The Sun.
London, England, 1831-09-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We understand that the Bishop of Chichester is
to be translated to the see of Worcester, and that
Dr. Maltby is to be the new Bishop. A better se-
lection could not have been made. No man better
deserves such a distinction than Dr. Maltby, either
in respect of learning or of moral worth. Indeed,
there can he little doubt that nothing but the con-
sistency of Dr. Maltby's political character has been
the cause that a scholar of his attainments has been
passed over so long in the selection of learned and
distinguiShed divines, to adorn the bench of Bishops.
Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Byng have declined the
Peerage ; but their refusal to be called to the Upper
House has been couched in the most handsome terms,
and accompanied by the warmest acknowledgments
of the motives and considerations which caused a
patent of Nobility to be offered them. Admiral
Saumarez is to he among the number of the new
Peers. If we could properly relate the circumstances
connected with this promotion, the public would see
an addislonal reason to admire their excellent and
true-hearted Sovereign.—Tinges.
The question—" What will the Lords do ?"--
forming the title of a pamphlet which we have
already quoted, and to which we shall by-and-by re-
vert, is uppermost in the mind of every man—nay,
almost of every woman—in England. And well
may every man and woman make such an inquiry of
each other, for on the practical solution of it de-
pends so much of the comfort of every family in
Great Britain as can in any manner be affected by
the maintenance or breaking up of the peace and
order of society. In times of threatened danger,
great evil might be averted, if men could only be
prevailed upon to lay aside the language of conven-
tional humbug, and without evasion or circumlocu-
tion to speak plainly what it is they are afraid of.
Self-flattery, and adulation of others, are equally to
be deprecated when the public safety is at stake.
Our fear is then, that the majority of the House of
Lords may be so ill informed, or so reckless of
what is passing round them, as to think that they
are passing but an ordinary vote when they throw
out the Bill of Reform. It is much to he appre-
hended that there are many amongst them who
really believe, what others of their Lordships
deem it politic to assert without believing—that the
Bill has lost a part of its hold over the country.
That this error—this monstrous error—will be acted
on, if the people do not exert themselves to dis-
abuse those of the Peers who are misled, and to
frustrate their deluders, may be collected from cer-
tain recent appearances of the Tory press, where,
the defeat of the Bill being regarded as a matter of
course, the idiot exultation at the victory (!) can
scarcely be suppressed, even for the few days likely
to elapse before the measure quits the protecting
roof of the House of Commons. Well, the Bill is
thrown out on the second reading, and now for the
victory. Lord Grey and his friends go out of
office. It is vain to think of forming another liberal
Administration, who would still be met by an Anti-
Reforming majority in the Lords. The brave,
staunch, and upright Monarch, baffled, together
with his indignant people, in their joint effort to
save England from convulsion, the King will have
to devise some means of carrying on the public
business ; and he must effect that purpose, be it only
for ever so short a time, through official and respon-
sible advisers. Nothing is left for bim but a
Cabinet of downright Tories ; and let us see
how they are to carry on the public business.
The minority in the Lords, though, unhappily, it be
a minority, cannot be other than a strong one—
within, it is presumed, about twenty-eight or thirty
of forming a majority in a House of four hundred
Members. That minority will contain—we speok
to the letter—the whole deliberative and debating
talent of the House of Peers, Lord Lyndhurst alone
excepted, and he is a Judge. The bake of Wel-
lington we admit to be a man of powerful ability
and of great personal weight ; but we doubt whether
his Grace would think it wise to accept the Go-
vernment in such precarious circumstances. The
sornposition of the Upper House itself, then, forms
slight impediment to the course of an A.ti-
Reform Cabinet. But look beyond that House, and
to the other—what.ts spectacle ! A majority of one
hundred and forty Members pledged, irrevocably
pledged, to support that Reform which the Lords
have rejected ; and that Administration which
the Lords have indirectly forced to resign,
pledged therefore to oppose the adverse policy,
and the adverse Ministry. Can the affair go
on thus ? Manifestly not. There must be another
dissolution. Another dissolution and another
election, and with what results? Will disappoint-
ment, and exasperation, and the sense of being
bearded by a faction whom all reformers in the empire
must esteem no better than a band of outcasts from
our political community, and of selfish conspirators
against the Constitution,—will such sentiments, we
say, help to promote the interests of Anti-Reform
candidates, and to reduce the liberal majority now
dominant in tl.e House or Commons ? Let any man
of common sense answer for us. Is it not unques-
tionable that another election, resorted to by a Tory
Minister in such a state of the public mind, would
add to instead of weakening the present majority, by
the exclusion of every individual, Lord Chandos not
excepted, who had shown himself inimical to Reform,
and the substitution of some thoroughgoing Re-
former, who would promise to make no mistakes in
in his" aye," or " no ?" With a new, and even, if
that were possible, more ttenuous majority against
the new Cabinet, what then would happen ?
1. An amendment to the Anti-Reform, or Mock-Re-
form, address, carried by 150 votes against the Minister.
2. A resolution, that " this House roust withhold its
confidence from his Majesty's" (then) " advisers."
3: If the Tories should doggedly still cling to office, the
introduction and triumphant passing of another Reform
Bill, it is to be feared less conservative of certain cherished
privileges than the present.
Could the Tory Government, we ask again, pro-
ceed thus ? Impossible. But we have- hitherto
confined ourselves to the surface—the mere forma-
lities of our political condition. What would be the
real and substantial state of the commonwealth, if
the House of Lords, as new constituted, were to
reject the Bill, or, which is precisely the same thing,
meddle with any one of its mere important piovi-
eioes ? The House of Lords would, in the melan-
choly case, be at open war with the King, the
Commons, and the a hole people of England. The
struggle would not be for this or that limited, iso-
lated, especial, temporary, or commonplace object.
It would be a vital one. The Lords would strive
to withhold from the English nation the main sup-
port, the source and security of all the rights and
political enjoyments, by which freemen are distin-
guished from slaves : one party or the other must
give way : and which party ? The mown ? No,
truly. If, therefore, the Lords were only to give
way upon compulsion, what would be the nature of
that compulsion ? The Constitution offers none but
an unlimited creation of Peers. If there had not
been objections, held insuperable by the existing
Government, to such a measure, though we cannot
divine them, it would doubtless have been had re-
course to before now. But if the calling up of 40, or
50,0 r even 100,eldest sons of Peers which could even-
tually work little change, so far as we can perceive, in
the. character or position of that assembly,—if that
be Impracticable, why then it must be admitted that
within the letter of the existing Constitution the
Lords cannot be coerced, and that the most grievous
wrong may be inflicted with absolute impunity, and
without the shadow of remedy, by a small number
of titled individuals, upon a nation which calls itself
great and free! Then, however, in spite of all lo-
vers of law, and all sticklers and constitutional
forms, a question would arise,—„,,d men,
aye, sober
i
and honest citizens, would ask t—" Shall we be
without a Constitution, or shall the Lords be made
to do without tho-e powers which enable them to
deprive us of it ?" The question, we repeat, will
&asked, and by the nation, on its own behalf, as
contradistinguished from the Peers. It is a question
which we are not inclined to answer. . But if Tories
complain of our putting questions which lie beyond
the pale of the Constitution, we affirm that their hope

of succeeding to the Government if—which Heaven
avert—a Reform Ministry should resign, can be
founded, in the actual situation of the country, on no
conceivable da'um but one,—namely, that they will
themselves be able to govern England, in spite of the
House of Commons and the people, by the army and
the House of Lotds alone, That thellope has been 'ex-
pressed by some of the party is, we are assured, a
fact, of which evidence might be given ; that a Cory
Government could practically be conducted on no
other system, is obvious from the nature of things—
every power in eue State, King, Commons, and
people, being open enemies to the Anti-Reform fac-
tion. then it comes to this—Can the 7'wy leaders
govern England by means of the art .t amd the mouse
(ye Lords ? Answer us, countrymen, will you be so
ruled ? Yea, will the troops, who are Englishmen,
and deeply imbued with the spirit of their friends
and fellow-citizens; will they, whether officers or
soldiers, be made the instruments of such a base do--
minion ? Never? How poorly qualified are the ma,
jority of the Lords to early on a war ad internecionenz
with the nation, may be gathered from an able por-
traiture of that generally well-disposed, but essen-
tially subordinate and passive, order in the State,
taken from the pamphlet to which we have already
drawn attention. " What will the Lords do If
the Lords reject or mutilatc the hill, they are in effect,
though indisputably riot by design, guilty—first, of
throwing the empire into confusions secondly, of
'more than endangering their own existence.
_ .

" This lagging' behind the intellect of the day has
alienated much of the affections and respect of a large
portion of the community, while the plate-htinttng pro-
pensities of some noble famllie% who have addicted
themselves to politics, laa've featfully detracted from a
belief in public honour and patriotism. Now, while
such has been the eonduct of individual Peers, the enact-
ments of their collective wisdom have not been of a na-
ture to call forth love and honour. The Lords have se-
dulously obeyed every Minister, and harshly adopted
every coercive a't of each successive Cabinet. No one
liberal, reforining, popular measure, bat originated in
their douse ; many of such a natnit which the Com-
mons have sent up, have ttbn by them rejected or de-
feated, while they horse carefully abstained from exercising
this their restrictive privilege, by softening the rigour,
abating the extravagance, or enlarging the policy of any
one of thosa unpopular acts in which the Commons have
too frequently indulged. Once, Wild once only, did the
Peers give way, and wisely ; for they retrieved, as far as
in them lay, the evil of their previous opposition, regained
credit with alt good men, and saved Irel Ind from a con-
vulsion. May they now, u hen the question at issue is the
peace of the whole Empire, go end do likewise. Still this
one wise act of grace is a solitary exception to their
Nvourite pursnit 'di a restrictive policy, which, however
irritating,' has hitherto proved not the less vain ; for the
People have gained ground, and the Peers now witness the
consequences of thwarting opposition, coupled with niggard
and reluctant concession. They see, on the part of the
people, an appetite for Reforms, heightened by delay ; and
they acknowle.'ge, while they complain of, a daily decay of
respect towards themselves as individuals, and of public
influence as a body.
" But their individual and collective popularity form, as
I have shown, their peculiar safeguards in the hour of
danger. And now, with these fortresses of defence, thus
found crumbling and dilapidated, with scarcely an ally,
certainly not an efficient ally, how is this declining order
of men, who by their habits of life and tenure of property,
are peculiarly unfitted for an arduous struggle—how are
they to bear themselves successfully through the coming
conflict? Will they in vain be called to a sense of their
langer? Will they not hear both sides ? Will they listen
to those only whe flatter or agree with them ? Do they
remember that instructive passage, concerning him who
cbem-r

" • Sui gaudere theatri
" • Nee reparare novas vices, inultunique priori
" • Credere fortunw ; stet Inagni nominis umbra.
" • Qalis frugifero quetcus sublimii in agro
" • Exuvis Veteres populi, sacrataque gestans
" • Pon ducum : nec jam validis radicibus hxrens,
" Pondere fixa sua est : nudosque per aera ramos
" Effundens, trunco, non frondibus etticit umbram2

" Thus far then I have taken a hasty and general view
of the forces and position of the British Peerage at the
present critical moment. I have shown, I believe truly,
and certainly with no hostile sentiment, that it is in a
state of great incidental weakness. I say incidental, for
it is in itself, I trust, essentially strong, and would it
shake off its present cholera of unpopularity—would it
place itself at the head of the intellect and liberality, true
liberality of the country, it would shine forth as the sun,
honoured, bright, and beneficent. If Noble Lords should
h ild me to be mistaken in this calculation of their streng.h
let them, I pray, for the sake of themselves, and the
mighty interests involved in their preservation, carefully
calculate, and, as wise men, under-rate rather than exag-
gerate, their means of attack and defence. I will not stop
to ask them against whom they are thus to marshal their
forces, but ptocted at once to examine the nature of the
contest, if contest they will have.
" At the very outset I am prepared to grant the ge-
neral, though partially concealed hatred, of a vast majority
of the House of Lords to the present Reform Bill—
indeed to all Parliamentary Reform. The practices
to which it tends to put an end have been pre-
cisely those illegal means by which the Peers have
endeavoured to supply that hold on the State, which
they have loosened by their unpopular act as a body,
and their lack of industry and attainments as individuals ;
and yet, ill truth, not a small portion of this loss of real
power is attributable to the practice of these very means,
slid the false confidence it has inspired. But I fear it
would be time thrown away to attempt persuading the
anti-rJormeia to receiVe this truth. And yet why will
they not perceive that a small junto of boroughmongers
and their adherents, who have been long usurping the
patronage of the State, to the palpable detriment of the
Peerage at large, are now seeking to cover their own
sordid and selfish opposition, by an alliance with the more
disinterested of the Tories and most timid of the Whigs.
Why will not those Peers, whose sole share of the borough-
mongering system has been a full portion of its ol.loquy—
why will they not perceive that they are about to be made
the tools of a cunning and selfish faction? Why will they
sully the purity of their own ermine, by asserting that it
is best defended by the corruption of a brother Peer's
rotten borough. Strange perversity ! One might smile
at the short-sighted dexterity of the boroughmongers, so
wise in their generation, did one not foresee the fatal
consequences that may result from the success of their
cajoleries.

" But are we, then, to expect that the Peers, deficient
in energy and power, will madly place themselves in the
breach, and bid defiance to the present current of royal
and popular opinion? No : this would be an act of devo-
tion worthy only of the Hindoos and their Juggernaut.
I cannot believe, that a body of staid, sober, wealthy,
elderly gentlemen, fathers too of large and affectionate
families, should, for the sake of an opinion, meditate a pro-
ceeding, so nearly approaching to a political felo-de-se.
And I am the more inclined to this charitable opinion of
their discretion, when I see that their object, if their object
be to defeat the Bill, can be as effectually gained by side
winds, and flank movements, as by direct opposition. Half
measures will here, for once, be as effectual as whole ; and
from their nature, are as peculiarly fitted for the affections
and exigencies of weak bodies. To these then, I fear,
they will have recourse; willingly, would I believe that
they would, with a manly courage and patriotic candour,
accede to the honest demands of their countrymen ; that
they would, magnanimously, place themselves within the
circle of the interests and the affections of their native
land. But, I much fear, that without a struggle, they
wili not do so ; and I more fear, that, after a struggle, it
will no longer be in their power to do so."—

We heartily concur in opinion with the writer of
the able pamphlet " What will the Lords do ?" that
" a vast majority of the House of Lords" entertain
" a general though partially concocted hatred to the
present Reform Bill, indeed to all Parliamentary Re-
form." If the Reform Bill answer the object for
which it is intended, it will give to the people the
power of enforcing economy and retrenchment.—
But a great majority of the House of Peers are ne-
cesmrily enemies of economy and retrenchment, for
their dignity is maintained by the pillage of the
people. Do not let the people delude themselves
with the hopes that a majority of the Peers can be
friendly to Reform in their hearts. They may,
notwithstanding, be brought to see the wisdom of
voting for the Bill, as Balaam, in spite of his de-
sire for the riches and honours of Baluk, was obliged
to bless those whom he wished to curse. Everything
w;11 depend on the people themselves. If they wish the
benefits-of good Government, if they wish an end to
be put to the .reign of corruption, they must now
exbesrertvtehetmhasteltvhees.peolptleis,
whhaerdniyunnietedeessaarre a
y forli
ou‘sy
etro
o_
lid. That they are united' on the question of
iße-
form is proved by the large majorities of represer
' tatives chosen by the people, in spite of the opPoSi-
tion of all those who were returned to Parliament

through sinister influence. What an ,idea of the
Home of Peers would the world receive from the
spectacle of their opposing the Commons in a mea-
sure for which the whole nation, with the exception
of themselves, were anxious—the object of which
measure being to prevent the Peers from possessing
an influence over eleetionz, which the Constitution
never intended they should have! A decision of
the House against the nation would bold up the
House as essentially the enemy of the nation ; and
we need not repeat that, in these times, no order
can exist by any other title than the persuasion of
the people that its existence is beneficial to them,
Let the Peers only teach the people that they are
opposed to the welfare of the people, and the result
may be anticipated without the gift of prophecy. The
per)ple of Prance have at this time their eyes on Eng-
land. The question Which is about to be presented
to the House Of Peers) places this body before them
in a position in which it has never yet been placed.
The corruption of the House of Commons has
hitherto produced an uniformity between the two
Houses, and the Upper House has riot appeared to
(lifer from the Lower, in the latter's being identified
with the nation, and the former's being opposed to
it. Opposition on the great question of questions,
which shall decide whether the people of England
shall Or shall not possess real representatives—
whether they shall or shall not emancipate them-
selves from the system of corruption under which
they have long groaned, will call forth--not merely
in France) bet in all Europe—a deadly hared to all
institutions, not directly emanating from, and res-
ponsib'e to, the people. The people of England
were true to themselves during the late elections. They
must continue true to themselves. They must, by exer-
tions corresponding to the emergency, secure the nation
against the mischiefs which might result fuom an
improper decision at this conjuncture. Much evil
may be prevented by the people acting in such a
manner at this crisis as shall extinguish, in the
House of Peers, all hope of the possibility of suc-
ceeding in depriving the nation of the blessing
which is now in prospect. Let the people be on
their guard. All sorts of devices will be resorted
to. The plunder of the nation is a prize worth con-
tending for. Reform in Parliament is a termination
to the reign of plunder. Through it we see gradual
ameliorations of all sorts; the fruits of industry
secured to the industrious, an united people, instead
of plundering and plundered—the reign of true mo•
rality and true religion, instead of cant and hypo-
crisy, the spawn of corrupti‘ n and peculation. In
Jeremy Bentham's Letter to his Fellow-citizens of
France on Houses of Peers and Senates, there are
arguments which, if the Members of our Upper
House possess wisdom, they will not force the
people to consider too curiously

" Dignity, lustre, splendour, honour, glory, and in-
fluence,—do they not give support to Government; and
if Government is an evil, is it not a necessary one? Give
support to Government? 0 yes, that they do : and there's
the mischief of them. What we want is—that a good
Government should have support and that a bad Go-
vernment should not have support—should fall to pieces
for want of support. But what these things do is—giving
support to all Governments—to the worst as much as to
the best. . . . Wherever there is either honour, or
dignity, there must be a support to it. Everybody says
as much ; nobody denies it. And this support must be
made of money. And for the extraction of the material
from the pockets of those by whose labour that which is
given in exchange for it is produced, there must he a
pretence; and the pretence is.made by the manufacture of
official situations: to which situations is attached money
and money's worth, flowing in through the medium of
salaries, fees, and perquisites; and to the situations are
annexed pensions of retreat. 'So likewise pensions or
donations, or both, for widows and children. For as each
Peer has his dignity to support, so has his widow her's;
so have his children theirs--every one of those same
children, his or her's : of his male children, the eldest has
more dignity than any of the others have ; the others
have every one of them the same. And in each case
what would become of all this dignity, if it was not for
the support given to it by the money? It would, of course,
drop down.
* * • • • • * « 0

" True it is, your Peers, if you continue to have ahy,
will not be so bad as ours: for they will not have so much
—they will not have near so much—power along
‘vith, their honour and dignity. They will not have the
nomination of the self-constituted and self-styled repre-
sentatives of the people; they will not be in the habit of
having distant dependencies obtained and retained, for the
s.ke of official situations established in them, for the pur-
pose and with the effect of being filled by Peers, or elder
or younger sons of Peers, for the profit of depredation and
pleasure of oppression to be exercised by these same living
receptacles of honour and dignity. The consequences of
any such burthen would, in your part o' the world, be for
some time too bad for endurance ; and therefore it would
not, till after a considerable length of time, be endeavoured
to be fas.ened on you. But when all this is taken off,
there is scarcely enough left to prevent you from consent-
ing to be loaded with any such incumbrance as it would
load you with."
Tt!ere are many honest men in the House of Peers,
content to live 011 their own property—but let the
people bear in mind, that there are also many to
whom the pillage of the people is desirable, and
who will struggle for it. The opposition in the
House of Commons might, in some instances, pro-
ceed from wrongheadedness. In the House of
Peers, opposition to the Reform of the Commons,
for which the Commons themselves have declared,
can have but one motive—the desire to retain the
pillage of the nation.—Morning Chronicle.

While the leading Tory politicians in both Houses
of Parliament, assisted by a portion of the Press,
impute the most ambitious views to France, and
accuse her, by anticipation, of the most serious
breaches of faith, there is no notice taken by Whig
or Tory of the extensive warlike preparations which
Prussia is, and has long been, making in the
Rhenish provinces, and the accumulaton of her
forces gathered upon the frontiers of Belgium, while
she professes the most pacific i►►tentions. It is
agreed on all sides that the French troops marched
►nte Belgium to support King Leopold's Govern-
ment with the concurrence of the Conference, as
those Powers now call themselves, which, with
the exception of England,
_are better known by
the name of the Holy Alliance. In fact, if
France had not the sanction of the other Powers
to that advance of her troops upon Belgium,
the movement would have been considered not
only a declaration of war, but an actual eom•
mencement of hostilities. Prussia, therefore, openly
countenanced France in this march into Belgium—
at least her subsequent assent to the proceedings
which the French Government adopted on the re-
ceipt of King Leopold's letter was equivalent to a
previous permission. Yet there is great reason to
believe that Prussia encouraged the invasion of
Belgium by the Dutch, at the very time that French
troops marched, by her consent, to drive back the
invaders. What was the object of Prussia in prac-
tising this double-faced policy ? We shall see. The
invasion of Belgium by the Dutch has rendered the
Belgic question more complicated, and more diffi-
cult of adjustment, than before. The very fact of
the march of the French troops excited suspicions
that France was taking the first favourable oppor-
tunity that presented itself for realising her views
of aggrandizement, and taking the first step to-
wards a new series of Europeans conquests.
In the former revolution Prussia invaded France,
and, miscalculating the energies and resources
of a people who were struggling for free-
dom, hoped to restore the ancient despotism
by a coup de main. Instructed by biter expe-
rience, her Quixotism against liberty is now so ram-
pant ; she mixes more of cautious policy with her
deadly hostily to a.revolutionised Government. She
has shown this in the case of Poland as well as
France. She has not yet taken arms against either,
but she has practised a Machiavelian policy towards
both. The concentration of Prussian forces in theßhe-
'Ash provinces to the amount of upwards of 200,000
men, well equipped arid ready to march at a mo-
ment's notice, forebodes, whatever diplomatic as-
surances there may be to the contrary, that there is
little probability deny long continuance of the peace
of Europe. That Prussian soldiers were not pre-
vented from joining in great numbers the Dutch in-
vading rrny of Belgium seem now to be placed be-

yond doubt, although the Prussian Government
managed the matter in such a way as not to be
openly or directly implicated in giving any assistance
to the King of Holland. The game that Prussia
and the other Powers of the Holy Alliance are
now playing is to lay a train for a war with France
in such a manner as that the English Govern-
ment shall set fire to that train. They will remem-
ber what an advantage they had in having 'England
the paymaster of their forces during the late war,
and they would dearly like to be subsidized by
English gold again. That the four Powers have
demanded the evacuation of Belgium by every
French soldier we are disposed to believe. If the
French Government should refine, or should be, at
present, unable to obey, on account of the mischief
which the recall of the troops, while the Dutch,
tracked by the Prussians, are obviously preparing
for new aggressions, might produce at home, England
will be placed in a situation which will compel her
to make common cause with the Holy Alliance in
their projected crusade against France, and thus the
object of the Machiavelian policy of Prussia will
have been attained. It is deeply to be regretted
that our Ministry, who left the Poles to their fate,
should have evinced so little wisdom as to have in-
volved this country in the quarrel between Belgium
and Holland, in blind submission to the crafty arid
dangerous machinations of the Holy Alliance.—
Morning Herald.
However, be this as it may, the same veracious
organs whose previous predictions had so signally
failed, are still harping on their favourite daughter
—the rejection of the Bill—and now assuring u-,
with the same gravity and solemnity of feature, and
the same hardiness of assertion, that the Bill will
be rejected by the Lords. In what mode, however,
this rejection is to be effected, and who are to be the
high priests of a new Ministry, which would inevi-
tably, if a Ministry could be concocted, succeed the
present, they either do not agree, or do not inform
its. On the former point, indeed, their statements
are singularly at variance with each other. The Bill
says one, will be gallantly thrown out by a decisive
majority, on the attempt to read it a second time—
it will, says another, be thrown out by a side wind,
that is, by such a modification of some of its clauses
as will be tantamount to a rejection, and compel
the resignation of the King's Ministers—the House
of Lords, says another, is a Court of Justice, and
the Lords, as Judge s, cannot sentence the rotten
boroughs to be hanged, or aid the. generation of a
more healthy offspring, without hearing evidence in
support of delinquency in the one case, and just title
in the other :—which hearing of evidence, it is
boldly averred, may occupy seven years, and being
found insufficient, the Bill will be got rid of. New
that all these factious attempts may be made, there is
but little manner of doubt ; but the variety of the
schemes furnishes the strongest proof, both of the
want of concord among the Anti-Reformers—of their
weakness in every thing but numbers—and of the
certainty, of speedy execution being done upon them,
by the speedy passage of the Bill to the King's
throne, where it will be as graciously received
as it has been shamefully treated and abused else-
where. However, not to waste words in vain, we
beg, in contradiction to the assertions of the cotem-
poraries to whom we have alluded, to state that the
question of the passing of the Bill is, at the worst,
but a question of time. Pass, at last, it must, and
be acted upon by the people of these realms; and
we really cannot bring ourselves to believe that any
majority of the Peers could he found so thoroughly
ignorant of the public feeling—so little alive to a
sense of justice—and so destitute of regard for the
peace of the country, arid the existence of their
own order, as to be brought by any motive or con-
sideration whatever, to reject a Bill which has re-
ceived the sanction of ninety-nine out of every hun-
dred of the population.—Morning Advertiser.
We yesterday received Brussels Papers of the
10th, containing the Speech of King Leopold at the
opening of the Congress on Thursday. The para-
graph in the Speech which will excite the greatest
surprise is that relating to the demolition of the Bel-
gian fortresses:—
" The neutrality of Belgium," says King Leopold, "gtv-
ranteed by the Five Powers, liss suggested the possibility
of modifications in its system of defence. This possibility,
the principle of which is admitted by the Powers concerned
in the erection of the fortresses of 1815, will, I doubt not,
be acknowledged by the nation. Negotiations will take
place to regulate the execution of the measures connected
with the demolition of some of those fortresses. Happy
in being able to draw closer the ties which unite the two
people, Belgium will on this occasion give a proof of its
gratitude to France, Europe a striking pledge of its just
confidence in the honour of the King of the F. ench."
We are now enabled to estimate the value of
those pleas which have hitherto been put forth, even
officially, as to the expense of maintaining and the
difficulty of finding garrisons for the Belgic fortresses.
There can now be no further dissimulation, for the
secret is fairly out. The fortresses we are plainly
told are to be demolished as a proof of gratitude to
France on the part of Belgium. In other
words, it is openly proclaimed that the
demolition is as a boon to France, and has solely
and exclusively a French object. And what inte-
rest can France have in the matter other than the
removal of a principal obstruction to the prosecution
whenever a suitable opportunity arises, of her am-
bitious projects ? We are surprised that King
Leopold should have made so unequivocal a decla-
ration on this point, for the inference is immediate
and irresistible. There can be but one view of the
subject. As to the concluding words of the sen-
tence above quoted, we may exclaim with Lady
Teazle, " Honour may be left out of the question."
in referring to the flight of the 40,000 King Leo-
poldcool d
haveneatl y
compensated observes, that
the "wiaf individual cizoui
organization,
we we should without doubt have repulsed an unjust
aggression." It remained for the discerning eyes
of their King to discover any courage, whether in-
dividual or collective, among his faithful subjects.
—Morning Post.
His Majesty's ships Prince Regent, of 120 guns,
Captain Deane Dundas, and Asia, 84, Captain Hyde
Parker, sailed from Spithead on Saturday (pursuant
to orders received that morning) for the Tagus,
tinder the command of Rear-Admiral Parker. The
,Portsmouth Telegraph says that this expedition is
in consequence of our countrymen having of late,
" in more instances than one," been insulted and
beaten at Lisbon without having obtained any re-
dress. We think the respectable Editor of the
Telegraph must have been misinformed on this oc-
casion. An expedition, surely, could never be
sent out on such very insignificant grounds, even
supposing their existence to have been fully weer-
rained. But the real fact we believe to be that
there is scarcely any foundation for the statement.
Some of the resident British at Lisbon, we are
sorry to be obliged to confess, are so indiscreet as
tcstoenhsmtaenot lty
ttoo insult
Sovereignthe
.el oa
claim
hteoi r
tahte-
Crown they acknowledge, and whose judicious rule
they all cordially approve. In this way only do
spoenrostnaarlidcoptodirieclyts
defensivearise— buototthheey
partare nsa
fe rteillye per Po-
rtuguese.
If any of the British Agents, in their
revolutionary spirit, have thought proper to give a
false colouring to such trivial affairs, we cannot
help indulging in the hope that even the present
British Government would not be so weak as to
siutiog men.—Morning
thedumpesoronifngsurichost.
shallow artifices of de-

There have been several discussions among
the leading Reformers in this county, mid its different
towns, as to the expediency of public meetings to address
the House of Lords on the subject of the Reform Bill.—
We believe the predominant opinion at present is to wait
till some indication is afforded of the probable feeling of
the majority of that House. If that feeling should be
unfavourable to the passing of the Bill, the whole county
must be instantly summoned, and suitable measures
adopted. It behoves every Reformer in the mean while to
be at his post of observance, and to watch narrowly for
the first signal. We trust, however, that " hereditary
wisdom" will not render any further exertions necessary,
The country needs repose from party violence..—Kent Her.