The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Tory party seem well aware of the im-
pression produced upon public opinion by the
meetings in tie north, held as a tribute of esteem
and honour to Lord Durham, but especially by
the manner in which that nobleman improved
the two occasions thus afforded him of explain-
ing his sentiments on the vast question of
reform, and on those high principles of consti-
tutional liberty, by the assiduous and judicious
enforcement of which alone can any measure
bearing the name of a Reform Bill be made
available to results of much practical benefit to
the nation. No circumstance appears to hare
stung the anti-constitutional factions on both
sides more severely than the declaration of
Lord Durham that the principle of reform
must be laboriously followed out in its details,
until the great end of solid good government
shall have been securely accomplished. The
Tories have been rendered desperate, because
they see that not an inch of ground whereon to
rally, and not an hour of breathing-time, will he
left to them. The Destructives are dismayed at
the full redress of constitutional grievances
which has been recognized as inevitable by one
so lately an important member of the Cabinet,
and still the near connexion of its Chief,—a
redress of grievances which must extinguish all
pretence for the asaults of political mountebanks
on the body of our institutions, and must thus
cut away the whole influence of incendiary de-
magogues over the simple-minded, who might
otherwise be deceived by the plausibility of their
schemes, and over the unprincipled who might
join in them from the possible chance of their
succeeding. We observe that our contemporaries
are perplexing their readers with statement and
counter-statement upon the question whether
any recent effort has or has not been made to re-
store Lord Durham to the Cabinet, and what has
been or is likely to be its result. We cannot, of
course, know what has passed within the walls of
the secret Council Chamber, nor will the public
be inclined to measure the credit due to the
assertions of other journals by the loudness or
pertinacity of those who risk them ; but, whether
Lord Durham comes into the Cabinet again or
not, one observation will meet with many
approvers—viz., that the Noble Earl ought to
be there. Lord Durham's health may not be
vigorous, nor have we any materials for judging
as to his Lordship's disposition upon the sub-
ject of returning to office ; but sure we are, that
if energy, firmness, the love of liberty, political
consistency, and sagacity, possess claims to
power in a free state or to Royal confidence,
Lord Durham is one of the men in England
who ought most speedily to be invested with
the insignia of both.— Times.
We call attention to the well-tempered and
well-reasoned letter of " A Lawyer" on the case
of " Dicas v. Lord Brougham." It sets the
matter at rest. We do not remember, in the
whole annals of flictious malice, anything so
base as the conduct of the Tory papers on this
occasion. We quite absolve the Tory leaders
from any participation in this dirty work.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—l know of no case in which there has been ex-
hibited such a total disregard of all attention to the real
facts of the case, nor in which such groundless insinua-
tions have been made, as in the observations of the
Morning Post as to the case of " Dices against the Lord
Chancellor," copied also into some of the Sunday papers.
Whatever the Solicitor General contradicted he is stated
to have admitted ; but, not to refer again to the clear
explanatory statemen► of Mr. Riley, I need only quote f.r
the Chancellor's justification the finding of the jury, as
stated by the Morning Post itself—viz. that they found
for the defendant independently of the point of law. The
Fold complains that Dims was confined for several
months under the Chancellor's warrant, but it omits to
state that that was under the second warrant, the accu
racy of which is not questioned ; and, further, that he was
charged with various other debts, and got released from all,
not from any defect in the commitment, but from the
operation of the lasolverit Debtbrs' Act ; but, what is of
still more importance, and which, in truth, has induced
me to trouble you on the subject, is the statement made,
that if the law laid down by Lord Lyndhurst be correct, a
man may be committed without cause, and without remedy.
Judges may be impeached for misconduct, or be removed
from their offices for that cause, or for incapacity, but if the
Judges were to be liable to have actions brought against
them by every insolent debtor whom, in their judicial ca-
pacity, •they may commit to prison, their salaries would
soon be exhausted by costs alone. If wrong be done,
however, there is an ample pecuniary remedy open always
to the sufferer. The pary who seeks to have another
committed is bound to have all the documents correct on
which he founds his complaint, and if he fails to do so,
he is answerable in damages to the party aggrieved, and
no man knows better than Mr. Dices, that if he had had
a case for damages, he would have had an easy and certain
remedy against the creditors at whose suit he was com-
mitted, but his letters to the Chancellor show that he
thought he might extract some money from him, although
he was sure to fail against the only party who, as he knew,
was accountable to him.

Every one knows that by making an affidavit of debt,
you may have your debtor arrested and sent to prison by
process from the common law courts, and, as was dated
by the Solicitor-General, it is the daily practice to have
prisoners discharged iu consequence of some defect in such
affidavits, but it never occurred to any one that the Judges
by whose authority the at rtst took place, were liable to an
action for damages. A LAWYER.

Times.
We have given an abridgment of a report in
the Leeds Mercury of a meeting of the Indepen-
dents and Baptists of Leeds on Tuesday last,
on the subject of their grievances. This meet-
ing, we are informed by that paper, has already
excited a powerful interest throughout the coun-
try, and it may be taken, we believe, as a signal
for a general movement thrOughout the coun-
try. " The Dissenters (observes the Journal
to which we have alluded) are strong in their
numbers, wealth, and influence ; but they are

still stronger in the justice of their cause. We
feel confident, indeed, that no Administration
would venture to treat with lightness their ►►ell
founded demands for redress ; but the Dissenters
have a peculiar claim upon the favourable atten-
tion and zealous assistance of the present Minis-
ters, as they have always been the consistent
and uncompromising advocates of those li-
beral measures, the profession of which placed,
and the support of which has maintained,
Ministers on the high ground on which they

stand." Scotland is also in motion on Church'

matters ; but there the object is to free the
~,Church from what the Church itself has always
..7,p4otested against—namely, the thralbm of
I)itttonage imposed upon it by the Tory Minis-
iffif Queen Anne. The Dissenters in Scot-
:A likna.only so far differ from the Church, that the
latter would wish to be as free as the Dissenters,
WA, follow the Presbyterian standards of doc-
' 'fflice and discipline, without being subject to
AeParliatnentary impositions. At the annual
~,!meeting of the Society for the Abolition of
Church Patronage, at the 'Waterloo Hotel,
Edinburgh, on Monday, last, which was nume-
rously and respectably attended, Dr. APCrie,
,AIK, most learned man perhaps in Britain at
this,day, gave the following eloquent description
i,olthe Scottish Church :
b 2. $l, Tite Church of Scotland is essentially the people's
S•AClturch. It is not a Itoyal Church, nor 4 Parliitotnt,,ry
•Nlielititetii. • It is not,tite4shurch of the Aristocracy, nor of
tgorPifirbtivoritotrsi tiwailitier.AA i tuba ntit:4l. ens 411.1
the people; the Church would never bays survived Lir

persecutions; after the last standard-bearer had fallen, the
banner of Presbytery was kept waving on the mountains
of Scotland by the people, when there was not a minister
who dared to dispense among them her ordinances.
When it ceases to be the Church of the People, it ceases
to be the Church of Scotland—its establishment is under-
mined. This point the Rev. Doctor illustrated by refer-
ence to the words of the Act 1690. There was no need
for alarm at the expression, the People's Church. The
people of Scotland know that to preserve their liberty, it
is necessary that they submit to auto rity—that authority
they recognise as Scriptural. Presbytery they consider
to be founded on the Word of God, and they have ever
shown a spirit of conscientious and cheerful obedience to
her office-bearers, whether within or without an Esta-
blishment. The restoring of the rights of the people did
not imply that the-e were to be exercised without the
control of regul,r authority, of 'the judgment of the
Eldership,' which has it always in its power to lay down
such rules as are necessary for the preservation of peace
and good order, and for the preventing of injury to these
ereat interests for which all rights are bestowed."—Morn.
Chronicle.

The Ministerial papers have lately been
amusing their readers with a paragraph, copied
from some Whig oracle of local intelligence,
stating that the assessed taxes in Wiltshire, we
believe, or some part of the West of England,
have never been paid so punctually and with so
much alacrity as at the present time ; and that
this tax paying devotion manifests a decided de-
termination in the people of that part of the
kingdom to support the present Government.
The thing is strange, if true, and all who be-
lieve the statement can have no doubt of the
" desperate fidelity" of the tax payers of Wilt-
shire to the Government under which they are
so liberally taxed. It must be, indeed, a much
more agreeable circumstance to Ministers to
hear of combinations to pay taxes than cornbi
nations to refuse them. For our own part, we
have shown that we do not approve of the
latter, and are glad to see that the ill-advised
resistance to the payment of the assessed taxes
in London has nearly died away. We also
think that those people who combine to pay
taxes, and are as fond of the visits of the tax-
collector as the eels are said to be of the ope-
ration which prepares them for the gridiron,
should be allowed that pleasure as long as
they please to enjoy it. We suspect, from
what has happened within the last two
years, that the tradesmen, the shopkeepers, and
the middle classes in general of the metropolis,
are not quite so ambitious of being flayed alive
by the merciless hand of taxation as those of
Devizes. They would gladly leave to the latter
the proud satisfaction of the fiscal martyrdom to
which they offer themselves with a more than
Roman devotion—snore especially as they are of
opinion that the enhancement which Peel'e Bill
made in the currency, and consequently in the
whole mass of taxation, to which it did not add
less than twenty annual millions in value, has
more than compensated for all the taxes which
have been taken off since the war, and therefore
the reduction has been by no means carried so
far as the people in this the eighteenth year of
peace had a right to expect. The illegal re-
sistance to the assessed taxes may, indeed, be
considered at an end; but the constitutional battle
against those war imposts will be strengthened in-
ttead of weakened by that event. The warof peti-
dons will succeed to the war of passive resistance.
The promises of the reform representatives will
be put to the test next session, and they must
decide between the smiles of the Minister and
the suffrages of the people; for we do not think,
from what we have observed, that the candid
Lord Althorp will give way until he finds that
the " obstinacy" which beat the French at
Waterloo becomes too strong in the field of
constitutional confl ct for all the machinations of
Downing-street. What a pity it is that Minis.
ters cannot learn the art of conceding wi:n grace
that which they must at last concede, when no-
body will thank then for the extorted surrender.
As to the possibility of retrenchment, to an
extent that will admit the abolition of the house
and window taxes without substituting any
other in their stead, nobody doubts it who
knows the enormous scale of expense at
which all our public establishments are kept
up notwithstanding the fall of prices in many
instances to what they were before the late war,
when our establishments and all official salaries
were on a much smaller scale. The grandeur
of style in which the Whigs can job for their
more favoured partisans may be estimated by
one recent example—that of the place in India
created for Mr. Macaulay, the 11' hig Member
for Leeds—at a salary of 10,0001. a year.
Here we have a gentleman, who, we believe,
was called to the Bar, but not to hold briefs,
sent out to legislate for India, without any of
the knowledge or experience necessary for such
a task ; while we venture to say there are fifty
members of the profession, far his superiors in
the essential requisites for such an undertaking,
who would gladly perform the duty at one-third
the remuneration. Mr. Macaulay, from being
a maker of florid speeches, with far more rhetoric
than wisdom in them, is appointed a legislator
of India, with a salary exceeding by 2,0001. that
of the Chief Justice of England ! Yet this is
retrenchment and economy I—Morning Herald.

The Parliament, as will be seen from the con-
tents of the Gazette of last night, is ordered to
meet on Tuesday, the 4th of February next,
" fur the despatch of divers urgent and important
matters ;"—and most divers as well as urgent
and important are the matters which will come
before it, and upon which it must pronounce a
definitive opinion. That it either can or will
heal all the grievances under which the country
labours, is an expectation not to be entertained.
They were not engendered in a moment, nor will
they be eradicated by any single effort. They
are too numerous to be dealt with by even any
one Parliament, whatever its duration, or zeal, or
energy. But what the public does look forward
to, and has a right to expect, is that Parliament
will show more sympathy with the people than
it exhibited during its last session—that their
grievances will be more attended to—and that
the routine business of merely voting away the
people's money will not be the only thing
thought of, or perpetually urged forward, to the
delay of everything else. The expectations of the
people from the Reformed Parliament may have
formerly been tco high ; hut its short comings
during the last session far exceeded them. Many
popular questions met with a decided negative
—many others were postponed, for no better
reason than that it did not suit the views either
of the Government or of the Parliament to at-
tend to them. We hope and trust that suc:i
will not be the case during the ensuing session ;
but on the contrary, that due zeal will be exhi-
bited in amending what is wrong—in attending
to the prayers of the people—and in manifest-
ing a desire to render the Government and Le-
gislature of the country the objects of love and
respect, instead of fear and hatred, suspicion and
dislike. For what was accomplished during the
last session there is unquestionably much
ground for satisfaction ; but reforms are de-
manded now which were but little thought of
'thelcatid which Inuit be complied with, if it

be meant that: the country shall be saved, by
peaceful legislation, from a ruinous revolution.
The church must be reformed--church-rates
must be abolished, and all dissenters or sepa-
ratists from the church relieved from paying in
any shape for the religion professed by others.
It is but just that such a change should he
made, and it will be insisted upon by the great
body of dissenters with a zeal and energy pro-
portionate to the justice of their claim. The
assessed taxes must also go to the wall. In our
opinion they are not obnoxious in principle,
but in consequence of the manner in which they
have been assessed and collected ; but the
public has determined that it will no longer
submit to them, aid they must cease in conse-
quence, in whatever manner their place may
be supplied. The army must also be cut
down both in numbers and in expense. In
the former respect it exceeds so far a proper
peace-establishment, that it would be difficult
to discover for what reasons, unconnected
with patronage And power, it continues to be
kept up to its present amount--in the latter it
not only exceeds that of every European army,
but in the case of the household troops it is
utterly beyond all bearing. The keep of a
horse actually exceeds in expense the sum on
which many honest families are compelled to
live. The sinecures and pensions must also be
dealt with, and without scruple. There must
be no sinecures while the people are unable to
pay for them—nor any pensions allowed except
where just services have been rendered for them.
On this point there must be no squeamishness.
The people will cheerfully submit to taxation
when they are aware that its produce is applied
to its proper object—the promotion of the
public good—but they neither will, nor are they
bound to empty their pockets for the sake of
putting money in those of persons who can
show no better claims than the Crokers,
Arbuthnots, &c., whose names swell the pension
list as state paupers and public mendicants.—
Morning Advertiser.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, DEC. 10.

CURIOUS CASE-THE KING V. OLIVER AND JAMES

ANDERTON.

This was an indictment charging the two de-
fendants, who are brothers, one being a barrister and
the other a banker, with conspiracy, to cause it to
be believed that the prosecutor, Freeman Anderton
(their brot her), was insane, thereby to get possession
of his property.
_ _

. .
Mr. KNOWLES stated the case. The defendants
were the sons of a most respectable gentleman. One
was a member of the profession of the law; the
other was a partner in the house of Bosanquet and
Co., the bankers. Both were men of high character
previous to this transaction. The prosecutor, Mr.
Freeman Anderton, ‘N as a younger brother, who had
formerly followed the business of an insurance-
broker. In October, 1829, he was living in York-
street, Lambeth. He was a purchaser of pictures,
of which he was a competent judge. He had in his
house a large and valuable collection, and in money
and bills about 14,0001.; and the charge was, that
the defendants, entering into a conspiracy to get
possession of his property, caused his person to be
seized under a warrant of lunacy obtained from Dr.
Burroughs.
D. Burroughs, a physician at the Lunatic Asy-
lum, Clapham, knew the defendants. In the latter
part of October, 1829, the witness had an inter-
view with them. On the 31st of October he re-
ceived a note from Mr. Oliver Anderton to meet in
his house at Montague-street, Russell-square. Their
object was to consult him about their brother, Mr.
Freeman Anderton. Mr James Anderton said
they considered Mr. Freeman Anderton had acted
in a manner which induced them to think he was
not of sound mind. They made many derails to
him which induced him to think Mr. F. Anderton
was not of sound mind. They said it was necessary
to put him under constraint by Monday morning, or
he would be ruined by a speculation in pictures.
Atrivipating that he might have an interview with
'lr. Anderton, he sent to his asylum for two men,
Hazard and Shelly. He was told to prevent the
prosecutor going from his house, so that he might
be examined in the morning. The witness desired
Mr. James Anderton to give instructions. They
accordingly gave their instructions.