The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-08 00:00:00

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LONDON:
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1840.

In this country neither the movements nor the
opinions of public men can possibly remain secrets.
The policy of the Government, the armaments it
prepares, the instructions it sends to its Ambassa-
dors, are all known or are stated in the news-
papers. What particular subject is at any time to
be discussed at any Cabinet Council is readily in-
ferred from the last despatches which have come
from abroad, or from the last important public
event. As the subject of deliberation is thus known
or conjectured, and as the opinions of Cabinet Mi-
nisters are known, like those of other public pen,
the outline of what passes in a Cabinet Council on
any disputed and important question, becomes
shadowed out to the public. Hints and words will
escape men in conversation, from which a whole
history may be framed, and all the important pro-
ceedings of individual Cabinet Ministers gradually
be made known without any person being responsi-
ble for the communication. No member of the Ca-
binet openly promulgates them, or vouches for them,
unless he have first asked and obtained the per-
mission of the Sovereign ; but in most of the
great changes of the Ministry in modern times, in
most of the disputes among the members of the
Cabinet, in most of the great alterations in our po-
licy, the part taken by individual Cabinet Minis-
ters has been freely and publicly stated in the
press, and has not unfrequently been confirmed by

their own authorised statements in Parliamen
The part taken in the Cabinet discussions by ind
vidual Ministers may therefore transpire withou
any one being treacherous to his colleagues, or
treasonable to his Sovereign.
To the Times all these circumstances must be
well known, but because the late Lord HOLLAND
is reported to have been partial to the alliance with
France, and rather indifferent to the fate of Turkey
and is therefore known to have regarded the po-
licy which has led to the rupture of that alliance
with apprehension, the
.Times yesterday endea-
voured to make the public believe, in a column of
insinuations and charges, that Lord HOLLAND
had betrayed to M. GulzoT what passed in the
English Cabinet, and betrayed it in order to make
M. TRIERS adhere firmly to his own views. Such
an attack on an eminent man, who is yet scarcely
cold in his grave—and the loss of whom, on account
of his great uprightness and his steady attachment
to the public liberties and constitutional law, the
nation deplores, including his political opponents--
is quite flagitious, and is worthy of the unscrupu-
lous, apostate, unprincipled journal which makes
it. M. 'TIMERS and the whole French nation
might be assured, from the nobleness of Lord
HOLLAND's character, and his firm attachment to
the union of free nations as opposed to the Holy
Alliance, that he would support the French alliance
to the utmost, and would be slow to believe in the
perfidy of M. THIERS, who wilfully brought it to
an end. I\T. TRIERS might be able to say that in
the Cabinet Lord HOLLAND had supported the
French alliance, and done justice to the French
people, without Lord HOLLAND having ever vio-
lated official secresy, or fostered in any manner the
uneasy ambition and the wretched intrigues of the
late Prime Minister of Fiance.
If Lord HOLLAND stood out to the last against
the Treaty of July 15, the peace-loving people
will honour him for it. All the consequences of
that Treaty must be taken into the account, as well
as the successes in Syria. If Lord HOLLAND
foresaw the storm it would enable a few intriguers
to raise in France, if he foresaw the bad passions
it would let loose, the danger it would cause to
Europe, the large armaments it would make ne-
cessary, the general war it may in the end provoke,
his sagacity must be admired, and the nation will
mourn that Lord HoLLAND had not more influ-
epee in the Cabinet. For our own parts, much as
we admire the valour and skill of our gallant offi-
cers and seamen, we cordially wish that there had
been no occasion to exhibit them ; and if Lord
HOLLAND'S counsels could have prevented the
t xhibition, the nation will regret they were not
followed•
The duplicity, the idle gasconades, the trickery,
the intrigues of the TnIE us' Cabinet, cannot be
too much blamed ; but however great a charlatan
he may be, it does not follow that the Minister who
adheres to the French alliance as a substantial be-
nefit to the would, was in error, We doubt if Lord
PALMERSTON was acquainted, till the debates took
place in the French Chambers, with all the projects
entertained, and now avowed, by the late French
Cabinet ; and if Lord HOLLAND died ignorant of
them he is not to blame. Because M. TRIERS,
however, is an intriguer, and because_ lie sought