The Sun.
London, England, 1837-05-31 00:00:00

LONDON,
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 31, 1837.

The reply of the Duchess of KENT to the congra-
tulatory Address presented to her yesterday by the
Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of
London, on the auspicious occasion of her daughter,
the Princess VICTORIA, having completed her 18th
year, is one that cannot be too warmly commended for
its grace, simplicity, feeling, and more especially for
its constitutional character. It is devoid, in a remar-
kable degree, of that cold preciseness and formal no-
meaning of which--'till within the last few years
—Royal replies were so full. The spirit of
the Mother breathes throughout it, in a way that
must come home to every feeling bosom. We
do not envy either the head or heart of that person
who can peruse this frank, touching, and unaffected
passage without emotion :—" I pass over the earlier
part of my connexion with this country. I will merely
briefly observe that my late regretted Consort's cir-
cumstances and my duties obliged us to reside in Ger-
many. I3nt the Duke of KENT at much inconve-
nience, r..nd I, at great personal risk, returned to Eng-
land, that our child should be born and bred a Briton.
In a few months afterwards my infant and myself were
awfully deprived of father and husband. We stood
alone, almost friendless and unknown, in this
country. I could not even speak the language
of it. I did not hesitate how to act. I gave
up my home, my kindred, my duties, to devote
myself to that duty which was to be the whole object
of my future life." Her Royal Highness then pro-
ceeds to say, " I have in times of great difficulty
avoided all connection with any party in the State"—
how different this from the Royal replies of ten years
back, which, in nine cases out of ten, used to
breathe an ardent Tory spirit !—and concludes by ob-
serving that her daughter, " communicating, as
she does, with all classes of society," will, when
the period arrives that shall summon her to the
throne, feel—and act upon the conviction—" that
with the desire to preserve the Constitutional preroga-
tives of the Crown, ought to be co-ordinate the protec-
tion of the liberties of the people." Reared under the
auspices of such a mother, and inheriting such
principles, the future life of the Princess VICTORIA
cannot but be one of pride to herself and happiness
to her country. Assuring us, as she has done
through the meditim of the Duchess of KENT,
that she avoids " all connexion with any party
in the State," we may predict without hesitation
that her reign—distant be its date !--will be charac-
terised by an enlarged and beneficent system of policy,
of which all classes of her subjects shall equally reap
he advantage.

'e consider the conduct of those Members of the
Government who voted in the House of Commons
last night against the adoption of the Report of the
Select Committee on the London and Brighton Rail-
way Bill, as most reprehensible. Mr. P. THAAISON'S
attempt at a justification of a course so unusual as
that of the whole Treasury Bench voting in a body
Ilgainst a Report on a private Bill, aggravates rather
than extenuates all that is unjustifiable in such an un-
precedented proceeding. If the appointment of a
military engineer by his MAJESTY be necessary to the
reconciliation of rival speculators, the pecuniary inte-
rest of Companies, and the corrert judgment of the
I-louse of Commons—as was stated last night by the
Right Hon. the President of the Board of Trade--
wherefore did,he and his colleagues at the commence-
ment of the Session oppose the appointment of such
an engineer for the survey of all proposed lines of road ?
What other reason can there be for resorting to
such a measure now, save that the Government is
determined, right or wrong, to have Sir Jour: RE/4..
NIE'S line—which the Committee approve of as the
best and shortest, and recommend to the House for its
adoption rejected ? No person in his senses would
believe that the individual scruples of Air. P. Thom-
SON led to such an extraordinary course on the part of
Ministers. The Report of the Committee is certainly
no hasty, ill-judged production, drawn up without
sufficient time for previous deliberation. The Com-
mittee sat for forty-two days during the last ses-
sion of Parliament, and for thirty-five days during
the present session, in the course of which time an
immense mass of evidence was taken, and all the se-
veral plans very carefully examined. In submitting
its Report to the House, the Committee offers the
following reasons for its preference of Sir Jour:- REN-
NIE's line over all the others submitted to it :-
1. That it is the shortest line.
2. That it can be travelled at the least expense to the public.
3. That the Termini are central and convenient for the
public.

- 4. That it interferes with less ornamental property than
the others.
5. That the nature of tLe soil through which it passes is
favourable to the work,