The Sun.
London, England, 1834-03-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The English public have been lately under obligation to the
Paymaster of the Forces for his protection of a reverend and
anti-reform pamphleteer. The people of Scotland are under
some alarm of a similar favour and compliment from his Lord-
ship. A report is in circulation, that some public provision is
to be obtained through his influence for a Mr. M`Gregor Mur_
ray,formerly an officer in the Austrian service, but who has lately
had the better fortune of uniting himself to a daughter of Sir
ThomhsHardy.Now we are certain that the noble lord will thank
us for raising our warning voice against such an appointment.
indeed, it could never have been in contemplation. M`Gregor
Murray is well known to the freeholders in Perthshire as the
most active and bitter opponent of the reforming member, Lord
Ormelie; and it is even understood that his politics carried
him so far in the last election, as to induce him to press his
influence with his father's tenantry against the declared wishes
of their landlord, that they should support the liberal candi-
date. Sir C. M`Gregor Murray is, we believe, at this moment.
a governor of one or the West India islands ; and we should
hope that one situation of this description might satisfy the
family. His son, under present circumstances, will act with
more discretion, and assuredly snore kindly by his friends, by
returning to the Austrian service, where his politics will insure
him promotion, than by pressing them to force him into pub-
lic employment in this country, in opposition to the feelings of
the people.—Horning Chronicle, Wednesday.
The cause of the delay in granting a charter to the London
University, was yesterday stated in the House of Lords. The
Earl of Durham, on presenting a petition from the Dissenters
of Frome, in Somersetshire, called the attention of the noble
and learned lord on the Woolsack to one point in tke petition,
because it related to a subject in which the noble and learned
lord was deeply interested—namely, that in which it was
stated that the petitioners were excluded from the public
schools, and from the two universities of Oxford and Cam-
bridge ; and that in the University of London, where no rule
for excluding them existed, they were prevented from enjoying
the benefit intended, by the fact that, for want of a charter,
degrees could not be conferred in that university. " Now," added
his lordship, " if there was one part of the life of the noble
and learned lord which more than any other was the admira-
tion of his fellow-countrymen, it was that which had been de-
voted to the cause of public education. He was sure, there-
fore, that there must be some cause which .the noble and
learned lord's influence could not prevent, that disabled the
government from granting this charter." Lord Brougham
stated that the cause was a protest which had been entered by
Oxford and Cambridge against granting a charter, which, if not
recalled, must be laid before the Privy Council in the usual
manner. His lordship expressed himself glad that his noble
fliend had given him the opportunity of stating this, as
the most unaccountable reports had got abroad that he had
relaxed in his desire to obtain a charter for the London
University. We certainly think, with Lord Durham, that
if the objections are not removed, the favour ought to be granted
in spite of the Universities, in accordance with the spirit of
the times. We do not doubt of the fervour of the noble
and learned lord; nor do we believe, for a moment, that his
ardour in behalf of the University has cooled; but it seems to us,
notwithstanding, unaccountable, that with such high fervour a
simple question like this remains to be disposed of in the fourth
year of a liberal administration. The whole question must lie in a
nut-shell. If the Universities will not withdraw their protest, '
the question surely can be heard and disposed of in a day or
two. The two Universities, the " two ancient Universities," as
the noble and learned lord styles them, much wish to retain i
the monopoly of conferring degrees, and it is natural that they
should be liberal of their protests on the occasion ; but it would
be a libel indeed on the British Constitution to suppose the
sovereign power precluded, by a monopoly in favour of two
Universities, from the power of granting such institutions as
are necessary to enable one-half of the inhabitants of a country
to participate in the benefits of education.—Well for the two
Universities if the Dissenters claim no more from them than
their withdrawal of the illiberal protest !—However, we will
not enlarge further on this subject at present.—Morning
Chronicle, Wednesday.
' If the object of the Devon petition, which occupied so much
of the morning sitting of the House of Commons yesterday, was
correctly described by Mr. D. W. Harvey, and we believe it
was, as an attempt to be relieved from 3s. out of every ss.
which they now pay in tithe, we cannot accuse the fair county
of Devon of being over scrupulous and rigid in its notions of
honesty. It is, we all know, a very agreeable thing to be re-
lieved from the trouble of paying money. There is an instinc-
tive propensity in the human hand to close on its palm being
touched with the King's coin, or even with Bank paper, and it
is not always that an appeal to the understanding or the con-
science can relax the gripe sufficiently to disengage the enclo-
sure, even though it should be an undoubted and unquestionable
claimant who tries his eloquence in the task. But this instinct
acquires a great accession of force when there happens to be
an outcry against the claimant himself, as, we are sorry to say,
there is at this moment against the Church of England. We
are far from imputing intentional fraud to the good people of
Devon; but as, in the instance alluded to, they cannot put
P2s. out of every pound into their own pockets without taking
them out of the pockets of other people who had a prior claim,
we would suggest to them the propriety of reconsidering their
advice to the Legislature; and if upon such reconsideration
they should perceive that it savours a little too much of spolia-
tion, it would be doing them injustice to suppose they
would hesitate to retract and renounce it. If Church
property be deprived of all legal protection, We may
be certain that every description of property will
suffer. The ecclesiastical taint will sink deeper and
spread wider than people may be prepared to anticipate, and
every creditor, whether he has ever seen the inside of a church
or not, will soon find himself identified with an establishment
which nobody pays. From the opposition which Lord Ebring-
ton and Lord John Russell, and other members of the adminis-
tration, has given to the petition, it is evident that government
do not go the length suggested in its prayer. This is so far
satisfactory. But it were much to be wished that a calmer
spirit were abroad. The petition to which we have been re.
ferring is an evidence of the delusion under which men of good
intentions may sometimes labour when public excitement
lends a gloss to proceedings which under other circumstances,
their advocates would be ashamed a—Morning Herald, Wed.
nesday.
The Courier of last night has the following paragraph :

" A rumour has reached us that Captain Elliott, of whom the
public heard a great deal some time ago, as engaged in the
service of Don Miguel, has been appointed to his Britannic
Majesty's ship Revenge, and is going to Lisbon. Can this be
possible ?"
The above paragraph must, we presume, be altogether un-
founded; for if, unhappily, it should turn nut to be true, that
the Captain Elliott alluded to has been selected for promo-
tion in the British service, after having done all he could
to forfeit rank and pay therein, by engaging to command
the navy of Don Miguel, all the world will agree with us
that the Board of Admiralty has committed a most un-
becoming and disgraceful, if not unlawful act. Captain
Napier's name was erased from the list of the British
navy, and for what? Because he chose to hoist the
flag and receive the pay of Donna Maria, the acknowledged
Queen of Portugal, and intimate friend of William IV., who
recognized her right to the throne, and took the most avowed
and cordial interest in her fortunes—a Princess, struggling to
overthrow a base and treacherous usurper, and to restore the
rights and institutions of a people connected by a thousand
recollections, sympathies, and motives with the British nation.
But this Capt. Elliott, it appears, thought fit to throw himself
into the opposite scale—to oppose legitimacy—to abet usurpa-
tion—to fight against the known wishes and predilections of
his Sovereign and of the British government—and to make
war upon his own conntrymen, already forming the crews
of the Portuguese navy under a brother officer, and
(as we have been informed) a personal acquaintance
and friend. Yet Captain Napier, the Queen's man, was
dismissed; and Captain Elliott, if the Courier speaks truth,
the Miguelite Captain Elliott, gets the command of one of the
finest ships of the line in our service! Why, we might as soon
expect to hear of Marshal Beresford being made lord-lieute.
naut of Ireland for his services to the usurper. But, in fact, it
is not possible to believe such a tale. It would almost lead us
to suspect that Lord John Russell was first lord of the Admi-
ralty, and that Captain Elliott's foreign toryism had obtained at
his lordship's hands a like measure of grateful acknowledgment
(and for nearly parallel services), as Lord John Russell only
could have been capable of tendering to the Rev. Mr. G leig.
This liberal preference of enemies to friends is a broad hint to
candidates for promotion generally, through what course of
action they may best obtain it !—Times, Wednesday.
We were yesterday led by
a paragraph in the Courier
newspaper (which, indeed, we quoted as our authority)
to assume a fact, anti affix to it a commentary, both of
which we now find to be utterly groundless, and for the
insertion of which we feel ourselves called upon to apo-
logize as well to Sir James Graham and the Board of
Admiralty, as to a moat gallant and meritorious officer,

viz., Capt. William Elliott, R.N., whom we had mistaken
for another person. It is no., in lac., the Capt. Elliott
,vho has become celebrated by his acceptance of a naval
command under the usurper Miguel, and who may have
been previously, though we never heard it, celebrated in
the service of his own Sovereign—it is not the Miguelite
who had b.en made a Post Captain in 1830 or 1831, a
little before Lord Melville quitted office, and who, we have
been told, knows something of music, whatever be may or
,nay not know of seamanship,—it is not this gentleman
'hat has been, as we were erroneously led to understand,
appointed to his Majesty's 76-gun ship Revenge. The
exc llent officer just named to that command is Captain
WI liana Elliott, a veteran and distinguished seaman, who
sot the rank of Post Captain and became Companion of
the Bath in the year 1810, to which honours and to hie
present appointment he rai-ed himself from a very but-table
station in life by his own unassisted but exemplary merit,
Captain William Elliott, we have been assured, has nt
interest of any kind to rely upon, nor has any been ex-
erted for him on this occasion, beyond the recomtneada-
lion of his own high character and the sense entertained
of it, and of the claims derived from it; by the First Lord
of the Admiralty, whose choice reflects de much credit ot±
himself and his colleagues as the selection erroneously
imputed to them yesterday would have done the reverse:
We rejoice to have this opportunity of correcting a Otli4-1
take so injurious to the feelings of more than one party,
to whom public esteem and gratitude are owing, and We
have seizA it with cordial satisfaction.-7'ime.4,

The business inParliamentlastnight consisted almost ej..;,
elusively of the disclikon of proposed tneestikes for the puritl.:
cation or extinction of boroughs charged ttitb torruption,:,
Carrickfergus, Stafford, and Warwick suceessiVey engaged
the attention of the house. Each was pronounce° 4' the;
legislators of the House of Commons guilty of the 1w
putel crime, and deserving of a special and peculiar rnea-
sure of punishment. We do not know whether the present
House of Commons adheres to the opinion, which was
so often and so warmly maintained ira the last, that the
elective franchise is a valuable and important privilege.
But, if we might venture to infer any thing from its conduct,
we should certainly conclude that this among other opi.
nions of the unreformed Parliament was abandoned—ut-
terly rejected as an antiquated and obsolete prejudice un-
worthy of the present age of intelligence, liberality, and
reform ; for it has been determined, by the House
of Commons, not only to take away this privilege from
cert lin numerous bodies of their fellow countrymen, the
evidence of whose guilt is so loose, informal, and inconelu.
sive, that no criminal court in the kingdom would sentence
any of the King's subjects to pay a fine of a shilling °port
the strength of it, but to take away this privilege trout
numerous bodies of their fellow-subjects, against whom not
guilt of any kind is even alleged. The House of Com-
mons may be right in intimating that the elective Fran•
chise is now of so little value that no injustice is com-
mitted in depriving men of that privilege ; but we sub.
mit that there is some danger, nevertheless, in the ex.
ample of subjecting men to any deprivation, however in-
sigrOficant, without something like judicial evidence of
their having (lore wrong. It is not very probable, we
admit, that even the lowest or most ignorant re those
classes of society, from which English Juries are selected,
should generally think of looking up to the present
House of Commons as an example for their guidance
in the administration of justice. But if only one man in
twelve of those classes should imbibe the lesson which
the cases of Carrickfergus, Warwick, and Stafford seem
calculated to instil, it is evident that the fountain of justice
would he entirely corrupted, and that the fortune, charac-
ter, or life of no man in England would be safe for a
single day. However indifferent it may be whether Car-
rickfergus, Stafford, and Warwick cease or continue to
send members to the House of Commons, or whether
their representatives be elected by ten pound householders
merely, or by these in conjunction with freemen, yet,
when the subject is regarded in the point of view in which
we have endeavoured to place it, it is still of some im-
portance to the community that, in a proceeding
which cannot be divested of the judicial character,
manifest injustice should not be done to Carrick-
fergus, Warwick, and Stafford. It is fortunate fur the
nation, certainly, that it does not depend wholly upon the
House of Commons whether these boroughs shall or shall
not be condemned without a fair and satisfactory trial.
The House of Commons may manifest its disposition to
condemn upon vague and imperfect evidence, but its
power extends no further. The example of injustice will
remain incomplete ; the pernicious lesson of condemning,
in the absence of conclusive evidence, will not have been
promulgated by authority until the other branches of the
legislature shall have concurred with the House ot Com-
mons ; and it is consolatory to reflect that one of those
branches is an assembly which has not hitherto been prone
to deprive its fellow-subjects of their legal right-, without
a full, fair, and dispassionate investigation of the charges
alleged against them.—Morning Poet.

SCARBROUGII AND LEEDS RAILROAD.
—We hear that the Scarbrough and Leeds Railroad
Company are using active exertions to promote that un-
dertaking, and, that in the course of a few days they
will be prepared to report to the public. To the York
,ind Leeds projected railroad, a line from Scarbrough
uniting with them would be productive of much profit,
and we think some arrangement to that effect might be
entered into with a prospect of much mutual advantage.
CADIZ, FEB. 23.—The Envoy from the
Portugu se Government to the Court of Spain landed here
yesterday, and it is quite impossible to describe the good
reception he met wish. It is curious to remark that the
City of Edinburgh steamer, which conveyed him here,
was cot fainished with a clean bill of health, and an officer
who acc,nnpanied the ambassador on his way to Marva()
had no passport; these difficulties, however, were soon
overcome. General Bassa, the governor here, showed the
minister, M. Sarmento, every possible attention, and to-
,!ay is to give a grand fete to him. In fact, M. Sarmento
Las entered Spain with his right foot foremost.

The new novel of " Allan Breck" by the
author of " The Subaltern," is a work of strong power
and deep interest. It contains passages scarcely to be ex-
celled in graphic di scription and intense excitement. We
more particularly allude to the gambling scene at Luckie
Bawden's, and to the trial of Fergus, as possessing ex-
traordinary dramatic power. Several of the characters
are forcibly drawn. Parson Neil is a perfect specimen of
a secret yet active mover of the elements of mischief,
and Allan Bieck is a fearful portrait of a noble nature
utterly ruined by vicious propensit;es.—Morning Post.
THE LATE MR. SHIPP.—We regret to have
to announce the death of Mr. Shipp, the governor of the
workhouse, which took place at eleven o'clock on Thurs-
day night. Mr. Shipp was in perfect health up to ten
o'clock on Monday morning last, when he was suddenly
seized with a severe at!ack of pleurisy, while dictating a
letter in his office. Dr. Macrorie, Mr. Nightingale, the
house-surgeon, and Mr. Manifold, were immediately called
in to attend him, and in the course of the ensuing forty-
eight hours no less than 120 ounces of blood were taken
(mom bins. By this severe method of treatment, the dis-
ease was controlled for three successive times, but it re-
turned with increased violence, and finally carried bins
off. He died in the fifty-first year of his age. Mr. Shipp
has left behind him a family of six children, two by a
former marriage, and four by his second wife, now his
widow. The youngest child is now only four weeks old.
Mr. Seipp enjoyed, up to the time of his death, a pension
of 501. a year, on account of his military services in India.
That bounty will now, of course, cease.,—Liverpool
Chronicle.

Saturday night a terrific explosion took place
limn the bursting of a boiler at Great St. George Mine.
The boiler was torn in atoms, and some pieces, weighintr
from half to three-quarters of a ton, were thrown 100
yards from the spot, with such force that on coming to
the ground they were buried two or three feet deep. Not
,t particle of the boiler-house remained; the doors and
windows of the engine-house were smashed to pieces, and
such a scene of devastation presented itself as to beggar
description. The boiler was of the very best manufac-
ture. The only individual in whose power it was to
i Irleeed o withoutery._ Faiinouh
utteringt
Packet.
impart information as to the cause of the accident, was
i
crushed to death in the engine-house : he has left a wife
and nine children. Monday, William Roberts, while de-
seen ling one of the engine-shafts of the same mine,
matke v
over-
stepped himself at 20 fathoms from the surface, and,
falling
a groan. His widow about a fortnight before was con-
fined ; and she has received so severe a shock, that great
fears f
areortyfathomsentertained of further,
her
ti
It was

IRE TRADES' UNIONS.--About one hun-
dred bricklayers and labourers, in the employ of Mr. Bird,
the great contractor for the making and. repairing the
sewers in the metropolis, have struck for an advance of
w tgcs. The men have been working at Kensington,.
making a new sewer, and ou 1 ist Saturday they refused.
to go to work ou the Monday without an advent.e of
sixpence per (lay, and they all iiined the Trades' Union.
Mr. Bird refused to comply with their demand, and the
work is at a complete stand still. The men have con-
,lucted themselves very peaceably,
and for the last few days
they have paraded Kensington in a very quiet and orderly
manner.