The Sun.
London, England, 1837-07-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Marquis of Blandford has addressed a letter to
us on the subect of two articles in the Chronicle of
Saturday and Monday last. That letter will be found
in another column. We must observe that the Noble
Marquis, in exonerating Mr. Timothy Curtis from the
charge of exceeding his instructions in forwarding to
the Times, without comment and without mutilation,
the documents referred to in the articles in question,
does not by any means meet our statement. We said
in the article in Saturday's Chronicle :
Ws have strong ground for believing that an improper
use has been made by a pretended friend of the confidence
reposed in him by the Noble Marquis. The subject matter
of the correspondence first appeared in the Times some days
ago. The Marquis of Blandford stated that he knew no-
thing of that article till he had seen it in a copy of the
Times sent to him from a provincial town by a friend, and
that he had only communicated his brothet's letter to two
individuals, of whom the one could only have receivel the
information (in Cumberland) on the day it appeared in the
Times, and the other was Timothy Curtis, Esq. (Governor
of the Bank of England), who had sent him the paper, al-
leging at the same time that he had had no hand in its pub-
lication: We wish we could believe that Timothy Curtis,
Esq., who is the Marquis of Blandford's bosom friend and
adviser, did not furnish another justification of the French
proverb, Qui s'excuse s'accuse, and has not in the case of
that friend been accessory to an act which is truly disgrace-
ful to all concerned in it. It is for Timothy Curtis, Esq.,
to show that his confidence has also been betrayed by some
unscrupulous individual of the party, a stranger to the
feelings which have hitherto been deemed sacred amongst
men.'
Our reference here was to the publication of the
substance of the correspondence in the Times of Tues-
day, July 11th, which we stated that the Marquis of
Blandford had positively disclaimed, and which, from
the terms of the disclaimer, we were led to fix upon
Timothy Curtis, Esq. The admission of the Noble
Marquis that Timothy Curtis, Esq., did not exceed
his instructions in publishing in the Times of the 21st
of July, without comment and without mutilation, the
documents in question, is not incompatible with the
Noble Marquis's accusation, by implication, that Ti-
mothy Curtis, Esq., had abused his confidence by
causing to be published the substance of the correspon-
dence in the Times of the 11th of July. In that ar-
ticle (of the Times, July 11) it is said—
" But we should like to see detailed in extenso the corre-
spondence begun by a man in office with a Nobleman, the
heir of a certain spendthrift and pensioned Duke, of which
the object is said to have been to buy the interest of the
son in a borough and a county where there must always
exist some local family influence, by the promise of an
immediate Peerage ! We should further wish to have
an explanation of the motives which have actuated the
aforesaid coroneted pauper in his expulsion of one son from
the borough referred to, and his declared intention to sub-
stitute for him another son, the Radical secretary of a semi
Radical (but always illustrious') Duke. We should re-
joice to gratify the curiosity of our readers by informing
them what course the bargain-making Minister will take
upon a question already raised by the ducal pensioner, of
which the avowed purpose is to exempt his Grace from the
payment of certain duties heretofore the property of the
public, and to transfer the amount of them into the sieve-
like pocket of' his Grace. It will be a curious thing to
ascertain by and by what connection there exists between
the manoeuvres respecting the borough, the manoeuvres on
the part of his Grace respecting the hoped-for plunder of
the public revenue, and the projected, though (we rejoice to
say, in consequence of the unshaken principles of the Noble
Lord upon whom this temptation was tried) rejected,
manoeuvre, of the peerage offered to him during his father's
lifetime."
This is the publication for which we said the world
was indebted to Timothy Curtis, Esq. It is so far in-
accurate that it states the correspondence was begun by
a man in office, Lord John Churchill having alone,
without communication with any man in office, made
the overture to the Marquis of Blandford of his own
suggestion. We know not to what the Noble Mar-
quis alludes when he says " A grossly false, wan-
tonly injurious statement had appeared in a Minis-
terial print respecting myself ; and the only means at
my command of refuting the calumny presented
themselves in the publication of a correspondence
by which the public might correctly learn in what
quarter the proposition I was accused of having myself
made originated, and how it came recommended, en-
forced, and stipulated for." The article in the Times
of the 11th of July first communicated the substance
of the correspondence to the public, and that article
was not of a nature to pass without notice. The state-
ment in a Ministerial print having been subsequent to
the at ticle in the Times of the 11th of July, could
not, of course, have led to the publication of that
article. The question, therefore, now reduces itself
to this. The Marquis of Blandford admits that lie
authorised Timothy Curtis, Esq. to publish the docu-
ments which appeared in the Times of the 21st of
July. Whether Timothy Curtis, Esq. communicated
to the Times of his own accord the substance of the
article of the 11th of July, or whether lie acted in
concert with the Noble Marquis, in order to afford the
latter a pretext for afterwards publishing the docu-
ments, lies between the two bosom friends themselves.
If we adopt the former alternative, all we can say is,
that we should be sorry to see Timothy Curtis, Esq.
in the confidence of any person for whiim we have
any regard ; and if we adopt the latter alternative, we
must say, for the sake of human nature, there are not
many persons who would wish themselves in the situa-
tion of the Noble Marquis. We wish the Tory cause
joy of the accession of character which they can derive
from such a son.—Morning Chronicle.
To the EDITOR of the MORNING CHRONICLE.
Sir,—My attention has been drawn to some severe and
undeserved strictures in your paper of Saturday and Mon-
day upon the conduct of Mr. T. Curtis, as connected with
the publication of the " Blandford Correspondence."
It is due to that gentleman distinctly to state, that in
forwarding to the editor of the Times, without comment and
without mutilation, the documents in question, he has not
in any shape exceeded my instructions.
A grossly false, wantonly injurious statement had ap-
peared in a ministerial print respecting myself ; and the
only means at my command of refuting the calumny pre-
sented themselves in the publication of a correspondence,
by which the public might correctly learn in what quar-
ter the proposition I was accused of having myself made
originated ; and how it came recommended, enforced, and
stipulated for. To that public I wholly and confidently
leave the decision upon its merits, and upon the disclaimer
DOW attempted ; but I cannot conclude without thanking
you, Sir, for the obligation you confer upon me by bring-
ing under public notice the fact, that notwithstanding Sr
Robert Peel's inability to comply with my wishes on a for-
mer occasion, I have not belied the principles by which I
am guided, by a petulant rush into those of an opposite
character.

am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
Howbury-park, July 23. BLANDFORD.

" Frequent Parliaments," quoth a certain moralizing
partisan of yesterday evening—" frequent Parliaments,
under the present 'system of voting, would speedily ruin
England. Such temptations cannot be thrown out—
such arts cannot be practised—such intimidation and
falsehood cannot be employed, without gradually lower-
ing the morals of the people," &c. It is very true that
practices of such deep and base iniquity as are above
referred to cannot be repeated often, or continued long,
without one of two inevitable consequences—either the
people must at length become wholly depraved and sunk
in irredeemable corruption, or the people must turn upon
the audacious criminals who thus attempt to destroy
their political morality, and inflict on them a punishment
so signal as effectually to prevent a repetition of their
guilt. But who is it, we ask, that in this recent instance
have ensnared the people by " such temptations," or
have employed against the public morals of the elec-
tars of Greatßritain and Ireland " such arts"—" such
intimidation"—and " such falsehoods," as those which
in such righteous phrase are inveighed against by the
evening monitor of yesterday ? Who had the means
of " temptation" and " intimidation" most abundantly
at their disposal as engines for seducing, that is for
corrupting, the people ? Who is it that really have
resorted to such profligate expedients, and that to an
excess unheard of before in the case of the most aban-
doned politicians that ever oppressed or disgraced this
country ? The Conservative journals, our own and
those of our Contemporaries, have teemed with com-
munications from respectable parties, descriptive of the
tyrannical and wicked efforts made by the Ministers
of the Crown to deter the honest constituency of the
metropolis and its adjacent boroughs from a free and
voluntary exercise of those civil rights which the law
professes to assign to them, by appealing on one side
to their hopes, on another to their apprehensions—
corrupt hopes and sordid apprehensions—and acting

I upon both for the ignominious purpose of making all
the political privileges of " the people" subservient to
the selfish interests of one greedy faction of low-minded
adventurers. There isnot a single department of the state
the whole power and patronage of which have been ex-
erted since King William's death to any other cud than
;he corruption of electors, by bribing or frightening
ihem into a gross prostitution of their sacred franchise,
in the support of partisans who would in torn prosti-
tute their own votes to the maintenance of these Mi-
nisters in office. There is hardly a tradesman east or
west of Temple-bar who has not been outraged by
threat or bribe, with a view to the betrayal of the trust
reposed in him by the Constitution. there not a
right of appointment to any office, however mean,
vested in any functionary of Lord Melbourne's Govern-
ment, which has notheen bartcred,on condition of prompt
payment by a vote, or kept in abeyance to extend the
influence of the Treasury by a multiplication of open
mouthed expectants. had it not been for the abso-
lute necessity of providing attendants about the
Queen's person from among the upper classes of
the aristocracy, it is obvious that the warrants, com-
missions, or whatever may be the official instrument by
virtue of which Ladies of the Bedchamber, Maids of
Honour, &c., enjoy the luxury of standing behind the
Queen's chair or in her presence, would have been as
rigorously " kept back" as those through the cunning
postponement of which it has been managed that
greengrocers and fishmongers should be kept by dozens
nibbling at the same naked hook, and violating their
consciences by voting in the teeth of them, without
the least real chance of being remunerated by the
" Royal custom" for the visionary prospect of which
they had sold themselves to a Government they de-
tested. The first impelling motive to practical reform,
as expounded by the Whigs when they came a few
years ago into office, was the moral obligation of
" purifying the foul streams of corruption which
flowed through all the channels of the state, " ruling
the people by their reason," instead of their sordid
appetites, and constituting a " Government WITHOUT
patronage !!" What a beautiful illustration of this
sublime theory—what an interesting fulfillment of this
philosophical programme, has been afforded by the
transactions of those 'Whig mountebanks who proclaim
to the people of England, in their electioneering
letters (Lord John Russell to Stroud, for example),
that "they are the Ministers after the Queen's own
heart I" When the Conservatives shall again occupy,
as occupy they will, in far greater force than ever, the
Opposition benches of the House of Commons, we
shall ourselves be the first to denounce them to the
country if they do not compel a grave and searching
inquiry into the malpractices to which we have above
alluded, and drag into day the hideous and baneful
system of tyrannical intermeddling with the freedom of
election, whereof instances almost endless have been
detailed to us within the last week. As for the
result of such inquiries, Mr. Grote appears to
have had a sere anticipation of them when he
affected to turn the tables on Mr. Palmer, and in
Pharisaic phrase thank God that lie (Mr. Grote) had
" not intimidated," that he had not bribed, or threa-
tened, or corrupted. Not he ;he would a thousand
times rather lose his election. Now, it would be droll
enough if the said Mr. Grote should (we do not say
personally, but through his agents) be proved before a
Committee of the House of Commons to have threa-
tened, bribed, and intimidated—nay, to have mustered
fagot, and even dead voters—induced electors to vote
knavishly, on the double qualification of householders
and liverymen, at different hours of the day—nay, have
set on foot the experiment, twenty-four hours after-
wards so brilliantly repeated in i\larylebone, of conju-
ring up electors long since dead. It will, we assure
our readers, to very comical if these very malpractices
should turn out to have been one and all tried by the
agents of the fastidious banker, and if, besides disco-
vering to the world that such things have been done for
him, which he taunted Mr. Palmer with having perpe-
trated against him, he (Mr. Grote) shall have the oppor-
tunity of adopting the very alternative for which he de-
clared himself so ready, viz. that of finally losing his elec-
tion. For Westminster it is needless now to say more
than that was lost through gross mismanagement. The
same Conservative power is still vigorous and health-
ful as three or four months ago brought in Sir F. Bur-
dett. But the professional exertions which ought to
have been exclusively given to the cause of Conserva-
tism in Westminster, were simultaneously devoted to
that of democracy in the City of London and in the
borough of Finsbury, thus furnishing, if not consola-
tion for the past, at least a lesson of discretion for the
future. The returns published of elections already
over are in some important circumstances falsified by
the Ministerial papers. We have promised our read-
ers a correct return of the variations from the state of
parties in the last Parliament, and of the respective
gains and losses of strength. At five o'clock yester-
day the accounts, officially authenticated, gave the
Conservatives an increase against the Radicals of ten
clear seats, making no less a difference than twenty
on a division. With this one fact, for the truth of
which we pledge ourselves, we now conclude. But
the success of the Conservative cause outstrips the
calculations of its friends, as it turns into ridicule the
vapid boastings of the Ministers.—Times.
The elections in the metropolitan districts at the
present time afford no just criterion of the national sen-
timents, and their results will not be found to corres-
pond with the general results of the present appeal to
the public judgment. We shall not affect to make
light of the advantage which the unconstitutional party
has gained in the metropolis, nor to conceal our regret
that the result has been so unfavourable to those who
manfully stood forward as the advocates of British in-
stitutions. We think it right, however; to protest
against the deceitful attempt to represent these results
as great victories on the part of the Ministry, when
they are nothing more than a repetition of the circum-
stances which existed in the last Parliament, and which
did nut enable the Ministry to conduct the affairs of
Government with success, or to satisfy the public with
good measures. There are two circumstances to be taken
into consideration, which have unquestionably, to a great
extent, affected the metropolitan elections,and which have
nothing to do with the political sentiment of the public.
The first is that the influence of the Court has been
used to the utmost, and to the most unjustifiable de-
gree, against those whose object in getting into Par-
liament is to support the monarchy. Every one ac-
quainted with London must be well aware that, among
the class of tradespeople whose votes collectively may
be said to determine the metropolitan elections, the in-
fluence arising from the patronage of the Court is
very great. It is, in short, an understood thing among
them that their vote is at the disposal of the Court
agents, through whom the commands which they re-
ceive in the way of their trade, are usually conveyed.
We do not say that this rule is universal, and we are
aware of several honourable instances in which the very
opposite rule has been followed within these few days ;
but it is an ordinary rule, and there has been neither
stint nor scruple in taking advantage of it upon the pre-
sent occasion. The warrants to tradespeople have been
suspended until after the election, and an implied threat
of withholding the Court custom has been held in ter-
rorem over those who were thought to have no good will
to radical domination. This says but very little for the
sincerity of men who owe every thing to the part
which they had in the Reform Bill ; but to such acts
will men descend whose love of place gets the better
of their patriotism, their consistency, and their know-
ledge of what is justly due to the freedom of elec-
tion. The other circumstance to which we have
adverted is the absence from town of so very great a
portion of the gentry, whose votes, had they been here,
would all have been given to the Conservative candi-
dates. The classes upon whose votes the unconstitu-
tional party depends are always on the spot, and
always eager for the broil and battle of election affairs.
The metropolitan gentry are able to leave town, and
therefore they do so at this season. But, in addi-
tion to the number which the season takes away, we
must bring into account the hundreds, and, perhaps,
we should say thousands, who are in the county
attending to elections in which they are more
nearly interested than in the metropolitan elec-
tions. Besides candidates and the friends of can-
didates, there is an army of men of law and agents
of various descriptions taken out of town at general
elections. Almost every one of these is a voter for
one or other of the metropolitan districts, and of that
class most likely to vote for Conservative members.

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1837.

We have no doubt that in this way the Conservative
candidates have been deprived of hundreds of votes
which, lint for the general election throughout the
country they would have had. When we call to mind
that notwithstanding these great disadvantages—dis-
advantages which, we are happy to say, do not apply
in other places as they do in the metropolis—the
Gmservative candidates have been more successful than
at any election which took place in the reign of the
late King, we may well maintain that the metropo-
litan elections afford no just foundation for the vocife-
rous claim of " victory" which has been made in refe-
rence to them ; nor is any estimate of the result of the
elections generally to be formed from the event of the
metropolitan elections.—Morning Herald.
The elections, so far as they have proceeded, have
exceeded our most sanguine anticipations. At the
period of the latest arrival.; in town last night the ga'n
to the Conservative cause was, upon balance, no less
than eight votes, making, on a division, a difference of
sixteen. From this, our estimate of eight, we exclude
Mr. Horsley Palmer, who is sure of the seat for the
City of London—Lord Teignmouth, who will, in all
probability, have the seat for Marylebone, and other
candidates for the Metropolitan boroughs who have not
been returned in consequence merely of the introduc-
tion into England of the Irish system. We are now
more fully convinced than we have been at any former
period that Mr. O'Connell is the master of the Admi-
nistration. He has initiated them into the mysteries,
and compelled or persuaded them to adopt the princi-
ples, of his Irish electioneering. Proofs of intimida-
tion, perjury, and fraud, meet us in every quartet. And
in spite of all these we have upon the official returns a
clear gain of eight votes, although, by official manage-
ment, we have already encountered the elections upon
the result of which Ministers most confidently relied.
The City of London election, beyond all dispute
the most important of the metropolitan contests, will
present to us, when it is thoroughly investigated, as it
will be, the most perfect specimen of the Irish O'Con-
nell system of perjury and fraud. Hundreds were ad-
mitted to vote against Mr. Palmer who, in consequence
of having changed since the registration of last year
the hovel in which they live, had no right to vote at
all. The resurrection system had been resorted to
unsparingly ; to such an extent, indeed, that if the
poll, were rectified merely by the dedpction from Mr.
Grote's voters of the men who have voted, though
dead and buried many months, Mr. Palmer would have
a decided majority over him. In addition to this, the
poll clerks, appointed by Radical sheriffs, and deter-
mined Radicals of course, hare, in numberless in-
stances, -we believe, taken upon themselves to assign
to one candidate the votes which were given to
another. Mr. Palmer's Committee are about to
publish the poll, so as to enable every voter to
reclaim his right where its exercise has been fal-
sified by the return. There will be many instances
of such OiConnellite falsification. This is cer-
tain. It was difficult to resist the introduction of Irish
politics, but when Irish morals thus invade us it
is evidently time that something should be done.
The result of the inquiry by a Parliamentary Committee
of the House of Commons into the city of London
election will not be merely to show that Mr. H. Pal-
mer ought to have been returned ; it will be to show
distinctly and unequivocally that he ought to have oc-
cupied a high station on the poll ; it will be to show
distinctly and unequivocally that not Mr. H. Palmer
only, but at least one or two other Conservative can-
didates, at an election honestly conducted, would have
been returned for the city. We hope the Conserva-
tives at the next general election will start four candi-
dates for the city of London. Had they done so upon
the present occasion they would have seated probably
three of them. The poll will show 5,000 plumpers for
Mr. Palmer, the whole of whom would have voted for
three other Conservative candidates. And had three
other Conservative candidates of the right sort been in
the field who can doubt that their personal, local, and
commercial influence and character would have created
an accession of force sufficient to overpower the whole
united strength of the Ministerial Radicals ? One of
our Ministerial Contemporaries quotes sarcastically
some observations which fell from us on the occasion
of the festival of the City of London Conservative
Association. The sarcasm is ineffectual. We re-
peat now in all confidence and gaiety what we said
then :

" And is it not, as some of the speakers finely and justly
remarked, an extraordinary and an intolerable thing that
the multitude of citizens, of which we yesterday witnessed
the magnificent array—a multitude comprehending so large
a proportion of the wealth, intelligence, and respectability
of the City of London, should be withoet a single repre-
sentative of their political opinions in that House of Par-
liament which, according to the Constitution of England,
ought to represent the people ? This, we venture to say,
is a state of things too unnatural and monstrous to be per-
manent. The meeting of yesterday proves that the Con-
servatives of the City of London can, if they will, return
at the next election three at least out of the four Members
which that city gives to the House of Commons ; and we
hope we do not reason rashly when we conclude, from the
spirit displayed at this meeting, that they will if they can."
The state of the poll, when the effect of the O'Con-
nellite system of falsehood and perjury is, as it will be,
abstracted from it, will show that the City Conserva-
tives could have returned three Members at least.
That they started only one was entirely owing to their
desire to secure the election of Mr. Palmer, which was
not too high a compliment to that gentleman, for none
can be too high, but which was a mistake as to the true
electioneering principle. Let the poll be examined—
we rejoice to say that it will be examined—and it will,
we venture to predict, show most conclusively that, had
four candidates on the Conservative side been set up,
with the fair share of management of the machinery of
the election which their number would have given them,
and their natural share of personal and local influence,
three of them, at least, would have been returned.
The same O'Connell system which has been pursued
in the city of London has been pursued elsewhere.
There is no shadow of truth in the return about to
be made of the result of the Marylebone election.
There also the O'Connell system, for everything is
now O'Connellised, of fraud and perjury has been
predominant. Lord Teignmouth will appeal to a
Committee of the House of Commons, and he will
be the Member for Marylebone for the next Par-
liament. But the Ministerialists have not been con-
tented with resorting to fraud and perjury. They
have had recourse to intimidation to an extent never
before witnessed in Great Britain. They knew that their
case was desperate, and they have employed accordingly
the most desperate expedients. There is not a man in
Westminster, there is not a man in the city of Lon-
don, there is not a man in Marylebone, there is not a
man in Finsbury, there is not a man in the Tower
Hamlets, there is not a man in Southwark, there is
not a man in Greenwich or Woolwich, N%ll o holds a
situation under Government, or whose position is
such as to make the favour of Government an object
of his anxiety, that has not been compelled to vote for
Ministerial or Radical candidates by the pressure of a
coercion more harsh, tyrannical, and brutal than has
ever before been applied to English voters. The in-
fluence of the Government and of all the dependents
and the hangers-on of the Government, and of all the
expectants of anything good which the Government
have in esse or in posse to bestow, has been exerted
to the utmost. Every man has received from the
Treasury, or from persons acting under its authority,
mandates the most arbitrary, domineering, and inso-
lent as to the course he should pursue at the elections.
Never, we venture to say, in England has insolent,
vulgar, and brutal dictation been practised by Govern-
ment so unsparingly and with so much success. No
mistake has been allowed about the matter. In some
way or other everybody employed in the public
service has been given to understand that if he
and his connections did not show themselves to
be zealous Radicals at the elections there was
little probability that he would long continue to be a
placeman.7 A new system of official morals has been
promulgated. It has been denounced as an unpar-
donable crime to eat bread in the service of the people
of England, and not vote at the dictation of the
O'Connell Ministry, Uneh has at various times been
said by the Ministerial papers against the system of
exclusive dealing. But never was the system of e 4,
elusive dealing so completely put in force as at the
present election. The Court tradesmen have been
kept without thciF warrants, But this is nothing.
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