The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-15 00:00:00

o come f 9, ward in public and defend it. I shall not detain
you longer. If you please to come forward and return me
to the House of Commons, I shall discharge my duty as an
honest man, and more I cannot say.—( Loud cheers and
hisses from the respective parties. )
Sir JOHN CAMPBELL then came forward, and was received
in like manner as Mr. Abercromby. Gentlemen, I shall
not detain you longer. I cannot help feeling deeply fer the
inconvenience I know you suffer. I suppose I see before
me 10,000 inhabitants of Edinburgh, who are assembled
in this inclement season, with their feet in the mud, and
the rain descending in torrents upon their heads.—(Laugh-
ter and loud cheers.) Gentlemen, to whom is this owing ?
I say to the Tories—( Great hootings and loud cheers)
who have most improperly dissolved the reformed and reform-
ing Parliament ; and who know that, if that Parliament had
existed, their tenure of power would be short ; and who came
to the sound conclusion, that the people are tired of reform,
and that a Tory Parliament, at least Tory representatives, will
now be returned by the constituency of Edinburgh.—( Hear,
hissing and cheering.) Gentlemen, it is the less necessary for
me to detain you long when I say that in every sentiment
which you have hard from Mr. Abercromby I most heartily
concur; and it is a great felicity in my life that upon all the
leading principles upon which I am to be guided, I entirely
agree with that gentleman, whom I had as my colleague, and
whom I still expect to have as my colleague, representing you
in Parliament.—(Loud cheers and hisses.) Gentlemen, in
the sentiments that he expressed about intimidation, I most
heartily concur, and I say that those who don't do with their
own as they ought, but are pleased tolintimidate, are as guilty
of robbery as if they actually filched the property of another ;
because every man whose vote is given to him must have it
constitutionally, and ought therefore to be allowed freely to
dispose of it, which is a most valuable property. Gen-
tlemen, my services are not to be compared to those
of Mr. Abercromby, who years and years ago at-
tempted to obtain a representative of Edinburgh, who
would speak your sentiments and defend your rights ; and who
in the absence of such a Representative formerly returned by
you, was himself your Representative.—( Cheers.) But, gen-
tlemen, I have done the utmost for the purpose of emanci-
pating my country from the degraded state to which it was
reduced. When Mr. Abercromby was filling a judicial situa-
tion, and was not in Parliament, I was seen at my post in
the House of Commons. I defended the Reform Bill in all
its stages—voted against Sir Robert Peel and those who sur-
round him, who did every thing in their power to keep you in
a state of degradation.—( Cheers and hisses.) I likewise sat
in the Reformed Parliament, which has been so unceremo-
niously cashiered ; and, again, I voted against Sir Robert
Peel and the Tories in defence of every measure which I ap-
proved. I voted for the emancipation of the negroes.—(Loud
laughter from Lord R.'s and Mr. L.'s party, and cheers from
the other.) I voted for the opening of the China trade—l
voted for burgh reform in Scotland, by which the thirty-three
gentlemen that used to meet over the way were foreclosed,
and you are therefore now entitled, as free citizens, to elect
those by whom you wish to be governed. In every one of
those measures we were opposed by the Tories ; and if the
Tories had been in power you never would have enjoyed them.
It was upon those grounds that in the month of May last, when
your most distinguished citizen, Mr. Jeffrey, was elevated
to the Bench, that I, although a stranger here, yet soli-
cited the high honour of representing you in Parliament.
—Gentlemen, you then preferred me to my friend —if I
may be allowed to call him so—(Mr. Learmonth). I
was returned by an immense majority, and I do trust,
gentlemen, that I have done nothing since then to forfeit your
good opinion.—( Voice—You are quite right—you have done
nothing.) Why should I then lose the high honour of con-
tinuing to be your representative ? Gentlemen, one of the
honourable and eloquent movers of my friend Mr. Aber-
cromby said this was the Modern Athens. Now, gentlemen,
you do resemble the Athenians in the beauty of your city—in
the elegance of your buildings, and in the manner in which
literature, science, and the arts flourish in your city. But, is
it to be expected that you are to imitate the Athenian popu-
lace in their noted and proverbial fickleness ? Are to be a by-
word, and to be called the modern Athenians, because you
dismissed from your service without reason those in whom you
formerly confided ? Gentlemen, what change has happened
from the time that I had the honour of being elected your re-
presentative ? lamam no longer His Majesty's Attorney-
General,—( Laughter and cheers.)--but gentlemen, I am
truly plain John Campbell.—( Laughter.) I appear, gentle-
men, as your fellow-citizen, and hope that you will not say
that a man is to be returned because he is in office and enjoys
the favour of the Court ; and because he is dismissed from office
it follows that he is likewise to be dismissed from your confi-
dence and favour. It used to be said that Scotsmen would al-
ways follow the party in power, but that was when Scotland
was not represented. I may rather say when Scotland was
misrepresented, and the voice of the people could not
be heard ; but not now, I should hope, when Scotsmen are
famed for being rational, reflecting, and consistent reformers.
Then are you to rally round this ultra-Tory Government?—
(Cheers and hisses, and cries of "No I") I will speak with
tenderness of the present Government, because I believe it is
now drawing towards its dissolution. It is said we should say
nothing but what is good of the dead, and I cannot help think-
ing that the days and hours of the ultra-Tory Government are
numbered.—( Cheers, hootings, and laughter.) Gentlemen,
look to the returns of the various constituencies throughout
the empire, and the 16 reforming members returned by the
metropolis of England. In some places in England, lam
sorry to say that corruption and intimidation have prevailed
(Great hissing and cheers.) Some of the returns show that
the Reform Bill instead of going too far, has hardly gone far
enough, and Shedule A ought to have contained some of the
boroughs that now boast of the elective franchise. But, Gen-
tlemen, I say, that in spite of bribery, corruption, and intimi-
dation, a large majority will be returned.—( Loud cheers and
hisses.) The learned Knight then stated, that in the last
House of Commons the Conservative party, out of 658, num-
bered 120, so that to acquire a decided majority in the suc-
ceeding they would require three times that number.—( Here
a card was handed up to him, and he resumed.) Hurrah ! I can
congratulate you that my anticipations were right. Gentlemen,
the majority of Liberals is swelled by every arrival, and on this day
there is now returned by authentic accounts, a majority of 71
Liberals.—( Cheers.) Sir John then alluded to the arrange-
ment by which Lord Ramsay was proposed before Mr. Lear-
month, and said it was contrary to the etiquette in elections
where the former candidates always took the precedence.
With regard' to Lord Ramsay he ( Sir John) being an older
man, would use the freedom to say that if the Noble Lord had
boasted less of his illustrious descent, they would have ho-
noured it more. He would venture to point out to his Lord-
ship the modest motto of his illustrious Chief the Duke of Ar-
gyll, who was at the head of a name which might ever be
compared to that of " Ramsay."' The motto was " vix ea
nostra voco," which might be translated thus, " That which
we do not acquire ourselves, we ought not to boast of."—
( Cheers.) Then, Lord Ramsay being an ingenuous youth,
had boldly and frankly declared that he was a Tory, and he had
said with great decision and manliness, (and he honoured
him for it), that he would by no means vote for Dissenters
being admitted to the English Universities ; that it was
much better than promising to vote, and breakino-
such a promise. But while he thus honoured the Noble
Lord for his conscientious declarations and his candour, he
must say that he would have been better pleased bad the No-
ble Lord left that place, where he had derived so much be-
fit, with a feeling of the hardship occasioned by the exclusion
of Dissenters, who, as well as the Noble Lord, went there to
pursue their liberal studies. With regard to the Thirty-nine
Articles, he for himself thought that there was nothing con-
tained in them to prevent an honest and conscientious Presby-
terian from subscribing to them ; but that was no argument for
withholding the privileges of the Universities from them, who
entertained conscientious scruples upon that point. After
some allusion to Mr. Learmonth, who could not boast of il-
lustrious descent, like the Noble Lord, but whom he still did
not honour the less on that account, he said, that, he had no
doubt, he was an excellent citizen and an amiable man in pri-
vate life, but still he came here as a Tory nominee, and they
could not vote for him, unless they really wished to have a
Tory House of Commons. They might, therefore, love and
honour him in the intercourse of private life, and there they
should confine him until his principles were changed. He had
been much interrogated, and he would conclude in his turn
with interrogating them on one or two questions. Ist. Are
you tired of Reform ?--(Cries of " No, no," with cheers and
groans.) 2d. Do you wish to have the continuance of Tory
Government ?—( The same expressions as before.) 3d. Do
you wish that the fruits of Reformers which are now within
your reach, should be for ever wrested from your grasp? Gen-
tlemen, these answers are most satisfactory to me, and they
clearly show, that my friend Mr. Abercromby and myself
must be returned with a triumphant majority—connecting
what you have done on former occasions, and connecting the
receptions we have met with in our various visits in your great
and beautiful city, I think it will not be presumption in me
to say, that I am confident we must be returned again as your
Representatives ; but, gentlemen, that alone will not be satis-
factory to the public. I say it will not satisfy the British
empire, for your countrymen are all looking with eagerness to
see what is the amount of your majority, because by that they
will receive your sentiments on this subject, and by that they
will be able to measure your love of freedom and your detes-
tation of slavery.--( Great cheering, with groans from the
opposite party.)
Lord RAMSAY was received with mingled applause and dis-
approbation. Allow me to tell you that it makes, upon the
whole, little difference whether Mr. Learmonth or myself be
proposed first, as I confidently anticipate that in two days we
shall both be before our hon. antagonists.—( Cheers.) I
shall not reply to every little insinuation which these hon.
gentlemen have thrown out against me, and to what I con-
sider the unhandsome interpretation which has been put upon
my words respecting my ancestry. I never but on one occa-
sion alluded to that subject, and then it was only in reply to
some objections against me, that I was not known here ; and
I think I might justly refer to those who had gone before me
to prove that I was not unknown. I shall not say one word
more to all that the hon. gentleman has thrown out personally
against Mr. Learmonth and myself. I shall come—and Ido
this the more readily—to answer the more grave objections of