The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-29 00:00:00

STEPHENS' VINDICATION,

LET HIS ENEMIES READ AND REPLY.
BEING A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE PEO-
PLE OF NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM,
IN ANSWER TO THEIR INVITATION TO AT-
TEND THEIR DEMONSTRATION AT NEW-
CASTLE-UPON-TYNE, DEC. 25, 1838.

TO THE MEN OF NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURI-11m,
IN DEMONSTRATION ASSEMBLED.
Fellow.Countrymen,—l must forego the pleasure I had anticipated
in being present at your Demonstration. It is due to you, who have
honoured me with the invitation, and to myself, who am obliged to de_
cline it, to state, without reserve, the reasons which, after much deli_
beration, have led me to adopt a resolution, very much at variance with
my wishes as regards the people of Northumberland and Durham, and
with my hopes as regards the immediate prospects of the people at
large.

You cannot be fully aware of the singular position I have been re_
cently placed in--not by the factions, Whig or Tory, who have bee❑
supposed to be the only political parties hostile to the people_
but by a large portion of the Radicals themselves, or their represcnta_
tires, who have always claimed to be considered, emphatically, as the
people—the source of all legitimate authority and power. These
representatives of the people in London, Edinburgh, Birmingham, and
elsewhere, have singled me out as the object of their marked and most
bitter attack. Without entering into any correspondence with me on the
eubject—without making any enquiry of me as to what opinions I held on
any given question, and in what manner, and for what purpose I had given
expression to those opinions—in my absence—unheard—and without
any opportunity afforded for explanation or defence—l have been ar_
raigned, condemned, and denounced as a man utterly unworthy theconfi-
dence of the people—nay, as a traitor to the cause:l professed to advocate
With these persons I have no acquaintance. such a controversy I
have no desire to engage, nor will I allow myself to be provoked into a
quarrel with any. All the time, all the strength, and what little skill
I possess, shall be reserved 'for the known enemies of the people--the
parties, whose principles and whose practice have wrought such deadly
evils in the land. With the people, or with the acknowledged leaders
and friends of the people, I will not fight.
But for what do they reproach—for what do they repudiate me ?
What is the question, as far as I am concerned with it ? It is briefly
this. Pardon me if I state it to you—for I wish to be distinctly under-
stood—in order that no one may have a pretext for hereafter misrepre.
seating my sentiments or my motives, as too many have previously ap-
peared to think themselves authorised to do on almost every subject,
with which I have been in anywise connected.

It is true that I am but a young man, and, as one of my Judges ob.
served, had no political existence, when he was already a prominent
personage on the political stage. But, though young, I have done my
best to understand the real condition of the people, my brethren and
fellow.countrymen. I have given my whole mind and soul—now for
some years—to the practical study of the wrongs, the wants, and the
rights of Englishmen. A previous resident in the agricultural districts,
where I had made myself master of the old ways, habits, and customs of
the peasantry, I came some years ago into the very centre of the ma-
nufacturing population, and there, too, I made it my business to be
amongst them—to be, as far as acquaintance and sympathy could make
me so, one of the people.

This knowledge of Ihe actual condition of the people, compared with
their acknowledged rights and privileges as asserted by the highest
authorities, and maintained by the ablest and wisest writers on constitu-
tional law, brought me to the conclusion that there was something so
radically unsound in the existing state of things, that no abstract
theory, no mere change in the framework of our outward institutions,
could reach, much less remedy or remove it. Convinced of this,
I came forward, at the call of the people of my own district, to vin-
dicate the national and common law rights of the poor—of the children,
especially, of the poor—doomed by this state of things to the horrors of
factory slavery. The claims of these children upon the justice, hu-
manity, and religion of the country I laid before the public, unconnected
as I was with any political party, and independent of every faction—
resting those claims upon the immutable foundations of benevolence
and Christianity, the only unerring rule of right—the only spring of pure
morality—the only safeguard against national as well as individual
wrong.

In the same spirit, and with the same view, I subsequently entered
upon the more extended field of moral warfare in the fearful struggle,
which all are now more or less deeply engaged in—occasioned by the
passsing of the Poor.law Amendment Act. My conduct on both these
questions is before the country. My proceedings have not been equivo-
cal. I have always insisted upon the right of the poorest and the lowest
—to be first fed, clothed, sheltered, and protected in their own home, at
their own fireside—together—in peace, and enjoying plenty, in the land
of their fathers—no matter what the form of its Government—no matter
what the political institutions, by which that Government might be
established, sanctioned, or controlled.

I have said that the " poorest and the lowest should be fed, clothed,
sheltered, and protected in their own home," _I never said, neither did
I ever think, that the willing idlers had any right to subsist on the
labour of the industrious; no—the old law of the land, with which I
never quarrelled, had already properly sentenced them (the willing idlers)
to prison.

This right for industrious men to have a free and a happy home I
held to be the cradle of all other rights. Nature, instinct, reason, com-
mon sense and common law, the constitution and the religion of the
country—all conspire to teach and to secure it. I have, therefore,
embraced every oppertunity of pressing it upon the attention of my
fellow-countrymen—of the rich, to convince them of their immediate
duty—of the poor, to show them their present privileges; to awaken