The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-01 00:00:00

MIDDLESEX ELECTION.

MEETING AT THE CROWN AND ANCHOR.
Last night a numerous meeting of freeholders and
friends of Mr. Byng and Mr. Hume was held at the
Crown and Anchor Tavern, for the purpose of promoting
the interests of those gentlemen at the ensuing election for
the county of Middlesex. Lord WILLIAM RUSSELL, on
the motion of Mr. Warburton, was voted to the Chair.
Mr. WARBURTON then opened the business of the meet-
ing by eulogising the conduct of Messrs. Byng and Hume
in Parliament. Notwithstanding the efforts made by Mr.
Hume in the cause of freedom, a body of men--he would
not call them Englishmen—he believed they were navi-
gators—had that day lent themselves at Brentford to the
Tory party, and conducted themselves in a disorderly,
disgraceful manner.—(Cry of " Shame.") Mr. War-
burton concluded by moving that Mr. Byng and Mr.
Hume, the late Members for the county of Middlesex, had
deserved the support of the freeholders in the ensuing election.
Mr. BYNG addressed the meeting, and begged leave to say
the whole of his political life had been devoted to the sup-
port of the principles of the Constitution. He did not dis-
tinguish the different shades of character which marked the
modern parties. His object had ever been to serve his
constituents. The same desire and the same motives would
actuate him to the last hour of his existence.—(Cheers.)
Mr. HUME said he considered both Whigs and Radicals
bound to agree for the purpose of keeping off the Tories,
their common enemies.—(Cheers.) It was a question of
principle which all Reformers should observe. He had read
the speech of Lord John Russell, at Stroud, and was de-
lighted to find the spirit of Reform progressing. Lord John
Russell had done much by the Municipal. Reform Bill. He
had made the rate-payers in boroughs independent. With
respect to the election for the county of Middlesex, he could
not see how electors could be justified in withholding their
votes. He knew there were some who, rather than offend cer-
tain parties, would not vote at all. The exercise of the elec-
tion franchise was a sacred right, and the man who did not
use it was unworthy to possess it.—(Cheering.) He knew
that a class of persons, by inuendoes and private letters,had
been holding him up as an enemy to the Church. They en-
deavoured to influence persons piously disposed, to give their
votes in opposition to him ; but he would ask the electors who
felt the pressure of church-rates and tithes, whether Reform
was not necessary in the Church, as well as in other de-
partments? He was happy to see their young and
amiable Queen resolved to follow the footsteps of her
father. If she wanted any stimulus she had a mother,
who knew what was due to the people.—(Cheering.) Mr.
Hume, in allusion to the body of navigators who had
been that day hired to oppose him, expressed his deep re-
gret that men should be found so degraded as to lend them-
selves to oppose men who had so long been the advocates
of public liberty. He concluded by calling upon the elec-
tors to come forward on Thursday and Friday, and by
supporting himself and Mr. Byng keep out the Tories,
whose conduct was then personified with the King of
Hanover. After some further remarks, Mr. Hume sat
down amidst loud cheering and demonstrations of respect.
Mr. PITT said Mr. Hume had one excellent quality
which had not been mentioned to the electors. Mr. Hume
had always been found in his place in the House of Com-
mons whenever any public or private question interesting to
his constituents was to be agitated.—(Loud cheering.)
Mr. Pitt concluded by proposing three cheers for Messrs.
Byng and Hume, which were given in a general and
hearty manner.
Mr. LAWLESS then a lclresied the meeting. It was a
blessing, be said, to see in the C:iair a Nobleman reated
to Lord John Russell, who had done so much for the
people of Ireland and England in the way of reform. They
were all obliged to the King of Hanover, who, by opposing
the laws of England, had shown himself the promoter of
public liberty. Every Reformer ought to rally round Messrs.
Byng and Hume, and return those gentlemen to the House
of Commons.

The resolution was then put, ant carried by a general
show of hands.

O❑ the motion of Mr. HOME, thanks were voted to the
Noble Chairman fur his excellent conduct in the Chair.

I.lrd W. RUSSELL briefly returned thanks, and the
meeting- separated.
Before they left Cie room. they were invited to attend
the poll on Timrsday and Friday, otherwise the Tories
would take all advantages..

MR. O'CONNELL-KILDARE.

E. RUTH EN,

Mr. O'Connell has addressed a letter to the 10/. electors
and labourers of the county of Kildare, cautioning them
against the insidious attempt of Mr. Edward Ruthven to
delude them. In this letter Mr. O'Connell says :—" Out
of respect to his father's memory I first expostulated with
him in private. I told him that we could not possibly coun-
tenance his again canvassing the county of Kildare. I told
him that he stood convicted of crimes which were in the
eyes, not only of gentlemen, but of every honest man, how-
ever humble, of the most disgraceful nature—that Lord
Howth, I think it was, Colonel Westenra, and Mr. John
Maher, men of the highest honour and integrity, had con-
victed him of a crime nothing short of swindiing and false
swearing—that they had published a book which was cir-
culated amongst all the Members of the House of Com-
mons, distinctly finding him guilty of having substituted one,
if not two, horses for the proper ones, merely to win other
persons money—that it was believed that he had qualified
on oath one, if not both, of these horses—that if he were
unjustly accused, he had then the opportunity to vindicate
his character, by bringing an action against the publishers
of the book, but if he did not do so, he must stand for ever
tarnished in the public mind. He totally declined to bring
any such action, but he pleaded that his means were limited
and that he suffered much in the public cause."
Mr. O'Connell then proceeds to state the trouble he took
to obtain for Mr. Ruthven some Colonial appointment. In
this object, however, the Learned Gentleman says he
could not succeed. He then endeavoured to obtain from
the new candidates for Kildare some compensation for Mr.
Ruthven's losses and expenses at former elections. Mr.
O'Connell says, " I found, however, that I could not get
him one shilling for such compensation ; and I concluded
by informing hint very distinctly, that if he stood for the
county of Kildare, he must expect all the opposition I can
give him." The letter concludes in the following terms :
" I now only act from a conscientious sense of public duty
when I tell you I am convinced Edward Ruthven is in the
interest of the Orange faction, and is an enemy to the peo-
ple of Ireland. His recent conduct leaves no room to
doubt this. His address, full as it is of topics calculated
only to irritate and injure others without serving even his
pretended purposes, is alone sufficient to prove to my mind,
that Edward Ruthven is in the interest of, and is the tool
of; the Orange faction. Labourers of Kildare, do not con-
fide in him. Do not attend to any summons or call of his—
he is not your friend—but the contrary—he is your enemy,
doing the dirty work, as he is doing—of the Orange party.
Is thre a single man amongst you who would have con-
fidence with a person, in your own class, who had been de-
clared to be guilty of dishonesty or any kind of swindling ?
lam sure there is not. You would be ashamed to keep
any such company. Do not, then, keep company with
Edward Ruthven, or assemble any where at his bidding.
Electors of the County of Kildare—l am convinced he
calumniates you when he says he has the confidence of any
of you. There is not a single voter in Kildare who would
not disgrace himself by voting for this unhappy man. You
are honest—vote for honest men. You are just and true
—vote for the just and true Archbold and O'Ferrall.
Above all, do not degrade yourselves by listening one mo-
ment to a man whose canvass, as a candidate for your
county, is directly and obviously calculated to injure the
popular and honest candidates, O'Ferrall and Archbold,
and to aid the interests of the Orange faction—the unmi-
tigated enemies of the religion and the liberties of the
people of Ireland."

MR. GLEIG's " HUSSAR."—We are glad to see
that a second edition of this new work, by the celebrated
author of " The Subaltern," is just published. Of all the
records of personal military adventures that we have read, we
certainly think " The Hussar" the most curious and interest-
ing. The interest is so engrossing, and the variety of adven-
ture so great, and of so impressive a character, that no one
who takes up the book will willingly lay it down until he has
read it from beginning to end.
- - - -

- -
An inquest was held yesterday on the body of
Hugh Quinn, a child only four mouths old. The mother at-
tended, and stated that on Wednesday morning about one
o'clock, she went to bed with the deceased, her husband being
already in bed. She placed the child on her right arm and
fell asleep. Between six and seven she awoke and found the
deceased as she had placed it quite dead. She was sober on
going to bed, but her husband was rather tipsy. The deceased
had a fall last Monday, but was not very much hurt, and was
very well when they went to bed, though he had sighed a good
deal ever since he got the fall.—Mr. W. Callon, surgeon,
stated that he had opened the body of the deceased, and from
the appearance of the lungs, he was of opinion that the de-
ceased died from suffocation.—Verdict accordingly.—Liver-
pool Chronicle.
Mrs. Gore's new novel of " Stokeshill Place" is
said to pourtray the society of the county of Kent in the same
piquant style in which " Mrs. Armitage" displayed the pecu-
liarities of Yorkshire. The election scenes at Westerton are
supposed to be sketches after nature.
Our predictions have been verified, and Bristol has
been retrieved from the disgrace inflicted on her by the results
of the last two elections. After the severest struggle perhaps
ever recorded in the annals of electioneering contests, the
Liberal cause has once again triumphed, and the city has been
released from a thraldom, the most degrading, the most op-
pressive that an English town has ever groaned under. And
the conquest is not more important, than the means have been
honourable by which the victory has been achieved.—Bristol
Mercury.

LONDON,
TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 1, 1837.

The election of Members for the Southern Division
of Essex is fixed for Thursday next, and it is the firm
opinion of all who are acquainted with the real state
of political matters in that quarter, that if the electors
screw their courage to the sticking-place—if they dare
to fulfil the promises they have given Mr. BRANFILL—
the liberal candidate will be returned. We know well
the difficulties against which the Reformers of South
Essex have to contend. We know the ingrained tyranny
of disposition resident in the Essex Tory, who allows
no man over whom he posseises influence to act or even
think for himself in politics or religion, without visit-
ing him with the penalty, in such cases made and pro-
vided—the penalty of vengeance in every form in
which malignity can embody persecution. Such is
the benign spirit of Toryism as it is developed in the
squirearchy of this district ; and to do the clergy
justice they are far from being behind the laity in
the bitterneis of their political and religious preju-
dices. They rather, indeed, go beyond them in
their hatred of every thing liberal, making up by
their good will what they want in actual power. It
will hardly be believed, were not the fact notorious,
that the clergyman of the parish in which Mr.
BRANFILL resides, has made his pulpit the vehicle
of such personal abuse of that gentleman, that he
and his family have been actually compelled to ab-
sent themselves for the present from that worship
which they prefer, and to join a dissenting congre-
gation ; where if they miss a little p omp and cere-
mony, they have not their religious feelings wounded,
by seeing the place consecrated to piety and charity
prostituted to the gratification of the worst passions
of human nature.

In a county so ridden by squires and priests it is
delightful to see that a spirit has been roused which
promises, if not to root out, at least to repel and keep
in check these violent aggressors on the civil and re-
ligious rights of their countrymen. A band of sturdy
yeomen have rallied round Mr. BRANEILL, who has
for the third time reared the standard of independence,
determined to return him to Parliament, and to return
him, as every popular representative ought to be—free
of expence. With the lofty energy and perseverance
which they have hitherto displayed in spite of all ob-
stacles, and which is well expressed in the motto ex-
hibited on the one of their banners at the no mination—
___. Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."
with this noble spirit prompting them to exertion, and
setting at defiance the threats of " the little tyrant of
their fields," the electors of South Essex will achieve
a glorious victory, and set a memorable example to their
countrymen who are engaged in a similar struggle.
The men of Essex could not have selected a better
man than Mr.BRANFILL, to oppose to the tools of the
Hanoverian faction. He is a sound Reformer—an
enemy to change merely for the sake of change ; but
anxious to strengthen our national institutions by cau-
tiously clearing away all that is rotten in them—all
that is decayed through time, or corrupted through
abuse—all, in short, that has ceased to be useful ; and
by engrafting on the old foundation such improvements
cs may suit the improved state of society, and bring
them into harmony with the spirit of the times.
No one can object to Mr. BR ANFIL L that he
is not the friend of the agriculturist. Being himself
a considerable landed proprietor and a most intelli-
gent man, this might safely be taken for granted ;, but

his opinions on this subject are no secret to the far-
mers of Essex. They have not forgotten with what
zeal he espoused their cause, and with what ability
he publicly fought their battle last year, when their
interests were at stake during the discussion of the
Tithe Commutation Bill. The supporters of Hano-
verian policy naturally resort to Hanoverian means
for carrying it into effect : we are therefore not sur-
prised at any baseness of which they are guilty.
What, for instance, can be more unprincipled—more
innately CUMBERLAND—than for them to bring it
as a publie charge against a political opponent,
that he is an approver of the new Poor-law ?
The knaves know well enough that the Tories
supported the Poor Law in its passage through Par-
liament with all their might—though it has since been
made manifest that it was not from principle they did
so, but from the lowest and most sordid motives ; and
now these wretches, forsaken of all decency, who, but
for this very law would themselves have been by this
time paupers, halloo on the mob against every person,
not of their own kidney, who approves of it T.
This insensate cry will, we are well assured, have
no effect upon the minds of the South Essex electors.
They have seen with their own eyes the benefits
which have resulted to all classes, and most of all to
the poor, from the law in :question ; and they know
that Mr. BRANFILL has declared his readiness to
amend any of its provisions which may be found not
to work so well in practice as its authors intended.
The electors of this important district have now a
duty to perform which involves an awful responsibility
We trust they will discharge it with corresponding con-'
scientiousness. Their own best interests, as well as
those of succeeding generations, are suspended on the
issue of the conflict which is now raging from the one end
of the kingdom to the other. We would particularly in-
voke the aid of those well-meaning persons who
who have embraced what are called " Conservative"
opinions, under the impression that these opinions im-
plied something different from Toryism—something
claiming an alliance with liberty, with improvement,
with the Constitution. We implore them to open
their eyes and their understandings to the infamous de-
ception which has deen practised upon them by a set of
rogues whose trade it is to pass themselves off for what
they are not. We do not ask them to puzzle their
brains with any intricate process of reasoning, in
order to detect the artifice by which they have been
deluded. We merely wish them to meditate upon one
single fact—we entreat them to bear in mind that the
Head of the " Conservative" party—the Conservative
of Conservatives—has given an earnest of what that
party would do in England, were they in power, in the
destruction—it was his first public act—of the Consti-
tution of Hanover. Does not this show at a glance
the length, the breadth, and the depth of " Conser-
vatism ?"

The Apostate BURDETT imagines, even at the eleventh
hour, that he has a chance of coining in for North
Wiltshire. His Committee, we understand, are scour-
ing the county in all directioty, bribing some—intimi-
dating others—and hoaxing all the electors who will
listen to them. We have heard strange accounts of
these gentlemen's proceedings, but forbear to notice
them, from a conviction that all their efforts will be
unavailing. BURDETT, his Committee may rely on
it, will never be returned for North Wilts. The honest
electors in that divis:on know him too well, and will
scorn to accept the Rejected of Westminster. That
the Baronet himself—notwithstanding his sanguine
anticipations—has some dim idea of this, is evident
from the letter which he penned the other day
to Mr. ESTCOURT, wherein he has recourse to the
same maudlin, sentimental clap-trap which he found
so successful with the softer-headed and tenderer-
hearted of the Westminster electors. "I do promise,"
says he, " that in case you, the Wilts Constituency,
order me, in tl►is great cause and crisis, dead or alive,
I will be with you." We have no patience with this
sickening sentimentality. It is worse than the worst
that appears in a fashionable novel. Did not
Sir FRA NCIS make use of the same drivelling
cant at Westminster? Did he not say—with a view
to entrap the sympathies of the electors—that he
feared he should never quit the hustings alive ; and
was he not quite well enough a few days afterwards to
make the most violent anti-Reform speech in the
House of Commons that had been made during the
Session ? Electors of North Wilts, act by Sir
FRANCIS BURDETT as Wigton has acted by Sir
ANDREW AGNEW. Kick him out ; for depend on it,
there is little or no difference between the two Ba-
ronets. The one is a puritanical, the other a senti-
mental twaddler. Both are Tories, and both hate the
principles of Constitutional freedom as the Devil
hates holy water. But the English Baronet—it is
doing him no more than justice to say—is a thousand
times worse than the Scotch one ; wherefore, we re-
peat, kick him out—Electors of North Wilts, kick
him out by all means. Think what a stigma it would
attach to you as a Reform constituency, were you to
return as your Representative the rankest apostate in
in all Britain. As you value consistency, then, kick
out BURDETT. As you wish well to the principles of
progressive Reform, kick out BURDETT. As you
prefer manhood to dotage, sincerity to hypocrisy, a
Liberal to a Tory—choose METHUEN, and kick out
BURDETT. Stand on no ceremony with him, but de-
sire him to quit the hustings and turn his horses' heads
towards London as soon as possible, and the sooner the
better. Think you, if he betrayed Westminster, he
will not betray you ? No—no--once a Judas, always
a Judas. But if, notwithstanding your hints, he per-
sist in going to the poll, ask him these questions :
Ask him what has become of the principles which he
advocated in the meridian vigour of his manhood ;
what has become of his hatred to the Tories,
which he swore should never cease but with his life?—
and, above all, what has become of those written plans
for Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments, and the
Ballot, which he used to carry about with him in his
coat-pocket, and read once a-year to the Westminster
electors at the Crown and Anchor Tavern ? Put
these questions to him, and if he decline answering
them—as he surely will—tell him that you would just
as soon think of electing the weathercock on the steeple
of Devizes' Church, as the man who in his old age
shamelessly apostatizes from every principle that he
held most sacred in his manhood. Sir FRANCIS
BURDETT, M.P., for North Wilts ? Impossible I
The electors can never so indelibly disgrace themselves.

What will Ireland do ?—what support will she give
to a Government whose motto is equal rights ?—what
proof of loyal devotion will she offer to the first British
Sovereign that ever commenced a reign with thanking
a patriotic Lord Lieutenant for governing her agreeably
with the wishes of her native population ?—are ques-
tions which are daily heard amid the din and bustle of
English borough elections, and to which we have no
doubt the Irish Reformers will return satisfactory
answers. For ourselves, we are confident that Ireland
will do her duty—promptly, disinterestedly, and effi-
ciently. She did it before under discouraging aus-
pices : she will not—she cannot do less now, when the
first fruits of the victory are by the common consent of
England and Scotland made over to her. On almost
all previous occasions, Ireland fought the battles of the
British people with scarcely a hope of bettering her
own condition in the struggle ; she now enters the
field to revenge her own wrongs—to requite her poli-
tical sufferings upon the heads of those who rivetted
of her
her fetters—and to assert the indefeasibility