The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-01 00:00:00

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

( From the Brighton Gazette.)
PorassiouT DEc.3 1. —The steam-vessel Avon, Lieu•
tenant Pritchard, with men for the Monarch, 84, and Ver-
non, 50, at Sheerness. The Inconstant, 96, Captain
Pring, has arrived at Plymouth from Cork, with volunteer
seamen for general service.
Thu Vindictive, a fine frigate, to mount upwards of JO
guns, is preparing here with every despatch for commis-
sion; and at Plymouth also are two more of the same
class bringing forward, namely, the Portland, 50, and
America, 50.

The greatest dispatch i 3 used here in the equipment of
tho St. Vincent, 120, a three-decker of the largest class ;
she is getting rigged, and otherwise fitting for sea. The
pendant will be hoisted in about a month. The Vengeance,
84, is in the basin, rigged and masted, and only waiting
orders fur commission.
The Driver, a new steamship recently launched here,
is in dock preparing for immediate commission. She is
intended for the Mediterranean.
The Impregnable. 104, Captain Thomas Forest, C. 8.,
and Belleiste, 78, Captain Toup Nicolas. are in Plymouth
Sound, where they will complete their crews and sea
store.. They will not proceed to the Mediterranean how-
ever for sonic time.
The Indus, 84, Captain Sir James Stirling, and Tweed,
20, Cemmander Dauglas, are alongside their respective
hulks fitting out. Both ships will be ready for sea about
the 25th January. The above are the only ships equip-
ping here, but orders are daily looked for to commission
Several more.
The steam frigate Phoenix is rapidly refitting in the
harbour, to return to the Mediterranean. There is no
commander yet appointed to her. It is expected that she
will proceed about the sth of January.
The Apollo and Athol troop- ships, are nearly ready far
sea. They will go to Cork to transfer troops, the 42d
Regiment, thence to the lonian Islands.
The Neptune, 120, is to be overhauled at this :port for
commission, if necessary.
The Pelican, 16, Commander Charles Napier, and Iris,
26, Captain Nurse, are ready for departure from Sheer-
ness, and may be expected at Spithead shortly.
At Sp:thead—No vessel of war.-
In Harbour—Queen, Victory, Indus, Tweed, Royal
George yacht, Excellent, Apollo, Athol, Rapid, Phceoix,
Echo, and flag tenders.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
To-day we take our final leave of eighteen hundred
and forty, who departs to join. •• ?ancestors " with the
years beyond the Flood." • her day brings another
annual date. May the 91 •►" ear part in peace ! If we
have seen some better, there have been many worse. To
the Sovereign of these realms it has been an eventful
year ; a life-colouring, and, we trust, a life-blessing
period. Her prbspects of a happy existence, as well as
of an honourlble reign, have augmented, to the satis-

faction of all honest hearts. The promise of direct suc-
cession afforiled by the birth of the Princess Royal is
calculated to still something of the activity of faction by
abating its hopelessness. The predictions of evil omen,

which some •d• red to utter, have beer, felicitously falsi-
fied. A Hannerian succession has gone down in the

doctrine of chances. The Royal infant is a living Act
of Settlement. And thus do national considrrationt

create a halo of public interest around the deeper and
tenderer emotions of Royal mother and her illustrious

consort. In reference to her Majesty, the year has
taught decency to Tory tongues. The achievement re-

fleets credit on old Anno Donlini's powers as a school.
master. The gross and virulent abuse by which Con•

servative festivals had been characterised, is discon-
tinued. Restraint has been imposed upon the elo-
quence of the Bradshaws, Robys, and other " wine-
warmed individuals." The party found that it would

not do. They have learned what Tom Crib told a

pupil was " the best attitude of defence," viz.,
keep a civil tongue in their heads." Even Prince
Albert's Protestantism has ceased to be a subject

" to

of public anxiety. Demonstrations have been
scarce during the recess. The tone of faction
is tamer than last year. Threatenings to turn out
Ministers upon the first division have dwindled to
the bet of " a poney" upon a change by next Easter.
The path of progressive reform is evidently open
to such general union amongst Reformers as is re-
quired to take advantage of cpportunities. Symp-
toms of an advance towards union have increased ; and if,

even under all the evils of apathy and schism produced
by the disappointment of numbers at the imperfect
nr tteforra Bat, t_l‘. Tories have still been
kept in opposition, what may not be obtamea, 'c-
hef and of right, by the hearty co-operation which sin-
cere Reformers desiderate and anticipate ? The bene-
ficent measure of a cheap postage, and the multiplied
and multiplying facilities of locomotion afforded by tLic
extension of railways, have been silently carrying on

some of the best of all reforms and improvements
throughout the year. Of the benefits of either, it. is not
to b• expected that the public generally should have a
prompt and full appreciation. Such changes work like
the rains of Heaven upon the springing corn ; no one

actually sees the growth, but the harvest comes. The
amount of communication by letter has been more than
doubled, and it 14111 be more than doubled again. Per-
sonal communication between the inhabitants of different
districts has been multiplied at a far greater rate. How
much is implied of pecuniary profit, of cheapening en-
joyment, of mental stimulus, and even of moral good
By the continuance and enlargement of these agencies,
the whole island will approximate towards possessing the
social advantages of an immense town, without any of
the attendant nuisances. The sun of the year sinks
peacefully b.,10w the horizon. The clouds that seemed
to forebode a storm have parted, and arc bright with
the reflected beams of success. '['he apprehensions are
dissipated of that heaviest and fearfullest of all calami-
ties—an European war. May the new year have no-
thing pugnacious in his juvenility, but leave th world
even quieter than he found it, and more earM, dis-
posed to make the most for humanity of the means of
well-being by which we are surrounded !
(From the Times.)
When gentlemen of the Whig-Radical persuasion,
or perhaps we ought rather to say profession, are
obliged to attend a meeting of the dupes who return
them to Parliament, they should endeavour to keep

their orations out of the newspapers : not that they
have in general much credit to lose in their own per-
sons, but they expose their party—they help to show
up the Ministers. Even such a slip has been made at
Cupar, in Fifeshire, by the offspring of the most skil-
ful backstairsman of the age—by the son of the Right
Hon. Edward Ellice. Mr. Ellice, jun., has blabbed to
the Reformers the composition of the Whig party ; he
has let them know that the Whigs are utterly power-

less for the objects which the/ pretend to advance ; in
short, that their whole policy is a pretence, with
no one practical object except to keep the Tories
out, or, in plainer English, to keep themselves in.
" The Government," he said, " might not move on
so fast as many of their friends could wish ; lmut
great allowances must be made for them under the
present difficult circumstances of their position. It
should be remembered that their majority in the
Commons was extremely small ; that the majority
egainst them in the Lords was overwhelming ; that
many of their lukewarm supporters in the House of
Commons would desert them the moment they proposed
any of lhooP measures mh;eli. um. Id ndd to
the direct byluence of the people upon the Government
of the country ; and that their small majority was even
then daily decreasing, from the influence of wealth,
power, and station which the aristocracy had brought
to bear upon the constituencies." In every point of
view this passage is remarkable. In the first place, it
admits not only that the Ministerial majority is an
" extremely small" one, but that many of its constituent
members arc " lukewarm supporters". of the Adminis-
tration, and that its slender amount is even " daily de•
creasing." From almost any of the Whig vassals an ac-
knowledgment like this would have been important,
es-
pecially in immediate sequence after Mr. Gisborne's
significant admission at the Manchester dinner. But
it comes with an especial • weight from the mouth of
Mr. Edward Ellice's son, because the whole compo-
sition of the Whig Redical force, its character, or
want of character, its schisms, its reconeilements, the
screws that coerce it, the blandishments that cajole it,

all its history, even the inmost secrets of each successive
Secretary to the Treasury, and of each assistant• whip-
per-in, every note or message in any way referable to
the business of voting, or to the still more delicate af-
fair of pairing, however " private, confidential, and ini-
mediate"--all these things have been known to the
orator's Right non. Parent, from the very beginning of
the Whig dynasty, down to the present mouth of De-
cember, 1840 ; insomuch that by this time, in so well-
trusted and clever a functionary, for such undoubtedly
he has been approved—
" --- Long experience cloth attain
" To something like prophetic strain."
It is from the son of that consummete authority that
we now receive a fresh intimation of the decayed and
still decaying state of the Whig forces and of the Whig
prospects; and if the Eilices don't know the state
of the party, there is no intelligence left among
mankind. But what is strange, unblushing avowal,
does the before-quoted passage involve of Whig chi-
canery and humbug ! The Whigs ridiculously inferior
to their rivals as men of business, and lamentably
overmatched be them in Parliamentary talent, have
yet been supported by the party of the movement,
in the expectation and on the promise of progressive
reform. Year after year has rolled away, and the
poor gaping Radicals have still been fooled with apo-
logies and assurances—apologies for the nothing
that is past, and assurances of the much that is to
come. Meanwhile the march of liberality has taken
the line of the crab ; agitation has become distasteful ;
Ministerial majorities have dwindled from hundreds
to units ; and now, a regular and well-taught Whig-
ling proclaims the Government to be utterly bank•
rupt—ay, notoriously unable to redeem any one
of its p!ed.,;ee of popular reform, lest it slioull be
deserted in that very moment by its lukewarm sup-
porters ! If that be so, was there ever anv!bin,
half so sh,,,a„ • a.: a ministry's continuance
in othee, or anything half so stupid as the continu-
ance of 'the Radical support to such a Ministry ? It
is the history of the appropriation clauses, re-acted.
They came into office to distribute the properly
of the Protestant Church among the Papists
and agitators, and they vowed, by all that was sacred
and all that was profane, to accomplish that object
or lay down their existence. They relinquished the
object, but they clung to the existence. They had
now found out something else to live for—the exten-
sion of the people's rights. It was the Whig Admi-
nistration, and the Whig Administration alone, which
would achieve this great and new design—this super-
sedeas of the settlement which but eight years ago it
had held out to the country as final. Tho Whig Ad-
ministration alone had the means of uniting all classes
of Reformers, and forcing freedom against a reluctant
aristocracy. More years elapse, and the little trades-
men begin to think that they have given credit enough,
and are entitled at least to something on account. But
when any of them mentions any little bill of long stand-
ing, and humbly hopes that something will be forthcom-
ing after Christmas, the fine gentlemen who form the
committee of direction for Old England resolve that the
request is out of reason, or out of season, and that if they
were to attempt such a thing as the discharge of their lia-
bilities they would be ruined that very moment—" the
moment they proposed any of those measures, their luke-
warm supporters would desert them.' So says Mr. Ellice,
jun., one of the connections of the firm. Will none of the
parties whom theyhave solong been putting off with empty
promises, get up and ask them why they entered into
engagements which they are thus forced to own them.
selves incapable of fulfilling ? They have their answer
ready :—" To keep out the Tories." And thus says
Mr. Ellice, jun., with perfect gravity, to the patriots
of Cupar—" Granting that they had merely kept out
the Tories, I would still contend they have promoted
the interests of the people." The argument is most
satisfactory,"and runs thus:—You must help us to keep
out the Tories, because we shall carry a series of re-
forms which a Tory Goverment would stifle. Well,
but when you confess that you cannot, and dare not
try to carry out any of these reforms, why should we
be helping you any longer to keep out the Tories ? Oh,
because—because by your help we do keep out the
Tories. This sort of reasoning has gone down pretty
well with the Radicals to the south of the border ; but
the men of Cupar, though stupid enough to be Radi-