The Sun.
London, England, 1832-12-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

To-day the polling for the metropolitan
county commences. A contested election for
the county of Middlesex is always important ;
but it assumes an unusual degree of interest, on
the present occasion, from the extraordinary
efforts which certain parties have made to turn
out Mr. flume, against whom the battery of
misrepresentation has long been opened ; and
if the effects of the fire kept tip upon him had
only been commensurate with its violence, he
must have been annihilated as a public man, to
the great satisfaction of all who like to gather
the golden spoil of luxuriant corruption, whe-
ther they belong to the Whig or Tory camp.
That we do not agree in all the political opinions
of Mr. flume is well known—that we, on the
contrary, differ with him decidedly on some
most important public questions our readers are
perfectly aware ; but as a Member of Parliament,
taking his faults and his merits togrther, there
are few men, in our opinion, who have stronoer
claims upon the support of that large and in-
fluential portion of society who are solicitous to
send industrious, working men into the Senate.
to bring about good and cheap government, and
to wage an uncompromising war against prodi-
gality and corruption, regardless of the colours
under ta hich those political vices are practised,
and aloof from the party influence of men who
struggle to get into place, or to retain it. When
Lord Henley opened the trenches of that opposi-
tion to Mr. Hume, which was expected to dislodge
him from his strong hold in Middlesex, the
banner of religious persecution was unfurled,
and we are ashamed to say that a considerable
portion of the Dissenters, whose claims to civil
and religious liberty Lord Henley had opposed,
and Mr. Hume most energetically supported,
ranged themselves under the orlfiamme of the
titled placeman, and joined the intolerant cru-
sade. To cover the ingratitude of this proceed-
ing a specious charge was made against Mr.
flume. He was accused of denying the very
existence of a Supreme Providence. If we
thought there was any truth in the charge,
whatever his merits might hitherto have been as
a Member of Parliament, we would have not
only not advocated his cause, but we would have
entered the field against him ; and simply upon
this ground, that the man whose mind is insen•
sible to the proofs, and whose heart is dead to
the influence of the provident wisdom of that
Great Being who created and sustains the uni-
verse, must scorn those moral obligations which
are the basis of both public and private virtue,
anti be destitute of those qualities which should
inspire confidence or command respect. The
proof offered in support of the charge has been
so disposed of by Mr. flume's explanation that
we need not further refer to it. We cannot
believe that he premeditated any insult to re-
ligion, who, we understand, is habitually at-
tentive to the observances of that Christian
Church of which he is a member. Few, in-
deed, are the saints or philosophers whom his-
tory records that have not had a moment of
weakness or error at some period of their lives.
The great Locke says that the characters of men
should be judged of, not by a single act or ex-
pression, but by the general habits of their lives.
If we thought the life of Mr. flume could not
stand this test, laid down by one of the soundest
reasoners and most virtuous Christian philoso-
sophers that England ever produced, we would
disdain to advocate his cause. Moreover, we
happen to know that if some of the Members of
the existing Government had not, for some cause
or other, of which they are probably now
ashamed, given encouragement to the hopes of
Lord Henley, the vehement persecution to which
Mr. Hume has beet, subjected would not have
been heard of. Some good and pious men there
were, no doubt, who acted from the purest mo-
tives ; but there were others, whose affected zeal
for religion was not unmixed with motives of a
more selfish and earthly nature than then
eiought it expedient to avow. What proof
did such men require of the sincerity of
the religious faith of any man opposed to
Mr. Hume ? None whatever. They rejected
the solemn professions of Mr. flume's attach-
ment to the Christian dispensation, but they took
his opponents at their word. They knew that
there were some men in power who thought his
presence in Parliament inconvenient; they saw
that the most devoted of the Treasury Papers
represented him as a " man of crotchets ;" a
Marplot, and in other ways designated him as
one on whose career the cheering sunshine of
power was not destined to diffuse its prosperous
rays ; and hence much of the zealous malevo-
lence of a class of persons who are more dis-
tinguished for the cunning of the serpent than
the innocence of the dove. If Lord Henley
were a sincere Christian, did he prove it by his
intolerance in opposing the Test and Corpora-
tion Acts ? But he has fled from the conflict,
and now Sir Charles Forbes unfurls the banner
of Ultra-Toryism, and attempts to take by storm,
the position which the " Church-reforming"
Master in Chancery failed to carry by sap and
undermine. Lord Henley did not come forward
as an avowed Tory ; he assumed a political mask,
which to us appeared a tolerably transparent
one, judging from his own speeches. Sir
Charles Forbes appears in his proper character,
which is, undoubtedly, a respectable one among
his party, but not a character that has any claim
upon the support of the people, whose rights he
has resisted, and whose burdens he has never
given himself much trouble to relieve. As to
Mr. flume, he has, beyond all other men of the
present day, the great merit of never allowing a
Chancellor of the Exchequer to repose in
luxurious indolence, or to enjoy his seat as a
bed of roses. In the present deplorable state of
the finances of the country his searching and in-
defatigable attention to the budget and the esti-
timates of the year is of more importance to the
public service than any other quality of a se-
nator. Of what use are the occasional and
flashy speeches of such a lack-a-daisical patriot
as Sir Francis Burdett, or persons of that
stamp, compared with the practical, unceasing
energy which distinguishes Mr. Hume, and the
vigilant sentinelship which lie exercises over the
public expenditure ? Times are coining when
that unsparing spirit of inquiry into the state of
our finances, and that resolute resistance to the
vices of venality and profusion, which Mr.
flume has always manifested in Parliament, will
become more important to the country than
ever. The electors of Middlesex have more at
stake in the contest that is coming on than Mr.
Hume. Let tiiem look to it.—Morn. Herald.
As we anticipated yesterday, the northern
division of Hampshire has thrown out the two
Tory candidates, though one of them is the
son of the Duke of Wellington, the Lord-Lieu-
tenant of the county, and the great leader of
the Conservative party. The two Liberal candi-
dates, who are returned, came forward on the
strength of their political principles, and the re-

spectability of their private characters, without
any of those pretensions to the support of the
electors which great names and high connec-
tions can confer. Their triumph was therefore
more that of public confidence than of private
influence. From the state of the poll in South
Hampshire, where Lord Palmerston is more
than 300 a-head of his antagonist, the result
will, we dare say, be equally satisfactory, and
that four Reform Members will be returned for
the county of Southampton. In the West di-
vision of Surrey, Mr. Denison, a Reformer,
who has so long represented the county under
the old system, has been returned along with
another Reformer, in opposition to Mr. Holme
Sumner, who glories in the name of Tory. Mr.
Denison concluded the polling with 2.5 per cent.
above his antagonist. In Derbyshire the Con-
'ervative, Sir Roger Gresley, whose success
was announced by his friends as certain, is
found at the bottom of the poll ; and in the
South division of Warwickshire Sir G. Philips.
a Reformer, has been returned, though he only
began leis canvass on the day of his nomination.
We consider these as important triumphs for the
reform cause, and we are confident that in the
great majority of the contested county elections
we may calculate on a similar issue. We are
sorry to add two new cases to our small but dark
catalogue of election delinquencies, in appending
Southampton and Bristol to Norwich, Liver-
pool, and Hertfbrd. A correspondent from the
first-named borough has sent us an account of a
meeting held there on the 17th inst. to rais
funds to prosecute a petition to Parliament
against the return of the Tory candidate, on the
score of bribery. The meeting is said to have
been attended by 1,500 persons, who were led
by their indignant feelings to enter warmly into
the project of a subscription. The leading Re-
tormers have thus taken up the cause of their
late Member and present defeated candidate, and
are determined to spare neither expense nor ex
ertions to wipe off from their town the disgrace
of a return effected, according to them, by bri-
bery and intimidation. They expect the assist-
, ance of their brother Reformers over the empire
•
in prosecuting their righteous object. Another
correspondent assures us, " that if we
were to inquire into the circumstances of
the Bristol election, we should find that
bribery and intimidation, particularly the lat-
ter, are weapons which have been wielded
by the Tories in Bristol, with greater vio-
lence, on this occasion, than at any time
within his recollection." He refrains from
specifying numbers or names, but repeats his
positive assurance as to the circumstance itself.
Now, in all these cases we may expect, and we
have a right to demand, a searching Parlia-
mentary inquiry at the commencement of the
Session. The infamy is evidently unconnected
wbb the Reform Bill, but the remains of the
old system which it has spared have produced
the evil. A corrective must, therefore, be ap-
plied, either in depriving those individual free-
men of their votes who have abused their pri-
vileges—or in rendering the 101. householder
system, against which no complaints are brought,
uniform over all the borough constituency—or
in establishing for such places, if not for all, vote
by ballot. At present we press for no specific
measure,—we insist only on the necessity of
investigation. These cases prove, not what the
Conservatives pretend, that the Reform Bill is
an evil, but that it has not been sufficiently
severe in its corrective application. There is
still much of rottenness remaining in the system,
and if the prunings already made have not ena-
bled the tree to flourish with its proper vigour,
the other branches which still encumber its healthy
growth must be cut away.— Times.

At the nomination for South Devon, Lord
John Russell cut up the Conservatives in fine
style. The Russian-Dutch Loan is the never-
failing argument against Ministers. Lord
John observed truly that the money was paid
under an engagement which the former Govern-
ment had taken ; that neither Sir Robert Peel
nor any of his party, would declare against the
project ; and " that, whatever may have been the
folly of entering into the engagement, he could
not remedy that folly by the dishonesty of not
fulfilling it." The other stock argument—the
war with Holland—he disposed of in an equally
satisfactory manner. Towards the conclusion
of his speech, he had the following happy
passage :
" We wish not, as it was falsely imputed to the Re-
form Bill, to take off the Crown from the King's head.
We,- on the contrary, think the Crown will shine in
brighter lustre when it is reposing on the affections of the
people.—(An expression of dissent from the Conservatives
here caused Lord John's friends to give him three hearty
cheers.) We wish to preserve all the other valuable in-
stitutions of the country. It has always been my opinion
that those institutions, if they were in danger—and
they certainly were in danger—it was because they
were perverted and abused.—(Loud cheers.) I think
that when restored to their proper and primitive use, they
are institutions which are worthy of the people, who
would now defend them, as of the ancestors who glori-
ously founded thern.—(Cheers ) But I am of opinion
that the ministers of religion should devote them-
selves to the purposes of religion.—(Cheers.) I am of
opinion that public servants of the Crown should devote
themselves to the public service.—(Cheers.) I am of
opinion that trose who, in what, ver station of life, are
called to bear the great burden of public affairs, should
carry on those affairs honestly, for the benefit of the
whole country, and not pervert those sacred and vene-
roble institutions to the benefit and property of indi-
viduals."—(Cheers.)
His Lordship thinks the Ministers of religion
should devote themselves to the purposes of re-
ligion ; but they themselves, unfortunately, think
they ought to devote themselves to anything
rather than religion. Hence the part which they
took against the Reform Bill—hence the zeal
with which they are now exerting themselves
everywhere to prevent the return of liberal can-
didates. The present is the first election in this
country in which the people can be fairly said to
be represented. It affords a pretty convincing
proof that the affairs of religion are not in a
healthy state, when the people are on one side,
and ther clergy on the other.—Morn. Chronicle.
The polling for Middlesex commences this
day, and we do not wish to libel the electors by
the. supposition that they will disgrace themselves
by returning an out-and-out Conservative. It
Mr. Hume was not sufficiently fervent as a
Negro Emancipator for some of the Dissenters,
and Lord Henley endeavoured to manoeuvre
them by the help of a few ambiguities on that
score, surely Sir Charles will not be more pala-
table to them on this score. Sir Charles is a very
worldly man in his private capacity, but he has
never been accused of any predilection for li-
berty for men of any colour, in any quarter of
the world. The endeavour to run down Mr.
Hume as an Atheist, was no doubt deemed a
good joke by the Conservatives. There would
have been no joke, of course, if lie had not been
so well known as exemplary in all that regards
rittoten return
o nthtiso
religion. Weareieiallmhoasyteashheaemndl
w
e
the puerilities which
subject. The Standard of last night, however,
returns to the Providence argument. Alluding

to our obserratious of yesterday, the Standar d
says :
" This argumentum ex abusrt needs not to be an-
swered : it is quite enough for all purposes that it be in-
tell.gibly stated. Two fanatics or hypocrites—silly per-
sons, at all events—have profaned the name of Providence
by asserting, while under some delusion, or in wilful vio-
lation of truth, that the Almighty obediently ministered
upon request to their most shabby and trifling occasions;
and, therefore, the national acknowledgment of God's pro-
vidence and power in a visitation of awful magnitude
ought to be proscribed. This is the argument ; if a
second time we omit to answer it, we shall, we trust, be
forgiven. We cannot now surmise that a single person
will require an exposure of its futility any more than yes-
terday we could suspect the use of such re,soning by an
able writer."

So Providence is not to be introduced on
shabby and trifling occasions, but ought to be
introduced on great occasions. But the charge
against Mr. Hume was, that by opposing the
introduction of " Providence" into an Act of
Parliament, he denied the superintendence of
Providence. The belief in a Providence is one
thing, and the propriety of referring to it in an
Act of Parliament another. his no doubt true
that the abuse proves nothing against the use ;
hut it would be as absurd to infer that Saint
Percival, Wm. Huntington, or Irving, were ir-
religious, from their introducing Providence too
often, as that Mr. Hume is irreligious from his
refusal to introduce it. The introduction of
Providence into an Act of Parliament was a
question of propriety, and warranted no conclu-
sion as to belief. But it seems Mr. Hume pre-
sented petitions from persons having no religious
belief. What ! and is toleration synonymous
with irreligion ?—Morning Chronicle.
The Warwickshire Reformers are doing their
duty nobly. The county will be rescued from
the threatened return of the blind Tories, who
have made strenuous efforts to bring in one
man in each of the two divisions. The poll of
the southern division of the county closed on
Tuesday night. Sir Gray Skipwith and Sir
George Philips having both prevailed against
the Conservative, Mr. Shirley. The facts of
this contest are most honourable to the War-
wickshire electors. On Friday last, the day of
nomination, the constituency had no intention
of opposing Mr. Shirley's return—fearing the
expense to Sir Gray Skipwith, and that the
Tory tenants at will (or rather tenants without
will) would overpower the Reformers. Mr.
Shirley, however, believing his election safe
(and, indeed, his chair being in waiting), most
gratuitously and insolently commenced a tirade
of Tory abuse against Ministers, the Reform
Bills, and the Reformers. In tell minutes the
electors in the Hall applied to Sir George
Philips, of Weston Hall, to resent the insult,
and to test the strength of the Tories. An un-
disturbed canvass by Mr. Shirley had most
unluckily pledged a considerable number of
the liberal party ; but a Committee was instantly
formed after the nomination of Sir Geo. Philips
—deputies were immediately sent off express ,
to every part of the southern division—local
committees formed, and the tocsin of a deter-
mined opposition sounded throughout the whole
county. Saturday was the only day of prepara-
tion, Sunday intervening, and the poll opening
on Monday ! The register—the infinite use
of which to the Reformers has been thus signally
illustrated—by its perfect record of the name,
address, and locality of qualification of every
elector, afforded the immediate facility of can-
vassing and bringing up to the poll every liberal
elector. On Sunday night the electors poured into
Warwick, Stratford, and Sout ham ; and during
the whole of the poll of Monday " headed" the
Conservative. On Tuesday the contest closed,
Sir Gray Skipwith having a majority of 288,
and Sir G. Philips sixteen votes over the num-
bers of Mr. Shirley. The northern division of
this active-minded county is now engaged in a
similar cause ; and the proceedings on the day
of nomination display an amusing contrast be-
tacen the opinions of the Liberals and the
Conservatives. The Tories are riding two hack
h arses—the Dutch war and the currency ; but
the durnmels will not carry them safely on the
course. It will be an eternal disgrace on those
Whig or Radical electors N‘llo do not cordially
unite to return Mr. Dempster Heming and Sir
E. E. Wilmot, and to cast out from among them
the rank Tory Dugdale.—Morning Chronicle.
The Ministerial papers make it their daily
boast that the elections are proceeding in a
manner highly favourable to the Parliamentary
power of the present Administration. Their
calculations we hope will prove erroneous, for
we can scarcely figure to ourselves a deeper ca-
lamity to the cause of national freedom than the
decided and uncontrolled ascendency in the Le-
gislature of the men who now hold the reins of
Government in this country. It is not yet, we
trust, too late to implore the electors of the
United Kingdoms to reflect upon what they
are doing before they commit the freedom and
happiness of the nation absolutely to the mercy
of the men now in power. Despotism may yet
be averted, although, from the progress already
made in the formation of the new House of
Commons, it is evident that nothing short of the
most active and strenuous exertions on the part
of all who have a dread of despotism can now
suffice for that purpose. We need not retnind
the electors of a truth so obvious as that any Ad-
ministration flaying the support of a devoted and
unscrupulous majority in Parliament, upon whose
votes it can rely, whatever be the character of
its measures, is to all intents and purposes
an Administration in the actual possession
of despotic power ; nor will it require, we
imagine, much warning to awaken reflecting
minds to the danger that despotic power in the
hands of the present Ministers cliche Crown may
be tyrannically exercised. We will not advert to
the tyranny exercised by the present Ministers
over the Peerage and the Crown, in order to
force the enactment of their Reform Bill, in defi-
ance of the conscientious conviction of these two
independent branches of the Constitutional Le-
gislature ; we will not advert to the provisions
of that Bill, which always appeared to us to
have for their primary, if not their
.exclusive,
object to consolidate and perpetuate NA? big domi-
nion, in proof of the tyrannical disposition of
the Administration, since in both of these in-
stances they acted in concurrence with a consi-
derable proportion of the nation. Nor is it ne-
cessary in support of our accusation to refer to
those arbitrary and selfish proceedings, for in
the more recent conduct of Ministers, and in
the every-day language of their confidential or-
gans, there is more than enough to show that
they are the last men in England whom any sin-
power. The
cere and rational friend of freedom would intrust
Govern-
affection
continued
nined boundless
sympathyatid irresponsibleo7 t n
ev
‘h
ig
Government
unabatedßevolutionary
Govern-
ment nt England
of
France,
theandthe
of the former towards the latter, notwith-
standing its undisguised assumption of despotic •
sway, is a conclusive proof that the tenden-
cies of the Statesmen who now govern this

country arc towards tyranny. We can for-
give to Earl Grey and his colleagues (to some
of them at least) their devotion to the interests
and their subserviency to the wishes of the Citi-
zen King; it was no more than might have been
expected from the language and conduct of their
whole former lives. But when the Citizen
King degenerated into a lawless tyrant—when
he violated the chartered liberties of the French
people, when he subjected the civil inhabitants of
his capital to military tribunals of his own ap-
pointment, when he and his Ministers procured
the election of a Parliament which has permitted
them to propose, and will no doubt eventually.
sanction, a law placing the liberty, property, and
life of every man in France at the uncontrolled
disposal of tile Executive Government, and when,
notwithstanding all this, Earl Grey and his col-
leagues, and every organ of opinion over which
they exercise any influence, continue to flatter
and to obey the Revolutionary Government of
France, with all their original adulation and ob-
sequiousness, we feel it to be our duty to submit
to the judgment of our countrymen whether, in
the event of such Statesmen obtaining an irre-
sistible ascendency in Parliament, the people of
England, Ireland, and Scotland would not have
just cause to apprehend danger to Magna Charta,
the Bill of Rights, and the Habeas Corpus Act. We
hear much abuse of Don Miguel from Ministers
and their retainers, because he abolished a Consti-
tution which the Portuguese people liked so little
that they called him to the throne for the very
purpose of getting rid of it ; but the Govern-
ment of Louis Philip remains the object of
their partiality and their homage, although it has
trodden under foot the constitutional charter
which it was created by the people expressly to
defend. And is this, we ask, the party in whose
favour the British people will dismiss their ha-
bitual and salutary jealousy of the executive
power, and create a House of Commons con-
sisting of little else than their devoted and sub-
missive adherents ? The journals in the in-
terest of the Administration are already so elated
with the success which has attended its creatures
at various elections, that they no longer hesitate
to avow principles and designs the most repug-
nant to the Constitution, and the most revolting
to the habitual feelings and opinions of the na-
tion. It is conjectured that the Scottish Peer-
age may elect sixteen representatives to sit on
its behalf in the House of Lords, who will not
vote implicitly in obedience to the commands of'
the King's Ministers upon every occasion that
may arise; and this the confidential organs of
the Government are instructed to represent as
an enormous evil, and to call for an extraordi-
nary exertion of the prerogative for the purpose
of counteracting it. The elections now in progress
seem to promise the exclusion from the House
of Commons of any competent number of persons
connected with the colonial and other very im-
portant interests of the country. "It is
quire right," exclaim the well-instructed organs
of our liberal Government, " that this should
be so. The total exclusion of all such interests
from the national representation is only a new
proof of the admirable working of the Ministe-
rial measure of Reform. Why should sugar
islands, or shipowners, or banks, covet the power
of sending Members to Parliament ? What pur-
pose can it serve but to promote debate and
strife? Can these unreasonable persons not be
satisfied with the care and protection his Ma-
jesty's Ministers are sure to afford them ?"
This surely is indiscreet. The nation which
has been struggling for three years upon the
' question of Parliamentary Reform, must be an
extraordinary nation indeed if it can hear the
organs of the Reforming Administration thus
intimate that all value for the privilege of direct
representation is in their opinion a folly, and that
every interest is best protected when it is left to
the absolute disposal of the Executive Govern-
ment, without perceiving that the Reform Bill,
however it may operate, could never have been
produced from any other motive than that of
keeping its authors in place, and without im-
bibing at the same time a pretty strong suspicion
that constitutional freedom is not free from
danger in their hands.—Morning Post.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, DEC. 19.

COOPER AND OTHERS V. HUTCHINSON AND OTHERS

This was an action of detenue and debt brought
by the plaintiff;, ship-owners at Hull, to recover
from the defendants, who were shipowners, at
Peterhead, the value of certain oil, taken from the
ship William, which they had sold, and also the oil
which they had not sold.
The plaintiffs were owners of the ship William,
of Hull, which they sent to the Greenland
whale fishery, and which, after having obtained a
good cargo of blubber, was jammed by the ice, and
became a comple,e wreck. The Captain and crew
of the defandant's ship, the Traveller, after the
William was abandoned, and after the crews of
other ships had taken stores and other things out,
conveyed the blubber o.► board their ship, and
brought it to England, where it was boiled down,
and converted into oil. The quantity of oil ob-
tained from the blubber was about 24 tuns, and was
estimated at about 8001.

On the part of the defendant sit was observed
that in the Greenland fishery it was customary that
when a ship was wrecked, and was abandoned by
the crew, other ships might appropriate, for the
benefit of their respective owners, any part of the
stores or cargo from the wreck.
Witnesses were then called, who deposed to that
custom having existed from and before 1780, and
that, when their (the witnesses') ships had been
wrecked, they had often repurchased the stores from
the owners of the ships which had brought them
home. The witnesses also stated that the crews
of lost ships were always brought home by other
ships in the trade, and that every exertion was made
to save them, and also damaged vessels, before the
cargo or stores were touched.
Mr. Scoresby, a clerygy►nan, who has written a
very interesting book upon the Greenland fishery,
he having visited that dreary climate for the pur-
pose of making observations, stated that he was
aware the practice of taking stores and the cargoes
out of wrecks existed, and was considered in that
particular fishery as lawful ; and that the custom by
mrny ship-owners was acknowledged.
The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE summed up, and the
Jury retired; and alter ten minutes' absence returned
with a verdict for the plaintiff—Damages, 3921.