The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-24 00:00:00

Z,Hf) 1,0-1+

WITEI WHICH
THE« TRUE SUN " IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 24, 18323.

In The Sun of this day appears a letter from his
Royal Highness the Duke of SussEx, in which he
formally announces his intention of resigning, in No-
vember next, the Presidency of the Royal Society.
The public generally—and men of science, in parti-
cular—will deeply regret this retirement ; and still

more will they regret to learn that it proceeds from
the narrow means of his Royal Highness, which pre-
vent him—we
vote his own emphatic word-_;—" from
doing the honours or the situation in a manner suited
to my rank and the station I occupy in the country, or
with advantage to the cha7acter and dignity of the
establishment itself." In other words, the Duke's
well-known liberality has involved him in difficulties,
which compel him for a season—and we trust only

for a brief season—to withdraw from Kensington into
the more economical privacy of the country ; and
to resign a situation, the dignity of which he
feels cannot be efficiently maintained but at an ex-
penditure which he is no longer able to afford.
The letter is penned throughout in a style remarkable
for its feeling and candour, and will make its way to
the hearts of all who know how to appreciate a gene-
rous and manly nature. Most earnestly do we hope
that means may yet be found to enable his Royal
Highness to pass the evening of his life in a manner
becoming his rank. He has the strongest possible
claims on the consideration of his countrymen, for he
has stood their friend for many a long year through evil
and through good report. He was a Reformer, when the
very Mention of the word Reform wls almost enough to
ostracise a man from the Courtly circles; and advocated
in Parliament every measure which had reason and

justice for its basis. Indeed his life has been one con-
tinued sacrifice to the interests of the people; for had it
not been for his most unfashionable heresies on the
subject of Catholic Emancipation, Reform, and those
other Liberal measures which have agitated the country
for the last thirty years and upwards, it is not to be
doubted that he would have been quite as well
off as any of his Royal brothers, and hare been
in the receipt, like them, of large sums of
public money. This is a point in his character
which should not be lost sight of. On a general
principle, we are no advocates for grants to Mem-
bers of the Royal Family, under the plausible
pretext of maintaining them in becoming splen-
dour ; but the case of the Duke of Sussex is a
peculiar one. While his brothers have received
from time to time large additions to their income,
he has enjoyed only the Parliamentary grant to the
Royal Princes. Hence for years and years he has
been struggling with pecuniary difficulties ; yet not a
murmur—not a whisper of complaint or reproach
have we heard from him. He has borne his trials in
silence ; yet, though preserving a dignified reserve
on this point, he has ever been, where the interests of
the people were concerned, an active, stirring, energetic
Liberal. There has been no silence—no reserve here,
as the Parliamentary annals testify, which prove that
his Royal Highness has, on all suitable occasions,
boldly and eloquently spoken out on behalf of the
people. We hope that early in the next Session,
Government will take his case into consideration, for
it is not creditable—it is not just—that one of the
most zealous Reformers of his day—and he too, a
Member of the Royal Family, and as remarkable for
his private, as for his public, worth—it is not just,
we say, that such a man should, in the autumn of his
life, be suffered to struggle with privations which he
would never have known, had it not been for his dis-
interested efforts to promote the cause of rational
freedom.

The awful fate of the passengers on board the For-
Jarshire steamer has naturally excited a great degree

of alarm in the public mind. Even those who ha
hitherto put unlimited confidence in the safety o
steam vessels cannot fail to have that confidence