The Sun.
London, England, 1839-05-15 00:00:00

documents to be laid on the table of the Commit.
tee, without, of course, special instructions. As
F'nr as :he Lords are concerned the matter rested
there ; but it will not, we hope, be without its les-
son for the public.

The accusation .made in the Dublin Evening
Mail, like so many others, and copied Lke them
nto the Tory journals, is a barefaced and
unprincipled falsehood. Now falsehoods of that
kind, which the Standard, from its familiarity with
them, justly calls "enormous lying," are the weapons
with which the Tory prints have continually as-
sailed, and are now assailing, her Majesty's Minis-
ters. Their other accusations are like this sample,
and unworthy of belief.
We stated at the outset that it was an
appropriate commencement of business, be-
cause Lord MELBOURNE, in the course cf
his explanation, complained of a similar calumny
from the same mint, and said he knew the unfortu-
nate situation in which any person stood who had
nothing to oppose to such charges but his
bare assertion. His Lordship need not say
qiat his situation is unfortunate, so far as
Tory writers are concerned, for his lightest
word would outwegh a ton of their oaths. To
all honourable minds, after the example we
have quoted, his word will suffice to rebut
all their charges, for even the leaders of
their own party are obliged publicly to repudiate
them as liars. The charge alluded to by Lord
MELBOURNE orginated (we believe) in the Times,
one of the Tory fabricators, and the public will
now be able, if it were not before, justly to ap-
preciate its value.

" I took the Red Book," said Sir R. PEEL in his
ever-to-be-celebrated account of rejecting the Go •
vernment of the Empire, because he could not dis-
miss the Bedchamber Ladies ; " I took the Red

Book and saw there were different departments of
the Household-1 said to those who were intended
to be my future Colleagues—l said with respect to
all the subordinate authorities, meaning every ap-
pointment below the rank of a Lady of the Bed-
chamber,—l said to them, I should submit to
her, MAJESTY no change whatever with re-
spect to those." This is Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S own account of one of the first steps he
took, after assuming the Administration, to form a
Government for this great empire. flow beauti-
fully specific, how elaborately minute, serving
as a guide to all future about-to-be Prime
Ministets. " I took the Red Book I" and
after taking the Red Book the great Com-
moner hastened to tell her MAJESTY she must
submit to have all the Ladies, on one side of a line

in the Red Book, removed from her presence.
Such a basis for an Administration—such a cause
for rejecting the government of an empire, after Sir
ROBERT had struggled for it through thick and
thin, by fair means and by foul--profiting by
false imputations, encouraging by silence un-
founded charges, • casting principles overboard—
seems to us so ineffably contemptible, that we
cannot believe he was serious, or that he told the
House of Commons and the country the exact
reasons he had for declining the task of forming the
Administration.

Sir ROBERT will excuse us for doubting his
sincerity, and doubting his love of truth, for he
stated just before he used the memorable phrase,
" I took the Red Book" (and having heard
his speech we can vouch for the accuracy of
the report)—Sir ROBERT PEEL stated, "I had very
little information of, and had very little considered
the Household—l am speaking of the female part—
and scarcely knew of whom it consisted." Yet hi,
Administration has been broken up by his deep-
rooted objections_ to three Ladies forming the
chief part of that body, of the parts of which
he professed ignorance. He expressly stated that
he could not undertake the Government of Ireland,
while the wife of Lord NORMA NBY, and the sisters
of Lord MORPETH, were about the QUEEN, and yet
he scarcely knew, he also said, who were the Ladies
forming her MAJESTY'S Household I. After this
specimen of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S diplomatic use of
language, he will pardon us for believing that
he did not, in the face of the Commons and
the country, assign his true reasons for wit forming
an Administration. He told the House, certainly,
the circumstance on which he had got rid of an
impracticable task, but he did not tell the House
and the country why he used that ridiculous and
contemptible pretext for not undertaking the Go-
vernment.

In the course of his speech, Sir ROBERT PEEL
dwelt most emphatically on the great difficulties he
should have to encounter. Jamaica perplexed him,
Canada afFrighted him, India was a subject of
anxious consideration, but the incipient insurrection
at home, and the condition of Ireland absolutely terri-
fied him. He had to encounter those immense diffi-
cultie3 with a minority in the House of Com-
mons, while he dared not appeal to the country,
lest he should increase the agitation ; and he was
convinced that, directly he began to act, his forces
would be rapidly diminished. Sir ROBERT PEEL,
we have good reason to believe, was given to under-
stand, very soon after his first interview with her
MAJESTY, that he could not rely on the support of
several of his present friends, unless on conditions
it was impossible for him to comply with.
Though he meant to govern Ireland on Orange
principles, as is evident by his anxiety to
remove the wife of Lord NORMANBY, and the
sisters of Lord MORPETH, from about the
QUEEN, it was essential to his success not to put
the Orangemen prominently forward. But they
could not brook such half friendship ; and as they
at once began to complain that Sir ROBERT meant

to throw them overboard, he was made immediately
sensible that in the difficulties in which he was to be
involved they would not give him an efficient support.
With the Duke of BUCKINGHAM, we have heard,
Sir ROBERT had a correspondence which made it
doubtful whether he would not oppose any-
thing like a moderate Tory Adnunktration
Lord LINCOLN would have been a thorn
in his side, unless Sir ROBERT had
undertaken to reinstate the Duke of NEWCASTLE
in the Lord Lieutenancy of Nottingham, disparag-
ing the authority of the Crown most justly ex-
ercised in the case of that Duke. Thus, we be-
lieve that the great difficulties Sir ROBERT would
have had to encounter, with a certainty that his
forces would fall asunder as soon as ever he be-
gan to act, were the real causes which induced
him to haggle for the appointment of the Bed-
chamber Ladies, that he might not succeed in
forming an Administration.

Sup—posing this to be an approximation to
correctness, it is very instructive. First, we
learn from the fact that it is, and will be
impossible, to form an Administration on what are
now misnamed Conservative principles. The
reason, too, is obvious. So far as the continued

preservation of the Church in England and Ire-
land is concerned, those principles involve a grievous
injury and insult to very large classes of opulent
and intelligent people, while the opposite principles
involve no injury to any person, and only imply the
extinction of injustice. Next, it being impossible
to establish a Government on Conservative
principles, as taught by the Press which sup-
ports Sir ROBERT PEEL, and he being ob-
viously sensible of that, he stands accused and
nearly convicted of countenancing a factious oppo-
;ition. He cannot form an Administration, but 'he
embsrasses his opponents. He breaks up one
Government, by his votes and conduct, know-
ing that be cannot form another. Such is
his loyalty and his patriotism, and great is
the mischief which his ignorant, selfish, and
rash ambition would inflict on the country.
But this is not all, for while he was sensible of the
impossibility of achieving what he undertook, he
was ready to practise on a young and inexperienced
Lady ; and had she not displayed knowledge.
and judgment, and firmness beyond her years he
would have broken up her Household, and involved
her in inextricable &ffieulties. Such is the wily
politician, Sir ROBERT PEEL.

We wish, with some earnestness, to direct public
attention to the manifesto, so it is called, which the
Convection has issued to its constituents, and which
appears in another part of The Sun. Its language
is firm and impressive. Being ourselves thoroughly
convinced that no advantage can accrue to any class
from driving the dispute to extremity, we hope that
the greatest caution will be observed on both sides.
Soothing measures being far preferable to irritating
"es, we can but express our regret at the measure
taken with regard to Mr. ROBERTS, noticed else-
where, and at the measures taken with regard to
the Demolratic Society, to which a Correspondent
has called our attention, and for which, as at pre-
,