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

(From the Morning Advertiser of this day.)

So then the attempt of Lord Derby to form a new Adminis-
tration has signally failed. The humiliating announcement
was made last night by the Noble Lord himself, in his place in
Parliament. We congratulate the country upon the fact. It
would have been a great misfortune for the nation had we
witnessed the advent of a Derby Administration at such a
crisis as the present. We congratulate the Queen, no loss
cordially than the country, on the abortive attempt of the
Noble Lord to form a new Government. Her interests, we
need not say, are identical with those of her subjects—and if
she have enlightened and faithful counsellors around her
throne, they will not fail to impress this groat truth unceas-
ingly on her mind.
And now that all hope has vanished of the formation of a
Derby Cabinet, we repeat, what we have so often said, for a
long time past, that Lord Palmeseton is the man, and the
only man, for the Premiership.

In the earnest hope that he may not be induced, by either
the wishes of those in high quarters, or the solicitations of
prirate friends, to repeat substantially the errorhe committed
on a former occasion, we adjure Lord Palmerston to remember,
that it is to his too ready compliance, on a former occasion,
with the wishes expressed by the Court, that ho would rejoin
the Aberdeen Administration, after be had seceded from it,
that we are indirectly to ascribe all those evils which have
resulted from the mismanagement of the war by the Coalition.
His duty plainly was not to return--no matter by whom
asked to do so—to that imbecile Cabinet. Had he persisted
in his resolution not to reunite himself to Lord Aberbeen's
Government, that Government would have inevitably perished,
and the country have been spared all that miserable incapa-
city, and that t...iluihnia negleet, which hay.c well nigh annihi-
lated one of the most gallant and finest armies the world ever
saw.

It is right Lord Palmerston should be reminded that ho has
thus incurred the awful responsibility of being, indirectly, a
party to 'all that has happened in the Crimea. And will ho
be prepared to add to a load of responsibility already, it
might be supposed, too heavy to be borne, by repeating, as
wo have said, substantially the gigantic error he committed
in Docesmber, 1853 f If he joins any incompetent Ministry
just now, and enables such a Ministry to exist, and conse-
quently to do mischief, he will thereby do deliberate violence
to humanity, morality, patriotism, and constitutional prin-
ciples. Without him no Government can at present bs
formed, and therefore ho is bound by the highest and holiest
obligations which can influence the mind, to keep reso-
lutely aloof from all Ministerial combinations, no matter
by whom made. He can by that means compel those in
high places to confide to himself the task of constructing
a new Cabinet. These arc not times for the practise
of any false delicacy. If others above him have claims
on his loyalty and devotion, he has also claims on their con-
sideration. The obligations and the duties are reciprocal.
He is bound to have a regard for his own character. No
man is to be expected to sacrifice his character to please
any one. But above and beyond all, Lord Palmerston is
bound to recollect what aro the claims which his country has
upon him at this crisis.

-The claims of country aro paramount to all others, and
must not be sacrificed to personal or private considerations,
no matter of what kind. In countries like ours, which aro
governed on constitutional principles, the people are not
made for monarchs, but monarchs for the people. It wore
well for all our Ministers of State were they never to become
oblivious of this great principle of the British Constitu-
tion. The important truth must be proclaimed by the press
with greater force and frequency than ever—more espe-
cially when our representatives shrink from the discharge
of the duty—that the people arc the source of all legitimate
power. If this principle had been inculcated in Parliament in

the way in which it ought to have been by those whom we have
seat to that assembly to represent our principles, there would
not now bo that unwillingness which all deplore, in oso branch
of the Constitution, to confldo to the man, to whom every
ono points as the fittest person for the) purpose, the task of
forming a new Administration.

The time, we repeat, has come when an independent press
must no longer mince its words. Wo feel that at such a crisis
as the present it is our duty to express ourselves in language
about which there can be no mistake. We repeat then, with
regard to Lord Palmerston, that he is bound alike by the ob-
ligations which he owes to the country and to himself not to
accept of any secondary office in a new Ministry. Not only
has he personal claims of paramount urgency to the position
of Premier, but the dictates of an enlightened patriotism sug-
gest that he should not rest satisfied with any subordinate
place in Downing-street. It is only as the head of the Go-
vernment that ho can render effectual service to his country
at this momentous juncture. With another Primo Minister
he would not be a free agent. It is only as Premier that his
great administrative capacity, his hostility to Continental
absolutism, and his ardent patriotism, could bo exhibited
with effect.

Lord Palmerston ought to have been Premier long ago.
And but for his excessive good nature, and his generous
anxiety to please others, he would have been Premier in De-
cember, 1853, when he seceded from the Government of Lord
Aberdeen. Onr earnest advice. to Lord Palmerston at that
time was, not to listen to the counsels and entreaties of those
who urged his return to the Home-office ; for we felt as tho-
roughly convinced as if the contingency had been already an
actual fact, that, had he only refused to join the Aberdeen
Administration, it would not only, before ten or twelve days
had elapsed, have fallen to pieces, but that he would have
received the commands of the Queen to form a new one in its
stead. Lord Palmerston is again out of office. Let him re-
solutely resist all efforts to coerce or to cajole him into the
resumption of any seat in the Cabinet, other than that which
appertains to the Premiership; and before many days have
elapsed all personal prejudices against the noble lord—no
matter in what quarter they may exist—will be made' by the
force of circumstances, to give way to the universally and
energetically-expressed wishes of the country, that the reins
of power be committed to his hands, in order that he may
guide us through a crisis the most moraentout which ever oc-
curred in the history of Britain.

the Daffy Nye of thi3 clay.)
regardingwe nil e hdtr to f Abh yi Ithosefailure
t in the House of Lords last night,
ni enadministration, and Lord Derby's announce-
btehicleFl reao:nelTh'sse
the will doubt].
ess be read
men
more interest by the public atlarge than they were list-
ened present• onl the occasion. Nothing
was expected by those who have
ivhtoo
d to hear the discourses of the ex-Premier ;
been accustente
most of those who crowded the galleries and the bar of
and
very new or very striking
the House of Peers last night had previoualy learned front
various sources that the mission of Lord Derby was, at least
for the time, at au end. Beyond the formal avowal of this
fact, the Tory leader's 'peach contained nothing of any signi-
ficance or importance. He made his hearers laugh more than
once indeed, at the expense of the out-going Ministers, and
entered a general demurrer to the eulogy pronounced by Lord
Aberdeen 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 suggestive, which
any one will be able to recollect if he should try a week
hence. •

•
In truth, however, it was not the expectation of anything
of the sort that filled the house last evening at au early hour.
Something much more racy and provocative to the jaded ap-
petite for Parliamentary discussion than Ministerial declara-
tions, whether ponderous or jaunty, had drawn together an
unusual concourse of senators, fair ladies, political fops, and
critics and gossips of every degree. The Duke of Newcastle,
it was understood, had undertaken not only to defend himself
against the imputation of having by his incapacity brought
obloquy and ruin on the Cabinet of which he was a member,
but, as his friends gave out, he was, by the reading of private
letters, and the disclosure of private conversations, to blast
for ever Lord John Russell's character for manliness, veracity,
and honour. A morning contemporary, 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 tho public mind beforehand for the belief
of any tale of treachery or tergiversation which might be told to
the Retro Commenting oa a miPtitutivaly UnfAirs tbollgla4ter.

ally correct, statement of Mr. Gladstone, on Monday last (Pa
which, perhaps, it was unwise in Lord John to have suf-
fered to pass for the moment unexposed), the nmes broadly
accused the noble lord of having used equivocatien
in his recent statement regarding the War Department ; and
the Duke of Newcastle was ill-advised enough to insinuate
that on more than one point Lord John had misstated the
facts of his own conduct and language regarding him. We
frankly own that were such charges capable of proof we
should not only join unreservedly in pitying the luckless ex-
Minister of War, but we should unhesitatingly acknowledge
that Lord John was not the man we have long been accus-
tomed to take him for. Whatever maybe deemed his faults,
the noble member for the City of London has never been
suspected of insincerity or meanness. The reproach of many
among his Whig followers has often been that he was im-
prudently out-spoken ; that he was apt to offend the preju-
dices of lukewarm supporters by his unconscious keenness of
phrase; and that his chief defect as a party leader was that
he was not versed in the histrionic arts that enable some' of
his competitors to seem all things to all men. And thismay be a
deficiency and a want in cliques and clubs, and coalitions Uf
really incongruous elements. To the people it is and will ever
be his best recommendation. They believe that 'he is'in ear-
nest, and even where they think him wrong, the people •
respect and trust him. But what is this *e hear—that the
veteran leader of the Liberal party in the House offgratnous:
has suddenly turned liar and coward, and that in order to
escape the consequences of his own toe".greritt forbiarance-10- .
wards a colleague, who had no particular claim on his per-
sonal consideration, he has had the folly and wickedness to
make a fraudulent statement of facts, recorded in writing, to
the House of Commons
The accusation is almost too absurd to merit detailed refu-
tation. But, as the imiienetrable dulness of the Duke et
Newcastle, and the unrelenting antipathy of the contemporary
to whom we 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 John when
speaking of the original nomination of the Duke to
the War Department, happened to use the expreseion,
" I yielded , his commendable ambition" to have
the post of most difficulty and distinction ; *although,
as he added, he thought it should have been offered.
to Lord Palmerston. " This cannot be true," exclaims his,
ungrateful grace, "for nobody ever proposed such q, compo,
titer 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 I and that because Lord John refrained from urging
in the Cabinet his comparative inexperiende and inferiority
in 'every point of view to Lord Palmerston=therefore ho
must .6.11 Y approve the fond' and unfortunate pre•
ference shows rv, hiss. by Lora Aberaeen Loidl
John could not have " yielded," becalm. he net
thor insisted beforehand that the duke would fail.
nor tried to realise his foreboding by embarrass
ing or thwarting him. By the Duke of Newcastle's ownetu
oidal confession, last night, the ex-President of the Council
acted cordially with him while they were- in consultation re-
specting 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 errors and suggesting remedies. These
instances we are told were few ; and when the attempt to,
apply them proved in one particular case impossible at the
moment, Lord John wrote, frankly admitting that the ob-
stacles were insurmountable, but generously adding, " You
have done all that could be done." Will our readers believe
when we tell them that these words constitute the second
count in the indictment for mendacity, equivocation, and
fraud ?

" Why did Lord John Russell suppress the fact that on Via
Bth of October he addressed to me words of commendation I"
In other words, his Grace would have the world believe that
the expression was used in a general and comprehensive,
not in a special and limited sense ; and he gives, the
extract so shorn of context as to render the meaning
ambiguous. And this is the candid man who _'has been
made a victim by the wily and perfidious Whig leader But
the crown and climax of all is that which the dexterous mars-
-1 ter of Oxonian dialectics first called attention to.
When Lord John Russell found that no storm of national
indignation could make the Prime Minister understand that a
new Secretary for War was required, and when he despaired
of mending matters in any other way, he suggested various
changes in the department. He had suggested, some month's.
Previously, a consolidation of the Secretaryship for War and
the Secretaryship at War into one office, He had done so by
the advice of a nobleman who had himself filled the latter
office, and on whose practical judgment he relied. This in-
dividual subsequently changed his opinion, and satisfied
Lord John that what ho had originally recommended had
better not be attempted. Meanwhile, the disasters of
the Crimea began to convince even the Duke of New-
castle that some great change was desirable. In a moment•
of penitence, of panic, it occurred to Lord Aberdeen to recur
to the old suggestion for the consolidation of the two Seers-
taryships, and Lord John was asked did he wish to revive the
proposition. He replied that he did not, and stated his
reasons. " Therefore we were entitled," says Mr. Gladstone,
" to believe that all idea of any important change in the War
Department was a defunct proposition 1" Was ever sophistry
like this ? Because Lord John changes his mind on a ques-
tion of tape, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer 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 John has an opportunity
of replying to the cavillings and quibblings to which his words
have been subjected. Too forbearing we have before said wo
think he was; and a precious recompence he has received.

But now lot us in our turn ask those who talk of nip•
pressio veri, whether a fact of no trivial weight has not been
held back in the discussion hitherto, which, when knoWn;vrill.
shov the unfairness of attempting to ascribe the proposal to-
supersede the incapable duke to personal or party motives I
Did no other member of the Cabinet write to Lord 4berdeta
, to the same effect I