The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-17 00:00:00

( From the Morning Herald.)

Lord Palmerston has resigned. We really pity any
one, at the present crisis, who has not had the good
fortune to be a reader of Ariosto, as without having
perused his glorious account of the confusion in the great
oration of King Agramant, it will be almost impossible
to realioe an idea of the fearful state of the equally in-

congruous mass got together by. Lord Aberdeen, occa.

sioned by the above ominous announcement.
" The direful spring of woes unnumbered."

The Times of yesterday morning, amidst much wailing
and gnashing of teeth, came forth with this awful intel-
ligence, which it conveyed to its readers in two laboured
articles, one evidently proceeding from a Ministerial pen
—that of the "good earl" himself, the other from one of
the ordinary scribes of the establishment ; both, how-
ever, tending to one purpose, namely, to throw as much
mud as possible at the retiring statesman—a nobleman
to whose enforced presence in the Cabinet had been due
the twelve months of disgraceful existence obtained for
it by the purchase of the Brigade, this very day now
twelve months gone by. Supposing that there exists
in broad England one single man sufficiently besotted
to believe (after the experience of the last half-year) any
possible assertion of the Times, for the sake of that man
we proceed to expose the last web of sophistry and
falsehood which has proceeded from the loom of our un-
wearied and unweariable contemporary.
We certainly find it difficult to believe that even the
one imaginary individual could be found who will credit
the monstrous assertion of the Premier, that Lord Pal-
merston retired from office on the ground of the Reform
Bill alone. However this may be, we will prove, before
we have done, that the statement is false ; and we will
further prove that the foreign question had. something to
do with his retirement, and that the transactions had
become so utterly disgraceful that Lord Palmerston found
he could no longer, at any one's bidding, stand up under
the terrible weight of ignominy and obloquy which was
impending over the Coalition.
The writer in the Times, however, rivalling the Irish-
man who is said to have turned his back upon himself,
crams the falsehood down his own throat. He is, in
fact, disqualitied, by abject horror at the occurrence of
yesterday, from perceiving that his own statement abso-
lutely proves the reverse of what he wishes to have
believed.
The fact of Lord Palmerston being, as the writer
states, a member of the Cabinet committee to consider a
Reform Bill, is quite sufficient proof that he was ready
to examine and approve of a measure net destructive in
its nature ; bet if any one supposed that he would accede
to one that was so' of course they reckoned without their
host. That Lord Palmerston, where a manifest neces-
sity for alteration, even of a sweeping character, existed,
would never oppose them, is self-evident from the fact,
also admitted by the Times, that he was in favour of the
Reform Bill of Lord Grey. Where, then, is to be found
the proof that Lord Palmerston is not a reformer where
reform is safe ? Surely not in his administration of the
Home Office for the last twelve months. The man who
has done more for the extension of real, practical, useful
reform in the short period over which his power extended
than all the dreamers of the Molesworth or agitators of
the Russell school have done in the course of their mis-
chievous existence. Not a real Reformer ! The thing
is too absurd even for the Times. But Lord Palmerston
is inconsistent !—in his policy abroad he is a Liberal, at
home a Tory.
Surely it is rather too much to assume, because Lord
Palmerston—the English Minister of Lord J. Russell's
celebrated speech—opposed the despotism of Russia and
Austria, as well as the stupid tyranny of old Spain, that
he is not to sustain conservative institutions in our own
constitutional Government. The attack of the Times
upon him for inconsistency is only a proof of the rage
and despair which his loss has occasioned to the Govern.
ment. The fact—as the Times well knows—else the
longpolrniedtyl
oifoeo b
hotnf likea
iaLfnwiamohmariiosdtese,
meeting at Argyle House were attended to no' purpose—
the fact, we say, is, that from the very beginning Lord
Palmerston was most unwilling to join the Coalition, and
only did so at the abject entreaties of those who had in-
sultedenpwo ante-room
eie histdTs
et
k,
rheiniesl
waemstreti
latter, indeed,
ert -down
-mni
nir
.Eef
well-informed,
English
permission
eeai srtds
support
Aberdeen.dubwpaiepdnnn
tohotj;
him, like Lord John Russell, or who, through a
December,t
s_utno
o
come in and make his apology • but that support he
would have conceded had not the influence of a far
higher personage been used. That personage was
anxious to conglomerate— we use the word advisedly—
the Coalition ; and all well knew that without Lord
Palmerston it could not exist a week.

We now come to the real facts which the writer in
the Times has cautiously suppressed. From the moment
the Turkish question assumed a serious aspect, Lord
Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston took opposite parts.
The one was Russian, the other English to the back-
bone. The efforts of the French Emperor and Lord
Palmerston to try and force the Government to adopt a
manly course, and act with timely vigour, were con-
stantly thwarted, and we may say paralysed by Lord
Aberdeen, the Peelites, and Sir W, Molesworth, assisted
by Lord Granville, the agent of another anti-English
influence. It is to these men we owe the infamy of
seeing our armaments the passive spectators of the de-
struction of the fleet of the ally we were sent to protect,
and which we would not allow them to protect them-
selves. Can this be true ? Lord Palmerston knew it
was. lie knew that for this destruction we were not
only morally but actually responsible—he knew that
we were guilty, not of a neglect, but of a crime. He
A
knew that our ambassador had prevented themai
body of the Turkish fleet from entering the Black _ea

and protecting their own transports, and that Slade was '
kept chafing and remonstrating in the Bosphorus by the
threat of the English reliresentatives, that if he stirred
to meet the Russians, the English fleet would quit Con-
stantinople ! !
This will prove, we think, to any man with a drop of
Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins, that it was high time
for Lord Palmeriton—who is both an Englishman and
a gentleman—to come out from such a mess of infamy ?
One word more, as to the Reform Bill. Let the Times
deny, if it can,.that up to a very short time ago Lord
Palmerston was acting in that matter cordially with his
colleagues. We know it dare not ; but we can easily
believe, considering the ominous names of Molesworth,
Graham, and Russell, a majority of the committee, that
as things advanced the bill became too bad. It may he
true that Lord Palmerston would not consent to the
arbitrary disfranchisement of a vast number of boroughs,
against which the only complaint to be found was, that
they had less than 500 voters, to which numbers might
easily have been added, but which could not with justice
be exterminated. Lord Palmerston may have opposed
a plan which could only end in cooking (or Coppockingl
up new boroughs for particular party purposes. All this
may be true, but the country knows better than to
believe the frantic calumnies of the Tim s, as yesterday
published.
History convicts that journal of falsehood in its de-
scription of Lord Palmerston's former life, and if we
consider, in addition to all that we have, stated, the
monstrous iniquity of the late transactions at Constan-
tinople, we feel assured that the honourable step that
nobleman has now taken w►ll, in the estimation of all
England, add largely to his former high reputation as a
man and a statesman.

We are given to understand that Lord Lansdowne
has also tendered his resignation. If so, perhaps the
Times will furbish us to-day with another tissue of
" truth undefiled" concerning that nobleman's previous
career, as it did yesterday with regard to his noble col-
league.

(Prom the Daily News. )
Whilst the Daily News was yesterday discussing in
its columns for Correspondence the last news of " an-
other split in the Ministry," two of its Government con-
temporaries were busily engaged in saying what their
patrons thought it best to have published about the
resignation of Lord Palmerston. To-day " the split" is
understood to be larger than it was when the Home
Secretary's departure from Downing-street was made
known by his colleagues to the "safe" journals. If all,
that is now stated about Ministerial difficulties be true,

then at the very hour when Lord Palmerston's resigna
tion was being " communicated" to the papers entrusted
with the news, it must have been known to those who

employed the printed conduit pipes in question that the
Marquis of Lansdowne also contemplated retirement

from the Coalition. But it was apparently thought

best to pre-occupy the public ear with the news of the
resignation of the Home Secretary alone, and to point
to differences upon the question of Reform as the cause
of that resign ation before any suspicion of the Marquis
•f Lansdowne's contemplated departure from office was
allowed to transpire. The anti-Reform leanings of
Lord Palmerston would easily be believed, and less mis-
chief be done, by letting the news first burst upon the
town with that twist in it. If a double er treble resigna-
tion had been made known at once, and if in the list of
departures from the Cabinet the name of the Whig Mar-
quis of Lansdowne had been given in company with
that of the bellicose Lord Palmerston, the public belief
would et once have jumped to the conclusion that the
Turkish Question, and not the Reform Bill was the real
cause of the split. Hence apparently the general form
—the two channels—the mode altogether—in which the
intelligence of half the Ministerial difficulties was yes-
terday made known.
The first mental doubt provoked by the Peelite com-
munications on the subject yesterday arose over the
sentences in which the Ministerial journals asked im-

plicit belief for the allegations that the "split" was ail
about " Reform." A Cabinet crash does not usually

take place about things that are virtually far off. " Re-
form,' though now under discussion in Downing-street,
has got a couple of months yet at least before it can be
put to the test of the House of Commons, whilst an-
other matter also on Ministerial shoulders—is urgent,

pressing, vital in its immediate importance. The Ca-
binet are known at this moment to be on the horns of a
most critical dilemma. They have muddled a great
question of foreign policy. They have declared that
Russia had, by crossing the Pruth, committed an
. .

act of war—they have declared the Turks to be our
allies and in the right- they have sent English ships
to the Bosphorus, and, having said and done all these

things, they have allowed our fleet to be idle whilst
the Sultan's vessels are being battered and sunk

under their very noses. Such a— state of things cannot
possibly last. When the "game of cannot-shot" is in
full activity standers-by cannot for ever keep out of the

mischief. Something must be done at once, yet those
whose move it is are afraid to stir. If they heartily back
the Turks they offend Austria and certain Court coteries—
if they don't help the Turks they offend still more impor-
tant people. When they should act they hesitate, and
whilst they hesitate they are in danger of being in-
volved--it may be single-handed—in a long and despe-
rate European war. Is not a scrape sf this sort a much
more likely thing to have startled a crafty old politician
like the member for Tiverton than any difficulties about
Reform ? Lord Palmerston has not hitherto been very
strict about niceties when patty and place have stood
in the way. His career, if consistent in anything, has
been very much of the Vicar of Bray school. His stick-
lings have not usually been about opinion, but about
office. He began life as a Tory ;he has been Whig,'

Peelite, and in —some things (we -say it with pride and
some satisfaction) he has been a true Radical Reformer
—the graveyards and the Scotch Humiliation to wit.

He has almost boxed the political compass—sometimes,
as we think, to the right quarter; sometimes, we are
sure, to the wrong one ; but generally with great clever-
ness, very little principle, but almost always with suc-
cess—to Number One. His only real consistency has
been shown in his love of power and place. His ante-
cedents, therefore, surely all go to show that something
has influenced his resignation more serious to his mind
than a pound or two higher or lower in the figure at
which the suffrage-qualification should be fixed. He is
not at all the man one would expect to see forsake his
dearly beloved Downing-street about such trifles as a
Five Pound or an Eight Pound Franchise, or even on
account of the eternal upset of that useful pocket bo-
roßftbgtpurhheegivafaee
nnholstmussrd
stiioei
aefrnfor
Palmerston
% ~
nohnintigwoaireen.
measure
r Ills
scuhiereaoenuthtolcote's which boasts Lord Palmer-
ston as its member— and which the famous river Exe
flows by. Reasons more cogent by far were yesterday
believed, and will long be believed, to have influenced
him, notwithstanding all that the Times may say to the
contrary. The Turco-Russian question will assuredly
bear the credit or the blame—whichsoever it may be
thought by different people to be—of separating Lord
Palmerston and the Aberdeen Coaltion.
After the speculations about—How was It caused !
we are met by those about—What does it mean !
What will it lead to ?—and here again conjecture has
already been, and will still be, busy. Many of Lord
Palmerston's friends will be found to declare that it
was high feeling for English honour in the Black Sea
and on the Danube which led to his resignation. Others
will, perhaps, be equally prompt in discovering and can-
vassing the probabilities of his future. They may look
back and remember the way in which he was driven from
Downing-street, when he held office with the Whigs—
may call to mind the ingenious and masterly way in
which he tripped up a ministry from which he had been
ejected, and how he subsequently re-installed himself in
office, despite the opposition of many of his ancient col-
leagues. Some of his
proposed
swieesdvi
lleblonys
assuredly
(ohsautensihrnocdieonadfwmsgabltiriatnipaigershterattenaoat
arnii
gratify
hint that courtly
.distastes, or Coburg intrigues, may
have had something to do with rendering his path in
office at times uneven. And, then, what a possible fu-
ture opens up if a present hasty resignation could lead
to Cabinet difficulties, and such a ministerial re-construc-
tion could be brought about as should give Lord Pal-
merston the foreign portfolio once more ? Or even—
who knows ?—the Premiership itself ! What a grand
revenge would that be ! and what a showy close for a
long official career—the Tory ranks are broken—the
.ca-
joled and dejected squires hurry here and there for want
the
hens ee.
stronger
fßosi Lord ior
hisdr
fdrnrbgeesolNameoeronmt
reform
Secretaryeet
n. Palmerston
element ot
of a sufficient leader. Earl Derby "is off the cards "
with the gout. Disraeli has genius, Lord Stanley know-
ledge, but the "gentlemen of England " in topboots
and with broad acres can see no likelihood of success
by following either. Some of them, like Mr. Miles, are
even now talking quite as much reform as the ex-Home
soef Secretaryertrho the
e advantages
io wouldn . advocate,What
hoaof Free
ift
h e andTsrua
advee ,andnearlyo p e
castleso antrlh-dlsepo Palmerston's
koatiepihnr
aneel,
etmehres
sraetnanoceonaisw:,
hopelessness
tactician of the House of Commons should offer
War
rer
against
oaipnustt
himself at their
II t
alone
to t h
reale s
h osolid
show wretched
wfa
what
atfacts
foreign policy of Lord Aberdeen, try to get up at once a
Freethan
But
tTl‘hr,i Trade di
whilst
ata CvtAhheontent
stasclueolelrruevoeriarvsyyteei
b:voteefse
Lnespvoeatsen
irusntr
offbeen,
ffitsosmeeemtshacteLrtoarid
fmmtaahyye Cabinet becomesy all-
g the
re-
gretted) e t futureted)
very many more. Indeed if anything like a wyise and
if wise resolves are at last come to on the Eastern diffi-
culty, the Coalition may gain more friends than it loses
by the changes just announced. The admirers of Sir
James Graham name him for the Home-office, and.
would send Sidney Herbert to fill the vacancy BO wade
at the Admii alt y ; others again gossip about Sir Georgentr
Grey as sure to be asked by Lord John Russell to enter
to
harness once more--which he would be
do. But these speculations are probablny.°
tura. The " split" may spread—beginning again
Pal-
merston it may end with Aberdeen, anna
the basis of a
find a Cabinet composed avowedly
such tartpy be
Reform Bill at its head. Shoueadk
plainly and fairly
measure of reform, with one of the
found in power, only let them p
theirs backs so large a maxi of
out, and they will have at
an_
d wealth-producing people
the intelligent, industrioruo,
seTessive nation as will carry
of this practical and pard.
War is not wanted—and
them- triumphantly fowrivir
sake, _ aaiyhors of first
and any opposition that
never was for its
to
d defeat. We want to keep faith with
only troubles a
back the Autocrat ; but this is not to be
allies and.Pu.t for war's own sake, nor by making War
get up Via' War Ministry wouldmeet
of a faction. " ,Yfy religion is to hate
the rallying• cry
Bm•and every lover of
:Russia," said the expatriatede ,
and
freedow.sympathised with the veteran patriot .
sol-
dier. Every Liberal hates Russia because Russia is the
intensest and cruellest of existing Despotisms. But
sdhoonueldbyenyvd
area of
nose by any artful Russophobic cry invented for the
hearty Liberals in England don't want to be led by the

sake of restoring the Derbyites to power in any new
combination• or under any new leader.
Tue public at large can well afford to wait the result
of Downing-street quarrels with great equanimity, since
on such quarrels the people rather thrive than suffer.
By the opposition "bids'; of successive candidates for
office the national work is gradually advanced, and re-
forms successively obtained. The quietude with which
the news of a splitting Ministry was yesterday accepted
proves that the people understand this. Ministers may
squabble, but the national prosperity marches on, with
scarcely an additional pulsation of that breeches-pocket
interest, so truthfully represented by the price of Con-
sols. The resignation, which two of our contemporaries
made so much of, had affected the funds at the close of
the market yesterday, exactly—two-and-sixpence !