The Sun.
London, England, 1834-02-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JO

Press of matter during the last feittraWerl
vented us from calling public notice tolarbspAce.
cution by the Government of an even144414t.,9
for what was termed a " seditious libel. dia-C1
that occasion the accused parties were found
" guilty," and what punishment they may suffer
for it rests with the Court which tried them.
The whole country, press and people, have, we
will venture to say, been with us when in many
fo-tner instances we remonstrated with men in
power,—and no matter who may have been in
power,—on the gross absurdity, aggravated by
the grievous oppression, of prosecuting what are
termed " political libels." A Government which
cannot stand the attacks—above all, which
cannot stand the violent and licentious
attacks—of a daily press ought not to
stand at all. The intrinsc weakness which
is manifested by an incapacity to command
the preponderance of opinion in its ov;'!1 favour
proves that such a Government has no n;'/cal
force, and cannot rule the county, or adin:-
nister the laws, by those means which charac-
terize all good government—namely, the willing
assent and support of the people. So, a ready
and suspicious soreness, excited by the published
reproaches of its enemies, leads to a general and
not unreasonable belief that the jealousy proceeds
from such conscious weakness, and tends to
undtrmine the reputation of the Government
far more than the most entire impunity and
latitude afforded to the spirit of libel. It is the
more prov..king to the friends of the present
Government that such indiscretion should be
chargeable upon it, because the adherence and
attachment of those friends is founded on the
persuasion that it does deserve and actually
possess the cordial esteem of the British nation ;
and that all the vile apparatus of official prosecu-
tions are as utterly superfluous to its stability, as
they are degrading to its chwacter. A pi ivate ci-
tizen might be cruelly injured in his fame and
station by a slanderous paragraph in a published
print, because fes persons can he supposed to
know the falsehood and villany of the libel. Such
a person may fairly have recourse to the law for
redress, because then, and then only, except in
ca,e of a public retraction of the falsehood
through the same vehicle by which it was first
circulated, can equal publicity be given to thu
truth. But the character of a Government cannot
be unknown to the country. The acts of a State
or Ministry cannot be done in a corner. The
truth as respects a Government can easily,
by a word, be made known. Nobody, where
the press is free, cares one straw for the
mere ebullitions or instigations of factious
phrenzy : if laughed at one hour, they
are forgotten the next, unless an unnatural
gravity and permanency be affixed to them
by a notice from the Attorney-General,
which has been in all human likelihood the
very object of the libeller's ambition. Does
any Ministry suppose that it would not be more
powerfully defended by the respectable portion:
of the press itself; from the assaults of that part
which is impotent and disreputable, than by
taking as it were the law into its own hand, and
employing that odious instrument an ex officio

information ? Now, what conceivable mischief
could have arisen to Lord Grey's Government
from even an hundred consecutive columns of
" sedition" put forth by that mean and
wretched publication which calls itself the True
Sun." Why, the paper just prosecuted and
lound guilty wanted nothing but the drag-rope
of a sentence to pull it a few inches out of the
muddy obscurity in which it has all belong
been immersed. Who ever would have re-
in timbered the journal, or its " excitement
to sedition" four and twenty hours after it
was printed ? We declare, most solemnly,
that it had wholly escaped our notice,
and as certainly that of the public. There is an
appearance of littleness which ought to have
uggested itself to some of the Crown lawyers,
and by them been brought under the attention
of the Government, it► thus crushing a harm-
less, however malicious reptile. We held the
same language to Lord Durham, and exhorted
him to stand upon his public character, as e
now use to the Administration of which his
noble relative is the head. Why should either
prey on garbage? The scurrilous and unsa-
voury journal now referred to merits no favour
nor courtesy from us. The whole ward of Bil-
iingsgate has been daily ransacked by its writers
for terms of foul and rancorous abuse of the
Times, which never d►d aught to offend save
omily by never spe. king of it. But we cannot
bear to see these unhappy persons harassed
and oppressed. We abhor these political prose-
cutions, and so do the people of England.—

This evening the motion of Mr. O'Connell
to be renewed, for an inquiry into the truth
of a statement which bears on the face of it a
direct accusation of inconsistency or bad faith,
as the case may turn out to be, against one or
more representatives from Ireland. Our last
remark, in the Times of Saturday, upon the
stage at which this extremely unpleasant busi-
ness had then arrived, was, that a further prose-
cution of it seemed to be inevitable, for the sake
even of the gentlemen whom it more itn tnedi-
ately affected ; and it therefore matters but
little at present that it might or ought, in the
first instance, as a Parliamentary proceeding,
to have been promptly and completely stopped.
It is difficult, of course, to foresee what
precise disclosures may result from this
investigation, but it is not difficult to guess
that they will scarcely be of a nature to in-
demnify the public for all the dine and at-
tention which the subject has already occupied.
There is one circumstance only which can be of
he slightest value to him who is anxious to
make the most of the affair, namely—a clear
proof, should such be brought forward, that
Irish Members who voted and spoke against
the Coercion Bill, sent through some distinct
and accredited channel to Ministers, a commu-
nication to the effect that although they (the
communicators) were compelled to vote against
the Bill, it was actually necessary that some
such measure, protective of lite and property,
should be carried. Now, if it shall be proved
that a message—we do not say in the above
words, but of the like nature and ten-
dency— was delivered to a Minister with a
view that it should be acted on b) him,
there is not another word to be said but that the
Member or Members exhibiting such duplicity
must be numbered with those public men, and
they, we fear, are many, who have for ages ex-
pressed opinions or desires in the teeth of which •
they afterwards both spoke and voted, under the
tear of forfeiting place, pension, or some other
personal advantage. We really cannot discover
intuit difference between the man who votes
against his judgment for the sake of retaining
his place, and him who is guilty of the same
rime for the sake of keeping well with his

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