The Sun.
London, England, 1836-10-06 00:00:00

Our enemies know full well the importance of a few
votes, especially in such a crisis as that which ap-
proaches, and hence they have lodged objections to an
unusual number of the Liberal constituency. In many
instances they have done this without even the appear-
ance of a ground for it—they have done it on specu-
lation—they have done it, in other words, in the hope
and under the impression that many of the Reformers
will, from remissness, absent themselves from the Re-
gistration Courts, and not enforce their rights. The
Reformers, we are sure, will convince the Tories that
they have grievously erred in their calculations.—
Morning Advertiser.
It is now seen by all persons but those who are as
incurably blind as the poets represent Cupid himself
to be, that the intermeddling policy pursued by our
Whig rulers in the internal concerns of Spain and
Portugal, has brought the affairs of the Peninsula into
what is called in Cockney language, a " sad mess."
Had the Whigs taken our advice in the beginning,
they would have left the people of the two peninsular
nations to settle their own disputes, and to establish
for themselves whatever form of Government best
suited the national capacity and taste ; or else they
would have interfered in a way worthy of a great na-
tion—that is to say, directly, honestly, authoritatively.
They would not furtively have practised hostilities
while pretending peace. They would not have sent
out a band of mercenaries to make war after the fashion
of buccaneers, whom, in the same breath, they de-
coyed and disclaimed. They would not have sent ves-
sels of war to batter at the Carlist lines, and endea-
voured to sneak out of the responsibility of warlike
aggression by sneaking into the supposed shelter of
word " co-operation." They would not have re-
fused a British army to the importunities of the
Queen's Government, and for the support of the
Estatuto Real, against Carlists and Revolutionists
—while they sent out the Royal Marines to have
their high reputation sacrificed by Spanish pol-
troonery, and their laurels won per mare et terram,
blighted by unlucky contact with the exploits of the
" heroes of Fontarabia." The Whigs have, indeed,
taken the only course with regard to Spain that could
have tarnished the splendour of the military glory which
British soldiership achieved on a soil where the mer-
cenary " co-operators" of the Whig non-intervention-
war have reaped nothing but defeat and dishonour.
Moreover, this interference, which was expressly for
the purpose of supporting the Government of the
Queen-Regent, founded on the basis of the Estatuto
Real, has not prevented the downfall of that Govern-
ment and of the Estatuto Real along with it, or rather,
it has been very instrumental in working the ruin of
that juste milieu policy which it was intended to up-
hold. The fame which Lord Palmerston obtained by
those matchless protocols which " settled" the affairs
of the Netherlands into a state of inextricable confusion,
is olnscured by his still higher renown as a settler of the
troubles of the Peninsula. He found there a smoulder-
ing fire—he undertook to extinguish it by the " co-
operative" process of anti-ignition, and he has fanned it
into a vast and furious conflagration. Thus the virtual
dethronement of the Queen-Regent, and the establish-
ment ofa military and democratic usurpation, stained with
murder and insatiable of plunder, has been mainly brought
about by dishonest and shufflino. Whig interference.
!low fares it with Portugal ? There we see that under
the vigilant protection of the Whigs, the Queen's autho-
rity has been completely overthrown—the Queen her-
self forced by military ruffians, under a threat of death,
to put her hand to the death-warrant of her sovereign
power—the Majesty of England insulted in the person
of her Ambassador, whom it is admitted that the
tary revolutionists kept imprisoned in the Palace until
the humiliation of the Queen had been completed.
And all this dishonour and indignity the Whigs have
brought upon the once great and glorionT name of
England—while the mean arid pusillanimous Whigs
actually crouch to the revolutionary parties, both in
Spain and Portugal, that have overthrown the Go-
vernments which they supported in the dust, and
covered their policy with shame and confusion. The
nephew of Leopold, of Belgium, was taken under
the protection of the juvenile Whig of the Foreign
Department ; but to what a state of degraded roy-
alty has that protection reduced him ! He has been
compelled to see his Regal bride stripped before his
eyes of her sovereignty, and reduced to the condition of
a crowned vassal trembling at the frown, and obedient
to the command of military democrats. "He waited
for advice from his uncle in Belgium," did he ? We
think Leopold finds it quite enough to govern his own
kingdom without taking upon him the cares of govern-
ment in Portugal. And as to the pragmatic, and, in
his own eyes, exceedingly clever M. Van der Weyer,
he ought to have known Lord Palmerston better than
to have supposed he could have put on a lion's skin
without frightening himself more than any body else.
It is true that the bitter and implacable enemies of
England and her commerce have now seized the su-
preme power in Portugal. But what except insults
and injuries did Great Britain receive from the Queen's
own Government ? For past benefits we received only
abuse and the grossest ingratitude. But the wisdom
of the Whigs matches the virtue of the Portuguese I--
Morning Herald.