The Sun.
London, England, 1834-11-28 00:00:00

YORK.
TO THE REFORMERS OF YORKSHIRE.

MY FRIENDS ,—An alarming crisis has arrived. A So-
vereign, who has allowed his people to believe that he gave
his conscientious and willing sanction to the Reform Bill,
has contumeliously and insultingly dismissed the Ministry
with whom it originated, and who were carrying it into exe-
cution. He has done so without assigning any cause—
without even affecting that he has any. But it is the
King's prerogative, we arc told, to choose his own ad-
visers ! ! It is your prerogative to tell him, that in those
advisers to whom he is now giving his confidence, you have
NONE—that the man whom he has selected as his Minister is
the man whom you have twice ejected from his office, because
he had not one feeling in common with yourselves. It is
your undoubted prerogative, too, to petition your Sove-
reign, that he will remove from his councils a man who is
obnoxious to you ; and that he will consult those whose sen-
timents accord with your own.
If the King's feelings are in unison with those of his
people, he must, in the dismissal of his late advisers, have
been influenced by one of two assertions. Either he has
been told that you are no longer Reformers, and that you
wish the progress of Reform to be stayed, and that, there-
fore, the Duke of Wellington, who avowed himself opposed
to all Reform, and did oppose all Reform, is the very Mi-
nister of your choice : or, that his Grace is ready, " for the
sake of Downing-street and Quarter-day," to retract every
vote he gave, and every word he uttered, and to extend to
you that large measure of Reform, which lie and his faction
would not allow a genuine Reform Ministry to grant. Is
the first assertion true or false ? And if false (as I know
it is), will you allow it to remain uncontradicted? You
will not ! Then from the Castle-yard of York contradict
it yourselves, and in a manner worthy of yourselves, fully
and unqualifiedly. If the second supposition be true, can
you for one moment dream of permitting such an outra-
geous violation of all public honesty ? Will you trust a
man to conduct the affairs of your country, the grossness of
whose apostacy would disgust you and disgrace himself ? I
ask you this, presuming that you believe that no such ad-
venture would occur, as we know occurred when the hawk
was admitted into the dove-cot. Do not you be pigeons
then or their's will assuredly be your fate, if you believe
in professions which will be as easily abandoned as their
extreme opposites have been. If any of you doubt this,
such at least as were dissatisfied with the measure of Re-
form granted by Lords Grey and Melbourne, can scarcely
hope to have their " bushel heaped up" now. But the
game is in your own hands, and no man feels that it is so,
more keenly than the Duke of Wellington. He has re-
ceived his Majesty's commands to form an administration.
Why does he not do so? Why is the country without a
government, except that, as Home Secretary, the Duke is
himself at the head of the Police ; and he has his friend
Lord Hill ready at the Horse Guards? Why is the Court
of Chancery without a judge, or with one divided between
it and the Exchequer ? Why is his Majesty without an
Attorney or Solicitor-General ? Why are foreign despat-
ches unanswered ? Why has Ireland, in a state of rebel-
lion, no Lord Lieutenant ? Because Sir Robert Peel is
in Italy, we are told, and " wont be home of three
weeks !" Is this wont to be the method of the Duke of
Wellington—the Military Dictator of the country ? No
such thing, but his Grace thinks that in the course of
" three weeks" he will hear what the country says of all
this, that if, as he dreads, the coaches come up laden with
petitions, in which he is not very favourably handled,
he can then quietly inform his Sovereign that he can-
not manage the House of Commons, that it would be a
waste of Conservative money, and probably a loss of Con-
servatiye seats, to hazard a general election ; and that,
therefore, he begs his Majesty's gracious permission—to
resign.
Such, my friends, depend upon it, is the case. Let. then
Sir Robert Peel, on his arrival from Italy, Ile greeted with
petitions to the King, that his Majesty will be pleased to
recall his late Ministry—with accounts of meetings in
every county and town of the empire, expressive of our
total want of confidence in any administration which can
meet the just demands of the people only by a gross aban-
donment of every principle—an outrageous violation a
every recorded opinion, which they ever entertained. In
conclusion, I beseech you, let not the great county of York
be the last in avowing her sentiments, but let a meeting for
their expression, be immediately convened, and multitudi-
. notulv !!!.tencled. Believe me your faithful servant,
i Walkmill, Cleveland Inn, Nov. 22, 1834. 'W. B. J.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

therefore, if we are (as we believe ourselves) accu-
rately informed, must, when placed on the right foot-
ing, be described as a thing that was—not praiseworthy
in the Sovereign, for he had no choice—but, morally
speaking, inevitable. The question was, whether the
King ought to have dissolved the late Cabinet when
he did, or to have waited until it should be self-
dissolved, in the midst of a session of Parliament.
Failing the late Ministry, on what other could the
Sovereign fall back ? On the Ultra Tories ?—on
the O'Connell rump, and the tail of two-score joints
appended ?—dn the Ultra Tories ?—or, finally, on that
party which he did at once appeal to ? We mean that
division of the Conservative party which has always
borne the name of " moderate," softened down and
mellowed, as they have been, by years of exclusion
from official power, by the recollection that they were
expelled for want of sympathy with the people, and
want of attention to their demands—fraught, more-
over, with that grave lesson of experience, the disre-
gard of which would be as surely fatal to them, and
now even more irreparable, than their previous igno-
rance or apathy. What can be the specific purpose of
the city orators who moved and seconded the resolu-
tions for an address to his Majesty does not very plainly
appear. They grieve over the appointment of the present
Ministers, but they do not venture to tell the Sovereign
where he ought to hunt for others. Lord Grey is gone
The present Lord Spencer, it ought to be stated,' is
for the present gone. Whom would the city orators
recommend ? Lord Durham could not construct a
Ministry comprising any efficient portion either of Lord
Grey's or of Lord Melbourne's Cabinet ; the objec-
tions to his Lordship in both those quarters appear, on
repeated and recent trial, to have been of a nature
almost insurmountable ; nor, direct and manly as we
admit his political declarations to have been, is any
sufficient evidence adduced that the property and in-
telligence of the nation would yet accept him for Prime
Minister. Last comes Lord Melbourne ; and let us,
with all the high and useful qualities for which that
noble Lord is to be respected, ask whether he could
form a Ministry more united, powerful, or stable than
the last ? or would he, if ever so warmly solicited,
again undertake the difficulties and troubles from
which the Royal pleasure has released him ? As
a practical question, therefore, we should like to know
from the statesmen of the Common Council, how
they would act if the cards were given them to shuffle
and deal round. We think too reasonably of them
to suppose that they would drag the kennels for an
Administration of gin-burnt revolutionists, the writers
and distributors of unstamped rubbish, or the moun-
taineers of the House of Commons. The practical
remedy, allowing the change to be an evil, we are at a
loss to find. Still less can we in our consciences affirm
that any remedy is wanting beyond that which the
Reform Bill itself affords us. During
.the progress of
that measure, how often was it echoed from every
part of England that thenceforward the people
of England would be their own law-makers, that
the voice of the nation would bear so irresistibly
upon. the measures of its representatives as to make it
an affair of little moment who or what might be the
occupants of the Treasury Beneh, provided they were
men of fair capacity for carrying on the public
business. If the Reform Bill have really the virtues
ascribed to it by the voice of its admirers (and ours was
not unheard among them)—if it really has deposited
in the hands of the people the substantial power of
self-government--if the representatives of the people
do really speak their wishes and retain that controlling
authority over the public purse which had been exercised
and perverted by the old borough representatives, what
in the name of Heaven, have we to fear from the
Duke of Wellington or his unknown colleagues ?
Can they outvote us in the Commons House ? If
they do, they must have the country with them ; in
which case there is no rational cause for complaint ;
and to affirm that they still can legislate for Eng-
land against her will is to libel grossly the law
by which Parliament has been reformed, or to
prove that reform was intrinsically good for nothing.
It seems that a leather-headed personage of the
name of Stevens, who is also, we are told, a
seller of gin and bitters, will not understand the use
of his mother tongue, but harps pertinaciously on the
same cracked string as the hired newspapers of certain
discarded placemen, assuring his hearers of the Com-
mon Council, that a " popular journal" (meaning the
Times) sacrifices its principles, and advocates the very
measures which it has most loudly decried." Why,
does this dolt conceive the meaning of the word " prin-
ciple ?" Does he comprehend the difference between
a " man" and a " measure ?" What principle have
we sacrificed? Is it that of "reform?" Perhaps he
fancies Lord Brougham to be a "principle," or Joseph
Hume to be a "measure." (If a " measure," he is an
empty one, we opine.) But because we have all along
maintained, as clearly and invariably as language
could express our sentiments, that we would never
abandon the principle or system of reform, and would
support the Duke of Wellington not one moment
longer than he agreed with us in promoting the cause
of reform, this gin-monger chatters about our " sacri-
ficing old principles," and " advocating measures that
we had before condemned I" Such animals are not
worth the type that spells their nonsense. We regard
their rant as much as we should the braying of a herd
of donkies, eloquently discoursing over their meal of
thistles. As for the majority in the Common Coun-
cil on behalf of men, and in contempt of measures, it
was not, we are told, so great as might have been ex-
pected on the approach of St. Thomas's day. Rabble
talk is usually predominant at this season, just before
the corporate elections, but three months hence
(we have no objection to a wager) the gentlemen will
change their tone. Moreover, a city wag assures us
that an address to the King has always charms for
your Corporation grandees, inasmuch as there accrues
to them some profit on what may be termed the
draught of that important document. Half a sovereign
a-piece for coach-hire to the gentry in black gowns,
who honour his Majesty with their attendance on such
occasions, enables them, we dare say, to pocket half
of it; thus enjoying the sight of a Sovereign• and-a-
half, for the mere trouble of crying " ay" instead of
" no," and getting credit for patriotism into the bar-
gain. At poor Waithman's funeral, when at first it
was understood that each mourner must pay his own
coach hire, there were only 11 volunteers ; but after-
wards, on a Corporate resolution to defray the carriages
out of the city purse, no less than 90 public-spirited
tributaries to " departed worth" came forward and took
part in the procession I This beats the " farce of
county meetings" hollow.—Times.
The grave accusation preferred against us by the
Tory, and renegade Whig, press, when we declared
that the public mind was astonished and confounded
at the daring attempt to seat the Chief of anti-Toryism
and hostility to Reform in the seat of those who had
always detested the Tories, and were not only opposed
to those measures in church and state reforms, but un-
questionable, however slow, advocates of reform in all
departments,—was, that there was no astonishment—
that there was no confusion—that there was no agita-
tion or alarm :—the next, that we, who had, as they
foolishly alleged, in the height of their presumption,
and in defiance of, and contempt for, the people of
England, " nailed our flag to the mast of Reform"
when no one cared for the mast, or when the vessel was
in no danger of shipwreck, had created agitation, and that
but for us,and our honest and independent contemporaries,
there would not have been even one meeting upon the
dismissal of his Majesty's Ministers, and the alarm so
justly felt by the selection of the Duke of Wellington
to be his successor :—and, now what is the alleged
charge ? Why, that the agitation or the alarm, or the
astonishment, or by whatever name the present move-
ment may be denominated, only exists in ill-favoured
quarters—among mob orators, and unwashed artisans !
We confess that we are not among the number of those
who are inclined to despise men for their poverty, or
to think, that because their hands are not washed,
their hearts are not honest, nor their feelings worthy of
Englishmen ; but the impudence of daring to assert that
there are none but the comparatively uneducated classes
of society who take an interest in the present state of
the country, is beyond conception the most unprece-
dented of which we have
either read or heard. Whraetly!
was the meeting at Manchister a meeting of me
uneducated classes, or unwashed artisans ? Did that
at Liverpool partake of the same character ? Was
there nothing respectable in the meeting at Hull ? Is
cf Glasgow composed of rrsons
tit. Ton Council _

In the postscript to the Quarterly Review, which
was yesterday copied into the Times, and called an au-
thorised statement, we find the following assertions :
" The Cabinet has been dissolved, not by the removal
of Lord Althorp from the House of Commons, but by
its own internal and irreconcileable dissensions?' Po-
SITIVELY FALSE in both respects. The principal
pretext assigned was the removal of Lord Althorp from
the House of Commons; and there were no dissensions
of any kind in the Cabinet—no, not the slightest diffe-
rence of opinion either then or since the formation of the
Melbourne Cabinet. 2. "That in consequence of these
dissensions, Lord Melbourne waited on the King, and
made a proposal of remodelling the Cabinet, for the sake of
stablishing unanimity between the two sections of the
Cabinet who disagreed on the Irish Church question."
Positively false. Lord Melbourne made no such
proposal, there being no such disagreement upon the
Irish Church measure then in contemplation. 3.
Lord Melbourne "candidly informed his Majesty that
his propositions, even if agreed to, would not have the
effect of establishing unanimity, &c." Positively, alse.
The Cabinet were unanimous. It is superfluous, there-
fore, to contradict the other part of this falsehood.
4. "In this state of things, his Majesty, with
equal frankness and good sense, suggested that if
the proposal then submitted to him was avowedly to
settle nothing, but, on the contrary, to render an-
other and early crisis inevitable, there could be no use
in patching up a provisional expedient ; and that it
would be better to do at once, that which was admit-
ted to be unavoidable at last—namely, to dissolve the
ncoherent and distracted Cabinet." False in every
particular. His Majesty made no such sugges.
tion—no such proposal was submitted to him ; no-
thing was said of another and early crisis, or any
crisis at all. No admission of the sort was made
nor was the Cabinet said, by either party to the con-
versation, to be incoherent and distracted. We re-
peat, there was no difference between them, on any
point whatever. 5. " The late Premier conveyed to the
Duke of Wellington his Majesty's letter summoning
his Grace to Brighton." This is " lying like truth."
A gentleman about the Court requested that Lord
Melbourne's servant might carry a letter to Sir Henry
Wheatley, inclosing another to the Duke of Welling-
ton ; and of this fact the monstrous inference has been
fabricated—that Lord Melbourne was a party to the
sending for the Duke of Wellington. 6. " His
Majesty has already reaped some of the fruits
of such upright conduct, in the full admis-
sion—as we have heard—of various Members
of the late Cabinet, that they have nothing to
to complain of." Certainly his Majesty has already
reaped the fruits of such conduct, but not the full ad-
mission here talked of. We are likely to know more
of the parties in question than the writer of the Post-
script ; and we must contradict hint as flatly as to this
assertion, as we have with respect to every particular
of his statement. A similar misrepresentation of what
passed between his Majesty and Lord Melbourne, has
been already contradicted on the authority of his Lord-
ship himself, but the repetition of such a fable in the
Quarterly Review requires a second exposure. Oh
that Parliament were sitting.—Morning Chronicle.
The Common Council of the city of London has
not fallen short of the expectations of the country. It
ought, as Mr. Ashurst well observed, to have been
called together immediately upon the dismissal of the
late Ministry ; in which case it would, as in times past,
have set an example to the nation, instead of merely
swelling the tide of public opinion. However, this
was not the fault of the Common Council, but of the
Lord Mayor, who has signalized his entrance on office
by two very ungracious acts—the above delay, and
the positive refusal of a Common Hall. In the very
outset of the proceedings yesterday, his Lordship dis-
played great oversight—first, in telling the Common
Council that, " in the steps he had taken relative to
that Court, he spoke advisedly, and with the sanction of
the Court of Aldermen,"—an open insult to the Com-
mon Council, and unfairness towards the Aldermen, as
it throws the responsibility from his own shoulders on
them, and places them in an invidious situation with
reference to the other Court ; and then, in persisting
for some time, in defiance of a standing order, to hear
Mr. Ashurst. However, to come to the proceedings
themselves, the Duke of Wellington may perceive from
the votes of the representatives of the City, how ob-
noxious he is to the people. The impudent recom-
mendation to wait till his measures were before the
public, was scouted as it deserved. The Duke, it is
well known, was opposed to the Reform Bill, and to
him principally it is owing that the reforms expected by
the people under it, have not been obtained. It is ob-
vious, therefore, that his principles and his practice have
been the ground of his appointment; and it is equally
obvious that his object in taking office must be to
give effect to his principles, that is, to prevent, as far
as he can, the reform of abuses, and to avail himself
of the first opening for damaging the Reform Bill it-
self. To suppose that the Duke could have any
other than Conservative intentions, is to insult him.
" Were these men (said Mr. Ashurst, the mover of
the resolution) now to come forward, and, merely for
the sake of office, say, We will carry out those prin-
ciples which we before opposed, and throw our con-
sciences Overboard?" The division gave 60 to 109
in favour of the resolution, which was thus car-
ried by a majority of 49. Excluding the Alder-
men, the numbers were 105 to 52. As St. Tho-
mas's Day is at hand, it will hardly be contended
that the City Representatives were not well aware
of the state of feeling among their fellow •citizens,
and that the vote is not in accordance with it.
But if the votes indicated the general hostility
to the Duke, the speeches were still more decisive in
this respect. Alderman Browne made a humdrum
speech, little calculated to benefit his Grace ; and old
Mr. Samuel Dixon indulged in some very gross abuse
of the late Ministry, which the Lord Mayor tolerated
with an approving smile, though lie deemed it neces-
sary to manifest his Tory zeal by checking any allu-
sion to the public life of the Duke of Wellington. We
are inclined to think with Mr. R. Taylor, that good
will result from the attempt to reinstate the Tories in
power. " The movement now in progress, and of
which he said he approved, was to prevent the Tories
from gaining power ; and he believed that movement
would be attended with glorious results ; it would in-
duce the country to rise in its demands, to increase in
its strength, and to ask more than had heretofore been
required, from conviction of its necessity, to guard
the country against the recurrence of that power
which now threatened."—(Cheers.) The nature of
the crisis is well understood. The enemies of Reform
have determined at last to make a stand. They have
seized on power. All those who counsel the people to
remain with their arms folded, are the enemies who are
most to be dreaded. A struggle is inevitable, and that
the pretended friends of Reform who counsel inaction,
well know. But the instinct of the people has saved
them. They are fully alive to their danger, and the
Tories, with all their wiles, will infallibly be beaten.
The struggle will be productive of this good, that it
will teach the people the necessity of preventing ano-
ther, which might be attempted under less favourable
circumstances. We must have no more collisions.—
Morning Chronicle.
The Common Council of London met yesterday,
and passed resolutions, of which the object was to con-
demn his Majesty for having dismissed his late Minis-
ters, and for having called the Duke of Wellington
and his friends into office. Often have we repeated our
sincere concern at the removal from the Government
of Lord Melbourne, and those of his colleagues whom
he esteemed, and in whom he confided, because it is
our firm belief that they meant well by the rights and
liberties of England, and would have endeavoured to
carry to the furthest salutary extent, those reforms in
Church and State which the nation demanded of them.
But there is another thing also to be deplored, viz.,
the positive certainty, that had the late Government
met the House of Commons, there are some reform
measures essential (as we think) to the country, which
no one of the late Ministry could have brought
forward, but at the risk of a dissolution of the
Cabinet, by the secession of three or more of his
colleagues ; while, had the same or similar measures
been moved by the Opposition, the adverse sections
of the Ministry must have given a divided vote, and
the dissolution of the whole been thereby no less :12
roughly accomplished. The change of Ministers,

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1834.

not worthy of consideration ? Is the unanimous ex- '
pression of the Dissenters worthy of no notice ? Are
the people of Ireland of no weight in the scale of
public opinion. Verily, we know not where to find
any other expression of public opinion in the country,
except it be in the hole-and-corner meetings of Tories,
and. in the vamped-up and compulsory dinners which
have been lately eaten by them, and those whom they
could drive to them ; but if all the preceding meet-
ings to which allusion has been made, be no proof
of the feeling of astonishment and indignation
which pervades the country, at the attempt to
saddle it with an anti-Reform Administration—
' what, let us ask, is to be made of all the meetings
which have been held, or are about to be held, in the
metropolis ? Is the meeting of the Common Council
nothing ? Are its resolutions, passed in the teeth of
the Tories, by more than two to one, nothing? Is
the Finsbury meeting, to be held on Monday next,
nothing ? Is the Westminster meeting nothing? Is
the solemn declaration of the men of Birmingham, and
assented to in all its parts by the people of Shoreditch
last night, of no avail ? The tricks resorted to by the
Tories to prevent the expression of public opinion,
where they have power to prevent it, and their attempts
to suppress it, when made and acknowledged, are as
infamous as they are impolitic. If there be no agita-
tion, why not expose those who declare that it exists,
by printing their speeches and exposing their
meetings ? Why suppress them in the shameful
manner that they have been suppressed, and
give in their stead the unwholesome exhalations of the
Tory faction ? It is by such tricks—by such ma-
noeuvres to prop party and to obtain power, that kings
are deluded to their destruction—that thrones are

shaken to their base—that principalities are over-
thrown--that the people are driven from their origina
attachment to Monarchical institutions, to those whicl-

breathe the purer and more attractive air of Republi-
canism. But the tricks and the manoeuvres avail not.
The time was—a time of blindness and ignorance—
when the motives of such despicable partisans and slaves
might have passed without suspicion, and the glorious
curse, " May we perish if we desert the cause of the
people," have enlisted thousands on the side of its
unguarded utterers ; but that time is past—never,
we hope, to revisit us. The people not only
know their rights, and dare to maintain
them, but see through the flimsy veil which
covers the treacherous devices of their enemies,
and justly spurn them for their inconsistency,
their want of principle, and their unmitigated
baseness. The high moral feeling which pervades them
is worthy of all admiration, and furnishes a noble and
elevating example to succeeding generations—their
union a proof of their determination, and the certain
harbinger of victory. They will have no Tory Minis-
try, nor will they have Reform measures from a Tory
Administration, be the measures what they may, or
the Ministry be composed of what it may—they will
have honest measures from honest men, and from no
others—they will not be cajoled by " he may," or " he
will," and " wait and see,' and " it is unjust to con-
demn," and the thousand other deceitful arts which are
put in practice, to seduce them into an allegiance to
their former task-masters—no ; charm they however
wisely, there is no dragging them into the net—no
upsetting of their fixed resolution. This conduct may
be unpalatable at the Herse Guards, as well as in
higher places ; but, in our estimation, it is neither
more nor less than political gospel, from which it would
be mom' heresy to dissent, as well as political blas-
phemy to condemn.—Morning Advertiser.

ROLLS' COURT.—Nov. 27.

THE ATTORNEY-GENEILAL V. THE MERCHANT TAILORS'

COMPANY.

Mr. BICKERSTETH said that this was an information filed
to establish certain charities. Various sums had been given
to the defendants, on trust, to lend it out, on security, to
poor persons belonging to the Company. The defendants
admitted having in their possession certain sums which the
information charged were applicable to the terms of the
trust, and consequently he submitted that a reference ought
to be made to the Master to approve of a scheme for the
application of the funds according to the intention of the
donor. All porties agreed in the present application.
His HONOUR the Master of the Rolls directed the
reference as prayed.