The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-02 00:00:00

Robert Peel Wa3 not one that he found in office, as the
Queen found that of Lord Melbourne, and merely con-
tinued because it was pot either customary or conve-
nient to dismiss a Ministry at the period of an accession
to the Crown. No ; the Ministry of Sir Robert Peel
was one of the King's own especial choice, and yet
such was the " loyalty" of the Whigs at the time
of the appointment of that -Ministry, that they made
every possible effort to excite the popular feeling against
the Ministers of the King's choice, and failing in that
they conspired with the man whom they had not long
before denounced in the speech from the throne, in order
to expel those Ministers from office. Such is the loyalty
of those Whigs who call upon the people of England
to acquiese in all their measures and to practise a per-
fect " passive obedience," because the " Queen" has
been pleased to continue them for the present in
office, or rather has not thought proper to dismiss
them on finding them there. The Whigs modestly
tell the people of England that they ought not to op-
pose them at the elections because they are the Queen's
Ministers. Did political effrontery ever surpass this ?
The Whigs, during their years of exclusion from
office, took the greatest credit to the themselves for con-
tinually opposing the King's Ministers. Now, they
take up the opposite doctrine, because it is their in-
terest to do so, and the patriotism of Whigs always
means their own selfish interests.—Morning Herald.

There is one rather serious fault—such at least it
must ever appear to the Conservatives—in almost all
the political statements of Lord John Russell : it is
that they are not in the least true. Weak and trashy
as this Minister is in every other respect, it is curious
to observe the bold pertinacity with which he adheres
in his statements to the assertion of that which is not
and the denial of that which is—whether he placards
the blank walls of Devon or makes speeches to the
muddy-minded electors of Stroud, the characteristic
feature of Lord John's composition is still the same :
the things which he states are not true. By this rule
we are bound to interpret his Lordship's late elec-
tionering manifesto to his worthy associate the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. No doubt all it contained was
quite as true as the Devonshire placard or- the Stroud
speeches. On the day. the Parliament was pro-
rogued the Queen was made to declare in a speech,
for the contents of which Lord John is respon-
sible, that her Majesty was very desirous of
renewing the assurance of her determination to
maintain ntain the Protestant religion as by law esta-
blished. On the day after Lord John writes to
Lord Mulgrave, to express her Majesty's entire
approbation of his conduct as Chief Governor of Ire-
land. Now what was that conduct ? It was a system
of abject co-operation with Mr. Daniel O'Connell, a
man who has himself openly affirmed, and caused a
resolution of his confederate gang to be publicly made,
to the effect thbe the Protestant Establishment is a
nuisance, which ought to .be abolished, and without
the abolition of which Ireland will not have justice.
Can any man believe, notwithstanding that Lord John
Russell has asserted it, under his hand, that her Ma-
jesty, knowing the conduct of Lord Mulgrave in Ire-
land, entirely approves" of it ? It is impossible
to believe it, without disbelieving the Speech from the
throne. They cannot both be true, and when the
Queen speaks one thing and Lord John Russell
writes that which implies exactly the reverse, it is
not necessary for us to point out which is to
be cast aside as unworthy of credence. The
speech of Lord John at a dinner which was
given to him and his Parliamentary colleague (that
dullest of pamphlet manufacturers), at Stroud, the
other day, abounds in those peculiarities of style which
blunt people distinguish by a monosyllabic epithet
that we need not print. He began with charging it as
a political crime of the Tories, that within " no very
long period" tiled increased the public debt of the
country from 250,000,0001. to 850,000,0001. ; and
not one word did this wretched Englishman—this
heartless denizen of a nation to which he is unworthy
to belong—not one word did he say of the struggle
for national existence in which this vast sum of money
was expended, and the glorious triumph with which
our expenditure of treasure, of talent, and of blood was
crowned. The war of one-and-twenty years against
Europe all in arms, and guided by the military ge-
nius of the great Napoleon, was that " no very long
period" of which this paltry creature ventured to chat-
ter. Perhaps our Government was not as economical
as it might have been during that time—perhaps it
was extravagant—but it was a noble extravagance
—it was the price of glory such as no nation, ancient
or modern, ever before achieved—such as the little soul
of Lord John Russell can no more feel than the worm
that wriggles in the mud beneath our feet can imagine
the glory of the heavens. Englishmen, are you not
ashamed that a Minister of this Monarchy should
allude to the circumstances of your efforts from 1794
to 1815, and have nothing to say of them except a
sneering reference to the money which those efforts cost
you ? Have you so lost the spirit which animated
your fathers that you will hear without indignation a
dastardly and crouching slave of faction sneer at the
sacrifices which you voluntarily and even eagerly made,
to preserve your civil and religious liberty from the
trampling tyranny of infidel and revolutionary France ?
It is not true that the Tory Government is charge-
able with going to the prodigious expense which
was necessary in order to vanquish Napoleon
Buonaparte. If it were true the greater would be
the glory of that Government ; but they can*ot
claim so transcendent a merit. It was the British
nation which insisted on this expenditure, and no
Government would have been suffered to hold back
from the glorious work in which the nation was en-
gaged. Lord John Russell is old enough to remem-
ber the utter contempt in which his despicable party
was held by the nation because it was willing to make
terms with tyranny, and (blind as it was to the power,
as well as insensible to the glory of England), to lower
our proud flag before the domineering eagles of the
French usurper. Thank God, the Whigs were in
those days despised as they deserved to be, and
Nel-
son and Wellington did not strive in vain. The
mighty arm of Great Britain, directed by Conserva-
tive statesmen, vindicated the cause of justice, patriot-
ism, and humanity throughout the world. We were
then, indeed, a nation. Alas ! how changed, when
Lord Palmerston disgraces us abroad, and Lord John
Russell does all he can at home to turn the old spirit
of fidelity and honesty into all that is vain, uncer-
tain, paltry, shuffling, and unmanly 1 We have no
delight in war for its own sake, but (the expenditure
notwithstanding) we could wish most heartily that
something of the old spirit which animated our rulers
during the war were still abiding amongst us. The
change that has taken place inclines us to believe, with
old Sallust—" Quod si regum atque imperatorum,
animi virtus in pace ita, uti in bello, valeret, aqua-
Milts atque constantius sese res humanw haberent,
neque aliud alio ferri, neque inutan ac misceri amnia
cerneres:' This is our fate under the Melbournes
and the Russells, the Palmerstons and the Rices, and
all that pigmy set, who are equally without decision
and disinterestedness—who are driven now to this
point, and now to that, as the necessities of their tem-
porary position seem to command. These are men
who take no elevated view, and if they did have
not resolution to keep it steadily before them. These
are men who first perplex and then degrade
everything in national affairs—who know not how
to preserve the business of Government in an
equable and constant course—who cannot prevent
one thing from crossing and jostling with another,
and thus obstructing and stopping up the current of
public business—who allow all things to be changed
and jumbled together, and who amid all this chaos,
are heard with the feeble voice of efreminate vanity
glorifying themselves, and pooling forth paltry vitupe-
ration upon the acts of men who made the nation
great and glorious in the day of their power We
did. intend, when we began this article, to have gone
into something like a review of Lord John Russell's
speech at Stroud, but we have, almost unconsciously,
wandered into the theme of our country's glories, and
we shall not return to anatomize its shame. We shall,
therefore, say no more on this occasion of the speech
of Lord John Russell ; but content ourselves with the
expression of our sincere conviction that a more in-
consistent, inadequate, narrow-minded, and contempti-
ble Minister than that Noble Lord never held a con-
siderable situation in a British GOvernment.—Morn-
ing Pos!.