The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-02 00:00:00

the law ought to fall-with its sharpest edge upon
the infuriated incendiaries. This is not a de-
mand for justice, but an invocation of vengeance.
Let those who are so ready to call for the exter-
minating visitation of our sanguinary laws upon
an ignorant and misguided multitude beware
how they make violent and stimulating appeals to
their passions—beware how they tell them to
" strike at the faces of their enemies"—lest they
be not accounted altogether guiltless of the
dreadful consequences. The Special Commis-
sions of last winter shall not soon be for-
gotten. We have always thought it an im-
perative duty, in time of excitement, to con-
troul, rather than inflame, the passions of the
people. • We know that there is a great mass
of ignorance, discontent, and misery, among
the lower classes in England, which makes
them exceedingly ready, at the present day, to
listen to that sort of appeal which, either directly
or indirectly, indicates to them a chance of po-
litical or social advantage by the application of
their physical force. It is easier to rouse the
sleeping giant than tame his excited phrenzy.
Let us, in the mean time, reflect well that Spe-
cial Commissions mid executions may brutalize,
but cannot improve, the feelings and habits of
those classes, who suffer great privations, and
have both political and local grievances to com-
plain of. Our laws, and the system of society
in England, have long contributed to draw a
line of separation between the rich and the poor.
The latter are more and more alienated in feel-
ing, as well as removed in condition, from the
former. Desperate of any improvement in their
circumstances, except by some great change, they
are easily driven to desperation. It is the duty
of 411 who have any influence on the public mind
to teach them that the peaceful attainment of
Reform can alone lead to that amelioration of
our social system by which their condition will
be improved. In the mean time let mercy tem-
per justice when they are deluded into crime,
more especially where they hare already felt the
sharp edge of the sword of military execution.
--Morning Iferag
We perceive that the Journals in the interest
of the Administration are endeavouring to throw
the blame of the wholesale burnings, murders,
plunder, and violations, which the Reformers of

Bristol have committed, upon the Magistrates of
that city—upon Sir Charles Wetherell—upon
the assertion' made by us and others, and to
which we still adhere more confidently than
ever, that a re-action upon the subject of Re-
form had already begun in the public mind—
upon any body, or any thing, in short, rather
than the ferocious rabble who perpetrated these
horrible atrocities in aid of the cause of Reform.
What are we to infer from this impudent per-
version of fact ? Have determined
in this case also, as in that of the bloodthirsty
attacks upon British Peers in the streets of
the metropolis, to arrest the vengeance of the
law, and to avert from the parpetratozs of
these abOminable crimes the punishment which
they deserve, and the unsparing inflic-
tion of which is essential to the security
of society, because the eriminals are friends of
‘i the Bill ?" is the reign of terror to be esta-
blished throughout England by the connivance
of the Ministers of the Crown, that they may be
enabled to retain their places and carry their Bill?
In a ease like this the Cryernmept -,yhich spares
the criminals patronises the crime. And after
the attempt of the Ministerial Journals to charge
upon others than the real criminals the brutal
enormities which have disgraced the city of Bris-
tol, we shall wait with much anxiety to see
whether the Ministers will dare to follow the
course their supporters have not scrupled to sug-
gest, and proclaim themselves the patrons of re-
bellion, incendiarism, violation, and murder.
How much skill and daring in 'the suppression
as well as the perversion of fact is essential
in the present day to carry on with success
the trade of a Ministerial Journalist ! The
leading Ministerial ,Tournais, Morning and
Evening, affect to consider the horrors which
have taken place at Bristol as evidence of
the necessity which exists for the establish-
ment, everywhere, of Political Unions, and some
of them go so far as to say that these horrors
would have been impossible had such an institu-
tion existed in that city. They know very well,
the wretched prevaricators, that one of these in-
stitutions did exist in that unfortunate city, in
full vigour and efficacy, at the very moment when
it becatne the prey of fire, and pillage and
murder, and still more unmanly and brutal and
heart-rending atrocities. Full well they know
that the political Union of Bristol, acting by its
Council, proclaimed its sympathy with the perpe-
trators of these crimes, and gave them direct en-
couragement, to proceed in their diabolical
career of infamy and bloodshed. But a drivel-
ling and superannuated Jacobin, who supports
Ministers in Parliament, and aids them in all
their revolutionary projects, was to preside at a
meeting in London for the formation of one of
these vaunted unions; of which he vainly hoped
to be placed at the head, on the very day on
which the accounts from Bristol arrived in town.
The coincidence was peculiarly unfortunate. It
would never do for the Ministerial Journals at
such a moment to expose the conduct of the
Political Union, which, instead of discouraging
or resisting the Bristol rebels, had artfully and
successfully laboured to madden them to re-
newed and augmented fury, The only course
which remained was to suppress the facts of the
existence of a Political Vnion at pristol, and
of its successful efforts to exasperate the passions
and redouble the violence of the mob, and boldly to
pretend that 14 there been such an institution the
scenes of horror would have been mitigated or
averted. The falsehood is the most rank, shame-
less, and profligate that ever disgraced the Press
of any co4ntri. It is a consolation, however, to
know that the falsehood is 4/together useless in
this case, and that the character of the London
Political Union, which has been formed, stands
revealed to the world, and needs no reflected
light from the conduct of the kindred association
of Bristol. The revolutionary Baronet and his
junta of Westininster shopkeepers, who inso-
lently thought to i:epp the working of the ma-
chine in their own feeble hands, were foiks.d in
all their manoeuvres by the more resolute, honest,
and consistent revolutionists under the guidance of
Mr. Wakley. In the room where the meeting was
appointed the base and hypocritical revolutionists
found themselves outnumbered beyond all compa-
rison by the mote frank and manly revolutionists,
who scorn to wear a mask. The former then pro-
posed an adjournment to the open air, in the
hope of improving their relative position, to
which the latter, conscious of superior strength
be the meeting where it might, did not object.
The confidence of the latter was fully justified
by the event. Mr. Wakley absolutely governed
the meeting, and redueed the poor conceited
Baronet, who had expected to monopolise the
glory of the day, and the drivellers, who, like
him, aim only at a bit-by-bit revolution, to the in-