The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The surprise and alarm which the declarations of
Lord Melbourne in the House of Lords on Saturday
were naturally calculated to excite, appear to have in-
creased with the revelation of new, and the recollection
of old, facts, but more especially with the observation
of the bold carriage and the high tone assumed by the
Irish destructives. Lord Melbourne, it will be recol-
lected, used on the occasion to which we refer, the
following words in answer to Lord Alvanley :—" The
Noble Lord (Alvanley) then demanded of him, whe-
ther he had taken any means to secure the assistance
of Mr. O'Connell ; and if so, upon what terms ? He
did not know whether he should have the assistance of
Mr. O'Connell or not ; but he could state most dis-
tinctly that he had taken no steps to secure it ; and he
should most particularly state, that he had entered
into no terms whatever, nor had he said anything
from which any inference could be drawn, in order
to secure that individual's support. To the Noble
Lord's question, therefore,. he gave the most de
cided negative ; and if the Noble Lord had been
told any thing to the contrary, he had been told that
which was false and without foundation. There was
nothing in the direct statement of the Noble Lord,
or that could be drawn by implication from what the
Noble Lord had said, that was supported by facts."
It was quite impossible for Lord Melbourne to employ
language more plain or more explicit than this ; and
we are at once bound and willing to believe that Lord
Melbourne is incapable as well of stating what is posi-
tively untrue, as of having recourse to evasion or equi-
vocation. It is admitted, then, not only that Lord Mel-
bourne has not himself tampered with O'Connell, but
that no colleague, no agent of his Lordship, has done that
office for him, with his knowledge, privity, or consent.
But does any man who has eyes to see and ears to hear
doubt that there has been dealing with the Agitator
on the part of the Ministry ? And is it not true
that no man who moves in the political world, whatever
may
.be his command of countenance, could possibly
refrain from actually laughing in the face of any sim-
pleton who should express a doubt how, or even by
whom, the evil spirit has been laid—for a time ? He
who worked the spell was no conjuror, any more than
there was aught of magic in the witchcraft that he used.
When, however, we recollect the fact, which is known
to hundreds, and of which there is abundant testimony,
namely, that so long ago as Saturday week last, Mr.
O'Connell declared in the Dublin Election Committee-
room, that all the Irish appointments were at his dis-
posal, that he actually named the Attorney and Soli.
citor-General for Ireland, and that all the other offices
have been filled to his satisfaction ; and when also we
consider that he has since gone over to the Ministerial
side of the House—the seats of the " bloody and the
brutal," who denounced him from the throne—another
subject of very grave reflection necessarily arises from
the comparison of the strong declaration of Lord Mel-
bourne with the strange evolutions of O'Connell and
his Tail. We repeat, that we believe, because we wish
to believe, implicitly the assertion of Lord Mel-
bourne, and that we will not insult him by har-
bouring a thought that he could stoop to the petty vice
of shuffling where he avoided the bolder crime of
lying ; but then it must at the same time be true,
that the exact foul play, the identical underhand
movement which flung Earl Grey, has now been
practised upon Lord Melbourne, though with what
effect is not yet apparent. We find it, however, diffi-
cult to understand why any of the colleagues of Lord
Melbourne should have given himself, or themselves,
the trouble to take, so early, the same means of get-
ting rid of their Chief, which others of the Grey Ca-
binet had not recourse to, but in the last resort, for
the purpose of ousting him who presided over their
deliberations. Lord Melbourne, unlike Lord Grey,
has, we think, at the outset sealed his own fate, and
that of his Administration. For, when on Saturday
last the Duke of Buckingham " begged to ask Lord
Melbourne, distinctly and emphatically, whether he
was prepared, as the head of his Majesty's Government,
to bring forward a measure with respect to tithes,
founded on the resolution of Lord John Russell, which
would go to appropriate the surplus of church revenue,
should there be any, to other than Protestant religious
purposes ?" Lord Melbourne replied, " Ido not hesi-
tate to say, that I am bound, and consider myself
pledged, to act on the resolution of the other House."
It cannot be necessary to repeat here the terms of that
resolution. It is in effect to provide for the Protestants
of Ireland a sort of spiritual schedule A ; to declare
that if there be not a certain number of Protestant
souls in a parish, it shall be disfranchised of the parson
and of all means of Protestant worship, deprived of
the consolations of religion in sickness and distress, and
of its control and counsels in health and prosperity—
unless, indeed, the prediction of O'Connell be verified,
and one of the consequences of Lord John Russell's
resolution be—" that the Protestants become Catho-
lics, and return to the folds from which their fathers
strayed." And why should not the prediction be
made good rather than the excommunicating principle
of Lord John Russell triumph ? If their own altars
be destroyed, if they be driven from the bosom of
their own church, if their own pastors be banished,
will it not be better that Protestants should be-
take themselves to other spiritual guides, and bow
the knee to God in some temple, however
defiled by superstitious usages, than that they
should live like the beasts of the field, without
worship, or be shunned of Christian men as out-
casts from every religious community ? But we
are wrong, perhaps, in comparing this resolution to
schedule A ; for though that schedule deprived men of
political privileges, as this resolution will deprive Pro-
testants of the means of religious worship, still the
confiscated franchises were transferred to other places,
where they could be turned to better account for the
end for which they were bestowed ; while here the ap-
propriated surplus parson, surplus church, and sur-
plus means of paying adoration to the living God are
as utterly removed from ecclesiastical uses, the end for
which they were given, as Woburn-abbey itself is. The
pretence for this outrage on feelings which, in this
country at least, were never yet safely trifled with, is,
that the Irish Protestant Church will thereby be re-
formed from abuses. We are told that the Irish
Church is too rich, and therefore that this course must
be pursued. It is utterly impossible that these posi-
tions can be other than subterfuges. Even Lord John
Russell must know them to be alike absurd and false.
Suppose it were said, and proved that the Corporation
of London were too rich ; suppose that one had a right
to :seize upon what a Lord John Russell might call its
surplus revenues ; and suppose that it were proposed to
make the seizure, not from the gross amount of the
whole revenues of the Corporation, but to take from a
few individual companies—say, the smallest in number
—their entire funds, so that they should be left with-
out a farthing, and the other companies be suffered to
remain as they were, would not the man who made
such a suggestion be considered a fit subject for a com-
mission of lunacy ? And yet this is precisely Lord
John Russell's mode of reforming the abuses of the
Irish Church—of appropriating its surplus revenue—.
that mode which Lord Melbourne thinks himself bound
to attempt to execute I But the scheme is more re-
markable for its fraud than for its folly. The real ob-
ject of Lord John Russell was, as every one knows,
to turn out Sir R. Peel's Administration, and he did
not care at what risk to the interests of the State, or
the maintenance even of the Protestant religion itself,
he succeeded in carrying his point, provided only that
he did carry it, and get himself once more into office.
Well, so far he has succeeded ; and at this point we
leave him for the present. To-morrow we may exa-
mine what prospects open to him from his new emi-
nence, whither he has dragged Lord Melbourne and
his colleagues with him.—Times.

It is much easier to look back than to anticipate, and
when events have been consummated, to point out how
unfortunate results might have been avoided. Looking
upon Sir Robert Peel, with one exception—the unfor-
tunate question of the currency—to have been an almost
faultless Minister, we cannot contemplate his removal
from office, especially in the circumstances in which it
has taken place, to be anything short of a national ca-
lamity. How that calamity might have been'avoided it
is no* not difficult, we think, to see. The two events
which have led to thin untoward state of things, were
the too hasty dismissal of Lord Melbourne's first Ad-
ministration, and the premature dissolution of the late

Parliament: With -reference to the first of these we do
not at all deny, but have all along contended, that there
was sufficient in the state to which that Ministry was
reduced by the death of its principal member, by the
eccentricities of another, by the secession of others,
and its false position on the state of Irish affairs,
to justify an impression on the Royal mind, that no
patching up which it could undergo could enable it to
carry on the affairs of the country with any prospect
of success, and, therefore, with a promptness, a can-
dour, and a manliness not always to be met with in
Courts, the King at once determined to rid the coun-
try of an incubus, which his Majesty rightly enough
imagined was on the eve of self-dissolution. Still
events have proved that the act itself was premature,
and that it gave to that Ministry a renewed vitality,
a certain degree of sympathy, on which it was fast
' losing all legitimate claim. In short, Lord Mel-
bourne's Government should have been allowed to die
the natural death to which it was so fast approaching.
The putting it out of its misery gave it the only new
life it could ever have acquired. This done, how-
ever, and the new Premier placed at the head of
affairs, it was not at all necessary or advisable that
the Parliament should have been dissolved, till it
had at least shown an unequivocal disposition to
thwart the new Minister in his conduct of the
public affairs ; and such a course seems the more
advisable, now that it is seen what the measures
of Sir Robert Peel have been. We apprehend
the most sanguine among the Whig-Radicals does
not imagine that if the dissolution had taken place
in February, or March, instead of when it did, a
very different result would not have ensued. In
short, it was the obvious policy of the new Ministry to
place the House of Commons in the wrong before they
returned them back upon the judgment of their con-
stituents ; whereas by a premature dissolution, by
turning the Members adrift, faultless and untried, a
sympathy similar to that which the dismissed Ministers
were receiving was created towards them, while Sir
Robert Peel and his colleagues at the same time
placed themselves in a false petition towards the
country, by allowing it to be assumed and imagined that
they meant to resort to anti-reform, instead of a reform
policy, in their government of the country. We are
not unaware of the arguments which present themselves
on the other side; above all, of the inconvenience
which would have arisen from so many of the members
of the Government being without seats in the House of
Commons. But our view of the matter only amounts
to a question of time, and as such the difficulties in
this respect would have been but of short duration.
We do not for a moment imagine that the late House
of Commons would have suffered Sir Robert Peel's
Government to go on had his measures been those of
an angel ; but it is the factious opposition which, we
believe, it would have received, which would have
sealed its doom with the country, and had an effect
upon numerous constituencies, who, in the absence of
it, re-elected to the present House men whom they
would in the other case, in all probability, have re-
jected. These are the views, this the conclusion, to
which a retrospection of the last four months leads us
to come to. If they are correct, then the inference
almost necessarily follows, that had an opposite course
on both occasions been pursued, the present state of
things would have been widely different ; and instead
of seeing the affairs of the country delivered over to a
Ministry which, disguise it how they will, are mere
puppets in the hand of one who avowedly holds the
wires, we should have seen the most capable man in
the kingdom manfully and judiciously wielding its des-
tinies, supported by a majority of the Representatives
of the people, and enjoying the entire confidence of
the other two estates of the realm.—Morning Herald.

The most intense interest is felt as to the issue of
the contest in South Devonshire, where the great
battle of protestantism, as it has been truly termed, is
about to be fought. From all the information which
has reached us, we cannot doubt that the electors will
act nobly and independently on this trying occasion,
and that Lord John Russell will be defeated. The
returns of the canvass of Mr. Parker leave the Home
Secretary without a chance of finding an extensive and
respectable constituency to afford him the opportunity
of confiscating the property of the Church. The pro-
phecy of Mr. Cioker in the House of Commons, dur-
ing the discussions on the Reform Bill, is about to be
realized, and the proposer of that measure will be
forced to resort to Tavistock, or some other snug bo-
rougo
rough saved from Schedule A, for a seat in Parlia-
ment.—Morning Post.

It is with pleasure that we refer to the proceedings
of the meeting held last night, for the purpose of rais-
ing a subscription in London to secure the re-election
of Lord John Russell, free of expense. We were
sure that it only needed the formation of a Committee,
in order to raise a subscription in the metropolis quito
sufficient for this purpose. The praises awarded to
his Lordship last night by Colonel Evans, Mr. Hume,
and the other speakers at the meeting are not greater
than he deserves. The " judgment," " ability," and
" discretion" evinced by him during the last three
months have raised him higher than ever in the esti-
mation of Reformers ; •and it is mainly owing to that
" judgment," that " ability," and that " discretion"
that we have finally succeeded in overthrowing
the late Administration of " Delusives." Well and
bravely has Lord John Russell fought the battle
of the people of England—well and bravely
has he led their chosen troops, driven their
enemies from one defence to another, and, finally,
carried by storm the very citadel of their cor-
ruption. He has fulfilled his duty ; it is now for the
people to fulfil their's. He has identified himself with
the cause of the people ; it now becomes their duty
to support their own cause by supporting him. If
the Reformers wish to make Lord John Russell an
efficient champion in their behalf, they must them-
selves arm him for the fight to which they call him—
arm him, by supporting him in his struggle with the
combined forces, not merely of the Tories of Devon-
shire, but of the Tories of all England. The cause of
British Reform is now to be fought amidst the green
hills and fertile valleys of Devonshire. Not a stone
will be left unturned by the Tories to accomplish his
defeat—a defeat on which they hope again to raise
with some semblance of probability the absurd and ri-
diculous cry of Re-action ! The Tories are on the
point of despair, and they consequently fight with all
the energy of desperate men. Their money is subscribed
liberally; their exertions are given actively; no engine of
corruption or intimidation is idle. They have actually had
the astounding impudence to circulate a report that
Lord John Russell had turned Papist—he who has
proved himself the best friend of the Protestant Esta-
blishment, by endeavouring to weed out its abuses,
and to regulate it in accordance with the true spirit of
its own doctrines. They care not how they accom-
plish their object, so they but accomplish it. The
end with them justifies the means. From the impor-
tance which the Tories attach, then, to the defeat of
Lord Jord John Russell, Reformers may form a just
estimate of the importance to them of his success. The
Tories are not the men to give something for nothing.
The money they have subscribed to defeat Reform in
Devonshire is merely an advance to be paid with
i usu-
rious interest out of the pockets of the people, f the
cause of corruption should be unfortunately success-
ful. We have received letters from several corres-
pondents, assuring us that there is no fear of a de-
feat in this quarter—a statement which we are happy
to find confirmed from sources on which we
can place reliance. We have, indeed, no fear
for Reform, if Reformers will but exert them-
selves ; but unfortunately it is the selfish and the
corrupt who are usually the most active. They
have motives for exertion in which Reformers
who seek only the general good do not participate.
We call on the Reformers of Devonshire, therefore, to
be unremitting in their exertions against this inde-
fatigable and insidious enemy ; and we call on the
Reformers of England to come forward and demon-
strate, in a way that cannot be mistaken, their un-
diminished attachment to Reform, and their increased
respect for its chosen leader and champion. Even
while we write, we find our call has been responded to.
The Liverpool Address to Lord John Russell has
been sent off with 10,396 signatures, which were
affixed to it in three days and a half. The Liverpool
Reformers have acted with equal Judgment and spirit.
The Manchester Reformers, too, have shown a proper
sense of what is due from them. It now remains for

VICE•CHANCERY COURT.

BAKER V. HARWOOD.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH.

THE SUN, LONDON, TITURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1835.

•
the inhabitants of the metropolis—that metropolis
which owes its extended representation to the exertions
of Lord John Russell and his colleagues—to prove
their attachment to the cause to which his Lordship
has, at their call, devoted himself, and to justify their
claims to those great measures of Reform in Church
and State which they have so long and earnestly
sought, by giving an unqualified and intelligible sup-
port to him in whose success or defeat the success or
defeat of those measures may at present be said to be
involved.—Morning Chronicle.
We predicted yesterday that the spirited example of
the City of London in presenting a requisition for a
Common Hall, for the purpose of addressing his Ma-
jesty on the occasion of his re.appointment of the
present Ministry, would be followed by every liberal
constituency throughout the kingdom. Scarcely was
the ink dry with which we penned the article in ques-
tion, when a public meeting was announced to be
held, for the purpose of returniug Lord John Rus-
sell for Devonshire free of expense. The details of this
meeting, which are given in another column, will be
found highly gratifying. Colonel Evans presided in his
usual effective manner, and the manly independent sen-
timents expressed by Mr. Hume will find an echo in
the breast of every man who wishes to see the triumph
of Reform over the baffled Tories permanently secured.
Resolutions for effecting the free return of Lord John
Russell were unanimously carried. But satisfactory
as the result was, in the just tribute it offered to an
able and popular statesman, we are not less gratified
with the anticipation of the wide diffusion of the ex-
ample thus set throughout the kingdom, and with the
proof afforded by the meeting, that the patriotic bond
which has to this time united all classes of Reformers

in one indissoluble union against Tory domination,
still remains as firm as ever. So end the self-delusive
predictions of the Tories—their " wish being father to
the thought"—that that battle once ended and the vic-
tory gained, the alliance of the Reformers would fall to
pieces, or its component members would quarrel for a
division of the spoil. Doomed to be proved anything
but conjurors in their various prophecies, they have
been lately trying another tack in their baffled cause of
daily disproved prediction ; and their idle boast has
been that the new elections to which their successors,
on taking office, would of necessity resort, would enable
them to make up the deficit of their numbers so as to give
them the Parliamentary majority, for want of which they
failed. Let them not " lay the flattering unction to their
souls." A few days will convince them of their error.
We understand that Mr. Spring Rice will walk over
the course at the Cambridge election. There will be
no opposition to his return. The Tories have put all
their small manoeuvres in motion in order to bring a
" Church and State" candidate into the field ; but
their efforts have failed. They have " called the
spirits from the vasty deep," but none have " come
when they did call for them." In all the other examples
of Ministerial election, a result equally favourable to
Reform may with confidence be expected. Sir J. Cam
Hobhouse, Mr. Poulett Thomson, and all their liberal
colleagues in the Government are morally certain of
their return. To what next 'sugared nepenthe of deter-
, sion will the Tories resort as an opiate to their bitter
disappointments ? At present on the bill of fare of facts
we have laid before them, we commend this most in-
ventive of parties " to breakfast with what appetite
' they may."—Morning Advertiser.

This was a demurrer to a bill filed in aid of an eject-
ment which was brought to try the validity of a will.
Mr. KNIGHT in support of the demurrer of the defend-
ants Harwood and his wife, stated that the bill alleged the
plaintiff, Sarah Baker, and her sister, Maria Baker, who was
made a defendant, to be the co-heiress at law of Thomas
Edward Baker, Esq.. late of Kensington, who died in March,
1833, intestate, leaving considerable real estates in the coun-
ties of Somerset and Wilts. His widow, however, who
afterwards married the defendant Harwood, set up a
will under which she claimed to be entitled to all her late
husband's estates. The validity of this will was disputed,
and an ejectment was brought against her and her husband
upon the joint and several demise of the co-heiresses. The
bill then alleged in the most general terms that there were
were some outstanding terms of years which, if set up as a
defence to the action, would defeat the title of the plaintiffs ;
and it is also alleged that Maria Baker's concurrence to join
as plaintiff in the bill could not be obtained.
Mr. GIRDLESTON, jun, supported the bill.
The demurrer was allowed.