The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-17 00:00:00

come the dtepes of factiml,. designin,, dishonest d'.4.1'4
tors—( Hear, he'af)---unti thus, when the legitimatt, in-
fluence is removed of the ptrnieious, the baneful influ-
ence, then will be the terrible; the awful results.—
(Hear, hear.) And, my Lords, I hattl,yeen astonished
to hear this species of offence palliated as, Yrs on th, a
" political offence ;" whereas it is justly the object of
the highest detestation and abhorrence, not only in point
of law, but substantially and morally—is the worst of all

11 crimes, because there is hardly any other crime to

which it does not lead—(Hear, hear, hear)—and
which will not lye seen under its accursed colours
pillage, insecurity of piroverty, insecurity of lite, de-
.

struction of life, massicre whole*ale, are involved in
this worst of all crimes, war—nay, civil war, worse

still, is the natural result of this crime, high treason ;
and surely there is none which should be more detested
or more severely visited.—(Hear, hear.) And the
more so, because if successful, it would be sure of im-
punity, and, therefore, I am astonished to hear some of
the false guides of the people arguing that a crime
which lies only in " compassing," in " designing," cannot
be very great. Why, my Lords, the crime consists
in this " compassing," just because, if successful, the
perpetrator; '.could be our Tudors, and therefore secure
against punishment. Whoever, therefore, leads, either

n Yorkshire or in Wales, assemblies, too numerous

for discussion, and whose very force is sufficient to

show that is not to debate but to break the peace that

hey were called together—( H ear, hear)---whoever

shall among these multitudes proceed to scatter the

flakes of sedition, and the harangues of treason—whoever
shall teach them to look to any quarter but the Legisla-
ture for the redress of grievances, or alterations in the
institutions of the country—whoever shall hold out the

seditious—l had almost said the treasonable—doctrine,
that if the Sovereign dare to change her councils, there

s an end to the peace of the country, and the allegiance

of her subjects is dissolved—( Cries of " Hear, hear)—
whoever holds that language to such assemblies, is the
proximate, not the remote, cause of the breaches of the
peace which may follow—( Hear)—and if he with-
draw himself from the combat he has excited, if
from the perils he has created he keeps himself safe,
and leaves his dupes to the risks in which he has in-
volved them, that person has the blood which is shed
upon his own head—(Hear, hear)—even though from

some unaccountable reason he evades the sentence of

the law.—(Hear, hear.) My Lords, I trust that all
offenders will have justice administered to them, on
such principles, in such a spirit, as it has recently
been administered—with the utmost learning, with the
gravest industry, with the most patient attention, with
the most perfect temper and decorum—nay, even
suavity, towards the unhappy culprits.—(Hear, hear,
hear.) And when the matter shall leave the hands of
judges, and come into those of statesmen, I trust
that justice will also be administered in a like
merciful and humane spirit, and that the blood which
has been shed, with such secondary punishments as
shall be deemed appropriate to the heavy guilt of the
offenders, will be all that the law's offended majesty
will require.—(Hear, hear.) But my Lords, I must
say, that if there have been other persons in other
parts of the empire who have held a like course—
(Hear, hear, hear)—if they have done all that I have
described—if they have thus been the proximate cause
of rebellion—even should such rebellion not have ac-
tually occurred—it would indeed be strange to say that
the conduct which gained one set of men a gibbet, should
for another gain—not punishment—but patronage—
(Hear, hear, hear, and cheers)—and my Lords, I con-
fess that I should be unable to discover the reason for
the distinction in the fact that certain circumstances
combined with the offence, by one set of men, have not
been displayed by the other. As for instance, I have
not heard that any of those men in Wales have been ac-
customed to play alternately the part of the slanderer and
the sycophant—(Loud cheers)—one day pouring forth
the venom of a foul defamation, and another, pouring
out the still more nauseous slaver of a coarse, over-
done, fulsome, and offensive adulation.—(Loud cheers.)
Another difference may be marked between the two,
which is this : I have not found even among the
Welchmen that the exhortations to rise—the fiery at-
tacks upon all respected men, and all venerable institu-
tions—the incentives flung about among the combus-
tible mass to make them kindle into a blaze—l do not
find, my Lords, in Wales that these have been followed
up with such words as these—" Pray do nothing
against the peace—pray be quiet"—(Laughter)—any
more than I ever heard of these excited Welchmen
throwing oil upon the flame, and beseeching it not to
burn, or scattering fire-brands among gun-powder, and
begging it would not explode.—( Cheers and laugh-
ter.) They had less confidence in their
power over their dupes and followers. They
address themselves to a people who are incapable of
being taken in by any such stuff—they are too honest
to deal in such gross and scandalous falsehoods.—
There is another circumstance of difference which cer-
tainly distinguishes them. I am not aware that, bad
as the Welch and Yorkshire proceedings have been—
highly injudicious in their origin—leading to acts of trea-
son—tending, no doubt, to breaches of the peace and
to rebellion against the Government—bad as they had
been, highly to be reprobated—detestable acts worthy
of all punis'ament which mercy tempering justice would
allow—at least they don't seem to have had any sordid
end in view. They don't seem to have had a
design of raising a cry in order to enable the
perpetrator of the sedition also perpetrated an inroad on
the exhausted resources of their famished followers.--
(Cheers.) No such sordid views (and it is almost the
only merit that their proceedings can be said to have), no
such base, moan, sordid views appear to have been the
motives of those proceedings against the peace.—( Hear. )
Those three circumstances which I have mentioned, no
doubt, distinguish the one class from the other; but how
far they afford a reason for the totally opposite course
which has been pursued towards the followers of sedition
in two different parts of the empire, I leave to your Lord-
ships' penetration and calm reflection to decide.—(Hear,
and laughter.) Nevertheless, that this outbreak, that this
sedition, that this excitement to tumult could never have
been resorted to, and much more, never could have been
successful, if there had not been in the body of the
people an aptitude for receiving them, and to break
out into discord, I hold is perfectly self-evident,
and to be one of the most melancholy distinguishers
of the present day. But, my Lords, this is not all. I
observe now, for the first time, a universal alienation of
one great class of the community from all that stands
above it. The great labouring population of the country
are no longer knit in the bonds even of amity—even of
neutrality. The wildest doctrines have been spread—doc-
trines that go to the root of all property—not of this or
that Government—not of this or that form of polity even
—not of this or that country even—but which go to sap
the foundations of civil society itself. Those doctrines,
denying the right of property, the foundation, the corner-
stone on which society is built—the right of property is
denied—the propriety of unfixing all its rules and all its
titles is openly agitated ; and this is addressed to hun-
dreds of thousands of the people, though I would fain
hope not yet to anything like a considerable extent.
This wild doctrine, which has bewildered imaginations and
troubled spirits, has not had yet any great support, notwith-
standing the activity with which it has been distributed. But
one success has attended those efforts—it has alienated the
bulk of the people. The labouring population from the capi-
talists of this country, and from all classes of their fellow-
citizens, be they ever so little removed above them—l
mean that division which separates the unrepresented from
the represented portion of the people. My Lords—of this
there are manifest and plain symptoms in almost all the
late proceedings of the people. That you can never keep
society together by main force—that by what the Speech
from the Throne first refers to as boing powerful enough to
put down the local insurrection in Wales, you can keep so-
ciety together, and bind it into one consistent and tranquil
mass, viz.—" the vigour of Magistracy, and the good be-
haviour of troops"—that you can, by constantly applying
that to d body, every one part of which is disunited in itself,
and the great mass of which is in constant and perpetual
war with a smaller portion of it, is as utterly impossible as
it is to mix fire and water together into the samr., mass. My
Lords, it is contrary to the very nature of things—it is
contrary to the nature of man, it is contrary to the whole
nature of human society, which stands upon this law, that
direct force may remove trifling mischiefs, but it is by kind-
ness and reconcilement from reasonable men, used to rea-
sonable animals, that you can alone get a constant, perma
nent and secure peace. Perhaps your Lordships may
ask me why I dwell on these topics, which don't
excite much interest in this House. No doubt they have no-
thing to do with the displacing of one Government or the
making of another ; they have no personal reference any
more than they have a party bearing. Yet they are all that
on which a Government must act if it means to deserve the
name of a Government—it is that on which all Governments
must proceed—first in inquiring into them, and then acting
on them—
" Altius his nihil est : hsec aunt fastigia mundi :
Publica naturas domus his contents tenetur
Foribus."
They are the very limits, the bonds, the conditions, the
foundations, the essence of all the principles of our social
system. Therefore, my Lords, I make no further apology
for pursuing what I was about to state to your Lordships,
or why I dwell upon this, and make apparently, as sonic of
you may think, a theoretical and speculative, but, as I say,
in the present state of this country, most strictly practicable
use of the subject; and therefore it is that I proceed to
show why it is that I think this great severance
has taken place, and the symptoms and indications in the
consequences and effect of its present state. First, Igo
at once to the existence of Chartism. The Chartists are
by no means, in point of numbers, so contemptible a body
as many are pleased to suppose. Your Lordships would
commit a grievous error if you supposed any such thing.
They look fewer than they are, because they have no lead-
ers in whom they have great confidence. A great number
arc prepared—are all but disciplined, are bound and united
together, and are ready enough to show their numerical
force had they but leaders whom they could trust to march
with them. But I come to another fact which shows the
discrepancy of the two classes, and I know this from those
whose business it is to understand it. Was there ever a
time, till within the last two or three years, when a sedi-
tious or other political offence was prosecuted—the Govern-
ment could quite safely trust a common jury—a jury of
tradesmen and shopkeepers No such thing.
The rule
was never to think of it—acquittal would be certain—and
a special jury was always hid. Nay, as my Noble and
Learned Friend opposite knows, they would not even pray
a tales ; hut now ask any man in Westminster Hall to-mor-
row, and I will be hound the answer will be that you would
get a conviction of a common person for a seditious and
political offence, by any common Jur.y you can put into the
box. Now that, most undoubtedly, is a very great change,
and it betokens a very considerable difference between the