The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-11 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN POLITICAL

SUMMARY.

The Morning Post of this day accounts for the sud-
den resignation of Sir R. Peel in the following diverting
manner :—" It is said that several of the Radical Mem-
bers of the House of Commons who opposed Ministers,
or deserted them, on the Jamaica question, finding that
the consequences of the division were not likely to re-
alize their wishes and expectations, have repented them
of their misdoing, recanted their error, expressed their
contrition to Ministers, and promised that if any means
could be discovered of keeping the Tories out, they
would be more tractable and obedient tools for the fu-
ture. On this hint, duly communicated to them, the
female tyrants of Buckingham Palace again seized hold
of the Royal victim, whom they had released for a mo-
ment from their foul and poisonous grasp." This is ex-
quisitely rich. So, the Radicals, it seems, were, after
all, at the bottom of the plot ! Sir Robert Peel's disap-
pointment is entirely owing to them ! They it was who
ear-wigged the " female tyrants" of Buckingham Palace ;
who in return, " seized hold of the Royal victim," and
compelled her—sc r .ly against her inclination, no doubt—
to decline Sir Robert Peel's temperate and courteous
proposition ! The absurdity of this hypothesis is so
self-evident as to need no comment. In another article,
our afflicted Contemporary says—" How could any one
of common sense and common information, suppose for
one moment that Sir R. Peel could comply with her
Majesty's commands to form an Administration, while
he was withheld from directing the arrangements of the
Household ! That which has appeared in the Whig and
Radical papers of last evening about Tory harshness and
oppression in this matter, is nothing better than ranting
nonsense and prancing falsehood." Of course it is !
The Tories were never guilty of " harshness" and " op-
pression ;" they were always a bland, merciful party ;
and, in this particular instance, are as innocent of
harshness or oppression as young lambs. In fact, a
meeker, more amiable, more harmless, and more cruelly
vilified faction, was never yet sent to the right-about, in
the short space of ten minutes !
The Morning Chronicle puts forth the following
judicious and spirited remarks on the subject of
Sir Robert Peel's impromptu resignation :—•‘ The
country will be not a little astonished to learn that
the Peel Administration is already at an end. Sir
Robert, it would appear, allowed himself to be so far
elated by the circumstances under which the Govern-
ment had fallen into his hands, as to believe that, having
nothing now to apprehend from the Liberals, the Queen
was so completely at his mercy that he might trample
on her with impunity. The possession of political power
was not enough for this mighty conqueror ; he demanded
that she should divest herself of all her affections and
friendships—consent to the removal of every female
attendant—and suffer herself to be surrounded by
strangers, who, knowing that they owed their situations,
not to their nominal Mistress, but to Tory Ministers,
would disregard her tastes and inclinations, and poison
her happiness. That the Queen might at once know
that she was in as complete a state of thraldom as if
she had been delivered over to the tender mercies of
her uncle, the King of Hanover, she was called upon
to part with every person in whose society she took plea-
svre—not excepting even those endeared to her by inti-
macy from the days of her childhood. What is life without
the sympathies of friendship—without the circle in which
the restraints of ceremony may be laide aside—and the
feelings of the heart be safely indulged ? The Prince
and the peasant have their different duties ; but the
feelings of our nature are common to both. No rank
can elevate the possessor above the necessity for that
solace which can only be found in the society of sympa-
thising friends. The aged and hackneyed in the ways of
the world, whose feelings are worn out, may be contented
with a mere animal existence ; but to the young, whose
feelings are not yet blunted, of all miseries that of isola-
tion from confiding friends and associates is the most into-
lerable. We have never understood that Ministerial re-
sponsibility extended to the affections and domestic en-
joyments of the Sovereign. This, we believe, is the first
time that a Minister contended that the Sovereign should
be a perfect automaton in his hands, and consent to be
placed in personal durance. We protest, in the name of
the country, against this cruel system. We are sure that
the people of these kingdoms will never sanction such an
unfeeling tyranny as that of which Sir Robert Peel has
dared to claim the exercise with regard to our young
Queen. And what is the pretext for this wanton vio-
lation of all the charities of life ? Why must the
Queen consent to the sacrifice of every private friend ?
Sir Robert Peel, not satisfied with the possession of all
the powers of Government, including every political
appointment, insists on naming even the personal at-
tendants of her Majesty, that not a thought may be
uttered in her presence not in accordance with the purest
Toryism. It was said of Robespierre that timidity was
the cause of his cruelty—that he was in apprehension
from almost every one—and that, to rid himself from
danger, he proceeded from sacrifice to sacrifice. There
is something very unlike the manly spirit of English-
men in this determination to force the Queen to sur-
round herself with strangers, in order that Tory
power may be the more secure. Sir Robert and his
partners wished to make assurance doubly sure, and no
doubt plumed themselves already on the dexterity of
their contrivance for securing every possible avenue to
to the Queen. Had her Majesty yielded to the demands
of those who showed themselves disposed to take so
mean an advantage of the helpless situation in which
they supposed her to be, there is no extremity to which
they might not have pushed their exactions. They pre-
sumed, however, too much on the youth of the Queen,
and her readiness to submit to insult. Her Majesty
soon convinced them that if they could not draw the
line between Ministerial responsibility and improper in-
terference with the domestic comforts and private friend-
ships of the Sovereign, she could ; and Sir Robert Peel
and the Tories have been taught a lesson by her Ma-
jesty which they will long remember."
The Times is frantic with rage about the sad affair
of yesterday, and intimates pretty plainly that the re-
signation of the Melbourne Ministry was a mere sham
resignation—a manifest do, of which the innocent
Tories • have been made the victims. We subjoin a
portion of our Contemporary's observations :—" What
is the plain fact of the matter ? Sir Robert Peel
never once so much as hinted at a general change
of the ladies composing the household. On the con-
trary, the suggestion of the Right Hon. Baronet on that
subject was confined most scrupulously to such a pro-
portion of the ladies having domestic access to the So-
vereign as might suffice to show the country that the
new public servant, officially authorized by Queen Vic-
toria to form a Government, and to guide the empire in
her name, had enough of her reputed confidence to give
effect to his instructions as a Minister, and to discredit
any report which might he circulated, that others,
who had ceased to be responsible for their actions,
could exercise over the Royal mind an influence
opposed to that of her Majesty's actual advisers.
The proposition of Sir Robert Peel to her Majesty was
indispensable to the discharge of the duty which his
Sovereign had graciously imposed upon him, nor could
anything be more delicate than the manner in which the
Right Hon. Baronet approached that trying subject,
limiting his communication to the manifest necessity of
the case. We have already stated, and we do so on
good authority, that the allegation of Sir Robert Peel
having required a sweeping removal of all the female
household of her Majesty, is neither more nor less
than a flagitious falsehood, brought forward with dis-
honest and malignant motives by every one of last
night's Radical Evening Papers. Equally is it an auda-
cious and rancorous falsehood, that Sir Robert Peel
proposed, or ever thought of proposing, the slightest re-
straint upon her Majesty's voluntary social intercourse
with such friends as she might wish to invite to the Pa-
lace. Even in the case of Lord Melbourne, privy to,
as we fear he is, if not the chief originator of a sham re-
signation, got up for a tricky purpose, even in his case,
so sacred were her Majesty's social preferences to the
eyes of Sir Robert Peel, that the Queen was assured of
the most perfect and absolute power to act on such
points as might accord with her own free pleasure.
Evidence abundant, however, has been arrived at, to
prove that the resignation of the O'Connell Ministers
was not a bona fide, but a fabricated, resignation—
that the objections to a just and necessary chancre in
some persons of the Royal household were prepared be-
forehand by her Majesty's Whig-Radical advisers."
This attempt to white-wash Sir Robert Peel, by show-
ing that his proposition to the Queen respecting her
Household, was everything that such a proposition
should be—mild, tolerant, courteous, and singularly free
from aught approaching to despotism, deserves notice,
if only for its surpassing effrontery. Those who be-
lieve it must, of course, be prepared to believe also that
the Right Hon. Baronet has fallen a victim to hisanti-
dictatorial conduct on this occasion—to his invincible
dislike of keeping her Majesty in leading-strings. Now
that a Prime Min:ster should be dismissed for presuming
to dictate to his Sovereign, is natural enough ; but that
he should be dismissed for the offence of non-dictation—
that is to say, for making such a modest and rational
proposition as no sane Sovereign could possibly object
to—is such an absurd, preposterous assertion, that we
are surprised the 'Furies could venture to put it forth !
The .illerning Herald observes in the course of a
leading article on the great political topic of the day,
Sir Robert Peel's resignation :—" Of the Queen's con-
duct in this matter, it were unjust to speak with harsh-
ness. Ample allowances ought to be made on the score
of her Majesty's youth, and consequent inexperience—
as well as on the score of some of the best impulses of
our nature, to the guidance of which her Majesty
has, obviously, abandoned herself. Nothing can be
more natural, than that the Queen should part unwil-
lingly with those, who have contrived to constitute
themselves her Majesty's sole companions, ever since
her accession to the throne. The blame in this affair
must be reserved for those who have tampered with her
Majesty's kindliest affections—in other words, the blame
must be reserved for certain of Lord Melbourne's late
associates, whose ladies are in constant attendance upon
the Queen. Such an action upon the Royal mind was
the only chance left to these miserable outcasts from
office ; and ever since Wednesday night, it is notorious
at the \Vest-end, that the underlings of the Melbourne
Ministry speculated publicly on the influence of the