The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-31 00:00:00

It was the peculiar province of the press to expose faithless
statesmen and unprincipled politicians. The press animated
the living to exertion, and did justice to the merits of the
dead. In conclusion, he expressed the delight he felt at
witnessing such a meeting assembled to do honour to a con-
sistent patriot and honest politician.—( Cheers. )
The CHAIRMAN then gave the health of the Hon. Mr. Kin-
naird and the other friends of Lord Durham who had ho-
noured the meeting with their company.
Mr. KINNAIRD returned thanks. It was quite an unexpected
honour which the meeting had conferred upon him, as it would
be seen from the list of toasts that his brother, Lord Kinnaird,
had been expected to be present, who would have expressed,
in much better terms than he could, the feelings which such an
occasion was calculated to excite. It was an honeur which
one so young as he was could hardly have anticipated, to have
his name associated with Lord Durham, and to have received
such a flattering mark of distinction from so large an assem-
blage of his couatrymen—of his countrymen who had done
themselves so much credit by the reception they had recently
given to Earl Grey in Edinburgh, and by the magnificent
manner in which they had that day, in an assemblage on the
Green, of not less than 150,000, welcomed the Earl of
Durham, another honest and consistent statesman, to the city
of Glasgow.—( Cheers.) With such an example of rewarded
merit before him, it would be his proud ambition to follow in
the footsteps of such a man. He regretted that many noble
lords of liberal principles were not there.—( Hear, hear.) He
regretted still more that some noble lords o the Tory faction
were not present, as theywould have learned a lesson that could
not be easily forgotten.—( Cheers and laughter.) He would
beg to propose " The health of the Chairman," whom he might
justly call the offspring of Reform.—( Cheers. )
The CHAIRMAN returned thanks. He had done but little in
the cause of reform, but he trusted that upon all occasions
they would find him honest in that cause.—( Cheers.) What-
ever his demerits might be, he hoped they would never have
occasion to blame him for want of consistency or honesty. He
hoped that the members of the House of Commons in the en-
suing session would, by their votes, exhibit more sympathy for
the people, and a greater determination to promote the gene-
ral benefit of the country than they had hitherto done.—(Ge-
neral cries of " Hear, hear.")
The CHAIRMAN then proposen the health of " The Countess
of Durham," who, in addition to the claims which she had on
their respect and regard, as being the wife of Lord Durham,
superadded that of being the daughter of Earl Grey.
The toast was drank with enthusiasm.
The Earl of DURHAM returned thanks. Nothing but severe
illness would have prevented the lady, whose health they had
so kindly toasted, from being present on that occasion. He
had, however, the consolation of thinking, that if the Countess
of Durham could not be present, another member of his family
was there, to be gratified in beholding the reception he expe-
rienced from the people of Glasgow ; his daughter was pre-
sent.—( Great cheering.)
Lady Lambton, who was seated in the gallery, here
rose and gracefully acknowledged the compliments of the
assembly.
The Earl of DURHAM, in continuation said, that he was
most happy that his daughter had been afforded such an
opportunity of making an acquaintance with the ladies of
Glasgow.
( A considerable interruption here occurred in consequence
of the noisy and riotous conduct of a single individual at one
of the extremities of the room. He was finally, after some
difficulty, excluded from the room.)
The Earl of DURHANl—silence having been obtained—
again rose to propose a toast. Before doing so he begged
most seriously to call their attention to what was due to the
character of their proceedings. It seemed pretty clear to
him that the interruption which they had just experienced had
.come from the enemy's camp.—( Hear, hear.) They had it
in their power, if they chose to defeat it. If such an inter-
ruption should occur again, let them 1 cep the strictest silence,
but point out the individual who occasioned it.—( Cheers.) As
one of the youngest burgesses of Glasgow, he had now to pro-
pose the following toast—" The Lord Provost and Magistrates,
and Prosperity to the City of Glasgow."
BAILIE GILMOUR, in the absence of the Lord Provost, re-
turned thanks.
The CHAIRMAN then gave " The Duke of Hamilton, Lord
Lieutenant of the County of Lanark."
Mr. SPIERS, in proposing " the memory of Charles James
Fox," said, it has beer, hinted to me that the toast I have the
honour of being intrusted with, is not popular with all re-
formers of the present day. If this be the fact, I can find no
good reason for it. I know not of any patriot of modern or
even olden times, who has fought more ardently for the cause
of freedom, and to whom, of course, we are more deeply in-
debted, than to the man of the people, C. J. Fox.—( Loud
cheers.) Whoever studies the history of those troublous
times in which Mr. Fox acted so distinguished a part, will, I
am sure, discover ample grounds for admiration.—( Cheers. )
For a long course of years we shall find him ever at his post,
assailing, with all the powers of a mighty mind, the indigna-
tion of an outraged patriot, and the fervid eloquence of truth,
those disgraceful and flagitious measures which characterized
sae-
the unfortunate reign of George the Third. Deas Corpus
strenuous opposition to the suspension
other infringements of
Act, the use of special w
personal libert•e ' our warmest gratitude ?—( Cheers.)
Do we not find him denouncing, on the soundest principles,
the unjust war against the infant liberties of France ?
(Cheers)—a war undertaken, not for any rational object, but
to support despotism on the continent of Europe, and crush li-
berty at home. Deeply imbued with the truest principles of
the rights of man, he advocated religious as well as civil free-
dom, and afforded his powerful aid to the Irish Catholics.—
(Loud cheers.) Not the least of his services I shall par-
ticularize. Can we, successful reformers, ever forget that he
supported Mr. Grey's motion for such a reform in the
Commons House as, if successful, would have placed 400
Members in that House elected by the suffrage of
householders ?—( Cheers.) But great as the exertions of Mr.
Fox in the cause of freedom were, we ought not to measure
our gratitude to him by the good he was able to effect ; we
ought to be thankful for what he attempted, though in vain.
He lived in perilous times ; unmitigated Toryism bore the
sway ; a great portion of the nation was deceived by a depre-
ciation of the currency ; the remainder, coerced by a merce-
nary and licentious soldiery, did not, as in our days, rise with
irresistible power to support the advocates of their rights.--
(Cheers.) The Sovereign was a Tory, and the people unre-
presented. I have said too little ; I should say the King was
a narrow-minded bigot—a bigot in his heart; and the mis-
named House of Commons was filled by the minions of a
greedy and grasping Oligarchy. In those days, had any man
done or said as much as I believe every individual in this room
has done and said—aye, or the tenth-part of it—he would
have been subjected to the tender mercies of packed juries and
political judges.—( Cheers.) I own my greatest surprise is,
that Fox had the courage to persevere so long as he did, nor
would he have continued to hope, almost in spite of convic-
tion, had lie not, with prescience peculiar to great minds, felt
he sowed good seed, which, one day or another, sooner or
later, would produce a glorious harvest of happiness and free-
dom in the land.—( Loud cheers.) Had liberty been extinct
in every other breast, it would have been cherished with only
the greater care in his. I shall no longer detain you, but
trust, as reformers, you will remember that, during the short
time he was in power, he abolished that infamous traffic in
human flesh—the Slave trade, and was the only Minister of
the Crown who ever, at a public meeting, toasted the Sove-
reignty of the people.—( Tremendous cheering.)
Mr. WALLACE, M.P., proposed the next toast—" The Re-
form of the English and Irish Municipal Corporations." He
congratulated them on having obtained a man in whom they
could confide, a rallying point, such as the Earl of Durham.
That Noble Lord was right in saying that they should look
to the conduct of their representatives. It had been said by
Mr. Abercromby, at Edinburgh, that the present House of
Commons was such as the country had never seen before. He
(Mr. Wallace) would say, that it was the most subservient
House of Commons that ever existed.—(Some cheers, and
some marks of dissent.) If there was a place where persons
voted by proxy, without hearing any of the arguments, was it
not plain that such a place required reform ?—( Hear, hear.
If there was another place where little Parliaments wt acid
in in the afternoon, and where men were told in
Itect to vote
by proxy, though they declared their reles viva voce, did it
not require reform ?—(" Yes. ees.") Such were the Houses
of Lords and Commons., and both required reform in that re-
spect. Scotland had done honour to Earl Grey for passing
the Reform Bill, and now it was doing honour to Lord Dur-
ham upon the same high public grounds. Why were England
and Ireland backward in such a cause ? Because they had not
bad a reform of their municipal corporations. But they, too,
were coming forward to join in this great manifestation of
public feeling. It was only that day that a deputation arrived
trom the great northern capital of Ireland, Belfast, to invite
the Noble Lord to a dinner there. The flame had reached
England, too, and Newcastle was about to do its duty.
The Earl of DURHAM, in proposing the next toast—" The
French People, the extension and consolidation of their liber-
ties, and the increase of their friendly relations with the Bri-
tish Nation"--said he would request their silent attention for
a very few moments. He very much feared that he should
not be able for the task after the exertions be had gone through
in the course of the day unless they would preserve silence.
lie had just a few words to address to them as a preface to the
toast that had been placed in his hands. It was a toast that
particularly interested them ; indeed he did not know that any
toast that had boon given that night was of more importance
to the interests, and prosperity of Glasgow, and of Scotland
at large, than that which he was now about to' propose. He
would just state a few facts in illustration of the sentiments
which that toast contained. He had, of late, many opportuni-
ties of communicating, not merely with the Sovereign and the
higher classes in France, but also with the middle classes in
that country ; and it was impossible for him to describe the
extraordinary change that had taken place in their sen-
timents respecting the English people. They might all
recollect that during the period of the unfortunate war that
was waged between the two countries, it was the interest
of the great conqueror and despot who then swayed
the destinies of France, to excite a feeling against the
British people in the minds of the people of France, in order
to carry on his operations with success. On the other side too
many and successful attempts were made to persuade the peo-
ple of this country that the French people were naturally, and
essentially, as indeed they were at the time, in fact, the ene-
mies of this country. But the events that had, within the last
few years, occurred in France, tending, as they did, to the es-
tablishment and consolidation of the liberties of Frenchmen,
had produced an extraordinary change in the sentiments of the
people of' France as regarded this country. Numbers of
Frenchmen had expressed to him ( Lord Durham) the strongest
sentiments of affection and goodwill towards this country.
Many members of the National Guard of France had come to
hlii to express the delight with which they viewed the in-
creased intercourse between the two countries, and their firm
conviction, that if England and France remain united, it will
not he in the rower ot any newer or Powers of Europe to dis-
,