The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-03 00:00:00

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f what is perfectly correct in others, /nen ad?er% eto
individual feeling ; but we cannot imagine that Lord
Hill, in announcing that officers " coeeeetieg tf;enes
i selves with party associations" would indur a P-frearY',
responsibility, and expose themselves teethe .I.4a'sligt—
blame," ever intended to preclude military' Officel s''.
from constitutionally and loyally advocating the po-
licy which they may deem most favourable to the
general good. The soldier is not to be regarded as a
slave. He is, like other citizens, to be amenable to the
laws, and more especially to enforce a respect for them;
but he is not therefore to act as a blind instrument in' 1
the hands of authority. This would be a most danger,
our principle to sanction, and one which it would be
especially inopportune to promulgate under ax;sting I.
cir-
cumstances. The BritisL soldier should be united with,
the law, and not made its meeo instrument. Such at
least is the light in which we wish to regard the army-,
though we are aware that the general cue to the politics
of men in authority, whether military, naval, civil, or
ecclesiastical, is, the best means of obtaining their awn
promotion, and not of advancing the public good. The
Ashton incendiaries have merely for the nonce mistaken
their cue, we shall no doubt hear at another time a
different account of them—that is, if the Court and the
Ministers adhere, as we have every hope they will, to
the course with which they are now associated, so for-
tunately
for all parties,
(From the Morning Post.)
A Ministerial paper (the Chronicle) accuses the
Tory journals generally of making " attempts to
mislead the public on the subject of the Queen's
marriage, by the most malignant and insidious insinua-
tions." This accusation, like nineteen oat of every
twenty made by the Whig-Radical prints, against the
Tories and Tory journalists, is put forth with the n:ost
absolute and impudent disregard of common veracity.
It is not credible that any Ministerial writer, however -1
extravagant in party feeling, and however exasperated
by the falling condition of his faction, can be so bereft
of the commonest powers of observation as to believe
that Tory journalists really do that which the above-
quoted accusation ascribes to them. We have seen
nothing in any Tory journal which breathes the
slightest disapprobation of the choice which her Majesty .
has made. 1V edo not not know what can be meant ire 1
the assertion that" attempts have been made to mislead."
The facts of the affair have been so few, and so plain, I
that no such attempts could have been made without
a certainty of failure ; and, even if this were not so,
we can conceive no motive on the part of the Tories
to mislead the public on the subject of the Queen's mar-.
riage. We are equally at a loss to understand what
the charge of having indulged in " malignant and insi-
dious insinuations" can be intended to refer to. We
rather think the malignity is altogether on the side of
those who make the accusation, and that the " insidicus
insinuations" are entirely the coinage of Whig-Radica
brains, which are wild with a sense of public scorn and
fast accumulating degradation. If Ministerial writers
had any regard for truth, or candour, or common
honesty, they would bring their attacks and direct their
accusations, not against the Tory journals, which have
not breathed so much as as a whisper adverse to Prince
Albert, or his intended alliance with our Sovereign, but
against the O'Connell and Popish journals, which do very
plainly insinuate that the Prince is no fit connection for
a Sovereign Lady whose right to her throne is condi-
tional upon her Protestantism. The Ministerial journals
in London do their utmost to show tint the Protestantism
of Prince Albert and of his family is without spot or
blemish. This is the reasonable course for them to pursue,
because if it were not so the alliance would be hateful
in the sight of the British people, who never lose sight
of the Constitutional rule that Popery on the part of
the Sovereign, or marriage with a Papist, dissolves the
compact of allegiance just as completely as if the So-
vereign were dead. The Tory journals have not said
nor insinuated anything calculated to throw doubt or
suspicion upon the Protestantism of the Prince. They
have done exactly the reverse. They have all dwelt
upon the certainty that he is a Protestant, and of a
Protestant family, and they have (with one " singular"
exception) blamed the Ministers of the Crown for
omitting to avail themselves of that fact in the Queen's
declaration to the Privy Council, well knowing that an
allusion to the Prince's Protestantism in that declara-
tion would have been extremely gratifying to the Bri-
tish public. But the Ministerial or O'Connell journals in
Dublin, whose attachment to the faction of Popery is
far stronger than their attachment to the British
Monarchy as by law established, do insinuate exactly •
the opposite of what is affirmed by the Ministerial
journals in London. While the Ministerialists here
are insisting upon the undoubted Protestantism of the
Prince and his family, the Papists in Ireland, whom the
Melbourne Ministry depend upon for their wretched
majority of two or three in the House of Commons, are
trying to establish a directly contrary opinion. Why
do not the Ministerial Journals—why does not the
Chronicle—attack them ? Ah, that is not to be
thought of. No matter what the Irish Papists
say, they must net be contradicted—they must
not be accused, for they support the Mel-
bourne Administration. The Tories, who do not make
any charge against Prince Albert or his family—who do
not insinuate any doubt of his Protestantism—are falsely
accused as if they dirt, while the Popish journals, which
do insinuate, and that with tolerable plainness too. a
very strong doubt of the Protestant character of the
alliance, are allowed to pass without the slightest re-
buke. Does not this plainly show that the one only
interest which the Ministerial Journalists think of is the
interest of their faction, and that about the Pro-
testantism of the Monarchy, and the preservation of the
constitutional compact between the Sovereign arid the
people, they care nothing ? Mr. O'Connell's paper, pub-
lished in Dublin, comforts the Papists of Ireland with the
assurance that, though the Prince is Protestant, " his fa-
ther and family are Catholics." It points attention to the
fact that " the match has been, in some measure,
brought about by the King of the Belgians, who is mar-
ried to the daughter of the Catholic King of France."
It says also that " although the Prince Albert belongs
to the Lutheran Church, yet the liberality of the stock
and connections from which he springs makes us hope
that the Queen will obtain fair play in her own Court,
and that her people will obtain fair play in their own
land, and that is all they ask." These statements and
" insidious insinuations" have been before the public
for several days—they come from a journal well known
to be the chosen vehicle for communicating Mr. O'Con-
nell's frequent epistles to the public : the word Catholic
is evidently used for Papist, but no expression of
rebuke has been bestowed upon them by those who
arc so forward to imagine wrongs to Prince Al-
bert's Protestantism on the part of the Tories!
Thus it happens in everything. The Ministers
of Queen Victoria are dependent upon the Irish
Papists for a majority of two or three in the House
of Commons. The Irish Papists have enabled them
to go on for several years, notwithstanding that a
majority of the representatives of the British people
are decidedly hostile to them. The Irish Papists may,
therefore, say and do what they please. Nothing on
their part can be wrong. They may give the Minis-
terial prints here the lie, but then they support the
Ministers. They may assert that the family of the
chosen consort of the Queen is Papist, but what flat-
ter ? they support the Ministers. They may insinuate
that although the chosen consort is a Protestant, yet,
in consideration of the religion and politics of his family,
the Papists of Ireland and the Queen in her Court may
have equal and similar hope of what they call "fair
play"—but all this is to pass without censure, for they
support the Ministers. But because the British public,
and the majority of the representatives of Great Britain
in the House of Commons, do not support the Minis-
ters, their satisfaction is to be wholly disregarded, and
even in the declaration of the Queen's marriage the
principal thing home in mind is not to offend the Irish
Papists!

STAGE-COACH TRAVELLING.— A case of
some importance to the public was decided in the
Small Debt Court, by Sheriff Bell, on Thursday last.
A gentleman had, by his servant, taken his seat to
Paisley by coach. Ile took the seat accord-
ingly inside ; but after the coach had started
another gentleman appeared as claimant for the
seat, when it turned out on examining the
way-bill, that the first mentioned gentleman's
name had been scored out, and that of the latter
substituted. He was obliged to leave the coach ac-
cordingly, but proceeded to Paisley in a chaise, and
now appeared in Court to claim chaise-hire and da-
mages. On the part of the coach proprietors it was
admitted that the seat had been taken, but they proved
that a person had afterwards called and counter-
manded the order, when the seat was again let. They
also proved that it was a common practice to sub-let
seats at the request of parties who had had their sea's
taken. The Sheriff, after taking the case to avisan-
dum, pronounced judgment to the effect that coach pro-
prietors were not entitled to sub-let, unless perfectly
satisfied that the seat was countermanded by the same
authority by which it was taken—that, had the journey
been to London, or any other similar distance, the dis-
appointment might have produced serious injury—that,
by the mode presently followed, which was loose and un-
guarded, a person's intention to travel might be frustrated
from some interested or malicious motive—that, in this
instance, the proprietors had been imposed upon by a
trick—and, under the whole circumstances, he found
them liable for the hire of the chaise to Paisley and ex-
penses, but, as no case of damages had been attempted
to be made out, he awarded none.