The Sun.
London, England, 1835-11-11 00:00:00

had been marked by the consistency of a high sense of duty,
by steadfast efforts for the welfare of our own country, by a
religious consideration of the rights of other nations : who be-
gan his public career with endeavours to reform the represen-
tation of the people ; and who, after he had passed more than
40 years in exclusion from power, framed an Administration
which not only accomplished this great object to an extent
that exceeded our most sanguine expectations, but maintained
the relations of peace with surrounding states ; supported
what was favourable to enlightened liberty abroad ; abolished
the system of slavery in our colonies ; gave a new scope and
impulse to our commercial industry ; made great preparation
for the improvement of our laws, and commenced a system
which will, we trust, be found effectual for the rescue of our
poor from the degradation and evils of pauperism. We can-
not but perceive that in all these varied services for the pub-
lic good, your Lordship took an efficient share ; and in rela-
tion to that measure of reform which so peculiarly devolved
upon you, we gladly advert to one effect, which from its nature
was more observed than expressed; in the crisis which pre-
ceded the restoration of Lord Melbourne to the helm of affairs,

the calm of the people was mainly owing to the confidence in-
spired by the new power of the representative system, and the
deep earnestness of the public mind, united with such tran-
quillity, was a high tribute to the value of the „Reform Act,
as well as a grand moral feature in the present character of

our country.
" But of that power, the chief proof yet afforded has been,
my Lord, the change, extensive and important, which it has
enabled the Government to accomplish in our municipal insti-
tutions, and which, also, has been so peculiarly under your
care. Of the course your Lordship pursued throughout, as
well as of the honourable and united support of the represen-
tatives of the people; of the talent and comprehensivenesi of
view employed in framing this great measure ; and of the firm-
ness, precision, and energy, with which Lord Melbourne
supported it, among hostile bands ; we entertain the highest
appreciation. Nor can we omit to express a like estimate of
that sound policy which led your Lordship and the House of
Commons to accept the Municipal Reform Bill, as it finally
came from the House of Lords ; since, even in its impaired

state, we perceive it to be a vast change for good upon our
present system, and see that it presents the power of progres-
sive improvement. We have no desire, my Lord, to review
the evils through which the necessity became obvious, that a
great alteration must be made in our own municipal system,
to render it duly efficient for the purposes of good govern-
ment, for identity of interests with the people at large, and
for mutual and cordial co-operation among all for the welfare
of the community ; but we rejoice in the good to which those
evils have in their eff.,cts conducted. We trust that in our

new Municipal Government we-shall witness a fair representa-
tion of all circleS among our fellow-burgesses ; and that both
our councillors, and those who intrust them with their power,
will commence this new era, with no struggle for party;As-,
verdancy, .pith no, narrowelfOrts for,,personal power, but; with
'that true estimate of the purposes of municipal institutions; and
that faithful aim to carry them into effect, which will render
them productive of good order, of public virtue, and of the ge-
neral peace and welfare of the community.—(Cheers.) Your
visit, my Lord, will strengthen our purposes, and may contri.
bute to check all that aro hostile to thein. If your Lordship
should observe such effects, it cannot but afford you satisfac-
tion; and faithfully to aim at them, we hold to be due to you
for your unwearied exertions to give us the advantages we an-

ticipate.
" Long as we have occupied your Lordship's attention, we
must express the hopefulness with which we rejoice to con-
template the sister county, towards which our city bears such
close relations, and which, while it is now one main object of
the Administration in general, comes so peculiarly within the
scope of your Lordship's pwn department: In the enlightened
system of education introduced by Lord Stanley, and the mea-
sures by which it is to le carried into full effect, in the rapidly
extending perceptiou or the elements of nationol prosperity ;
in the strengthening connexions of Ireland with Great Britain;
in the frank and dignified firmness, and equitable impartiality,
of his Majesty's noble-minded representative, conciliating the
affections of the people, and wearing d own the opposition of
the factious.—( Hear, hear.) We see the prospect of good for
that country disclosing itself beyond all anticipation, and we
have no better desire for its welfare, than that the wise and be-
nificent purposes of Lord Melbourne's administration may be
fully and speedily realized.
" Perceiving the extensive and complicated relations and
agencies which are to be taken into account by those who now
direct our public affairs, and the difficulties which necessarily
attend their course, while opposed by.so many that are pos-
sessed of power to impede it ; perceiving also that impa-
tience and distrust on the part of the people would give that
opposition its greatest efficacy ; and that, on the other hand,
the Government possesses immense power for good, if sup-
ported with the confidence of the friends of reform ; we deem
it to be our duty, my Lord, to cherish this confidence. We
see abundant reason for it, in the talents, the principles, the
steadfastness, and the unitedness of the eminent men who con-
stitute the present Administration. But, my Lord, they will
not expect from us, what we cannot yield, a blind confidence ;
and, it is one great advantage of our common principles, that
though provisions to give them efficiency may require to be
moulded by circumstances with which the public cannot always
be made acquainted, they do themselves need no secresy, and
that their bright and well defined features will be stamped
on all the measures which originate in a faithful adherence
to them.

" You may observe, my Lord, one effect of your enlightened,
upright, and beneficent conduct as a statesman, in the respect
and thankfulness which such occasions as the present serve to
develope, and which are strengthened by our perceiving, that,
in the various changes of the Reform Ministry, your course has
been steadily directed to those important ends which form
the unanimous object of Lord Melbourne's Administration.
It is our earnest desire that your Lordship, and your col-
leagues- in the Government, may long continue, with the
well-merited confidence of our Sovereign, to carry on your
measures for the general good towards their full accom-
plishment ; and that you may enjoy the reward of your
public services, in the improvement and efficiency of all the
sources of nationl prosperity, and in the conscious possession
of the gratitude and attachment of your country.—(Loud and
continued cheers.)
The CHAIRMAN then said he need hardly say how cor-
dially the party assembled concurred in the sentiments ex-
pressed in the address just read. He would only add to it
by proposing " the health of Lord John Russell, their
noble and distinguished guest."—(Loud and long-continued
cheering.)
When the cheers had in some degree subsided,
Lord JoHN RUSSELL, said, I know how impossible it is
that any words of mine can adequately convey an impression
of the feelings of gratitude which I feel for the honour
which has just been done me ; and I own that with , re-
gard to the troubles and disquietudes of public life, I have
always thought that there was nothing in them to baffle
any man of firmness and resolution—( Hear, hear)—if in
the first place he were satisfied in his own conscience that
the conduct he pursued tended to the welfare of his country
—(Cheers) ; and, in the second place, if he found that the
enlightened and the honest among his countrymen, in any
considerable proportion, bestowed their approbation upon
his acts.—(Cheers.) With respect to the first, it was not
in any human power to-define it, and I look only to my own
breast for the support which the consciousness of rec-
titude must always give ; for the second, I have to point
only to the testimony which you have just placed before me,
and which I highly value.—(Cheers.) A testimony of ap-
probation of my conduct from a large body of my country-.
men, with whom I am in no way connected—whom it has
not been in my power to serve, otherwise than as they are
members of the same community as myself, but who have
done me the honour to regard my conduct in public as
tending to the freedom and happiness of the country.—
(Cheers.) I have likewise the satisfaction to think that I
have not obtained this honour by my subserviency to tem-
porary opinions, or any wish or attempt to flatter the pre-
judices, either religious or political, of any class of the com-
munity—that I have proposed and supported those mea-
sures which I have deemed right—and that it is because I.
have pursued that course of conduct that I am nee 7; .ho-
noured with this ample, this unsought, this itrexpected,
and, I must say, this undeserved mark of a'Arobation.__
(Cries of " No, no," and great cheering.) I say that I
cannot think it is deserved, because altheilili I may believe
and trust that my opinions were the test that my judgment
could form, and that my course v7-as such as my heart, ap-
proved, yet I cannot but r::e rceire how inferior I am to
many of those who aro placed in a similar situation with
myself, and who IY.,ve been the more immediate instru-
ments of great 'measures of Reform and improvement.—
(Hear, hear.). But if I were to say in what respect I
may be ir, some degree deserving of it, it is only in this—
tliat never flinched from what I conceived to be
r,od and proper—(Great cheering)—and that I have pur-
sued it amidst obloquy and reproach, and with the support
only of what was at one time a trifling majority, with an
undeviating steadfastness of purpose, and with a firm con-
viction that it did not become me either to recede or to
withdraw opinions which I felt to be correct, and which, if
carried into effect, I felt satisfied would tend to the wel-
fare, the prosperity, and the happiness of the country.—
(Cheers.) After a very long interval, separated only by
some few years of interruptiqn, which occurred from time
to time, Earl Grey took the helm of the State, and became
the Prime Minister of England—a station which he took, I
must say, having no person that went before him in the
Ministry, to whom he could bear any sort of resemblance,
in principles and opinions, since the resignation of Lord
Chatham.—(Cheers.) I say'that there was no man with
whom lie could be compared ; because, although, as I have
just observed, there had been intervals of time when Mr.
Fox and others of his political principles had held, for -a
short time, the reins of Government, yet they never held
them with the means of carrying into effect their prin-
ciples ; and, indeed, as soon as they began to show
what their principles led to, a change immediately took
place, and those old chiefs to whom the Tories of the
country were opposed, too powerful for the champions
who advocated the cause a the country in Parliament,
again became the holders of the reins of Government.--
(Hear, hear.) The crisis in which Lord Grey took power
was in itself one of such magnitude and importance, that
for a time great force was given to his endeavours to reform
the State ; and when he was enabled to develops his plans,
those plans received the support of the people.—(Cheers.)
The first object to which Lord Grey's attention was di-
reetedwas the queStip of Reform in Parliament,—(Cheers.)