The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT 0,7 THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

A paragraph in the .Standard of last night is so
worded as to lead to the inference that her 1,1.0yal
Highness the Princess Victoria is in an infirm stat e of
health :—" Her Royal Highness (who is now at
Ramsgate) took carriage airings, it is said, daily durity
the last fortnight; and she teas able to walk to the car-
riaprre without difficulty." The meaning which the
writer intended to convey evidently was, that it was.
with difficulty her Royal Highness walked from the
house door to the carriage. Now, we can state, on
an authority on which we can confidently rely, that
during the last fortnight, the period referred to, the
carriage was ordered daily for their Royal Highness.-ts
the Duchess of Kent and the Princess, gene-
rally within a few minutes of twelve o'clock ; that
when driven to the Pier, on arriving there, they,
with two ladies in waiting, alighted, and promenaded
the eastern and western Piers for a period se.idoin
falling short of an hour,.and often exceeding it. They
were then handed into the carriage by Sir John Cyli-
roy, who almost invariably attended them, and drWent
for another hour on one of the roads leading from
Ramsgate, where the party (including the Princess)
at,:nost b:?iformly again alighted, and walked, attended
bya a ti°3tm;) for another hour. On returning to the
carriage they
we,:e then driven home to Albion-house,
the alternate riding
a:_id walking occupying nearly four
hours. So much fur eill
.the inference' intended to be
conveyed by the Standard. We are happy to have it
in our power to allay the apprthensions the paragraph
might have created in the people, who naturally take a
deep interest in all that relates to 11:. Royal High-
ness. We believe that the ankles of the Princess
-were weak before she visited the sca-side: ; but the
fact of her taking so much exercise on foot, afft;.rds the
most satisfactory proof that her Royal Highness is
in
excellent health and strcril.:,:th.—Morning Chronicle.

We direct the attention of our readers to a commu-
nication (in another column) received by Mr. Hume
from Mr. Charles Wood, Secretary to the Admiralty,
in answer to a letter addressed by the Hon. Member
for Middlesex to the Under Secretary of State for the
Home Department, stating the prevalence of an im-
pression that there bad been some great neglect in the
hiring of convict ships, or in the fitness of persons ap-
pointed to navigate them. We have already expressed
our opinion, the result of an inquiry into this subject,
that there was not the slightest foundation for the sur-
mises of some of our Contemporaries, that the Neva
was not in the best repair, and quite fit for the voyage.
However, the Board of Admiralty haveordered such a
minute inquiry into the subject, that the public will
be put into possessiOn of all the-facts of the case, and
enabled to decide with certainty whether blame does
or does not attach to any quarter. In the meantime
the extract from the Report of the Committee of In-
quiry, assembled at Launceston by order of the Gover-
nor of Van Diemen's Land, which accompanies the
letter to Mr. Hume, must go far to remove any im-
pression on the public mind that the Neva was not
sea-worthy, or that she was improperly navigated.—
Morning Chronicle. •
The feeling of Englishmen on behalf of that con-
stitution under which their ancestors for so many ages
have enjoyed, almost exclusively among the nations of
the earth, the blessings of liberty in thought, word, and
action—that sentiment is like one of the old tough
weapons, by the victorious use of which England was
for centuries distinguished—the bow—which, bent in
whatever direction, or with what violence it might,
never once lost its elasticity, or failed to resume its
form. The constitutional spirit of our countrymen has
within this twelvemonth been severely tried ; it has
been tugged at, and twisted, but has
,never snapped,
nor been permaPently warped from its natural inclina-
tion. The re-action of the bow is now manifest in
many parts of England, and no doubt need be entertained
that the mind of, the people is in substance as fresh
;led healthy as before the revolution doctors began to
drug and blister it. We refer with joy and thank-
fulness to the report of the great meeting at Bir-
mingham, to celebrate the first anniversaay of " the
Birmingham Loyal and Constitutional Association."
The object of this display of honest and high-
principled resolution in support of the British
monarchy—and the religion, laws, and liberties of
Britons—the vast amount of property, intelligence,
rank, and character, ley which it was attended—the
spirit which reigned tliroeghout the whole of the pro-
ceedings, and the sentiments and course of policy to
which that important assemblage of loyal Englishmen
there congregated, have solemnly Fledged themselves,
and all whose minds they can fairy'influence, will
speak for themselves more impressively than we can
describe them, and will show the world that England
in all her noblest attributes is still unimpaired and per-
fect. Birmingham, since the accession of the first
Whig Ministry under Lord Grey, has been the centre
of popular movement, and has been noted more for
extoavagance than sobriety in its appetite for political
change. However confident, therefore, we might have
been, that in the spread and reflux of constitutional
feeling ovee this country, Birmingham must have
experienced sooner or later her i'ull proportion of
the universal inherit, it would, we confess, have
been a surprise to us, no less than a gratification,
that the formidable commueity in question should
at so early a day as this have exhibited a political
revulsion so decisive, had we not been conscious
how deep was the stake possessed by Birmingham
in the general well-being of the kingdom, ' and
how' well qualified her sagacious and reflecting inlia-
bi:.3nts must be, whenever they turned their attention
to the subject, to "eAimate the dangers in which a
headlong course of revolutionary violence must inevi-
tably plunge the liveselpd properties of us all, the en-
terprises of commerce aad the fruits of industry. The
Address to His Yi",;jesty, prepared for the Members of
the Association, and :low aceiving hourly additions to
its numerous signatures, is drawn up ,in clear and
straight-forward terms. It disguises nothing ; it
shrinks not, sneak'.; not, but tells things by their pro-
per names, and applies to that of which it disapproves -
no hesitating or timid reprobation. The constitutional.
.11e,A,pf Birmingham declare to his Majesty the intense •
aexiel/4#led platen with which they view the possibility
of anatile attempt on the part of his Ministers " to
renew theie f-sli rnd dangerous measure of last ser.-
sion, which, after being adopted by a small majority of
time House of CcYnnixis, wags happily,
,fi»- the country,
rejected by the House- of Lords." They state, that
while the "ostensible " objec:. of that measure is to
~
Apply the surplus revenues cf L.'me Church to general'
purposes of education, it has a riireest and eviaent ten-
deney to subvert that church, and to stilistztate Popery
'Or*.::‘:.•
in its " darkest form e' and indeed we must add,.
how could it be otherwise ? when the inowly so plun-
dered from the Protestant church would he dis-
.. .
bursed by the hands of the llomish priestlviod, mid : ,
turned into an engine. for extending under the name --i
of education the sway of that priesthood over tneir
perverted flocks. The Association manfully proclaim
the Irish Church spoliation " measure to i:ave beenasrung
from his Majesty's Ministers, as the -Fricc of a par-
lianientary support, indispensable to their ecntinurnice
in (filet-, by one whom they themselves had solemnly
denounced to the co►n as a dangerous agitator !"
This is an unmerciful truth from the lips of the Bir-
mingham Association, and the more so, because it ;s
the echo of precisely similar accusations from every
part of England. To the I;
Lay-work-men of those
:Ministers who, with the wild phrenzy of convicted cri-
minals, still cry out that they arc innocent, even after
sentence is passed,
and who deny a bargain witwithO'Connell, the terms of which are known to every child
in the empire, we answer,
in the words of our powerful
and valuable colleague in this good cause, the Standard,
" was,there no compromise on the part of the Whig Minis-
ters" (who brought forward last session the spoliation
clause, after having) " but eight months before voted
against Mr. Ward's resoluticns, ' to bind themselves to
the great ptineiple' of secular appropriation, by a vote
pledging them for ever and ever ?" There is no re-
sisting this. True and most useful is the proclamation
by the men of Birmingham, that " it has been proved
beyond the possibility of doubt, that the resources of
the Irish Church are by no means too great for the
spiritual wants of the " (Protestant) " people ;" but
even if the attempt to establish the existence of such a
sir: plus had been as successful as it is extravagant and
vain, . the Association " humbly but earnestly protest
against • its application to any other than strictly Pro-
testant ecclesiastical purposes,"—the very- words cm-
.. e .

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