The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-21 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1841•

ADDRESS TO THE VENAL AND
co It P r ELEC roils IN THE UNITED
KINGDOM.
• The country at this moment teems with addresses to
incorrupt and independent voters; but there does not
exist, and never has appeared such a thing as an ddress
to you, the venal and corrupt, though making, as you
notoriously do, no inconsiderable part of the constituent
body. Every one is thinking about you, and what you
are likely to do, but no one addresses you. In the most
literal sense of • the phrase, men pay their addresses to
you, and the addresses which men pay they never publish.
I ours 'are very delicate and private affairs.
For the first time it seems to us that you ought to be
addressed. Do not be alarmed. Do not for a moment
suppose that we are about to waste words on you
in reprobation of bribery, and the basem s's of selling
your country. Your reply would be the same as that of
the Irish jobber who was reproached with the infamy of
selling his country :—" Thank heaven," said he, " I
have a country to sell."
So you thank heaven you have a country to sell, and
we are not so idle as to suppose that any arguments of
ours could make you ashamed of such infamy. We are
not about to commit the folly of attempting to wash the
blackamoor white. We know that there is no soaping
such as you. Our purpose is to address you with refer-
ence only to your own interests, and to show you what
should be the state of the bribery market in the present
great crisis.
Our apprehension is, that the monopolists will over-
reach you and that you will • sell yourselves too cheap
from ignorance of what you are about in this momentous
conjuncture.
First you have to observe that none of the precedents
of bribery are applicable to present circumstances. You
had ten pounds at the last election for voting for a can-
didate who would govern a third of the kingdom on
the principle of coercion instead of conciliation. You
cared not a rush for Ireland; you cared, as you delight
to express it, for nobody but " number one." Well,
but a new questiOn has arisen, which extremely concerns
this same " number one." -What are the terms on which
the same 101. is now offered ? For ten pounds you are
to reject a measure of relief, the value of which to you
may not be less than two, three, four, or five hundred
pounds, more or less, according to the scale of your
circumstances and transactions.
Take pen, ink, and paper, and make a sober calcula-
tion of the amount of your portion of the bread-tax, the
sugar duty, and the timber duty, and cast up what the
saving would be to you from the proposed measures of
Government, You have then to reckon the 'probable
term of your life, and to multiply the yearly saving by
the number of years which you may live. This sum
you have to compare with the bribe offered you for the
sacrifice of it. Let us suppose that you have a hundred
a year, and a small family to support. We cannot esti-
mate your benefit from the reduction of the bread-tax,
sugar duties, and timber duties, at less than eight
pounds ; and let us reckon your life at twenty years'
purchase : this would give 1601., for refusing which
saving a modest gentleman has the assurance to offer
you ten pounds, forsooth He gives you 10/. to rob
you of 160/.
Why, you should offer him ten pounds, ay, and ten
times ten pounds, to obtain for you the proposed relief.
It would be well worth your while to compound for the
remission of the taxes in a bribe to your briber. It is
clearly downright idiocy in you to fix yourself with a
charge of hundreds for a paltry bribe of tens.
We are prepared to prove that bribery ought to change
sides, and that it is more your interest to bribe your
candidates to support the measures of relief, than to take
a miserable pittance to defeat the much larger benefit
proposed for you by the Government.
The calculation we have sketched out for you is far
from' complete. It does not include the advantages in
which you may be concerned from the extension of com-
merce, nor the interests which your children have in
the proposed relief. Your voice may now not only fix
burdens on yourself, but on your posterity. Money saved
is money got, and for a miserable trifle will you sell
away the handsome amount of money to be saved and
got by yourself and your children after you, by the re-
duction of heavy and injurious taxes ?
It would be vain to implore you not to be rogues, but
don't be at once rogues and fools. Have a care that the
biter is not bit. The monopolist who buys your vote,
buys at the same time the power of repaying himself
tenfold, or more, out of your pocket. You begin repay-
ing him with the very next morsel you put into your
mouth. As in the sucking pumps, you must throw down
a cup of water to make the instrument work so as to
bring up tuns, so the Monopolist throws a few pounds
into your pocket to pump it up again at cent. per cent.
interest. The mouth with which you give your vote
for him pays tolls to him in every morsel that it takes
in. You are thus overreached, and heavily the loser by
bribery. If the monopolist gave you a hundred pounds
for your vote, he would not give you the equivalent for
what he deprives you of. Now we know how useless it
would be to expatiate to you on the cruel injury you do
to society by selling. your vote to those who support
systems of restriction at the expense of its vital
interests; if you profited by the bargain you would trouble
yourselves little-about the damage to the rest of the com-
munity, but yet you are not in love with mischief,
it is pelf that ysu are in love with, and we are sure that
we only do you justice in supposing that you would not
do an injury to your country without some benefit to
yourselves—much more, that you would do an injury to
your country in which you yourselves would be sharers.
Now this is what you have to consider. One of our
-r-great,--satirists makes his prince .of rogues once_ resolve
on an honest line of conduct, becanSe, -after the most
anxious consideration, he could iaot see how anything
was to be got by a knavish course. This is precisely
what we would make you understand. .We do not call
upon you to be honest for once because of the satisfac-
tion of honesty—we: might as well invite the blind
to the choice of any particular colour because of its
beauty—but we argue that you shoulcithe honest in this
crisis because'you have nothing to gain comparable with
with what you must lose by any other course of conduct.
Your option is'this : Government offers you a great be-
nefit—the monopolist offers you a paltry sum that you
may forego the greater gain. What man with a particle
of sense, not to mention honesty to you, will hesitate
as to the choice ?
If you look at the thing in the gross, you will see at
once what a bubble bargain the corrupter would drive
with you.
A great authority in financial statistics, the writer of
a tract called " The Many sacrificed to the Few by the
Food Monopoly," calculates the enhancement of prices
by the system improperly called protective, thus :
Grain of all kinds £21,860,928
Meat • 10,583,333
Butter and cheese 4,246,666
Timber
Tallow

•
£44,790,927
which is equal to seven-eighths of the amount raised by
taxation for purposes of revenue in the year 1840.
Tke same authority, in another publication on the in-
terests favoured at the public expense, estimates the ef-
fect, direct and indirect, of all to amount to a burden of
a hundred millions annually.
Now we ask you to consider what is your share in this
enormous burden, and what compensation for it can be
any bribe that the- monopolists can • offer you. Why,
they would bribe you by tens and burden you by
hundreds. Their bribe is occasional, annual their burden
to be continued through the bribe. Can you be so
penny
_knavish and pound foolish as to accede to such

terms ?
You hear much, no doubt, of the sums subscribed at
the Carlton Club for your corruption ; but, if they
amount to a million, they are but the hundreth part of
the burden which the monopolists annually impose
on the country, according to the quoted calculation of
one of our best practical economists. Now if you,
the venal and corrupt, bear but a hundredth
part of the burden, a bribe of a million only gives
you the equivalent of one years' charge, and you
are bribed with the compensation for one year's
charge, and you are charged for years ,to
come, and your children after you. Will any man
out of Bedlam consent to so ruinously losing a bar-
gain ? Bribery heretofore has been a very different
thing from what bribery is now ; base it always has
been, and always must be, nut it is vain to talk to you
of that ; but it is also, in this crisis, a preposterons folly,
for you are to be bribed to deny yourselves something
incomparably more beneficial to you than the bribe. But
your cupidity may rise with this proposition, and you
may say, " The monopolist may give us in ready money
the value of our interest in the relief project." He must,
then, give you bribes of hundreds, which with your
numbers, in too many constituencies, would amount to
thousands, and to sums which you will find your cor•
rupters not prepared to expend on you. A rise in your
bad market corresponding at all to the interests which
you have at stake in the scheme of relief, would raise
the prices of corruption beyond the means of your buyers.
You would on such terms exhaust your corrupters.
We have exemplified the present fallacy of bribery in
the gross. We will now illustrate it in an apparently
very small instance.
You have heard a vast profession of concern for the
inters sts of the farmers and agricultural labourers, of
some of both which classes some of you whom we now
address doubtless are. Many of the small farmers and
labourers occupying cottages, with a little garden, small
orchard, or the like, used to make their few ponnds a
year by the sale of fruit for preserving. The high
price of sugar for the last two or three years destroyed
the market for their produce, which was left to rot, or
thrown to the pigs. The monopolist offers these poor
people a bribe of five or ten pounds to elect him, and to
empower him to put a negative on the reduction of the
foreign sugar duties. Why, his bribe will not compen-
sate for the lost fruit of any one past year, to say no-
thing of the future, or of the enhanced price of food to
the little farmer or labourer ' • and, poor as the man may
be, it would be better worth his while to sell his bed to
give a bribe to the candidate to vote against the mono-
polies, than to receive one to enable the candidate to
continue his burdens. The instance we have given shows
but a, partial effect of one monopoly, and that not the
greatest ; but when such are partial effects, what must
be the full consequences of the monopolies ?
And you have all your own experiences, if you will
but consult them. You are all to be found in the same
category, or other of the monopolists' oppressions. You
know what the misery of rising bread and falling wages
is; or you know how your household economy has suf-
fered from dear sugar; or you know the bad thrift of
using bad timber at a high price; or you know the evils
And,b
alance between the knowing these
of declining foreign markets through the refusal to take
foreign corn in exchange, and the consequent forced
growth
yofuk foreignno
whmowantuofasctrittkire thees
.
large reliefs offered to you by the Government, and the
wretched bribe of the monopolists fey the continuance of
your injurious burdens and inlrolitic restrictions.- The
nian vlio takes a bribe on such terms is nut only a con-
firmed knave, but a consummate fool.—E,.„„Ein (77r.

THE HOUR AND THE MAN ARE

- • COME !
(From the British Queen.)
It is not often that the cause, and the represents:
tion of the cause, are so Well matched as in the pending
contest in the City of London. The courage which has
always led on Lord John Russell, let the difficulty be
what it might, has not failed him in the present in-
stance. And how strongly does it contrast with the
shuffling plausibilities, and more than diplomatic silence
of his adversary Sir Robert Peel.? What the latter
dares not do, Lord John does boldly and unequivocally.
The one puts himself forward as the champion of the
great unprotected interests of. the people at large, and
states fearlessly on what he rests his case. The other
is the advocate of the great protected interests,, but
shrinks from the avowal of the grounds of his advocacy.
As Mr. Ward has very happily stated, in his address to
the electors of Shettield,—the present is a strug-
gle for the real fruits of • the Reform Act. De-
terred by the strength of the interests arrayed
against them, the Government forebore to urge on
Parliament the full concession of the rights of the
people. But when events offered them a reason and a
justification, which even the anti-monopolists must feel
the force of, they die' not shrink, even in their day of
weakness, from fully
avowine, their policy and enforcing

the necessity of yielding to it.
It was to be expected that those classes whose. self-
will has been fostered by their ascendancy in the State
during half a century (and some, indeed, for centuries),
would arise, and with one voice proclaim their dissatis-
faction with measures which would in some measure
lower that ascendancy. We had expected even more
energetic opposition to the Government measures ; but
we are rejoiced to find that so many of the friends of the
people, who have served them so long in their struggles
for political liberty, have been true to them in those for
commercial freedom, in which a narrow self-interest
might have dictated a different course. In fact the Li-
berals, as a body, have been true to the people's cause.
On the other hand, the Tories, as
a hotly, have been
opposed to it.
The mask has been thrown aside. The solemn pre-
tence, by which Sir Robert Peel has veiled the more
earnest purposes of his party are,
we will not say
abandoned, but not used for the present, simply be-
cause the party are too conscious of its. futility. Whe-
ther to damage his own advocacy or not we will not
pretend to determine ; but Sir R. Peel's repudiation of
the views of the anti-slavery party, which, were the only
ones that gave any moral sanction to the iniquitous re-
sistance of his party. to the alteration of Sugar Duties,
was a foretaste of the reckless presumptiOn with which
the Tory policy was henceforth to be enforced.
The recent rejection of the Administration of Justice
Bill was another.
But all this is matter for the rejoicing of Liberals.
We know our men ; and the people will soon know them
too—unless, regardful in time of the consequences of
bringing back the Tories; to power upon an anti-free
trade policy too, they shall resolve to give to Ministers
a majority in the next Parliament, and to establish for
ever the principle of free trade.
We are glad that Lord John Russell has put the
matter upon this plain issue. Never were people ad-
dressed on grounds so palpably accordant with their own
interests ; and if they forego them, in order to place the
Tories in power, and to defeat, perhaps, for half an age,
the beneficent efforts of the Financial Ministers of Go-
vernment, then the people must be vastly in love with
Toryism, and more fond of party conflict than of the
substantial fruits of good legislation and good Govern-
ment.
If this be so, it may still be worth the while of peace-
loving people to inquire what their friends the Tories
will do with the Chartists. We have before us an ex-
cellent address by the Council of the Chartists at Bath,
addressed to the Chartists of that city. In this document
they recommend that Lord Duncan and Mr. Roebuck, the
Liberal candidates, should be supported by the Chartists,
on the ground of the excellent measures of the Govern-
ment, and of the prospects which these measures afford
of more equitable legislation in future. In other places-
similar language and similar conduct are held by the
Chartists; and though they express themselves distrustful
of public men, they seem dispoSed to how themeelves
more reasonable and practicable, on account of the im-
provement in the policy of the Government.
They naturally ask themselves—If the Tories werelto
come into power, would they exhibit a policy like this? -
Now, is it of no consequence to give a reasonable turn
to. the ways of thinking, and to the conduct of . the great
masses of our population ? to make them feel that they
are governed in Justice ? that if the coercive part of Go-
vernment be applied, it is accompanied by its opposite ;
that the men who rule are friends of .the people, and
attached by habit as well as by principle, and willing, by
publicity and by free election, to render themselves
amenable to popular control.
The absurdest part of the pretensions of the Tories,
and of the blindness of the Tory-Radicals, is, that the
former claim credit for having been successful in defeat-
ing the good intentions of the Government, while .the
latter refuse credit and support to the Government, be-
cause they have not had strength to give effect to those
intentions. Why, this is not a case for withdrawing
confidence in the Government ; it is, on the contrary,
a case for giving them more active and*vigorous support.
The men of business of London would say, that
should be very cold language to use in regard to a banker
or a merchant, of deserved credit, but by some sudden
exigency put in jeopardy, that assistance .and support
should be withheld because the support was needed:
But, in point of fact, the cause is our own, and we
are -not-ft:tang-to be to-silly as-to suffer onr friends to be
beaten, simply because- they are weak, and to allow our
enernios to take :their places, because they are already
oo strong to do mischief. •

WHOLESALE INTIMIDATION.
That, in a time of considerable excitement like the
present,• there should be many instances of influence,
amounting pretty nearly to intimidation, on the part of
eniployers towards their servants, is perhaps more to be
regretted than wondered at ; and that, in the struggles
going on in this town, such instances have not ,been
confined to any one party, we are quite prepared to be-
lieve. Men naturally of a harsh and despotic character,
and others labouring under an excitement so strong as
to extinguish their • sense of justice; are unfortunately
to be found on all sides ; and such men, whatever their
political opinions may be, will occasionally try to force
them .upon others ; but it is something new, in this
borough at least, to find candidates •sending. round air-
culars to employers, and requesting them, in cautious
and guarded language certainly, but in language which
cannot be mistaken, to 'coerce their servants and de-
pendants. We have now before us a litithographed cir-
cular,—lithographed, if we ave not mistaken, from the
handwriting of Sir George Murray himself, and signed
by both the candidates,—couched in the following
terms : Manchester, . June 14, 1841. ,
Sir,—lt has been repeatedly and strongly pressed upon
our attention by the executive Committee of the Conser-
vative party, that there is one element of success which
has not yet been so fully employed as it might be,—that
is, the legitimate influence which attaches to property,
station, and character in society. The number of indivi-
duals possessing such influence in Manchester is very
great, and the preponderance of it is believed to be de-
cidedly on the Conversative side ; but it is much ques-
tioned whether it has yet been exercised with the same
activity, energy, and perseverance, which has characte-
rized its use by the opposite party.
The importance in the existing crisis, as well with
reference to the relief of the country from its present
difficulties, as with reference to its future and permanent
welfare,, does not seem to admit of any doubt. It ap-
pears- equally clear that a favourable opportunity now
presents itself for recalling the minds of the people from
those unsettled views and excited feelings which have too
long exercised dominion over them ; and to substitute the
influence of moderate, reflecting, and impartial men, for
that which the state of the world has enabled agitators
and intemperate partizans to acquire. .
Should these considerations appear worthy of atten-
tion, permit us to request your valuable support to
them, and the active exercise of your influence with
those who may be likely to show deference to your opi-
nions.—We have the honour to be, Sir, your most obe-
dient and faithful hunible servants,
GEORGE MIJRRAY,
WILLIAM ENTIVISLE.„:
Neither the parties to whom the ungrammatical epistle
is addressed, nor those who read it in•our columns, will
doubt for a moment what is meant by employing " the
legitimate influence which attaches to property, station,
and character in society." It is obvious, that the inten-
tion of the writers (who seem to have as little regard for
the due relation of masters to their servants, as of verbs
to their nominative cases) is to induce employers, and
other parties possessing influence, to coerce and compel
their sery ants and dependants to vote against the con-
victions of their own consciences, and to give their sup-
port to candidates to whom they are opposed.—Mitn-
chester Guardian.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.
(From the Hampshire Telegraph.)
PORTr3MOUTH, J UNE 19.—The Electra, 16, Commextier
Mainwaring, came into harbour yesterday, having be en
previously inspected by the Commander-in-Chief, :Sir
Edward Codrington. She is ordered to be paid off ttll
standing, for re-commissioning. She has at present a
capital crew.
The Seaflower cutter arrived this morning from Jersey,
to refit.
The Emerald and Mercury tenders arrived to-d ty,
from Devonport, with seamen.
The Vernon,‘so, Captain W. Walpole, is ordered to
the Mediterranean station.
The Fair Rosamond schooner, Lieut. Bulman, w.rnt
out of harbour on Monday last, and sailed yesterday :for
the coast of Africa.
The treasure brought home by the Electra on Sat ar-
day last, and amounting to several waggon loads, was all
delivered at. the Bank of England, on Monday mornii tg,
by Mr. Lindegren, such already being the facility giv en.
for the transit of heavy goods, by means of the railway.
PROMOTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS.
PROMOTlONS.—Lieutenant—B. J. Sullivan, to the ra
nk
of Commander. •
Mates—R. R. Western (1834), and E. M. Lyt
ns
(1838), to the rank of Lieutenant.
Assistant-Surgeon—W. T. Rogers (from the Soul 1-
ampton) to the rank of Surgeon, and to the Fantome.
APPOINTMENTS.—Lieutenant—J. Borlase. to the I :x-
-callent ; H. G. Morris, to the Champion ; J. H. Boo: ter
(re-appointed) to the Savage.
Surgeons—Daniel King (from the Monarch) to i;he
Cornwallis ; Alfred Cutfield, to the Champion ; Jc hn
Gannon, to the Monarch.
Assistant-Surgeons—G. 1). Macdonald, to the Quo en;
J. Phillips, to the Savage.
Masters—R. Knox, to the Champion ; W. Jeffery., to
the Tortoise ; G. T. Charles, to the Bittern ; J. R.
Lafer, to the Dublin.
Naval Instructor and Schoolmaster—W. P. Samb ;11,
to the Calcutta ; W. Whitmarsh, to the Vernon.
Second Master—W. H. Williams, to the Savage.
Purser—W. L. Freeman, to the Champion.
Mates—Robert Hopkins, to the Savage ; W. D. C ir-
roll, to the Royal George, vice Voules, to the F air
Rosamond.
Clerk in Charge—W. P. O'Brien, to the Savage.
Gunner—Edward Holland, to the Savage. . •
Boatswain—J. Body, to the Champion.
Carpenter—J. Widger, to the Champion.
PLYMOUTH, JUNE 17.—The Acorn, 16, Commander
John Adams, sailed for the coast of Africa on the 11 th
instant, and the Edinburgh, 72, Captain W. W. Hrst-
derson, for Portsmouth. The Avon steamer, LieuteM on
R. D. Pritchard, Commander, sailed for Falmouth on the
12th instant ; the Nightingale, 10, Lieutenant Wink=
Southey, for Bristol ; and the Alert packet, Lieutenant
Jennings, for Falmouth, to take the Mexican mail. The
Jaseur, 16, Commander F. M. Boultbee, went out of
Harbour into the Sound, and waits for orders.- The
Savage, 10, was paid off on the 11th instant, and re-
commissioned the next day by Lieutenant J. H. Bowl:, tr.
The Champion, 18, was commissioned on the 16th in st.
by Commander R. Byron ; and the Trinculo, 16, was
taken into dock, to be forwarded for commission.
In Harbour—Caledonia, San Josef, Champion, Savage,
and Carron steamer.
In the Sound—lmpregnable, Implacable, Belleide,
Cornwallis, and Jaseur.
(From the Hampshire Independent.)
PORTSMOUTH, JUNE 19.—The Scout, 18, and Serpent,
16, have been commissioned at Chatham for foreign

service.
The steamers Comet, Meteor, and Shearwater, have
sailed from Chatham for the North Seas, in search of
the wreck of the Fairy.
The Espoir brig, Lieut. Paulson, which sailed from
Lisbon on the 18th ult. to look after the missing stea m-
packet, President, returned on the 4th of June, having
touched at the islands of Madeira and Teneriffe, unfor-
fortunately without, notwithstanding she spoke several
vessels during her cruise, gleaning any intelligence of
the object of her search.
The Owen Glendower, Captain Toiler, a fine India-
man, of nearly a thousand tons burthen, sailed on Taas-
clay last for Madras and Bengal.
'Upon the arrival of the Alban steamer, with the depot
of the 32d regiment from Dublin, she was found to re-
quire repairs, and the 82d depot will not, therefore,
embark in her before Monday or Tuesday next.
The Portsmouth Division of Royal Marines will be
inspected, in the course of a few' days, by our Lieute-
nant-Governor, Sir Hercules Pakenham.
The arrangement respecting the 72d Regiment has
been altered, and that corps will not now march for Wind-
sor, until relieved here by a regiment from America.
It is currently reported that Admiral Sir Charles Adam
will hoist his flag on board the Queen, 110, immediately
after the dissolution of Parliament, and take the com-
mand of the Mediterranean squadron. The St. Vincent,
120, will be commissioned at this port, for the flag of Sir
E. Codrington.

SPANISH BONDS.

TO RICHARD THORNTON, ESQ., CHAIRMAN OF THE COM.

MITTEE OF % PORTUGUESE BONDHOLDERS.
My dear Sir—As a very important meeting, which
takes place to-morrow in our borough; will deprive me
of the pleasure of attending the committee, I have just
sketched out the outline of a plan for consideration, if you
deem it worthy of such.
In the absence of a public meeting being convened
forthwith for the purpose of knowing the opinion of the
bondholders as to the best line of policy to be adopted in
-future, I think it would be very advisable to have a -Shen,
clear; comprehensive, and appealing address to the Mem-
bers of Parliament, drawn up and forwarded to them with
as little delay as possible,—one that would not take morel
than ten minutes to read, and calling upon them, when
,in - Parliament, to demand that justice should. be
done.. to the bondholders. Amongst the circum-
stances connected with - these claims, I think it only
due to the bondholders firmly to maintain that they were
prompted to the consideration of these investments from
a sympathy towards the sufferings of the emigrants,
and m conformity- with the divine and natural law which
tells every man that he must look upon his fellow-cria-
ture as his neighbour, and entitled, if in distress, to his
assistance and protection.
After these addresses have been circulated, it would be
advisable to have a list, headed as follows, and carried
round to the committee-rooms of the metropolitan mem-
bers for their 'Signatures, and which might be obtained
in one or two days :

LIST. •
" It being on record that one hundred million sterling
and upwards has been lent by British subjects to 'various
foreign governments, and on which the interest has been
fraudulently withheld for a period fluctuating between
five and fifteen or more years—whereby an amount of
5,000,0001. is annually withdrawn from this country, or
in, other words, a tax of 5,000,000/., is levied on the
nation at large, and individuals in particular, without
the solitary satisfaction of this tax re-circulating in the
country, leading to hundreds and thousands,. of families,
once in the enjoyment of every luxury and comfort in
life, being plunged into the most abject state of wretch-
edness-and destitution, we the undersigned are of opi-
nion this is a case which demands that protection from
the British Government which will lead to justice being
obtained."
On the signatures of the metropolitan Members being
granted, the same should be printed and forwarded to all
the principal towns throughout the United Kingdom,
where agents, if not honorary, at a trifling expense,
might be appointed through - our individual influence
'with the London bankers and newspaper agents, to pro-
cure the signatures of the provincial Members of Par-
liament, and prepare petitions to Parliament for signa-
tures by the electors at the time of polling at the elections.
I do not think the expenses would be great, whilst I
calculate on the result as very effectual.
Should this plan be approved of our very excellent Se-
cretaries of State for the Foreign and Home Departments,
could soon draw up a very powerful and effective

address.
With best wishes that the exertions of the Committee
may be rewarded by a realliation of their expectations.
Believe me, very truly, yours,
CHARLES COCHRANE.
• 26, Devonshire-place, Thursday, June 15, 1841.

CORN-LA WS.—GLASGO W.
At a meeting of the Town Council of the• City of
Glasgow, held on Thursday last, the 17th inst., it was
resolved, on the motion of Mr. David Bell, seconded and
supported by Baillies Mitchell and Hamilton, &c. &c.,
to petition both Houses of Parliament in favour of a
moderate fixed duty beingi imposed on the importation
of foreign corn, in place of the existing graduated scale.
Mr. P. Cumming moved, as an amendment, the pre-
vious question ' • seconded by Mr Andrew Wingate.
On the vote being taken, four declined to vote, twelve
supported the motion, and only three supported the
amendment of the previous . question. Thus the repre-
sentatives of the great City 'of Glasgow (by the present
census 270,000 inhabitants) may be said to have been
unanimous in favour of the measures recommended by
Government as to the Corn-laws.
The following is a copy of the petition to the House
of Commons, transmitted for presentation to the city
members—Messrs. Oswald and Dennistoun. (A similar
petition was also forwarded to Lord Melbourne, to ho
presented by his Lordship to the House of Lords) :
" To the Honourable the Commons of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parlia-
ment assembled,
" The humble petition of the Lord Provost, Ja-
gistrates, and Common Council of the City
of Glasgow,
"Showeth—That your petitioners feel called on at the
present time to bring, under the notice of . your Honour-
able House the injurious effect of the existing Corn-laws
on the trade and general prosperity of the country.
" That the fluctuating scale of duties now in operation
arc attended with many. prejudicial consequences, and
your petitioners are of opinion that a moderate fixed duty
on the importation of corn should be substituted in place
of the existing graduated scale.
May it, therefore, please your Honourable House to
take the subject of the Corn-laws into your early and
deliberate consideration, with a view to the establish-
ment of a moderate fixed duty on the importation of corn.
Signed by me, Lord Provost and Chief Magistrate
of the City of Glasgow, at Glasgow, in name and by ap
pointinent of the Magistrates and Council of the saiti
city ; in testimony whereof the seal of the said city is
hereunto affixed.
(Signed) " JAMES CAMPBELL, Lord Provost."