The Sun.
London, England, 1838-01-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

On Menday last we. stated that we di l not believe
that the revolt either was or could become general through-
out Canada, or that there was any doubt as t ) the result
of the contest so wantonly commenced by the Papineau
party cn the banks of the rivA. Richelieu. The aceouits re-
ceived f7-on that colony daring the past wes.l-, will enable
eur readers to determine between the d. greo of reliance to
be placed on our pr Aicfons, anti that to be placed oo the
bold iis,,ertions of the spakers of the Crown and Anchor
meeting. The ease, with which the attempt of Mr.
INl'Kenzie has been put down in Upper Canada sufficiently
proves that the d:scontented form neither a large nor for-
midable portion of the population of that province. An
apparently well-inlOrmed correspoinlynt of the Standard
states that he has every reason to believe that MiKenzie
and his followers were never within two miles of Toronto.;

......
and that from the best informw,tion he ein collect, their

numbers did not exceed 700 men. Be this as it may,

they were put do n not by troops (for there were
eme in the province), but by the loyal inhabitants
t herr:salves. The speakers at the Crown and Anchor Tavern,
and their or rens, speak as if the contest were solely be-
tween the Canadians and the Gsvernment. We have
stated, over and over again, that were Great Britain to
give up the colony to-morrow, this would only be abandon-
ing it to all the horrors of civil war. It is justly observed
by the correspondent of the Standard, that " the dispute is
not between the French Canadians and the officials, but
between the former and the British settlers, not in Lower
Canada only; but in ell the North American colonies."
A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, the Rev.
David Brown, a clergyman who has resided in Lower Ca-
nada for the last five years, states that the object of the
French Canadians " is to drive every British subject from
the country, and set up a French democracy." " The
liabilans," he says, " are a quiet and inoffensive paople ;
but at the same time very ignorant, credulous, and easily
excited ;" and in corroboraton of what we have advanced
as to the absurdity of suppesine that yielding to the Ft ouch
Canadians would put an end to hostilities, he observes :
" Mr. Hume aryl Sir William Molesworth, in their speeches,
appear to hase forgotten that there is in LOwe: Canada
150 000 of the British population, resolved to use every effort
to maintain the connection of that colony with the parent
state, and ia just subordination to its authority; and they are
pledged to each other, and to their fellow-subjects throughout
the mph e, to endeavour, by constitutional means, to obtain a
redreFs of all real grievances that exist in Lower Canada;
that is, to obtain for her Majesty's subjects, of British and Irish
origin, equal rights and privileges with those of French origin,
a fair and reasonable proportion of the representation in the
Provincial Assembly."
'rite Leeds Mercury would cut the matter short by
compensating all who hare taken up arms in Canada
for the Queen to the last farthing, if necessary; and as in
the acknowledgment of Canadian independence the inhabi-
tants of Upper Canada, which is almost entirely settled
by British, and desirous to continue its connection with
England,
.would then have no communication with the
mother country or the sea, except through the territories
of independent republics, our Leeds Contemporasy would
remove this difficulty by declaring Upper Canada also in-
dependent—an event which must come in the course of a
few years. Our Contemporary is here led away by the
analogy of the war with the old colonies. On that occa-
sion the great body of the people took the side of indepsn-
deuce, and the adherents of Great Britain were almost
exclusively the rich proprietors and the officials. These
men for the most part abandoned the country, and
the difficulty with regard to them consisted merely
in adjusting the compensation to be afforded to
them. But this is a contest between French and
English, and the Government cannot terminate it.
A civil war would bo c cried on if every British sol-
dier were withdrawn from the province ; and what compen-
sation can ke afforded for the lives lost in so sanguinary a
warfare as must ensue ? We are by no means enamoured
of the connection between this country and Canada, which
has been productive of more advantage to the French
Canadians than to ourselves. In the comparatively short
period which has elapsed since the conquest, they have in-
creased in number from 70,000 to upwards of 500,000 ;
anti during ail that period we have been at a large expense
on their account, from which the only advantage we have
derived has been the importation of bad timber from them,
to the exclusion of good timber from the Baltic. We do
not see the necessity of making sacrifices for no other ob-
ject than to obtain a pretext for provisioning the younger
sorts and brothers of the aristocracy, anti finding employ-
ment for ship-owners. But we do not see that it would ba
either wise or honourable were the Government at once to
succumb to Papineau and his associates, and to abandon
the two provinces to a sanguinary and desolating civil
war. In fact, the wisdom of attempting at once to
put down the revolt is proyed by the result. Those who are
best acquainted with the Canadians deem the danger from
the insurrection to be now in a great measure over. Had
it obtained consistency, and the habitans generally been
drawn into it, the result might have been a protracted civil
war. One circumstance is deserving of particular atten-
tion in considering this revolt—the Catholic clergy have
without an exception afforded the best services. to the Go-
vernment in preserving the people in their alleetanee,. or
in
bringing them back to a sense of their duty in case of their
having taken up arms. This example ought not to be
without its effect cn us. But how is it that the clew are
so well disposed towards this country? Mr. M'Greg?r
states in his excellent work on British America, that " in
Lower Canada the Catholic religion is established on a
constitutional foundation, as fully protected in all its immu-
nities and privileges as that of the Church of England. All
the revenues from lands enjoyed under the Government of
France, and the twenty-sixth part of the grain only raised
on the farina cultivated by Catholics, are secured by
law to their Church." He adds, that " the revenues
arising (emu lands and the tithes are found fully adequate
to support thu Catholic clergy. The incomes of the
cures 209 in number, average from 2001. to 300/. per
annum, which enables them, in so elesep a country as
Canada, to live respsctably, and to exercise a very liberal
share of benevolence and licspitality." This is not a state
of things to be lightly renounced, Had Protestant
Clergymen been put in the receipt of all those revenues a
sinecure Church would have been thereby created. In
any dispute with the Government of this country the
sinecure Protestant clergy would of course have been
ageiest the people flow whom they derived their incomes ;
but it is not so certain that the cures would have been 50
anxious to maintain their flocks in allegiance to this
country. This lesson ought not to be thrown away, An
established clergy iney be necessary ; but to establish a
clergy for a small fraction of the population, leaving the
people properly so called to pay their own clergy in ad-
, dition to the sinecure clergy, cannot be absolute wisdom.
The clergy are excellent aids to Government ; but then
it is only the clergy of the people who can furnish im-
portant aid.—/Tforning Chronicle. -
The falling off is the annual amount of the revenue to
the extent of nearly two millions sterling. as compared
with the former year, is a fact affording serious matter for
public reflection. If an advance in the revenue of the
firmer year as compared with that preceding it, was ex-
ultingly pointed to by the Government prints as a proof
of returning prosperity, the great depression which marks
the financial statement of the year just expi:ed may be
consider 'd as " prosperity" making an Irish movement and
" advancing backwards"—a movement which our Hiber-
ni in Chancellor of the Exchequar very well understands,
if he understands nothing else among the mysteries of the
,enancial system. The principal deficiency is under the
.head of " Excise"--in that alone nearly a miliionl This
,affaonredes
, of the mass of
pretty strong
tpeople, indication
amongofthe rn reduced cireu-
stwhom the con-
sumption of exciseable articles has fallen off in that pro-
portion. Let it also be borne in mind that during the past
year a general election took place, which alwsys gives a
stimulus to tl.e circulation. of money, and encourages the
consumption of many.
exeiseable articles. Under such
circumstances the fall in the revenue is still more
remarkable than it would otherwise have been. That is,
indeed, a poor " prosperity" which retreats so rapidly after
m eking a show of advance, and, while rejoicing ministers
cry " behold our work," suddenly wheels round and" turns
its back upon itsel." But the Let is, the revenue of the
oast year appears more depressed than it would have been
if it were not placed in contrast with a year of forced and
unnatural elevation. The year 1836 was one of extrava-
gant speculation and unreal enterprise--in short, it was a
miner " bubble year" to that of 1825, when an extraordi-
nary mania for all sorts of joint stock schemes made super-
ficial observers, and among others the Chancellor of the
Exchequer of that day, believe, as he expresse
it, that
" an overflowing tide of pt osp.erity was pouring its mighty
current through tile portals of a const•tutional mona-rhy."
Alas ! it was a file that soon ran dry, and left the drip
speculators gasping high and dry upon the sand
" fishes out of water," The memory of its mischiefs still
remains in the ruins which it left behind, and the recollec-
tion of its follies in the soubriquet " Prosperity Robin-
son." So when cur present Chancellor of the Exchequer
saw nothing but proofs of the exuberance of national
wealth and general prosperityin the speculative ex-
citement of 1836, lie entitled himself to a niche in
the temple of " prosperity financiers"—men who judge
of the strength and depth of the commercial current bythe " bubbles" on its surface. As the speculation mania
of 1825 was fellowed by a tremendous crash, of which. the
effects were felt for years, so that of 1836 was followed by
a " commercial crisis," as in gentle language it has been
called, which has brought many a towering fortune to the
ground, and crushed into utter ruin a host of smaller vic-
tims. When the storm of reaction swept over London
from the Transatlantic shores, the Chancellor of the Ex..
chcluer, like thegolden-girdled Prosperity herself, was

mi:;sing. Great was the lamentation in Israel. In the
sylvan: fastre-sses of Mount Trenchard he had entrenched
h4us,lf. In modest obscurity he concealed a head which,
if barren of financial knowledge, is yet luxuriant with the
knowledge of Cambridge elections. There did he indulge
in the " wood notes wild" of his poetic fancy, while the
lovers of other " notes"raved about Exchequer Bills. There
(lid he leave the monied world to rig:it itself while he did
not forget to take the salary for proving how useless was
the eifice of r. minister of finance The resu't of all this
is now betleta us, in the impoverished state of the
rev,-nue. We have said that the deficiency of one
million nearly under the the head of excise, strongly
marks the state of discomfort and poverty of
the, people. But a falling off to the amount of
nearly 900,0001. in the customs, shows a depression in
foreien trade as serious as it is sudden. To be sure the
customs, unlike the excise, though exhibiting so great a loss
upon the whole year, show an increase upon the quarter,
which we hope will go on ; fur if it does not, even without
a civil war in Canada upon our hands, the national debt
stands a chance of being increased rather titan dimin'shed,l
unless new taxes be imposed. In such a state of affa'rs
we fear that it will be a long time before the Whigs re-
deem their pledge of repealing that war impost, the window
tax. We should think the Chancellor of the Exchequer
would like to have the stampduties on newspapers replaced,
fur the falling off in the stamp revenue alone during the
year amounts to upwards of 318,000/. The whole defi-
ciency of revenue upon the year would have been consider-
ably beyond two millions, if it had not been for the in-
rease upon repayments of money advanced for public
works, which repayments exceed those of the former year
by nearly '250,0001. Would it not be well if England had
1 ill its coffers at present that million of money, or perhaps
more, which Lord Palmerston Inns flung away upon the
buccaneering war in Spain, where Great Britain has been
sadly despoiled of character and glory as well as of solid
gold?—Morning

The past year has borne away an aged Monarch, and
brought a youthful Queen, and the Cabinet which served
the one is now serving the other. But as in the men, so
with the Monarch, there is in reality no change, except so
far as the substitution of youth, with its probable endu-
rance, for advanced life, with its certain brevity, makes
the change for the worse. The bright prospects which opened
upon the country, in the ascension of a simple-hearted, unso-
phisticated, mother-instructed ehild,have been sadly darkened
by the selfish and grasping policy which marks the morning
of her reign. Bribery and secret influence have ever been
the agencies of Whig domination. Despising the people,
except when party purposes have led them to make expe-
riments upon their credulity, by affecting a common identity
of objects, their main effort has been to secure the coun-
tenance of the Crown by crowding its coffers. Tyran-
nical and feudatory in their principles—unscrupulous
even to rebellion when Royal obstinacy could only be
made to bend, as sanguinary violence howled around
its Courts, the Whigs have had in all times the sagacity to
perceive that their attainment and tenure of power de-
pended upon the successsul bestowment of garters, titles,
and place. To restrict our remarks to a period when indi-
vidual recollection jail-lefts increasing interest to facts, whet
was their conduct towards the Prince of Wales, from the
time that his youth and station gave to his vices the apology
of extravagances, to the maturer period of the Regency,
when his heartless profligacy assumed the aspect of revolting
crimes? What, we ask, has been their unvarying con-
duct, their insidious cloven-footed course ? They stop
only where carnage begins, and never fail to stoop while
meanness can attain what true dignity would scorn. Early
perceiving that the austere virtues of George 111. presented
an impassable barrier to their attainment of power, the
Whigs gave full play to an imposing class of feelings,
which combine yoluptuous excesses with political profli-
gacy. Aided by the fascinations of titled women, distin-
guished by the charms of conversation, and unencumbered
by the restraints of modesty, the youthful Prince became
the licentious deity of an infuriated and desperate sect of
commingling conspirators. Even perjury itself presented
no obstacle to the gratification of party ambition and men
were to be found, who staked their honour in the
senate to the truth of a statement, the falsehood of
which was intimately known tp themselves. The alliance
of the Prince of Wales to Mrs. Fitzherbert was pro-
claimed as a foul artifice, as totally destitute of truth, when
those who declared it to be so were witnesses of the matri-
monial ceremony. And this bold and false asseveration was
made, as the condition of obtaining for their patron a large
grant of the public money, wherewith to discharge enor-
mous debts, contracted in the support of the most scan-
dalous debaucheries, and the blackest scenes of the lowest
gambling. In short, the perjury was as essential to
.the relief of their own difficulties as those of their mis-
guided master. By this act of moral pollution the nation
was pillaged of nearly half a million sterling. Scarcely a
year passed away in which the debts of the Prince were
not pressed upon Parliament, and when the country be-
came disgusted with his obscenities, and the vices of his
adherents, a new and far different experiment was practised
upon popular weakness. The Prince was made to act the
part cf an economist, and paraded before the nation in the
splendid rhetoric of Sheridan, and tla lofty solemnities of
Fox, as a much-injured, noble-hearted Prince, who was re-
solved to live as a beggar, rather than involve himself in
responsibilities he was unable to discharge. Oh, amiable
delusion, which wrung another and a larger draft from the
industry of au insulted and pillaged people! This turn
served, the veil vr,,s uplifted, and Princely profligacy
again walked forth, cheered by the smiles of faction and
the fair. Carlton House was bated on corruption, and
millions reared the glittering minarets of the Pavilion ; and,
to meet the frightful outlay, a claim was loudly urged, in
Parliament and in the Press, that th e Prince of Wales
was entitled, by right and in law, to the accumulated rental
arising during his minority from the Duchy of Cornwall!
Mark, reader, this sing elar feet, as it illustrates the never-
changing duplicity of the. Whigs. Compare the conduct
of the party. Patriots, and for the people, when out of
office in the year 1786, they were for the Court, and
against the people, in office in 1831 and in 1837. At the
first named period these men contended that the Crown
held these revenues in trust for the Prince of Wales, who
at his i irth became Duke of Cornwall, to whorn an account
must be rendered upon the attainment of his majority,
and that, too, notwithstanding the large and increasing
claims upon his Royal father, from a growing family.
And this claim—amounting to many hundreds of thou-
sands of pounds—would and must have been conceded,
but for the happy expedient which the droits of Admi-
ralty at the time presented, which enabled the Tory
faction to proffer, and tho Whig faction greedily to accept,
an equivalent wrung from unoffending nations and confiding
merchants. It would dry up the deepest sources of
patience even to glance at the almost countless instances of
alternate frowning and fawning wh;eb marked the winding
steps of this wily crew, from the time the " first gentleman
in Europe" threw off all restraints of decency under their
especial pupillage, to the time he threw them off with the
most insulting mockery. For thirty years they pampered
the vilest of Princes with the meanest and basest of flat-
tery, and for more than twelve years they polluted the
bleol-streems of his being with the poisonous outpourings
of malignant disappointment. The dark curtain of despair
had fallen upon these prince-and people cheats for many a
dreary year, when death stept in, anti gave life to their
slumbering hopes ; and a confiding nation seemed to revive
in the expectation that reflection had worked its appropriate
repentance. The sun of freedom rose in stately splendour
upon the year 1831—peace, economy, and reform beamed
on its wings, and the inquiry went forth—ls there yet
lonetty in public men ? Tire sequel remains to be told.—
ireclay 'l', ue Sun.