The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-02 00:00:00

TO THE OPERATIVES OF GREAT
BRITAIN.

DEAR COUNTRYMEN—A word with you. lam an old man,
a clergyman of what is call Al the Church of England;
the only one, perhaps, that has had the honour of a yea's
imprisonment, and of suffering the loss of all things, for
your take. Clergymen, like others, love their own toe
wit for that. My tale is soon told, to those who know it
not. The manufacturers of Kiddermister, some twelve
years ago, proclaimed a horrible reduction of wages. The
men stood out. I took the men's part ; an offence unpar-
donable by clergy, gentry, magistrates, judges, juries-_
yes, all in the land, save the working man himself. Frem
the working man I would take nothing. From me, the
ruling powers took everything takeable—all according to
law, no doubt. Every rascally thing can be done by law,
where there is plenty of money, against the working man !
However skilful in his calling, he is the prey of every fool
that has plenty of money. Here is the point. The rich
fool secs it, tne skilful poor does not. Such is the oppo-
site curse of riches and poverty. The rich know how to
oppress—money has taught them ; the poor know not how
to escape oppression—poverty has blinded their eves. But
escape is at hand. When Christ was upon earth, the thick
clay put by him upon the eyes of the blind opened them ; an
odd, but in his hands, an effectual remedy ! He is pot
visibly present with us now, but his Word is ; and this
Word is teaching the poor working man, upon whose eyes
Providence has spread the thick clay of poverty, that Got'.
hails made of one blood all men to dwell upon the face of
the earth, and that he hath made all things upon earth for
the good of man, and that he is no respecter of persons.
By that Word the working man is learning fast that Christ
died for him, to make him rich in faith and an heir of the
kingdom promised to them that love him ; that it is not
his si ill that he should be a slave ; that he has most ex-
pressly told hint and all in his situation, that he would not
they should be the slaves of men. All this and far more
the working man is learning .fast,"and wci may be certain
that such learning, piercin-' through the thick 'clay of po-
verty, will open his eyes. Spiritual pastors and masters, as j
they are called, may strive to blind him still with false ia-
terpretations ; but, depend upon it, they will not prevail
unless to their own downfall. The people by and by will
get too wise for them, and will read God's Word for them-
selves. The thick clay of poverty, when put upon the
eyes by unhallowed bands, will blind sure enough ; but
when touched by the hand of God it will as surely open.
When I was in prison I set myself to consider how it
was that all were against the working men—Judges, Juries,
Parsons, Magistrates, Nobles, Statesmen, with few ex-
ceptions—all, in fact, who could afford once a quarter, or
even much seldomer, to put a new coat on their backs and
a new hat on their heads 1 How it was that the very laws
seemed all made against the poor ! And for the first time
it struck me that it was because all the laws were made by
the rich, who would be sure to favour themselves—that the
very Juries did not belong to the poor ; the Judges and
Magistrates were not chosen by him, and that, in fact, he
was a distinct class, and a slave class, at the entire mercy
of all the rest, who worked him as hard and at as little
wages as they could possibly effect I All then appeared
plain to me as the light ; and from that moment to the
present I have been labouring as I could to point out to
the working man his only remedy.
That remedy was once thought visionary by the worthy
Editor of this Paper, whom, nevertheless, I believe to he
a most sincere friend of the working man. He thought it
visionary, mainly, because he deemed it unattainable. He
may think otherwise by and by. At all events, it will not
depend upon what he or any other man, or class of men,
may think, save yourselves. When you come universally
to deem it real, it will soon be effected. You are coming
fast to the point. My remedy of old, Universal Suffrage,
is making astonishing advances. The more it is ridiculed
and opposed the better. It will never be put down. The
masses of the people have got hold of it, and they will
never part with it but with their lives. They nay do
many folliful things, and, in their ignorance, some very
unjustifiable things. They may be hooted at as Chartists
_may be tried for treason, or sedition, or tumult—may
be more or less deserving of imprisonment, or other pu-
niatiment, according to the present state of the rich men-
made laws; but they will never again lose sight of their
pointed.
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of the laws be loosed and shaken over the whole of its
foundations than the masses will lose sight of their con-
stitutional rights, or relinquish their efforts to obtain them.
I need not be told of the stern, the deadly determination
of authority against them ; I know it. I need not be ad-
monished of the fickleness, the cowardice, the boastfulress,
the treachery of the mob; I know them. Why remind
me of a rope of sand, of millions of single sticks? I know
that sand can be formed into the firmest cement, and that
a bundle of sticks cannot be so readily broken. I know
that the millions are uniting. Poverty and the Word of
God are uniting them in one common cause never to be
out down. The iron has entered into their souls. They
are beginning to know their own worth. They know that
kings and laws were made for them. and not they for laws
and kings. Warriors are going down with them. Fields
of blood are loathsome in their eyes and to their smell.
All great class-legislators are becoming contemptible to
them. The noble O'Connell endangers a half of his
power the very instant he incurs (even though he should un-
deservedly incur) their suspicion. The most wonderfully
gifted (and, in my opinion, the truly honest, though not
yet fully assured) Brougham, almost fades from their eyes
as they doubt his sincerity. They would hail such leaders,
but they are beginning to put confidence only in themselves.
In Ireland there is more trust and less eniightment. In
England and Scotland there is more enlightenment, and
less trust. In both countries facts and not individuals
are coming into request, and those facts are comprised in
the inquiry, What will bring about our emancipation ?
—what will un-slave us ?—what will give us equal rights
and equal laws ?—what will bring class-legislation to an
end ?—what will bring us into our own Constitution ; or,
if that cannot be, will give us a better ?"
Such are, as I well know, the heart-thrilling questions
of the best of you, my deeply respected countrymen ; and
to encourage and extend such questions is the object of my
present address to you. Upon the result of such ques-
tions depends all your woidly prosperity.
First, What things are in your favour?
Amongst the first is the Constitution of your country -
the British Constitution, the wonder of the world. Grea'

and learned men have known this better than you ; whereas
you ought to have known it better than they. The reason is
plain, the Constitution has been encouraged in all its
workings towards them, but hampered and crippled in all
its operations towards you. They, or their Mends have
been always in their moiety of the Constitution, while you
have always been kept out of your share of it. Happily
von are beginning to know this. Setting aside all quib-
bling, the Constitution of this country consists of King, or
Queen, Lords, and Commons. The consent of these
three Powers is necessary to to the fixing of all laws by
which the whole is to be governed, and to which all arc
to be obedient.

Of these three Powers, we have always had (so to
speak), a King or Queen, and always a House of Lords
—but, alas ! never yet a true House of Commons.
What is called the House of Commons has ever been
hitherto a House from which the great mass of the Cem-
mons have ever been most sedulously and craftily ex-
cluded. This has been the mo.:t flagrant and the most
pernicious deceit that was ever imposed upon a people
called and deeming themselves free. Hence, the most
wonderful people in the world, crushed under a load of
debt under which none other people in the world could for
a single moment exist. Still the Constitution is the
same. A better, perhaps, may not be framed. Only let
us have it. Let not the poor man—let not any man I.)r
kept out of it. The Constitution is in itself free to all;
and all in it could not but be free—for it knows no slavery,
it acknowledges no slave class—it will not suffer even a
king to domineer—it has in itself checks and safeguards
against all the Kings and all the Lords in the
world; those checks and safeguards are in the House
of Commons, when all the common people are there by
their freely chosen representatives, but never till then ;
and until they are thus there there can be no permanent
prosperity for the country, nor worthy security for either
King or Lords.

It is the semblance of the Constitution that is the people's
curse. The Constitution itself is the people's best friend.
Let them get into it before they seek another. Look to
this, my dear countrymen, and consider it well.
The second thing in your favour is the perhaps perfect
trial of the two great parties of the State, the Whigs and
the Tories. Never before were these parties so thoroughly
known. The Tories, actually ashamed of their own name,
have been, and arc still, trying to shelter themselves under
the new name of Censervatives, but that will not do. The
Whigs are throwing all the blame of their failures upon
the Tories, by whatever name they may call themselves ;
be,t, that will not do. From whatever cause or causes, the
NV higs cannot even conceal their own weakness, and utter
inability to remove the dreadful pressure upon the nation's
prosperity I They cling to office as terrified mariners lash
themselves to the masts and rigging of a foundering ship,
hoping, almost against hope, that the storm may lull itself
to rest by a kind of miracle, or that in the same way the
ship may ride it out, and they themselves be found after
all in actual possession of all the honours and emoluments
of their respective stations. But this will not do. The
people see their position, and laugh them to scorn. The
cry is, We hate almost alike and equally Tory principles
and Whig practice."
A third thing in your favour is the tottering state of the
Established Church. As a state engine its spell is broken.
Though bishoprics yet retain their thousands a year, they
have all but entirely lost their state leverage. No longer
Can Government move a county, or a fraction of a county,
by •ending them a bishop, except to disgust, or at most to •
to!erate. The very head-quarters of lawn sleeves may
perhaps be divided by dissent. The cathedral may be ad-
mired as a building, while its weekly and daily services
may be openly scorned or silently neglected, for every-
thing but its singing boys and organ. Ilse most obscure
meeting-house, where all may sine, and many may pray,
and some may preach, as loud as
lungs can bear and their
own spirit excite, is ousting the minister in the affections
of the people, because the former is their free choice, and
the latter is an imposition ii,yon them, in their opinion too
much a splendid humbug, beloved of the aristocracy, as a
sort of almshouse, like the State, for the younger branches
of their families. The very names of tithes and church-
rates are becoming hateful—a very stink in the nostrils,
not only of Dissenters, but also of multitudes who at:
tend church ; and it is at this moment a moot point
with the multitude, whether, if there be none
other way of alleviating their present miseries, it may

not be best to appropriate the four, or the six, or (as
it may be) the nine millions a-year of the State Church to
that purpose. Right or wrong, such opinions are rife ; and
they who dread them most had better by first in endeavours
to pacify the people by giving them their rights, al, ir plain
constitutional rights, of which they have ever hitherto been
deprived, and are now it length being brought to a know-
ledge of that bitter deprivation.
A fourth thing in your favour is the prevailing opinion
of the state of the laws. No lawyer knows them. Neither
King„ nor Lords, nor Common:, know them. At this mo-
ment, the very Judges and the House of Commons are he-
sitating which should send the other to prison. The uncer-
tainty of the law, which should be its greatest shame, has
long been most impudently called its glory. How amazed
was I, when I found myself pronounced a breaker of the law
and condemned to twelve months' imprisonment ! All seemed
a mere farce, save the expense. I was ruined ; and that
to me was no farce, nor can it be to any man, however joy-
fully he may endure the loss of all things for conscience sake
and the sake of his fellow-creatures. The expenses of the
law, too, are most horrible
Only witness the large sums raised by the poor work-
ing men for the defence of honest, worthy, yet no doubt, in
that instance, misjudging, Frost, and the two others ! Add
to it the law by which they were tried and condemned-_a
law by which I would nut have hung a cat—add to all, the en-
ormous expenses of the whole to the country at large. Oh 1
what an exposure of the folly_ the almost madness of some
law proceedings 1
A wave of popular fury is rising which may possibly
overwhelm and wash away the present system, whatever
other may be substituted in its stead. Let those lawyers
and statesmen, and others, who are most solicitous for pre-
sent arrangements, seek to preserve them by making them
must conducive to the people's obtaining their just consti-
tutional rights.
All these things and many others are in your favour,
my beloved countrymen. Next, let me advert to some few
things that arc against you..
The first I shall mention haatisto one, _which has harassed
me personally the most, and I shall place it first on that ac-
count, and that is the class prejudice of some of the best of
people. The sentence of judges and jury, and the year's
imprisonment, never gave me one quarter the suffering that
did the opinion and behaviour of some of my nearest and
dearest friends, some of the worthiest people in the world.
The very beat in my opinion, and the ablest and most learned
of them all will not give the poor ignorant mau the Suffrage
fur fear he should abuse it to his own hurt 1 He cannot
trust the poor. I cannot trust the rich. So far we are
alike, each in leis respective line. But here we differ
greatly. I would trust both rich and poor when amalga-
mated in our Constitution ; while he, like most rich, and
learned, and great men, will riot hear of such amalgama-
tion ! This matter, of all others, my friends, is most against
you. Such men, by their wealth, their learning, their high
character, have almost omnipotent sway over the thousauds '
in whose hands the destinies of nations have been hereto.
fore placed; and if character should give sway, they ought
to have it. But I would say, "0 1 put not your trust in
Princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in
them." Here, it is not individual character but universal
justice that should prevail. Here, a bad man may be on
the right side, and a good man on the wrong side. Let a
man be as bad as he may, he may be oppressed, and hie
oppression may have been the main cause of his bad prin-
ciples and character ; but be that as it may, it is more
common for a bad man to feel that he is oppressed than
for a good men to try to remove that oppression from him.
In such a case the bad man may properly be on the right
side in efforts to remove oppression, while the good man
may remain culpably ignorant of the fact, or indifferent to
it when known. But shall I retain a property from a poor
man for fear of his killing himself with brandy-drinking,
or of his prosecuting me for ever having had his property
in my possession ? Yet, such is the reasoning of some of
the ablest and best of men against you, my friends, and it
is one of the leading things against you. Governments
look to such men for support; and with their sanction abut
their ears to the cries of the people's most just demands.
Another thing against you is the undeniable hankering
of great numbers of you after vvharis called physical force.
The Holy Scripture says that oppression will drive a wise
man mad; and I for one, am nut surprised at the eager-
ness of the multitude to avenge themselves ; but though
not surprised, I am very very sorry, knowing that by such
procedures the multitudes arc only thwarting their own ends.
Governments always, upon occasions, employ spies to pre-
tend to be rebels, and thus to stir up some to rebellion, to
pounce upon them in order to punish them for the intimi-
dation of the rest 1 Every demonstration of physical foice
ail! be a plea with Government for keeping up a stand-
ing army in time of peace, for swearing in special
constables, and for organizing an extended constabulary
force, which is, in reality, another standing army under
'another form and name expressly for home purposes, to
fight against ourselves, father against son, son against
father, brother against brother, friend against friend, neigh-
hour against neighbour—the most horrible of all kinds of
warfare, and the most dangerous to liberty under the name
of peace ! We see how all this has sprung up all at once
amongst ourselves, and that, I grieve to say, not without
some colour of reason, though in my opinion without ade-
quate cause. However, this is palpably against you; and
hankerings amongst some of you after physical force have
been the alleged cause for throwing such obstacles in your
way.
A third thing against you is a split amongst your-
selves. Some of you aro too manifestly for revolution.
At this, though not surprised, I am grieved as before.
Some of your writers, very powerful and very honest men
I have no doubt, are yet, I think, greatly mistaken in this
most solemn matter. They palpably confound the Consti-
tution of the country with its laws I And because some
of the laws arc arbitrary, cruel, evidently pointed against the
poor, class-made laws, purposely for the rich, making and
keeping the bulk of the people aliens in their own coun-
try, slaves at home, such writers throw all the odium
thereof upon the Constitution, and say, " See what a pre-
cious Constitution ours is !" I think• it would be far more
constitutional and just for such writers to say, " See what
follows from the per version of our Constitution. Let us
all strive for the integrity of our Constitution, that all may
be comprised in it and be partakers thereby of its bless-
ings." Such writers must know that the Constitution
has never yet been completed but in theory, and that the
flaw has ever been in the House of Commons. Why not
struggle lawfully and constitutionally to get that flaw re-
moved, instead of continually kicking against the pricks,
and thrusting our heads into the lion's mouth and daring
him to bite ? How do such writers know that a Republic
would be better for Englishmen than their own genuine
Constitution ? At all events, let us have cur own
first ; and then if upon full trial it shall be
neighed in the balance and found wanting, and
!he whole people shall be prepared, as the Ame•
ricans were, for a change, a change no doubt will be
in due time effected, without any State trials by Commis-
sion for treason, or sedition or tumult. For the present,
the split amongst ourselves is against us. lam sure lam
anxious for the well-being of the operatives. If any man
be more so, I should delight to welcome him to my heart
as a brother, and more than a brother. But I cannot
claim fellowship with those who are aiming at revolution.
I would be amongst the last to punish them, I would not
punish them at all; but I could not join them ; nor can I
possibly approve of them, because I quite believe that, how-
ever undesignedly, they backen your great cause by divid-
ing your efforts and by sharpening the wits, tied fears, and
dislikes of all the influential of the country against you.
Surely you stand in no need of enemies—you want
friends. If the great and the influential will not befriend
you, let them be thrown at once into the false position of
opposing you; not in revolutionary movements, but in
every legal and constitutional effort to obtain your just
rights, and no more.

_.,
My dear friends, in adverting to particulars in your
favour, I have just intimated to you the Constitution of
your country; the complete trial now made of the two
heretofore leading pr.rties in the State, Whigs and
Tories; the tottering condition of the State Church ; and
the present prevailing opinion of the state of our laws.
In adverting to a few of those things which 1 deem to be
against you, I placed first a sort of class-prejudice, or pre-
possession, arising from situation in life of perhaps the
best and ablest and most influential amongst the
rich and powerful of all mankind. The next particular
was an undeniable hankering amongst yourselves after
what is called physical force. The last was the great
split amongst yourselves, some of whom are but too mani-
festly aiming at revolution, and a new form of Constitu-
t onal Government.
I would conclude my present address by respectful but
firm intimations of what I deem it best for you to do.
If I were ill and in danger of death, I would get the
best medical aid in the world, if I could. A like proce-
dure I would recommend to ycu in your political extre-
mity. Get the best political aid in the world, if you can.
In the American world of worthies, Washington VCRs the
Colossus. In Ireland mainly, but with a stride across the
Channel, and one toe at least on the British shore, stands
pre-eminent the noble O'Connell. In Great Britain,
whom have we? A set of the puniest legislators, with
the fewest honourable exceptions that ever disgraced the
annals of a so-called free country ! Cherish the excep-
tions; tions ; and then, give away all the rest, with (if reed be) a
premium, to any country or people who want legislators
able and willing to do nothing.
out
But amongst the exceptions, who is he who stands
superlatively pre-eminent for exalted genius, and almost
boundless stores of knowledge and unapproachablenappnr,yhotachable or a-
t o ry, and manifestly sincere,
and now at length close
approximation to genuine constitutional English° liberty ?
Formally to pronounce a name when the
very man is
present to the minds of all is an absurdity of which I shall
not be guilty ; but I would most
earnestly beseech you,
my dear countrymen, to go at once to Lord Brougham,
and ask him to do for you, as patriots,what O'Connell
has done for the Irish, as Catholics to
gain for you com-
plete and perfect emancipation—to put you in as entire
possession of your political rights as O'Connell the Catho-
lics of their spiritual rights. Toll him in the language
of the Irish patriot, " that nothing less can satisfy you,
and that you require no more."
Approach him with your millions of signatures. One
farthing a month from five millions of you would be sixty-
two thousand a year—about the Queen's household ex-
penses. Ensure him some such sum, or a still larger;
urge it upon him as the sine qua non of your engaging
his mighty energies. I am aware of his pride—his per-
haps real pride (for that may be called pride which is en-
titled to a better name)—his real pride which may cause
him to start with abhorrence from your offer. Remind
him that a King or a Queen is not ashamed of receiving
very far mare from you annually for doing nothing at all
but eating, drinking, and enjoying themselves ; that all
officers of State, and all under them, will get what they
can for themselves and their dependents for doing very

---
I little ; that Bishops have no objection to their theusende
a year fur the saute purpose, and that he himself. though
he gave up vast fees to become Lord Chancellor. and
nobly curtailed his income as Lord Chancellor, still receives
an ex-Chancellor's retired allowance. I3atter down his
pride if you can, and wake him your f,iesci by full proof
of your friendihip towards him. Make him yours, and
you will have the ablest headpiece, and the most elorious
mouthpiece in the world, and that is what you e ant, a
guide and an expositor, undaunted. arid faithful_..
to clear your way through hosts of political
adversaris to the full attainment of your ob!eet.
My only other recommendation to you at this time shall
be to keep up petitionings amongst you to the utmost. I
will conclude that all you working man will have but one
, main object, and that will be to get into the Constitution ;
! that you may be no loneer a slave class, but that you may
all have a voice in all affairs appertaining to your own wel-
fare by the means of your own representatives in the Com-
mons' House of Parliament. Make this knows, by your
petitions, and never cease petitioeiag till you have gained
your just constitutional ends.
This method has been hitherto but very imperfectly and
clumsily tried. I doubt not but that
.you are fully able to
bring it to perfection, and to effect that the tame worded
petition, in the substance of which all agree, may be circu-
lated in small printed papers through your millions about
the same time, and that friends and neighbours may write
it out and sign it in parties conveniently for themselves,
and at the least trouble and expense, and send off the s-pa
rate petitions with their fifty, or a hundred, or ire bin
drcd, or a thousand signatures (as the case may be) by
port to their proper destinations. Strict fidelity should be
observed. No fictitious signature should be suffered. All
should be well acquainted with the substance of what they
sign. All may be done quietly and without expense, sieve
that of the least time and paper. The same thoughts
would be circulating through many minds at about the
same time with the least possible inconvenience ; and thee
an unity of purpose, aid that a most valuable purpose,
would be most surely of Never mind petitions
being thrown by hundreds of thousands under the table--
only let them be there to be so thrown—only persevere
till you accumulate millions of signatures a hundred or a
thousand times repeated. The Queen, or the Lords, or
the Commons, or all three, will ascertain the number .f
your names, will be assured of your reality and of your
resolution ; and you may depend upon it that your Rum_
hers and your importunity will most surely prevail at last.
?dv conviction is that even the present Government is wily
waiting to ascertain distinctly what the millions actually
want in order to grant it. For the present, loud voice*
and cries are supposed to be only those of a faction ; only
lee them he proved to be, those of the millions, and they
will be most undoubtedly regarded. This is fair. This
any Government would require. Less than this may
avail you naught. Look well to this ; and may God -grant
full success to your most just and well-deserving efforts.
I remain,
My worthy, though b:trcrly oppressed countrymen,
Your sinzeie well-wisher and friend,
HUMPHRY PRICE.
Needwood Parsonage, near Lichfield,
Feb. 25, 1840.

LORD J. RUSSELL AND MR. ELLIS.

Travellers' Club, Feb. 2t), 1840.
Colonel Spencer Stanhope having waited upon Lor4
John Russell this morning by appointment, laid before
him the following memorandum on the part of the
Right Hon. Henry Ellis :
" Lord John Russell is reported to have said, that
while the discussion respecting the appointment to the
newly-created office of Comptroller of the Exchequer
was going on, Lord Althorp said to him, it was matter
of regret that he, Lord Althorp, notwithstanding the
near relationship of Mr. Henry Ellis to their colleague
Lord Ripon, could not recommend Mr. Ellis os a fit
person to fill the office of Comptroller.

" These expressions of Lord John' Russell have, to
Mr. Ellis's knowledge, produced an impression that
sonic imputation existed against Mr. Ellis's character.
" Mr. Ellis is very willing to believe that Lord John
Russell had no such intention ; but Mr. Ellis at the
same time feels that it is due to himself to request from
Lord John Russell a formal declaration that he did net
mean to convey any imputation whatsoever unfavourable
to Mr. Ellis's character as a gentleman and a man of
honour.

" As the expressions of Lord John Russell have be
come public, his Lordship must he aware that Mr. Elio
purposes to make the.requested declaration squally

Copy OF LOAD JOHN RUBBELL'a REPLY.
" Vilton-crescent, Feb. 29, 1840.
" Lord John Konen did not intend, in the debate of
Thursday last, to convey any imputation whatever un-
favourable to the character of Mr. Ellis as a gentleman
and a man of honour. He ivished as newly as possible
to convey the substance of what was said in the Howie
of Commons on the 14th of March, 1634, when Lord
Althorp, after alluding to the office of Comptroller of
the Exchequer, declared that the appointment was one
which it rested with the Government to dispose of oa
its own responsibility."