retention of power,
men who six weeks ago were ready to acquiesce without
hesitation in the proposal of compromise with Russia sug-
gested by Count Buol, have not been ashamed to join in
forcing Lord John to tender his resignation to the head of
the Government. Through every rank and grade of the
party efforts have been made to further this uesign. The
pride of the Secretary for the Colonies having been stung
into making the offer we have mentioned, resort was had
to the respectable and high-spirited device of a round
robin addressed to Lord Palmerston, urging him to accept
the resignation. This document was actually hawked
about th precincts and passages of the House of Commons
for signature during the sitting of the house yesterday,
and while the two noble lords continued to occupy their
usual seats, side by side, upon the Treasury bench. We
are unwilling to state how many names of men calling
themselves Whigs were appended to it • but we believe we
may venture to say that the rebukes which its authors en-
countered from the manly, and independent members who
refused to act a part fit only for sailors in a mutiny on
ship-board, served to convince them that their clumsy de-
vice is one too shameless even for the present House of
Commons. But the lengths and the depths to which Mi-
nisters and their creatures are ready to go to elude trial
and condemnation are too plainly indicated by the use of
means such as that we have referred to.

What is to be said or thought of themen who, having in
the Cabinet assented to the proposal!recommended by Lord
John, and who having in Parliament assented to his sudden
repudiation of that proposition, are now ready to lend
their aid in hustling him out of office, in the hope that when
he is gone they will be suffered to remain there? So long
as they believed it possible to patch up a peace by agreeing
to Austrian terms of accommodation, these worthies saw
in the terms advocated by Lord John nothing that was
not politic and approvable. When these terms got wind
prematurely, and national feeling began to menace all who
adopted them with condign censure, these men were eager
to concur with the ex-plenipotentiary in his hollow and
insincere repudiation of all diplomatic action and his ap-
peal to the warlike spirit of tho country. The delusion
thus practised upon Parliament, with their concurrence,
and amid their exulting cheers, is exposed by the despatch
of Count Buol; and what happens ? Are these men
ashamed ? Do they propose to resign? Do they attempt
to throw the blame on the Secretary for the Colonies?
Nothing of the sort ; they continue indifferent and un-
affectedby the exposure, until a question is asked, after an
an interval of three weeks, that elicits a full avowal of the
facts, and subsequently provokes a motion for a vote of
want of confidence. And then these craven colleagues of
a too reckless Minister, cabal together with their under-
lings in office to throw him overboard, in order to appease
the storm. Had these men one spark of manly feeling,
their duty was to have thrown up their offices, either
when the Austrian proposal for peace was overruled or
when they heard Lord John mislead the House of Com-
mons into the belief that the Cabinet were united on the
necessity of prosecuting the war. They did neither, be-
cause they were ready to become abettors of both the be-
tral of the country's honour and the shabby disavowal of it.
They obtain ed by their duplicity a party majority, which they
persuaded themselves would render them secure for the rest
of the session ; and now, when the consequences of the trans-
action are with retributive justice about to fall on their
heads, they try to cheat their fate by making one man
a scapegoat.

And finally, what shall be said of Lord Palmerston, if it
be true, as we are informed, that he has advised the Queen
to accept Lord John's resignation, in order that he and the
rest of the Cabinet may have a chance of retaining their
places? Times are stranffely altered since 1850. Lord
Palmerston was then a Secretary of State against whose
official conduct a motion of censure was aimed. Lord John
Lussell was then Prime Minister. Then, as now, there

was not wanting timid and time-serving counsellors ready
td -urge
,that, the assailed secretary should be sacrificed,
and p3itk interests thefebY conSeod(l. But Lord John
was at least true to his yoke-fellow in office, Whateter he
might be to his own principles. He determined to stand
or fall with the colleague whose acts he had tacitly ap-
proved. The positions of Lord Palmerston and Lord John
Rtissell are now reversed. The noble member for London
is now the secretary assailed, and the noble member for
Tiverton is now Premier. We have no pity for Lord John,
but we have infinite contempt for his treacherous allies
in office. We have no notion of "crimes being punished
by other crimes and greater criminals." Lord Palmerston
cannot escape from the consequences of personal and poli-
tical complicity in the misdemeanours of Lord John Rus-
sell ; but he can still further damage a shattered reputa-
tion by trying to sever the defence of himself and his con-
federates from that of one who a few years since behaved
so differently towards him. We have been told that
" there is honour among thieves ;" it is more than can be
said of our living Whig statesmen.