The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-25 00:00:00

ADDRESS OF THE CORPORATION OF

DUBLIN.

" TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
" May it please your Majesty,
" We, the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Commons, and Citizens
of your ancient and loyal city of Dublin, approach your
Majesty with every sentiment of the most profound respect.
We are threatened with injury and injustice, and we
humbly beseech your Majesty's protection.
" Our corporation has existed from time immemorial.

.....
Numerous statutes and charters attest our steadfast loyalty,
our constant attachment to British connexion, and faithful
allegiance to the Royal Crown and Government now vested
in your Majesty's sacred person. These statutes and
charters have confirmed our original and prescriptive
rights, and grunted us new privileges in consideration of

. ..... .._ ...
the losses austained, and aufferinis endured, by our pre-
decessors in support of the Crown and Constitution o'

these realms.

" When England would no longer submit to the spiri-
tual supremacy of a foreign Power, this corporation was
foremost in promoting and upholding the Protestant re-
ligion, and in consequence thereof it was visited with the
severe displeasure of King James 11., who had invaded
our rights, dismissed our corporation, and transferred our
estates to a Popish body named by himself; but contem-
poraneously with the triumph of these principles, which
placed your Majesty's illustrious house upon the British
throne, these rights were restored, and we were remitted
to our ancient privileges, of which we have since conti-
nued in the quiet and peaceable enjoyment.
" From the period of the legislative union between
Great Britain and Ireland, we beheld our city deserted by
the nobility and gentry of the country; our trade and local
commerce decaying ; the gradual removal of our public
establishments, and those which remained filled with
strangers ; our poor increasing, and all our resources di-
miuished ; but we nevertheless submitted to every per-
sonal and local privation, in order to preserve the integrity
and advance the general welfare of the empire.
" During all these changes we have considered our
elective franchise as freemen, and the right of transmitting
it to our posterity, the most valuable privilege we enjoyed;
and we have lately learned with feelings of the greatest
alarm, that it is the intention of your Majesty's Ministers
to propose its entire abolition after the lives of the present
resident freemen, while the same privilege is to remain
in perpetuity to the freemen of Great Britain. \Ve will

not trespass on your Majesty by repeating our strong ob-
jections to the proposed Reform Bill generally, which
Hwoe‘isheavoef
raalrr(l.iaadmyenutrfoetri petition
reasons t o the
which Commons
satisfy
us that, if that measure he carried into effect in Ireland,
it ,will lead to a dismemberment of the empire, and
byin satatn
result in disorder, anarchy, an! civil war ; but we
content ourselves, at present, with laying at the feet
of your Majesty, our most respectful, but firm remon•
strance, against the particular act above referred to, et
gross partiality, and great injustice towards a body which
has ever been distinguished by an unshaken loyalty to their
Sovereign, and an undeviating support of the laws, and en
ardent devotion to the Constitution under which these
countries have attained to unrivalled greatness. We like-
wise feel that we should be wanting in our duty to your
Majesty, did we not respectfully express our honest con-
viction, th•tt the motive which has induced this unjust
treatment is a deference to unreasonable clamour and
intimidation, and a vain attempt to buy off the hostility
of the professional agitators, and habitual disturbers of
the peace and tranquillity of this portion of your Majesty's
dominions.

" Impressed with a deep sense of our individual wrongs,
and under much apprehension for the safety of lin the
settled institutions of the country, we appeal to your most
gracious Majesty; we humbly tender the tribute of our
devoted affection to your august family; we repeat the
assurance of our inviolable fidelity to your Majesty's person,
crown, and dignity, in defence of which we declare our
readiness to spend our best energies, our fortunes, and our
lives. We only implore justice for ourselve., a rigorous
and impartial administration of the laws in our distracted
country, and equal protection of all classes of your
Majesty's subjects."

The letter of a Dublin correspondent contains
a curious account of the levy of a fine upon a Polish
noble refugee, for omitting to furnish the Secretary of
State's office (in conformity with the Alien Act) with a
declaration in writing, stating where he intended to reside
in Ireland. The conduct of this nobleman, in making
speeches at the Dublin Political Union, in vituperation of
our foreign policy, was, to say the least of it, indiscreet;
but little temper must be allowed for in unfortunate exiles
of this description. As the omission seems to have been
altogether unintentional, we are of opinion with our cor-
respondent that Government will remit the 6ne. ...Morn-
ing Advertiser.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The answer of his Majesty to the address of
he Dublin Corporation, which was presented on
the 22,1 of this month of February, has given
great satisfaction to every one but the aforesaid
Corporation and its friends. The address which
produced the answer was a specimen of civic
wisdom that required some !ling more than ordi-
nary notice, and that something was administered
with admirable effect. It may not be known to all
our readers that this Corporation has been re-
markable at all times for the violence of its
Orange propensities ; that it has been the cradle,
or rather the citadel, of one of the parties to whose
animosity the welfare of Ireland has been long
sacrificed. Its extinction is contemplated in the
Irish Reform Bill, on the demise of the present
race of freemen ; and this prospect of extinction
was the pretext on which they thought proper to
approach his Majesty with the language of re-
monstrance and dictation. If they had confined
themselves to the grievance of which they corn-
plained, or even communicated their advice re-
specting the general measure in a tone more suit-
able to their station and understandings, they would
have experienced a different reception. But not
content with dwelling on their own loyalty and vir-
tue, nor the loss on which the community must ex-
perience on their being declared politically childless
by Act of Parliament, they went on to impute
motives to Ministers, and intentions to proceed-
ings of the Legislature, and, by implication,
purposes to the King himself, incompatible with
the high duties of Government, which they were
respectively bound to consult. It was this inso-
lence of tone that gave point to the following
cold, but cutting, answer of his Majesty :
" I have heard with deep regret the sentiments expressed
in the address which has now been presented to me.
" I shall always be ready to listen to representations of
such grievances as may appear to any of my subjects to
dive them just CALM of complaint, and to afford redress
'o the utmost of my power. In this wish I am firmly
persmaded that I only share the benevolent feelings which
prevail in my Parliament. On their wisdom and equity,
4nd on the integrity of my constitutional advisers, I rely
vial confidence which forbids me to suspect that hey can
ever he induced to expose any portion of my subjects to in-
jury and injustice.
" Neither was it necessary to claim from me a vigorous
and impartial administration of the laws, and equal pro
tection for all classes of my subjects.' These have been,
`rum the period of my accession to the throne, and ever
vill be, the coastant and unceasing objects of my Go.
vertuan's*.
Independently of the satisfaction which we
feel at seeing presumption repressed, there is a
spirit of impartial justice in those sentiments,
from which we augur most favourably for Ire-
land and Reform.—Morning Herald.
Sheridan's never-to-be-forgotten allusion to
the Whigs erectirt7l walls for the purpose of run-
ning their own heads against seems to be quite
as true of those of' the present day as those of
the period when Sheridan himself was
one of the inconvenienced victims of it.
To what but this extraordinary propensity
to put themselves in the wrong can we
attribute the virtual defeat which Ministers
have subjected themselves to in the House of
Commons, on a matter of such trifling public
moment, yet of such obvious injustice, as that
of denying to the Master of the Rolls in Ireland
the means of trying his right to appoint his own
Secretary. It is one of the leading features of
he great charter of our liberties that no man
shall be denied justice—that is, that the King's
Courts shall he open to every man, and the re-
medy to he obtained in them pure and unpol-
luted. Yet here is an instance where a man is
gravely told by the King's Ministers that
to him the doors of the King's Courts shall
he closed, and that because, forsooth, lie will not
succumb to the most notable species of equity
chat ever was heard of—viz., an arbitration by
which he can gain nothing, because his oppo-
nent's claims are to remain untouched, be the re-
sult what it may. A man may possess acknow-
ledged talents, either as a Statesman, a Judge,
or anything else, but unless he keeps his character
up to the standard formed by the moral perception
of the great bulk of mankind, his talents, like those,
for instance, of Sheridan himself, will fail of
much of their weight and importance. And we
can tell the present Ministers that in allowing
,hemselves to be dragged through the mire of
such a transaction as this, for the purpose of
humouring one of their own colleagues, they
neither enhance their own reputation nor his in
the eyes of the people of England or of Ireland.
The question itself is, at least on one side, one
of mere pelf—of mere selfishness ; but when that
question resolves itself into a mere claim to try a
light, what man living is there who can say that
it is a privilege which can with propriety be de-
nied to the meanest of the King's subjects, or,
least of all, that a resistance to it can with any
decent show of propriety originate with those
whose duty it is, in the name of their Royal
Master, to see equal justice, as far as in them
lies, done to every man ? Instead of resisting
this claim of the Master of the Rolls to try his
right, a high-minded honourable man like Lord
Grey should have insisted upon every obstacle
to his doing so being removed. An Act of
Parliament should not have been thought of or
permitted ; but Lord Plunkett should have been
told, as we trust he will still be told, that even a
seeming denial of justice must not emanate from
one who, even more than Csesar's wife (being
clothed in ermine himself), should be beyond
suspicion.—Morning Herald.

We are compelled by a strong sense of the ne-
cessity of the case to refer again, and with more
anxiety than ever, to the cholera regulations, be-
cause we perceive that they are pressing upon
the industry of the country to an extent that
must lead, if they are continued much longer, to
commercial embarrassment that it will be no easy
task to remedy. If by the dispensation of Pro-
vidence the country be afflicted with a disease
highly dangerous and contagious, we must sub-
mit patiently to such regulations as are most
likely to protect ourselves and our neighbours
from its effects ; but what is the short history of
the case before us ? That all persons profes-
sionally qualified to judge of it who are not paid
for giving their opinion make light of it, and all
those who are paid are full of dismay and anxiety
and apprehension as to its present extent and
future progress. It is therefore desirable at

any rate to change the system that is at pre-
sent pursued, not only upon public grounds, but
out of compassion to the individuals engaged in
it. We are told that an apprehension of its
evil consequences operating upon the mind attracts
cholera, as metal attracts lightning ; and there-
fore, in consideration of the fears of the parties
who have so great a dread of the contagious qua-
lities of the disease, it is but right they
should
be spared the danger so great to their sensitive
minds of visiting and investigating. cases ; and
also be spared the trouble of receiving the mo-
ney that this compound job of Ministers, me-
dical adventurers, and parochial jacks in office, is
taking out of John Bull's pocket, starving
him to death, that he may live the rest of

his days freo from the cholera morbus, We

1" 411.

have now, according to the unbiassed andl
disinterested opinion of the twenty-guineas-a-
day gentlemen, got this hydra-headed mon-
ster in London ; in the metropolis of a
community remarkable for science, for in-
dustry, and searching investigation, and par-
ticularly famed for medical science ; and yet
are we to be practically told (as the present
wretched, quibbling, and disgraceful mystifica-
tion, carried on by a set of men whose
names were scarcely known before the cholera
bubble was swelling out, seems to infer)
that the medical profession is reduced so
low in principle, is so lost to all sense of
public duty, that the leading members of that
profession, whose names at once place them above
suspicion, and who, with pride we say, are not
only an honour to the science they are devoted
to but to the country at large—are we to be told,
we say, that such men, now that the disease is
said to be at our doors, and consequently when
it could not take them out of their regular prac-
tice, nor materially interfere with their daily
professional avocations, would not gratuitous/y,
as we know they would scientifically and honestly,
investigate such cases of cholera as can be found
in London and its suburbs, if such there be be-
pond the common indigenous disease, and re-
port thereon to the Government, by which report
it would be enabled to judge of the course that
ought to be adopted ? Such a course would at
once allay anxiety, and place the question upon
its right footing. On the behalf of the com-
mercial interests of this great commercial em-
pire we strenuously call upon the Government,
if there be a medium of common sense or
the smallest possible portion of ligour at its
disposal, to break down a system that is a mockery
and insult upon the country, and substitute one
for it that possesses some other qualities, at least,
besides those of keeping the community in ig-
norance, and filling the pockets of ignorant and
impudent pretenders. We wish that the flippant
Mr. Poulett Thomson had investigated the com-
merce of the port of London as anxiously and
carefully as we have done within the last few
days, and then he would know what embarrass-
ments, inconvenience, and losses it has been
subjected to by the late regulations. He and his
colleagues had done enough before to bring it
into decay ; they have now given the finishing
blow to it. The only market not suffering severe
depression is that for West India produCe, where
holders are firm, in the expectation that supplies
must be short by reason of the destruction of
property in the chief island, occasioned by the
insurrection of the negroes. A starving popu-
lation and an embarrassed commercial commu-
nity demand some change of system, at least,
at the hand of the Government.—Morn. Post.

The Standard of last night, remarking on
the quotation we yesterday made from the pam-
phlet of Dr. Hincks, says-
6. We will inform the Morning Chrenicle and its lo-
gical antagonist,' that there is neither common sense nor
logic in the reasoning enounced by the one, and so gratefully
accepted by the other. The existence of a right to apportion
and distribute is no proof whatever of the existence of a right
to resume, or ratber of the right to seize upon, for resump-
tion implies a previous grant by him who resumes, which
is not necessarily connected with the right to apportion
and distribute. Few family provisions are more common,
in our law, than conveyances for the benefit of one, two,
three children, or other relations, with power of appoint-
ment--that is, of apportionment and distribution, reserved
to some person uninterested in the property—of course to
some person who has no power of resuming or seizing
upon the property thus conveyed ; and if we pass from
those specific titles to property, separating the right to its
possession from the right of apportionment and distribu-
tion which the law sanctions, to the more general principles
of the law, we find that the principle is the same through-
out. The changes introduced, from time to time, by
the Legislature into a law of property, whether as respects
uses and trusts, entails or perpetuities, leasing powers or
limitations—all these changes prove that the State, acting
by the Legislature, claims and exercises a right in the
apportionment and distribution of ALL property. The
existence and exercise of this right are, if possible, still
more strongly proved by the occurrence here and there of
such heteroclite tenures as gavel-kind and borough Eng-
lish, &e Indeed, we suppose that no man will pretend
to deny that the State has exercised, always, unbounded
power in the apportionment and distribution of property
amongst those to whom it has been once given by the so-
lemn act of the law. But we challenge the Morning
Chronicle and its ' logical antagianist,' whose name we do
t quote, because we believe that the man, though foolish,
means well—for a single instance in which the State has
seized upon property without some better warrant than
the fact of its having apportioned and distributed that as
as well as every other property. The truth is, no two
rights can be more distinct than the right of regulation
which the State possesses, and the right of possession,
with which it has nothing to do."

The argument of the Irish Divine was of a
more technical kind than was at all necessary to
justify the resumption of Church property. We
have always taken higher grounds. It belongs
essentially to the State to determine what public
services shall he preferred, and who shall perform
them. The religious instruction of the people
is a public service over which the State never can
renounce its controul, any more than it can re-
nounce its controul over the administration of
justice, or the defence of the country. To certain
Corporations may be entrusted the administra-
tion of justice, the defence of the country, and
the religious instruction, and certain funds may
be assigned either by the State or by individuals,
in and of the State, to these Corporations. That
State, which has the power of determining as to
the very existence of the Corporations, has, of
course, the power of regulating the mode in
which they shall be paid. If, for instance, it
should so happen that seven-eighths of the land
of the country had been assigned to the Corpo-
ration for the administration of justice, and that
this extravagant endowment rendered the Judges
so luxurious and lazy that they were unable
to administer justice properly, the State
might abolish the Corporation altogether,
devise a new Constitution of the Courts of
Justice, take possession of the lands, and fix
on a different mode of payment. In the same
manner, with respect to religious instructors, the
State can not only determine who shall be reli-
gious instructors, but in what manner they shall
be paid. Without now saying whether the
clergy of Ireland receive too much or too little
for their services, it is well known that at no
distant period the clergy of some countries pos-
sessed so much property as to incapacitate them
from discharging their functions. According to
the work of Reset on ecclesiastical property, the
clergy of what were called the conquered and
united provinces of France, at the breaking out
of the Revolution, possessed an incapacitating
amount of property. In the Cambresis, for in-
stance, besides the tithes, they possessed seven-
eighths of the lands, •vhich was nearly everything.
In Haioault, les trois avechs (Lorraine), and
Artois, besides the tithes, three-fourths of the
lands. In At4ace, Franche-Comte, and Rous-
sillon, besides the tithes, one half of the
It is quite clear that this enormous property must
have unfitted the clergy' for the discharge oftheir
duties. The State resumed possession of the
lands, which were sold for its benefit ; and the
great reason why the people of the north and
east of France have been so peculiarly at-
tached to the order of things which grew
Dui 'of the Revolution, is the immense ad-

vantage they derived from the disposal of
this immense property. The amount of
property held by the Church of England
before. the Reformation has been variously
estimated. It must, however, at the lowest
estimate, have been enormous, as at this
day the property of the. Nobility is principally
made up of it. Had the State not taken this
property, but suffered it all to remain with the
Protestant Church, that Church would obviously
have had more than would have been compatible
with a due discharge of duty. No matter from
what sources the Church derived the property ;
the State being the author of the Church, is
necessarily the master of the property possessed
by it. If the State should think the best
mode of teaching religion is to leave each man
to pay his own teacher, as the good of the
people ought always to be the paramount consi-
deration, it might withdraw from the Church all
its property. The army was originally main-
tained by land and tithes, as well as the Church.
In Sweden, at this day, the army is chiefly sup-
ported by allotments of. public lands. In the
middle ages, the soldiers contrived in time to
be succeeded in the lands they held by their
sons, and thus the possession of land became
hereditary. We have no doubt that we
should have had hereditary Priests in the
same way as hereditary soldiers, had it not
been for the law of Gregory, prohibiting
clergymen from marrying. A very great pro-
portion of the tithes of France before the revo-
lution, for instance, called dismes infeodes, had
been held by laymen since the time of Charles
Martel, and were granted to warriors as fiefs for
services in war. There seems more reason for
giving tithes and lands to soldiers than to church-
men, because, without a payment from the pub-
lic, there could be no separate army, whereas,
every individual feeling the necessity of religion,
there can never be any want of clergy. There
are as many in proportion in the United States
as in any other country, though the State de-
volves on individuals the election and payment
of them. The property held by any Church
then differs essentially from the property held by
individuals, inasmuch as the very existence of
the Church and the mode of payment of the
clergy, with reference to their efficiency, are
matters for the determination of the State, and
the amount of property they may hold must de-
pend on the determination as to the most ad-
visable mode of payment. The State, though it
establishes general rules with regard to succession
for the sake of the peace of society, looks no farther
in the case of the property of individuals. The
owner of an estate may pass his time in sleeping
and playing on the Jews' harp, or in any other
way, his functions are merely the enjoying the
fruits of the earth. Whether he have,one hundred
thousand pounds a year, or one hundred pounds;
his efficiency as a landholder is the same. He
requires neither talents nor industry—he has no
special duties in his capacity of consumer of
rent. The Rev. Dr. Hincks has chosen to take
lower ground, and from the general admission by
the advocates of the inalienable right of the Esta-
blished Church in Ireland to her tithes and other
revenues, that the distribution of them among
the Ministers of that Church may be justly
altered, he has inferred that that admission ne-
cessarily involves the right to take it away. This
inference an Evening Contemporary has met by
the argument at the beginning of this article.
We do not exactly see the force of our Contem-
porary's reasoning from apportionment and dis-
tribution. As the law allows to a possessor of
property the power of naming a successor, with
variousinterests in it, it allows, of course, of all
the means necessary to give effect to that
end. The apportionment and distribution
are merely the allowing the owner to ex-
ercise by others, after death, such acts as
might have been done by himself during
life. But that a man can sell his own estate, or
give away a part of it, or can name persons to
dispose of it for specific objects, is a very dif-
ferent thing from the State interfering to take
part of his property from him, or apportioning
it among other individuals than those destined
to succeed him either by his own will or the
rule of law. The apportioning is the act of the
proprietor. In the case of the Church, that
corporation does not, either in its collective
capacity or individually, give power to the State
to apportion or distribute the Church property
among the clergy. The State does not exercise
a derivative power, but a power inherent in it-
self. The holders of the property interfered
with are subject to its controul, and it determines
itself the nature and the amount of the inter-
ference. And in fact, not only has the State
taken the property left for the saying of masses,
and transferred it to persons who preach against
masses—not only has the State abolished one
corporation holding the tithes and Church lands,
and called another into being to enjoy them—
not only did the State withdraw the best part of
the tithes and the Church lands from the Church
and bestow them on laymen at the Reformation
—but almost in our own times it assigned part
of the revenues of the Church of England to
the teachers of schools. The State has always
treated the property of the Church as peculiarly
under its controul. The State may allow individuals
an unlimited power, or it may lay down rules of
succession, but it never interferes with the mode in
which the person in possession of private property
choose to enjoy it. The State does not say
you shall pay so much to your steward, so much
to your bailiff; hc. But the State chooses to
determine what part of the revenue of a bene-
fice shall be given to the individual who dis-
charges the spiritual duties. It does not fix the
quantum, but it fixes the minimum. The law
fixing the allowance to curates, must, in many
cases, have materially reduced the incomes of the
holders of small benefices. But the paramount
consideration was the spiritual instruction of the
people, and the property of the Church was
viewed as subsidiary to the object. A power
to apportion and distribute does not, therefore, ne-
cessarily suppose a right to take away property,
because the power to apportion and distribute
may be derivative, and must be understood in
that case with reference to the intention of the
party whence the power is derived. But an ab-
solute and unlimited power to distribute, sup-
poses the power to take away, because the power
to alter and distribute is in the supreme power
of the State, which determines what Corpora-
tions shall exist, what shall be abolished, what
property they shall hold, or whether they shall be
allowed to hold any property. The State exists
for the protection of the property of individuals,
but Corporations are the creatures of the State,
and the good of the State is the only principle
to be observed in deciding with regard to them.
—Morning Chronicle.
Rumour,
i of course, is not inactive with re-
gard to the intentions of Ministers, and the pro-
bable reception of the Reform Bill by the Peers.
These, indeed, are substantially but one and the
same subject, of speculation : for it is unques-
tionably on the will of Lord Grey and his col-

leagues that depends the immediate triumph of
Reform, or its contumelious rejection by the
Upper House of Parliament, and with it, so far
as concerns the people of England, the main-
tenance or overthrow of the peace and well-
being of the realm ; but so far as concerns the
interests of the existing Government, its pros-
perous, honourable, and lasting tenure of office,
or its . total and disgraceful extinction as a
political party, now and to all future time. Those
who dare impute to Lord Grey, that he so de-
preciates the unanimity of King and people, and
'so magnifies the majority of the House of Peers,
as ever for one moment to be induced by the op-
posite relations in which such belligerents stand
toward each other to falter in his resolution of
carrying Reform into a law, must suppose his
Lordship to exaggerate most pitiably the influence
and value of that " order" in the State to which it
is doubtless possible for one of its members to feel
a praiseworthy attachment, without attempting
to prostrate before it the intelligence and affec-
tions, the rights and interests, the fate and for-
tunes, of 24,000,000 of men. The King, it is
notorious, has granted to Lord Grey authority to
create as many Peers as may be rendered neces-
sary by the present composition of that House to
carry the measure of Reform. Why does the
Noble Lord hesitate ? We know not that he
does shrink. But when his enemies boast of the
fact, and his friends, with downcast eyes, acknow-
ledge and deplore it, we do not strain the :cord
too tightly by the mere admission that such an
occurrence might be possible. Well ; take for
granted that the creation of Peers is as much de-
precated by certain Whig-Tory Ministers as it
is by their less hypocritical opponents ; why do
they object ? It is said they might encounter
an impeachment. An impeachment ! we once
more exclaim ; and who are to impeach them ?
The House of Commons, where, at this mo-
ment, Lord Grey's Cabinet has a majority
amounting to three-fifths of the Members ;
and where, after the first election by a re-
formed constituency, they will have, as against
a Tory Opposition, a majority of at least
three to one. But the people may cry out
for an impeachment ! The people of Eng-
land, panting, gasping for Reform, are to impor-
tune their representatives in the House of Com-
mons to impeach the Ministers by whom that
Reform has been obtained ! " Proh deunz
atque hanzinunz fidem!" Then " it would dis-
grace the House of Peers to add at once, and
largely, to its numbers." Then in what consists
the honour or degradation of the House of
Peers ? If it be honoured by having amongst
its members 20 men of splendid fortune, ancient
family, unblemished reputation, and high public
principle, would it not be twice as much ho-
noured by containing forty such? Suppose
there were an assembly consisting for the most
part of men in distressed circumstances, of no
distinguished origin, of no personal merit, de-
void of all natural elevation or influence over
others, and having no claim to respect or con-
sideration, save only the titles given them by
the Crown, and, with those titles, the privilege of
making laws for the community. Now we ask
any Englishman, be he ever such a worshipper
of the aristocratic principle, would a body of
' persons thus- composed, limiting their numbers
to even less than 100 individuals, possess his
confidence or reverence ; or would it be
even tolerated by his reason ? We are far,
very far indeed, from asserting that the House of
Lords in this country, as it now stands, presents
to us an assemblage of worthless or insignificant
noblemen. There are amongst the Peers great
abilities, great integrity, fortunes more than in-
dependent, and elements of all that aristocracy
ought to combine; hut we are pursuing an argu-
ment, and desiring to show that it is not the
small numerical amount of the Peerage which
determines its estimation with the people. If
the House of Lords, for instance, were to com-
prehend within it from 200 to 250 individuals,
raised to the Peerage with little regard to for-
tune, with less to general character in society,
and, as for their public principle, with no other
care than that they should follow through thick
and thin, per fas et nefas, the party politics of
a certain succession of Ministers, who have for
the last five or six and thirty years, through
the instrumentality of the faction to which they
themselves belonged, and for its interests exclu-
sively, continued to hold dominion over Eng-
land,—if such a class of Peers should really
exist, can any man in his senses say that the
Peerage " would be degraded " by giving it a
counterpoise to such tools of a particular fac-
tion, in the persons of 40, 50, or 100 gen-
tlemen of old and respected families in their
several counties,—of the largest fortunes that
could be found, in union with popular principles,
of men who had habitual regard for the inte-
rests of democracy, as well as of the genuine
aristocracy of the empire, in contradistinction
to those of an oligarchy composed, in some part,
of political partizans who have wielded the
power of the executive Government for a genera-
tion, as if it were theirs by descent ? Answer
us, would the House of Lords be disgraced by
an accession to its numbers of an hundred
Peers, already possessing the distinctions of
family and fortune (we now say nothing of poli-
tical opinions) in a more ample proportion than
the existing average of that House ? If there
were in an assembly of4oo Peers, 200 individuals
of mean and dependent fortune, would it not
tend to strengthen and ennoble, instead of
humbling, the Peerage so adulterated, and
areatly to elevate its average estimation, if
the King were graciously to introduce amongst
them 50 or a 100 more Peers, whose fortunes
raised them above dependence, and whose
characters were looked up to by the people, even
though the list of Peers should be thereby consi-
derably extended ? The question will not bear to
be stated twice. But, setting aside a general
and abstract view of the best ingredients for a
Peerage, let us look at the present crisis. We
ask, then, what are—what can be—the excuses
for the non-creation of Peers, when, in addition
to the general motive for bringing the Lords
into harmony with the people of England, this
Bill, this key to the destinies of the kingdom,
comes to be gravely pondered—when it is
known, and known apparently quite as well to
every labourer and mechanic in Great Britain,
as to any Member of the Cabinet, or to the
whole of that enlightened Council, that on the
success or failure of the Bill depends the fur-
ther reign or deposition of peace and law within
the realm—when to the country itself, a very
disastrous consequence, but to Lord Grey one
of which the bare imagination must be horror,
is inseparably identified with the defeat of this
Reform, at least to his Lordship—we mean
his own ruin and that of the Whig interest, beyond
all human remedy, and for a century to come.
It is said, What if we create Peers, and yet
are defeated ?" Better, a thousand times, we
reply, make Peers, though in vain, than leave
the sole avenue to safety unattempted. If, after
adopting that one direct and energetic measure,

the Tories still prove too :powerful for you,
and the best clauses of the Bill be lost, why
Ministers it will be. Said have done their duty,
they have fought, like men, and have
been defeated because victory was impossible.
They retire from office amidst the thanks and
blessings of their countrymen, and are still the
chosen leaders of the British nation. But if they
die not " game"—if they lose the Bill because
they would not try to pass it,—if they sheathe
the only remaining weapon in their magazine,
and then, being beaten, exclaim, " It was not
our fault,"—what but contempt and infamy is
their portion,--what are they but hypocrites, if
they be not idiots ?—what but traitors, if not
cowards ? Who will offer them sympathy ?
who forbear from execration of the craven Whig
Ministry of 1832 ? God preserve King
Wil-
liam from faint-hearted friends ! From open ene-
mies, his gallant people will defend him.—Times.
We publish in this day's Paper the sentence
passed by the Court-martial on Captain War-
rington, which will be read, no doubt, with at-
tention. The sentence, we regret to say, finds
the prisoner " Guilty," but it is necessary to add,
with regard to certain inferences which have been
drawn from the condemnation of Captain War-
rington, to the fears and perplexities under which
all officers must be supposed to act in future,
that neither the charges nor the sentence involve
any question concerning the general powers with
which military men are invested, or the restraints
imposed upon them as to the suppression of riots.
The preamble of the first charge contains a re-
cital of the dreadful outrages which were com-
mitted on the night of Sunday, the 30th of Oc-
tober, the consequent emergency which called
for the utmost exertions that could be made by
the troops under the command of Captain War-
rington for the protection of property, and the
repeated orders which had been given by the
Magistrates to the officer in command of the
garrison to quell the rioters by force. But the
gravamen of the offence alleged against Captain
Warrington relates to the circumstance of his having
omitted or delayed to convey to Colonel Brere-
ton a verbal requisition for military succour,
which was brought to him by Mr. Kington, a
merchant of Bristol, the object of the application
being to save the Custom-house ; while the
second charge accuses him of delaying for up-
wards of an hour to transmit or convey to Colo-
nel Brereton a written requisition signed by the
i\layor of Bristol, directing the officer in com-
mand to use the most vigorous and decisive
efforts towards the repression of the riot, and
the preservation of property. Here there was
no accusation of not acting voluntarily and at
his own discretion, without the special authority
of Magistrates, but merely of having failed in
the duty of forwarding, to his superior officer,
information of the most urgent importance, and
thereby rendering altogether useless the force
which he might otherwise have received orders
from his commanding officer to employ. On
the two charges so constructed Captain War-
rington is found " guilty." The third charge
goes to blame the prisoner, not for having
refused to act, or for having withheld the as-
sistance of his troops when required, but for
having delegated the command of them on two
critical occasions,—viz., on Sunday evening, and
early on Monday morning,—to a young Cornet,
instead of conducting them himself; 2. For ab-
senting himself a considerable time from his
quarters ;3. For having gone to bed. Of sub-
stituting the Cornet's services for his own, at
four o'clock on Sunday evening,—of absenting
himself from his quarters,—and of retiring to
bed, Captain Warrington has been also found
" guilty." But it will be remarked, that in these
charges, which embrace the whole subject matter
of prosecution, there is no where to be found
laid down, or even implied, in anything like the
extent to which Sir Charles Dalbiac, in his ex-
cursive and voluminous dissertation upon the
evidence, thinks proper to assert it, the doctrine
that military officers at the head of armed bo-
dies, ought to be punished for refusing to act
without the presence of a civil authority. We
say that no fair deduction from the official
charges themselves can be brought to justify
those dicta of the prosecutor, which were tacked
by him to his commentary on certain portions of
the evidence. Enough, however, has transpired
throughout these painful transactions to show,
that some distinct exposition of the law should
be afforded, if not, indeed, that some perspicu-
ous declaratory law should be speedily passed,
for the essential purpose of pointing out to mili-
tary men what they are bound to do, and what
they must refrain from doing, in cases of public
disturbance ; otherwise, between courts-martial
and juries, no officer can reckon on twenty-four
hours' security for his commission or life. Our
own feeling upon the subject is, that troops
should in no instance be permitted to use mortal
weapons against their own countrymen (a case of
self-defence being always an exception) without
the actual presence of a Magistrate. The effect
of such a prohibition will be—not the impunity
of mobs and rioters—but the activity and effici-
ency of the civil power ; for let it be understood,
that if military men be amenable to courts-martial
for neglect of duty, so magistrates ought to be, if
they are not, subjected to an equally prompt visita-
tion by the law of the land; and that the monstrous
abuse of common sense and j ustice whereby the su-
perior Courts have managed to withdraw inferior
Magistrates from all risk of retribution by re-
quiring that direct proof of malice or "corruption
must be forthcoming before they shall be punished
for even the most flagrant misbehaviour, ought to
be repaired before the lapse of another session.
For Captain Warrington we do not quarrel with
the finding of the Court, as a mere technical
verdict, in so far as it states that certain charge§
have been proved against him. But with de-
ference for the judgment of so experienced and
honourable a tribunal, we should have deemed
its decision entitled to an equal respect, had it
not inflicted the severe penalty of expulsion from
sfadvouutyredwhiirciohremoosft
people
the servicewill fboer
of
opinionfailure o
.irarsorsutlbiamn of crime.itted totbe Tlbtroisnet:uaes tihsraltvetlllieknCoowunr:
an earnest and forcible recommendation to mercy
in favour of Captain Warrington; and it is like-
wise reported that the grounds for the recom-
mendation are strong enough to suggest some
wonder that they did not serve to qualify the sen-
tence itself, as well as to extort from the Court
a recommendation that his Majesty should be
pleased to remit it. The grounds of that recom-
mendation are described to be—.
The extreme difficult situation in which an in-
experienced young man was placed,—between a military
superior and civil authorities,—both acting so as to per-
plex and paralyze him.
2. That his offences were mere errors of judgment,
not proceeding from want of zeal to do his duty.
.. 3. That when under proper command, both at Bristol
and elsewhere, ample evidence had been adduced of Captain
Warrington's active and proper discharge of his duties.
" 4. That the strongest testimonies to his general cha-
racter were laid before the Court, by several officers of
high rank and others, under whom he had served."
Surely, under such circumstances, an admo.