The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-10 00:00:00

sPIILIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

One would imagine that the ci-devant Thunderer
and Standard are sufficiently able themselves, in all
conscience, to pour out an all-satisfying torrent of
abuse upon the devoted head of Mr. O'Connell, with-
out seeking auxiliary assistance in any other quarter.
But such is not the case ; and as their " great revenge
has stomach for all the scurrility and filth that can be
levelled at him, they encourage a swarm of petty
assailants, who, in the capacity of correspondents, act
like s'oarp-shooters and fire their ammunition, from a
convenient ambush, at the reputation of the great
Agitator. One of the creatures so employed” is a
long-eared animal, who signs himself " Detector," and
whose lucubrations have been bepuffed by the wretcl-„ea
Ott! Times and Standard, at no small rate.
wiseacre addresses his epistles to the Duke of Wel-
lington,. which are spun out to an amazing 1.-ength in
enumerating the faults and misfortunes of Mr.o' Connell.
Among all Mr. O'Connell's bad qualities and imper-
fections, there is one which the Correspondent of the
Times charges him with, whir n we were not, we
must confess, prepared to hear brought against him,
namely—that of his being a bad lawyer. With all
due deference for the opinion of this " learned The-
ban," as well indeed us for that of the briefless scribes
of the Times, who have lately been in the habit of
trumping up a 'similar story, by assuring their readers
that the chief of the Learned Gentleman's clients
were the Munster Whiteboys (not the only bad
boys, as we will shortly show, that sought his pro-
fessional services), we must be pardoned if we he-
sitate to assent to their high authority, when we
find them differing, upon a point of this kind, not
only with Lord Plunkett, but with three fourths of
the most exalted members of the Irish bar. Why, Mr.
O'Connell's pretensions as a sound and general lawyer,
and an almost unrivalled advocate, never have been
questioned, even by the fiercest of his political op-
ponents belonging to the legal profess:on—and it
is rather a curious coincidence that while he
was making Ireland reverberate with denunciations
against Orangeism, from the Corn Exchange, that
the persons who caused the plethoric distension of
his bag in the Hall of the Four Courts, until it be-
came too ponderous for his brawny arms to bear, were
Orange Attorneys. We, however, by no means pre-
tend to he able to pronounce a competent judgment
upon Mr. O'Connell's legal acquirements ; but there
was a circumstance that occurred a few years ago that
led us to believe that in Ireland, no matter how great
the diversity of opinion which prevailed concerning his
merits as a politician, all parties were tolerably agreed
in bestowing upon him the reputation of a clever law-
yer. We shall just mention the occurrence which in•
duced us to arrive at this conclusion. It will, perhaps,
be remembered by many, that when the first successful
attempt was made to drive the Beresfords from their
strong-hold in the county of Waterford, Mr. O'Con-
nell was the conducting agent of the rival candi-
date, Mr. Villiers Stuart. It will not be denied,
that upon that occasion the House of Curragh-
more had ample and melancholy proofs of Mr.
O'Connell's professional abilities, and ardent devo-
tion to the interest of his client. The Beresfords
are allowed "to be wise in their generation"—a family
never suspected of any lofty talent, or that could boast,
through all its ramifications, of the least portion of the
mens'divinior. Still they are known to be cautious
and plodding—eager to put their hands into the purse
of the people, and most tenacious to keep whatever
they may have been fortunate enough to draw out of
it. That such a family would indiscreetly lavish their
money upon a Popish Barrister, unless they thought
he would be in some way able to repay them one hun-
dredfold, is too absurd an idea to be for a moment en-
tertained. However, after they had been defeated by
Mr. Stuart, they required an agent to superintend their
business at the registration of voters, and upon whom
did the choice of the discerning Beresfords fall ? Saurin
they passed over, and he was at that time in active prac-
tice. Pennefather, with all his strong Tory predilections,
they regarded riot. Lcfroy they despised ; and, oh ! tell
it not in Gath, Blackburn, Jackson, and even Freddy
Shaw were forgotten, and an enormous fee was
offered to a Popish Agitator, and, if we are to credit
the recreant Times, an indifferent lawyer into the bar-
gain, by one of the most violent Tory families in Ire-
land. But- then it will perhaps be said, that it was
not Mr. O'Connell's legal exertions," but his political
influence they wished to purchase ; and that, in
throwing out this temptation to his avarice, they were
only acting upon a suggestion, or rather a command
made in a communication by the military hero then
at the head of the Government to a certain Lord Be-
resford. But surely the Tories would never admit that
a family which may be said to he the very essence and
concentration of Irish Toryism—spiritual and temp&
ral, would think of trafficking for the political influ-
ence of Mr. O'Connell—of the man whose present
support of Lord Melbourne's Government they stig-
matise with such incessant constancy and violence.
We are therefore compelled, in charity to Tory con-
sistency, to conclude that the Beresfords offered
2,0001. to Mr. O'Connell in consideration of his being
the best lawyer they could procure.—Morning Chron.
The revolting task of noticing the rabid ruffianism
of O'Connell again devolves upon us. We betake
ourselves to the performance of this duty with hope
and expectation more confident than ever, that, let the
Ministers crouch to him as they will, and make their
slaves of the press call him " gentleman" and " dis-
tinguished individual," the exposure of his coarse and
wanton blackguardism will in time cause him to be
shunned by every man who is not as foul-mouthed a
savage as himself. He has already put himself without
the pale of even decent private society; and we shall
not be surprised to find that, in England at least, the
fact of any man associating with him will be consi-
dered as a ground for such man's exclusion from the
company of gentlemen. From his harangue to the
Trades' Political Union of Dublin—which will be
found entire in another column, we reproduce here
a few passages. What thinks the reader—be his
politics what they may—of the following passage :
" The Orange faction have talked and boasted much
about loyalty. Loyalty, forsooth I If they could they
would change the succession to the throne. They
would do so too, in favour of the white-whiskered
Duke of Cumberland, because he is a bigot. Prince
of the blood he is, to be sure, but, saving your pre-
sence, he is at the same time a mighty great liar !
(Laughter.)" Can it be possible that the man who
uttered this laanguage is to be, or has been, enter-
tained at a grand banquet by the representative of his
Majesty, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland? Another
post will resolve this question. In the mean time, we
have a second question to ask. Will such a person be
suffered to remain a member of Brookes's ? For the
present, we content :ourselves with merely putting this
question. Our next quotation from his speech, and
upon which we also call for judgment from all com-
monly respectable people of whatever patty and politics,
runs thus :—" Such are some of the component parts of
that house (the House of Lords), which is backed and
headed by the Duke of Wellington—a man who was
brought up amidst the hackney dregs of the Orange faction
at the Castle, who passed from that hotbed of factious
and sanguinary intolerance into public life, with all its
prejudices and narrow-mindedness inculcated upon his
young mind—aft receptacle for such doctrines. He
has been raised by the blood and bravery of British
soldiery to an elevation, to a height of military dig 4y,
almost equal to that of Napoleon, with this differeirce,
that the latter owed his rise to individual merit, while
that of the former was in some degree the eat of
chance. He has attained an eminence from which
the stunted corporal, for which nature originally
intended him, must be astonished to look. He is
an Irishman, ;too, but the only Irishman who ever
denied or was ashamed of his country." Again,
we ask, has this man been, or is he to be, feasted
by the Lord Lieutenant ? Will he be suffered

to remain a member of Brookes's ? We beg our
readers to observe that this is no question of politics
—it is simply leis question, and no other, namely,
vdiOlibi..i+cti qloke common decencies of society which
re,.tecolgned and enforced in all civilized countries,
I,37,k;tklictasant in the circle in which he moves as well
tp_fr.iC - ,peir in his, shall be violated and outraged
es*, iinparirtY by,-a cowardly bully, who, instead of
4titinrin# honestly)to gain his livelihood, sends a beg
(
_g-IiOX into every hovel where the fraction of a far
thinethinidssilily be extorted from its half-starved

occupant ? The iDuke of Wellington the only Irishman
who is ashamed of his country I Oh, we hope not ; we
trust that while, such a wretch as this reigns paramount
in Ireland, the re are some other of the gallant and high-
minded sons of that now beggar-ridden land whose
cheeks burn 'at the mere mention of its name, and who
hide their leads for shame to think that the country
which gave' them birth is bowed beneath a yoke of such
unparell'?lred ignominy. There must be many, many
Irishnv,n, who feel thus, and who clearly perceiving (as
wly:` can fail to see ?) whither the ambition, the in-
tr.igues, and the duplicity of O'Connell, tend, exclaim—
" Come the eleventh plague, rather than this should be;
" Come sink us rather in the sea.
" Come rather pestilence, and reap us down ;
" Come God's sword rather than our own.
" Let rather Roman come again,
" Or Saxon, Norman; or the Dane ;
"In all the bonds we ever bore,
"We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept ; we never blush'd, before."
We have had but one object in calling the attention
of respectable and decent people to this disgusting dis-
play of the " Ministerial Missionary," and we pass
over without notice the stuff he talked about reforming
the House of Lords, and his modest declaration that
the Irish Reform Bill did not give half the reform Ire-
land ought to have had : in other words, that the
" Tail' ought to be twice as long as it is. The abuse
of ourselves we shall dispose of in a few words. He
says—" The Times, which has now arrived at the
very acme of literary profligacy, has been showering
its venal filth upon me. But it is falling gradually into
utter insignificance, and is like a tumbling sky-rocket,
with nothing but a bit of burnt stick to make it for-
midable, and I am sure my head is sufficiently hard to
bear any blow it can inflict." Daniel ought to know
best how hard his head is, but we will wager the
amount of a year's rint, that hard as it may be, his
heart is a vast deal harder, and blacker withal than his
best hat. As to " our falling into utter insignificance,"
that can only happen when all men think with him,
that lying and slandering, foul and filthy Billingsgate,
and a begging-box, are the best passports to eminence
and power. But Daniel will never live to see that
day, and we shrewdly suspect that if he mend not his
. ways, we shall (to use a phrase which no man better
understands than himself) " lose a day and a half-
penny by him."—Times.
Lord John Russell, it would seem, has declined an
invitation to dine with his friends and late Constituents
in Devonshire. This, in some measure, confirms our
recent opinion that his Lordship's visit to Endsleigh
was one of retirement and repose, and not, as had been
asserted, to rouse his partisans in expectation of a new
election. This refusal to dine will be attributed by
some to prudence, by others to pusillanimity. For our
own parts, we imagine it partakes of a union of both.
Lord John Russell has probably by this time learned
that Hamlet's advice to the players, to " say no more
than is set down for them," is equally applicable to men
in office ; and that the ebullitions of an after-dinner
harangue, urged on by the tipsy shouts of Radical ad •
mirers, may betray a man into sentiments and avowals
which, in soberer moments, would not find vent,
and which may become the source of much
subsequent embarrassment. Lord John Russell
knows full well what were the' effects brought
about last autumn to Lord Brougham and his
colleagues by this species of itinerant post prandium ora-
tory ; and as Lord John has no wish to lose his place
by these or any other means, he is anxious, no doubt,
to avoid the rock upon which the ex-Chancellor so
unfortunately split. Besides, Lord John Russell must
have in his eye the out-pourings of a more recent ora-
tor of the migratory school ; and while he is conscious
that it is to that individual alone that lie and his col-
leagues owe their continuance in office, the Noble
Lord, we apprehend, is hardly prepared to go the
lengths, or at any rate to adopt the opinions promul-
gated by Mr. O'Connell at Manchester, Edinburgh,
and Glasgow. Lord John Russell, for instance, is the
son of one Peer, the relative of several more, and him-
self, perhaps, an aspirant for the same distinction ; yet
the whole race is one of which Mr. O'Connell
threatens and advises the extinction. Lord John's
family owe their wealth, and he himself his faggot-
vote in Bloomsbury to that Church spoliation Cinch
Mr. O'Connell would pursue towards one Church,
with the view of restoring it one day to another.
Now these would be awkward opinions to grapple
with, but they could not be passed by. Mr. O'Con-
nell holds the Ministry in what jockeys call " a
hand-gallop." They cannot unseat him without un-
seating themselves. They dare not cast him off,
for with him down they themselves must tumble. Are
we not justified then in assuming that it is with a due
proportion of fear and caution that Lord John Russell
avoids much public speechifying during his sojourn in
the west ? Besides, we suspect that his audience
would be hardly found of a description, or ripe for such
avowals as the Anglo-Irish of the North. The last
election for South Devon must have taught Lord John
Russell that even his own then opinions were a
little too politically prurient for the majority
of that agricultural county, and that were Mr.
O'Connell to show his face' there as an agi-
tator, he would probably be hunted through the
country to the Land's End. Yet though he might
perhaps be bought off, he cannot be cast off. " Usque
tenebo," is the Agitator's motto with the Whigs. He
knows his importance to them. He knows that the
moment he leaves them they are undone. He feels all
the consciousness, as between himself and them, of
" the giant's strength," which he is tyrannous enough
to use in all its fierce, uncompromising violence. We
pity poor Lord Melbourne who is thus enthralled.
Believing him to be a high-minded and honourable
man, however unfit for the high station in which un-
toward circumstances have placed him, we feel for
such a man when we see him compelled to succumb to
one who has openly avowed his contempt for him per-
sonally, and who stands ready with the axe to fell the
very tree of which the Noble Viscount is one of the
branches. But we should pity him still more if he had
colleagues indiscreet enough to own this state of vas-
salage, by openly adopting opinions which at any rate
they dare not disclaim.—Morning Herald.
On Wednesday last the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
had the honour of entertaining Mr. O'Connell at a
grand state dinner at the Viceregal Palace. We do
not concur with such of our Contemporaries as think
that in this exercise of hospitality, Lord Mulgrave
compromised the dignity or transgressed the duties of
his station. Lord Mulgrave was sent to Ireland for
the express purpose of conciliating Mr. O'Connell—
an object in competition with which every other con-
sideration was to give way ; and, having undertaken
this mission, Lord Mulgrave would have been grossly
inconsistent had be shrunk from any task, any humi-
liation, any disloyalty or disrespect towards the Sove-
reign, any outrage upon the feelings of the decent part
of society in the three kingdoms, which might become
necessary to its effectual and satisfactory execution.
These things are only so many essential and well-
understood parts of his original Commission, and for
his Lordship to have affected any respect for rank,
any reverence for institutions, any regard to decency,
or to morals, would have been a sheer absurdity.
Mr. O'Connell knew the Lord Lieutenant ; he knew
right well, for he had drawn them up, the instruc-
tions in obedience to which the Lord Lieutenant
had undertaken to act, and he was determined that
the people of Great Britain and Ireland should also
know them. Having the Lord Lieutenant and the
Government in his toils, he resolved as it was quite
natural that Mr. O'Connell should resolve, to expose
the Lord Lieutenant and the Government to the whole
people of Great Britain and Ireland in all their degra-
dation. To discredit and weaken the British Govern-
ment in Ireland, under the pretence of supporting it,
is good Popish policy. Hence the dinner at Dublin
Castle, and hence the exhibition which Mr. O'Connell
made at the meeting of the Trades' Union of Dublin
the day before that dinner, and manifestly as a prepa-
ration for it. The day before that on which Mr.
O'Connell was to sit at the table of the representative
of the King, he collected around him a mob, composed
of the mere scourings of the streets of Dublin, and de-
livered an address to this ignorant and brutal rabble, of
which the main purposes seemed to be to insult the
Sovereign, by directing a torrent of ribald invective
against his Majesty's brother, and to exasperate the
feelings of his Papist hearers against their Protestant
fellow-subjects, in direct counteraction of the osten-
sible policy of his Majesty's Government, by a
tissue of calumnious assertions, the falsehood of which