The Sun.
London, England, 1834-06-19 00:00:00

pecuniary motives. Gentlemen, on that point, I am
sure I can show you that I stand absolved from any
such motives. In considering whether I should take
office, I never once thought of the pecuniary question.
I made no inquiry upon the subject. But the friend
who solicited me put this question at rest ; for in the
course of our conversation, he said to me, " Mr. Aber-
crombie, if you accept of office, no man can say that
you do so with a view to gain, for you will just receive
exactly as much as you are to relinquish." ( Cheers.)
On that point of the case, then, I hope I stand free
from imputation. ( Cheers.) I know that it has been
stated as an objection by some part of the constituency,
that it is improper to return an individual connected
with office, and that such men are placed in a situa-
tion in which they cannot do justice to the affairs of
their constituents ; but I am of opinion, that so
far from this being the case, it is just the contrary ;
that so far from impeding, my being in office will
not only enable me to be more useful to you, but
also to the public generally. ( Cheers.) Gentlemen,
the fact of accepting office, with a reformed Parlia-
ment, is essentially different from whit it was in
an unreformed Parliament. I will easily show you the
difference. In an unreformed Parliament, those who
were in office were chiefly returned for such places as
Gatton or Old Sarum, and however the cards might
be shuffled, the result was the same—they had no one
to please but their employers. Therefore, in any place
where there was even a small number of voters, they
were unwilling to elect men in office, because they
found it necessary to exert all their power against the
mass of Ministerial influence which then existed. But
observe the difference now. No gentleman can get
into Parliament except through the means of a po-
pular constituency. They must find their way there
by the choice of the people. And what is the result ?
Why, simply this, that no Administration can go on
which does not govern the country in accordance with
the will of the people and the spirit of the age.
( Great cheering.) Now, what has happened with
my friend, Mr. Rice, in his appeal to the electors of
Cambridge ? He has been returned after an arduous
struggle, and give me leave to say, I know something
of the place and the kind of influence he had to contend
against—so much do I know of it, indeed, that my
astonishment is that he was returned at all. And
seeing his majority of twenty-nine, I feel as certain
as that I now address the electors of Edinburgh, that his
real majority was a numerous one. Here, then, I appeal
to you. I have told you my story, and it is for you to
decide whether you think I am fit to represent your
interests in Parliament. You will return me if you
think the fact of my being a member of the adminis-
tration, so far from thwarting, will place me in a situ-
ation more efficiently to promote and advance the in-
terests of my constituents. ( Cheers.) There is one
point in my address to you on the present occasion,
which I understand has been much criticised. I told
you I should deceive you if I said that my votes would
be on all occasions the same as if I were unconnected
with government. Some gentlemen have said that
this was speaking too plain—that I should have held
my peace; and if it should so happen as I had stated,
I should leave it to be found out. (Laughter.) Gen-
tlemen, I am of a contrary opinion. Judging from
experience, I think the possibility may occur which
I have stated, and if I did not forewarn you of it, then
I should have to mystify and explain, and split hairs,
and define, and endeavour to persuade you that I had
done right ; and what would be the result ? Why,
that I should lose my own self-respect, and forfeit
your confidence. ( Great cheering.) I therefore
thought it right to warn you in good time of what
might by possibility happen ; and it is for you
to judge whether,—in these circumstances—
I am still fit to be your representative. In offering
myself to you on the present occasion, there is reason
to believe that I shall meet with no opposition ; and I
rejoice in that circumstance for your sakes, because
you have so recently undergone all the turmoil and
interruption to business occasioned by a contested
election, which I know must produce much inconve-
nience as well as loss to many. But there is one point
to which I would beg to refer on this subject. If I
have read right, or if it has been reported right, I am
given to understand that Mr. Learmonth stated at a
recent meeting, that there was no object nearer his
heart than to be pitted against me on this occasion.
(Laughter.) Without meaning to speak any thing
disrespectful of Mr. Learmonth, I think I may say,
that I have contested the representation of this city
with an opponent fully formidable as Mr. Lear-
month. (Cheers.) Of Mr. Blair I will say, thit his
pretensions to the honour of representing this city
were great, if it had not unfortunately happened that
his political opinions were at variance with the great
majority of the constituency. ( Cheers.) That being the
case, he could not, and did not succeed ; but I consider
it here an act of justice to acknowledge, that he main-
tained that contest in the temper, feeling, and spirit of a
gentleman ( Cheers), that when he retired from
the contest, he did so with my entire and unqualified
respect. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, under the present
circumstances, I do not think it necessary to enter
snore into details. But I shall be suite ready, as it is
any duty to do, to answer any questions which may be
put to me in respect to my past conduct. For that
I alone am responsible ; and if in any thing I have
erred, I must bear the blame. But if I am questioned
respecting what may be my future conduct, I do not
see how it is possible for me to answer. I am no
longer a single individual, standing and acting alone ;
and I do not think it would be right, standing in the
connection which I now do with others, to give any
answers by which those others might be affected.
( Cheers.) Gentlemen, I am aware that this is mak-
ing a large demand upon your confidence. But the
citizens of Edinburgh know of what sort of materials
I am made. (Great cheering.) And if they are dis-
posed to confide in me, I hope they will believe that
if I should change, it will not be by the action of any
mister views or motives. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I
must allude to one other circumstance. I perceive an
extraordinary and unaccountable charge made against
you. Certain gentlemen who recently met to celebrate
not their triumph, but their defeat (Laughter),
were pleased to say, that you were making Edinburgh
a pocket burgh of Government, and that we were the
mere puppets and nominees of his Majesty's. Ministers.
Gentlemen, had I not read this, I could not have be-
lieved it, for so absurd an idea I certainly never before
heard. Gentlemen, let me suppose a case. Suppose
that Ministers had said to Sir J. Campbell, " Go
down to Edinburgh, it is our burgh, use all our influ-
ence in it." ( Laughter.) Gentlemen, I think I know
something of Edinburgh ; and if I had been sent
down here with such a power, I really should not have
known to whom to address myself. (Cheers.) I
might have gone to several individuals, perhaps, about
the Parliament House, and explained to them my mis-
sion, and then I might have called on one or two
merchants in the southern districts or elsewhere, and
said to them, " Gentlemen, the Administration wish
you to return me to Parliament ; and if you have any
brothers or other relations for whom you want any
thing done, you may depend upon our serving you."
Well, if §,ir John Campbell or I got by these means
100 voters, it would have been the outside—where
we should have had 100 in our favour, there would
have been 2,400 against us. ( Cheers.) But the
truth is, something lies at the bottom of this tom-
pla nt ; and if I have hit upon it, I think it is my
duty to communicate it to you. Those gentlemen
complain of the influence of the administration in
Edinburgh. Now, there are two sorts of-influence.
If it is that influence by which men are controlled
unwillingly to vote, I have shown that we could have
no possible chance among you. But if it is the in-
fluence which a government may possess over a willing
it so happens that the electors of Edinburgh
and the ministry concur in their general views of go-
vernment, then there can be no doubt that the neces-
sary conseque2Ce will be that ministers will have
great influence witla them—and it is of that veryin-
fluence that these geniiinen complain. ( Cheers.)
This, I believe, is the true and real secret of the whole
case. (Laughter, and great cheering.) You elected
Mr. Jeffrey, when Lord Advocate, because you knew
there was not a man in all Scotland who had stronger
claims upon your confidence and support than Mr.
Jeffrey. I was not then in office, and therefore
could not be considered a nominee of ministers. I
wither asked nor obtained their influence; and indeed
had no communication at all with them concerning that
election. On the occasion of the recent vacancy, it
appears that there was some difficulty in finding a
person who altogether suited your views. At last one
came forward, a countryman of your own, who, by his
talents and character, had raised himself to preemi-
nence in his own profession. He, being a Scotsman,
and a distinguished man, the electors thought it right
to reward him for his past good conduct, by placing
him as their representative ; and it was no objection to
him that he was connected with a government dis-
posed to carry through great and important reforms,
and of which he had been an important instrument, at
least so far as regarded legal reforms. This, gentle-
men, is the whole amount of the case as regards the
charge of Edinburgh being a ministerial burgh.
( Cheers.) It now only remains for me to say a few

T t141:4
,ThlS*lllll.

LONDON,
THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 19, 1834.

We have observed with pain the course
taken in the House of Peers with reference to
the London and Westminster Bank Bill. The
question is not whether such a Bank should
be established. That point was discussed and
settled when the Bank Charter Renewal Bill
was pending, ar►d an express provision was
even inserted in that bill upon the subject,
consequent upon which the London and West-
minster Bank has been established. The mere
question raised by the bill now pending is,
whether this Bank shall, have the facility of
suing and being sued in the name of its
directors. This is a facility which has been
granted by similar bills to every Insurance
Company that has applied for it, and was pro-
vided for in the case of every Joint-Stock Bank-
ing Company established sixty-five miles be-
yond London by the act passed in 1826,
which repealed the exclusive privilege of the
Bank, that previously prevented any Bank of
Issue, composed of more than six partners,
from existing in any part of England.
Then why should this facility be with-

held from a bank which is not of issue in
London, or within sixty-five miles of it ? It is
said that it is negatived by existing acts in fa-
vour of the Bank, and is also inconsistent with
the bargain made with the Bank last year ; but
how can this be, when the point was discussed
and settled by an express provision in the act
then passed ? The exclusive privilege of the
Bank was limited to the issue of notes. It never
went to prevent banks of deposit. Because the
Bank is made by law the only bank of issue com-
posed of more than six persons in the metro-
polis, or within sixty-five miles of it, does it
follow that it has been, or that it should be,
made the sole bank of deposit within those
limits composed of more than six persons ?
Why should the subjects of the realm be pre-
vented from having the best security for depo-
sits of their money that any number of
persons are willing to give them, by
associating together for this purpose ?
Such a bank as the London and Westminster
Bank, in truth, gives a better security for deposits
than the Bank of England, because the fortunes

of every individual who is a partner of it are
answerable for all deposits made with it, and
the public have the safeguard of good manage-
ment which such responsibility produces. But
the shareholders of the Bank of England are
not so answerable, and oftener than once this
great establishment has been on the eve of stop.
ping payment.

The part of the proceeding which has pained
us the most is the making the Judges of the
land parties to it. The questions to be put to
the Judges, let them be ever so skilfully or arti-
ficially framed, depend upon points which un-
derstandings among the public, as large and
better informed upon them than the judges can
be, will settle for themselves, and if the
opinions that may be delivered by the Judges
shall run counter to the judgments that
will be pronounced by such understand-
ings, the Judges will suffer in the estimation of
the public. The opposition to this bill in-
volves a mere point of dispute as between two
contending interests affected by a private bill
pending in Parliament, and should have been
so dealt with.

We have, however, this consolation, that
the course taken, and the attention to the sub-
ject, which will be thereby excited, will tend
to open the eyes of the public to the mis-
chievous operation of the exclusive power of
issue which the Bank has so long enjoyed,
though it was abused in 1793, in 1797, in
1810-11, in 1815-16, in 1825-26, and in
July, 1832, which emergency, it affected to
say, originated in political causes, when it is
demonstrable that it proceeded, as in all the
previous cases it did, from its previous over-
issue and its subsequent contraction of the cur-
rency. The latter is always a consequence of
expansion, and it is this alternation of expan-
sion and contraction of the currency which, by
raising and depressing prices in a way that no
experience can guard against, induces the ac-
cumulation of floating money capital, by pre-
venting it from engaging in works of industry.

After the very general feeling evinced in the
Commons, last night, against that clause of the
Poor Laws' Amendment Bill, which exempts the
father of an illegitimate child from all responsi-
bility for its support, and the very slight argu-
ments in favour of it, we cannot account for its
adoption. Indeed, with two or three exceptions,
the Members who spoke strongly recom-
mended some alteration, by which the fa-
ther should not escape with impunity, yet the
clause passed without amendment. It is so
unjust, however, both as regards the mother and
her parish, that we have little fear of its patsing
into a law, or if it does pass, of its remaining
long on the Statute Book. All the arguments
urged in its favour were founded entirely on
the evils of the present system. No one
denies the vast evils which the bastardy
laws have entailed on the community, and
more particularly on the labouring classes,
but these can form no ground for in-
troducing a new law the injustice of which the
very supporters of the bill admit. Their only
argument is its expediency, and that expediency,
be it remembered, is purely theoretical. Refe-
rence was made to America, but how can the
condition of England and that of America be
compared ? In the latter country provisions
are cheap. The relatives of the woman,
or the father of the child, find little
difficulty in rearing her offspring, and no poor
laws are required ; but in England the case is
totally different. The woman cannot maintain
her child ; the withdrawal of the seventy-second
clause relieves her parents of the responsibility,
and the inevitable consequence is, that the pa-
rish must be at the expense of maintaining
nearly every illegitimate child. It is quite clear
that parishes will not long submit to such a law.
The only arguments of Lord Auruoßp were
that the existing law had inflicted great
mischief on the female population—that it
diminished the inducements to chastity ; that
the woman often attempted, by the number of
her children, to obtain a settlement in marriage ;
and that she got money for the support of the
child, though she might not want it. The
latter argument is at least singular. In the
common business of life, many People get
money that do not want it, but has that ever
been held as a reason for non-payment ? The
man and woman have committed a crime,
for which both ought to be punished, and
in order to diminish this species of crime, it is
proposed by the new law to punish only one.
According to every kind of reasoning such a
clause must increase rather than diminish the
crime, and all the other evils imputed to the
system could be as well obviated by making
the father responsible as by the proposed law.
It is the absurdity of compelling a man to
marry or go to prison when lie cannot support
the child, and of leaving it to the woman to say
on whom she will affiliate her child, that has
caused much of the evil. Do away with such
absurdities, but let something like justice and

mercy be observed. A law founded on injustice
never. can and never ought to be effective.

The Earl of RODEN has addressed a letter
to the Protestants of Ireland, which, in point of
style, temper, and sentiment, is worthy to vie
with that addressed by the Earl of WINCH IL-
SEA to the Protestants of England. Indeed, in
point of a certain desperate dullness, and that
peculiar species of " no-meaning," which—we
have POPE'S authority for saying—" puzzles
more than wit," we think it may fairly claim the
superiority. Lord RODEN (there is no ques-
tioning the fact) is a prodigy of ineptitude.
He launches his common-places with all the
fury of a thunderbolt. Throughout his epistle,
he seems in a constant state of wonder at the
fine figure he .is cutting. He parades his
" ears" with all the self-consequence of Bottom
the weaver. His letter will be found in another
column, but the signature, we doubt not, will be
quite enough to warn the majority of our readers
from perusing it.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE met a large body of the
Edinburgh constituency on Monday last at the
Waterloo Rooms. His speech was liberal,
frank, and manly, and was listened to through-
out with the most marked satisfaction by all
present. It gives us pleasure to learn that there
is not the slightest doubt of his success, and
that the Edinburgh Conservatives, aware that
there is no making head against the general
feeling in favour of the right hon. gentleman
among the enlightened classes of Edinburgh,
have come to the resolution to offer no oppo-
sition.

The affair between Holland and Belgium
was virtually settled when Antwerp was taken
by the French, and they had in a most honour-
able manner retired from Belgium. Objections,
however, have been constantly raised to the
entire settlement of the question, as affecting
the sovereignty of the King of HOLLAND over
that country which ought always to have been,
as. we trust it now is and will ever remain,
independent alike of Holland and of France.
The Princes of Nassau having now, how-
ever, , waved their claims in respect to
Luxemburg, nothing will, it may be
hoped, prevent an entire and irrevocable
settlement of all the matters yet in dispute. So
often, however, have we expressed a similar
hope, and found ourselves disappointed, that
we shall not speak with confidence until either
the King of HOLLAND is dead or the treaty
is actually ratified. Nor, indeed, is the affair
of very much importance now to any other par-
ties than the subjects of the Dutch KING,
whose military establishments are kept up to an
unnecessary extent, and, consequently, of which
we should think that they must be heartily
tired.

The Queen of SPAIN has issued some regu-
lations respecting the censorship of the press,
the particulars of which, from want of space,
we must defer till to-morrow.

The Paris Journals still continue to be ab-
sorbed in election speculations. They mention
that the arrival at Toulon of a column of sub-
officers of the 36th Regiment, bound with
ropes like common malefactors, who had been
condemned, without trial, to be degraded and
sent to serve in Algiers, for imputed repub•
licanism, had caused a very deep and general
sensation. Private letters from Spain, dated
Bth June, had reached the French capital, but
they contained no news of moment. The mer-
cantile house of J. J. CAR RUSCO and Co. of
Madrid had stopped payment. The Augsburg
Gazette of the 13th, dated Vienna, mentioned
that the late changes in the British Cabinet
had occasioned a fall in the funds.

FRENCH FUNDS—PARIS, JUNE 17.
Five per Cents., 106 f. 25c. 20c.
Three per Cents., 78f. 10c. M.
Bank Actions, 1,825 f. —c. •
Rente de Naples, 951.
Roman Five per Cents., 96%.
Bente d'Espagne, Five per Cents., 3.9%.
Bente d'Espagne Three per Cents., 494.
Royal Spanish Loan, SS
Bente Perpet. d'Espagne, Five per Cents., 79%.
Belgian Loan, 1831, Five per Cents., 99.
Haytian Loan, 275 f.
EXCHANGE ON LONDON.
OHO month, paper, 25f. 2254 c. ; money, —f. c.
Three months, paper, 25f. 3230 c. ; money, —f. —c.
—O/qrs Authentique.

We give the following from our correspond-
ent ; but we do not pledge ourselves for the
correctness of the information :
" Extract of a letter from Real del Monte, dated April
23, 1834, received by New York, June 18 :,
" In the state of the funds I have no alteration to note,
further than that I wish it to be borne in mind that the
circumstances of the Company for the last eighteen months
requiring the most rigid economy, the stock of most, if
not all, articles of consumption, ha 3 been so reduced as
now to call for a more than mere expenditure of the
passing day, which will be enhanced by the advantage
taken of our necessities—an advantage already availed of
by an advance of N per cent. on the timber immediately
wanted.

" In the shaft it appears more timber work will be ne-
cessary than was at first contemplated, nearly all being
more or less rotten, and will have to be replaced with new.
" The labourers at Santa Teresa, San Andres, and San
Bartolo, are not looking quite so well as they were. The
quantity raised last week was 290 cargoes azoque (infe-
rior), and 13 cargoes of best ; this week the previous ac-
counts of the year, as formerly reported, viz., Jan. 1 to
March 31, 5,470 quintals, estimated value 60,355 dollars
—actual expenses, same period, 122,154 dollars, must be
very unsatisfactory to the shareholders, who have been
looking forward with golden expectations for some ten
years past."