The Sun.
London, England, 1858-06-05 00:00:00

THE

stand their own Value, and the effects of
an efficient organisation. Ne ver was there

an occasion more impere►tively requiring a
combined and energetic effort. The fate of the

Ballot, and of Legislative Reforru generally, may
greatly depend on the demonstration of Tuesday
next. Should there be any lukewarmness or vacil-
lation displayed by professing Liberals ;--should
there be even a slack attendance, full advantage
will probably be taken of the difference ; and the
just and salutary measure will receive the go-by

from the leaders of all sides.
It is notorious that Lord PALMERSTON and
Lord JOHN RUSSELL are strougly opposed to that
which would strike a death-blow at bribery and
intimidation, whether that of landlord, priest,
employer, or customer. Nothing but a very strin-
gent pressure from without, and the necessity of bid-
ding high for Liberal support, could induce either of
the Whig leaders to swallow the unwelcome dose.
But they are made of squeezable materials, and
when they cannot dictate to independent Mem-
bers, will be content to swallow their leek, albeit

with a bad grace.
There is, we believe, a much better chance of
carrying the ballot with the DERBY Government,
than if Lord PALMERSTON either remained or
was reinstated in power. It is by no means
improbable that they would greatly prefer
waiting for the general measure which may
be anticipated next year ; but they have yielded
with a good grace on the question of
Property Qualification, and earned an immense
accession of strength thereby ; and should
they adopt a similar policy in respect
to the Ballot they would render their position
far more secure, and disappoint the cravings of
their rivals for office for a very considerable
period. It would gain the good will of at least
150 representatives,of independent constituencies,
who would greatly prefer the acts of Lord DERBY
to the specious and plausible pretensions of Lord
PALMERSTON or Lord J. RUSSELL.
The latter Noble Lord has already coquetted
with the question. It is true that he avoided
committing himself personally ; but when his seat
for the City was seriously imperilled, he per-
witted his brother to throw out oracular hints as
to what he might be disposed to do ; and although
these hints were received by many staunch advo-
cates of the Ballot as tantamount to a decla-
ration in its favour, they were never contra-
dieted or explained away until after his return,
and when many doubtful votes had been given
consequence of the ambiguous speech.
Lord Pxant has already shown an inclination
to recognise the clearly expressed will of the
popular branch of the Legislature, and he would
be the more ready to do so in a matter closely
relating to the constitution of the House itself,
and of the mode of conducting the elections
~f its members. If the Liberals muster
strong on Tuesday, if absenteeism is considered
just as bad as a hostile vote, there will be ade-
quate reasons fur the concession, which can
scarcely be rejected under such circumstances. It
is the pure Whigs who have hitherto retarded
the passing of the measure ; and its friends and
advocates should now clearly ascertain the course
o be pursued by the leaders of the different parties.

A startling instance illustrative at once of the
cruelest injustice and of the basest ingratitude at
the same time, was descanted upon by ourselves,
a few days since, as indicative of the official incom-
petence and the heartless contempt for Merit, when
unaccompanied by Interest, habitually manifested
under the rogime which has now been branded for
aver by Mr. DISRADLI with the name and title—
not of the " Cabal," no, that is its mere offshoot,
but of—" THE OJsoLJTE OLIGARCHY !"

V
-
We allude, of course, to the harrowing tale of
the great wrong done to a humble but heroic
Master in the Royal Navy, one ROBERT ROBERTS,
dead at 38, still a Master in the Navy and no
more—killed (as his medical attendants plainly
declared) by the denial to him of the promotion
he had earned by his eztraordinary services—his
stalwart frame bowed down, his tough constitution
broken by his preternatural exertions, body and
soul, heart and mind, in the cause of his country,
his spirit crushed out in the heyday of his life by
the meanest injustice and the bitterest disappoint-

ment.
It will be remembered how we explained at
length what great deed it was that this obscure
but heroic sailor had accomplished—that he, that
one solitary Master in the Navy, had, single-
handed, contrived (to the wonder and admiration
of the Admiral of the Fleet and of the Comman-
der of the Forces) to land the British Army at
Eupatoria at the time of the memorable com-
mencement of the great Crimean Expedition.

We have revived a recollection of these shame

It will be remembered how the Government
was besought by Lord RAGLAN, by Lord LYONS,
by one after another of the chiefs naval and
military, out there, at the seat of war, to reward
this brave, intelligent man, to give him (of course)
compensation for the money he had expended out
of his own pocket for the benefit of the country
at large, but, beyond this, to recompense his signal
services by promoting him from the post of a
Master in the 113yal Navy to the rank of a Coin.

wander.
It will be remembered with a painful vividness
more clearly than all, how, when poor ROBIRTS
(still a Master) was brought home, slowly and
miserably dying, his last manly, touching, do-
quent, irresistible appeal was responded to by a
harsh, callous, wretched, pert little holograph
letter, addressed ti the noble-hearted Tar by the
Right Hon. Sir CILARLB3 WOOD, Bart., of fickle-
ton Hall, Yorkshire, and then, unhappily, Lord
Paramount among the Lords Commissioners of
the Admiralty.
The long sad story of the wrongs of ROBERT
ROBERTS may be tersely enough epitomised—
Alpha, Ocaega--born and dead-38 —to the
last a Master in the Navy—their Lordships at
the Admiralty never dreaming for an instant, of
course, of making merely a Sailor (true salt, true
man, true British Heart of Oak, though he was) a
CJEamander.

facts, because we want to place one Picture in
broad contrast to another—a picture, this latter
one not of Great Merit wholly Unrewarded, but
of Powerful Interest enormously Recompensed.
We want to speak now for a few minutes not
of the pluck, the skill, the intelligence, the
self-devotion, and the self-sacrifice of Master R.
W. ROBERTS, but of the fortunes of Mr. WILLIAM
AUGUSTUS TOLLEUACIIE, one of the last but not
least favoured proteges of the "Obsolete Oli
garchy" as represented in L ,rd PALMERSTON';,
Government. Mr. WILLIAM AUGUSTUS TOLLE

MACHE may be a very brave a very clever
man, a man singularly gifted man,tedan and admiral)),
heroic—hut we never heard it. We don't deify
that he isall this, but vre never heard it. Whatever
his brain or whatever his nerves—his blood, how-
beit, is unmistakeably good. Not quite the blood of
the EDWARDS perhaps, or of the COUItTENAYS
—but good, decidedly good, as blood
goes. His lineal descent, however, is not the
mainstay of his fortunes. That is discoverable
rather in—his family connections. As off,pring
of the late Admiral and Lady ELIZABETH TOLLE-