The Sun.
London, England, 1840-10-07 00:00:00

Christianity were said to be involved in the con-
test ; the people were told he 'would get no chap-
lain ; and it was insinuated that during his Mayor-
alty all communication between the City and the
Court would be cut off. When the whole Tory
party was thus set in motion, and all their engines
brought into operation, our distant readers must be
convinced that the contest had something belonging
to it which concerned the empire at large. We, at
least, believed that it had, and on that account we

engaged in it.
What was the contest, then, about ? The Tories
broadly contended that certain political and reli-
gious opinions disqualified a man from filling the
Civic Chair ; they attributed these opinions falsely
to Mr. HARMER; but whether falsely or not they con-
tended that, entertaining these opinions utterly dis-
qualified IVIr. H A RMER, and on that ground they ap-
pealed to the Livery. According to our political creed,
if a man pays his taxes, and performs all the duties
of a good subject and a good citizen, he has a
just claim to all the protection and all the honours
of the State, and is not to be excluded from any
of them on account of his opinions, be they what
they may. In this particular case this argument is
very strong, because the office of Lotd Mayor is
not a party one ; it has been filled alternately by
Whigs, Tories, and Radicals; by Churchmen,
Dissenters, Unitarians, and Freethinkers ; and, if
ever before, not for many yea's, have any man's
political opinions been a ground for exclusion.
The conduct of the Tories, therefore, in opposing
Mr. HARMER, was not only re-enacting the Test
Act, it was extending it to a case to which it had
not before been practically applied, and which ought
to be resisted.
If Mr. HARMER may be objected to by certain
highflying Tories and Puseyites, because he is not
a lover of the Monarchy, and a believer in Chris-
tianity—supposing those accusations to be true,
whereas they are false—an immense field will be at
once opened for an indefinite and vague persecution.
Actions are in a manner tangible, or they leave
tangible results. They can be weighed and mea-
sured. Opinions are not tangible. They are
evanescent, they are liable to a thousand obscuri-
ties, from the imperfections of language. The clearest
law ever drawn, admits in the Courts of several
interpretations ; and opinions, as we see in the case
of Mr. HARMER, may be imputed falsely to any
man. To elect a man for the Civic Chair, then, on
account of his opinions, instead of bestowing that
as a reward for his conduct, is to change a plain
and palpable test of merit, open to all, for a
shadowy fleeting breath, which cannot be easily
valued or weighed.
This year a man is kept out of the Civic Chair
because he does not honour the monarchical prin-
ciple ; next year it may be because he is a Whig,
or because he is a Catholic. This year he is
kept out for believing too little, next for believing
too much ; now the Tories and the Canters have
got the upper hand,—a sudden impulse to the po-
pular feeling may give it next year to the Chart-
ists and the Infidels ; and there may be no end to
squabbles and contests about opinions which men
may not really entertain. Mr. HARMER'S case is
in point. He is actually excluded, not on account
of his own opinions, but on account of those of
other men falsely imputed to him.
It must be observed also that we have a certain
standard for actions, none for opinions. All men
agree in condemning murder and applauding charity ;
but every form of Government, including Republi-
canism, every form of Christianity, and every form
of Heathenism, is established or believed in some
country or other, without men committing any
offence. One man may admire a monarchy, another
a republic ; one may believe every word that is con-
tained in the Testament, another may doubt
a great deal ; why should he who admires
a monarchy, or he who gulps down the whole
Testament be allowed to assume that he is ex-
clusively right, and to set up his poor thoughts as a
national creed ? To allow that, is to authorise
a despotism over public opinion. But this is what
the Tories and the priests did in respect to Mr.
HARMER. They assumed that their opinions I
were perfect truth, and that he was worthy of
punishment for not agreeing with them.
They are, at the same time, equally hypocritical
and arrogant. They prove, day after day, by their
practices, that they do not, in fact, believe either
the Old or the New Testament, for no belief is to
be depended on which does not produce actions; but,
setting up a Shibboleth of their own, they require
men to conform to it. They opposed Mr. HARMER,
not because he did not admire monarchy, or believe in
Christianity, but because he did not belong to their
clique. To establish in favour of the priests and
the Tories a despotism over public opinion is,
in our estimation, to enthrone error and vice, and
therefore we felt it our duty to side with Mr.
HARMER.

order of the Earl of CARDIGAN was itself a usur-
pation. He had no right to give any such order,
to prevent an &Freer sending private letters to him,
but he gave it, and gave it in a rude and brutal
manner. Captain REYNOLDS then wrote his
second letter to the Noble Earl, which is plainly
a breach of military discipline, by no means justified
by what the Earl of CARDIGAN had said and
done. We hold it to be quite clear, therefore, that
Captain REYNOLDS will not be acquitted, though
it is beyond our means to conjecture what the
sentence will be.

But there are two important questions behind.
Whence arose all this jealousy and bad feeling be-
tween the Node Earl and his officers ? If from
no other cause, his former disgrace would make him
tenacious of discipline, and make them tenacious of
being affronted. From that, independently of any
bad temper on the part of the Noble Earl, bad feel-
ings on both sides would arise, and for that the
Horse Guards is responsible, because it knowingly
re-appointed the Noble Earl after his former dis-
grace.

Why, too, did not Captain REYNOLDS, instead
of writing his second letter to the Earl of CARDI•
GAN, on being called out of the ranks, and receiv-
ing an improper order in an insulting manner, ap-
peal to the Horse Guards ? That, we think,
would have been his proper course. But he
shrunk from it, as all officers shrink from appealing
to it against their superior, because they know
that they will not be fairly treated. They have no
confidence in the Horse Guards. In this particular
case there was sufficient reason for the mistrust.
The partiality of the Horse Guards, and its des-
picable tittle-tattle-loving injustice, had just been
exhibited in the case of the other Captain
REYNOLDS. The Earl of CARDIGAN by
some means, certainly not by his military
merit or military service, is all-powerful with the
Commander-in-Chief, and Captain REYNOLDS
naturally and instinctively shrunk from appealing to
him. Hence, having no means of redress, no
confidence in the Horse Guards, he took
the improper, and, we think, unjustifiable,
step of writing the second letter. We trace
all the evil to the Horse Guards. There was
first the improper re-appointment of Lord
CARDIGAN, and next the listening to his back-
biting complaints. By partiality and injustice the
Horse Guards are obviously destroying the disci-
pline of the army.

The Correspondent of the Times at Devonport,
whose letter was yesterday published in that journal,
stated, that two watchmen, as in old and better
times, were sent on board every vessel in the yard.
That Correspondent has not shown so much accu-
racy as to induce us to rely on the statement. If it
have been done, we are sure it can be only a tem-
porary measure adopted by the authority of
Admiral WARREN. The removal of the
ship-keepers was a well-considered and wise
measure, adopted in a season of calm, less
for reasons of economy than of security. We
cannot believe, therefore, that the Admiralty will,
in a moment of terror or panic, and in obedience
to the demands of the Tory press, return to the old
and imperfect system. We yesterday stated suffi-
cient reasons for the abolition of the old practice,
and have not seen, in the tirades of our Contem-
poraries one argument for resuming it.

If there are to be watchmen on board the ships
in dock, they must be on an entirely different foot-
ing. To appoint two only to each ship, for a whole
night, is a positive absurdity. There must be at
least ten or a dozen, to admit of two or three
keeping watch at a time, at different parts of the
ship, and having two or three reliefs in the night.
There might be undoubtedly one or two sentinels
or watchmen stationed in each ship, but, instead of
being kept there the whole night, it would be essen-
tial that they should be relieved like other sentinels
every two hours, and then they may be taken from
the military who at present keep guard over the
ships, or from a civil watch established for the pur-
pose. But the old practice of placing two men on
board each ship every evening when the other
r workmen go away, and keeping them there till the
workmen return in the morning—requiring them to
watch, therefore, for fifteen consecutive hours in
winter, night after night, according to the old plan
which is so much admired by the Tories, is a waste-
ful and inefficient mockery of guardianship. The
present plan, according to which every part of the
yard, ships and all, is closely inspected every even-
ing, and after that no person is allowed to enter the
yard, or move about it, without a countersign, on
being known to the police, so as to render it almost
impossible for any stranger to enter the yard after
the gates are closed, and almost impossible for any
person to approach a ship in dock, except it be
some of the policemen or watchmen on duty, or some
of the officers who live in the yard, gives every prac-
tical and even every desirable security.

The Moniteur of Monday announces the for-
mation of the new Spanish Cabinet. ESPAR-
TERo retains in his own hands the Presidency of
the Council, and the command of the army as
General-in-Chief. The other appointments arc as
follow :

Vice-President of the Council and Minister for Fo•
reign Alf4irs—Senor Joaquin Ferrer.

War—Senor Chaeon.
Marine—Senor Joaquin Frias.
Justice—Senor Gomez Becerra.
Finance—Senor Gamboa, Consul at Bayonne.
Interior—Senor Costina.