The Sun.
London, England, 1830-10-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC ,IQURNAI,S,

We insert a letter signed " Plebeius," on the
subject of Purliamentry reform. It is addressed to
Mr. Brougham, and deserves attention. Among
the objections made to the actual state of our re-
presentation, one of great moment undoubtedly is,
that from the prodigious charges which have taken
place in the condition of various districts of this
country, towns or boroughs which in former ages
had representatives assigned to them because of
their opulence or population, have since declined in
both below that point at which they could originally
have put forth any title to the privilege; while
elsewhere, spots unknown little further back than
half a century, have swelled into greatnees of wealth
and numbers, and are left to the humbug of virtual
representation for the guardianship of their local iv-
tereste in Parliament. Unquestionably it Must ap-
pear nothing less than monstrous, that in a country
where representative Government is not quite en
acknowledged farce, one half-ruined house like Old
Sarum should enjoy the power of choosing legis-
lators to coerce the free agency and fetter the in-
terests of more than half n million of Englishmen,
inhabiting the immense commercial emporia of
Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield,
while thestlatter places cannot approach, but as
petitioners, that house wherein the delegates of
GP.lton and Old Sarum are seated in security
and full legislative power. It is evident that
the ancient maxims of British atm policy must
all have been abandoned ere such a marvel-
lous contrast could have arisen between right
without representation, and representation wholly de-
void of right. Plebeius affirms truly, that in former
centuries " different towns ettioyed the privilege at
different times,".--ttequiring, or being suspended in,
the right of sending Members to Parliament, as
they rose to prosperity, or sunk into obscurity and
meanness. The loss, however, of the right of re-
presentation has not occurred of late years as an ad-
judication by the Crown, but only, rind that in very
rare instances, as a penalty inflicted by the Legisla-
ture. To the specific schemes of Parliamentary
reform, where, as not often happens, a definite
scheme has been proposed, objections have aug:ested
themselves quite sufficient to induce tiny reasonable
man to hesitate before he committed himself .or the
country by their adoption. The plan for increasing
the county representation was a nostrum for yielding
to the aristocracy a large accession to their already
irresistible power. That for coferring the franchise
on certain great commercial towns, howeVer just
and satisfactory so far as they were concerned, had
the disadvantage of augmenting, by ten or a dozen
votes, the gross numbers of an assembly, which, if
convenience, usefulness, and efficiency had been
considered, would long .since have been reduced by
a hundred, or a hundred and fifty Members. A
third project was for creating independence in the
constituent body, and thereby rendering (in the
unpin° minds of its advocates) every other mode
of Parliamentary reform unnecessary, by substituting
the ballot for the vivd wee vote. To this we shall
not repeat the objections which we have already,
and more than once, described to be,,in our own
judgment at least, unanswerable. But it all results
in this.--that no plan of reform bits ever yet been
publicly devised, which, let the Government have
been inclined as it might, would have been regarded
by Me nation as expedient. The author of the letter
to Mr. Brougham aims professedly at restoring what
he terms the " elastic principle" of the constitution,
viz.—that which permitted the fluctuations in the
state of the country to re-act upon the dements of
the Legislature, by making the tight to send mem-
bers to Parliament depend mainly, though not too
inquisitively or harshly, on the relative importance
of the place pretending to exercise such franchise.
Moreover, to obviate the remark that Parliament is
already an assembly by far too numerous, Mr.
Brougham's correspondent goes on to recominend
that the place which newly acquires its franchise
abaft indemnify the patron of the place which loses
it, by the value ascertained in money. For the con-
stitutional character of this last proposal, not much,
we fear, can be said, but we leave the author and
his plans to make their own way with the reader.—
Times.

We have given in our extraeta from the French
Paris,
and in our Private Correspondence from
Paris, for the last two or three days, such minute
and detailed accounts of the political tumults which
have lately alarmed and disgraced that capital, that
the reader will require no assistance of ours to esti-
mate their extent, or to comprehend their dangee-
The rioters who crowd the courts of the Palt.is
Royal to demand vengeance on the Ex-Ministers,
and whose sanguinary vociferations have alarmed
the King and bis Government, seem in general of
the lowest description ; but, belonging to that class
who fought the battles and gained the triumphs of
the glorious week, they pretend to the inheritance of
all power which the people acOuired by the late
Revolution. The sovereignty of the mob they con-
sider the same as the sovereignty of the nation,
and because they expelled an ancient dynasty,
they imagine that they may dictate to a citizen
King who modestly addresses his fellow-citizens
as " comrades." Their passions, too, have been
inflamed by violent speeches, by incendiary pla-
cards, and inflammatory articles in the rept&
lieAn journals. They have been assured that the
King, the Ministers, and the Deputies, have formed
a conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice, and that
the dramatic scene hi the Chamber and in the Pa-
llas Royal, in which addresses were bandied be.;
tween those parties, pledging themselves to mitigate
immediately the penal laws, was a mere juggle to
Cave the Ex-Ministers from merited •punishment.—
With the unerring instinct of revenge, they turn
from the snare laid for their humanity, to the de-
mend for blood ;—they denounce the anticipated
pardon of the criminals by a law made in contem-
plation of their capital conviction, as an outrage on
their rights, and Insist upon being the executors
of that sentence which they see every disposition
on the part of the Judges to deny, or of the
Sovereign to remit. We have never joined the
Paris rioters in calling for the blood of the state •
prisoners of Vincennes, though we see nothing in
their conduct to exempt them from the capital
punishment due to their enormous guilt; but we
cannot deny that the Ministers have committed it
• fatal error by the mode in which they have at-
tempted to save them. They have 'roused all the
suspicions of the people before their trial, instead of
waiting the influence of time to cool their passions
in order to pardon them (if they could be thought
to deserve pardon) with safety after conviction.
They have shown a determined purpose to hood-
wink their understandings, instead of courting their
acquiescence in a mitigated punishment by frank-
ness and confidence. They have committed the
popularity of the King, and the authority of the
Chamber, to a resolution front which they have
been driven by the menaces of a mob. They
have exhibited to France end to Europe
deplorable evidence of the weakness of the
Government and the power of the populace.
They have endangered the independence of the
Chamber of Peers, and, though the ease of the Ex.
Ministers were doubtful, have rendered it impos-
sible that they should have a fair trial. Even the
Prefect of Police is obliged to impeach their judg-
ment 'in addressing his fellow-citizens, and to call
their late proceedings an " untoward" measure.—
The difficulties into which they have thus brought
the Chamber and the King's Government are
scarcely to be calculated. By their advice the
Chamber addressed his Majesty, inviting him to
propose t has immediately toebolish the punishment
of deuth for offences similer to those of which the
:XxsMinisters are accused. His Majesty, in reply • expresses his own personal and cordial sympathy
with the object of the address, and e g
sent the proposed Bill. Though thenßaillclaeattohPZ introduced, diacuased, voted,passed,aad "el
it could not have carried with it moreonfall°l l jetchi:,
authoritative virtue which constitutes' a law, tiutu.•
this open and onentetions engagement to which
the Legislature and the King are pledged. Cate

they indict the punishment. of death on the .state
criminals, after such engagement to save them
without confessing that their change of purpose pro-
ceeds from their fear of danger ? Can they announce
to Europe that they dare not exercise the preroga-
tive of mercy, from an apprehension of popular vio-
lence ? Has. a GoVernment, under intimidation
from the populace, that character of stability and
strength which can comtnand respect or maintain
order ? Will the Victors in such a contest be satis-
fied with a single triumph; and abdicate their power
when they have satiated their Vaigeance ? Should
the King interpose pardon, are his advisers sure,
that attid the excitement which they have paused,
his authority would be respected or 'the objects of
his mercy spared ? ere a few of the alarm-
ing questions which the fatal blunder of the Ca-
binet and the Chamber suggest. Even no* the pol
pularity of the King is endangered, or his re-
putation fqr &annuli must be abandoned. The
same tumultuous crowds who shouted under his
windows " Death to Polignac," concluded every
vociferation with the oboruh of " DoWit with the
Ministers." The Ministers are said to have seen
the embarrassit situation of the King, and to have
tendered their resignations. If the tender is ac-
cepted, will not the dissolution of the Cabinet be
ascribed to. popular Menace? If it is refused, will
not his Majesty be accused of resisting the popular
will? During the whole of these transactions, his
Majesty seems to have displayed it presence of mind
and a coolness of purpose, which shows how worthy
he is of the Grown which he wears, and the post
which he occupies. His speeches to the National
Guard are appropriate and eloquent, and the
manner in which they were delivered seems to
have rendered them impressive. Nothing, too,
Could be better than the conduct of this civic
Force, whese intrepid courage in facing danger,
to maintain or restore order, can only be equalled
by its fidelity to the laws, and its, zeal
to sacrifice domestic ease or profitable occupa-
tion, to the performance of military duties, or
the exercise of gratuitous vigilance. Whatever may
be thought of its organization in some circumstances
of the country, when extending to great masses, or
placed under certain commanders, there can be no
question that at various epochs it has saved France
from great calamities. In the invasions of 1814'
and 1815, its beneficial influence was conspicuous
in preserving ordery and without its prompt re-
establishment, the revolution of 1830 could either
not have been accomplished, or would not have lasted
a month.—lirnes.

The 1031 number of The Edinburgh Rcvicw,

published yesterday, contains two articles on sub-
jects which occupy the minds of most persons at

present—namely, the late Revolution in France, and
the General Election and the Ministry. The au-
thor of those articles may be easily recognised. In
the article on the French Revolution, the part which
some great men in power in this country took is
particularly alluded to
" That document, surely, (says the Reviewer, speaking
of the statement drawn up and signed by the Ministry of
Charles X.), is not so swiftly forgotten, which was hailed
with so much rapture by the sycophants of despotism All
over Enrope—and which even in England, gladdened a
few of the most noisy but most despicable creatures, that
are suffered by Providence to crawl upon tEe face of the
earth. They have not assuredly forgotten that firm
And manly document'—that ' highly statesmanlike paper'
that vigorous and decisive instrument, so %veil Worthy
of the great occasion which called it forth.' But if they
have, others have not and its authors may not find it so
easy to wriggie out of it, as its admirers now do to cast
it into the shade."

The Reviewer, like many others, is led to con-
trast the conduct of the French with what would
have been the conduct of the English under similar
circumstances

t, In tasting our eye over the magnificent picture of
which we have only been able to sketch a faint outline,
we must again, as in reviewing the contests of the Senate
which preceded the battle in the field, acknowledge the
superiority of our neighbours over ourselves, It can hardly'
ha doubted that were any marked attempts made against
the liberties of this country, the English people would in
some way resist, and would sooner or later make an effec-
tual stand against oppression. But it is to us equally
' clear, that despotism would have far too good a chance of
being successful in the first instance. So many would go
about preaching up prudence, moderation, peaceable mea-
nures ; so prodigious an effusion of cant would be made in
favour of our immaculate Tribunals, that the tend-
ency would, we fear, be pretty general to have the ques-
tion between the government and the people brought to
issue in a Court of Law. Yet who can pretend to doubt that
almost all Courts of Law lean perpetually towards the ex-
isting government? Who can doubt that the Judges are, in
their nature, well-wishers to what they term a firm or
strong Government, and regard with a jealous eye all po-
pular feeling and popular rights ? Who is so ignorant of
judicial proceedings as not to know that a little new law
is always forthcoming for any pressing occasion; home-
times raked up- from old authorities or long forgotten
cases, sometimes derived from • vague and common law
principles—sometimes boldly, and even impudently, made
to suit the purpose of the hour? Who does not know
that the Learned Judges have a way of just grinding a
little law for tie present use—so that, though you may
not always be able to tell beforehand by what route they
will arrive at their conclusion, you have a pretty good
guess of the side they will decide for—namely, the Crown
or its officers, against the people and their friends."
1 hat our Judges are here described by the hand of
n roaster, no one can well dispute. But the beauty
of the business is, that they can on occasions decide
either way without impeachment of their integrity.
In that store-house of iniquity, the English law, Mr.
Justice Either-sides, us Mr. Bentham terms the
functionary, can never be at a loss for grinding ma•
terials to suit his views. But as to invasions of
English liberties—attempts made against the liber-
ties of the people of this country, who is to make
the attempt ? In Fiance there was a struggle be-
tween the King and the nation, and the king was
defeated. But who is to make an attempt against
English liberties? Will a boronghmonger Govern-
ment attack boroughmongers ? Dog, says the
Turkish proverb, will not eat dog. Would borough-
mongers be such arrant fools as to cut their own
throats by making the King absolute ? Why, they
derive all their consequence from the Parliament.
" The English people would in some way resist."
Resist, hew ? Would the English people resist any
encroachment on its liberties by the Parliament ?
Because any person in this country would be insane
to think of any attack on the people, except through
Parliament. Ours is a Parliamentary Government.
The Oligarchy names the Parliament, and the King
is merely the head. Every thing • in England is
different from what it seems, and this able Reviewer,
while extolling the French for their promptitude in
resisting encroachments on their liberties, still ex,
erts himself to perplex the question, by epenking us
if there was any resemblance between the po-
sition end character of the French Chambers, and
those of the Parliament of England. The question
in this country can never be between the.Govern-
merit and the Parliament, but between one division
of the Parliament rind another, between the ins and
the outs—between the shares of the loaves and
fishes and those who seek to share them. From
the top to the bottom every thing in England is
fiction, and hence we find this able:writer constantly
comparing realities in one country w►th what in
another country have nothing in common with them
but the mune. All that the writer says about the
French Peerage seems to us liable to the same ob.
jection—namely, that objects essentially distinct
are contrasted with each other. " If nobility (be
says) is to expire with each Peer that is created,
what an enormous influence is given to the Crown
over the families of the Aristocracy 1" Ile might
us well say " what influence an American President
has over the families of the Semite!" Where there
is a real, and not a virtual representation, the Crown
is necessarily identified with the nation, and no one
would ever dream of the idea of seeking in a Peer-
age to counteract the representatives of the nation.
The Peers, too, would have no motive for malting
themselves obnoxious to the nation, by opposing the
Deputies, for the sake of a King who thirst not re-
sist the Deputies. The prevailing idea in France is,
that the elevation to the peerage should be alto-
gether is personal distinction, and the sons of Peers

would no more think of succeeding to the peerage
than the son of a Judge would think of succeeding ton
Judgeship. A Senator in America never thinks
that his son should succeed to a Senatorship. The
English aristocracy are powerful in prOperty, and
possess the Government ; and the people being
their property, it Is natural they should think their
sons ought to succeed to the property. But in
France the people are every thing, and the aristo-
cracy a matter of history ; and the peopip, having
only utility in view; wish to have a Peerage in the
sense of a Senate. The Peerage of England ought
to be put out of the question when we are speaking
of a country like France. What the writer says of
the National Guards is also, we think, founded on
a misapprehension of the difficulties the Freneli have
to struggle with. The writer dreads the National
Guard. But what security can there be for tran-
quillity in times of convulsion like that afforded by
arming of all those who have the deepest interest -in
the maintenance of it ? We cordially subscribe to
the observation of the Reviewer that England and
Europe will derive immense benefit from what has
taken place in France.
" Finally (he says) we take it to be clear that the
honest and generous emulation which has ever made the
two greatest nations of Modern Europe run the same race
of rivalry in improvement, will now help in the amend.
ment of whatever defects exist in our institutions. The
people of England will not long brook any marked infe-
riority to their neighbours ; and especially will such an
eclipse be galling if it be on the freedom upon which they
have so long prided themselves as their distinguishing and
exclusive excellence. France has now a freer Govern-
ment than England. This truth must be told."---Morning
chronicle.

The German Sovereigns are said to be affected
with a panic at the progress of the Belgian insur-
rection. If their fears were to teach them wisdom
it would be well for mankind. They have created
the cause of their own alarm by governing, not in
accordance with, but in contempt of, public opinion.
They could not bear the language of truth; they
proscribed it from their Palaces; they silenced it in
the journals; but now they are forced to hear it
when it speaks in a voice of thunder! It is clear
that Sovereigns who are taken completely unawares
by the present state of things in Europe had no
foresight—no political sagacity whatever—neither
they nor their Ministers ;—yet such a state of things,
or something Ike it, had been often predicted by
writers who wished Kings to understand that their
own honour and security could have no lasting foun-
dation but in the happiness of their subjects. But
this, which is the object of all good government,
scarcely ever entered into the thoughts of those
Continental Kings and Cabinets, who now find all
their military barriers but feeble bulwarks against
the flood of revolution. Like the Roman Empe-
rors, they impiously arrogated to themselves a Di-
vine title, while their mode of exercising power be-
trayed any thing but the attributes of divinity. They
allowed themselves to be intoxicated with that insi-
dious poison which most deranges the understanding
and corrupts the heart, and enjoyed the incense of
flattery as the fumes of their daily sacrifice. Who
can wonder that, in their vain notions of regal ex-
cellence arid contempt for the people, they lost
sight of all those great duties which constitute
the virtuous and wholesome efficiency of power ?
—Who can wonder that they considered themselves
exempt from the obligations of morality, and that
they thought it neither crime nor dishonour to vio-
late the most solemn engagements when it suited
their interests or inclinations? Some of them now
hold their Crowns only in consequence of the pa-
triotic spirit with which, after their armies had been
repeatedly beaten by Napoleon, their people rose
and drove the invader from their soil, and which
spirit was excited by Royal promises of Constitu-
tions and civil improvements, which promises have
been most shamefully violated. It is because we
are enemies to the subversion of order, nod every
thing which tends to promote anarchy, that we tell
these plain truths to those who, by hating and per-
secuting truth, and unjustly exercising power, have,
with the exception of England, convulsed the whole
state and elements of society in Europe. Could
any policy based on the broad foundation of wisdom
arid virtue—could any policy that did not contain
within itself the principle of its own destruction,
after an undisturbed growth of 15 years—be shaken
to pieces by the events of three days ? Such is
the stability of the policy which such a Statesman
us Metternich, and his
and to keep .11 pupils, have built up tod
overawe the mind of Europe,
eter-
nal vassalage that most dreaded enemy of unjust
power—opinion, It is time to try another course
—not the course of war and desolation, with the
vain idea of preventing the progress of political re-
formation—but the course of justice, of concilia-
tion, and of voluntary improvement, which it is
yet in their power to do, and thereby render the
revolutionary spirit harmless, before violence pro-
ceeds too fur to listen to the counsels of reason.—
Morning Herald.

All the accounts which have reached us from
Paris, since our last, concur in representing that
capital as having been restored to tranquillity. The
National Guard had behaved with firmness and mo-
deration, in dispersing. the crowds which assembled
in and about the squares and passages of the finials
Royal—the most conspicuous of the ringleaders had
been arrested and conveyed before the Magistrates,
and the King, us well us General Lafayette, had
both - addressed the National Guard in a manner
which cannot fail to produce a powerful effect on all
but the wilful disturbers of the public peace and the
factious creatures of the Ex-King. We hope and
trust, in fact, that, if the Government do not too
soon disclose its wishes again to save the lives of the
Ex-Ministers, there will be no further troubles or
tu-
multuou►s assemblages in Paris; but while we have
some confidence that such will prove to be the
fact, •we are, at the same time, far from thinking
either that the presettt Ministry is one which will
long maintain its possession of power, or that the
French people will be satisfied with the ameliora-
dons which it would deem it necessary to introduce
into the social- system. The revolution was strictly
and truly effected by the people, more for the benefit
of the middle and upper classes than their own;
they learned, by effecting it, the acquit of their
strength, and they have since learned from the jour-
nail the secret of the rights and privileges which
they ought to possess ; and it is not, therefore, to
be expected either that they, or any other part of
the population of France which conceives itself ag-
grieved by exclusion from privileges which are en-
joyed by others, will rest satisfied until the Govern-
ment has proceeded a step farther in the march of
republicanism. Independently of those who are
republicans in principle, and who hope in the course
of dine to see not only it republic established
in France, but in every other, country in Eu-
rope, there is n numerous class opposed to
the restrictions with which the Press is still
fettered, and a still more numerous one which
desires that the elective franchise should he
more extended than it either is at present, or than
the Government or any of its members have signified
an intention of making it. The great bulk of the
people are, in fact, dissatisfied with the present state
of things—one party, on amulet of the exclusion of
the late Royal family from the throne—another, be-
cause there has been merely a change of dynasty
without an extension of the constitution—and a
third, because it conceives that the present Govern-
ment does not thoroughly comprehend the situation
of France or the wishes of Frenchmen, and will
bound its labours to the mere task of preserving the
Charter, and the freedom which it secures. A
change of the present Ministry for one of a more
liberal turn, would do much to allay the prevailing
discontent, more especially if that Ministry, instead
of attempting to oppose, went in some measure with
the stream, and while it placed barriers against its
excess, directed it through useful channels;
sotnething of this kind be not done ere long, it k
by no means out of the range of probability that still
greater changes may be demanded and if refused,
Mi enforced.---rning Advertiser, but if

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

BOVV.STREET.

Yesterday Isaac Rattan, the driver of the Cam-
bridge stage-coach, called " The Times," appeared
before Mr. MlNsittm. to answer to a charge of fa-
lions driving, preferred against him by Jeremiah
Harman, Esq., a Bank Director.
The information having been read to the defendant,
he at once pleaded guilty to the charge.
The Magistrate convicted the defendant in the
full penalty of lOs , which the defendant immediately
paid, together with 10s, costs.
A similar information has been preferred against
the driver of the Walden coach, which will be heard
next Tuesday.