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

S~ii -et-THE-PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We yesterday prepared our readers for the ministerial
changes which have taken place. From our Parliamentary
report it will be seen that Lord Grey in the Lords, and
Lord Althorp in the Commons, formally announced their
respective resignations. To a late hour last night, and,
indeed, up to the time of our going to press, nothing cer-
tain was known beyond the fact of the resignations, except
that the King, immediately after his arrival in town, sent
for . Lord Melbourne, to advise with him upon the best
course to be pursued in the present crisis. This step
may be viewed as an indication of the soundness of
his Majesty's judgment ; for, under all circumstances,
Lord Melbourne will be the best able to form a popular Ad-
ministration. We are sure that Lord Melbourne would
offer no counsel to the King but such as the present con-
juncture demands. The only members of the late Cabinet
whO are said to have been yet in personal communication
with the King are Lord Melbourne and the Lord -Or&
cellor, and we think the public may rest assured that
these Noblemen would give the very best advice to his
Majesty. We are certain that his Majesty would not
be so insane as to throw himself into the arms
of a Tory Ministry ; and in consulting with Lord
Melbourne and the Lord Chancellor, the King
could only wish the formation of a Ministry acting on reform
principles. Indeed the idea of any other than a Liberal
Ministry conducting the affairs of the country at this time,
is too extravagant to merit a moment's consideration. We
are quite aware of the very great difficulty in reconstruct-
ing a Ministry of which Lord Althorp is not a member ;
but the temporary difficulty, as respects his Lordship, may
possibly be overcome. In any event he is essential to the
stability of such an Administration, if not its natural head.
Nor can a Government acceptable to the country.
be formed without much popular addition. Lord
Durham eminently enjoys the confidence of the re-
formers throughout the kingdom, and would give great
weight to a remodelled Cabinet. Lord Radnor, Lord
Mulgrave. Sir J. C. Hobhouse, and many other decided
reformers might add much influence to the new creation.
We can no longer move between two parties. The Tories
must be routed out from all the diplomatic and official
departments, or they will counteract every beneficial effort
of a Reform Government. Nor should the Horse Guards
be overlooked on this occasion. We would rather see; a
rank Tory Administration than a weak, shuffling, and
abortive Ministry. The country will view the acts of the
King and Lord Melbourne, during the next few days, with
the deepest anxiety and even jealousy.—Morning Chronicle.
The disclosures made last night by the late and pre-
,sent Ministers of the Crown, in the two Houses of
Parliament, are, when regarded in all their variety,
and all their contradictions, the most discreditable and
•the most melancholy that were ever perhaps presented
to a civilised community by any body of persons who
had arrogated—to themselves, or been invested by
others, with the reputation of being fit to conduct the
affairs of a nation. The blunders of the Whig Admi-
nistration may now at least, without exaggeration, be said
to have exceeded the simplicity of childhood or the fatuity
of dotage. Such scenes as those of last night are, we ima-
gine, in spite of the proverb, entirely new to the world,
and, notwithstanding the painful anxiety they must produce
as to the future government of the country, the first and
predominant feeling unquestionably will be astonishment
that such men as we here see exhibited have ever been
deemed, either by themselves or others, qualified to take
even the meanest share in the management of na-
tional affairs. The folly, the imbecility, the bad faith,
which have distinguished the late Cabinet are made indeed
painfully conspicuous by the disclosures of last night ; but
as to the actual position of the Government, the informa-
tion they afford us is ambiguous or contradictory, while
with respect to the future prospects of the Government, we
can only learn from them what appear to be the present
wishes of some of the Members of the expiring Ministry.
Lord Grey says that he and Lord Althorp have resigned.
The Lord Chancellor completes what we must suppose to
have been the meaning of Lord Grey, by stating that
only two Ministers have resigned, taking, at the same
time, especial care to intimate to the country, that a
surrender of office is the last thing in his own
contemplation. But, in contradiction to these state-
ments, we have the distinct assertion of Lord
Althorp that not only Lord Grey and himself, but his Right
Hon. Friends Mr. Grant, Mr. S. Rice, Mr. Abercromby,
and Mr. Ellice, have retired from office, and the further
assertion that the Administration is at an end, and that his
Noble Friend the Premier was at that very moment em-
ployed in communicating this fact to the House of Lords.
• From these contradictory statements it is impossible to
infer anything conclusively, unless it be that, unchanged to
the last, the Members of the Administration were last night
p 4 ignorant or as regardless as usual of the intentions and
feelings of each other. Irreconcileable, however, as the
Ministerial statements are, with respect to the actual condi-
tion of the Government, enough is known to satisfy the
public that the formation of a new Administration has be-
come necessary. How that Administration will be formed
it seems at the present moment impossible even to
conjecture, although the speeches of last night in the
two House of Parliament certainly shed some vivid rays of
light upon the wishes, and perhaps the expectations, of
individuals and parties with reference to that subject. Earl
Grey intimates pretty distinctly, as it appears to us, his
desire that the Marquis of Lansdowne should be his suc-
cessor. The speech of the Lord Chancellor must, we
suppose, be understood to mean, that he neither desires
. nor anticipates the formation of any Ministry of which he
cannot consistently and honourably be a leading member. Mr.
O'Connell lays aside all his former hostility to Lord Althorp
and Mr. Littleton, and indicates without much ambiguity
his readiness to assist in the Government of the country,
in conjunction with that portion of the late Administra-
tion which differed from Earl Grey and the majority
of their colleagues with respect to the Irish Coer-
cion Bill. Perhaps it is not very rash to deduce the
same-inference from the language of Mr. Hume. What
all parties and every individual, however, who have
• spoken upon the subject unite to proclaim is, that, by
whomsoever the Government of the country may now be
undertaken, the task will be one of unprecedented diffi-
culty. Such is the death-bed confession of the Ministry
which has created the difficulty it deplores—such the epi-
-taph which friends and enemies unite to inscribe upon its
tomb. The fact is, indeed, undeniable. And why, it
will therefore naturally be asked, have the late Ministers
of the Crown shrunk from the duty of sharing with their
sovereign the appalling difficulties by which they have sur-
-rounded him ? We give simply their own answer, divested
merely of its verbiage and mystification. They could not
act in unison. They were incapable of understanding each
:other. They fell by the mere effect of their own incapa-
city or bad faith, while no blow was aimed, no attack me-
ditated from without. Mr. Littleton, it will be said by
superficial observers, by his thoughtlessness or his trickery,
gave the death-blovi to the Administration. But the
,explanation is deplorably insufficient. Why should not
Mr. Littleton have been removed on the proof of
his intellectual or moral unfitness, and his place supplied
.by a more competent man? Why, rather, since the an-
, ewer will suffice for both questions, was Mr. Littleton ever
placed in a situation for which his incompetency was from
the first notorious r 'Why, but that the King's Govern-
ment in the selection of its functionaries had been previously
divested of the power of choosing the fittest men, and re-
duced" to the embarrassing and disabling necessity of choos-
ing the least unfit of the very few individuals who have the
.good fortune to enjoy the fee simple of a seat in the House
,of Commons ? For this evil, among others, the defunct
• ,Alninistration have to answer ; but if even this is less dig-
:Mogul to them than the alacrity. which they have shown
ups& an occasion so slight that it is scarcely intelligible to
von-away from the work of their own' bands. The speech
. of the Duke of Wellington exposes in the most complete
and masterly manner the general misconduct as well as the
final delinquency of the late Administration, and to this ad-
mirable speech we mast now refer our readers.—Morn. Post.
It is with a pain and regret which we have no powers of
'"language to express, that we this day communicate to
our readers the distressing fact of the resignations of Lords
: Grey and Althorp, and of the Ministry of which they were
the virtual as well as the nominal heads, being, if not ac-
tually dissolved, in a state of total paralysis. For an ac-
count of the causes which have led to these results, so
Much to be deplored at any time, but more 'especially at
the present moment, we need only refer our readers to what
may be termed the farewell speech of Lord Grey, and
the candid explanation of Lord Althorp. Irish affairs
were, in some measure, the cause of the painful result ;
but it is nevertheless clear, from all that has been
stated on the. subject, that no difference of opinion of
• any magnitude—at least of such magnitude as to cause
, separation of its Members—existed in the Cabinet, and that
but for the grossly imprudent revelations—considering the
faithless quarter to which they were addressed—of Mr.
Littleton, the Ministry might have been still in existence—
Lord Grey been at its head, to the great benefit of the
• country, and Lord Althorp guiding the decisions of the
friends of order in the House of Commons. The fatal error
of Mr. Littleton, however—the reckless conduct of a per-
, son whose political course there are no words in the Eng-
lish language to characterize—coupled with the silly adju-
, vancy of Mr. Hume, and others whom he contrived to en-
snare to the support of his designs, rendered the resignation
' of both the Noble Lords a matter of honourable, if not of
imperative necessity. We have said that we deplore this
result, and who is it that does not join with us in our re-
gret ? The very parties who were accessary to the pulling
down of the edifice—the very men who recklessly hurried
• on division after division in order to thwart his Majesty's
',Ministers, and bring about that dissolution of the Cabinet
~......„4",„;fijak,juitirw unfortunately occurred—last night expressed

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