The Sun.
London, England, 1834-09-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. O'Connell has addressed a third letter to Lord
Duncannon on the " follies, faults, and crimes" of the
Whigs. Being unable to insert the whole of it, we
have copied the principal passages. Mr. O'Connell
says, that the "grossest partiality has been exhibited by
the Whigs in the selection for all offices, employments,
and stations, from the highest to the lowest, of the
Orange enemies of Ireland, and the inveterate and irre-
concileable foes of Lord Grey's politics and govern-
ment." In another column will be found an article
headed " Irish Administration," an extract of a letter
from a well-informed Roman Chatholic gentleman in
the North of Ireland, in which Mr. O'Connell's epistle
s ably and judiciously commented on. This gentleman
truly observes, that though Mr. O'Connell both exag-
gerates and sophisticates, yet in the strictures on many
of the appointments made by the Whig Government in
Ireland he speaks the sentiments of more than the Ca-
tholic community in denouncing some of them. No
excuse, he says, can be furnished for the selection of
such men as Lord Lorton, Lord Wicklow, and some
others, as depositaries of Whig confidence. What
Mr. O'Connell says respecting the Magistracy, if ap-
plied to the administration of the Marquis of Wellesley
and Mr. Littleton, is extremely unjust ; and his esti-
mate of the number of Roman Catholics in the police
is incorrect. No doubt, as this gentleman observes,
the Government has a long lee-way to make up, to do
justice to the Catholic body as regards the enjoyment
of patronage. Mr. O'Connell, speaking of the
Orangemen, says, " With that party there must, my
Lord, be no compromise—they must be deprived of
every hope of favcur or countenance from the autho--
rities." But what is the fact with regard to the
Orangemen ? The Dublin Morning Register of
Thursday last informs us that of twenty-five sig-
natures to a requisition for an Orange meeting in
the county of Cavan on Monday next (this day),
no fewer than thirteen, i. e. more than one-half
the number, are individuals holding the Commis-
sion of the Peace. The nature of the meeting
may be inferred from a letter to the Orangemen
of Cavan, published previous to the appearance of
the requisition, by the 11 ev. Marcus Beresford. In
this letter the Rev. Gentleman stated " it to be, the in-
tention of their stedfast and warmest friends to call on
the High Sheriff to convene a meeting of the Protes-
tants of this county on an early day. It is expected
(continues the Rev. Marcus) that from 20,000 to
30,000 loyal men will then be assembled in Cavan,
and we purpose taking such steps for the preservation
of our property, religion, and lives, as may then seem
best. The Government of this country is not friendly
to Protestants, and we may be assured we will be
watched, and our meetings, if possible, dispersed.
There will be horse, foot, and police assembled in
Cavan, and if we in any way transgress the law, we
shall be put down." . . • • • "Do not
in any way transgress the law ; it may be cruel,
but you must submit. Come, every man "amongst
you, to this meeting, that is of age to think
for himself. Leave nothing but women And
children at home. Let us show the Government
that we have in this county a body of forty thousand
men, as brave as ever walked on grass, determined to
uphold the Protestant religion as long as a drop 9f
blood is in their veins." The requisition, following
upon the address, indicates the adoption of the senti-
ments contained in the latter. But there is surely a
wide difference between the fair exercise-of the consti-
tutional right of meeting to petition, and inviting.men
to assemble in large masses, in order to intimidate the
Government. " Will these magistrates be dismissed
(asks the Morning Register) 2 Clearly it is the
imperative duty of the Government to vindicate its
authority by causing them to be struck off the roll
forthwith. Since the famous declaration of the forty-
seven justices, Cavan magistrates have been celebrated,
for the perfect impunity with which they defy the'
King's Government."—Morning Chronicle.
There can now be no wonder that the different Mo-
narchs recently holding the soverignty of Spain should
have shown so determined a reluctance to the as-•
sembling of the Cortes; and we may form a tolerably
safe conjecture that had the Crown of Ferdinand de-
scended as a matter of course upon his brother Carlos,.
the advent of Spanish freedom would have been still
postponed or warded off. Why all, or nearly all, the
Continental Monarchs of Europe should be the sworn
foes of constitutional freedom it is difficult to imagine.
But that such has been the case in our own time, from
the first dawn of the Holy Alliance down to the very
yesterday of the Constitutional King of the Barri-
cades, there can be no doubt. Happily these islands
exhibit a far different spectacle. It is but bare jus-
tice to William the Fourth to declare that, short
as his reign has been, it has been marked by no
struggles for arbitrary power in the Sovereign ; but
that he has, on the contrary, been the foremost, by in-
clination, perseverance, and courage, to ensure to his
people the greatest extension of political rights that any
people ever acquired without revolution, or even contest.
That the disputed succession in Spain will be of great
advantage so that country there can, we imagine, be
now but little doubt ; that is, if the germs of freedom,
already apparent in the first proceedings of the Cortes,
are not nippid in the bud by the untoward intervention
of external causes. This will very much depend upon
the prudence and firmness exhibited by the present
Representative Assembly of the Spanish nation. Hi-
therto the steps which they have taken are so wholly
unexceptionable, that, though the enemies of public
freedom await but the most shallow pretence to check
its first advances, they will find it difficult indeed to
breathe anything in the shape of dissent against prin-
- - siples so wise and reasonable as the Declaration of
-
,Rights put forth by the Cortes. That declaration will
meet with the warmest sympathy from the people of
this country, the majority of whom had little or no ex-
pectation of any such immediate result from the assem-
bling of the Cortes, but who looked upon the people
of Spain as involved in a long age of darkness, which
the influence of priestcraft had rendered impenetrable.
The contrary, however, happily and unexpectedly, ap-
pears to be the case, and the people of Spain may look
with confidence to Great Britain, not only for sym-
pathy and protection, but as forming an insuperable
barrier against any attempts which may be elsewhere
made to check the rising spirit of freedom. The time
is gone by when any administration in this country
would dare to join in a crusade in favour of despotism
in other countries. Though the Holy Alliance may
have its friends and admirers among a certain class of
our public men, wishes are all which they have left to
bestow. The arm of national strength would fall life-
less and inert if attempted to be raised in such a cause,
and would shrink from the contaminating touch of any
claim to its support in such a cause. Even in Spain
itself, however, freedom is but in its dawn and infancy.
Its success must mainly depend upon the wisdom of
those to whose hands the safety of its birth and growth
is confided. Judging from the votes of the Spanish
Ministers, we might augur that, with the Queen-
Regent, freedom is no more in favour than it evidently
was with her deceased husband. She, however, is the
creature of circumstances, and to these her own dispo-
sition must bend, if she expects to establish the claims
of her daughter to the throne upon a safe and lasting
basis.—Morning Herald.
That an organized con • spnacy exists, and has long
•
existed, in Ireland, the great objects of which are
the overthrow of the Protestant. Establishment, and
the extirpation of the Protestant proprietary, we have
long believed ; and in the columns of this journal we
have often and anxiously stated the reasons of the faith
that is in us. The diversified aspects which this con-
federacy has assumed, and the various and arbitrary
denominations by which it has been distinguished,
must not be supposed to indicate any corresponding
mutability in the views of the conspirators,• or in the I.
object of the conspiracy. The changes we have al-
luded to were of a local and temporary nature, and
evinced but the elastic energy of the instrument, not
any weakness or wavering in the hand -that guided it.
A vigorous and uncompromising policy, originating in
necessity, built on prudence and on principle, long suc-
ceeded in repressing or in subduing the simultaneous
;manifestations of that anti-Protestant and anti-English
feeling among the Roman Catholic population of Ire-
/ 'land, which sometimes seemed to slumber, but-which
t`* never really slept. Reasoning analogically from ,
he past to the future, it may fairly be presumed, it
. ,