The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-13 00:00:00

_

LONDON:
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1839.

That the Tory Papers should cxult over the
errors and failures of the Chartists is natural.
Every evidence of the corruption and degradation
of the people is the confirmation of their political
theory, and the encouragement of 'their hopes.
They claim power, because the multitude, which
they call swinish, is cowardly, 'unthinking, dis-
►raced, and brutal. All the facts which justify
a their opinions, and make us mourn over the debase-
ment of the people, are halm to the disappointed
Tories. They countenance the conviction, that
the Tory principle of coercion can alone maintain
the peace of society. We cannot be surprised,

_
therefore, that the Tory Journals should- seize
every opportunity to blacken the character of the
bulk of the people, and rejoice at any evidence of
their weakness and folly.
But that which is natural in the Tories ought to
be repugnant to the Whigs, and doubly repugnant
to all the Liberal Journals. In the late Session we
were frequently told that the landlords were only
encouraged to maintain' the Corn-laws by the
Chartists having refused to ally themselves with
the middle classes to procure the repeal of those
laws. A demonstration on their part, it was
said, would have frightened the harpies
from their prey. Now, too, efforts are
making, or at least talked of, throughout the
manufacturing districts, to unite the bulk of
the labouring classes with the middle classes
in demanding that repeal. But, if the lower classes
be unworthy and degraded, their support and alli-
ance must be more injurious than beneficial. The
landlords, it is said, wil yield to nothing but terror,
and the aid of the lower classes is invoked to terrify
,itlee landlords ; but how will that end be answered
if the landlords he at the same time taught to
I despise the lower classes as a set of cowardly poi-
: troons, who have not the courage of hens, nor the
consistency of butterflies.
Much, therefore, do we deprecate the various
attempts which are now making, and have for
eome time been made, by some of the so-called
Lateral and Ministerial journals, to ridicule and
di-o;:era!se the Chartists, and the great bulk of the
leorkiej classes to which they belong.
One Liberal paper is pleased to show up their
eenvae.ilice, by telling a tale of their hastening to bury
,
: their (nlies ; another records a tale of their valour
in buy;ner a jackass on which to try their weapons ;
end a tilird represents them as cueing in the most
i ;;;eject terms for petty mercy. We do not compre-
. eittl the pleasure which journals, whether Tory or
.• we4,e, Can find in creating vices and exaggerating
teults I,r ;:oor " true born Englishman,' and in
inekiee heel ai.)pear one of the meanest and most
despicable of eleilised men. lie who has neither
couraeze to face 3 policeman's bludgeon, in what
1„:, believes to be a Loyd and an holiest cause, nor
consistency to pereeveiY ire a plan, the success of
1 which he has asseitei is neesfary to his indepen-
deuce and his prosperity, will not be a very formi-
; (table opponent to a Feenchman, awl may perhaps
even quail before a boasting Portuguese. The
statements over which a.'e Tories exult, and at
i which the exclusively middles class journals chuckle,
were they true, would prove our population to
I be at once chicken-hearted and imbecile. We feel
itneoat painful toassent to such e. conclusion, for the
character which our Contemporaries give of our
people, by implication, demonstrates the destruction
) of the elements of a great nation. Our territory is
i comparatively small and unfruitful, and our national
I greatness is altogether due to the moral qualities of
our people.
There must, however, be an end to
that if the type
our national character have be-
come, instead of an ill-
treated, well-fed lustyonkey.
Hill,
treated, half-starved costermonger's donkey.
Apart, however, iroen
~
this consideration, that
this manner of speaking of the bulk of the
,eople
degrades the national character in the eyes of fo-
reigners, and encourages them to believe that we
have neither sense nor spirit, we must affirm that
it is not prudens nor even safe, so to misrepre-
sent the people. Granting that they havemistaken,both
t,tse means of obtaining their political ends,
whfgs and Tories have a thousand times proved
themselvn in this respect no wiser than the
Chartists. Granting that they have shrunk back
from their projeeN, so have the Ministers, and so
have the Tories. The forner threatened the Church
but retreated terrified from the conflict, as the
Chartists have retreated from a conflict with the
civil authorities. Tile latter fled from tag Dissen-
ters and the Catholics, and have long o tacitly.
acknowledged that their talk of reconquering Ire-
land was an idle threat. The Chartists, therefore,
are on this point only on a level with the other par-
ties- To brand them as cowards can only serve
two bad purposes. It will stimulate the unthink-
ing of the middle classes into arrogant oppression,
and --irritate the working classes into more fretful
tand ifhpa tient resistance. When the great object i3'
1 or °tight to be, to unite these two classes in only( to
',/ overthrow the scoundrel monopoly of the landlords,

to ridicule and disparage the lower classes can only
be productive of mischief to the Liberal cause, whe-
ther it be done by the Manchester Guardian, the
organ of the factory Lords, or the London Globe,
which by its persiflage much misrepresents the senti •
ments of the Liberal party, and we trust of the
Ministen.

In another part of our Paper we publish the
correspondence which Mr. FROST has had with
the Home-office, relative to Messrs. VINCENT,
EDWARDS, DICKINSON, and TOWNSEND, con•
fined in Monmouth Gaol for political offences.
Without making ourselves responsible for Mr.
FROST'S statement of facts, and without approving
of the language of his letters, one small portion of
which we have been compelled to omit, we must
express our deep regret that the Marquis of NOR-
MANBY should have felt himself constrained
by a sense of duty, in
_performing his first
known public act in the Home Department, to
decline presenting an Addressto her MAJESTY from
a numerous assembly of her subjects, and decline to
interfere for the better treatment of the prisoners.
W
We know what is due to forms, and what reverence
is still preserved for Tory laws and Tory corrup-
tions, but we submit that the cases of Messrs. VIN-
CENT and the others, and of Messrs. LOVETT and
COLLINS, are cases in which an adherence to form
and to law will inflict on them grievous and glaring
injustice. The Government has no more right to
make itself the instrument of middle class prejudices
than of mob plunder ; and the evidence adduced
by Mr. FROST shows that the verdict was the re-
sult of the alarm of the Juries.

We do not defend the language used by Mr. VIN-
CENT, but when language as strong, as libellous, and
as seditious as that he used is continually met with in
the public Journals it is unjust, it is illegal—for in
a land of customary laws, what passes unpunished
becomes legal—it is absurd to punish him. Much
greater allowance, too, ought to be made for spoken
language, perhaps incorrectly, certainly imperfectly
reported, than for written language, which permits
of some deliberation and revision, even in a Daily
Journal, the most hurried and least deliberated of
all published writing.
The worst part of Mr. VINCENT'S address was,
we believe, the phrase " Death to the Aristocracy."
Now he was talking about a Constitution, and
might mean, had explanation been possible, politi-
cal death, the extinction of the privileges of the
Aristocracy ; but it happens that this phrase is
connected with a series of alarming events, including
the murder of many Aristocrats, and Mr. VINCENT
is punished for the sanguinary crimes of the French
Revolution.

Such words pronounced in a conclave of Bishops,
or in the drawing-room at Apsley-house, would
have only provoked derision ; but uttered in an
assembly of the people they are calculated to excite
very different feelings. Is Mr. VINCENT, then, to
be punished because his auditors were not Bishops
or lay Peers ? Is he to be punished because the
people, groaning under a load of unjust taxation,
and suffering oppression from laws which they are
allowed no voice in making, are in distress and dis-
contented ? On this principle what a man
himself does is not the test of his criminality,
but the opinions and feelings of his auditors.
If the people were prosperous and happy, Mr.
VINCENT might be allowed to rave, but because
they are neither prosperous nor contented, he is to
be punished. We cannot concede that this is jus-
tice ; that it is grossly absurd, may be at once taken
as a proof that it is legal.
Such being the trifling offence of Mr. VINCENT,
and the Chartist ebullition having sunk down flat
and stale, though it may again be revived by
legal violence, we should have rejoiced had the Go-
vernment listened to the prayers of the warm-hearted
Welsh, and granted, first, a relaxation of punish-
ment, and, next, a pardon to Mr. VINCENT and
the rest of the Chartists. That Mr. FROST may
have urged the suit abruptly, injudiciously, intem-
perately, is not a sufficient reason for depriving her
MAJESTY of the merit and the popularity of par.
donhig an offence divided from virtue by a very
thin partition. Mr. VINCENT, Mr. LOVETT, and
the rest of them, are the representatives of very
numerous classes. Of themselves they are nothing,
but they speak the sentiments of millions ; and, to
punish or to pardon them, is to put enmity or
friendship betwixt the QUEEN and the bulk of her
people.
From the weighty consequences involved in the
question, we join with Mr. FROST and the Welsh
in asking for the discharge of the political pri-
soners from gaol.

The Protestant Association is anxious to revive
persecution. It petitions her MAJESTY to pu-
nish a portion of her subjects by withdrawing and
witholding public appointments from them, because
they do not follow the same priests as the Protes-
tants. They believe in the same GOD, in the same
Redeemer, in the same Revelation ; but the one
acknowledges the POPE of Rome as his High
Priest, and the other the Archbishop of CANTER-
BURY. Both profess the same allegiance to the
Monarch, and vow the same obedience to the
laws ; but there are some slight differences in their
creed, and on that ground the Protestant Associa-
tion, in utter scorn of the Christian character, asks
for persecution. If with the measure they mete
it shall be measured out unto them, what can
they expect whenever and wherever the Catholics
get the upper hand ?

It will be seen by our Summary of yesterday's
Evening Papers, that Viscount LORTON, according
to the Globe, lately turned a considerable number of
persons out of their holdings on his estate of Bal-
linamock. According to a letter published in the
same Journal, the order to eject them was given
by Lord LORTON in November, 1838. After
giving that order " his Lordship was as good as
his word. He did clear the lands, and swept away
the people to make way for a class of tenantry new
to the soil, and worthy to live in such houses as no
former tenants had inhabited, for good houses'
were to be built for them."

What became of them we do not know, but we
regret to suppose that the present Government
did perform what the Globe seems to think is only '
the duty of a Tory Government. It assisted the
Noble Viscount, at least to clear his estate, and if
it did not afterwards take measures to provide for
the ejected, by settling them in America, as Lords
LANSDOWNE and STANLEY have settled their
ejected tenants, the more shame to the Govern-
ment. We have now to bring under the notice of
the reader the proof that the Government per-
formed what the Glebe supposes is only done by
the Tories. There was yesterday published by
the House of Commons " A RETURN OF ALL
APPLICATIONS MADE SINCE THE FIRST 07
JANUARY, 1839, FOR ANY MILITARY FORCE
TO ASSIST THE CIVIL POWER IN THE
EXECUTION OF WRITS OF EJECTMENT
IN IRELAND." Among the items we find the
following :-4th April, a detachment of the
Second Dragoons, consisting of 1 captain, 3
subalterns, 5 sergeants, 2 bugles, and 56 rank and
file—of the 59th Foot, consisting of 1 captain, 2
subalterns, 3 sergeants, 1 drummer, and 70 rank
and file, and of the 99th Foot, consisting of 1 field
officer, 3 captains, 4 subalterns, 1 drummer, and
30 rank and file ; in all a military force, amounting
to 183 persons, was afforded to carry into execu-
tion writs of ejectment at Ballinamuck, Lord
LORTON'S property. Subsequent to April, the
Noble Viscount proceeded to clear his estate ; the
poor wretches could not be easily wrenched
from their holdings, it was like tearing apart soul
and body, and the troops of her most gracious and
merciful Majesty, Queen VICTORIA, were ern.
yea
to carry into effect the Noble Viscount's de.
ectment. Such decrees, and the employ.
crees .^f ej
ment of 1:le QUEEN'S troops to enforce them, need
no comment. The facts speak more emphatically
than a thousanc: .
however, let us renOrkt are levied from the people,
and paid for by them,
sermons. Her MAJESTY S troops,
who are thus made to support
the instruments which carry into execution the ty-
rannical decrees of their detested oppressors. If
Lord LORTON and his like have no consciences, can
they suppose that other men are destitute of both
sense and feeling ? But unless they suppose the
oppressedanadreermueelrtey can be
or stones, how can they
conceive it possible that such a detestable system of
injustice
con-
tinually causing d' be perpetrated without
disturbances and convulsions in
society?

We may add that the number of applicatioo 111
which the military afforded aid to execute writs of
ejectment in Ireland, between the lst of January
and the 26th of July, in the present year, was
fe!vexclusive of cases of tithes which were pro
aebic7,stiii more numerous. In one of these cases

that of Coonogue in Carlow, 500 infantry and two
troops of dragoons were required to enforce the
writ of ejectment. When civil process must be
enforced by the sword the law is the tyrant not the
protector of the people.

The Church-rate agitation has not of late been
so brisk as it was some time ago. This has put it
into the heads of certain persons gifted with a won-
derful conceit of their own sagacity, that all oppo-
sition to the-Ecclesiastical plunderers of the people
is at an end. They flatter themselves, these p►ous
supporters of a rapacious priesthood, that the Dis-
senters and other " malignants" will in future submit
without a murmur to that periodical fleecing of the
body which a Church-and-State religion holds to
be indispensably necessary to the health of the
soul. Let them not deceive themselves by any
such fallacious appearances as a temporary cessation
of arms may afford. The Church-rate is a claim
which the Dissenters will not only never acknow-
ledge, but towards which they will continue to
entertain that rooted aversion which all well-prin-
cipled persons must feel towards gross civil injus-
tice, combined with still grosser religious intole-
rance. It is utterly impossible that this feeling
should ever be extinguished. Those who possess
it may choose the times and seasons for ex-
pressing it, or for embodying it in more or less
active measures of hostility, but the feeling itself
is ineradicable, and in its very nature progressive in
intensity. . .

We rejoice to see that there are symptoms of
a " revival " on the Church-rate question in
various parts of the country. In another column
will be found reports of stout and successful
battles having been fought in the cause.
One of these took place at Linfield, in Sussex,
where the Church authorities betrayed the
cloven foot, by first proposing a shilling rate, and
then a fourpenny one. In both they were defeated,
although every vote that intimidation and influence
could command or cajole was brought into the
field.

The other case is one of a rich description. The
figure which stands out most prominently in this
piece is that of a fat pluralist—a man of GOD of
more than usual rotundity, no less manifold a per-
sonage, in short, than the Reverend E. S. THun-
LOW (D.D. of course), Rector of Houghton-lc-
Spring in the county of Durham, sinecure Rector
of Easton alias Queenhope in Wales, sinecure Rec-
tor of Llandrillo also in Wales, Vicar of Stamford-
ham in Northumberland, and Prebendary of Norwich.
This reverend vulture, whose predatory excursions
have, it appears, taken a pretty wide range, has
feathered his nest to the tune, first and last, of
about two hundred thousand pounds of sterling
money ; and yet, with all this booty, he could find
in his apostolic heart to levy a contribution upon
the poor Dissenters of one of his parishes for the
purpose of repairing that church in which he every
Sunday inculcates the duties of self-denial, of bro.
therly kindness, of charity, and denounces the
deadly sin of seeking after the Mammon of un-
righteousness

—The parishioners of Hougliton-le•Spring, how-
ever, have thought it high time to resist the grasp-
ing propensities of their spiritual ruler, and corn•
menced proceedings by inquiring into the mode in
which the former drafts on their pockets had been
employed. Four hundred pounds of their money
were found to have been expended—on the repairs
of the church ? Oh, no. The parson's glebe, it
was conjectured, would be nothing the worse if a
bridge were erected in a certain place not very
remote therefrom—so up went the bridge, and
down went the four hundred pounds out of the
Church-rate. This snug little bit of jobbery thus
detected, opened the eyes of the rate-payers, and
an opposition to Church-rates was organized,
which, notwithstanding sundry clerical tricks re-
sorted to for the purpose of defeating it, which will
be found very graphically described in the account
which we have copied from the Durham Chro-
nicle, was ultimately successful. Parson THUR-
LOW is, we believe, one of the holy ministers
who lately remonstrated with the Marquis of
LONDONDERRY for fighting a duel, and who mo-
destly entreated that the Noble Marquis would
receive their representation ‘. with that deference
which is due to God !"

The accounts received from Spain continue to be
favourable to the Constitutional cause. We yester.
day noticed the Carlist rumour, that the Christinos
were defeated with the loss of 1,500 men at Liria,
by the Carlist division, commanded by FoncA-
DELL, and that this success, on the part of the
rebels, had determined the Pretender to attempt a
junction with CARRERA, in order to make Arragon
and Catalonia the centre of future military opera-
tions. The Eco d' Arragon of the sth inst., re-
ceived this morning, contains an animated account
of this engagement, in which, instead of being con-
querors, the Carlists were defeated with great loss.
At the first onset the rebels were greatly superior
in point of numbers, but General ASPIROZ arriv-
ing opportunely, the Carlists were routed with con-
siderable loss. Besides this success, two Carlist
battalions, forming the garrison of Santa Barbara
de Maneau, surrendered their arms and the for-
tress to Don DIEGO LEON, and in virtue of the
articles of the capitulation of MAROTO, were in-
stantly incorporated with the QUEEN'S troops. In
the Moniteur of Wednesday we find the following
telegraphic despatch, which has entirely removed
the apprehensions of the QUEEN'S friends of any
further inaction on the part of ESP ARTERO, and,
consequently, seals the doom of tht Pretender :
BAYONNE, SEPT. 10, TEN O'CLOCK, A M.
THE GENERAL COMMANDING THE 20TH MILITARY DIVI-

SION TO THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

" Espartero writes to me, under date Tolosa, the Bth,
that he would resume his operations on the 9th, and
march towards the Bastan, in order to compel Don Carlos
to seek refuge in France.' He is to acquaint me with
his movements."

Letters from Tolosa, of the 6th inst., state that
Lord JOHN HAS, at the request of General
ARANZ, allowed the Royal Marine battalion, the
Royal Artillery, and the Ruyal Marine Artillery,
commanded by Colonels PARKE and CoLQuHouN,
to occupy Andoain, in order to afford the
QUEEN'S troops additional facilities of advancing
against the enemy. Letters from Bergara, of the
same date, state that the number of Carlist
battalions that had arrived there and ac-
cepted the terms of the Convention, was
twenty-one, viz., five Castilian, eight Guipuz-
coan, and eight Biscayan, exclusive of two
companies of cadets, a company of artillery, one
of sappers, and three squadrons of cavalry. They
are reported to be the finest men in the Carlist
ranks. Most of the peasantry on surrendering
either broke or threw away their muskets, declaring
that they were sick of war, and wanted nothing but
peace. So general is this feeling in Guipuzcoa,
that the Correspondent of the Chronicle, writing
from the spot, is of opinion that no insurrection
would take place were the province left without the
presence of a single battalion in arms.
_ .

The Carlist chief, CANION, surrendered with
150 horse to the QUEEN'S troops, near Burgos ;
the Cura DA DALLO, commander of the fortified
village of La Pohlacion, surrendered with his gar-
rison ; and, in short, every hour produced some
fresh defection from the Carlist cause.

Besides the above gratifying intelligence from
the North of Spain, we have received letters and
papers from the capital of the 4th inst. The news
of the triumph of the Constitutional cause excited
the liveliest demonstrations of joy in the Chambers,
and among the citizens., On the night of the
3d, the city of Madrid was illuminated, and
bands of musicians paraded the principal streets,
singing songs of triumph. The two Queens
were repeatedly obliged to appear at the palace
windows to receive the loyal greetings of the
people. The sitting of the Chamber of Depu-
ties on the 3d was convoked by an extraordinary
notice addressed to each Deputy, in order to hear
a communication from the Government. The at-
tendance was uncommonly numerous. The Mi-
nister of War read ESPARTERO's dispatch,
which was followed by loud bursts of applause,
The following report of the subsequent busi-
ness of the Sitting, will be read with interest
as indicating the determination of the Cortes to
yield no point which may be incompatible with the
maintenance of the Constitution of 1837 :
senor PloFage said that it was to be regretted that
the Congress was not constituted at that moment, as all
his Hon. Colleagues would agree with "him that accord-
ing to the regulations of the Congress, which ought
to be respe
tecbtoeui lsoct as,er
nlhacasi,,do,nf oatsthheiii npGga
onevi
aoerursl dsn:
ellbnoett h proposedicnoga
lu t ►icoacyr.
;n learning that the Constitutio- lOr
taidoonp. tedOT

could be experienc,,..._ ..,itutiona. re-
vernment had been recognised by tne troop; 7. hi'h had
hitherto fought against it. What was best to be done
under the circumstances was to constitute the Chamber
as soon as possible, in order to examine with suitable care