The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-08 00:00:00

MINISTERIAL MOVEMENTS.

At the Privy Council appointed to be held at half-
past two o'clock this afternoon, at Buckingham Pa-
lace, the principal Officers of State of the Queen's
Household, Lords LIVERPOOL, DELAWARE, and JER-
SEY, will resign their offices of Lord Steward, Lord
Chamberlain, and Master of the Horse, and will, it
is expected, be replaced by Lords FORTESCUE and
SPENCER, and the Duke of NORFOLK.
The Vice-Chamberlain, Lord ERNEST BRUCE, and
the Controller of the Household, Colonel DAWSON
DAMES, are also expected to resign their respective
offices this day, the latter to be succeeded by Lord
MARCUS HILL.

The new Ministerial arrangements being com-
pleted, her MAJESTY and Prince ALBERT are expected
to take their departure to-morrow (Thursday) from
town, on their return to Osborne House, Isle of
Wight. _

In gratitude to that illustrious Association which
has so recently achieved for us the emancipation of
commerce from all unnatural imposts, and in remem-
brance of the moral valour, the integrity, the untiring
zeal, and the abilities displayed during seven sue-
cessive years, we feel impelled to respond in a few
simple but earnest sentences to the "Farewell Ad-
dress" from the League, already published in our
columns. By a kind of prescriptive right, all societies
are accustomed, on their dissolution, to indulge them-
selves by the expression of considerable self-com-
placency and self-gratulation. The effect produced
by this custom varies of course with the different cha-
racters of the different "bodies corporate" who thus
pronounce over themselves their own funereal pane-
gyric : some elicit our merriment by the disproportion
of their services and of their eulogiums ; others, on the
contrary, compel us to coincide in their laudatory
sentiments by the extreme utility of their career—
their words are assented to because their deeds have
been so conspicuously worthy of commendation.
Precisely of the latter class was that gigantic body
which with one weapon alone, that of reason,
environed by one prestige alone, that of unanimity,
and defended by one safeguard alone, that of peace-
fulness, has fought the good fight of the people and
gained a victory over the minds and the hearts of
their most obdurate antagonists. Having done so
much, and having done it moreover so admirably,

it becomes only a source of the sincerest
satisfaction to discover in the "Farewell Ad-
dress" of the organ of that association the conscious-
ness of its own pacific and beneficent qualities. What
squeamish modesty of phrase ought, indeed, to be
rationally expected from a huge society like the
League, when it is remembered that its triumph is in
truth " not of force, but of reason ; not of
ambition, but of benevolence ; not of a
party, but of the United Empire ;
and, we
might add, of the universal humanity ?" It is only
consistent, however, to the spirit which has through-
out its memorable course presided over its councils,
in accompanying its language of jubilation at the
achievement of free trade with nothing in the slight-
est degrr capable of arousing the animosity,
of embittering the discomfiture, or of agitating the
a•ositivaness of the defeated faction. A very genial