The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-18 00:00:00

TE' SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1k36.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

' In the tone of the most unprincipled Tory journal
t indicated the existence of an apprehen-
sion in that quarter that the hereditary abettors of
abuse is i
clearly
e have, in their zeal to do public mischief, over-,
stepped the 'limits of prudence, and done damage to
their own already fractured cause, in the attempt to
crush the great principle of liberty, civil and religious,
in these realms. We yesterday looked in vain, through
the columns of the hireling paper in question, for a
defence of the Copley scheme of corporate annihilation,
which, but a little week ago, was eulogised as the per-
fection of scuud policy, and held no to the gaze of ad-
miring corruptionists as the beau ideal of enlightened
statesmanship. Where we expected to find a high-
flown panegyric, under circumstances that, from
honesty, would extract an impassioned vindication, lo !
there was nothing more than a snivelling attempt at
smartness. For reasons-sufficiently understood by
the public, Lord Lyndhurst was puffed, and the
cunning of the learned charlatan contrasted with
the manly and increnious candour of the Presi-
.s3 ___

dent of the Council. We can pardon this helping
the lame dog over the stile, and we are sure Lord
Lansdowne will forgive it, more especially since the
mercenary calumniator of the Cabinet did not ven-
ture on, this occasion to brawl, in its usually uncouth

fashion, against the course which the Noble Marquis
avowed his intention to pursue, in reference to the
psettdo•amendments framed by the prime schemer of
the Carlton Club, for the destruction of Murfieipal
Government in Ireland. As long as the Tore or-
gans avoid misrepresenting the conduct of Govern-
ment and of Reformers generally, they may indulge

in personal abuse to the top of their bent, without
provoking a rebuke or reply from the Liberal party.
Nay, we shall with some sort of pleasure read these
literary onslaughts, as they always indicate a dread on
the part of the Tories to grapple with reason, or to
condemn measures which have manifestly attracted
public approbation. That the Ministerial measure for
the purification of the corporate system in Ireland, and
the declaration of Lord Lansdowne that Ministers
will not soil • their hands by touching the noxious
amendments" of the Carlton Club, have won the
approval of the country, must, we think, appear pal-
pable to any one—be he Whig, or Tory, or Radical
—who has scanned the editorial columns of the Tory
Press of the metropolis published yesterday. The
Standard, instead of pouring its pious wrath upon the
head of the Minister, for denouneinr, the fraudulent
propositions of the ex-Chancellor, devotes a couple of
" mortal columns" to Maria Monk (so charitable is
your Tory saint, that he makes it a rule to let virtue
defend herself, while all his powers arc put forth in
defence of the profligate), and a canting parson named
Martin, who has, it seems, been accused of using
potent gold rather than Scripture in making converts
to orthodoxy ; the twaddler of the Herald has vented
his ire on our foreign diplomacy—a science in which
Grandmamma is so profound an adept ; " Zeta,"
of the Post, has fallen beneath a paralytic stroke ;
" Runnymede" has given holiday to his• rhodomen-
tade, and the roarer of Printinghouse-square is as
gentle as a sucking dove. Indeed, the last of these
worthies has essayed a diversion in favour of the unfor-
tunate Tories, and in lieu of a swaggering " leader,"
pointing out the abomination of granting a participa-
tion in British institutions to eight millions of British
subjects, the world is favoured with a . lugubrious dis-
quisition upon Irish Tithes. At a more fitting time
we shall take this thesis to pieces, and-point out the
numerous actual and relative falsehoods with which it
abounds ; but at present we have one iron in the
and shall not play the enemy's game by letting that cool.
The question which now engrosses the attention of the
empire, solely concerns municipal reform in the sister
country ; and the dexterous attempt of the Titnrs
to put the public on a different scent, is itself
proof pregnant of the dismay which the frank
and patriotic declaration of the President of the
Council has carried into the ranks of the corrup-

tionists. Emboldened by former concussions to their
vicious caprice, the Tories laid to their souls the
flattering unction, and worked themselves into a
belief, that as the change they effected in the Bill for
the reform of municipalities in Great Britain was, for
peace-sake,. acquiesced in by Ministers and the House
of Commons, the plan of wholesale destruction which
they invented against the civic institutions of Ireland,
would, almost as a motter of course, be accepted by
Government and the representatives of the nation.
One of the journals in their livery, actually boasted,
within a week, that the wordy opposition to the Copley
scheme WILS mere bravado, put on to cover cowardice ;
and confidently informal its readers that the King's
Ministers and the Commons would defile their cha-
racter, and, after some blustering, gladly concur in the
nefarious " amendments." And what is the nature of
these " amendments," forged in corruption's smithy,
which the Reformers of England were thus taunted
by the Tory scribe with a readiness to accept ? They
have been wrought upon the principle that an
integral portion of the empire should be governed
in provincial fashion, and. thrt a third of the
King's subjects at home arc unfit for freedom,
because, forsooth, the majority of them happen
to profess a forum of the Christian faith which squires
not with our own notions of orthodoxy, but which has
already been solemnly decreed by several Acts of Par-
liament not to be hostile to the peace of society, or to
the welfare of these united islands, or incompatible
with the possession of British liberty, and the due dis-
charge of those various duties which attach to British
citizenship. This is the leading principle upon which
the amendment-mongers proaecded. It has been re-
pudiated by the responsible advisers of the Crown ; and
it only remains for the House of Commons and the
people themselves to aid the Administration in their
glorious struggle for popular rights, by declaring their
abhorrence of the principle and clauses of Lord Lynd-
hurst's Bill, and their determination to extend to Ire-
land that beneficial system of corporate government
which has already been established in Great Britain,
and has worked so well here ; or, by their apathy, to
frustrate the salutary intentions of the reforming Ca-
binet, to paralize its energies, to inflict upon Ireland
gross insult that will fester for centuries, and produce a
gangrene in the right arm of the empire, and finally to
restore again the broken crutch of Toryism, and re-es-
tablish the ascendancy of that party, the history of
whose past sway is written in the blood of the people ;
who have fattened upon public plunder, andgloated upon
oppression ; to whose ears the sweetest music has ever
been the wail of the tortured ; and the monument of
whose disastrous rule will be found and looked at with

loathing by the present and all future generations, in
that voluminous pile of sanguinary statutes now fortu-
nately exploded, by which the rights and liberties of
England were abridged and destroyed, and unhappy
Ireland made a vast theatre of continuous disaffection
and constantly recurring civil war. Can a doubt he
for one moment entertained 'respecting the side the
people of England will take ? Who will dare to
1 uiititled
pituyilrdancrtesd whotlw liirad pockets
fcokret sos longalld a
ly crue asperse the character of our countrymen, by supposing
them capable of ranging themselves beside those titled
an
period, so
flagrantly
op-
pressed their persons ? Laying aside all consideratiol
l
of that justice which we owe to the Irish Reformers,
by whose valuable assistance we benefited so largely
during our own stru,gle with the Tories for the resto-
ration of British independence—losing sight of that
debt of gratitude we owe to the present Government,
for the signal service it has rendered to the sacred cause
of civil and religious - freedom at home and abroad
—there is in the very hatred we owe to Toryism
for its protracted career of rapacity and injustice, a
superabundant cause why—in the efforts which a Re-
forming Administration are making to amalgamate
effectually the different parts of the empire, to restore,
or rather to bring peace to Ireland, and to plant the
roots of social happiness and prosperity in that country,
so long
the victim of misrule, a prey to intestine dis-
cord,, and a source of annoyance and grief to Great
Britain—the people of England and Scotland, and the
Representatives of thesepeople in the House of Com-
mons, should at once and boldly throw their power,
their might, and their hearts into the ranks of the
Ministry. That
all these reasons will influence the
public mind there cannot be a shadow of doubt. Already
the popular array is forming.. Liverpool has met, and,
despite the trickery of the
Tories, recorded its .resolve
that justice shall be done to Ireland, and that Dublin

shall participate in that wholesome system of civic.
polity which has been already wrung from the reluctant
gripe of the corruptionists for Liverpool itself. Ro-
chester, Tiverton, and several other towns meet to-day
for the same purpose ; and before the lapse of a week,
we are sure the flame which was lighted in the great
commercial emporium of the manufacturing districts
will have spread over the length and breadth of the
land, enlightening the peoplo, exhibiting the infamy,of
the conduct pursued by the Tory Peers, and pointing
out the mode by which the " lofty Lords" may and
will be convinced of the mischievousness of their de-
sign, and scared from a persistance in their contem-
plated tyranny and injustice. It is at length time to
reduce these madmen to reason—or, if they have eaten
too copiously of the insane root, to cut short their career
of malversation. A nation can never prosper while
the rights of the many are exposed to perpetual pe-
ril from the machinations of a handful of privileged
patricians, whose conduct, unfortunately, leaves too
much room to apprehend that they do evil that evil
may come of it.—Morning chronicle.

An evening paper of yesterday, repeating the sub.
stance of a paragraph in a Ministerial morning jourua
to the same effect, says, that " there is not the slightes
foundation for the reports circulated in the Oppositior
journals of the resignation of Viscount Melbourne
It is not only in our power to state the absolute false.
hood of such reports, but that there never have existed
any grounds for them." It may be remarked, without
much liability to the charge of hypercriticism, that
there is something like superfluity in the above con-
tradiction ; for if the reports be now unfounded, that
Lord Melbourne has resigned (resignation being but
a single and undivided act), it follows, of course,
that they must always have been unfounded. But is
it fair or manly, in the Ministerial truth-tellers, to im-
ply that the reports in question have been confined to
the " Opposition journals ?" Is there an individual
in London ignorant that the reports were current
throughout all classes of society, even the lowest,
before ever the " journals " thought themselves
justified in giving them any confirmation ? No man
who is not himself an arrant scoundrel, will imagine
for a moment that the editor of a newspaper, or any
civilized being, would wantonly, or on wounds short
of absolute notoriety, put in circulation statements
which involved the honour of families, and the good
fame and social existence of woman. Our contempo-
raries, therefore, ought to have been more careful of
their expressions, and not through negligence let it be
imputed, on their authority, to the " Opposition
Journals," that the reports concerning Lord Mel-
bourne proceeded from such journals only, and would
have had no existence but for them. It becomes us
not as public journalists to take any high tone of in-
dignant and blustering morality on occasions like the
present, or to drag the affairs of private life before the
political world. But there arc facts which, when they
cannot be suppressed, call into play the rights of pub-
lic decency, and create political necessities out of
personal indiscretions. Without the slightest wish to
bear hard upon any individual, but, on the con-
trary, feeling sincere regret for what has been as-
serted with regard to certain domestic circumstances,
and their consequences, as they affect all the parties
interested, which have formed the topics of universal
conversation within the last three weeks, we cannot
shut our eyes or ears to that which every one else is
reading or talking, of incessantly. Now, as for Lord
Melbourne's reported, or rather anticipated, resigna=
tion, and its understood motives, is it not notorious
that a gentleman whom we shall not name, but who
felt himself injured in a tender point, had a case pre-
pared by his solicitor, and laid before two eminent law-
yers,and that these learned counsel concurred in opinion
that there was abundant evidence to go before a jury ?
Supposing, then, that a Prime Minister happened to
be the party whose proceedings were about to be thus
complained of and investigated in a court of justice, is
there, let us ask, or can there be, a second voice upon
the moral impossibility of his remaining at the head of
the Cabinet while his name and conduct were held
up in such a light to the community ? • If the expected
suit be carried on, it is inevitable that the Noble Lord
resigns his office ; and how can the suit be relinquished
unless a second opinion, adverse to the first, be deli-
vered by the same, or equally eminent, Counsel ? The
notion of a compromise in such a case as this—a com-
promise of an injured husband's honour—a sale of his
lawful redress, and of his right to be relieved from a
yoke which has been rendered intolerable to him, a
source of wretchedness to his children, and of degrada-
tion and disgust (if the alleged facts be true) to every
branch of his. noble family-I—that notion is in itself so
monstrous and extravagant, that we arc confounded at
the gross ignorance or ineonceiyable baseness, in either of
ivhich it must have originated. If, as is, not openly
perhaps, but not obscurely, insinuatid, a " compromise"
be in the wind—that is to say, if the peace, comfort,
freedom, and honour, of a deeply-injured family should
be sold, to screen the offending parties, or more pro-
perly speaking, one of them, against certain appre-
hended results of a legal process, then we say that
to hint who is covered with the infamy of an act so
sordid, vile, and unnatural, England, nay, Christen-
dom, affords no place of shelter ; but we repeat that
the supposition is monstrous—impossible.. For the
sake of the Noble Viscount (we say it most unfeignedly)
our hope is that he will at once resign, and, politically
speaking, that willt is quite disinterested, because it
does not appear to us that the affairs of the O'Connell
Government would suKr sixpennyworth of damage
from his Lordship's retreat.—Times.
It will give pleasure to every friend of his country
to read an authorized contradiction of the report, so
eagerly propagated by the anti-reform faction, of the
intended resignation of Lord Melbourne. The re-
port in question, as we have already stated, is not only
false, but there never was any ground for it. Nothing
of the kind was ever in contemplation. We should
willingly stop here, but a sense of duty compels us to
say, that a recent discovery proves that ancient name,
and exalted rank, do not necessarily imply in their pos-
sessors correct feelings, and proper candour, towards a
political adversary. 'Fhe unprincipled clique of male and
female intriguers who have violated the sanctities and
on.raged the decencies of private life to effect an anti-na-
tional object, but who, fortunately for the best interests of
Enzland, have been discovered, and their insidious pur-
pose frustrated, ought to be held up to merited execration.
The proper hour for their exposure has not yet struck,
but they may rest assured that it is at hand, and that
when it does arrive, we shall be proud to hold them up
to well-earned infamy. In the meantime the very
parties who have been attempting, not only to play
their own game, but the game of Russia also,—for
be it known that the conspiracy is a Russian con-
spiracy—have already reaped some portion of the mor-
tification which their anti-national malignity, and po-
litical enmity, so richly deserved. They are scorned
by their Russian employers because they have not
been successful in ousting from his place the Cabi-
net one of the ablest Ministers of the present times,
and they arc scouted by all the gentlemen of their
party, in consequence of their malignant attempt
to convert an alleged private occurrence into a
public accusation of political incompetency. Notwith-
standing all the entreaties of the base and low-minded
of the Tory faction—of Lords A. L. It. S. W. W.,
and, proh pallor ! Bishop * * *—the Duke of
Wellington would have nothing to do with the matter—
Lord Lyndhurst cried bah ! upon the first mention of
it—Sir It. Peel all but turned his back upon the sup-
pliant advocates—and, in a word, the gentlemen of the
party unanimously declared, that though it might suit
the ultras, it would not do for those on whose talents
and principles the Conservatives .could place reliance.
So much for this mare's nest. In a day or two we
inay have something more to say upon the subject.
The lies so industriously propagated by the faction,
will, as we stated on Saturday, speedily receive a sa-
tisfactory refutation.—Morning Advertiser.
The following portentous paragraph appeared in a
Ministerial Paper of yesterday. 'At will be perceived
that it consists of but two sentences, though it contains
the condemnation of so many :
" That cloud which has for a time overhung the conduct of
Ministers, and obscured their best intentions, is now burs:
through. Having laboured long and vainly to :nye the House
of Lords, having incurred public displeasure, and the bloc.
"preaches of that perfidious party whom they sought to shield-t
teem the resentment of an insulted nation, in their ;atone s
to establish harmony between the hereditary and Elective
branches of' the Legislature, Ministers seeing that their
intended efforts' only embittered the hostility of political op-

ponents, while it offended and estranged friends, have at knol:h
resolved to discharge their duty to the empire and to themsekm,
and to leave to the decision of the public the question now in
issue, not between the Cabinet and the expelled faction, but
between the Representatives of the people and the Tory ma-
jority in the House of Lords, and between the twenty-thiee
millions who compose our empire at home, and the few hun-
dred of corruptionists who form the Carlton Club."
When our readers have done laughing at this long-
winded bombast—this modern imitation of " ancient
Pistol's" peculiar manner they will probably ask
themselves what this hubbub of words can be all
about I What does it refer to ? Has Lord Brougham
come back to. town, or has Lord Melbourne vacated
his premiership in favour of Daniel O'Connell ? Is
Mr. Whittle Harvey to be thrust vi et armis upon the
archiepiscopal throne of his Grace of Canterbury?
Alas ! for the lovers of wonderful events ! Not all
nor any of these things has taken place. This mon-
strous and most ludicrous rant refers to nothing but
two short speeches made in the House of Lords, one
of them by that " good man dull of the Cabinet,
whose title in the peerage is " the Most Noble the
Marquis of Lansdowne,, and the other by that
sagacious, well informed, virtuous, and veterinary
Nobleman, the Marquis of Clanricarde. What
magic there was in these words to , drive the "
crazy person who wrote the above extravagance
into such a lamentable frenzy, we really cannot tell,
but the attack must hive been very bad indeed; for
in
another part of the liamc rhapsody, upon the same
speeches, he speaks of 4411 re ,<7-,/orious career of wise and
enlighte-* policy wliic i the Ministers are pursuing.
The whole affair seems to have been a pompous
blunder on the pant of Lord Lansdowne in the first in-
stance, and then -some maladroit mortification at that
blunder having been so coolly met by Lord Lyndhurst,
who put the Nphle Marquis right as to what he was
to do. It is lmlucky that when Lord Melbourne is
unable to bear the fatigue of the House of Lords he
can get no one with more astuteness than Lord Lans-
downe, or more consideration than Lord Clanricarde,
to proceed with the routine business of the Govern-
ment. Lord Lansdowne, loolaing as wise as he
posEibly could, asked Lord Lyndhurst if he meant
to propose the recommitment of the Irish Muni-
cipal Corporations Bill. Lord Lyndhurst, with
his courteous bow, intimated that it was the duty
of the Noble Marquis himself to do so. Upon
this Lord Lansdowne was unguarded enough to get
vexed, and said that he would move, since it was Isis
duty, and continue to move, the Bill in its further
stages, but he would not adopt either the principles or
the details of the Bill, and he would only proceed with
it for the purpose of affording the other House the
opportunity of considering whether they were able to
recognize or identify the Bill as they sent it up. Lord
Lyndhurst, who always treats Lord Lansdowne and
persons of his character with the kindness that one
shows to children— _ _ _

" Ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi
Doctores, elementa velint ut diseere prima"—
assured the Noble Marquis that he meant no dis-
courtesy whatever ; and upon this Lord Clanricardc
said something which we think we have seen bd.= in
some dozen or two of Mr. O'Connell's speeches. Upon
this foundation, and no other, is the ridiculous fustian
of the Ministerial print built up. How- poor the
cause must be, and how intensely absurd its advocates,
when such a bubble as the above extract is blown out
of the little dish we have described it does not require
much calculation to estimate. There never was a
mo:ncnt in which the 'Ministry was less cared about
than at the present. Universal contempt and indiffe-
rence for it, and for its measures, prevails throughout
the country ; and not all the insane rant of all the in-
flated bloekhcadism that it can take into pay will make
the facts otherwise. The majority in the House of
Lords may do as they list with the Irish Corporations
Bill, and the public will not trouble their heads about
it. They know it is a scheme thrust upon a weak and
unwilling Cabinet by Mr. O'Connell, and they know
Mr. O'Connell quite well enough to be sure that what
he proposes is not worth caring about, except when
there is some danger that he may succeed. We are
happy to say that, thanks to the •House of Lords, there
is no such danger with respect to his Corporations Bill
for Ireland. As for Lord Lansdowne, we suspect
that he is simple enough to think that his colleagues
are in earnest in wishing the O'Connell Bill to
pass. He is left to Mr. S. Rice, who makes use of
him without the risk of letting him know more than
is necessary. linked the vessel of his Lordship's
understanding is not so capacious but that it might
be very apt to overflow if much were poured into
it. His health is, therefore, consulted by not letting
him too much into political se s. But no other
human being with the same me -f information as
itro
Lord Lansdowne, or even with i 'y int3.o less means,
can, we suppose, entertain a doubt that the Govern-
ment desires nothing better than to see all Lord Lynd-
hurst's amendments to the Irish Corporations Bill pass
both Houses. Mr. O'Connell will indeed be vexed if
that should happen, and the conspicuously foolish ar-
ticle from which we have quoted has probably been
written under his dictation. We perceive in several
parts of it something like threats against the House of
Commons, if the " liberal Members" of that House
should dare to agree to the Lords' amendments.
This denoteth a foregone conclusion. We dare
say Mr. O'Connell has some mason to suspect
that Ministers in the House of Commons arc not now
disposed to oppose the Amendments, and he would be
very glad to raise a storm that should compel them to
do so, if he could. But lie cannot ; the people of Eng-
land see his cloven foot in the . Bill, and arc glad to
have it altered.—Morning Post.

One of the most mortifying 'points of Lord Mel-
bourne's situation must be admitted to be, that, not-
withstanding the destitute state of his Administration
in the House of Lords, both in point of talents and
numbers, as compared with its opponents, two Noble
Lords, Earls Grey and Spencer, who were the leaden:
of the Whig Administration in the two Houses ori-
ginally, never opened their lips, or come to the rescue of
their late colleague, when borne down by his assailants.
What can this prove, but that. the Noble Earls in
question spurn the state of vassal'Ne
to which the
rtnnp of their former party has allowed .
;'self to be re-
duced? And ought not such an astound.ng
and un-
dcniable fact to speak volumes to Lord i‘:
elibourne
himself, in proof of the fallen and degradet, Psi"
tion in which he allows himself to be plat-11.11
But this desertion is not all the mortification which lizs
submission to Mr. O'Connell has entailed upon
Lord Melkaurne. Many other influential Members
of the OhF Whig party, though not known as frequent
speakers in Parliament (and therefore not missed or
noticed as the two Noble Earls in question arc) have,
we arc assured, evinced the most unequivocal 'disgust
at seeing the descendants of the Whigs of former days
and the more modern associates of the Marquis of
Rockingham and of Mr. Fox, succumbing to a mere
demagogue of the lowest class—to one who converts
his influence over the lowest classes of his countrymen
into the means of gratifying his own avarice. What.
would be thought in private life of any one who lent
himself, his house, his title, his influence and connec-
tions to forward the acts of a common swindler, if
by so doing he could receive in return the tempo-
rary support of so questionable au ally ? How-
ever mortifying the parallel, it comes much nearer
to the reality than those Avho are blinded by the
pretence of mock patriotism Inv,- at first be inclined to
admit. That delusion cannot last ; and we must do
the person to whom we are alluding the justice to
say that his objects are avowed, and pursued with as
little reserve and equivocation as may be. We wonder,
then, seeini, what they ate, they should, as well as their
author and his dupes,
ho spurned by all honourable
'
high-minded mit of all partte:.4 Are the persons mho
direct the ['Waits of an cripire like this to be the obse-
, qmot . bondsmen of Nuch a taskmaster? To such a
question there can be hut one answer from honourable
hips. The pages of history `rill have been already
sullied by suer' an alliance ; and though the blackened
sheet cannot be cancelled, we have a right to hope that
hilt few more suc
h will disgrace the volume--a volume
.contrasts which render the present
ilti "
Cl‘cl:6rircal:latteico'iisntl‘itcive more mortifying, and its removal the
more peremptorily incumbent upon those who by dis-
inuance,
countenancing its cont. may speedily effect its
Herald.
overthrow.--Morning

About 200 eini,crants from parishes h the Iloxne
Union, embarked at Ipswich, on Friday; for Quebec.—Suf.
folk Chronicle.