The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-06 00:00:00

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LONDON. SATURDAY. NOVEMBER 6, 1847.

Fifteen years of faithful service to a constituency
cannot protect a consistent politician from the
poisoned barbs of invective and ingratitude. The
electors of Bath have recently afforded an example of
this fact in their abusive opposition and contumelious
rejection of Mr. ROEBUCK. Because their late dis
tinguished representative had toiled in the cause of
civil and religious liberty during fifteen long years of
his life—because he had elevated himself to dis-
tinction in the house of Commons by advocating the
principles of toleration awl reform—because he had
invoked upon himself the malignities and vitupera-
tions of all those adventurers in legislation who
battened upon political jobbing, or acquired a spurious
popularity by becoming the mere mongers and buck-
sterers of humanity, Mr. ROEBUCK might have counted
upon his return to the new Parliament in his old
capacity with the utmost degree of confidence. If
justice were an inseparable characteristic of
the franchise, he might have done so. If
public decency were valued by the inhabi-
tants of the first city in Somersetshire,
he might have done so. He might have done so if
intrepidity, and disinterestedness, and an unyielding
devotion to the interests of the people could be re-
garded as entitling a senator to the regard and admi-
ration of the community. Such, however, is not the ,
case. It has been written in the history of the Le-
gislature. It may be read in the very hornbook of
Government—in the alphabetical list of Dodd' s Par-
liamentary Companion.

_ .
After the recent discomfiture of Mr. ROEBUCK by
the enfranchised citizens of Bath, it was necessary
that some sort of reparation—however inadequate—
should be made by the more honest and conscientious
°Tf. his constituents. That reparation was made on
iI"Y
. A testimonial, !accompanied by a suitable
address,w"
presented to the Honourable and Learned
Gentleman by a minority which appreciated his pro-
longed Services within the walls of St. Stephen's, and
was solicitous on that account to evince its indigna-
tion at bis unmerited rejection. The testimonial,
ed w
consisting of a sculptured cabinet, containing golden
evidences of gratitude,
as accepted ; an eulogistic
harangue was delivered by the
.Chairmandn.l6 ; it was re-
sponded to in language the pery -sacuavty of which
was spiced by the constitutional a i
d fromer ity of the
speaker, and Mr. ROEBUCK p
faithful supporters, like KATHLEEN 3dA his
more
VOLTRNEEN
from her lover, " it may be for years, and
it may
be
for ever." So may terminate the alliancebt
many another constituency, and many anothererwenree-
sentative. It is a melancholy precedent—attestingthat a protracted period of exertion may, although
enhanced by the utmost self-forgetfulness, and theg
moss indisputable consistency, be repaid in a simi-
lar manner by opprobrium and expulsion. It is
a precedent, indeed, which can in no manner
tend to the advantage of the population, see.
ing that it must necessarily diminish the
incentives to such activity and audacity as that
which has been so unremittingly displayed for fifteen
years by Mr. ROEBUCK, and so ungenerously re•
warded by his quondam well-wishers. The talisman
of electioneering confidence has been broken in a city
whose tutelary genius is—appropriately enough—
BRAT; NASH, the Prince of Frivolity and Fickleness.
NEi`lN': 9! 1A iitink in the late Lime of Coramolls there
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