The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-05 00:00:00

more than from {lye to six hundred; and the number
might have been less. I saw them; about a quarter after
two, as they were coaling down Clare-street on their
way. They Were_ a compact body, without stragglers
Or attendants. They moved with great expedition,
and their object was «•ell known ; for, when I first
saw them, at Soma distance, persons near me said
they were going to break open some gaol. Most
of them had bludgeons; some had hatches; and
others were armed with iron palisades from the front
of the Mansion-house. All I noticed were the dregs
of the city; and a large part were under twenty
years of age. A small force of soldiery, or three or
four times the number of citizens, in part armed,
might easily have checked them." Mr. Cobbett, in
his Register of Saturday, has passed some severe
stric•ures on a letter from Manchester in the Chro-
n;cfc of the 29ili ult., recommending the formation
of volunteer corps, which he attributes to the gentle-
man in command of the volunteers of Salisbury, and
he challenges us to say that it came to us with a
Manchester post-mark. We can assure him that it
had the Manchester post-mark, but we know nothing
more of the matter : .

" What (says Mr. C.) has been the language of the
rich to the poor ? What has been the language of tamers to
their labourers ? What has been the language of manu-
facturers, miners, and coal-masters, to their workmen ?
Why, this We wish you to be happy : we give you
every farthing that we can afford to give : but we our-
selves have so much to give in taxes and tithes ; and you,
on your part, have so large a portion of your earnings to
give in taxes on what you consume, that it is out of our
power to give you that which you ought to receive.' This
has been the language of the people of wealth to the
working people. Aye, my dear Doctor, and this has
been your language too, for the last year and a half,
during which time you have been incessantly accusing the
boroughmongers of causing, by their extortions, the half-
starvation of the working people. What, then ! do you
now recommend bayonets to be raised against the working
people in order to keep them in a state of subjection ;
that is to say, kept down by force in that state of half-
starvation !—ls this what your justice and humanity sug-
gest ? When you inset ted this villanous letter, and sent it
forth with a stamp of your approval, I hope that you had
not read it."

We do not wish to arm one class of citizens to
enable them to oppress another, and in our remarks
on the Manchester letter, we observed that we were
" not fond of drawing invidious distinctions between
the middle and lower classes." It is clear that la-
bouring men would suffer equally with their em-
ployers, in case of interruption of tranquillity, and
the object for which we recommend arming is merely
the protection of ordrr. Without some precau-
tionary measures, the first attempt at disturbance
would add many of the unemployed and starving
workmen to the previously evil-disposed ; for the
pressure of want will soon compel unemployed men
to violate the law.--Morning Chronicle.
The fears entertained some days ago, by certain
credulous persons, that his Maj.-sty's Government
would be a party to any thing so monstrous as the
mission of Sir Charles Wetherell to Bristol, that

he might undertake to try the rioters,—that is to
say, be Judge in his own cause,—has, happily, fallen
into the same grave with many other apprehensions
of what Ministers " would" do. The Ministers
will do no such thing. A Supplement to Friday's
Gozeite was published on Saturday, announcing
the appointment of a special commission, at the
head of which is S'r Nicolas Tindal, to hear and
determine on all such cases growing out of the said
riots as may be brought before them, and to deliver
the gaols of Bristol of all prisoners who may have
been lodged therein on account of such offences.
At the stonie time with the Royal Gazette alluded
to, has been promulgated an opposition, or anti-
royal proclamation, which, though it bears da e
" Bristol," and implies by the tenons of it,
though ++ ithosit affirming in words, that it has
been issued under the advice and authority of
the Learned Recorder of that city, we shrewdly
guess has been concocted nearer home, and
ought rightfully to have prOlxed to it the date, no,
of Bristol, but of " Bedlam," the language and opi-
nions of which enlightened community it forcibly
speaks and represents. We might be satisfied with
thus turning the reader's attention to the decument,
fearlessly leaving to his own mind the justification of
our conjecture. But it may be useful to do a little
more, and bring two or three of the most prominent
vagaries of this rigmarole distinctly under public
notice. We shall dismiss it briefly. 'l' he title as-
suthed for it is an " Address to the King and one
Alderman Daniel, or a personage fancying himself
half Alderman Daniel half Prophet Daniel, is de-
scribed to have taken the chair. Now the King of
England is a friend to RJorin,—has on three solemn
occasions declared as much to Parliament,—has
authorized his official servants to bring forward a
specific Bill for the Reform of the House of Com.
mons in his Royal name,---and has, on the rejec.
tion of that Bill by the House of Lords, assured
his people, from the throne, that his wishes for the
great change which it would have effected were
not impaired or altered. How is his Majesty—
whose sentiments and engagements are thus recorded
before 22,000,000 of men—how is he " addressed"
by the unfortunate creatures, through their mouth-
piece under the name of Daniel ? Our Gracious
Sovereign is actually abused to his face for being
one of those " who, forgetful alike of the fame
and happiness which the Constitution has brought
to our beloved country, bend their gaze upon its
imperfections alone, and in their rashness would
begin its reformation by its subversion." That is
pret'y well; and gathering boldness as they go on,
they hallucinate after the fashion following :—" The
remedy unhappily contrived by the servants of the
Crown has been far indeed from uniting the better
informed portions of your Majesty's subjects," al-
though they lament that too many even of these
have been deluded by it. " But it has linked, in one
bond of brotherhood, the turbulent hater of all
regular government, the unprincipled scoffer at the
religion which his country acknowledges, and the
godless disbeliever of any. It required no prophetic
eye (what, not that of Daniel ?) to see the
sad tendency of a measure, to whose support a con-
federacy such as this rushed with one accord ; and
it needed not the spectacle afirded by the smoking
ruins of one cf thefairest of your Majesty's cities to
teach thoughtful men the nature of the final argu-
ment which such a band might be expected to em-
ploy !" Here is the broad, unhesitating, insane as-
sertion, that anarchists, atheists, robbers, and incen-
diaries are the only allies of the King and his Mi-
nisters in their endeavour to sweep away the abuse
of ages, and to reform the House of Commons, by
making it represent the properly of England. All
the petitions and declarations from all the counties
and cities of the empire, in favour of the Reform
Bill, go for nothing,—repeated and powerful ma-
jorities of the House of Commons itself, go for
nothing,-1.58 of the most ancient and respected
Members of the Peerage go for nothing,—the King
and his Ministers, with the " atheists, robbers, in-
cendiaries, &c.," are the only advocates of the Bill,
—ergo, please " y.our Majesty, you are your-
self, &c. &c." It this savour not of Bed-
lam, we know not what does. But that is
not all : the definite accusation is made
against the friends of the Reform Bill, that it was
they who set fire to Bristol! We shall like to hear
to what extent Sir Nicholas Tindal will sanction
this charge of arson by wholesale, now levelled at
the very infamous confederacy of which William IV.
and his Cabinet, the bulk of the House of Com-
mons, and nearly half the House of Lords itself,
form part. The Bill is described by this wonderful
state paper as a measure for giving one class of the
community an undue preponderance over others.
We, in our ignorance, had imagined that it was the
old form of representation which gave to one class—
viz, the borough salesmen—an undue power over
others ; and we are still fain to believe that the new
measure will disperse the benefits of a representative
system
throughout all classes of Englishmen who
are qualified to exercise their rights in an inde-
pendent spirit. Nay, that the apparent uniformity
in the qualification to vote will be the best assurance
for a real diversity in the classes of voters,—inas-
much as the same identical sum which gives the