The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-23 00:00:00

viva voce, and may vindicate their own characters and
the cause which they support, by publishing their
names and commercial or other denominations. This,
as upon the whole the most manly and effective course,
is what we would seriously press upon'the attention of
the committee. It will at once dispel the accusations
of " hole-and-corner" meetings, a species of accusa-
tion which we admit would, in the present instance,
be an absurd one, because, from the spirit of the adver-
tisement, no matter what a man's politics may
be, if not a " merchant, banker, or shipowner,"
he ought not properly to claim admission to
the meeting. Nevertheless, as we have said before,
face the enemy—let him have all conceivable
advantages of mob-numbers, mob-wisdom, mob-
taste, and mob-virtue, and see what he can make
of them. The exposure at least will do good ; but
wherever the assembly is to be held, and under what-
soever circumstances, let every man who has signed
the requisition attend, and enforce its object by his
presence. There is to be another meeting also, at a
later hour, and constructed differently from that to
which we have adverted, though at no great distance
from the same spot. The Lord Mayor, it is known,
has invited to dinner a company, amongst whom arc
likely to appear the greater portion of His Majesty's
Ministers. We have no doubt that the official
heads of the Government will take this occasion to
re-state and confirm the declarations contained in Sir
Robert Peel's address, as to the principles of their
policy, foreign and domestic. No small interest is
therefore in many quarters attached to this political
festivity. But there is a topic to which our notice has
been reluctantly drawn by what occurred at some
recent dinners. These performances being chiefly
under the guidance of a class of fanatics called
" ultra-Tories," as foolish in their way, and indirectly
as mischievous, as the Destructives themselves, no
wonder that every sort of absurdity should be per-
petrated by them. We will mention one. A preju-
dice had gained ground in some quarters, to the effect
that Queen Adelaide has habitually dabbled in politics,
and that to her may be traced certain anti-popular
tendencies which have been imputed to the Court
circle of our gracious Sovereign. Now we confess
that at one time we had been induced to believe what
we are now convinced was a paltry slander. It became
our duty on one occasion to exonerate her Majesty
from an odious charge of that nature—to which quite
innocently on our part our columns had given circula-
.tion. Yet is it not suspected—and why ? Because,
forsooth, these ultra-Tory blockheads will not let her
Majesty's reputation be at peace, because they degrade
her into their factious idol, and toast her name,
apart from her Royal husband's, with boisterous and
frantic vociferations, thus proclaiming to the world
that the Queen is guilty of sympathising with them in
their odious and stupid animosity towards the rights of
the people—that her Majesty, in short, is herself an ul-
tra-Tory, an enemy to reform, and an abettor of misgo-
vernment. There never was a more cruel piece of
madness than this, nor one of which its victim had
more grievous reason to complain—and Queen Ade-
laide is indebted for it to her professed friends, the
Holy Alliance pupils of Great Britain. So another
most offensive exhibition in the form of a toast was
played off at the Buckinghamshire dinner, where the
Duke of Wellington was described as the " conqueror
of France." 'We are heartily sorry the gallant and
manly-minded Duke was not there present, for he
would assuredly have rebuked such senseless and even
criminal adulation. The Duke of Wellington
never conquered France ; his powerful understand-
ing would have repudiated with ridicule the possi-
bility of such an enterprise, had it been proposed to
him, no matter by whom. Had he even possessed
the means of conquering France, his knowledge and
morality as a Statesman would have induced him ro
reject with disdain the infliction of such a calamity
upon Europe as the annihilation of one of her noblest
political communities. Such stuff would be unworthy
of notice, but for its capacity to wound the feelings of
a brave and great people, who ought to be respected,
were it for nothing else but the hard and manly con-
tests which they have maintained against us, and for
the friendship which we have now the happiness of
reciprocating with them. The letter of complaint and
remonstrance from a gallant Frenchman in yesterday's
Times, respecting the above insult offered to his
country, ought to shame the firebrand orators who
seek thus wantonly to embroil two allied nations. To
return, however, to the Lord Mayor's dinner, we •
trust that the toasts may be prescribed and arranged
by somebody in his sober senses, and that nothing
may be said or insinuated, even in the shape of un-
called-for acclamation, which under the name of com-
pliment to an individual may subject that individual to
the reproach of millions of men.—Times.