The Sun.
London, England, 1804-01-27 00:00:00

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cions of their opponents (1). The business or the
State, it was said, niZght be carried on withou: elo.
queriee; (God 'forbid. it should not !) their, llbours
were-less brilliant, but more beneficial ; the:V.irances
fiburished ; the National Defence was completely
. .
• .
Provided for; the Peice was preserYed, and the
Honour or the Country at the same time not corn.:

promised
" These topics, I own, had their fall weight wits
me, and others, who. took a very conscientious,
though perhaps a very limited view of things as
they were passing, and who were of too little con-
sequence to be enrolled in a party. But this illusion
could not long continue. It was melancholy at best
to be forced perpetually to be making allowances ;
to be always giving credit for intention; to hear
things carried by assertions, which were often re trad-
ed, or explained away together with their explana.
tions ; to see every thing in a sort of indefinite non-
descript state, ' A mighty maze, and all without
' a plan.' If we looked abroad, it was only to trem-
ble : the Articles of the Treaty had by no means been
executed ; the strides of France were gigantic, yet
we could not, or dared not oppose her ; and we seemed
wilfully to shut our eyes, that we might have the con.
solation of not seeing danger, and therefore of hoping
that none was nigh. Mean time, some pretty strong
affronts were passed unrevenged (c) : rumours were
afloat of no very pleasant augury to the national
honour, or the national interest; yet we went on
disarming, hand over head. We were warned, that
like that ill-fared nation of old, we broke down our
very walls to let in the monster who was to destroy
us, yet we despised the warning. At the same
time,, there was the most fearful fluctuation in the
councils on the sitbjeft of the peace establishment.
Within a few weeks the seamen were to be 30,000 ;
~they. were,then to be 50,000, an increase of two
thirds, without any assigned reason. The speech
from the Throne had, indeed, a sort of lowering
oracular ambiguity, which no one .could understand,
and which Ministers refused to explain ; yet Mi.
nisters themselves, particularly Mr. Addington,
who on this, and on many points which I shall have
occasion to mention, may be called the assertor of'
his party, Were perpetually promulgating the tails-
, manic word Peace.

" Devoted, as many of us.were, to thelnagic of
that sweet sound, it was easy to observe, from the
causes already enumerated, that the security. of those
who supported 'the" Governnicrit_ was by .no means
perfe& The House of Comm Ons displayed little
-alacrity of front or countenance, large as was the
muster of ministerial votes (d). During the little
time I have been there, I have seen nothing but
gloom, and doubt, and unsatisfied hope for a better
state of things ; a sort of resignation to what can-
not, it is thought, be • altered, and what therefore,
and therefore only must be endured. In the time
alluded to, I speak hot merely of men who, like
myself, were unconneaed with the Minister, and
supported him from blind and uninformed duty ; but
many, very many of those, or the relations of those
who held places under him of profit and honour,
conferred, indeed,' by another, but which obligtd
them to consider themselves so far of his party; as
to vote Against that other when oecasion.required.

" To me therefore it appears but a vain illusion,
a very phantom of hope, which like other phantoms,
may vanish on a touch, to say because numbers
have voted, that therefore they have approved. If
originally the Ministers were Ministers of accident,
such they remain ; if, originally the good-will of
the public was (according to their own panegyrist,
depressed by considerable anxiety and doubt of
' their sufficiency,' (r) the anxiety and the doubt
are by no means removed. Of
.this, as to their
measures since the War began, I want no other,
proof ,thart the state into which they have put the
Country in proportion to the command that has been
given over the very sum of its strength ; and as to
their powers of defending those measures, no one
need look far.thet than the debate on the army esti-
mates.

" On that interesting night, (we may apply to
it the words of the most celebrated funeral oration
of its time) Oh ! night,' never to he forgotten ! (f)
the powers of the Ministers of .England, in com-
parison with their opponents, were exadiy ascer-
tained. Their new Secretaries, (with very sincere
respect. for most manly hearts and most excellent
understandings be it said) totally failed them. The
Secretary at War, from I know not what cause,
would not put forth the strength he is acknoWledged
to possess. The Secretary of State, whether op,
preSsed by the real difficulties of his sUbjed, or
diverted into an insulated part of by the warmth
of fraternal feeling, was confessedly impar siti. I
do him the justice to believe, that the increased
zmbarrassment of the Ministerial cause alone was
the reason why the ability he had shewn in his former
capacity, <lil nut. keep pace with his recent eleva-
tion. Lord C3stlereagh only 'was any thing like
respeftable. Lord Castlereagh, the Director Of
India, the ;Manager of Asiatic Details, the Dis-
penser of Fate to a distant world, •to him strangely.'
was confided the task of developing the true- state
of our armies at home, with the Secretary of State
for the Honie Department on the one side of him,
and the Secretary at War on the other. But this is
petty matter compared with the'real effel, compared
with the appearance which was exhibited by the
Government, taken as a whole, and then for the first
time fighting alone! And let it not be disguised
that they fought with all their power, and at 'the
head of all their votes ; secure of the Sovereign's
favour, 'and entrenched to the teeth in place ; with
nothing to, divert them from the intrinsic merit of
the subjed ; without even the expedation of an
amendment or division ! To say they were beaten,
is what all confess ; to say how beaten, is what few
could undertake ! The stripes they received must

(5) " My assertion is as good as their suspicion."—(Mr.
Adclinvon, in reply to Mr. Canning,i,on-the Swiss remon-
strance.) How little did we know then that he had given
legitimate cause for War to France, by Mr. Moore's mission,
and was saved only by ignorance of that Gentleman's in-
struttions.
(c) They tell you themselves it was a continued series of
aggressor:., violence, and insult. See the King's Declaration.
(d) Notwithstanding their victory over Mr. Pitt, in which
I had.the happiness of dividing with that great man, and th.e
foolish hopes that were indulged upon that event, the melan-
choly appearance is still the same.
(e) Near Observer.
f) On the death of Henrietta of England, Dutchess of
O rieu.s. •