The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We knew that the false statements of what took
place at the interview between the King and Lord
Melbourne wcaild be authoritavely contradicted, on the
very first suitable occasion which should present itself.
In the answer to the address of the Derby Reformers,
which we have copied into our columns this day, from
the Derby Reporter of Thursday last (an autho-
rized report, as we have reason to believe), his Lord-
ship distinctly states, that it having become " his duty to
take his Majesty's pleasure as to whether he would com-
mand me to make arrangements for filling up the vacan-
cies which had been thus occasioned, his Majesty was
pleased to come to the determination that he would not
impose upon me tliat duty, but would resort to other ad-
visers. This is the short and simple statement of the
facts that have actually taken place." With regard to
the statements in the Quarterly Review, and the Wel-
lington papers, Lord Melbourne says, " they are erro-
neous, and not to be relied on. The facts which they
assert are, for the most part, extremely false, and with-
out foundation ; and when there is any mixture of
truth, it is so disguised and perverted—so inutilated
and imperfect—so altered by the addition of fiction—
and so divested of limitation and qualification, as to
be almost more calculated to mislead and deceive than
even falsehood itself." After enis, men of candour of
all parties ought frankly to admit that the statements
contradicted by his Lordship are utterly without foun-
dation. It had been determined to get rid of the
Melbourne Cabinet. Why the determination was
then acted on, may, we think, be learned from
the advice given by Lord Melbourne to the
various classes of Reformers. So long as they
were united, the Tories, however desirous, were afraid
to measure their strength with them. But it is quite
clear that the tenure of the Melbourne Cabinet was
entirely dependent on the decision of the Conserva-
tives ; and that the moment it appeared to them that
they might venture to come forward, the King was
prepared to dismiss the Whigs. Why it should have
been deemed advisable to disguise the truth, and to
make it appear that the advent of the Tories to power
was not an affair which had been long preconcerted, is
only, we fear, part of that system of falsehood and hy-
pocrisy that seems now to have obtained the ascendancy.
Lord Melbourne distinctly states that the Conserva-
tives took courage from the disunion which appeared
among the Reformers. " You will not consider me
(he says) as employing the language of complaint and
discontent, but rather that of friendly admonition
and advice, if I enumerate among the causes of the
late events the want of confidence which has often
been expressed in quarters from which we expected
support—the strong condemnation which has been
pronounced upon some of our measures, which I con-
ceive to have been absolutely necessary—the violent
and abusive opinions which have been declared, and
particularly the bitter hostility and ulterior designs
against the Established Church, which have been
openly avowed by several classes and bodies of the
the Dissenters." " These sentiments, he adds, and
this conduct, occasioned great alarm in high and
powerful quarters ; they terrified the timid, they re-
pelled from us the wavering, they rallied men around
the institutions which they conceived to be attacked ;
and they gave life, and spirit, and courage, to our po-
litical adversaries, and who, you will recollect, after all,
form a very large and powerful party in this country—
a party powerful in number, powerful in property,
powerful in rank and station, and, allow me to
odd, a party of a very decided, tenacious, unyielding,
and uncompromising character." His Lordship
admits that the Reformers are still stronger—
stronger in sense and spirit, in reason and justice, in in-
struction and inquiry, in the general sympathy and fel-
low-feeling of the community ; but he well observes,
that a party of very inferior strength will ultimately be
victorious, if conducted with singleness of purpose and
unity of action. This we believe to be a very fair ac-
count of the circumstances which emboldened the Con-
servatives to resume power. We have also a key to
their policy in the few expressive words, that they " are
a party of a very decided, tenacious, unyielding, and
uncompromising character." They think they have ob-
tained the means of arresting the progress of re-
form in Church and State ; and stupid and besotted
must those be who can for a moment conceive that
the Conservatives have grasped power with any
other view than to prevent the people from deriv-
ing any further advantage from the Reform Bill.
How can the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert
Peel, if they would, induce the party for whose
sake they had been elevated to office—a party decided,
tenacious, unyielding, and uncompromising----to con-
sent to reforms equal to those intended by the Mel-
bourne Ministry, when we know that the liberal mea-
sures of the Ministry in question caused its dismissal ?
How far the Duke of Wellington may himself have
countenanced the delusion which the Tinzes and some
other Wellington papers seek to create on this subject,
it is impossible to say. That there are lying spirits at
the command of his Grace, if not in closer union with
him, is sufficiently obvious from the numerous false
statements which have been disseminated in the Quar-
terly Review, the Times, and the Standard, and
which must have been derived from quarters of some
influence. They who could propagate these false-
hoods are capable of other deceptions. The letter of
the Duke of Wellington to Dr. Curtis has been
often cited as a proof of the peculiar notions enter-
tained by his Grace, as to the advantage which may
be derived from holding out false signals. Be this
however, as it may, we know that the Duke of Wel-
lington is merely the organ of a powerful party, pecu-
liarly obstinate and uncompromising, and that, whe-
ther he holds out promises to the Reformers or not,
he cannot grant effective reforms if he would. More-
over, it is equally obvious that the party in question
will not be satisfied with the Duke of Wellington, if
he do not seize every opportunity favourable to inva-
sions of the Reform Bill, to destroy or impair its
efficacy, that the Constitution may be brought back to
that high state which he so much admired in 1830,
and towards which his confidential friend Lord Strang-
ford owned that it ought to be their object to bring
it. Still admitting that the Duke and his friends
may have thrown out some equivocal declaration of
a disposition to reform, with a view to decep-
tion, it would be carrying Christian charity far in-
deed, to suppose that the Times has been the dupe
of such declarations. The Times has so often ex-
pressed itself in the most forcible manner on the
absurdity of believing for a moment in the promises of
Conservatives with regard to reform, that their doc-
trine of " measures, not men," can only be put forth
with an intention to deceive. Its object is to perplex
and disunite Reformers, in order to forward the views
of the Conservatives. Blind almost to fatuity must
those be, who do not see through the drift of the
Times ; and indeed it is obvious that the people are
everywhere sufficiently alive to the baseness of that
journal. There has been no division among Reformers
worth mentioning except at Manchester; and that
proceeded from any thing rather than sharing the
views of the Times. The working classes in Man-
chester are, it appears, generally, disciples of a man
who may not be so base as the conductor of the Times,
but who is equally inconsistent, and the most perverse
of human beings. We need not say we allude to Cob-
bett, the great rival of the Times in impudent effrontery
and Billingsgate, and its superior in forcible writing.
This man carries his hatred of the Whigs to the
verge of insanity. He owns in the Register of
this day that he hated the Whigs before he knew
any thing about them ; and we fear he has in
general no better reason for most of his hatreds. He
will only cease to hate and revile without cause when
the spirit leaves his body. " God forgive me I (he
begins an article) but somehow or other, I always
hated this faction, even to their very name. I hated
them before I knew any particulars about them. It
was not wickedness in me, for I had no interest in this
matter ; they had never done anything to me ; indeed
I had no reason to guide me ; it was a sort of instinct,
such as that which makes a horse uneasy if you carry
blood or garbage into a stable." This reminds us of
a story told by Barretti, in his letters from Spain and
Portugal. He found a man who had lived some time
in England, and expressed great hatred of the English,
and he asked him why he hated them ? The man,
after bethinking himself some time, at last answered,
" Because they use vinegar with their veal." Mr.
Cobbett—like the poor Spaniard—furnishes bane

and antidote at the same time. The Times is
less honest than Cobbett—but we would fain be-
lieve, that its shifts will not serve it much.
The Times, we know, laughs .at consistency for a
month, or a week ; but it is impossible, that its
readers, who,—a month ago,—may have been
struck with the force of its reasoning against trusting
the Conservatives, can now veer round with it, and
yield to such arguments as the following in the number
of yesterday ;—" Why should the Duke of Welling-
ton and other Conservatives be abused for changing
their system of measures with the changed condition
of the country ? Ought they to be praised for stub-
bornly, stupidly, and wickedly striving to govern the
kingdom on anti-reform principles, after the whole anti-
reform machinery has been swept away by law ?" The
anti-reform machinery was swept away by law years
ago ; but the Duke of Wellington stubbornly, stupidly,
and wickedly opposed all reform to within a month
back : and the Times, little more than a month ago,
told us that he was the blindest of men—that he was
notoricus when in office for his utter ignorance of
public opinion. And is such a weathercock as this
capable of guiding the political opinions of three-
fourths of the people of England ?—Morn. Chronicle.
Either Lord Melbourne should have obtained the
King's permission to make known a correct account of
what took place in the celebrated interview at Brighton,
or the subject should have been, at least till the meet-
ing of Parliament, a sealed book. When we say this
we are aware how irksome it is to be the subject of
misrepresentation, and that it is often a temptation
past endurance to listen in silence to statements of
which we know the inaccuracy, and which we could
dissipate by a word. Still there is something in the
situation of a Cabinet Minister and the King which
takes such a case entirely out of the common rule, and
imposes upon the former a forbearance which he ought
to have sufficient discretion not to overstep. Without
imputing to Lord Melbourne any taste for that
itinerancy of which lie must have seen and felt too
much in the person of one of his late colleagues, it
cannot be denied that his Lordship has been much
more communicative to the little world of Derbyshire
than he was to the great world of the metropolis be-
fore he left it. In reply to the address of the Derby re-
formers the Noble Lord, after attributing the breaking
up of his Administration solely to the death of Earl
Spencer, and passing a high eulogium upon Lord
Althorp, " whose simplicity of nature and honesty of
purpose were far more valuable than the possession of
those more specious and imposing talents which were
apparent in other men," went to state that " it became
his duty to take the pleasure of his Majesty, and make
the necessary arrangements for filling up the deficiency.
It was sufficient to say, that in taking these steps his
Majesty intimated to him that he would not impose
upon him that task ; but that he intended to resort for
that purpose to other Counsellors." Now this, to say
the least of it, is very tantalising and unsatisfactory. It
is not, to be sure, quite the case of the play of Hamlet
with the part of Hamlet omitted ; but it is like that play
with the most interesting part of the text omitted, which,
as far as disappointment to an audience goes, amounts
to much the same thing. Let it be remembered that
we are not pressing for these disclosures, or advocating,
for the present, at least, their necessity or propriety.
But the public, we think, have a right to com-
plain of this partial, piecemeal kind of detail.
That Lord Melbourne, on leaving the King's closet,
has any right, either at Derby, or elsewhere, to detail
what passed upon the occasion, admits of little doubt.

But then is not the skeleton without the substance
quite as unfit to meet the public ear ? According to
Lord Melbourne's present version of the matter, it
would seem that he received his dismissal without
parley or explanation ; whereas there can be little or
no doubt but that there is a pretty large hiatus to fill
up, without which the whole remains nearly as unin-
telligible as the denouement of Hamlet would be
without the text. We have no doubt but that when
Parliament assembles an explanation will be asked,
and that Lord Melbourne will receive the King's
permission to give it—to give it wholly and with-
out reserve, not in its present mutilated shape. Con-
vinced we are that his Majesty has nothing to
disguise, nothing to withhold, upon the occasion.
We dare say it is very true that Lord Melbourne
never admitted (at least in so many words) his inabi-
lity to carry on the Government—that he never ad-
mitted (at least in so many words) that there were
irreconcilable differences of opinion among his col-
leagues. But does it therefore follow that the King
did not elicit from Lord Melboure sufficient, nay,
more than sufficient, to satisfy his Majesty's mind
that such was the case, and that it was therefore due
to himself, to Lord Melbourne, and to his people,
not to trifle or temporise with a result which had, to
his conviction, become inevitable ? This we feel
strongly persuaded will be the course and the result
which the affair must take. In the mean time it may
be hardly necessary to caution a man of Lord Mel-
bourne's honour and discretion against allowing his
zeal for his party to betray him into any premature
statements which may not dovetail with the full and
authentic account which he will, we have no doubt, in

the end be called upon and authorised to give. The
mere fact of Lord Melbourne being the bearer to the
Duke of Wellington of the King's letter to him, af-
fords a vehement presumption that the former's dis-
missal was not so abrupt and uncourteous as his speech
to the Derby addressers might otherwise lead the world
to believe.—Morning Herald.

We are truly happy to find that the advice which
we have repeatedly given the Conservatives at this
crisis, " to be active and united," has been, and con-
tinues to be, generally followed. In almost every
county, and in the great majority of towns, the friends
of the Constitution have rallied, and by unequivocal
manifestations of their resolution to answer as Chris-
tians and Englishmen the appeal which their Patriot
King has made to them, justify our most sanguine
and cheering anticipations. The spirit of loyalty
which the wicked and factious men who lately bore
rule, the Broughams and the Littletons, the Ellices
and the Russells, attempted vainly to extinguish, by
daring to mix up the name of an honoured King with
their own mischievous and destructive projects, now
animates every honest heart with increased energy and
zeal ; and we may assert with safety that since the
period when the madness of revolutionary France
banded around the throne of England whatever of
worth, and piety, and talent the nation con-
tained, no Prince has been so truly and
deservedly popular as William the Fourth.
Some of our contemporaries, the organs of the
discomfited faction, whose impotent rage and senseless
bluster they well represent, have attempted to justify
the miserable truckling of Sir John Hobhouse to the
Bath Radicals, and we thank them for their uninten-

tional candour. With them and their masters every
species of opposition to the new and as yet untried
and even unformed Government will be justifiable and
laudable. The Ebringtons hold out the right hand
of fellowship to the Whittle Harveys ; and the Little-
tons and O'Connells, forgetting all mutual imputations
of treachery and falsehood, cordially co-operate to em-
barrass the Administration, whose anticipated crimes
are that it will defend the Church and the Monarchy,
carefully removing any abuses which may have from
time to time crept into our national establishments—
that it will protect and maintain our venerable and ad-
mirable institutions, promoting with zealous but
careful hand those improvements which may (as dis-
tinguished from destructive innovation) be appropri-
ately termed Conservative Reforms—that it will finally
redress practical grievances, and not waste the time,
the energy, the patience, and the resources of the
country on theoretical changes, having for their only
object the employment of some scores or hundreds of
useless but necessitous Commissioners, the amesperdues
of faction. But whatever may be the outcry of infidels,
republicans, and levellers of all denominations, banded
together for evil, such an administration will merit
and enjoy the confidence of the Sovereign, and will
receive the zealous support of a people essentially,
deeply, and devotedly attached to the Altar and the
Throne.—Morning Post.
We give elsewhere what may be deemed an all but
official statement (from the Derby Reporter) of the
answer of Lord Melbourne to the address of the de-
putation of the Derby Reformers, which waited upon
him the other day. It does not differ materially on any
point from that which we copied yesterday from ano.

'IIIE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1834.

ther journal ; but, on the contrary, rather „confirms and
strengthens it. The same naked denials of the truth
of the statements contained in the Times and in other
Tory papers, respecting the difficulties of the Premier
and dissensions in the Cabinet, are re-asserted—the
same facts respecting the King having made up his
mind upon the necessity of changing the Administra-
tion, and substituting in its stead one of wholly diffe-
rent principles, are repeated—the same, though some-
what more ample information afforded respecting the re-
forms in Church and State ; in law, in commerce, and in
corporations, boldly set forth. We should not in fact have
deemed it neceseary to encumber our columns with this
second edition of the late Premier's answer but for two
reasons ;—the first, that we might not afford to our
Tory contemporaries a handle for accusing us of unfair
play—and the second, that we might give, in Lord
Melbourne's own words, his most admirable exhorta-
tion to union among all reformers, whatever differences
of opinion may be among them, respecting either the
time when certain measures ought to be carried, or the
extent of reform which they ought to embrace. "It
would detain me too long," said he, " and my strength
would hardly suffice, if I were to enter, in any detail,
into the causes of the late events. You will not
consider me as employing the language of complaint
and discontent, but rather that of friendly admoni-
tion and advice, if I enumerate amongst them the want
of confidence which has often been expressed in quar-
ters from which we expected support—the strong con-
demnation which has been pronounced upon some of
our measures, which I conceive to have been abso-
lutely necessary—the violent and subversive opinions
which have been declared—and particularly the bitter
hostility and ulterior designs against the Established
Church, which have been openly avowed by several
classes and bodies of the Dissenters. When I men-
tion this last opinion, I beg leave to say that I do not
condemn those who conscientiously entertain it. It
is not my opinion ; but I mention it now, only po-
litically, and with reference to its actual effect upon
the course of public affairs. These sentiments and
this conduct occasioned great alarm in high and
powerful quartets ; they terrified the timid, they re-
pelled from us the wavering, they rallied men around
the institutions which they conceived to be attacked,
and they gave life, spirit, and courage to our political
adversaries, who, you will recollect, after all, form a
very large and powerful party in this country—a party
powerful in property, powerful in rank and station,
and allow me to add, a party of a very decided, tena-
cious, unyielding, and uncompromising character. You,
gentlemen, I know, are stronger than they are ; you
are stronE,, in sense and spirit ; you are strong in rea-
son and justice, in instruction and inquiry, in the
general sympathy and fellow-feeling of the commu-
nity ; but you are not strong enough to be able to
afford to be disunited. Let me assure you of that.
A party of very inferior strength' will ultimately be
victorious, f it be conducted with singleness of pur-
pose and unity of action. You are not strong enough
to concede these advantages to your opponents, whilst
you subject yourselves to the weakness which arises
from division, dissension, and discord."—Morning
Advertiser.

We are charged by an evening enemy with having
neglected to take the opportunity pressed upon us by
Lord Melbourne's speech at Derby, of " handsomely
acknowledging the mis-statements" which he had made
of the causes of his Lordship's dismissal from office.
We have, then, overlooked an opportunity which has
never been presented to us. The impression which we
pretty distinctly conveyed to our readers was, that the
King had, upon Lord Melbourne's representations.
conceived the existence of the late Cabinet to be, at
all events, so precarious, and so likely to be terminated
soon after the meeting of Parliament, as to render it
expedient to anticipate such a result, by dissolving it
at a period less injurious to the public service. Lord
Melbourne says that the Cabinet was not broken up
by its own dissensions—not directly, we admit ; be-
cause his Lordship and his colleagues were satisfied to
take their chance and proceed at all hazards ; but that
it was broken up through his Majesty's fear of what
must arise out of differences of opinion, although
Lord Melbourne qualifies them as " skadt,s" of dif-
ferences, we have always believed, we broadly stated,
and we see nothing in Lord Melbourne's speech to con-
trovert. That his Majesty and Lord Melbourne dif-
fered essentially in the constructions which they put
upon the same acknowledged facts, must be obvious to
everybody ; and the noble Lord's assertion that the
Ministry need not have been broken up, if the King
had not dismissed it, may, morally speaking, be quite
consistent with truth —that is, with Lord Melbourne's
opinion of the truth; and yet the King may have been
as firmly persuaded on his side that no other alter-
native remained to him. We abide by every word we
have uttered until apprized 'by authority that we
were in error, and having already expressed our
reluctance to go on with this subject until the moment
at which the truth could no longer be concealed or
distorted, we have here confined ourselves strictly to
the exposure of a false accusation brought against us_
an accusation of which the justice or injustice weighs
of course but little in the quarter whence it conies.
The questions have never yet been answered, whether
Lords Lansdowne and Auckland, and Mr. Spring
Rice, could or would have remained in office if Lord
John Russell had carried his plans of Irish Church
Reform. 2dly, 'Whether, if such schemes had been
proposed by members on the Opposition side of the
House, the Ministers would not have divided against
each other. And, 3dly, Whether Lord Melbourne did
not confess, that in case of a migration from his Cabi-
net, he would be compelled to look for recruits among
the movement party.—Times.

VICE-CHANCELLOR'S COURT.—DEc. 5.

M'DONNELL V. HARDING.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, DEC. 5.

His HONOUR proceeded to give judgment in this cause,
which was argued some days ago, and involved a point of
considerable importance relative to the liability of trustees
and agents for the failure of their banker.
_ _

Tha defendant, Mrs. Harding, was executrix of a sur-
viving trustee, was trustee of certain sums of stock for the
plaintiff's under their father's marriage settlement, to which
they were entitled in possession in 1830, on the death of
their mother, who was tenant for life. In 1827 the plaintiff
F. M'Donnell wrote to Mr. Fisher, the other defendant, and
the solicitor of Mrs. Harding, expressing the desire of
himself and the co-plaintiffs to have the trust funds lent on
mortgage, and stating that he had purchased the share of
one of the co-plaintiffs. A long correspondence ensued,
from which it appeared that in February, 1830, the stock
was sold, and 1,500/., part of it, lent on mortgage ; and
Fisher informed F. M'Donnell by letter that he held the
balance, 6001., till a proper investment could be procured,
and that he would pay 21 per cent. for the money. As
P. M'Donnell never objected to that arrangement Fisher
was thenceforth alone responsible for the 600/. The
mother died soon after, and in January, 1831, Fisher
procured, with M'Donnell's acquiescence, a person to
take an assignment of the mortgage, and the mortgage
money was paid to Fisher in this way :—He received
two notes for 1,000/. each, and gave 5001. in change. On the
same day he transmitted from the country the two notes to
Sanson and Co., with directions to place them to his own
account, and that they would be wanted in a few days, to
pay F. M'Donnell. At the same time he sent F. M'Don-
nell a release to be executed, and his bill of costs, and in-
formed him by letter that the money was ready ; and in a
subsequent letter expressed his anxiety to conclude the
matter, as the money was lying idle at Messrs. Sanson and
Co.'s. After some delay, the release reached town on the
Bth of March, to be exchanged for the money by Fisher's
town agent ; but Messrs. Sanson and Co. stopped payment
the day before. They ultimately paid 1,260/. on account
of Fisher's claim, which was received by F.. M'Donnell
without prejudice, and the question was by whom the loss
should be borne ? If the payment to Sanson and Co., in
the manner it had been made, was necessary for the final
winding up of the trust, or if F. M'Donnell had full notice
of that manner, and had acquiesced in it, the loss must
have been borne by the plaintiffs. The correspondence
shows that M'Donnell admitted Mrs. Harding's right to a
release, but in order to obtain the release, there was no-
thing to show it was necessary to send the money to the
bankers, and certainly not to put it to the general account
of Fisher, of which transaction, moreover, there was not
the slightest notice in any of the letters. The loss, there-
tbre, must full upon the defendants. But, as Mrs. Fisher
was not liable beyond 1,500/., and as 1,260/. was already
received, she remained only liable for 240/., jointly with
Fisher, who was separately liable to the remaining 6004 and
interest, and the defendants must pay the costs of the suit,

Poetry is like brown bread; those who make it at
home, never approve of what the 7 meet with elsewhere.—
Mirror,