The Sun.
London, England, 1837-09-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

independent man in that priest-bound country to con-
tinue, as now, in fear for his property, his liberty, and
his very life ? Is every statute of the realm to remain
a dead letter, from the universal persuision of the
people that, under
itsuch an Administration as now
preys upon Ireland,is safer to violate the law than
to enforce it ? Murders, and of course the whole
class of those outrages which just stop short of mur-
der, are nothing rare among the Irish population,
whose suffrages are estimated by our Ministerial con-
temporaries as equivalent to the judgments of the Eng-
lish freeholders. But every now and then there comes a
case of homicide so much above the common average of
cruelty and ferocity, that even the Whigs, who boast
of the perfect quiet and security of Ireland under their
all-healing regimen, are obliged to admit the existence
of the crime, and make a show of searching for the
criminal. The murders arising out of the recent elec-
tion for the county of Sligo are of this shocking and
frightful enormity. A month ago there were living,
within the parish of Achonry, in the county of Sligo,
two Protestants, of the rank of yeomen, one named Al-
len, the other IVl,Kenzie. On the occasion of the contest
for the county, which began on the 14th of last month,
they set off together for the town of Sligo, where the
election was held, either to give their votes for the
Conservative candidates, or, according to other ac-
counts, to escort a freeholder in that interest. Day
after day elapsed, but they neither appeared in the
town of Sligo nor returned to their own abodes in
Achonry. Their friends became alarmed. It was
known that they had taken the mountain road, and the
minutest search was anxiously instituted. At last, on
the 19th, after five days and five nights, they were
found on the mountain-side, one of them with his
arm fractured, and both of them bound, blindfolded,
and disfigured with bruises and wounds. From the
14th to the 19th they had remained in that helpless
condition, exposed to the extremities of hunger,
damp, and cold. Their history was a short but fright-
ful one. At the commencement of the election a
band of ruffians had taken possession of the moun-
tain roads to prevent the Protestant freeholders from
passing to exercise their franchise. When Allen
and M'Kenzie, two resolute Protestants, arrived at
the place where this body was stationed, they
were first seized and cruelly beaten. They were
then carried into an uninhabited house or barn, in
a village called Cloonacoole, where they found an-
other elector, also a Conservative, already confined,
1 and there they ‘vere kept immured for a part of that
day. From half-hour to half-hour their persecutors
without would come to the door of this building, and
thundering at it would call to the three prisoners
within, revile them for being Tories, and then exhort
them to pray for their souls, assuring them that they
had only a few hours to live, and would be beheaded
in the following night. Under these apprehensions,
which one of the poor prisoners described as more ex-
cruciating than even the pain of their wounds and
bruises, they remained till towards evening. But be-
fore the night set in some of the conspirators entered,
and having blindfolded them, to prevent any recogni-
tion of the guilty parties, tied the legs and arms of all
three, and carried theni forth among the crowd assem-
bled without, to the number, as computed, of be-
tween 3,000 and 4,000 persons, who received them
with tumultuous mockery. In that state, with their
ankles crushed together by tight cords or bands, they
were dragged along the ground to a distant height,
where Allen and vl'Kenzie were dropped on one side
of the mountain, and their fellow-prisoner on the other.
A deep hole or pit was then digged, into which Allen
and Nl‘Kenzie were lowered, a guard remaining over
them at the pit's edge. Allen repeatedly implored
them to relieve him from his sufferings by shooting
him, but they were not so merciful. After a time
the two men were brought up and taken into the shelter
of a house or cabin. This change for the better ap-
peared to pioduce an improyement hi their strength,
upon which they were carried back into the open air,
and lowered again into the pit. The third prisoner,
before the close of the election, submitted to the force
of his persecutors, and consented to vote as they com-
manded him. He was accordingly taken from the
hill into Sligo, where he saved his lite by voting for
tile Roman Catholic candidate. Allen and 'Kenzie,
whose powers of endurance were greater, remained in
the pit till the election was over, when, on the 19th,
they were discovered by their friends. On the 20th
Allen died, and M'Kenzie has since followed the same
fate. We have now before us a letter from a gentleman
of respectability,whosavv the remains of Allen, and who
says " his legs had mortified in the cords, and his widow
told me that in washing the corpse the calf fell rotten off
one leg. I saw the other leg, and it was a sickening
sight." And these are the constituencies who boast of
their tranquillity—who value themselves on their loyalty
to their Queen—who clamour for an increase of their
political power ! Let us not be told that a single
atrocity is no proof against a whole country : we
insist, that under circumstances like these, a whole
country participates in the crime and the disgrace, for
this was not the act of an individual—it was the act
of a district. Between 3,000 and 4,000 persons were
assembled at Cloonacoole, when the victims were
beaten, maimed, and carried forth ; yet not only did
no portion of them interfere for the rescue, but among
the whole of that great multitude there was not found
during the entire period of five agonizing days and
nights a single individual who had the courage or the
charity to repair to the mountain-side and release the
sufferers, or even to make known to their distracted
friends the place and circumstances of their confine-
ment. Are the Irish in the county of Sligo, then, so
far more barbarous and brutal than any other beings
who hear the name of Christian men ? Not so ; their
hearts, no doubt, have",the natural yearnings of huma-
nity and compassion ; but terror overpowers every
other sensation, and the man who should have released,
relieved, or taken steps for the assistance of those
afflicted people, nay,- who should even have breathed
a hint that could lead to the discovery of the injuries
they had suffered or of the spot where they lay,
would himself in a week have taken the place of
the victims he had contributed to deliver. And
now, in the Gazette the Irish Government offer
a reward of 501. for the detection of the mur-
deters. Why, the murderers are the three or four
thousand peasants who were drawn up at Cloonacoole,
with perhaps a bevy of priests, accessories before the
fact. But the ringleaders, the half-dozen particular
ruffians who actually tied on the ropes, may be brought
to trial. They may, and if the reward of 501. will
induce any one or more of the crowd to turn Queen's
evidence, with the certainty of assassination on their
way home from the witness-box, the half-dozen ruf-
fians, provided there be no Roman Catholic on the
jury, may be convicted. That improbable result being
conceded, what are the chances that, before the day
appointed for their punishment, the mercy of Lord
Mulgrave will not find some circumstance of mitiga-
tion in their case, and let the murderers loose again
upon the country ? If the Government are in earnest,
published in the Gazette of the
let them supersede the futile ad
v e2ri
9t t she, mand
t which
instead they
of
offering a reward of 501. for the discovery and appre-
hension of the criminals, which they know, that under
the existing system of terror, a reward of a thousand
times that amount would not effect, let them offer
2001. for private information, which may not expose
the informer to the ban of the priest, and the bludgeon
-of the Ribandman. Then, perhaps, they may obtain
intelligence ; but if they obtained intelligence, they
-might be expected to vindicate the country against the
assassins, and that might be inconvenient to the pa-
-ternal government of the Castle, the continuation of
whose reign is, we are told, a full equivalent to Ireland
-fox, all she may feel and all she may fear.—. Times.
Some of our Liberal Contemporaries are alarmed at
the threatened wholesale Tory petitioning against the
-return of Reformers to the House of Commons. We
-participate not in their fears ; they are just as ground-
' .less as are the Tory expectations of an immediate
:advent to Downing-street. Money is proverbially the
sinews of war : it will he found especially necessary in
as Committee war in the House of Commons. And
-where, let us ask, is the money requisite in this case to
«come from ? Mr. Andrew Spottiswoode may take
the chair at public, or rather hole-and-corner meetings,
to " resolve that a subscription should be raised to
'enable the Tories to prosecute their wholesale system
*of petitioning ; but there is all the difference in the
,world between " r !solving" that a subscription ought
lj to be raised, and the actual " raising" itself. The

We have received various communications on the
subject of the proceedings of the committee for col-
lectingisubscriptions to encourage petitions against the
Irish representatives. In some of these communica-
tions which we have published an analysis is given of
the committee, which may serve to explain the motives
of many of them for taking a prominent part in these
proceedings. But this is Toryism. There are, pro-
perly speaking, no disinterested Tories. You can
always, by using a little diligence, discover the selfish
motive which actuates every Tory ; for selfishness is of
the very essence of Toryism. How then, it may be
said, do we find Mr. Andrew Spottiswoode, the
Queen's Printer, so very active an opponent of the Ad-
ministration on this and all other occasions? One cor-
respondent thinks it very hard that he, the keeper of
a twopenny-post-office, should be prohibited from Yet-
ing, while the Queen's Printer takes such a promi-
nent part in elections. Mr. Andrew Spottiswoode,
we have no doubt, considers himself independent of
the Government, his office being held by pWent, and
that constitutes the distinction between him and the
keeper of a twopenny-post-office. It is not, however,
usual for men in Mr. Andrew Spottiswoode's situa-
tion to take so prominent a part in opposition to
the Government, and the world will suppose him
something different from Tories in general, who are
seldom so outrageously independent, except it can be
shown that the Whig Government have touched him
somewhere on the raw (to use a familiar phrase) in
the matter of profits. There is no reconciling a Tory,
who has been in the habit of dipping deeply into the
public purse, to a more moderate scale of remunera-
tion ; and Mr. Hume, who has, during his political
life, been labouring to save money to the public, has
found that public much less disposed to remember the
benefit, than the individual deprived of improper gains
to resent his activity. But to return to the subject of
the subscription to encourage election petitions. Now
that the Tory designs have been so unequivocally dis-
closed, we cannot suppose that Ministers will allow
the country to be insulted in so barefaced a manner.
In order that the matter may receive all the considera-
tion to which it is entitled, we would humbly suggest
the expediency of the whole House coining to some
such resolution as adjourning the consideration of
all petitions till after Christmas. The Standard,
on Saturday last, justly, we believe, laid claim
to the origination of this scheme. It began
to propound the idea of bringing English wealth
to bear on Irish elections so early as the 3d of
December last. It then told us that " the Protestant
gentry of Ireland, though territorially rich, are noto-
riously a class not abounding in ready money. . .
. . . . A very slight effo tof the Conservatives
of Great Britain and Ireland would raise quite enough
of money to give an opportunity of contesting every
election in the Sister Is'and ; and every one at which
tin O'Connellitc shows himself ought to be contested,
how slight however the present p,ospect of success.
By contesting every election the
Conservatives would gain at least thirty in addition to
their present number." On the 14fh December the
Standard took courage to proceed a little further :
" We hesitate not to assert (said our sanctimonious
contemporary) that if the island (Ireland) he fairly con-
tested from end to end, instead of a loss of three or four,
a dissolution would give a Conservative gain of five times
as many. But every county and borough, without excep-
tion, where a Radical presumes to show his face must be
contested if Ireland is to be rescued from this Tail.'
There must be no faint•heartedness, no compromise, no
neglect. The battle of Dublin and Wexi'ord must be
fought in Kerry and in Mayo ; and in these pisees it will
he fought more effectually even than upon the spot which
is to give the seat contended for—though it must be
fotillt there too. A great sum, it will be said, would
he required for such a purpose. Not so great, we
assert, as many may suppose, fin we deprecate all except
legal expenses, though within that description it were desir-
able to make each contest as obstinately expensive as pos-
sible. But be the amount of expense great or small. it
ought to be incurred, for it is the stake of a mighty game—
of a game upon which the British empire may be lost or
won ; for surely it is not rash to say that upon the result
of the next general election the fate of the empire may and
probably will depend. By pursuing this course the Con-
servatives, too, will make the battle upon the oround where
they are strongest and their enemies are weakest. It will
be a war between the wealthiest class in the world and a
knot of pennyless paupers, the elect and admitted chieftain
of whom is a penniless beggar."
This naked proposal to the Conservatives of Eng-
land to employ their vast wealth in putting the Irish
representatives to a vexatious expense in defending
their seats is precisely such an interference as must re-
coil on those who have recourse to it. The Conserva-
tives must, for the sake of both countries, be placed
under wholesome restraint. Can they imagine that a
people so spirited as the Irish—a people who have the
courage to set their own landlords at defiance—will
tamely suffer themselves to be deprived of their victory
by such a base and unprincipled attempt of English
• Conservatives as that which has just been made on the
recommendation of the Standard? Were the Irish to be
defrauded of their proper representatives by such an op-
pressive application of the wealth of English Conser-
vatives, they would have the best of all pretexts for de-
manding an independent Legislature. The Standard
itself, on the 2d of January last, observed it would be
an exceedingly dangerous policy for English Members
to determine Irish questions against the sense of the
great majority of the Irish Members.
" Give the Whigs (it said) Mr. O'Connell, and his
ninety Members, and it little matters in what proportion
.we may outvote them in Great Britain. Some right-minded,
but hasty men say, Never mind Ireland ; let Mr. O'Con-
nell have his ninety Members, and as we shall have a ma-
jority of twice ninety upon the British elections we can
afford to let him have them.' No ; we reply, you cannot
afford it. Take your majority in the House of Commons
to-morrow—restore Sir Robert Peel's, or, if possible, any
better Administration ; but leave Mr. O'Connell and his
ninety Members, and you will be beaten and your party
broken and dispersed so as never to rise again. A. body of
Representatives so nearly commensurate with the whole
Irish representation, would plausibly claim to govern the
legislation of their own island. If outvoted by purely Bri-
tish majorities, they would have an argument for their
darling project, the repeal of the Union, such as they
never had before. They would say to the Conservative
Ministers, give us the Irish Corporations—give us the pro-
perty of the Church in Ireland, which all the Irish Re-
presentatives agree in demanding—give us these things, or
we shall no longer come here to be swamped by an alien
majority, but restore our native Parliament on College—
green. Will any one say that this would not have an effect
even upon a Conservative Administration, through the
timid slaves incumbered with wealth ?"
Does the Standard then think that the Irish
people, who have achieved such a glorious victory
over their old oppressors, will allow themselves to be
deprived of that majority by another edition of the
plan of alien swamping, the notable scheme of contest-
ing all the returns by a joint-stock purse, raised by
English Conservatives ? If the English Conservatives
were to be suffered to make such an unhallowed use
of their money,. the Irish would unquestionably resent
the insult. But we have too high an idea of the
discretion of the House of Commons to suppose that
it will not instantly set its face against these Tory
tricks. The Standard on Saturday last told us, with
its usual assurance, " that considerations mingled with
• party interest" called for subscriptions to carry
on the election petitions, as they " concern no
less than twenty seats in the House of Commons ;
and if firmly supported and vigorously promoted,
they will all to a certainty succeed. Here is an
end to all doubt as to the prompt fate of the Mel-
bourne Cabinet—here is an assurance of a Con-
servative administration for many years to come."
And all this is to be effected by a subscription, not
perhaps, one-third part of what the Duke of Welling-
te:i allowed his son to expend in corrupting the Nor-
wich voters. The old Whigs will keep away from the
ballots for Irish election petitions ; the Tories will
thus be enabled to pack committees ; the Irish repre-
sentatives will be unable to meet the expenses of the
contests, and twenty members will be ejected without
fail. There is something of the &Ladd in this find
scheme ; but the subscription committee will find the
task they have undertaken not so light as the Standard
would represent it. However, their wings must be
clipped ; and we are much mistaken if Mr. Andrew
Spottiswoode and his compeers do not find, ere long,
that they have embarked in a more ticklish business
than they had any conception of.—Morning Citron.
Justice to Ireland T. Will the Government who live
upon this cry enforce the law in Ireland ? or is every,

TIIE SUN, LONDON, TtTESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1837

Tories had long pockets ; but they are now pretty much
curtailed of their fair proportions. The treasury of the
Carlton Club is notoriously exhausted ; and, what is
worse, there is not the slightest chance of its being
replenished for some time to come. The late elections
drained the pockets of the Tories to the last shilling,
They did more ; they have left them in debt. Look
at the miserable exhibition they are now making in
Finsbury. Poor Mr. Perceval 1 We wonder what
he thinks of the projected subscription to harass Li-
beral Members, by petitioningagainst their return. We
doubt not that he would recommend his Tory friends to
relieve him from the embarrassing. situation in which,
by their non-payment of his election claims, they have
placed him, before they commit themselves with their
threatened enterprise. No, no ; it will not do. It is
true the Tories are reckless and profligate enough to
resort to any expedient, however desperate and base,
which they might deem likely to accomplish their ends.
But the disposition is one thing, and the power an-
other : the latter, we repeat, they do not possess.
They may bluster andthreaten as much as they.please,
but more than that they cannot do. The secret of
the matter is sufficiently plain. They talk about this
indiscriminate petitioning against the Liberal returns,
because they have now no other hope. It is the des-
perate expedient of a desperate and dying faction ; and
one, moreover, which, as just observed, they cannot
carry into effect. The very threat, however, is not
without its lesson of instruction. It is a virtual ad-
mission that they have abandoned all hope, if, indeed,
they ever entertained any, of defeating Ministers in le-
gitimate Parliamentary warfare. It makes another
most important virtual admission. It is an undoubted
though negative proclamation, that all their expecta-
tion of ejecting Ministers by any other means have
vanished. Had William the Fourth—peace to his
manes I—bean still on the throne of these realms, we
should never have heard of so wild and monstrous an
enterprise. The Tories would, in that case, have
trusted to back stairs influence at Court to accom-
plish that which they could not effect by fair means.
They would have trusted to certain intriguers in pet-
ticoats repeating the affair of November, 1834 ; but
the Court no longer holds out any hopes to them—
their influence is gone for ever in that quarter.—
Morning Advertiser.
Of all the difficulties which present themselves to
an intelligent and impartial mind in considering the
actual circumstances of British politics at the pre-
sent time none, perhaps, is so embarrassing as the
Parliamentary representation of Scotland. Why
should that kingdom send to the House of Commons
a majority of Destructives ? Why should a people
who are certainly in the mass neither stupid, nor
ignorant, nor subservient—why should they think fit
to send representatives to the House of Commons
who will fight the political battle in the same ranks
with the O'Connell slaves—the deputed enemies of
Protestantism—the supporters of a Government on
account of its badness, and its consequent injui ions-
ness to the British name and nation ? 'What is there
in Presbyterianism that it should league with
I Popery ? What is there in the perferdiunz genium
Scdtoruin that it should so largely devote itself to the
support of a feeble faltering Administration ? What
is there in the rugged simplicity of that land, or in
the stern and thoughtful character of its population,
to sympathise with a Government which lives by in-
trigue, and by base associations—a Government in
which there is nothing strong, nothing noble, nothing
generous, nothing independent ? What can the
spirit of Caledonia find to admire in an Adminis-
tion which is utterly spiritless—which creeps along,
seeking apparently no prouder goal than that of
quarter-day, and desiring no higher reward than that
of wages ? Is it possible that they are Scotchnien
who thus degrade the land of their birth, and the spirit
of their ancestors, by giving a helping hand to much
that is villainous, and all that is vile in political go-
vernment ; or are we to believe that the encroaching,
flood of Irish population, with its machinery of Pro-
testant-hating Priesthood, has so far intruded into the
Scottish towns as to command within them no incon-
siderable influence ? Doubtless there is a good deal
to be attributed both in Scotland and in the manufac-
turing districts of England to Irish immigration, and
the hostility to British institutions with which the pas-
sions, the prejudices, and even the reasoning powers of
these people are so deeply imbued. Another obvious
cause of the Scotch sympathy with Radicalism may
be found in the sullen discontent, and sour conceit,
which the Edinburgh Review poured so vigorously
into the Scottish mind from thirty to twenty years
ago. But the matter is better accounted for in an
able article of Blackwood for the present month than
it ever has been before. The following paragraph we
consider to contain a very able developetnent of the

men who carried the Reform Bill would rather have
died a thousand deaths than have made a base

league with O'Connell and his faction, and have
owed to him their continuance of place and pay.
The Whigs who carried the Reform Bill set O'Con-
nell and his vile machinery at defiance, and were com-
plimented by him as " base, brutal, and bloody." The
paltry underlings in that Administration, who are
leaders and managers in the present Administration,
have prostrated themselves before O'Connell, and,
being under his protection, he calls them the very best
of Ministers, and actually professes, for their sake,
loyalty to the Sovereign I We trust that when the
Scotch have duly weighed, as in the course of time
they wndoubtedly will, the broad distinction between
the " Reform" Administration which gave them their
elective privileges, and the O'Connell Administration,
which renders these privileges of no avail in the just
and manly government of the country, we shall find
them, as we find the English people, returning a majo-
rity in favour of preserving intact (especially from Irish
Revolutionists) those privileges which have been ob-
_ _

t ain ed.— Mo rn ing Post. -
From all the calculations which have been made by
those who have directed their attention to the subject,

and whose report may be depended upon, it seems
certain that Ministers cannot bring forward, with any
chance of success in the ensuing Parliament those
measures which hitherto they have described as
" vitally" important to the good government of the
country. We allude, of course, to the chance of
success in the House of Commons ; as to the other
House, it is out of the question that the present Mi-
nisters can have any success there. They have them-
selves admitted often enough that the only way to
obtain the acquiescence of the House of Lords was to
bring their measures before that House supported by a
considerable majority of the House of Commons. It is
true, that when they made this admission they supposed
that the calling of a new Parliament would give them
this considerable majority in the Commons, and it is
equally true that in this expectation they have been com-
pletely disappointed. But their diappointment cannot
alter the doctrine which they have themselves laid
down respecting the Upper House, and while their House
of Commons' majority lessens, instead of increasing,
they can have no excuse either for violent measures to
pass their experiments through the LOrds, or violent
complaints that these experiments are still rejected in
the Upper House. In speculating, then, upon what
Ministers will be likely to do when Parliament meets,
there seems to be, according to the present state of af-
fairs, but two courses open to them. They must either
resign or be content to hold back their ultra-Radical
and Church spoliation measures, and to propose more
Conservative measures in their room. Experience teaches
us that whatever may happen to these Ministers, the
resignation of their offices is the very last mode they
will think of resorting to for getting out of their diffi-
culties. When they were out on a former occasion,
they were rEsmissed, and nothing with regard to their
future history is so certain, as that when they go out
again it will be because they have been dismissed.
We do not mean to say that this is likely to happen ;
~ve only say that, judging, from all that has happened,
Ministers, whatever defeat or disgrace they may sus-
tain, will not go out until they are turned out. We
must, therefore, dismiss the alternative of resigna-
tion, and fall in with the other—viz., the abandon-
ment by the present Ministers of the " appropiation
clause" and the church-rate scheme, and the adoption
of much more Conservative policy than they have
hitherto thought proper to advocate. There arc many
adherents of the ministry, and particularly those con-
nected with Scotland, who have already made up their
minds to this change of policy, and who do not hesi-
tate to avow their opinion that, under the existing cir-
cumstances, it is the hest thing the Ministers can do.
They, no doubt, mean that it is the only thing which
they can do, unless they choose to go into the unpro-
fitaGle position of oppositionists. We are confirmed
in our opinion that this accommodation of their neces-
sities to a more conservative tone of policy will be
adopted by Ministers, because we find some of the
more cunning among their advocates giving out that
the acquiescence of the Conservatives in several minis-
terial measures may be expected in the ensuing session.
This is preparing the way beforehand for the false
representation which it will be necessary to make by
and bye in order to save their credit. Ministers will
bring forward measures based upon conservative
policy, and then they will boast that they have
obtained the acquiescence of the Conservatives to their
policy. This will be a very paltry shuffle ; but Mi-
nisters now are so well used to that, as to think no-
thing or it. Such a trick will, of course, be very
well understood in England ; but Ministers do not so
much care about that. Their dependence now is not
upon England, but upon Ireland ; and they are well
aware that any trick, however gross—and any treachery,
however flagitious—will serve to impose upon the be-
nighted Irish population, if only it be promulgated by
Mr. O'Connell, and supported by the priests. Cer-
tainly there is no way so likely to obtain the acquies-
cence of an opponent—especially if he be an honest
and fair one—as to conic into his opinions, and to
adopt his views. But there remains a question, how
far it is honourable or decent to adopt the views of an
opponent, because you must do so or sacrifice some
great advantage, and then to take credit for his ac-
quiescence in his own views ? This is the question
which every one will have to decide who wishes to
come to a fair judgment upon the apparently-intended
conduct of the Ministry.—Morning Herald.

The general feeling produced by the remembered
struggle for the Reform Bill has more peculiarly prevailed
in Scotland, where the former state of the representation
was unduly limited, and, on abstract grounds, indefensible.
In addition also to a sense of gratitude towards those who
are thought to have bestowed the gift of popular suffrage,
there is the further circumstance, that the parties vested
with the franchise are entirely new to the exercise of it.
They are inclined, accordingly—at least the more incon-
siderate portion of them—to use it with much of the
wantonness with which a weapon or toy is generally wielded
by a newfangled possessor. As a boy is constantly taking
out his new watch to see if it is going—as a stripling with
his first gun is almost ready to fire it in your face, to ascer-
tain its effects—so are our friends on this side of the border
now dealing with the instrument that has been put into
their hands. They wish to ascertain its power, and to :hoc
their own strength. They would feel as if they had it not,
if it were not exercised in defiance of their natural supe-
riors and leaders. They think not as yet of the proper
object for which it was given—of the true interests which
it ought to serve. They seek merely the most marked and
prominent manner of making a display of it, and seem
sometimes to have a pleasure in selecting the most extraor-
dinary and least appropriate representative, merely to prove
what they can do if they choose."
They who know but superficially the national cha-
racter of Scotchmen will perhaps think that there is a
levity in the feelings and motives above attributed to
them which does not well harmonize with their
actual dispositions. We believe that they who
thoroughly understand the depths and the shallows—.
the " lights and shadows"—of Scottish life, will have
no sueli opinion. Serious and even severe as the
Scottish character is often found to be, it is far more
susceptible of excitement than the English, and far
more apt to treat the gravest affairs, when they are no
way connected with the imaginative, the picturesque,
or the pathetic, with the exuberance of boyish vivacity,
than are the steady and comparatively unimpassioned
natives of England. Moreover, it will be observed that
apart from the lively figures which the writer in Black-
wood uses to illustrate his views, there is nothing in his
statement which reflects unfavourably upon the cha-
racter of the Scotch people, or forbids the hope of a
great amendment in their political dispositions. It is
from no ignorant submission to tyrannical dictation
that so many Scotch constituencies send representa-
tives to Parliament who vote with the Destructive fac-
tion. It seems to be from mistaken views of that
which is demanded by gratitude, and that which is due
to an independent spirit. These mistaken views time
will probably correct, and then, as the principles of
action are good, all will be well. If the Scotch people
really believe that they owe important and useful pri-
vileges to the exertions of the men who now ate Mi-
nisters, we do not blame them for supporting these
men. We value too much the sentiments of genero-
sity and gratitude—the best sentiments of the human
heart—to regret their exercise, even at the expense of
our own political party. Even as a matter of interest
we are well persuaded that the Conservative cause
must in the end gait► by habits of generosity and gr iti-
tude, though they may temporarily, and partially, ope-
rate against us. We were not persuaded of this we
should not be Conservatives. But it is quite a mis-
take on the part of the Scotch, or of anybody else, to
suppose that they are indebted for the Reform Bill to
those who are now in office. The present Ministers
could no more have carried the Reform Bill than thoy
could have carried mountains on their shoulders. They
were men of a far different mould who accomplished
that great, and, as we believe, pernicious, revolution.
They were of minds too daring and too reckless for
the safe conduct of British government at a time when
so much popular excitement raged throughout Europe
but they were mighty in their mischief, and not
mean, as the present Ministers are. Tile leading

On Sunday night, between the hours of eleven and
twelve o'clock, an accident of a serious nature, and which
created a good deal of alarm in the Pool, occurred to the
collier brig Briton, coal laden, lying just below the Com-
mercial Dock buoy, off the Deptford Victualling-yard.
The crew had all retired to their berths, and the ship at
that time appeared secure enough at her moorings. Shortly
before midnight, the ship, in swinging with the flood tide,
touched the anchor of another brig, and pricked a hole in
her bottom. The vessel being deeply laden, immediately
began to fill, and soon went down. The ship's company
narrowly escaped with their lives. The crew of the brig
alongside, some of whom were on deck, observing the
Briton sinking fast, alarmed the hands, and they rushed on
deck, hastily snatching a few things within their reach, and
had but just got into the boats which put off to their aid,
when all that appeared of their vessel were her masts, and
she now lies sunk in deep water. Yesterday morning a
sloop heavily laden was coming up the river, when in going
over the spot near where the Briton had sunk, she touched
the same anchor, which made a large aperture in her bot-
tom, and she also filled and went down. The two vessels
are now under water, alongside of each other, forming a
great obstruction to the navigation of the river. The loss
to the owners of the two ships is very great. Efforts will
be instantly adopted, by means of chain lighters, to raise
the vessels, when they will be taken into dock and refitted,
and the damage made good.

The e.pidemy now raging at Warsaw, which at first
was believed to be the plague, but which is now looked
upon as a very malignant typhus, is assigned by several
German papers as the cause why his Majesty the Emperor
of Russia has, for the present, given up his intended visit
to that city.

Pope's villa, at Twickenham, continues to attract
visitors, who view it with pleasure, and traverse the grounds
with delight, in veneration of the memory of the poet whose
diversified works have rendered him so popular, and rank
bins so high among the British bards. His villa for a cen-
tury has been the object of attraction.

A diving-bell has been constructed at Harwich, for
the purpose of fixing air tubes to sunken vessels. The Prus
sian galliot Blucher, laden with corn, was last week raised
by means of this ingenious machine ; and a brig, laden with
a general cargo, which sunk last winter, is now undergoing
the same process.—Bury Hei
On Saturday, as some boys were bathing at Usk-
bridge, near Brecon, the son of Mr. Hughes, of that town,
was taken with the cramp and sank. Mr. Prosser, of
Bridge-end, who was providentially passing, jumped into
the stream, and diving in the place where the boy sank,
brought him up apparently lifeless, and conveyed him to a
neighbouring house, where be was restored to animation
through his exertions. This is the fifth person Mr. Prosser
has rescued from drowning.—Hereford Journal.
On Friday Samuel Dokey, the driver of a train of
carriages on the Cromford and High Peak Railroad, fell
under the train, when the carriages, passing over his leg, cut
it off. The poor fellow was left on the road for some con-
siderable time, and when discovered he had bled to death.
—Derby Mercury.
A boy was last week at our petty sessions sen-
tenced to three months' imprisonment for stealing a pair of
breeches from a soldier, and in the indictment the breeches
were said rather strangely to be the property of Queen
Victoria.—Chester Gazette.