The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

" Criminals, with all their cunning and their
trickery, are, beyond comparison, the most stupid of
mankind." So says Vidocq ; and the Times agrees
with him ; while the public, we apprehend, will be
little disposed to differ from either. Our Contempo-
rary, however, is not satisfied with merely quoting and
approving the apothegm, but must needs accompany
it with a practical illustration. It is, perhaps, quite I
as well that he has done so ; for it is really doubtful
to us if the public would give credit to his mere affir-
mation, even upon a subject so little open to contro-
versy as his own criminality. Our Contemporary has
just adopted as his newest character the interesting one
of a " downright Englishman," in which he " begs to
be permitted to ask two plain and apposite questions,"
viz. What cause of triumph to Great Britain is to be
found in the raising of the siege of Bilboa ? or what
ground for approval of Lord Palmerston's foreign
policy is to be found in the measures by
which that event has been produced ? These
two questions the Times answers in a fashion
that must have induced its readers to add to the maxim
of Vidocq—probatum est. Of a truth " Criminals,
with all their cunning and their trickery, are, beyond
comparison, the most stupid of mankind." What has
the Spanish war between the house of Austria and
Bourbon, at the beginning of the last century, or what
has the war of 1808 to do with the question thus clum-
sily brought under consideration ? Who has ever
sought to justify the policy of 1836 by reference to
either of these periods of English intervention in a
foreign war of succession or defence ? But as the argu-
ment, such as it is, is now for the first time brought
forward,. let us dwell upon it for a moment. What,
according to the writer in the Times, was the justi-
fication of England for flinging herself as a principal
party into the war between the houses of Austria and
Bourbon ? To preserve the equilibrium of Europe,
he replies. It was not preserved; it was destroyed—
still the justification is complete. Is the equilibrium
of Western Europe menaced now ? Are the designs of
Russia a mockery, a mere phantom ? Is the Holy Al-
liance but a name without a substance ? Upon the out-
limak c)f her last revolution, when France stood alone,
strong no doubt in the spirit of her people, but weak
:In the infancy of her institutions—a proposal
was made from the Northern Powers to the Sovereign
of Spain to send eighty thousand men to the foot of
the Pyrenees, as " an army of observation," whose
suspicious presence might afford an opportunity for an
ease restoration of the deposed tyrant. Had the pro-
posal been acceded to, where then would have been
the " equilibrium of Western Europe ?" Restore
Don Carlos in Spain, and you Russianise the entire
Peninsula. In Lisbon and Madrid there must always
exist analogous instituticns, an absolute Monarchy, or
a Constitution more or legs restricted. Two days
since the Times told us that Russia watched with
anxious and jealous eye the progress of affairs in
Spain. Why? Is there any man in England so
blind as not to see that it is to secure the preponde-
rance of her own despotic principles in the Penin-
sula ? Suffer the Holy Alliance to enthrone Don
Carlos as the living representative of these opinions,
and where, we again ask, is " the equilibrium of
Western Europe ?" What utter and contemptible
nonsense it is to tell us that the struggle in Spain
is one merely between two foreign Princes—that it is
" a strictly personal contest for an hereditar), crown !"
As if the Powers who contribute to support that con-
test care a rush individually either for the Queen or the
1-;rtencler ? 'What cause of triumph, then, we are
asked, is to be found in the raising of the siege of
Bilboa ! Ample cause we say. There is not now
.a shadow of doubt upon our minds that it secures the
:final success of the Constitut:onal arms. This is one
•-catree of triumph. Oh ! but " under no circumstances
,(says the profound jurist of the Times) have any people
:a right to make war for the indulgence of a senti-
wilt or a fancy!" And so the difference between
despotism and liberty is but " a sentiment," a " mere
fancy If Don Carlos were to return to Madrid
it could be only as an absolute Monarch, govern-
ing upon absolute principles. The success of
Queen Christina will be the success of a Con-
scitiitional Sovereign administering liberal institu-
tio.is. Here is the difference, and we are to
be told, forsooth, that it is a mere " sentiment,"
a fancy !" And this is the doctrine of a " down-
right Englishman !" But even for the assertion of
what you call a " sentiment," and we a vital principle
of government, England has not " made war." And
here, after all, is the only important question at issue
—whether the co-operation of our marines at Bilboa,
'vas justifiable under the Quadruple Treatry ? Empha-
tically we say it was. We must protest against being
dragged into a desultory discussion upon the policy
of that treaty. It is enough for us that it exists, that
it has been acted upon by a Whig Government and
by a Tory Government, and that the emergency it
contemplated has arisen, still exists, and that its sti-
pulations must be fulfilled. By the " additional arti-
cles" of the treaty we are bound to assist the Queen of
Spain " with a naval force." One of the cities of her
kingdom—a seaport—is besieged by the rebel army.
A British naval force proceeds to assist it, gets in,
and anchors in the river. Both banks are covered
with Carlist batteries and strengthened positions, and
our ships are fired on. It becomes necessary for the
purposes of military operations that the Queen's army
should pass from bank to bank. For 'what purpose
are our ships in the river if not to convey them across ?
Commander, now (thanks to the discernment of his
Sovereign) Captain, Lapidge "assists" in performing
this service. Still are the British ships and gunboats
fired upon by the Carlists. How, may we ask, could
the British ships remain in the river to give their as-
sistance unless protected from the fire opened from the
Carlist batteries ? Suppose Villareal to be in pos-
session. of the Desierto, and Lord John Hay to be on
board the Ringdove under its walls. He clearly has
a right to anchor in that position, if it seem desir-
able, for the purpose of rendering the assistance which
it is his duty to give. If it become impossible to re-
tain his position without driving the enemy from the
battery that opened on him, is he not justified in
sending a bay of his men ashore for the purpose ?
Most indisputably he is. What, then, is the meaning
of the senseless clamour that is raised on account of
the decisive part taken by our marines in the glorious
affair of the 24th ? Admitting that we are bound by
the terms of the Quadruple Treaty, it is impossible to
censure a course that is strictly within its limits ; and
to those who maintain the contrary we can only again
reply in the apposite quotation of the Times, " With
all their cunning and their trickery, they are, beyond
comparison, the most stupid of mankind. —Morning
Chronicle.
Whether from an innate sense of justice, or from a
regard to social interests, it is certain that mankind in
general have not been backward in acknowledging the
claims of the meritorious : and hence, among all com-
munities, barbarous as well as refined, there have ever
been some of their members whose superior talents,
virtues, or services are allowed to have rendered them
worthy of what is popularly called immortality. Ac-
cording to the peculiar character and sphere of their
distinction, the admiration of posterity has been variously
awarded to them in the form of pyramids, statues, and
Celtic cairns ; at one time a place in the heathen mytho-
logy, at another in the Christian calendar. Now, the ob-
ject of all this is scarcely more to honour the dead than
to stimulate the living—in other words, to engage the
probationary citizen in a generous emulation of the tri-
umphant one, and thus to promote the general good of
society. That so just and powerful an incentive, founded
on that principle of rewards and punishments which
enters more or less into all good governments, both
human and divine, should not have been neglected by
our sagacious ancestors in framing the British Consti-
tution, will create no surprise among persons who are
familiar with its otherwise admirable provisions for
eliciting superior talent and encouraging public ser-
vials. Thus, when an individual is supposed to pos-
sess the resources which fit him for promoting local
or national interests, an honourable field for the exer-

cise r and requital of his capabilities is opened up to
i u the Commons House of Parliament. On the

aa-et\ hand, when a man has signally distinguished
hifidelf by public services of a more determinate illus-
trious,. and lasting character, whether in the Lower
How ;e of Legislature or in the various spheres of war-
like exploits, diplomacy, learning, commerce, or juris-

prudence, the highest honours and privileges of the
Peerage are conferred upon him, both as a permanent
acknowledgment of the obligations he has conferred
upon the nation, and as a standing incentive to the
analogous exertions of his countrymen. In this point
of view, it is easy to see, that as there is no greater
chance of degeneracy among the sons of illustrious men
than among the brood of obscure dunces, such honours
and privileges have been made hereditary, not from
oversight, corruption, or caprice, but from a principle
of provident and enlightened justice, in order that
while ennobling and chartering a select body of citi-
zens whose large possessions and cherished fame may
dispose them to prosecute national improvements with
that feeling of honest solicitude which a reckless,
nameless, and pennyless democracy can know nothing
about, the right of transmitting their honours through
a line of descendants may present, by its mere perma-
nency, such a tribute of public gratitude as is simply
equivalent to the imperishable benefits they have be-
queathed to the community. Apart from the existing
noblemen who have been raised to the Peerage by
dint of their own personal eminence in some of the
walks previously mentioned, by far the greater
proportion of British Peers hold their honours on
ancestral grounds, arising from the historical ser-
vices of such men as Clarendon, Marlborough,
Walpole, Hardwicke, Mansfield, Nelson, and the
other equally glorious names whose rewards, hav-
ing been honourably struggled for and won in
the faith of their permanent integrity, could
not possibly be withdrawn from their heirs, with-
out a degree of national perfidy and folly, which, be-
sides disgracing the English character, would operate
as a discouragement in all time coming to the efforts
and sacrifices of future aspirants in every department
of the public service. The hereditary honours attained
and transmitted by the class of citizens we are advert-
ing to form part and parcel of the immortality, by the
generous ambition of which they were incited to a
course of useful or splendid exertion for the good and
glory of their country : so that, to impair or abridge
the full realization of the promise on which they acted,
would not only constitute a practical plucking of these
great men, but would imply an injustice of treat-
ment precisely similar to that which would deprive
the posterity of Watt and Arkwright of the fruits
of their patent labours. The cases are precisely ana-
logous. What has been trusted to by the mechani-
cal genius of Britain has been equally relied on by
her learning, enterprise, and chivalry. Besides, in
considering the question of what is due to the original
ornaments and present representatives of the Peerage,
we ought not to forget that the House of Lords, by
its very constitution, excludes no man from its honours
and privileges. Its ermine and coronets are acces-
sible to the humblest subject of the empire ; and as
these have been honourably acquired by Nelson,
an unpatronized midshipman ; by Eldon, a solicitor's
clerk ; by Baring, a city merchant ; and by Butler,
a humble student among the Dissenters—so, the dis-
tinctions thus awarded by England to her more cele-
brated sons are neither meted out with a partial or
ungenerous hand, nor were they, in point of duration,
meant to be restricted within any other limits than
those of a extinct line. Open, therefore, as such
distinctions are to all orders of the community, the
House of Lords is substantially a Commons House of
Parliament—possessing in contradistinction to tempo-
rary inducements for pleasing the mob, a permanent
interest in improving and perpetuating the public in-
stitutions under which they themselves have been dig-
nified with flattering requitals and attestations. Grant
that some of its members are undistinguished men.
Are there no undistinguished men in the House of
Commons ? Or rather, are there no distinguished fools
in that house, who, like Mr. Otway Cave and Mr.
Went worth Beaumont, are mischievously impatient
of that humiliating condition of theirs, whereby
congenial constituencies have put them into a po-
sition to moot the absurdities which a wiser Pro-
vidence has denied them the talent and influence to
realize ? Whatever may be the absence of particular
and personal distinction on the part of some members
of the hereditary peerage, a generous people would
recoil from visiting this on the existing possessors of
long-descended honours, as much as from insulting
the memory and disparaging the genius of Bacon by
confiscating the estates of his posterity, because they
are contributing little to the advancement of the induc-
tive philosophy. Show us any two political harle-
quins in the House of Lords that can graduate with
the Mr. Otway and Mr. Wentworth aforesaid, and
we will abandon our defence of the order with at least
as much agility as these gentlemen can possibly dis-
play in performing their pantomimic movements, or in
flourishing their powerless wand. Of late, it has been
the fashion with the O'Connell press to malign the
House of Peers, as obstructing and defeating almost
every measure of useful legislation or salutary reform.
Now to this charge, which is urged with an impudent
pertinacity proportioned to its utter falsehood, we have
given a thorough refutation fifty times over. At pre-
sent, therefore, we only observe, that the reluctance
of their Lordships to pass the Reform Bill affords
neither proof nor presumption of the obstructive
biases imputed to them in consequence of their hosti-
lity to that measure. With what freedom we remarked
upon their hostility to it at the time must be fresh in
the recollection of our readers. We thought their
Lordships wrong, and we said so in no equivocal
terms. But to persist in attaching a general charge
against them, founded upon one particular case, or to
pronounce a sweeping sentence of condemnation, be-
cause in a given instance their apprehensions of anar-
chy indisposed them to follow out the demands of an
excited people, is neither fair dealing nor good philo-
sophy. The period when Earl Grey broached his
plan of reform was one of great commotion and tu-
mult. Political extravagances of all conceivable kinds
had been generated by the French revolution of the
barricades. Intimidated, therefore, by forebodings of
national disaster arising from the sudden elevation of
multitudes to political power, their Lordships errone-
ously, though not inexcusably, imagined that by declin-
ing to disturb the old representative system at such a
season of agitation they should best consult the real
interests of the community, which are essentially
identified with their own. To the clearly expressed
wishes, however, of the nation and the King they at
length yielded in a consitutional way. To the clearly
proved evils of any part of our system they are still
equally ready to apply such efficient remedies as are
strictly consistent with the organic integrity of the
Constitution. But to all that savours of democratic
faction, Popish encroachment, and Whig treachery,
they have heretofore offered, as we fervently trust they
will continue to do, that undaunted resistance which
is not more creditable to their proud baronial blood
than gratifying and cheering to the intelligent people
of England.— Times.

The letter of Mr. O'Connell to Mr. Wentworth
Beaumont, though not so lengthened as the Hon.
Gentleman's political letters ususually are, contains a
great deal of important matter. In avowing his deter-
mination no longer to support a Church from which
he conscientionsfy dissents, he is only expressing the
sentiment which at this moment animates seven mil-
lions of Irishmen. O'Connell has often been called
the representative 0 f Ireland ; in this instance he may
be so regarded with special propriety. It is clear that
the time is at hand w 'hen the great question, whether
a „,particular Church i s to be supported by the com-
pulsory contributions of those who differ from her,
will be forced on the ;onsideration of the Legislature
in a way it never has b ven before. It is no less mani-
fest what must be the: ultimate, and not very distant
decision of Parliament . on that question. The effort
may be made to get Kid of the subject by a side
wind ; but that will z iot succeed for any length of
time. The matter to, obtrude itself on the con-
sideration of both H oases, and though the deci-
sions both of Lords and Commons may for some
time be adverse to t 1 ie voluntary principle, that
principle must ere long • be recognised and acted on.
It would not, indeed, s arprise us were it to be acted
on throughout Ireland before it is recognised by the
Legislature. Matters •here seem to be rapidly
ap-
proaching a crisis which will defy all the ingenuity
and resources of the esti tb2ishmont to exact from the
Roman Catholic part of tho population a single shil-
ling towards its support ; and the effort on the part of
Government to compel t he payment of the claims of
the Church, by having i •ecourse to physical force ge-
nerally, would not only be inevitably attended by a