The Sun.
London, England, 1822-04-17 00:00:00

FOR THE SUN.

A LANDED PROPRIETOR to the FUNDED, MO-
NIED, and MANUFACTURING INTERESTS of the
COUNTRY. ", • •
We, Gentlemen, are now at your feet, w hilst
you revel not only in perfect security, as you
suppose, receive your dividends, and the in-
terest of your mortgage monies, and of every
other security which you hold of ours in a me-
tallic currency., -which you advanced us in a de-
preciated prAper one ; whilst, besides, you are
enabled to, purchase with the same money, with-
out this additional great advantage, twice the
quan.dty of provisions at market, and every ar-
ticle of comfort and luxury, so that your in-
comes are considerably more than doubled, and
you become at once substantially more than
twice as rich as you ever were before, or have
any just right to be, whilst we, poor miserable
wretches, are impoverished precisely in the same
ratio that you are enriched, compelled to pay
greatly more than ever we received, with the pro-
duce of our lands at market diminished greatly be-
low the prices at which we can afford to cultivate
our lands and sell them, pressed to the very earth
by taxes, tithes, poor-rates, the payment of la-
bourers, and all necessarily attached to the land,
together with the interest of mortgages to you,.
exacted in a very different currency from that
in which you advanced your capitals. In a word,
by a single stroke of the pen, the single vote of
a Committee of our worthy representatives in
Parliament, you have your incomes more than
doubled, whilst we have our's diminished, not
only in the same but a much greater ratio. With
you, in the number of the blessed, are all the
officers under Government, every pensioner of
the State, every individual that enjoys a fixed
income independently of land. In the midst of
all these enjoyments you pay nothing compara-
tively to the State; no tithes', no poor-rates, no
outgoings of any kind are attached to your fa-
voured fortunes; you pay, indeed, the taxes at-
tached to your individual existence, that is, you
pay for the house you inhabit, and such personal
enjoyments as -you think proper to indulge in,
but nothing further ; you have it wholly at your
option to live in a garret, and pay little or no
thing, without contributing a single guinea to
the demands of the State. With you it wholly
rests, to live and pay, or not to pay, as may best'
suit you, inscribed, as you stand, in the Bank or
Government books, or possessing our paper se-
curities,
in your hands. Now, do you conceive,
that with all your wealth, and all your power,
every landed proprietor in the k►ngdom, fnnd►ng
himself totally and irretrievably ruined by that
unfortunate vote of a Parliamentary Committee,
will step beyond the letter of his bond for your
exclusive satisfaction ? Will he not naturally
say, you advarWed us money on a certain► specific
security, and whilst in our power received greatly
move of us than you were fairly and honestly
entitled to; and were we not taxed up to the
very teeth, to discharge your interest ? With
those taxes (T speak now to the public creditors)
your security stands or falls, for we are not under
the predicament of parties who give their per-
sonal security by bonds for the regular discharge
of their mortgages. We entered into no such
bonds, and upon the securities alone, which we
gave, and you accepted, must you, however un-
willingly, abide; although, you gentlemen, nomi-
nally at least, possessing all the monied wealth
of the country, more than can be met by all the
metallic currencies of the united world ; yet,
opulent as you are, and numerous both in your
persons and connexions, dispersed as they are
through every class of society; yet what are you
to the landed interest of this great country in the
aggregate ? Do not the proprietors, the tenantry,
and all the cultivating population attached to and
dependent on them, overmatch you as well in num-
bers of at least 5 or 6 or 7 to one, as in the more
substantial source and foundation of wealth, the
soil of a productive land. Whilst you enjoy your
paper credit, and have nothing to produce but
your names and capitals entered in the Bank of
England books, we stand possessed of the fun-
dum and solurn of a great country, and in the
matter of physical force could wipe off our debt,
and annihilate you in a moment. God forbid
that any such thing should ever be in contempla-
tion 1 whilst we can pay our taxes and satisfy
your demands, we will certainly do it. But can
you for a moment suppose that so many millions
of individuals will silently acquiesce in absolute
ruin ? whilst your means and your enjoyments
are doubled by their distress ? Is it reasonable
they should do so ? Is it probable they will ?
This is the first time in our financial history that
the landed has ever been placed in direct oppo-
sition to the funded and monied interest ; nor is
it consistent - with ordinary prudence that you
should be desirous of a contest either in the
cabinet or the field. For Heaven's sake then,
Gentlemen, join with us in deprecating so dread-
ful a crisis as that which is likely, and indeed
must ensue, should the present system be persist-
ed in. Unite with us hand and heart in suppli-
cating for the repeal of that deleterious Act by
, which this unequal distributio❑ of property has
been brought about, and in restoring things to
their former level ; let us enjoy our lands and ob-
tain reasonable prices for their produce,whilst you
receive your dividends undiminished and un-
touched in the same currency in which you ad-
vanced your capitals, and cor:senting only to pay
those prices for our commodities at market at
which we can afford to sell them. The power of
re-establishing things upon their proper and na-
tural basis is in the hands of Ministers, with
whom you have the greatest influence ; let them
once see that the landed and monied interests of
this great community are united on that single
point, and in the approval of those easy and early
remedies that have been repeatedly, but with all
becoming humility, suggested by the writer of
this address in other papers to the public through
the channel of the Sus paper, and that point is
at once gained, and things restored to that level
from which they should never, or at least prema-
turely, have been disturbed. J. S.

COMMON SERJEANT.

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR-It has been remarked with perfect truth, that the elec-
tion of a Common Serjeant had been made, by the supporters
of Mr. DENMAN", a political question, and that that Gentleman
had been brought forward for no %%her reason than the very
marked character of his politics.
It is clear to all the world, that this is the only reason. It is
not doubted by any creature living, that had Mr. Denman's po-
litical principles been of another cast, he would never once have
been thought of for a Common Serjeant of London.
A few individuals, however, of the Court, have not courage
sufficient to avow this. They plead his " eminent talents," his
high professional character ; as if Mr. Bolland, besides much
greater fitness on the peculiar points, could not fearlessly meet
him on this ground also. As a lawyer, in what is it that he is
considered inferior to Mr. Denman—in what would Mr. D.'s
opinion he preferred to his ? It is not for me to say that Mr.
Denman is deficient in talents, or legal knowledge ; but a cir-
cumstance has occurred, which certainly makes me hesitate to
rank him, in point of general information, so high as many of
my brethren seem disposed to do. I have received, Sir, a print-
ed circular note, which I send you inclosed, and which is couched
in the following terms :
" Sin—l should have abstained from again addressing the
Gentlemen of the Common Council, if Mr. Bolland's letter did
not contain a promise to pay his personal respects to them, with
a view to solicit their votes for the office of Common Serjeant.
" My own forbearance to pursue a course announced by my
competitor might possibly be constrned into a want of due re-
spect to yourselves. It proceeds, however, from the contrary
sentiment, and my intention is well known to my friends to
have been unalterably adopted from the first. In executing
the most important of all the trusts reposed in you, I should
think it as disrespectful to suppose that you could be biassed
by the personal solicitation of the candidate, as I deem such so.
licitation inconsistent with the judicial character to which he
aspires.

" I make no remark on the great Corporation interests which
are involved in this contest. That consideration is for you alone.
But knowing the imputations that are circulating against us, I
cannot refrain from repeating my strong and solemn assurance
of perfect impartiality in the judgment seat, if your kindness
should place me in it. Nothing could be so repugnant to my
principles, or so revolting to .my feelings, as to mix any politi-
cal object with the discharge of the sacred duties that belong to
the administration of justice : and unless I WERE prepared to
give that pledge, and determined to redeem it, I would never
have presumed to appear as a candidate for one of the highest
judicial offices in the country.
" With a grateful sense of the powerful and unsolicited exer-
tions that have been made in my favour, I beg to subsCribe
myself, Sir, your faithful and obedient Servant,
" Lincoln s Inn, April 10, 1822. THOMAS DEN MAN."
Now, Sir, I am far from saying that this may not be a weak
invention of the enemy, to persuade the Common Council that
Mr. DEN MAN, whatever sort of speaker he may be, can neither
write sense nor Grammar ; but I publish it that the Learned
Gentleman may disavow it, and may, if he please, adopt a more
effectual mode of influencing votes in his favour.
Whether he avow or disavow it, I am equally free, I presume,
to criticise it as a literary production ; and I do this the more
readily because the Old Times, under, whose auspices, I take
it, Mr. Denman is brought forward, loses no opportunity of
pouncing upon the slightest grammatical inaccuracy that may
happen to occur in a loyal Address of the Court of Aldermen,
or Merchants of London, though neither of those Bodies is
understood to be professionally bound to so much correctness of
expression as the candidate for a high judicial situation.
The first thing that must strike every one in perusing this
motley composition is the doubt whether it be meant to be ad-
dressed to one or more individuals. It begins " Sir," and five
lines lower down it speaks of " yourselves." Now, it is true,
I am a married man, and " yourselves" may perhaps mean me
and my wife ; though what she has to do with the business I
really cannot discover.
A like obscurity hangs about the person or party from whom
the letter is supposed to proceed. It is signed " Thomas Den-
man ;" and yet it speaks of " the imputations that are circu-
lating. against us." Now, I certainly am not aware of partici-
pating in any imputations that may circulate against Mr.
Denman. I never called the King, Nero; nor did I ever tell
the Queen to " Go and sin no more."

The writer sets out thus—" I should have abstained from
again addressing the Gentlemen of the Common Council, if Mr.
Bolland's letter did not contain a p:omise," &c. If the writer
had consulted Dilworth's spelling-book, he would have learnt,
that after " I should have abstained," he ought to have written
" if Mr. Bolland's letter had not contained."

With similar confusion of tenses, he says, " unless I were
prepared, I would never- have presumed." Here again old
Master Dilworth would have told him it should be " unless I
were prepared I should not presume," or unless I had been pre-
pared, I should not have presumed.
Look at the following sentence" Nothing could be so re-
pugnant to my principles, or so revolting to my feelings, as to
mix any political object with the discharge of the sacred duties
that belong to the administration of justice : and unless I
could give that pledge"—What pledge ? No pledge had been
mentioned 'before : and if we are to apply the word pledge
gran:planet:lly as a relative to any antecedent, it must mean a
pledge to mix political objects with the discharge of judicial
duties.

It is needless to wade through the whole of this letter.—
Within the compass of its twenty lines are comprehended spe-
cimens of almost every species of inelegant construction and
false Grammar. I can only say, that having lately turned
over some papers relative to parish elections, 1 have not found
from any one candidate for the situation of parish clerk, beadle,
or sexton, an address which would not shine by comparison
with this (supposed) production of a would-be Common Ser-
jeant of the City of London.
I am, Sir, your humble Servant,
A COMMON COUNCILMAN.