The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1838.

may very speedily arise for the exertion of its power. We
trust that not a day after the meeting of Parl.am, tit will
be suffered to elapse without such a remonstrance on this
subject, as Ministers must attend to. Whether it be pos-
sible to make them feel what is due to the safety and
honour of the country, we entertain considerable doubt,
but it may be possible to make them afraid to continue
their negligent policy. The Duke of Wellington foresaw
the occasion for a strengthening of our naval force, and
warned Ministers on the subject, but his warnings appear to
have been attended to only in that slight and nibbling way
which renders contemptible every branch ofthe conduct of the
present Administration. But the Duke will, we trust, renew his
warnings, and in a tone which Ministers cannot help attend-
ing to. When the Duke spoke last upon the subject the
country was comparatively ignorant and apathetic regarding
it. But it is not so now. The country burns with impa-

tience to see its navy placed in such a position that we may
with no idle and absurd pretension resume our ancient title
of mistress of the seas. A bold, energetic, and judicious
Administration, possessing the confidence of the country—
which, by the way, is a very different thing from the confi-
dence of cotton-mill owners, corn-jobbers, and common-
council praters in little dirty towns—such an Administra-
tion might, within the space of a few months, make our
navy what it ought to be, that is to say, able to sweep the
seas of any other two navies in the world that might by very
obvious political possibilities be combined against us. We have
of line-of-battle ships about a round hundred. But how many
have we in fighting order ? Scarcely halfadozen are in as good
fighting order as they could possibly be—that is, in as good
fighting order as they ought to be in, under present circum-
stances. Of the hundred there are, we believe, twenty in
commission, scattered at distancesof thousands of miles from
each other. Some little peddling exertion has of late been
made, and is still going on, to get a few more ships rea ly,
but nothing like the energy, nothing like the activity,
nothing like the exertion of British mind and resolution,
necessary for the vigorous accomplishment of any great af-
fair, has been manifsted upon the occasion. Our present

Ministers have not the heart for doing their duty in any-
thing like troublesome times. They are fit for nothing
better than miserable tricks of underhand interference like
that of Lord Palmerston in the civil wars of Portugal and
Spain. They lack courage and confidence, and a wide
view of affairs, and a will to do boldly what seems to tkein-
selves needful. They may carry on the mere routine of of-
ficial business when affairs run smoothly, and show some
little cleverness in the invention of commissions to give them
an excuse for paying their hangers-on at the expense of
the country, but when really important business is
to be done—business which concerns the safety of the
country, and the protection of its interests from one end of
the known world to the other, then they shine forth in their
native littleness, and stand confessed the merest drivellers
that ever pretended to guide the sceptre of British Go-
vernment. It is at such a time as this that a tom-tit of
the Evening Ministerial Press jumps upon its perch, and
begins to chirrup about economy ! Heaven save the coun-
try from these twittering politicians. What do they mean
by economy ? Is it economy to save some money, and to
lose the country ? Is it it economy to spare that which is
necessary for giving force and effectiveness to the public
resources ? Is it economy to starve the public service, in
order that a wretched clerk or two in the guise of states-
men may come down with their little parade of figures
and on tip-toe proclaim with exulting voice, " See how
many pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings, we have
saved!" Let us not be misunderstood. We love that
economy which is the antithesis of waste. We are for
no pampering of idle functionaries—no endowments
of pompous, self-conceited, and useless commissions. We
detest waste in the public service, and that not so much
for the money spent which need not be spent, as for the
immorality which it feeds and nurtures. We sicken when
we see official insolence and idleness fed to the teeth, and
lolling in disgusting apathy, or perhaps exercising oppres-
sion and unkindness for want of something else to do. Let
such things as these be frozen to death by the bitter blasts
of pinching economy—so much the better. We shall be
no mourners on the occasion, for we are not Whigs, nor
Radicals, nor hybrid sycophants, ready to be one or the
other, as seems most for present advantage. We would
that those who live by waste should perish by economy ;
but this would be real economy, not the starving of effi-
cient public service, which is real waste. Our navy people
—especially the officers—are, we fear, somewhat out of
humour with all sorts of governments which have obtained
in this country for the last thirty years, and we do not deny
that they have some reason. There are many cases of
unrequited service, and great hardship, and were it not that
a right-hearted Englishman has always something better
to do than to whimper and complain, one might almost
shed tears of vexation over the fate of many brave fel-
lows, as honest and as loyal, as ever drew breath on
British ground, or spent their blood upon foreign seas.
But a better time is, we trust, at hand for these men,
and we know that when their country calls, and they are
once more afloat, they will have no thought but that of
beating the enemy—no alternative in their hearts, but that
of a British sailor's victory, or a British sailor's grave.
Down with Whiggery and whiffling, up with the Union
Jack and bold British policy, and England will be herself
again in spite of all that has happened to spoil her. May
we live to see the day when our Queen and our country
will be defended as they ought to be, in the Council Cham-
ber, and on the wave, by men who have hearts without
fear, and principles without reproach !---ilforning Post.
The notice of motion given by Mr. Sheriff Wood, for a
a testimonial of civic respect and gratitude to Thomas
Clarkson, on account of his long, laborious, and success-
ful services in the cause of the oppressed African, and
which stands in the paper of the Common Council for to-
day, will be seconded by Alderman Sir Peter Laurie, and,
we trust, be passed, as it ought to be, by acclamation.
The precise words of the motion are :
" That the freedom of this city, in a gold box, value 100
guineas (not ten, as erroneously stated) be presented to Tho-
mas Clarkson, A. M., as a small but grateful testimonial of the
Corporation of London to the public services and worth of one
who had the merit of originating, and has the consolation of
living to witness the triumph of the great struggle for the de-
liverance of the enslaved African from the most oppressive
bondage that ever tried the endurance of afflicted humanity,
thereby obtaining for his country the high distinction of sepa-
rating her commercial greatness from principles incompatible
with the exercise of the religion of mercy, and achieving a
moral victory whose trophies shall endure while justice, free-
dom, the clemency of power, and the peaceful glories of civi-
lization shall have a place in the admiration of mankind."
We are glad to see the Corporation of London coming
forward in this way to tender the honourable tribute of
their praise and gratitude to the man with whom origi-
nated the great dsign of African emancipation. It is
highly creditable to the Civic Body of London to set this
example to the empire. Well does it become the Corpo-
ration of the metropolis of England—the first commercial
city of the world—to be foremost in gratefully recognizing
the merits of one whose labours of beneficence, carried
through a long life, have resulted in dissociating the Com-
MERCE of England from all connection with a traffic founded
in fraud, conducted in crime, revolting to humanity, and
obstructive of civilization ! The high pre-eminence of
England, in a moral point of view, among the nations was
never more signally, never more gloriously, because never
more beneficently displayed, than by taking the lead of
she civilized world in extirpating the African slave
trade, and slavery itself. Habits, however cruel, un-
just, and barbarous, that have sprung out of human cu-
pidity, and become familiarized by long practice,
are not easily extirpated. The man who first
undertakes the task has to encounter difficulties and dan-
gers which it requires more energy, high courage, and un-
flinching perseverance to confront and subdue, than ordina-
rily belong even to good men. Nothing less than moral
heroism could have achieved what Clarkson accomplished
in combating the prejudices, repelling the intimidation, and
overcoming the various obstacles which self-interest, igno-
rance, and calumny, unscrupulous in the use of the poi-
soned weapons of savage warfare, opposed to his virtuous
and unconquerable resolution. He himself has said that
when he first looked at the question of the abolition of the
slave trade in a practical point of view, it appeared to him
as difficult a task as one of the " labours of Hercules."
That task has been accomplished, and fabled glory sur-
passed by a sublime reality. It is highly honourable to the
two ancient seats of learning in this country, that their
names are associated with the earliest exertions to redeem
the character of England from the pollution of slave•com-
merce. The theme for the Latin prize poem at Cambridge,
gieen by the Vice-Chancellor Dr. Peckhard, in 1785, and
which had reference to the sin of compelling human beings
into slavery, first turned Clarkson's serious attention to the
subject. His course of reading to qualify himself as a
competitor for the prize, imbued his mind so deeply with
the criminality and horrors of the traffic, that the
gratification of being awarded the first prize was absorbed
in the painful conviction that the evil was too firmly en-
twined with the bad passions and selfish interests of our
nature to be rooted out without practical efforts, of
the whichcootrhaege tsucocaetstsemsepetmtehat daalmppoastrehootlpy hopelesseless.B uttashke
and had
the mind that was originally stimulated by academic
honour, has lived to earn the nobler prize which Christian
ivilization, g
rejoicin in her
Oxfordvicto
victory, offers to her benefac-
tor. So the University
o
to the triumph of lay claim to her
,hareth the struggle,
the g of having contributed,
e may
to
humanity,
tny
which
ar period
the
Corporation of London honours in the person of its first
( hampion. It was Sir William Dolben, one ofwas
the Mem-
bers of Parliament for that Universi;y,
mover of the first Bill ever brought into whooParliamen"ttfhoer
the purpose of restricting the bounds of the slave trade."
It will hereafter be said of the civic body of London, that
it was the first Corporation that rendered justice to the
Founder of African liberty—that liberty which, by rescuing
Africa from the crimes which the slavetrade engendered,.and