The Sun.
London, England, 1831-06-02 00:00:00

THE ELECTIONS AND THE TORIES

(From the Englishman's Register.)
We are beginning at last to breathe free.
after the intense excitement of the elections al
over the kingdom. The contest has been sharp
but short, and the victory of Reform has been
complete even beyond the most sanguine hopes
of its advocates. But it was a noble principle
which forbade Romans to triumph over Romans :
the pride of conquest and the ignominy of de-
feat, bad as they are in every case, are above all
to be forborne when our adversaries are our
countrymen. We have been delighted therefore
to witness the honourable and kindly feeling
which has been shown on both sides in some of
the late elections. It was cheering to see that
the manly and touching address of Mr. Bankes,
when resigning the contest for the county, was
not lost upon the electors of Dorsetshire ; and
that those of Cornwall, while resolute to give
their votes only to a Refbrmer, could still respect
and regard the ability and virtue of Sir Richard
Vyvyan. These things encourage the hope ex-
pressed in a former number, that as soon as the
struggle was decided, the people would distin-
guish between their honourable and conscientious
opponents and the mere mercenaries of the Anti-
Reform cause, and that they would gladly avail
themselves of the services of the former as soon
as the complete success of Reform should enable
them to do it with safety.
Yet although many individuals of the Tory
party will, as we hope and believe, be Members
of a reformed Parliament, still it cannot be
doubted that, as a party, the Tories are, politi-
cally speaking, from henceforth perpetually
humbled. No man, indeed, can foresee what
changes may be reserved for us in a course of
years, and many of the elements of Toryism may
again be seen in the ascendant ; but the old form
of common English Toryism, whether in its
earlier shape of devotion to Church and King,
or in its later character of an attachment to
aristocracy, is become now a thing of other days
—it will influence the fortunes of this nation no
more. We confess that this total overthrow of
an enemy lately so formidable has wonderfully
lessened our hostility towards it. One cannot
strike a man when he is down : and it was dif-
ficult not to be softened even towards Napoleon
himself when he was a prisoner at St. Helena,
and to think more of his actual degradation than
of the fearful and systematic wickedness of his
prosperous days. We can fully trust ourselves
now to sketch the Tory party of England with
fairness ; and as their political life is at an end
the following remarks may serve for their epitaph.
'We have seen the Tories, at one period of
our history, strongly opposing a war with
France—and at another earnestly supporting
one. We have seen them, in the time of the
Stuarts, half coalescing with the Roman Ca-
tholics, and in our own days most strenuously
resisting them : and yet they have been always
perfectly consistent. But what they have never
supported are popular principles—what they
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