The Sun.
London, England, 1838-01-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We nave laid before our readers an ample report of the
proceedings at the Crown and Anchor Tavern yesterday,
on the Canada question. The result was anticipated by
us. It will be seen that all the resolutions submitted to
the meeting condemnatory of the course pursued by Mini-
sters, were carried by a large majority. It is not our in-
tention to enter now at any length on the considera-
tion of the various speeches. An endeavour was made by
Mr. Roebuck to show that the course pursued by the
Morning Chronicle, with respect to this question, had been
dictated by interested motives. We reply to this accusa-
tion by denying the statement. No proprietor of this jour-
nal has the slightest pecuniary interest of any description
in the province of Lower Canada. Mr. Easthope has
been from its formation, in 1824, a Director and a very
moderate proprietor of the Upper Canada Land Com-
pany. Mr. M‘Gillieray was also originally a Direc-
tor, but has ceased to be so for many years. He still,
however, retains stock in the Upper Canada Land
Company of the value of about 5001. The lands belong-
ing to that Company are all in Upper Canada. Neither
Mr. Easthope nor Mr. WGillivray have a foot of land in
Lower Canada. Mr. M4Giiiivray having been long for-
merly connected with the North West Company, was, as
he stated in his evidence before a Committee of the House
of Commons in 1828, well acquainted with both Lower and
Upper Canada ; with Lower Canada be stated he had
been acquainted since 1802 : with Upper Canada since
the war, 1. e. since 1815. In what manner either Mr.
Easthope or Mr. M'Gillivray can have an interest from
their shares iu the Upper Canada Company to determine
them to adopt the views advocated by the Morning Chro-
nicle, it would be difficult to point out. Mr. M‘Gillivray
stated in his evidence " that where the land is merely di-
vided by an imeeinary line separating the province of
Lower Canada from the States of New York and Ver-
mont, the land in the townships on the Canadian side of
the line is in many places scarcely saleable at is. per acre ;
and on the other side of the line it le sold at 10e.,
125., and 1.55." The iudependence of Lower Canada
would, almost as a matter of course, force Upper
Canada into a connection with the United States ; in
eillich case the value of all property, according to the most
intelliTsent witnesses, would also be greatly increased. If,
then, mere persenel interest were to sway Mr. Easthope
and Mr. M.Gillivrey, as proprietors of the Upper Canada
Company, it would not he difficult to show that the sue-
(.C3S of. the French Canadians would be advantageous to
them. Ae Mr. Roebuck has not scrupled to assign inte-
rested motives to these gentlemen, we have thus shown
that, taking that sordid test, no interest can possibly exist.
Witli regard to Mr. Edward Ellice., we have had no com-
munication with that gentleman on the question since the
news of the revolt reached this country. We can have
re right to dispute with Mr. Roebuck on his acconut. He
55;11, co doubt, defead, and explain his own views in Par-
liament ; and as to Mr. Roebuck's statement of Mr.
M'Giilivrav being connected in some mysterious manner
with Mr. Ellice, it is wholly and entirely unfounded. The
proprietors of this journal have not the sliehtest pecu-
niery ioterest of any sort or kind, directly or indirectly,'
with the province of Lower Canada or with Mr. Es.
lice. If Mr. Roebuck knows or believes the con-
trary, we challenge him to state it. If he referred to the
interests which we have stated in the stock of the Upper
Canada Land Company, why was he not explicit ? If Its
intends nnything further, we charge hint with mis-state-
;new If he intended only this, the peblie will feel it to be
one of the most hemmers myseificaeinns ever employed to
aid a had rause. W 0 still not ask Mr Roebuck what
vaerest be has which le ItiS him to defend the rebels of
.inower Camade ; nor will we resort to any such imputation
as he has thrown out against us with a view to destroy
the effect of his profcssioed lahours. The course we have
adopted has been dictated by a strong sense of duty. %V
ere not the advocates of a republican form of government
for British possessions, but will Alike do rear best to expoee
the error? and mistakes of our past colonial policy, and to
resist the effort.; of republicans and mischievous nieitators,
...bother it home or abroad. Again we ask the advocates!
of the Canadian rebels, what. is to be-your policy, and
v-list are your wishes in relation to the British colonists
who sirs attached to the mother country ? Will you
etaielan them to a furious civil strife, to become the
victims or a perty in rebellion against their Sovereign ?
Shall their suffetings he handed down to posterity forming
. tele of horror anil blivelshed, a con eepienee of cite red.
eller! of England, in return for devotion and loyaliy.—
el/seeing Chronicle.
Our readers will find elsewhere an ample report of a
eneeling he'd yesterday, et the Crown and Anchor, upon
the efrairs of .'anedit. The Report is taken mainly from
The Son, and if its report be correct it would appear that
the tentiments expressed in this journal yesterday did not
:meet with the approbation of the- meeting. We expected
nothing less from the friends of Mr. Roebuck, and we care
as little for their censure as we do for the ink and paper
winch we are now using. We shall pursue our own course,
as they unquestionably will pursue theirs ; but no recri-
mination—no obloquy shall tempt us to swerve from ours.
The rejected of Bath may rail and declaim as long as he
:pleases ; but his vituperations cost us as much thought as
;the water which is carried through Fleet-ditch to the
Thames. We had much rather be abused than be praised
hr a person so utterly incapable of managing himself as Mr.
It, chuck. His anti-British sentiments find no echo in our
hoso.no nor in that of any man attached to his country—its
interests, and its honour. We are sorry to see such men
As Mr. liume, Mr. Grote. and others gracing the rebel-
ihous tactics of Mr. Roebuck. For them we entertain the
highest respect. They have well and justly earned the
highest rewards that their country could award them ;
hut are they not foolish to ally themselves with a person so
devoid of all statesmanlike qualities, as the fretful boy
whom the people of Bath deemed to be unfit to represent
ahem ?---elforning Advertiser.

The meeting which took place yesterday at the Crown
and Anchor Tavern was not quite so harmonious as its
contrivers perhaps expected, and certainly would wish.
The feet is that the rebellion in Canada has caused some-
thing like a split in the camp of the Westminster Refor-
mers. Some of them are for cheering on the Canadians
and opposing the Government ; others for cheering on the
Government, and leaving the Canadians to their fate. For
instance, General Evans declines to attend the Radical
meeting of the Crown and Anchor, and writes an expostu-
latory letter. Mr. Leader attends the meeting, assists in
getting up the meeting, and receives an expostulatory or
rather a denouncing letter, from the Chairman of his Com-
mittee, and thus the two representatives take opposite
courses, and may be said to represent the confusion which
at present distracts the extreme party to which they
belong. But, with all due deference to the " pa-
triots " who figured at the meeting of yesterday, there
is a wide distinction between censuring the policy of
Ministers with respect to Canada in a proper tone and
at a fitting moment, and assembling for the avowed purpose
of expressing sympathy (and sympathy is encouragement)
with men who are at war with the Government, and as-
sembling- for the purpose at the very moment when those
amen have arms in their hands. A more ill-timed display
of political bias has been seldom exhibited even by the
Radical worthies who came forward upon this occasion. As
for the speeches delivered they were in perfect keeping with
!the occasion that called them forth. Mr. Hume, it is
'true, was a little startled at the shout of triumph which
followed his declaration that " a large pertioe of our fel-
iow-subjects in Lower Canada had been compelled to take
bp arms against the mother country." But men sl'fould be
cautious of uttering statements or expressions the applause
of which is calculated to make them either ashamed or
afraid. Ile did not prove the compulsion under which the
French Canadians had acted by any statement of grie-
Nene,* ; no, his method was more compendious and facile.
:He appealed to the existence of rebellion itself as evidence
flat the provocation was sufficient to justify it. This,
it .not new doctrine, is, at all events, convenient doctrine ;
for it settles the question of right by simply ascertaining
tile feet of rebellion. Mr. Leader took up the same ground
in his oration, avoiding, like his predecessor, the mention of
any specific grievances as constituting the " compulsion"
under which his fellow-subjects and fellow-patriots in
4Janada had been constrained to appeal to arms. And lest
ie meeting should suppose that he was at all behind hand
svtth Mr. Hume in pushing the principle which goes to jus-
tify rebellion because it is rebellion, he told them, with the
addition of an explanatory figure, " that a people would no
more rise against a Government that was kind than the sea
would _rise if the winds were silent." But figure is not
often a sufficient substitute for facts ; and we believe the
history of nations will show that Governments have some-
tismea been assailed, not because they were unjust or severe,
bat because they were weak, vacillating. and indecisive.
The speechea that followed were not under the mark.
Uteen the whole, the display was an extraordinary one, in
•vrinAt, most conveniently for the Canadian cause, thy
egrievanees were all taken upon credit, arid the only facts
isdduced were some of the operations of nature in relation
to the winds and waves. It will be seen from the state-
cesent of our City Correspondent, that the effect of this
peat manifestation of popular feeling, as it professed to be,
peoduced no more effect on 'Change than if it had been
really occupied in discussing the -state of the weather, the
position of the heavenly bodies, or the agitation of the ek-
anents.-- Morning Herald.

The flume and Leader meeting at the Crown and
~:tichor yesterday abundantly fulfilled the threats of its
.1t veners, and the predictions of all honest and intelligent
It was a meeting called to encourage rebellion, and
to trip the people of England of that spirit of loyalty, and
tl►at detestation of sanguinary treaqon, by which only a
del;bp TALT and armed outrage upon the majesty of the em-
pire "q .e.ver be put down. So fur as in them lay, the

seditious clique of Cockneys - and Canadians did yesterday
accomplish the end for which they met together. They
made speeches which violated the truth in every line—they
passed resolutions which had no other acknowledged mean-
ing than to inflame the French Canadians still more against
this country—to justify them in their own eyes, and in
those of mankind, for shedding the blood of British subjects
engaged in the service of their lawful Sovereign, and to
persevere stubbornly in the infliction upon Englishmen of
all the calamities of a civil war, got up by a band of sedi-
tious incendiaries, who themselves have taken flight from its
terrors. Nothing that ever we have seen or heard of was
more disgraceful than the tone of deception and virulence
which pervaded the declamations of the several orators in
this instance, and the character of their respective resolu-
tions. The Chairman was worthy of the day and of the
object. It was Mr. Joseph Hume—a personage just as
stupid as he is vain--one whose antipathies are as nume-
rous as the blessings enjoyed by England under her free
and noble institutions, and whose sympathies vary in
amount from time to time, as bad men and depraved poli-
tical enterprises multiply or diminish. We cannot follow
this offensive talker through the foolishnesses of his introduc-
tory speech ; we can scarcely catch their meaning. He
tells the mixed rabble who surround him, that they " were
met to put an end to the horrors of civil war." How,
then, is this to be effected ? Easily enough, we should
imagine. Nobody pretends that a single shot was fired
by the Queen of England's troops, or a sabre drawn by
them, or a drop spilt of Canadian blood, save only in ful-
filling the sacred duty of self-defence, in the protection
of their • own lives, and the maintenance of
the Queen's peace, after both had been, with-
out notice, attacked by armed bodies of French
colonists, in open, wanton, sudden, and perfidious
rebellion. The Queen's troops, we repeat, were
the assaulted party—the Canadians were the recog-
nised aggressors. Yet this system of,treacherous and one-
sided massacre is coolly described as a " civil war," which
Westminster patriots, like Mr. Joseph Huine, flock in
crowds professedly "to put an end to." Very well ; send
a missive to the rebels to lay down their arms, and desist
from firing upon the Queen of England's subjects, and the
" civil war" is settled at once. There will not then be a trig-
ger pulled on the part either of loyal militiamen or regular
troops—of that no wan will entertain the slightest suspi-
cion. But then comes the broad allegation that the Ca-
nadians had grievances which " drove" them to take up
arms. And what is the head and front of these grievances,
as declared by these oratars ? It is, that when the public
functionaries of the State had been left starving for three or
four years, the Royal revenue, which hail been given up to the
Assembly on the faith of its being applied to the support of
the civil government, was taken by the Crown for that legiti-
mate purpose, and a remedy thus found for the flagrant
wrong perpetrated by the Papineau faction against the
safety of the colonial commonwealth. It is said that the
British House of Commons have a constitutional right to
stop the supplies it they think fit, and so to dissolve the
Government. Vastly well all this ; and if we can suppose
a succession of British Parliaments wild and frantic enough
to dissolve the State to which they constitute the outward
and visible organ, there is no help for such a catastrophe
that we know of beyond thatt of trying repeated experi-
ments of a " dieaolution" of Parliament. Failing that,
there is no redress by law ; but is there any fair parallel
between the rights of a body supreme over its own actions,
and amenable to no external or superior power, and the rights
of another body, amenable by law to the supreme au-
thorlty of an external Sovereign, to whom it owes obe-
dience ? It the British Parliament, speaking in the 'tante of
the nation, say r, we will not raise money this year for the
pay of the Civil List—of snlaries—of the army sod navy—
of the judges, the Parliament commits what may he called
a political suicide. But that is a crime which cannot be
tried or punished by any other human tribunal: It is a
crime by England acainst England only. It is not one
against Lower Canada. which contains in it any particle of
rebellion, er which Lower Canada has a right to visit with
any retribution. If, or, the contrary, Lower Canada
chooses to paralyse that Civil Government, which belongs
not to her alone, hut has been placed over her hy England,
not merely for Canadian interests but for those of England
also, she vionvee cot her duties to herself exclusively ; site
breaks obligetions imposed upon her by a country which
had an uuqiiestionnble right to impose them ; she
deeply iiijures hers if, it is true, but she precedes
that folly by robbery of English possessioes and a
glaring and hoe-siting outraee.upon English rights. The
two cases, therefore, pre sent no sort of parallel. Mr.
Leader, that strange poiitical fungus, who has fas-
tened himself upon stminster, but whom an easy
ope:atiou is destined to remove, turns philanthropist, and
exclaims—" It is a sad thing to see military execution let
loose upon any people." It is a sad thing for a man who
tis'ks iii public to forget the known facts of any case on
which he appeals to his hearers. The military execution
in the present instance happens to have been " let loose'
upon the British forces, not by them. They lost the first
blood—they were victims, not aggressors. Will Mr.
Leader command his creatures its Lower Canada to cease
on their part from inflicting " military execution ?" The
speeches delivered, the resolutions passed, the absurdities,
extravagancies, and calumnies asserted, are given in our
report of this unprincipled and atrocious meeting, which,
in so far as it tends to uphold the Canadians in their trea-
son, assists in the shedding every drop of human blood,
whether English or Canadian, which may be spilt in the
progress of this wanton and cruel strife.—Tinies.
The meeting held yesterday at the Crown and Anchor
Tavern, for the support and encouragement of the Cana-
dian insurgents, did not turn out to be the kind of failure
which the Ministerial journals had so confidently and per-
severingly professed to expect. In many respects it was
a failure, no doubt, but in those respects only in which
many former meeting whose success was loudly applauded
by our Ministerial contemporaries failed in at least an equal
degree. There was, as is usual on such occasions, more of
declamation than of argument in the speeches addressed
to the assembly—more of depraved craving for a vicious
and noisy popularity than of anxiety for the public welfare
on the part of the orators—and more of vehemence and
enthusiasm than of respectability, sobriety, or geed sense
on the part of the assembled mob, To this extent the
meeting was a failure—like every public meeting within
our recollection which patronised any object of the
present Ministers of the Crown, or any of whose ob-
jects the present Ministers of the Crown patronized.
The meeting was such, whether we regard its com-
position or its numbers, or the character of the nu-
merous speeches that obtained its attention and
applause, as would not have failed, (and we ac-
knowledge the fact with unfeigned regret), had it been
convened for the promotion of any Ministerial project,
to throw all the Ministerial journals and all their offi-
cial patrons into a paroxysm of delight, and to have sup-
plied them with a daily theme of triumphant exultation for
at least a week. In saying this, however, as our readers
are fully aware, we do not say much in honour of the
meeting. Were it the purpose of such assemblages to
seek information upon the subject on account of which
they are called together, or to arrive at any rational con-
viction upon the questions which seem to be put in issue
by their convocation, the meeting of yesterday would un-
doubtedly have been a decided failure. Neither Mr. Hume,
nor Mr. Leader, nor Colonel Thompson, nor Dr. Wade,
nor Mr. Grote, nor Mr. Roebuck, nor Sir William
Molesworth, nor Mr. Crawford, nor Mr. Duffey,
nor Mr. Hetherington, nor Mr. Vincent, although
the necessity of doing so was repeatedly intimated
to them from the crowd, attempted to vindicate the
Canadian revolt by other arguments or assertions
than such as have been a thousand times refuted
and disproved. The master grievance alleged in
defence of the insurrection was the appropriation of
the colonial funds by the Executive Government, with the
sanction of the two houses of the British Parliament, after
the House of Assembly had for three years refused to
make theappropriations necessary to keepthe machine of Go-
vernment in motion, for the avowed purpose of extorting the
the consent of the other branches of the Colonial Legislature to
an organic change of the Constitution granted by the Legisla-
ture of Great Britain,andaccepted by the colony. A more ridi-
culous grievance was surely never paraded before any ra-
tional assembly. It is simply this, that the House of As-
sembly having trampled upon the first principles of the
Constitution, extinguished its entire spirit, and rendered
its intended operation abortive or impracticable, the Bri-
tish Parliament did not think it just or expedient that the
Executive Government of the colony should be any longer
fettered and paralysed by a strict adherence to the
letter of this strangled and defunct Constitution. In
addition to this notable grievance fur the special vindica-
tion of the rebellion, to be immediately patronised,
the meeting was edified and delighted by the ar-
gument of all-work in the general cause of rebel-
lion which assumes that men never engage in insurrection
without just and adequate provocation or motive. This
convenient and never-failing plea fur rebellion, was ad-
vanced by every speaker in succession, in every imaginable
variety of phrase, and with great exuberance of illustra-
tion. Such arguments of course could not have been in-
tended to convince the understandings of any assembly of
rational beings ; but they had this merit, that their accep-
tance by the assembly would serve to manifest the disposi-
tion of the assembly, and to manifest it the more clearly
in proportion to their utter abeurtlity and folly. One of
the speakers, however, Colonel Thompson, was determined
that this manifest Ition of the dispesition and will of the
assembly, should not suffice—for he took occasion to men-
tion, in terms of exultation, the great act of justice which
rebellion once achieved in England, in the murder of
Charles the First, and to intimate, not very indistinctly,
his readiness upon what he might deem a suitable oc-
casion, to take part in preparing a similar triumph of
the democratic principle in our own day. These senti-