The Sun.
London, England, 1831-08-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

A respectable contemporary of our's inserted yes-
terday morning a letter from a correspondent, sign-
ing himself " A.," who thought proper to make
that journal (and we blame neither the o titer of the
etter nor the editor of the Morning Chronicle) the
medium of an attack upon the Tinter for ;:mpolicy
or inconsistency, because of its vehement and tarty
opposition to that clause of the Reform Bill whieh
enacts a division of the counties. We shell dismiss
with a passing smile, the childish attempt of this
corresponaent of the Morning Chronicle to lay at
Mr. Croker's door our alleged " declaration of war"
against the Ministry. Mr. Croker spoke in civil
terms of the Times last week, and therefore we an-
nounced, above a month ago, our disapprobation of
the clause ire question ! 1. We beg to repeat and to
remind our readers of the fact, that very early with=
in the first seven days of July, we expressed our-
selves hostile to the county-division clause, though
without dwelling at any length upon the subject,
lest we might help to distract public attention from
the raore urgent purpose of endeavouring to get rid
of schedules A and B, then and long afterwards
made the instruments of great embarrassment
and alarm, from the manoeuvres of the Tory
opposition, and of our Right Honourable seducer,
Mr. Croker himself, among them. if the display
of our determined, and reiterated, and most ear-
nest hostility to the aforesaid elsuae, has been
postponed to a more recent period, will not any can,
did man allow that we specified a sufficient reason
for postponing it ? If the reason which we have
adduced be not sufficient,—namely, our conviction
of the necessity of first disposing of the rotten bo-
roughs in schedules A and B, before we engaged in
any second struggle, contested as were those sche•
doles inch by inch, to the utter disgust of the whole
nation,—the Morning Chronicle and its correspoes
dent will at least admit that our error has been uni-
orm an dconaistent. From the leading article of the
TiFnes dated July 26 (more than three weeks ago)
we ask permission to quote the following passage:—
" Numberless propositions have been made to us,
with regard to those portions of the Reform Bill
which may be termed the re-constructing clauses;
and they will, doubtless, be well worth considering
at the proper time : but, first of all, we must wit-
ness the administration of a complete quietus to sche-
dules A and B. Let not the country think of any
secondary objects until after the complete demolition
of the enemy's force: the important question cf
county divisions, qualifications, and so forth, will
then claim, and obtain, their hearing." Now here,
we presume to say,is a clear indication of our policy,
whether wise or unwise, and a pretty fair demonstra-
tion of the consistency with which we have acted.
Our cry has always •been—one thing at a time;
first destroy the rotten boroughs, next save the
counties themselves from dissolution. The corre-
spondent of the Morning Chronicle seems to wish
that he could successfully insinuate a doubt of
our being still cordial in our support of the Bill.
Why, how puerile and unworthy is such gabble
We oppose the division of counties, because that di-
vision, as we conceive, would be fatal pro taut°, to
Reform. He who sets up a new line of county
landmarks —who blunts and confounds the old eq.), it
du corps of the county,—who perplexes every man
in the county upon the question whether a requisi-
tion for the county meeting comprehends himself or
not,—he who sinks the man of Kent into the East
or West Kentish man, the man of Lincolnshire into
one of North or South Lincoln, of Devonshire into
him of North or South Devon,—he it is who goes
to work directly for the enfeebling of one great ele-
ment of the national spirit of Englishmen, by grind-
ing down the masses of which our nation is corn-
posed,—those manses, whose sense of their respec-
tive interests, and *hose habits and powers of co-
operation for common objects, have imparted to
England v, hatever she exhibit sof the genius of poli-
tical energy and manhood. So, by depriving one
portion of the independent elective body in each
county of its reliance on, and confidence in, the aid
of all the rest, the Bill of Reform is not supported,
but effectually undermined and endangered. It is
then, as life-and-death friends of Reform, that for
the sake of the Bill itself we resist these odious
anomalies, which ought to be regarded as ulcers
in its constitution, and as nourishing the seeds
of its ultimate dissolution or degeneracy.
Indeed, our whole opposition to the division of
counties is founded or, the principles of the Consti-
tution. " Stare super antiques vies," is the phrase
which Lord Bacon introduces, and recommends as
the maxim to be observed in all political changes;
neither is there any thing in the rest of the Bill
that militates against this principle. Deserted
boroughs are deprived of the elective franchise—
populous towns receive it; what is there in this to
create terror or even excite suspicion ? It is of the
nature and essence of representation. But a new
territorial division of the land savours ab'olutely of
a revolutionary measure ; it is a copy (and though a
feeble and imperfect one at first, may be rendered
more complete and extensive in time) of the division
of France into departments ; indeed, the words
already tingle in our ears. Derbyshire, the depart-
men, of the Peak, and the department of the Der-
went; Leicestershire, the department of the Soar,
and the department of the Welland. For our own
parts we cannot away with this; and we trust
there is still respect enough in the breasts of our
counqymen for their old Constitution, to have the
same feeling upon the subject with ourselves. If
it be said that in the course of these discussions we
have used vehement and angry language, why we
can declare unaffectedly, in the first place, that offence
to individuals, and above all to Ministers, has never
been thought of by any person engaged in the active
management of this Journal ; and secondly, that when
the passions of three great countries are roused, and
when it is indispen-able to direct them to one ex-
cellent and paramount end, we must pitch our voice
to the level of the tempest. We cannot whisper
down the conclamations of 20,000,01)0 of freemen.
As for certain minor charges in the Morning Chro-
nicle letter, our conduct in treating the Dutch and
Belgic case is open to general observation. We
thought at first, and whilst trusting (not with per-
fect prudence we acknowledge) to ex•parte state-
ments, that the King of Ileand had behaved with
duplicity, and we said so. When better informed,
we withdrew the charge, and strove to redeem our
error. If the candour we exercised had been more
successfully imitated, it appears to us that elle cause
of truth might have suffered little wrong : but we
shall stare this point more fully in another article.
Then for Mr. S atiley : is it honest for any writer to
assert that our frank notice of something ehich
might, and which we doubt not, will he corrected
in the demeanour of that young statesman, was "
declaration of war against the Mcnistry ?" Mr.
Stanley is not a man to partake the soreness of his
anonymous partisan, who is, we suspect, some
bumble underling. He has discrimination enough
to distinguish between an artful sycophant and a
resolute and incorrupt adviser. It is our wish to
sec Mr. Stanley in a position where the spirit and
force of his character may be felt ro full advantage;
and it were a pity that the want or neglect of some
minor accomplishments should mar him.—Times.

Three officers of the American Militia, re-
cently convicted f desertion, were sentenced to have their
faces blackened a'l over, and five rations of beef and meal
hung &tient their necks, their coats turned the wrong aid-
out with the label "desertion" on their backs ; the pct..
with wooden winds. and their toners t be furnished
swords pointe:l at their backs, and thus to be drummed
round the lines of the camp three times bareheaded, and
then dismissed.
LUKE DILLON will be sent off to Botany
Bay next week,i ap, slitg WHITE, convicted of forgery.
An account was received on Tuesday of an at-
tempt tii.assassinat..l,tlle RUSSIA. The state-
ment conveyed in a letter Tr.o)Cronstallt, dated the
2d inst.siwhkh mentioned that gC, as currently reported
there tb*t the &armor of;Stu st sa had been shot at by one
ofhis`owta gtztrdsalsnd thi(the shot not having taken a
kar tlitlat.tifflits tiiforE, tins wounded the Emperor.
71,100 .rod OZ