The Sun.
London, England, 1833-04-15 00:00:00

(PRICE 7D.)

NORTHERN DIVISION OFLANCASHIRe..
RE-ELECTION OF MR. STANLEY.

On Friday the special county court for the election of a
knight of the shire for the northern division of this county
,n the room of the Right Hon. E. G. S. Stanley, who
'as accepted. as our readers are already aware, the office of
Secretary of State for the Colonies, was held in the
Nisi Pries Court, in Lancaster.
A few minutes before ten the Right Hon. Gentleman,
accompanied by a large party of supporters, arrived in
Court, arid was greeted with loud cheers by the crowd.
The galleries and the barristers' seats were graced by the
mendance of a vast number of ladies. Shortly after, the
High-Sheriff, Sir John Gerard, Bart., the Assessor, and
he Under• Sheriffs took their seats, when, after the usual
preliminaries had been gone through,
P. E TOWNELEY, Esq., of Towneley, and WILLIAM
TOWNLE V, Esq., of Towuhead, in brief speeches proposed
and seconded the Right Hon. E. G. S. Stanley. After
a short pause, no other candidate being proposed.
_ .

. .
The Right Hon. E. G. STANLEY then carte forward
amidst the cheers and plaudits of most present. He said,
" Mr. Sheriff and Gentlemen, a constitutional jealousy,
which has been well described by my Hon. t-."riend who
did me the honour of seconding my nomination on the pre-
sent occasion, and which prescribes that every man upon
accepting an office, which mere or less may be supposed
to make him dependent on the Crown, should again appear
before his constituents, should he be already in Parliament,
to ascertain from their public and declared opinion whether
they think that such acceptance of office has rendered him
less qualified to fill, independently and honourably, the
high distinction of the representative of the people ;
Gentlemen, it is that constitutional jealousy, perhaps
pushed to an unnecessary extreme, as I will venture to say
it is when a person has riot for the first time accepted office,
but when he is exchanging place, and passing from one
office to another, neither making him less nor more de-
pendent upon the Crown ; it is that jealousy which
brings me, upon the present occasion, again to solicit at
your hands a renewal of that confidence with which you
have so lately honoured me.—(Cheers.) My Honourable
Friend who proposed me has truly said, that, in the
change of office, I have been called, at a moment
of peculiar and critical importance, to fulfil duties the
magnitude of which might well appal any man who under-
takes them. I undertook them with the full conscious- '
tie's not only of my own inability, hut I will venture to say
of the inability of any man adequately and fully to ac-
complish all these various duties, to endeavour to reconcile
all the conflicting interests, to endeavour to remove all the
everwhelming difficulties which press upon any man at
this moment charged with our colonial administration.
But there is one question, and one of such pre-eminent
importance, that it is impossible I should not advert to
it; although, if, upon a late occasion, I felt that as a
member of the Crown it was impossible for me to go dis-
tinctly into the question of the views which his Majesty's
Government entertain upon the subject of slavery, that
impossibility is yet stronger and more urgent when I an,
myself the Minister of the Crown upon whom it will de•
volve to propose to Parliameng, within a very short period
of time ,the measure which his Majesty's Government
have in contemplation upon that important and critical
subject. There is no question upon which not only in-
terests of such immense magnitude are involved—there
is no question in which the persons whose interests
are involved are in a state of greater embarrassment and
greater difficulty—there ii no question, on the other hand,
in which the interests of humanity, the enthusiasm of strong
relieious fee'ing, and all the kind, and generous, and manly
feelings of Englishmen are more earnestly and anxiously
mbar's- d, for the purpose of bringing that question to a
satisfactory conclusion. Between these anxious desires on
the one hand—between these critically trembling interests
en the other—between these alarms upon the score of pro.
eetty—between these terrors of men who, having long
been in a state of difficulty, dread any measure which may
cause even the smallest aggravation of the pressure upon
them—between all these difficulties, IV is hard indeed for
any government to steer a safe and satistectory course.
Yet I trust that, bending our tninds to consider this
question with an earnest desire, so far as we can,
,o do justice with an anxious wish, so far as we
can, to promote the interests of humanity, we may he
~ble to verify the pledge already given by my noble
friend the Ch ,neelior of the Exchequer, that we shall
prop.ise to Parliament a measure upon this question at once
safe dad -atisfactory. And to the words " safe and satis-
factory" I may take the liberty of adding, as my comment,
this—that no measure can be sa e and satisfactory which is
',tat found •d, in the first place, upon principles of equity
and justice, and which does not carry with it something of
that decisive and positive character which should make it
not a matter of probability, but a matter of certainty, to
the people of England, that, be it sooner or be it later,
they shall see the ughout the British dominions a termina-
tion of negro slavery.--(Louil cheers.) Gentlemen, in
speaking of this I speak only of what has been the object
entertained fondly and earnestly by the people of England,
to which Parle,ment have been pledged by their resolu-
tions for many years ; and I am free to say I do not think
these resolutions have been carried into effect so rapidly
(and I will add, I do not, therefore, think have been car-
ried into effect so safely) as they might have been, had
more determined measures been adopted at an earlier
period. I say, therefore, that while Government, on
'lie one hand, are bound to look with the most vigilant
care to the interests of the parties concerned, they
are bound to look also with the most anxious desire
to accomplish the wishes end feelings of the
people of this country—feelings which, I ein sure, are not
more consonant to the dictates of humanity, than they art,
reconcileable with the strictest views of the national inte-
rests.—(Cheers.) Gentlemen, there is, perhaps, one
other point, and only one other, as connected, and that
only incidentally, with the situation upon which I am
about to enter which may call for any observations on my
pat t—l mean a question not less earnestly desired by the
people of this country,—the mitigation of the criminal
code.—(" Hear," and cheers.) The manner in which
the punishment of death is inflicted upon a vast number o:
effences, or, rather, in which the penalty of death is malt,
the legal penalty for a vast number of offences, fir which
in point of fact, it is never inflicted, is at once as repugnant
to the feelings of humanity as, contemplatiag it a• a point
of law, it is in theory a most sanguinary and atrocious
code, while, in point of fact, by the certainty of its not
being carried into effect, it gives impunity to crime, and
gives temptation the commission of crime by the pro.
sp,ct of that impunity.—(Hear, hear.) I am, therefore,
anxious to see the punishment of death removed
from the greeter proportion of those offences te, which it
it present attaches ; but I feel the a quesion of the
greatest difficulty and the greatest delicacy, to
ascertain what secondary or what degree of seconder)
punishment may be so proportioned to the different va-
rieties of crime as that the highest perfection of the cri-
minal code may be attained—that punishment should
follow promptly, effectu .11y, and certainty upon the heels
of crime.—(Cheers ) Time manner in which this ques
Lion wid come under my peculiar consideretiori will, o
comae, be in the subj'c' of transportation to our penal co
lonies ; and such regulations Lave a'reatly taken pace
there, and it will be my anxious wish to be able to effect
such other modifications of the system as shall impose a
greater ilegree of discrimination than now subsists between
the lot of persons who may be now transported for
offences of very different magnitude and atrocity, and,
while to enlighten offences a lighter lot and easier punish
anent is assigned, to take care that for those offences which
all but deserve the punishment of death, transportation shall
be anything but a boon, and shall be, in reality, one of th,
most aggravated and one of the most appalling sentences
which can he passed upon a person short of the inflictieia of
the punishment of death. Gentlemen, my lion friends
who proposed me have adverted to the conduct which his
Majesty's Government have felt it their duty to pursue.
since I last had the opportunity of addressing you here
upon the subject of the disturbances which have unhape
pi'y taken
place in Jrlte land. I regretted, in common
with every man, the necessity of going to any powers be-
y .11,1 the ordinary powers of the law, for the purpose, not
only of repre.sing clime, but of protecting innocence. But
under
security
except
exrn:el o.pnni:lsoeilpi erbireti
rye
tnyfe::: ahne:rl:opssaevt
teas
eswnnit: ltrial,dbeidr
tiytwwerxaocsneg).t clearlyatnh
proved that the spit it of insubordination was so strong that,
e
liberty of injuring one's neighbour,—that there was no
d
sought a criminal security in filling in with the plans af
their associates in crime,—that there was no right of pro
perty which could be mainteitied,—that the poor, and the
defenceless, and the helpless, were the object, el the perse-
cution (which it was sought to prevent our stopping,
under the name of preventing an interference with liberty,)
—we felt that the real friends of liberty were those who