The Sun.
London, England, 1837-05-12 00:00:00

spurn indignant - the imputation of such a league.
They tell us tha they positively disagree with all the
V
" new-fangled" doctrines of destruction propaaated by
the Humes, O'Connells, and their followers, but co a-
plain of the vast hardship of " not being permitted to
accept, for the fuitherance of measures which they do
approve of, the voluntary co-operation of men with
whose extreme views they do not coincide, and to
whose destructive measures they lend no assistance."
Mighty well ! Believing these casuists, we must take
for granted that they (the Ministers) do nothhiz to
promote the schemes of the revolutionists, so direct and
obvious in its co-operative tendency as the In iosziog
such people into Parliament. If a candidate who
makes no secret of his design to bring about by all the
means in his power short Parliaments, Universal &a-
frage, the confiscation of Church propertj, the Vo-
luntary principle, and the abolition of the He:,:ditar‘r
Peerage—if such a man meditates the getting into Pax-
liament as the most effective step towards the aceml--
plishment of such organic changes in the Constitution,
it is quite clear that be argues rightly—for that
there exists no engine so promising or well adapted to
the purpose as the power of mosing and speaking, and
giving votes in favour of them, as a Member of the
House of Commons. Thit it is equally manifest that
every man who dreads and sincerely disapproves such
changes, will endeavour to obstruct and prostrate them,
by keeping their abettors, by all constitutional me-
thods, out of Parliament. He who says lie wishes
to preserve the franchise from degradation, the Church
from subversion, the Peerage from what is tantamount
to extinction, and the Crown unassailed by a Repub-
lican democraCy, yet gives his vote to any candidate
who avows his eagerness for the destruction of them
all, is a downright hypocrite, an unprincipled asserter
of that which is not true, and deserves not only to
be sent by the shoulders out of the King's service, but
to be shunned as a disgrace to the society of men of
honour. How, then, are we to explain—to excuse
is out of the question—the conduct of certain Members
of the Melbourne Administration in this contest
between Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Leader ?
On Wednesday the latter candidate declared, sin a
speech addressed to the whole world, his political prin-
ciples to be such as went to the direct overthrow of the
Monarchy. The King's Ministers and their subal-
terns, professing all the while their total dissent from
the views and projects of the Destructive faction, have
openly supported Mr. Leader; yet these constitutional,
these anti-revolutionary Ministers, have actually given
not merely their interest, but their votes, to this pupil
of Joseph Hume, who does not conceal or disguise
his projects for overturning the main institutions of
the Monarchy, and for building a mere democracy on
its ruins. Do we talk -at random? No. Sir R.
Donkin, of thee Ordnance, voted for the revolutionist,
Mr. Leader. Sir Henry Parnell, Paymaster-Ge-
neral, voted for the revolutionist, Mr. Leader.
The Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell, voted
for the revolutionist, Mr. Leader ; though we do
not account for the curious tricks and manoeuvres
played by certain of the poll-clerks in a certain booth,
and in an interest not very favourable% Sir Francis
Burdett, by the alleged fact of their having received
any sinister instructions from any high legal function-
ary. But this is not all. Lord Palmerston, a Cabinet
Minister, and a wholesale dabbler in foreign revolu-
tions, voted for the destructive—the revolutionist—the
republican—the anarchist—Mr. Leader. Why, then,
hat is the plain truth of this case ? Is it not that
Mr. Leader, such as he has described himself, and
such as Mr. Daniel O'Connell has, in his long letter
of dictation to the electors of Westminster, described
him—a sworn supporter of all the O'Connell machi-
nations in Ireland—has been neither more nor less
than the Ministerial candidate, and has, therefore,
saddled every wicked plot against the Peerage, the
Church, and the union with Ireland, on the backs
of the Melbourne Ministry ? They can never
henceforth Gave the impudence to deny that
they are connected closely with the revolutionary
faction ; they can never again dare to shuffle or
palter with the plain fact that they are incorpo-
rated with the Hume and O'Connell conspirators—that
they arc identified with them, that they are one with
the band of revolutionists in and out of the House of
Commons. The election contest was a Ministerial
contest. The defeat of the Destructive adventurer
was, thank Heaven for it, a defeat of Lord Melbourne's
Destructive Cabinet, in the very stronghold of its re-
puted power. It is the triulnpli of the Monarchy over
time sworn servants of the Monarch. It is a triumph
to Conservatism all over Great 'l3ritain, and will be
felt as such in the remotest village of the island—th e
triumph of that liberal and lawful Conservatism which.
includes, as necessary portions of it, the principles of
constitutional reform. The electors of Westminster
have given a tone to the empire, which will find millions
of echoes. All honest men must thank their,.—Tines.

In the election of the greatest renegade of modern
times as its representative, Westminster has incurred
enormous disgrace—nor is it to this city alone, but to
the whole kingdom, that odium attaches by the result
of ycsterdayAs poll. To Westminster have the Re-
niners of England for years looked with pride and
exultation, as the vanguard of independence, even in
the most trying and dangerous tunes. With what
altered feelings must every honest and liberal mind
now contemplate the degradation and infamy of this
once glorious emistituency I Westminster has crouched
t) Toryism, and that too, the most aggravated de-
scrlption of Toryism—Toryism incarnated in an
apostate—" Oh, shame I 'Where is thy blush ?" We
know that evil agency in various ways has been at
work—we know that tradesmen have been threatened
with loss of custom—that the generosity of personal
feeling towards the renegade has been imposed upo
by the most callous and calculating duplicity—that his
of ponent has been slandered by open and occult
aumny—accused of Atheism and destructive pro-
pensities, by the "loud roar of foaming calumny
and by that craven crew who learned to lie with si-
knee., as the poet has it—

" Without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,
Deal round to happy fools their speechless obloquy."
We know that these and other equally vile means
have been employed to betray the electors of West-
minster from their duty to themselves and their coun-
try ; but, notwithstanding all this, we had anticipated a
different result. We had expected that a constituency
which, previously to the passing of the Reform Act,
itad stood proudly pre-eminent in the assertion o f
popular principles, would not have now succumbed to
a renegade. Westminster has degenerated—the con-
sequence may be calamitous, but its disgrace is not
irretrievable. We have heard it rumoured that it
is the intention of Sir Francis Burdett to take, and
then to resign, his seat. This would certainly be the
most judicious course which, in the unenviable position
of a renegade representative, he could possibly adopt.
It would gratify that overweening vanity which made and
marred his public character, which first prompted hint
to espouse and recently to repudiate popular princiles ;
and it would relieve him from the necessity of either
altogether abandoning his Parliamentary duties, or
violating either his past or present ten :.re of the repre-
sentation. His past covenant was based on Reform—.
his present on anti-Reform : therefore, to exercise the
functions of a Member of the House of Commons, he
must betray one or other of his responsibilities, his
past or his preser.t professions. As we ar:nounced
the first instance, his only mode of !AiVing the vestige
of a shattered reputation is at
OP:Ce to retire from public
life. The utmost stretch of
egotism is gratified ; he has
wrested from the grP
i!a
which it- ude of Westminster the last sa-
crifice:.s. in the power of any person or party to
offer--thy sacrifice of its honour, its principle, and its
character—nothing is now left to him but to resign
his surreptitious honours, and even the return of a
Liberal representative fo-r Westminster will enhance the
tribute to its vanity, as it will show that none but Sir
Francis Burdett could betray that constituency into
such an unparalleled dereliction of public princi,;Ae.
The result of the election is, on the whole, rather
disgraceful than injurious to the Reform interests. It
will rouse other Constituencies into more active exer-
tions, and excite throughout the kingdom, to the most
remote and humblest borough, a desire to wipe out
the stain, which, in the election of its drivelling rene-
gade, Westminster ha', cast upon Reform. Having
said thus nflU-k we mw it be allowed to add, which we
(10 wit-I' considerable regret, that the same activity and
eMeieney were not displayed by Mr. Leader's Com-
mittee which distinp;shed the exertions of tthat of his