The Sun.
London, England, 1834-11-27 00:00:00

seizes upon office to do all that he condemned. And
this most immoral conduct—this glaring lack of prin-
ciple—is not merely to be pardoned, but to be a
ground for our reposing more confidence in him
than if he were an honest man—more confi-
dence in him than in a Ministry sincerely attached
to the policy he detests, but espouses from ne-
cessity I But how is the Duke to effect his reforms ?
He must effect them either through Reformers or
anti-Reformers. Tha Times holds out, as the pe-
culiar advantage of his advent to power, the convic-
tion which will be forced on the fanatical and unrea-
soning Tories, that further resistance is useless. In
this case, the Reformers are to have the benefit of the
Tories, to make reform doubly sure. But assuming
the readiness of the Duke of Wellington to fly in the
face of all his principles, and to confess that it is all
one to him, whether "lie acts on his principles or
against them, what reason have we for presuming on
the acquiescence of the Tories ? They were taught
to yield to the concession of the Catholic claims, be-
cause they would thereby convert an enemy into a
friend ; that the Church of Ireland—meaning by
Church the abuses of it—would thereby be
strengthened. They were told that they would
give away, nothing material, and gain in re-
turn most important advantages. But the Tories
and High Churchmen, with whom abuses in
the State and in the Church are everythina—r-the
very breath they live on—without which they
die, are not such dolts as to support a policy
which is to deprive them of all that is dear to
them. The Reform must be always to them worse
than the pestilence. The Reform then must still be
effected by the instrumentality of members sent into
the House of Commons by genuine Reformers. What
drivellers then must Reformers be, having the power
in their hands of allowing only honest and sincere Re-
formers to remain at the helm, were they to repose
their confidence in unprincipled men, the consequence
of which might be, that these men, on any favourable
opportunity occurring, would seek to take advantage of
it to destroy the Charter of their liberties 1 The Crown
is in possession of great powers ; and if bad men arc
suffered to wield those powers, who knows how soon,
through foreign alliances and acts abroad, the nation
may be precipitated into dangers and difficulties, which
may aid the designs of wicked statesmen at home ? No,
let us risk nothing when nothing need be risked. Who,
because a tiger may not strike his fangs in him, would
choose to trust himself in a cage with such an animal ?
By Reformers alone can the Duke do any good to
the nation ; but as Reformers can obtain the good
without the Duke, they would be madmen to risk the
good on the chance of his doing it at the expense of
his conscience. But the Times can command three-
fourths of the people of England to follow it, and the
Times says it would trust him. The business is done.
Out upon the impudent braggart ? Who ever trusted
the Times? The Times has often had the tact to fol-
low the people of England. There is no surer way of
having counsel received, than when a person counsels
what is already determined on. The Times appears
influential when it goes with the people. Whenever
it has set itself against the people it has been nothing.
It could not obtain votes for Mr. Babbage, at Fins-
bury, at either of the two last elections. Indeed it has
hardly ever supported a metropolitan candidate who
has not failed. But let us hear the insolent braggart :
" Then how must we act by the Duke of Wellington
Show him that he must reform, or write and vote him
.out of office ; for all of which we are well prepared :
to the whole of which, in the face of England, we
sternly bind ourselves, and those, comprising three-
fourths of the people, who do us the honour
to be guided by us. The Duke says he will reform ;
and we believe him. If he break his word—on which
we do not speculate—away goes all our support from
under him." Mighty well I So the people of Eng-
land must act in defiance of the most common rules of
prudence, and trust a hollow man who sets his prin-
ciples at defiance, to gratify the Times, on the security
of the Times withdrawing its support from him. 0,
no ; the people of England will prefer to have a
guarantee in their own hands—they will trust neither
the Duke nor the Times. The low Billingsgate of
that journal, so often applied indiscriminately to the
best and the worst of men, would be a small compen-
sation to them for the mischief which the Duke would
soon do, if left in the possession of power. One word
The Times offers this excuse for its flagrant
inconsistncies--" That we have praised public men
is true ;:atid afterwards, for good public cause, accused
them. h that inconsistency ?" But it is impossible
that the same journal which terms a statesman wise one
day, and the next a blind dolt—who tells us one day
that he was all his life famous for being profoundly
ignorant, and the next that he is an able and experi-
enced Minister, can have given their evidence sincerely
in both cases. When we hear a witness swear at the
Old Bailey that lie saw a man steal, and then swear
that he aid not see any such thing, we set him down
as a cand;flate for the pillory—and though he may
have perjured himself for the mere pleasure of com-
mitting perjury, and it cannot be proved that lie took
money, all sensible persons will come to the same con-
clusion on this point nevertheless. But, quoth the
Times, "the Duke says he will reform—and we will
believe him." To whom has he said this ? Under
what circumstances, and for what purpose ? The
Duke may by some ambiguous or equivocal declara-
tions have furnished our contemporary with an excuse
for his apostacy, when seeking the benefit of his advo-
cacy—but the people of England will require some
better evidence of this change of his Grace's views
than mere hearsay evidence, to which the convenient
belief of Printing-house-yard is attached. We doubt
not, however, that the people of England, who have
not the same rsasons for confiding in the Duke, will
resist and punish in a way to be felt (for our contem-
porary can be made to feel), the unqualified arrogance
of this insolent braggart, who thus impudently lays
claim to be the guide of three-fourths of the popula-
tion.—Morning Chronicle.
The country is tired of speculating, and anxious to
come to facts. In the meantime the Duke of Wel-
lington does not appear to be employing the interval
which must elapse before Sir Robert Peel's return,
either so much to his own or the latter's advantage as
he might do. Were we to judge, for instance, from
appearances alone, especially from the character of the
very few and marked persons who are reported as
being associated with the Duke in his " provisional "
undertaking, we might infer that his object and inten-
tion is, if possible, to form exclusively a high Tory
anti-reform Government ; while, on the other hand,
giving him credit for only common sagacity, we should
be entitled to assume that such an intention must be
as improbable as its fulfilment would be found to be
impossible. But then why give his opponents this
advantage—an advantage of which they are evi-
dently availing themselves every. where ? It is true
that the Standard, which may be looked upon as an
organ of the high Tories, if not of the Duke of Wel-
lington himself, begins to see the danger and impolicy
of this line of reserve. "We agree," says our Evening
contemporary, "with the Times, that it is impossible for
any Minister to remain three months in the Govern-
ment, except as a Reform Minister. We will go fur-
ther, and say that every future Minister must be bound,
not merely by the letter of the Reform Bill, but by its
equity and spirit, as that spirit was illustrated in the
speeches of those who propounded the measure and
supported it." Except that we do not exactly see why
the speeches of individuals should be referred to as a
text-book upon the occasion, this declaration, coming
from the quarter it does, is highly satisfactory, and
only wants the stamp of complete authority to render
it entirely so. But hitherto this demi-official avowal
(even if we are authorised to deem it such) is more
than counteracted by the very names of those by whom
the Duke has been as yet surrounded, and by the lan-
guage held at several meetings in various parts of the
country, where hatred of reform, and of the Reform
Act in particular, is openly and unequivocally avowed-
It may be said that, on the one hand, it is unfair to
judge of any public man by the indiscretion of his ad-
vocates, and on the other, that the Duke of Welling-
ton has as yet had no authentic official channel through
which he could communicate to the country the prin-
pies of his Government ; and that, in addition to this,
the political creed of the new Administration must,
like the Administration itself, be in abeyance till after
Sir Robert Peel's return. This may be very true, but

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