The Sun.
London, England, 1830-12-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Lord Wynford brought in a Bill, last night, for
the prevention of frauds by debtors, whether itt
prison or absconding. The object of his Lordship
is to put an end to the abuse of persons leading
luxurious fives in prisons, or on the Continent, on
the proceeds of property which ought to belong to
their creditors. At present, too, outlawry is u com-
plete nullity, as debtors have only to absc nd and
afterwards come into- reverse their outlaw•ries, nu
the ground of their not having been within the
four seas at the time of the writs of outlawry being
issued. lie proposes to deprive debtors cf this
power, an alteration which would go far towards
breaking up the English colony on the Opposite
COlkit, When Sir Samuel Romilly proposed to
make real property liable for simple contract debts,
he was opposed strenuously by the Aristocracy of
that day, who seemed to think that the privilege of
securing real property against execution for debt
was their Magna (;h►srta. Lord Wynford, as far as
we can understand him, does not propose to go the
length of Sir Samuel Romilly, but merely to multe
the property of the debtor, during his life, available
to his creditors. This, however, ►could be un im-
mense improvement on the system, which allows a
man to live a luxurious life in the liberties of the
King's Bench, or in France, setting his creditor•
ail the time at defiance. The times are changed for
the better since Sir Samuel Romilly endeavoured
fruitlessly to shame the higher racks out .of this
Migrant piece of injustice. Lord Wynford will be
successful. Lord 'Wynford might have vegetated oil
his pension like most of his predecessors, and we
have therefore the more cause to be grateful to him
for his exertions to leave his countrymen in a better
'condition then that in which he found them. The
Noble and Learned Lord seems to be by no means
tho " wretch concentred all in self" of the Poet ;
but, on the contrary, to be of a warm and expansive
disposition. So long us he confines himself to the
field of legal abuses, he can hardly fail to do good.
We were sorry to seem him lately quit this field,
and enter on another in which he is an utter stranger.
Let him leave economical questions to others, and
confine himself to a field suffiriently ample for his
exertions.—Morning Chronicle.

The presentation of the Middlesex petition, butt
night; gave rise to a smart discussion on the subject
of Parliamentary Reform. There are Men utterly
reckless as to what they assert ; for reckless most
they be, who, in the face of the most unimpeach-
able evidence, still maintain that the country is in-
different to Reform. Sir George Warrender said,
" When the Edinburgh petition should be pre.
tented to the House, he would undertake to
show that the majority of the respectable and oda.
cited classes of that city were not friendly to a Re-
form in Parliament ; and he believed that such was
generally the ease throughout the country." A
week never passes in which we do not receive News-
papers filled with accounts of meetings at which
monitions in favour of Reform are voted either min-
.nimously or almost unanimously. With respect to
Edinburgh, the Scotsman of Saturday last says—
" At two o'clock to-day the signatures amounted to
25,000, and before the subscription papers are finally
closed this evening, tittle will he at least 1,000 ambled.
Sanguine as we were, we scarcely expected such a number
of mimes. As Edinburgh apart from Leith contains about
ISO,OOO inhabitants, or 32,600 adult males, the signa-
tures are equal in number to three-fourtbn of all persons
who are qualified to sign. It may b! safely said, tint so
great a proportion of the people never imp's+ an opinion
unless it prevails almost unanimously amongst the puler
)tttion,"

At the meeting of the inhabitants of Glasgow, on
Saturday last, the Lord Provost in the Chair, not a
• voice was heard against Reform. But the idea is
preposterous—that Reform is not the object of
general desire. Some again contend that the Mi-
nisters are insincere, that they are living on the
credit of a Reform which they know they dare not
grant. We have never heard that the men now in
power were so anxious for place as this supposes
them to be. To accept of office on the condition
of proposing Reform, would be a wretched policy
indeed, if they knew that at the end of a couple
of short months the promise would be falsified.
We have never, however, effected to disguise
the difficulties of their position. That the posses-
sors of
.power should voluntarily consent to surren-
der it, is not to be supposed for a moment. The
euccess'of Ministers must, therefore, depend on such
a manifestation of public opinion throughout the
country, as shall regenerate Parliament. We do
not mean that the constituents of Mr. Horace Twiss,
or of Mr. Attwood, or of Sir Robert Inglis, will
he urgent with these gentlemen to vote in favour of
Reform. lint there are proprietors of boroughs,
who have a deep stake in the country, who see the
point to which things are now tending as the
country, and who are too prudent to hazard the con•
sequences of a defeat of the present Ministry on the
question of Reform. The Ministry would commit
felts de se were they to disappoint the country ;
and were they to be defeated by the borough.
mongers in Parliament, the Ministry who should
"offer to take their places must he bold men indeed.
We rejoice to perceive that this is well understood
at the various public meetings throughout the
country. At the Glasgow meeting Sir James
Sandford forcibly observed—
" Our rulers require all the aid which popular support
can yield them, in order to vanquish foes who will hut
• combat the more fiercely, if their animosity begins to be
embittered by a half-admitted filing of despair. They
have fees in all who are the moat fondly attached to that
system, into which corruption finds the readiest entrance—
they have foes in all who cling, with a natured tenacious.
nese to the possession of an influence, which they hare
long exercised, Power unconstitutional, and in itself
unfair...they have the most autnitrous, if not the most
active foes in those, who, from an inaptitude for action
er an utter detestation of all change, would rather
lie still and perish in the sinking vessel of the State, than
throw overboard a burthen of abuses to lighten and to
save her."

Reform alone can save the State; this Ministers
know; thirrithe people know. Should Reform not
be granted, we pretend not to say what the conse-
quences might be.—Morning Chronicle.
Among the most interesting and extraordinary of
the great events which will render the year 1830 for
ever memorable in the annals of the world, is the
renewal of the struggle for freedom on the plains of
Poland. Never was 'Europe disgraced by a more
foul and atrocious transaction, during the ambitious
crimes and rapacious barbariern of the dark ages,
than that act of imperial robbery, which deprived a
gallant and generous people, of their independence,
and made an ancient nation the spoil ot a gang of
crowned conspirators. There is no one to whom
injustice is hateful that must not rejoice to see a day
of retribution for such an act—a day of punishment
for so dark a crime The late military Premier of
England has stigmatized the heroic conduct of the
• French people, in successfully resisting the imbecile
tyranny of the Ex-King and his corrupt Ministers,
as a " bad example," and, no doubt, the pupils in
that school of policy in which he has taken lessons
will "thunder forth" still more vehement denuncia-
tions against the " had example " of the Pole's
in taking arms to regain the rights of which,
by force and treachery, they were most basely
,robbed. But all they to whom the interests of
morality, and the cause of justice and good
faith and freedom, are more dear than the suc-
cessful cupidity and inglorious triumphs of ty-
rants—and we believe that they include the great
mass of the people of England—would consider it a
;worse example and it more fatal precedent that re-
morseless violence and enormous fraud should go for
ever unpunished. Such retributive events as those
which hamoceerrettio France and Belgium, and
Vollo:4tiriflegellslq rt times, to remind criminal
Ptvogitortfurexistenceo an over-ruling Providence,
' the snotal; government of the world.
,!hots something:is it the circumstances under
• . 1409%44404,;fr0m its degrathzd condition
:#4itirricile, which appears peculiarly
priniantfek, ir 'Bole Northern Powers.—the
'ay AiliCeontrived and consummated in
eroeistry and blood the felonious scheme by whieb

Poland svas blotted from the map Of nations---xsere
preparing, in a similar spirit of dangerous and ma-
levolent ambition, vast armaments, with the inten-
tion of reducing to worse than their former bondage
the Belgian people, and then extirpating the free
institutions of France, when the spirit which their
injustice had created in Poland exploded, and carried
consternation and alarm into the heart of their do-
minions. Thus the first battle against freedom must
he fought nearer home than, in their sagacity, they
anticipated. But we need not be surprised at the
obstinate fatuity of riders who take for their Coun-
sellors such men as Metternich, Pozzo di forgo, or
Van Maariena.-711C11 into mistake the base acts of
political intrigue for the accomplishments of con-
summate statesmanship, and, in their habitual reli-
ance upon deception mid perfidy and trick, despise
holiest), mid public virtue, and, indeed, do not be-
lieve in the existence of such qualities until they ex-
perience Ihe ten ible shock of their moral react ion.
Even then they are sometimes more astonished than
instructed, and know not how to account for events
which are the natural consequences of insulted na-
ture and violated justice. Such politicians, are,
however, not without even their moral uses in the
great plan of that Divine wi•dom by which the des-
tinies of the world are directed and controlled.
Their immoderate baseness, united to mediocrity of
talent, serves to inflate the despots they flatter with
such notions of their own power, as makes them
little less than divinities in their own eyes, mid
little more than demons in the eyes of their people.
Thins all the vicious qualities and intentions
of arbitrary sway are glaringly revealed, and
the march of feudal tyranny, in iis blind and
odious presumption, is precipitated towards those
conflicts where the energies of civilization shall crush
it for ever I Yet, even. in England, we are told,
by a Morning Paper which had cahanniated anti
ridiculed the lielgisns in their first efforts for inde-
pendence, that Poland is us much the property
Russia, and her Allies, as Algiers is of France I
Poland, the noble nation t hut first stopped the career
of the victorious hordes of Mahommed, when they
threatened to overrun Christendom, and had ac-
tually reached the walls of Vienna, breathing
slaughter, and loaded with Christian spoil—Poland,
whose history is dear to every one who has a heart
to admire the valour, and feel for the sufferings
and the wrongs, of a chivalrous, but unfortunate,
people—Poland, the land for which Sobieski con-
quered, and Kosciusko died—the betrayed, de•
blinded, and plundered Poland—is compared to that
den of sea-robbers, that nest of pirates, who were
the common enemies of all nations, the enslavers of
of all people, the Ishmaelites of the ocean, whose
sword was against all Christian States, mid whose
existence, so long tolerated, was not more a curse
to humanity than a reproach to Europe ! Bad as
was the late Government of France, the conquest of
Algiers was sanctified as tin act of justice ; and this
is compared to the partition of Poland—the most
nefarious deed of regsl robbery that ever disgraced
the annals of the civilized world.-11forn, Herald.

It is right and just that the corrupt abuse of the
elective franchise, in open as well as in close bo-
roughs, should become tke subject of Parliamentary
inquiry and punishment. If gross instances of actual
corruption were invariably and rigidly brought under
the animadversion of the laws applicable t o elections,
a considerable progress might be made towards a
reform of the representation by that means alone.
The principle of disfranchisement for gross corrupt
tion tainting the greet body of the electors of any
particular place is admitted to be fair and constitu-
tional. There is no reason why this severe but
wholesome remedy by excision, which removes a
foul and contagious example from the land, should
only be exercised upon miFerable little boroughs,
whose rottenness calls for constitutional amputation.
Great and populous towns which pervert and de-
grade a noble privilege are equally unworthy to be
intrusted with its exercise. An example of the
disfranchisement of, a populous town, which has
become notoriously corrupt in its elections, would
have more influence in correcting the abuses of
the elective franchise, than the extinction of
ten close boroughs, which are only raised by their
vices from obscure insignificance into an odious
celebrity. If half of what is said of the late Liver-
pool election be true, the great body of the electors
of that town are unworthy ever again to exer-
cise the great privilege of having a voice in return-
ing representatives to Parliament. We supported
the Marquis of Chandos in his call for inquiry into
the case of the borough of Evesham, which was so
improperly attempted tobe slurred over in the House
of Commons. Should the inquiry bring to light
any thing like what public report states of the pro-
ceedings at the recent election at that place—anti
for which ri port their seems to be strong ground,
as far as the decision of the Committee goes—we

hope that his Lordship will move for the disfran-
chisement of the borough, and the transfer of the
elective franchise to some large town at present un-
repre!ented. The agricultural interests had the be-
nefit of the remedial measures adopted to check the
corruption proved in the cases of Cricklade, Ayles-
bury, awl East Retford; the franchise, in those in.
stances, having been extended to the adjoining hun-
dreds. it is, therefore, only just that, if Evesham
be disfranchised, some one of the great unrepre-
seated towns connected with the mercantile inte-
rests should have the benefit of its forfeited fran-
chise. But if Liverpool be equally guilty with Eve-
sham its crime is of of far more dangerous conse-
quence, and deserves, at least, as signal a punishment.
We are glad, therefore, t hat the Marquis of Blandond
has given notice of a motion on this subject. Ile
does not hold the strange and anomalous doctrine
of Mr. Tennyson, that because the present Govern-
ment have in view a prospective measure of Re-
form as to the principle of representation, therefore
scandalous instances of corruption in practice should
pass unnoticed ! On the contrary, he takes up the
subject with the honest indignation which one
anxious for Reform—not as a question of party, but
as a vindication of the cause of public morals and
constitutional principle—must naturally feel on hear-
ing that a flourishing, and populous, and mercantile
town, rivalled the basest of the rotten boroughs of
England in the corruption and venality of its voters.
Besides, if Liverpool be slandered—if its political
purity be assailed by false accusation—such a motion
is only an act of justice to give the electors of that
borough the opportunity of disproving the calumnies,
which represent them as basely betraying the rights
of themselves and countrymen for a little pelf ! It
is true that accusation is embodied in a petition of

certain of the electors of that town, preying the
• • -

House, as Lord Blat.dford says, " To illylire-into
the almost unexampled acts of bribery, which are
alleged to have taken place at the late election of
the Member for that tawn." A day also has been
fixed for taking that petition into consideration;
and it is on the not unpossible event of the par.
ties to the petition failing to prosecute it, that
his Lordship has given notice to submit his motion
on the subject after the holidays, " so as to afford
the opportunity," as his Lordship expresses it, " to
the lion. Candidates, and the no less honourable
electors, to clear themselves of the imputations in
circulation; or, by:proving them, raise the question,l
whether it would not be advisable, not only to •
punish the parties, but also to disfranchise a town
where such flagrant acts of bribery have disgraced
the elective franchise ?" it may not be irrelevant
to introduce here, as an example of the integrity and
gratitude of the " Liverpudlean electors,' a remi-
niscence of the extraordinary election o►f 1812.
0n that occasion the candidates were the Right
lion. George Canning, Henry Brougham, Esq.
(the present Lord Chancellor), and Thomas Cree-
vey, Isaac Gascoyne, and llaniatre Tarleton, Esqrs.
Before this election the town of Liverpool had se-
verely suffered in its commercial trading inte-
rests, which are the very life of its prosperity,
by the memorable " Orders in Council"•--political
measures which brought on an American war, and
extinguished its trade with the United States. The
principal advocate of those measures, when in the
Administration,was Mr. Canning, while among those
by whom they were most actively and zealously op.