The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-04 00:00:00

upon us. In what respect, then, except as regards the
height of station and the weight of responsibility,
does the case of the individual differ from that of the
Sovereign ? We have, over and over again, said
that the petty distinctions of Whig and Tory have
merged in the great divisions of Conservatives and
Destructives ; there are, in fact, at present but these
two parties in the country ; and so far from taxing
a Whig with tergiversation or ratting, because he
supports the new Government, we should say that lie
shows his real affection for the country by upholding
the Monarch who, having been betrayed by the inca-
pacity or evil doings of one set of Ministers, has called
to his aid and councils a man from whose uprightness,
ability, and integrity that country has every right to
expect the most salutary and prosperous results. We
speak sincerely upon this point, and we know that our
feelings are responded to all over the kingdom ; nay,
so strong and so general is the sentiment we express
that we should not be surprised at finding amongst
those who rally round the throne at the present crisis
some who, until they saw the difficulties and dangers
into which a rash adherence to the mad schemes of their
younger days must plunge the country, were amongst
the most eminent leaders of the Destructive party,
recently called the Radicals. We again recur to Lord
Melbourne's conversation at Brighton—which the
foolish Chronicle still tries to contradict ; and his
Lordship's reply to his tenantry in Derbyshire. which
it cannot contradict—to prove that the late Ministers
have nothing to complain of—that they were not
" scurvily treated "—and that they have not upon that
score the slightest claim upon those who tvere
their supporters. Not a shadow of a suspicion of in-
trigue or trickery exists as relates to their removal ; and
all they can say to their friends to prevent their giving
their support to their successors must be in the humbled
tone of supplication. It will not avail them. We
could already name scores—we speak within bounds
—of men who supported Lord Grey's Government
upon principle, and in the belief of its good intentions,
who have already, and without the slightest dereliction
of that principle, proffered their support to the Go-
vernment of Sir Robert Peel.—Morning Post.
The conciseness of the King's answer to the Ad-
dress of the Common Council of London has not
pleased those worthy persons, who expected a more
verbose display of Royal elocution upon this important
occasion. The calmness of its tone was no less dis-
satisfying than its brevity. It did not harmonise with
the exciting demonstrations of " the crisis," to which
not even a single allusion was made. This must be
rather provoking to the writers and orators of " the
movement," who declaim, day by day, in " Ercles'
vein," about the " convulsed state of the country from
one end to the other." Surely, at a time when itine-
rant agitators, whose matchless intrepidity of face no-
body ever doubted, go about from parish to parish, and
from tavern to tavern (Sundays not excepted), with
pallid looks and horrent hair, expressing their dread of
that übiquitious monster, " general alarm," whom
every body inquires about and nobody sees—surely
at such a time, we say, the silence of the
King's speech upon that appalling subject is
itself exceedingly alarming. It is so, no doubt, to
those who would throw the whole country into
disturbance and confusion for selfish and factious
purposes. As to the right which the Corporation of
London has to address the King upon the throne, and
to convey to his Majesty their opinion upon any mea-
sures of his Government, we regard it as a right of
great importance, and one which we should be,sorry to
see either abrogated or abridged. We know that
there have been most important occasions in the his-
tory of this country when that privilege has been use-
fully exercised on behalf of the endangered liberties of
the people. When the tyrant James 11. endeavoured
to strike down the Constitution of England and the
Protestant religion together, and to erect the fabric of
arbitrary power and Papal ascendancy upon their ruin,
he was obliged to have recourse to violent measures
for the purpose of making the Corporation of London
subservient to his projects, and did not succeed. So
his predecessor, Charles 11., when he resolved upon
calling no more Parliaments, but governing by his
own arbitrary will and pleasure, commenced his
career of despotism by an attack upon the chartered
privileges of the citizens of London. The whole
conduct of those two Monarchs, from the moment
of their accession to the throne, was such as might well
inspire the suspicion of the people, and call for the
jealous vigilance of those public and popular bodies,
which, in dangerous times, ought to be the sentinels
of national liberty. How different has ever been the
conduct of his present Majesty from that of Sovereigns
who aimed at arbitrary power, or an unconstitutional
extension of prerogative. The whole tenor of the reign
of William IV. has heretofore proved that the last
thought which could enter his heart would be a thought
against the liberties of Englishmen. Of those liber-
ties he has been not only the protector, but the restorer.
In personal character frank and manly—in public af-
fairs incapable of intrigue or dissimulation, he gave
the Whig Ministers no obstruction, but instead of that,
every facility in governing the country on what are
called reform principles, until the Cabinet, having twice
exploded by internal intrigue and dissension—having
lost almost all that constituted its talent and respecta-
bility—having fallen into public suspicion and con-
tempt, and being threatened with dissolution from other
dissensions, became incapable of inspiring confidence
at home, or maintaining the interests and honour of
the country abroad. If, under such circumstances,
the King had not exercised his undoubted prerogative
of dismissing his Ministers and seeking others, he
must have appeared in the light of a Sovereign who
showed himself rather indifferent to the welfare of the
country. The results of repeated elections proved that
the late Administration had lost the confidence of the
public, and the indecent conflict between the late Lord
Chancellor and Lord Durham, which was threatenec

to be renewed in all personal and political bitterness
upon the opening of Parliament, gave promise of in-
creased Ministerial confusion and embarrassment, at a
time when the pressure of public business would
make it most difficult to retrieve the confusion. The
King having dismissed his Ministers, as he had a right
to do, and having chosen others, although an acci-
dental circumstance 'has as yet prevented the actual
formation of the Ministry, we say the Common Council
had no right to interfere. The time had not yet come
when the right of addressing the Throne might be
constitutionally and dexterously exercised. They at-
tempted to dictate to the King, in the exercise of
his undoubted prerogative, and thereby committed an
abuse of their own important and chartered privilege.
To declare, in this manner, against any individuals
whom his Majesty had chosen for his public servants
before the measures of their Government were known,
was to pass a sentence of personal proscription. It
was virtually to coerce the King in the exercise of
the regal prerogative. We said at the time, and
we now repeat it, that every person who knows any
thing of the Constitution of England, knows that,
in the exercise of lawful prerogative, his Majesty
is, and ought to be, absolute. The Common Coun

cil had as much right to address the Crown against
his appointment of any of the Judges, who repre-
sent him, as the fountain of justice, in his superior
Courts of Westminster Hall. We have said that the

...-
King had as much right to remonstrate with the
Corporation for appointing any particular individual
their Lord Mayor, Recorder, Remembrancer, or other
officer. The balance of the Constitution is best pre-
served when the Royal prerogative and popular privi-
leges are kept distinct, and the one does not impro-
perly or unnecessarily interfere with the other. Our
readers know that there are no more determined oppo-
nents of every thing like arbitrary power than we
are ; but we are no less hostile to democratic encroach-
ments upon the principles that constitute, sustain, and
govern a limited Monarchy. Seeing that the address
was in the nature of such encroachment, we cannot
give too much credit to the Sovereign for having
met it with such a mild, judicious, and temperate an-
swer. The Corporation should also have borne in
mind that the very men whom they now endea-
voured to banish from his Majesty's Councils, as
having ever opposed all reform, were men who, when
occupying the situation of his Majesty's Ministers, in
1829, received their warm support as the friends of
civil and religious liberty. As to the intended mea-
sures of the Government, we know nothing about them ;
we wait to know them before we approve or disapprove.

We think it is not too much to expect that a Sove-
reign who has already given his countenance and sup-
port to the reform of so many abuses, will not retrace
his steps because his people give him their confidence.
Laconic as his Majesty's answer to the address is, it
contains much meaning in its few words. The Com-
mon Council told the King that they could expect no
correction of abuses in our social and political institu-
tions. His Majesty says in answer—" It has been, and
ever will be, the object of my earnest solicitude to cor-
rect abuses, and to improve the condition of
the country." That the King has spoken truth
as to the past, the practical evidence is before the
country. That the future will not be in a spirit con-
servative of hbuse, or opposed to social amelioration, the
Royal word is pledged--who anticipates its violation ?
We will adopt here the words of a celebrated writer on
the Constitution and laws of England, who, wishing
to preserve all parts of our unrivalled system of civil
polity in their vigour and excellence, says—" It is our
especial duty, as good subjects and good Englishmen,
to reverence the Crown, and yet guard against corrupt
or servile influence from those who are intrusted with
its authority—to be loyal, yet free—obedient, yet in-
dependent—and, above every thing, to hope that we
may long, very long, continue to be governed by a So-
vereign, who, in all those public acts that have pro-
ceeded from himself, hath manifested the highest
veneration for the free Constitution of Britain—hath
already in more than one instance remarkably
strengthened its outworks, and will, therefore, never
harbour a thought, or adopt a persuasion in any, the
remotest, degree detrimental to public liberty." Though
written under another reign, and nearly eighty years
ago, we trust the applicability of the passage which
we have quoted to the present Sovereign—to what lie
has done for the people of England, and what he may
yet be expected to do—will be universally felt and ac-
knowledged.—Morning Herald.
In some quarters considerable impatienee is mani-

fested at the duration of this ministerial interregnum,
which doubtless was not at first foreseen ; and we
cannot gainsay, for we have repeatedly acknowledged,
the inconvenience attending the concentration, not of
three or four offices, but of nearly all the powers of
the Government, save only those of Chancellor, in
one and the same individual. The necessity bf the
case is, however, the apology for this departure
from ordinary precedent—a necessity which did not
exist when Mr. S. Rice held the same offices in
the summer, while all his colleagues were running
about the country. In the absence, however,
of Sir Robert Peel, as in that of any principal
performer from the scene, subordinate characters
advance, and strut their respective hours. Yes-
terday's Times was a good deal occupied by the
proceedings of Mr. Hume, Colonel Evans, Mr.
Wells, Dr. Wade, and others and the Standard of
last night sends out, through the opposite stage-door,
Lord Kenyon, who comes forth as the writer of a
letter. This Noble Lord we have always believed
to be an honest and worthy man; a little hot-tempered,
like many other Welchmen ; but in him this infirmity
or extravagance has taken a respectable, if not in-
variably a quite innoxious, form—viz., that of religious
zeal, which in times of party violence may be apt to
swell into fanaticism. The present letter of Lord
Kenyon takes a high station in our Evening Contem-
porary, and the importance which the Standard at-
taches to it, rather than any which we should have.dis-
covered in it by our own unassisted lights, has induced
us to reflect for a moment on the motives which could
have led to its publication. The Noble Lord sets
out with declaring, that " in political questions he
never interferes," but that " this is a religious crisis."
Moreover, the Noble Lord goes on to state, that
" to those who make religion a political engine, he
says nothing ; for of all created beings, hypocrites,
and especially religious hypocrites, are the most
hateful." Now, we do not accuse Lord Kenyon
of being a hypocrite, yet no one can read his letter
without the unavoidable conviction, either that the
Noble Lord does unconsciously desire to make
his reliious order serve the purpose of " a political
engine, ' or that he has taken the trouble to compose
it without any object intelligible to his own mind. His
Lordship proceeds—that the battle for real " Christia-
nity is to be fought in Ireland," and concludes along
passage of his letter by asking " whether it is possible
that Protestantism can continue to exist in Ireland, if
a Government favourable to its support is not esta-
blished in England ?" He goes on to add, that the
King, on being asked, " whether he would sanction a
partial extinction of Protestantism in Ireland," re-
plied, like his sainted father, that he " WOULD DIE
FIRST." For a final quotation, we insert what follows :
" Shall your King, I ask, be deserted when he makes
his stand ?"—(for the pure Protestant faith)—" Never;
we will stand by the King." Of all this, then, we say
that, for pure religious writing, it smacks rather pun-
gently of an adulteration of politics, and that we firmly
believe its political meaning to be such, as no act of
the Duke of Wellington's and Sir Robert Peel's
Government will ever sanction, any more than would
the measures of Lord Melbourne or of Earl Grey.
However well meant, we are bound to say that this
letter of Lord Kenyon, like the Ashford dinner, a
few days ago, if it have any effect at all, can do nothing
but mischief, by persuading the world—first, that the
measures of the Duke of Wellington, in relation to
church reform, will stop far short of those which were
meditated by the last Cabinet and its predecessor ; and
next, by assigning as the reason for such a change, the
belief entertained by the Conservative Ministry, that
such measures would have gone to the extinction of
the Protestant religion in Ireland. It is new to us,
whatever it may be to Lord Kenyon, that a Tithe
Commutation Bill would tend to extinguish Protest-
antism. It is new to us that an adjustment of the pa-
rochial revenues to the duties performed by the in-
cumbents, or that the appropriation of Dean and
Chapter incomes to some more beneficial end than the
support of sinecurists, would, after the expiration of ex-
isting interests, operate any evil to religion. We would
go perhaps to the full as far, and sacrifice as much for
the security of the Protestant faith, as even Lord Kenyon,
or any of his religious associates. But we must
tell the Noble Lord that to " make a stand" for
the abuses of the church, or, in other words, to stop
short, as his Lordship insinuates that the King designs
to do, and as he further hints that his Majesty will
be enabled to do by his change of Ministers, is not the
way to serve religion, to strengthen the new Ministry,
or to support the Crown. On the contrary, an an-
nouncement from any well-informed authority that the
late Administration was dismissed for the sake of pro-
tecting the Church of Ireland by new councils, ad-
verse to all further progress in the course already pre-
pared, and partially acted on, and that the Duke of
Wellington, &c., have been resorted to by His Majesty,
as props of the existing establishment in all its parts,
and with all its incidents, would, we are sure, be the
signal for a rally, not round the King, or his conserva-
tive advisers—as understood by Lord Kenyon's letter—
but directly against the wishes of the Sovereign and
for the destruction of his government, even in embryo.
It is a false way of defending the Duke of Wellington
to allege that he is blind to the abuses of the church of
Ireland. Whether a Cabinet such as we now
anticipate may or may not be better qualified than was
the last to grapple with that dreadful order of social
and political grievances which incessant agitation in-
flames, though it may not have created, is a question
which time only can resolve. Brawlers on both sides
may crack their voices ; but the people of England
will, with their usual calm judgment, decide according
to the facts of the case. On the policy of the new
government, and not on the noisy appeals of vio-
lent enemies, or injudicious friends, will its existence
depend.— Times.

AYESHA, THE MAID OF KA Rs.---To all who
are acquainted with those admirable productions " Hajji Baba"
and " Zohrab," a new romance, emanating from the same
source, cannot fail to be highly acceptable. The scenes of
this tale are entirely Oriental, and Mr. Moi ier's well-known
talent in illustrating the life and manners of the natives of the
East renders it unnecessary for us to say how well he has suc-
ceeded in the present instance. The adventures of a young
English Nobleman in the course of his travels over Asia, give
birth to the exciting events that form the narrative. " Ayesha"
is the heroine ; she is the true maiden of romance. She leaves
the quiet and seclusion of her father's harem ; and her destiny
partakes of all those interesting dangers and vicissitudes that
win the attention and charm the fancy when told by a skilful
novelist. The story is quite worthy the distinguished reputa-
tion of this writer,