The Sun.
London, England, 1837-09-19 00:00:00

_Tejr OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
egse,(sSe • ss;
- constituency composed of English -or
2!,e - gr es, enemies to all reform (the late majo-
-I;4\ _ r shire for instance), hold a public glori-
ses,;
elebrate their triumph over that principle at
wideir).6loll, and drink thereat, as a toast, The Gloriousemory of the Battle of Peterloo, what would be
thoueht of such a commemoration ? Is there, in the
whore length and breadth of Great Britain a single
man of character who would stand up to justify it
Lord Stormont himself, who hates the very name of
reform, and might, therefore, be supposed to look back
with an eye of complacency upon that (Treat effort to
crush the young serpent in the egg, would as soon bite
off his tongue as propose such a sentiment ; because,
if no better feeling intervened to forbid it, he would
be restrained by a dread of the universal indignation
and disgust which would infallibly overwhelm the
author of such an outrage upon public decency. But
if magistrates from the neighbourhood of Manchester
should join in celebrating that event at a public and
exciting revel, in the presence and hearing of the sons
and some of the survivors of the yeomanry cavalry
who did such stalwart service under Commander
Birley on that day, can we conceive that the
Government which suffered those conservators of
the -peace to retain the commission for a single
day afterwards would be tolerated by any portion
or denomination of the British public ? No, they
would be pursued with the contempt of the
people, and the derision of their opponents. Even the
Administration composed of the individuals who framed
the Six Acts would he ashamed, or at least afraid, to
leave the lives and liberties of their fellow-subjects at
the mercy of those magistrates. Now, the commemo-
ration of the Battle of Me Diamond by Colonel Ver-
ner was a much more glaring offence than even that
which we have supposed as calculated to rouse the
blood of Englismen. For Peterloo was in some sense
a legalised carnage ; that is to say, juries have been
found to pronounce it so, at the beck of a very learned
Chief Justice of the King's Bench ; and the
principal
actors of the scene have been honoured and richly re-
w'trded at the general cost. But the Baffle of the
Diamond was a conflict between armed banditti, every
individual of whom rendered himself obnoxious to capi-
tal punishment by engaging in it, and its consequences
upon the whole fabric of society and the state of the
public peace were the most disastrous that can be
imagined. We shall prove what we have here asserted
in a day or two; and then let the people of England
say what opinion they would have entertained of Lord
Mulgrave and Lord Morpeth if they had riot turned
Colonel Verner out of the rank which lie lately
held among the magistrates of Ireland.—Morning
Chronicle.
The prudence of the Tory leaders, in refusing to
encourage the subscription project, which that notable
gudgeon Andrew Spottiswoode so eagerly swallowed,
has, we think, been pretty clearly shown, in the effects
which the bare announcement of it has already had in
Dublin. On Saturday last a meeting of the Liberal
electors of that city was held on the Royal Exchange,
at which a series of resolutions was passed expressive
'of the astonishment and indignation of the persons
assembled at the proceedings of the parties in London.
In less than twenty minutes the sum of 1,3021. was
subscribed—a sum more than equal to all that has
hitherto been collected throughout England and Scot-
land for the petitions against the Liberal returns. A
scheme like that concocted in London could hardly
fail to produce a strong re-action in Ireland, and this,
no doubt, led the Tory leaders to withhold their coun-
tenance from it. The truth is, that, with the excep-
tion of the red-hot parsons, and the old women whom
they influence by their No Popery declamations, and the
decoy ducks usually put forward (for instance, the se-
cretary, Mr. Kindcrley, seems to have laid hold of all
the persons in England who rejoice in that cognomen),
there are hardly any subscribers. The promptitude of
the citizens of Dublin to take the field on the first ap-
proach of danger proves that there will be no want of
champions to defend the liberties of their country
should their aid be deemed necessary. Much indigna-
tion has been everywhere felt at the barefaced attempt
of Messrs. Spottiswoode and Co. The Scotsman of
Saturday last, after retnarkino-, " that the spirit of To-
ryism is essentially and radically evil that "no
means that may advance the interest of the faction arc
too base for the Tories to adopt ;" that "in the
struggle of parties they wholly disregard those usages
which belong to an honourable system of warfare ;"
candidly adds, "we understand, however—and it
speaks well for the virtue of the party, apart from its
leaders—that the call for subscriptions which has been
raised here as well as in London and other places, has
not as yet been so liberally answered as was anticipated
by the projectors."—Morning Chronicle.
When, at the breaking out of Emmett's rebellion,
in July, 1803, an upright judge and exemplary noble-
man, Lord Kilwarden, on his peaceful way through
the streets of Dublin, was savagely butchered in cold
blood by the pikes of those illustrious patriots, who
clamoured then, as their successors do now, for that
consummation of all things, nicknamed " justice to
Ireland," it was a fashion with the traitors and their
advocates or apologists to describe their own proceedings
by different names from those applied to them by the
rest of the world—an expedient to which criminals not
unfrequently resort for softening down the general ab-
horrence they are held in. A few weeks after the mas-
sacre of the above-mentioned nobleman, when several of
the multitude were under examination touching some
facts connected with that atrocious murder, the rebel
witnesses could not be prevailed upon to designate the
tune, or the transaction itself, otherwise than as " the
day of the dispute in Thoinas-street !" A wanton,
bloody, and desperate treason in its very nature, had
it for the moment succeeded, convertible to no objects
but ssho.esa e pun !er, mas;aCre, and devastation of
the King's loyal subjects, though aimed at the over-
throw ot the ismish Monarchy in Ireland, obtained
the bland epithet of a.• dispute in Thomas-street !"
We find that Lord Morpeth has read Irish his-
tory with effect, inasmuch as lie has borrowed from
the traitor witnesses of the period just referred to,
their receipt for qualifying under pet appellations the
most barbarous and heinous crimes that can be perpe-
trated for the most diabolical ends. In the Noble
Lord's letter to Colonel Verner, his version of such
acts as the " dispute in Thomas-street" is, that they
amount to " civil discords," " religions differences,"
and " bitter animosities." Now, we ask of Lord
Morpeth, does he venture to allege that any civil dis-
cord, religious difference, or bitter animosity on the
part of Irish Protestants towards the Papists, has ever
broken out in such proceedings as extensive conspi-
racy, general massacre, bloody rebellion, and open de-
fiance of the laws ? Lord Morpeth will affirm that
the Papists represented themselves to be the aggrieved
parties under the laws as they once stood, and
the Protestants to be the aggressors. Conquerors
they were, and are—we know it ; conquerors, not so
much of the Irish nation (for there never was one
collective Irish nation), as of the isolated, petty, and
uncivilised tyrants, by whom the disunited septs of the
inhabitants were from age to age, and in their several
districts and localities, cruelly oppressed. But Lord
Morpeth ought to know to the full as well as Lord
John Russell, who has acknowledged that, whether
Wise or me., the English system of legislating against
Irish Popery was in his opinion ...just." Lord Mor-
peth, albeit not the wisest of statesmen, has at least
sense and Whiggery enough to be satisfied thee the
last sixty years have presented a series of ;.,,eefatigrible
efforts on the part of the Irish 130-I,;sts, Csr of a large
and proponderr.iit cr portion of to intimidate the
Le.islaturr. a
.4 o such enshge; of the law, or, if that
should fail, to produce by force such changes in defi-
ar;ca of the law, as must altogether overturn the rela-
tions between Protesteet and Papist established by the
Revoiution of 16t6,...,that is to say, transfer the save.
rvignty of Ire,:ana from the Protestant English to the
the succes-
native priatly and anti• English power,
Rive ;I fiempts for ail 4 ono paramount purpose have
k adapted. with more or less skill and cunning, to
the which they were made. When
circunisttinces under
L'iigiand was strong and prosperous, appeals were ten-
tiered to her compassion, with solemnassurances of
every favour being received with gratitude and full-
ness of contentment by the Papists ; when England
showed symptoms of weakness or distress, the me-
thod of working upon her was by threats or open vio-
ence. England, proud in her conscious greatnets; but