The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-28 00:00:00

THE QUEEN AND THE TORIES.

(From the Examiner.)
When the Queen expressed her hope that Lord John
Russell and his Colleagues would, in return for the sup-
port she had given to their Administration, support her
against the exactions of Sir Robert Peel, her Majesty
in effect appealed to the country to protect her against
the thraldom with which she was threatened by a Tory
Government. If the Queen should be deserted in this
trial by all upon whose exertions she has the strongest
claims there is not a doubt that her Majesty must bend to
the Tory yoke, and submit to all the conditions of Sir
R. Peel. A party which can obtain a majority after an
appeal to the country cannot be kept out of power by the
Monarch in defence of such rights as are involved in the
appointment of the Household ; and a Ministry supported
by the country and Parliament in its claims on the Sove-
reign, must obtain the direction (whether it ought orought
not to obtain it) of the patronage, power, and influence of
the Crown to any extent it may think proper to demand.
Whenever this great constitutional question is tried, it
can have but one issue—it has, however, not been really
raised in the recent case, and in the fallacy which per-
vades the reasoning of the Tory writers and their apos-
tate allies, lurks the assumption that Sir R. Peel stood on
ground which he did not truly occupy. Sir R. Peel was
an unfledged Minister, destitute of the constitutional plu-
mage to sustain his soaring pretensions—he did not pos-
sess—he did not pretend to possess the support of the
House of Commons—he confessed that he wanted it ;
and made the want of it the express reason for his
making such rack-rent demands on the signs of the
Queen's confidence. Had the case been different—
had Sir Robert Peel boasted a majority when called
to the Queen's Councils, her Majesty might fairly
have resisted demands which appeared to encroach
on her personal rights and comforts until it should
be proved that. her people supported the Tory chief
in his unusual exactions, or notwithstanding his un-
usual exactions ; and how much the more was her Ma-
jesty than justifiable in rejecting the requisitions of a
Minister, who, coming into power without the confi-
dence of the House of Commons, and proposing to go-
varn without it, asked to be tricked out with counterfeit
signs of Royal favour, to assist him as an adventurer, in
winning, under false pretences, the confidence which he
had not earned. In the refusal to make an extreme
sacrifice of comfort and happiness to this design, there
was no infraction, no denial, of the principle that a Mi-
nister having the support of the country should have
the plenary confidence of the Crown, for Sir Robert
Peel had to seek for and to acquire the grand essential
which those:who accede to Ministerial power generally
commence with. If, however, the public judgment be
ultimately in his favour, there is nothing more certain
than that he must be forced back into the councils of
the young Queen, and upon his own conditions, however
harsh and insulting they may be to the Sovereign.
The great organ of the Tories, the Times, harps on
the declarations of Lord Melbourne and Lord John
Russell, upon the Jamaica question, that they had " lost
the confidence of the House of Commons," and argues
that, Ministers wanting such confidence, have no title
to the possession of power. But had Sir Robert Peel
the confidence of the Commons—had he gained what
Lord Melbourne feared he had lost—could Sir Robert
Peel's best hopes come up to Lord John Russell's
words of despair? Why, what appeared ruin to the
Whig Ministers, the majority of five in the present
Parliament, would have crowned the political fortunes
of Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert Peel could not
talk of losing confidence, for he never had it to lose, and
what was lost confidence in the eyes of Lord Melbourne,
would have been to the Tory leader a gain beyond the most
sanguine aspirations of his ambition. Has he made any
secret of the bankrupt state in which lie proposed to
set up in the business of Prime Minister? Did he not
take a most methodical and minute survey of the
beggarly account of empty boxes which he was furnished
with for the Queen's service ? Was it not his poverty
and not his will, according to his own showing, that
prompted his extortionate demands on her Majesty ?
Did he not go through the catalogue of the nation's
difficulties, and confess himself wanting of the support
necessary to encounter every one of them—minus five
on the Jamaica question—minus twenty-two on the
Irish policy? What was there in his inventory of re-
, sources but the entire set of Household appointments—
the complete Bedchamber service—which was to
stand in lieu of every great political deficiency ?
Did ever man pass into power so destitute of
confidence—having neither the confidence of the
Commons nor the confidence of the Crown, and
whose grand expedient, as explained by himself, was to
make a counterfeit Royal confidence, with which he
might possibly fraudulently succeed in catching sup-
port that would not otherwise belong to him? Before
the days of Reform Mr. Pitt carried on the Govern-
ment with a minority, but Pitt did not receive his
commission from a weeping Sovereign, and moreover,
the exploit feasible to the eagle is beyond the powers
and capacity of the daw.
Sir Robert Peel has but one chance. He is what is
vulgarly called " Hobson's choice ;" and whenever it is
quite certain that no other Minister can be had, his
turn for trial comes, but not otherwise. As in posting,
when no postilion is to be had for " the next turn out,"
Boots takes his place in the saddle, so Sir Robert Peel
is the Boots of the political journey—no one's choice,
but a pis aller. There is, however, this peculiarity
about the humour of our Boots, that he insists on being
lifted into the saddle by the Chambermaids, or he re-
fuses to drive the State-coach.

THE QUEEN AND LADY PEEL.—Many stories
have been told about the recent ball given by the Queen.
We have heard the following from an eye-witness, namely,
that her Majesty made a point of giving a most cordial
shake of the hand to Lady Peel, as if anxious to pfove
that her political sentiments did not interfere with her pri-
vat efeelings. We mention this little incident, first as an
amiable trait in her Majesty's character, and secondly, as
an example generally to the ladies of the United Kingdom,
who have lately allowed politics to obtain much too great
an influence over them, even to the embittering of private
life, the poisoning of friendship, and the souring of the
very best feelings of the human heart. This is a hint
which is much wanted.—Liverpool Chronicle.
Several shopkeepers in the parish of Clerken-
well were summoned by Mr. Child, the inspector of
weights and measures, yesterday, before the Magistrates at
Hatton-garden, for having false weights, scales, and mea-
sures, in their possession, and they were convicted in
various penalties, with the forfeiture of the deficient
articles.

ANGLING EXTRAORDINARY.—NO less than
302 salmon pink were caught in the Wye, by a gentleman
a few days ago; and one of his companions at the same
time caught 120. It is considered that salmon, trout,
grayling,
and salmon pink are in greater abundance this
year in the rivers Wye, lrvon, and Ddw, than in any
former year in the recollection of the oldest fishermen in
the town.—Hereford Times.