The Sun.
London, England, 1834-11-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Every day now serves more and more to show that
the Tories had determined to resume the Goveriv2,-,ent
of this country per fas aut nsfits. A tn',,re disgust-
ing exhibition than that which thi; nation has been
compelled to witness, of inr,_=,n evincing a readiness to
profess any opinions by which they conceive they may
the more easily tact their despicable purposes, is not
to be found in the annals of party profligacy:' The
people of England are daily informed, by the supple
and convenient organs of the Duke and his party,
that it is extremely inopportune and injudicious
in the Tories to adhere to their ancient political
principles ; and their partisans are invited to af-
fect the liberal policy of the Reformers until the
Duke of Wellington—the Lord Protector of these
realms—and Sir Robert Peel shall have determined
and announced the measures with which they may in-
tend to delude the country. The honour and integrity
of public men—the confidence between the Sovereign
and his sworn Councillors—are daily violated ; and
the certain result of this scandalous and abandoned
system of party is evident to every reflecting politi-
cian, and can only terminate in the early and complete
extinction.of a desperate faction, which thus, in its
last extremity, resorts to such base arts. We have
daily the task of giving a direct contradiction to the
most unfounded and unjustifiable assertions of the Tory
press. An article in the Standard of last night we
cannot allow to pass without a specific and direct con-
tradiction. If the assertions of the Standard, in-
volving private and confidential conversations between
the King and his late Prime Minister, are derived
from " authority," what is the position in which the
Standard unhappily places his Majesty, his late, and
his present confidential advisers ? If they are not
derived from " authority," what credit is due to such
hazardous and unjustifiable reports ? But the Stan-
dard is extremely wary and cautious, and disseminates
these sinister rumours in the shape of " interrogatories."
The Standard then ingeniously calls upon the Morn-
ing Chronicle to answer "authoritatively" the " seve-
ral interrogatories"—of whom ?—of the Standard
writer—or his informant ? When the King, or his
present sole and responsible Minister the Duke of
Wellington, shall publicly issue a series of questions
or " interrogatories to the late Ministers, we do not
doubt that they will be suitably answered. The Stan-
dard cannot suppose that he is entitled to call on any
statesman to answer the interrogatories of an anony-
mous writer in a newspaper. Our contemporary is
not entitled to put questions to Lord Melbourne or any
other member of the late Cabinet ; but is entitled to
put questions to us, and we can assure him that we will
state nothing for which we have not sufficient autho-
rity. We take the paragraphs of the insidious article
in question in their order, and give to each misrepre-
sentation of facts an unequivocal and positive contra-
diction :

" First, then, we ask, Did Lord Melbourne present to the
King Lord John Russell, Mr. Littleton, and Mr. Abercrom-
bie, in this order, as the persons eligible for the leadership of
the jiouse of Commons ? "

False. Lord Melbourne never did name to the
King, Lord John Russell, Mr. Littleton, and Mr.
Abercrombie for the leadership of the House of Com-
mons, in the order stated in the Standard. Mr. Lit-
tleton's name was never mentioned.
41 Secondly, Did the King observe upon this proposition that
he had expected, seeing that Lord Althorp could not be pro-
Aided for in the Ministry at present, some help would be bor-
rowed from the Conservative or other parties, remarking, at
the same time, to the effect that Lord Althorp had supplied by
his presence a principal part of his (the King's) ground of re-
liance.upon the stability of the Government ? "
False. There was no such proposal made for
strengthening the Administration. There was no such
proposal made for supplying Lord Althorp's place.
" Thirdly, Did his Majesty, again expressing dissatisfaction
at the narrowed basis of the Government, ask What plan of
policy such a Cabinet could or would (we are doubtful about
the word)—pursue ?"
The King did not express dissatisfaction, either
with the basis of the Government, or the policy which
it had pursued. Although the removal of Lord Al-
thorp (by the death of Lord Spencer) from the House
of Commons " narrowed the basis" on which the
Ministry was formed, the policy of the Government
remained unaltered.

" Fourthly, Did Lord NIELROURNE explain that the Cabinet
designed to prosecute REFORM OF THE IRISH CHURCH—RE-
FORM OF TILE ENGLISH CHURCH—AND REFORM OF THE COR-
PORATIONS?"

YES.

" Fifthly [and we have now arrived at the most important
matter]—Did Lord Melbourne, in proceeding to detail the
nature of the reform intended, make any such statement as
the following :—‘ Sir,—With respect to the reform of the
Irish Church, I feel it my duty to inform you—that Lord John
Russell has digested a plan containing, inter elia, a provision
for extinguishing all traces of the Protestant Establishment in
every parish in which a given number of Protestants are not
now resident, either alienating or remitting the tithe, dismissing
the clergyman, and razing the Church r'
This is the most important falsehood. It is false as
respects Lord John Russell, and false as respects the
nature of the plan.
" Sixthly—Did the King instantly reply, in the very words
following—words we hope to be eternally remembered by
British Christians,—' I WILL DIE FIRST I'?"
False. No such words were ever uttered, and the
" British Christians" are therefore deprived of this
agreeable reminiscence.

" Seventhly. Did Lord Melbourne thereupon declare
that himself, the Marquis of Lansdown, Lord Auckland, and
Mr. Spring Rice were as much indisposed to Lord John
Russell's projects as his Majesty could be, but that all the other
members of the Government fully approved of it ?"
False. Lord Melbourne did not assert that any
Member of the Cabinet differed on the subject of
Church Reform.
" Eighthly, Was it upon this that the King pointed to the
impossibility of a Cabinet so irreconcileably divided upon a
point of such magnitude, and a point that would certainly be
pressed at the commencement of the Session, effectually carry-
ing on the public business to its close ?"
False. There was no mention of a disuniteclCabinet;
no disunion existed. We have thus answered all the
" interrogatories." And we have only to add, that we
are quite satisfied it will not suit the parties for whose
benefit these falsehoods are insinuated, to put them in
a shape in which they can receive any other contradic-
tion than that which we give. They are old tricksters,
and know how to mystify the public, without commit-
ting themselves. They have ready organs in the
Times and other journals, to state whatever they wish
the public to believe ; and they are crafty enough to
know that they are not responsible either for what is
said or believed on such authority.—MorningChronicle.
The- Chronicle of yesterday produces a leading
article--which in that particular respect is very like
many others of its articles—full of contradictions.
The peculiarity of this article is that it does not con-
tradict itself ; on the contrary, it professes to contra-
dict the "Postcript" to the Quarterly Revietti, just
published. It appears that the Times of Wednesday,
in republishing this " Postcript" called it an autho
rized statement—why, we do not at the present mo-
ment see ; inasmuch as what appears in the Postcript
had previously been published in the Morning Post
followed by the Times itself. However, this word
" authorized" has fired the Chronicle and disturbed
the bear-garden ; and therefore the Chronicle takes
this " Postcript," and to every paragraph, one by
one, adds, by way of commentary, " this is false."
Now, nothing is easier and nothing more com-
mon in very low society than to treat a statement
made in this summary manner. But we must not
allow the Chronicle to fancy, because it chooses to say
" this is false," " this is entirely false," and " this is
false altogether," that any body living believes in the
falsehood of the assertions which in this brief and con •
venient manner it thinks it well to get rid of. We state
that the facts as contained in the postcript are essen-
tially true. It ma) be that a phrase or a word may
be changed in the repetitions necessary for the promul-
gation of dialogues from the Palace to the people.
But, as we have already shown in this paper, in oppo
sition to the demi-semi official " Circular" which
has been put forward, as it is iVerred, by Lord
Melbourne, the spirit of the Brighton conversa-
tion, if not to the letter, is truly conveyed in
the " Postcript," which the silly Chronicle so,
coarsely and so rashly attempts to falsify. With
respect to the degree of acquiescence of Lord
Melbourne in his Majesty's views and sugges-
tions
it may, perhaps, be expressed somewhat too
strongly in the " Postscript." That Lord Melbourne
acquiesced is most certain. We would ask the Chro-
nicle, puttinff aside its nonsensical phrase of "posi-
tively,fase, which any fool may reply to any evident

truth, whether A,T
Melbourne did or did not—and
we advice,",:ne Chronicle to go higher for its answer
.flan the quarter whence these " positively false" ex-
clamations came—tell his Majesty that upon the sub-
ject of the Irish Church question nothing like unani-
mity could be expected in the Cabinet ? And whether
his Lordship did not himself bring under the King's
consideration the serious inconvenience and mischief
of the result of the difference, which would exhibit
itself in the circumstance of a portion of his Ma-
jesty's Ministers voting in their individual capacity
as Members of Parliament against the ques-
tions which had been carried in the Cabinet ?
To argue with the silly Chronicle is, perhaps, a
work supererogation ; but it is necessary just to
interpose something between common sense and
common truth and those flourishing denunciations,
in which, faut de inieux, it is now in the habit of in-
dulging. There is not a man moving in what may be
called decent society who is not convinced of the truth
of the statements which the Chronicle, rejoicing in
the notion that the Quarterly Review is only pub
lished four times in the year, has the audacity to con-
tradict. We go the length of appealing to Lord Mel-
bourne himself—not pledging ourselves to the mere
phraseology which in conversation it is very difficult
to retain—whether in substance, all that the Times,
all that we ourselves, and all that the Quarterly Re •
view have stated, is not as near the real truth as it is
possible to bring such a report of any particular dia-
logue ? In conclusion, in order to gratify the Chro-
nicle by the adoption of its own style, and in order to
evince our respectful disinclination to trench upon the
domestic privacy of the King's Palace, we beg to state
mo't distinctly that all the history about the gentleman
of the Court, and the servant, and Sir Henry Wheat-
ley, &c. &c., is false, and the Right Honourable in-
valid who furnished the Chronicle with all this " false-
hood" knows it to be false, as well as we.—Morning
Post.

As soon as the proceedings of the first Session of
the Central Court are over, and we can gain access to
the result of the trials, we shall make a point, as we
have heretofore done, of making known to the public
the number of cases tried before each of the presiding
Judges. The result, we fear, will turn out to be, as
heretofore, that the City Judges will be found to have
presided in a great majority of the cases ; and that
though some of the prisoners will have witnessed the
imposing spectacle of finding themselves arraigned be-
fore three of the King's Judges, and his Honour Sir
John Cross, yet that the fact being that only one
Judge presides in one case, the actual number of cases
tried by these four Learned persons will turn out to
have been very small. Yet while three of these four
Learned persons are sitting by turns as silent specta-
tors of the labours of the fourth, a City Judge is in
the adjoining Court, trying cases which, we humbly
conceive, one of the Learned Judges in question ought
to try. What would be the case, let us ask, if any two
of these Learned Judges were on the circuit of
any other county ? One at the outset, it is known,
takes the criminal, the other the civil side, on
such occasions ; and as soon as the latter has done,
he invariably tries prisoners in the Criminal Court,
and not unfrequently leaves the civil business un-
finished, that he may assist his brother Judge in
delivering the gaol. Why a similar practice should
not have taken place in a Court embracing the whole
criminal business of the metropolis, and now a great
part of that of three adjoining counties, we cannot
imagine. It is true, we believe, that the Judges have,
ever since the erection of the second Court at the Oid
Bailey, uniformly declined presiding in it. What rea-
son there may hitherto have been for this we do not
presume to surmise. At any rate, the new Act con-
stituting the New Court produces an altered state of
things, and one to which with great respect towards
the Judges, we must say, they are bound to conforM.
Nor will this in the aggregate increase their labours ;
for when it is considered that the Act, which adds
four to the eight Sessions hitherto held at the Old
Bailey, relieves the Judges in their turn from the
labour and expense of the winter circuit, surely they
cannot complain of having that to do at the Old Bailey
which they must otherwise have had to do at Chelms-
ford, Maidstone, Croydon, Hertford, and Lewes. In
short, what we contend for is, that the business of
this Court should be assimilated as near as possible to
that of the Assizes in other counties ; that the King's
Judges should be the Judges in reality, not in name ;
and that the duties of Corporation Judges should,
both in the metropolis and everywhere else, be circum-
scribed, and not extended.—Morning Herald.
Lord Melbourne's return to the seat in Derbyshire,
whence he derives his title, and where a portion of his
property is situate, was hailed by a most honourable
reception from the freeholders and other inhabitants of
the place, who presented an address expressive of their
respect and attachment to the ex-Minister, of their re-
gret for his dismissal from office, and of their gratitude
for his past services to the country. They agree with
all right-thinking men, in the efficacy of the great
measure of Reform, and in its fitness to protect the
nation against airy Ministry, however unconstitutional
in its aims, or powerful in its composition. There are
two or three hints scattered through the address,
which, had Lord Melbourne been as indiscreet as cer-
tain of his colleagues, his Lordship would, no doubt,
have seized upon as pretexts whereon to fasten an ex-
planation of the circumstances which have raised
throughout the kingdom a curiosity more vivid than
profitable, both relatively to the precise intentions of
the late Cabinet, had it remained in office, and to the irn-
mediate causes of its dissolution. But Lord Melbourne
quietly put aside all such temptations. In fact, he ex-
plained nothing—he confirmed none of the many stories
which have been propagated--he disproved none of
them. He merely affirmed for himself and colleagues,
that they would have " proposed such reformations
both in the ecclesiastical and civil departments of the
State as appeared to be demanded by existing de-
fects ;" indirectly, though earnestly, warned the peo-
ple against abusing the great powers which had been
vested in them by the Reform Bill—an abuse which
would be followed by inevitable retribution ; and de-
clared for himself, " that he did not feel in the smallest
degree personally aggrieved by what had taken place ;"
nor was there, we should have been satisfied without
this frank and honest announcement by Lord Mel-
bourne, any thing in the King's conduct—for that is
the thing pointed at--of which the late Prime Minis-
ter could fairly complain. His Lordship made state-
ments of what he designed to do, under the pressure
of events which had been forced upon him, and the
King drew conclusions as to the necessary results
of such arraugements, which the Noble Viscount had
not permitted hiiiiself to anticipate. That is the
plain outline of the case. Of the details, little can
be told with truth which has not been disclosed al-
ready ; and much that is unquestionably true has
been treated as falsehood by a contemptible and
desperate morning paper, which, in its floundering
efforts to escape from the cesspool into which its own
low spite and virulence have plunged it, bespatters us
with daily filth. The postscript to the, New Quarterly
Review has been assailed by that very ignorant or
knavish journal, as our own affirniations tlia been pre-
viously ; but, as was to be expecte',l
m such an ad-
versary, without touching the main strength of the
statement. The importa;ii questions are these—and
we appeal from a p:.per whose information, if it has
any, must be not at second hand, but at tenth hand,
to men of
honour who know the facts, and are inca.
pable of 'perverting them :—Did or did not Lord
Melbourne acknowledge to the King, that with re-
ference to two cases which he described as consti-
tuti:ag an unavoidable alternative, in one of them lie
Ir.ust lose the support of at least Lord Lans-
downe and Mr. Spring Rice, and in the other he
must forfeit that of Lord John Russell, Sir John
Hobhouse, Mr. Abercromby, and Mr. Ellice. Did,
or did not, Lord Melbourne acknowledge, when the
question was put to him, that to replace such losses,
and to fill up such vacancies, he must draw his substi-
tutes from the camp of the extreme Radicals (We shall
not mention men whose names would create disgust.)
Was it, or was it not, more than hinted on one side,
and acquiesced in on the other, that it had become no
longer possible to go on with Lord Brougham, who
had crowned his other performances by a flat refusal
to affix. the Great Seal to the Commission for pro-
rorpitzg Parliament l Was it not, then, a combined
question of time and convenience, whether the Minis,