The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-10 00:00:00

their regret at the mischief which they had occasioned—
even O'Connell shed his crocodile tears over its fall,
and would fain, were he to be believed, that it had not
occurred. But regret is a useless task ; and the'more use-
less in this instance, because there is every reason to be-
lieve that there is no inducement on earth to persuade
Lord Grey again to take office. Peace be to him ! Let
not his name be mentioned but with honour ! A political
life of 50 years, and not a stain of inconsistency or absence
of principle ! The possession of power, and the first use
of it to enlarge the liberties of the people—to reform their
Representation in the House of Commons—to reduce the
taxation of the country, and, as far as with the means at
his command it was in his power, to abolish all useless
, places and pensions ! Such has been Lord Grey, and his
like we are not likely to look upon again. In experience
he exceeded all his colleagues—in talent he yielded to none
of them—in domestic and public virtue he had not, and has
not, his equal. While Englishmen cherish a love for free-
dom—while they retain a regard for political consistency—
and have enough of 'virtue in them to honour virtue, the
name of Grey will be cherished by them as the source of
many benefits, and the beau ideal of an English Nobleman
and an honest politician.—. Morning Advertiser.

The explanations given by Lords Grey and Althorp last
night, to the Houses of Lords and Commons respectively,
were of a nature to surprise their hearers, in so far as the
motives alleged by those Noble Lords for their resignations
were concerned, although we had in our yesterday's paper
prepared the country for the general result. It would ap-
pear that the proximate cause of this catastrophe was the
conduct of Mr. Littleton in communicating confidentially
with Mr. O'Connell, wholly unauthorized, as it turns out,
by Lord Grey, and disapproved of by the Noble Earl as
soon as the fact was made known to him ; unauthorized
likewise by Lord Althorp, in the extent to which Mr. Lit-
tleton had carried his unfortunate frankness towards the
Member for Dublin. After reflecting, however, on every
part of the statements made by the two ex-Ministers in re-
lation to the above interesting matter, we are at a loss to
discover an adequate justification of the retirement which
their speeches were intended to explain. It is clear to us
that the Irish Coercion Bill might have been argued on
grounds independent of the confidential letters of Lord
Wellesley, and that if the fact which was darkly shadowed
out by the Noble Earl, of Lord Wellesley having been
imposed upon or improperly influenced to a change of
opinion relatively to the Coercion Bill, by considera-
tions submitted to him from this country, which bore upon
the political state of England, not of Ireland, had been
clearly and unreservedly communicated to Parliament by
Lord Althorp, his Lordship would not have needed to feel
himself under the slightest difficulty, or to dread the dis-
cussion fixed by Mr. O'Connell for last night, which appears
to have been the immediate bugbear acting upon the Noble
Visceunt's imagination. At the same time it is impossible
not to be pleased by the simple and unpretending language
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in vindicating himself
to the House—a tone of speech entirely in character with
the general deportment of the speaker. But we for our
parts can see nothing in the indiscretion of Mr. Littleton
to compel the retreat either of the First Lord of the
Treasury or of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, un-
less both these noblemen had been previously, and from
other causes, so deeply disgusted with their situation, that the
first pretext for escaping from it was seized upon them as a
god-send. With respect to certain expressions in Lord
Brougham's speech last night which seem to contradict a
remark of Lord Althorp's, it may be proper to state that,
in practice, the resignation of the Prime Minister means
substantially and invariably the dissolution of his Cabinet,
just as much as cutting a man's head off is understood to be
the death of his body. As neither trunk nor limbs there-
fore can flourish after the decapitation of the natural sub-
ject, so neither have Chancellors nor Secretaries of State
any real existence after the political annihilation of the
Prime Minister ; and although a Lord Chancellor in such a
case may not literally have resigned, it is enough that the
Chief of the Government does it for him. To turn from
events to prospects, it is no doubt a most anxious topic of
inquiry who are to succeed the late Cabinet Ministers, and
what is to become of us as a nation ? The only circum-
stance which can yet be relied upon is, we believe, that on
accepting Lord Grey's resignation, his Majesty sent for
Lord Melbourne, late Secretary for the Hone Depart-
ment, to ask his Lordship's counsel under the exigency
thus created. What may be the attempts to form a new
Cabinet, or reconstruct the old one, it is not for us to
guess. It is easy enough to see that the only attempt which
can have the slightest chance of prospering is one which
shall have for its object the formation of a Cabinet---I, at
least as liberal as Lord Grey's ; and 2, more united. There
has been too much of the leaven of Conservatism in the
Administration just expired, to admit of its enjoying any
permanency, and what did happen to be liberal in it
has been paralyzed by that which was not. The clearest
of all inferences, therefore, is, that a coalition (or rather
a distraction) Cabinet, comprehending either materials less
of a reform quality than ever found admission into Lord
Grey's, or of just that same calibre of reform which after
being admitted was not long since expelled from it, cannot
constitute any portion of a Government destined to endure
for a single month. It is perfectly obvious, we would as-
sure the Court (we need not assure the Tory faction, for
they are convinced of it), that Mr. Stanley, with his three
ex-colleagues, are " not presentable" to the people of Eng-
land, and will not be accepted by them as Members of a
liberal Cabinet ; a fortiori Sir Robert Peel and his bre-
thren cannot be successfully appealed to by the Court in
its extremity. On that point we are sure that the good
sense of Lord Melbourne will agree with us. As for a
pure Conservative Cabinet! it is all " Buzz." The idea
of one is utterly ludicrous at such a time. There is but
one course—unflinching reform in all departments of the
State, and to be carried on by concurring Ministers.
Compromise of..sentiment, we fear, has already been car-
ried to an inconvenient and disastrous pitch, and we should
grieve to seethe necessity for it in important cases imposed
upon a new Ministry at its very first formation. The dif-
ficulties, however,. in the way of constituting any new Go-
vernment, are such as will unavoidably render it a tedious
work. We trust that if the growth be slow, it will be
fitted for endurance and stability.—Mtes. .
That Lord Grey's Cabinet has been, for a considerable
time past, in a course of dissolution, was visible to all per-
sons capable of exercising anything like a sound reflection
upon political affairs. The precise shock by which it has
been precipitated could not indeed be forseen by any mortal
not gifted with prophetic ken, but it was obvious enough to
sagacious observers, that it had not the principle of durabi-
lity within it, even before the secession of Mr. Stanley
and Sir Jamas Graham, and that, from the moment they
withdrew, it lay like a vessel without rudder or compass,
at the mercy of the winds and waves of accident—a drifted
hulk upon the political waters. For some time past the
only question among all but the mere sycophants and
place-hunters of Government was " Will Lord Grey's
Administration be able to get through the Ses-
sion ? If so, it will be safe for the next six months ;
but that it could get through another Session of
Parliament, even with the obsequious majorities of
the Reformed House of Commons at its back, no
man who had a grain of understanding supposed.
The lath-and-plaster patchwork, however, with which it
was recently repaired, could but ill-conceal, and not at all
retrieve, its crazy condition. So frail was its texture, in-
deed, that a scuffle between Mr. Littleton and Mr. O'Con-
nell shook it into ruins. The weeping and wailing of the
servile organs of the Whig Administration at the first an-
nouncement of its inglorious fall was natural enough ; but
when those same servile organs that have been assisting all
the imbecile and unprincipled acts of the recreant Whigs,
from the Russian Dutch Loan job to the Malthusian out-
rage upon public morality and the Constitution, affect a
tone of lofty and virtuous indignation, as if the fallen Mi-
nisters had been the martyrs of principle, it is simply
ridiculous. It would be almost impossible for Hera-
clitus himself to avoid a smile at the exhibition of
excited servility thus mounted upon the stilts of mock
patriotism, and flinging its wooden thunders like Jove's
authentic fire. But the question that one is inclined to ask
at present is, " Where is Lord Ebrington, the official pro-
tector or guardian of the Grey Administration, and his re-
signation repelling resolutions ?" Surely he must resolve
once more that the King and the nation shall not
withdraw their confidence from a Ministry of which the
wisdom of an Ebrington approves, and the King and the
nation must bow to the sublime decree. But Lord Ebring-
ton and a crowd of delinquent patriots, dreading a dissolu-
tion and a day of account for their political sins, may fulmi-
nate their resolutions to preserve to the country the ill-paid
and disinterested services of Lord Grey and the inestimable
talents of Lord Althorp ; but times are changed. The
Whigs have not now the political unions at their back,
which they cajoled as long as it suited their purpose, and
then denounced; they have not the working classes to
array themselves in their defence. The sentence of a
felon's fate executed' in its utmost rigour upon the Dorches-
ter unionists, and the prosecution of the True Sun for re-
peating Lord Milton's advice to the people, showed
what reliance was to be placed upon their gratitude when
their turn was served. And the plan of governing Ireland,
after passing the " tranquilising measure," by a succession
of Coercion Bills, without attempting any thing for the
amelioration of the wretched condition of the people of that
country, proves that they have nothing to bestow upon that
ill-fated land which used to be the object of their patriotic
commiseration and sympathy, but the worst and most vi-
cious measures of Tory misrule. In the midst of this con-
fusion it is somewhat amusing to see how the slavish Pal-
merston Journal, while gently lamenting the breaking up
of the Whig Cabinet, consoles itself with the prospect that
a general election would place the Tories in a somewhat
better position than they at present are, for, says the opti-
mist of the Globe, the Tories are not, according to their