The Sun.
London, England, 1832-12-10 00:00:00

PLEDGES.

A
great deal, if not the whole of the dispute
I;Jout pledges, as it has latterly been carried on,
ihees upon a verbal quibble.
What the constituents—the honest ones, we
-"an—wish to know, is the present slate of the
eroldidate's opinions.
Such an inquiry has never been denied them, in
arty state of the representation. It is essential to a
uiscriminate election. He is an enemy to the con-
stituency and the candidate equally, who would
deny it now.
N 0 011 e is more opposed to what is called " tying
11 Member neck and heels" than we ourselves are;
but We have a perfect right to know what kind of a
N, I"nber he is that we are about to leave free.
tiAPplying this principle to the case of Sir John
ebhouse, we would demand, and we hope it will
e demanded of him, what are his present opinions
Of
Assessed Taxes—the Newspaper Tax—the
4110t—Triennial Parliaments ? Are they the same ,
'147 were ? Are they changed ? Are they free ?
ore they fettered ? If he be an honest man, he
ght to answer ; if he be a wise man, he will. He
viltY have changed, upon conviction, and for reasons
w the constituency may approve; he may have
thrtte under obligations that are tantamount to a
4.:thge. The electors have a right to know how
4tters stand between him and his colleagues, in
:trader that they may determine how matters are to
• nd between him and themselves.
hi The anti-pledge argument, now so much in vogue
yhtitain quarters, if not a dishonest, is at least a
m;:tiling one. There is no man fit for a candidate
° does not know his own mind, or who scruples
, declare it. To tell the public what he thinks
c°"'3 does not bind him, in the face of sufficient evi-
enee to the contrary, to think in the same .vay a
,I
velvemonth hence. What the people really ask
1,.!, that no man should go into the House of Com-
ntis, of whose present sentiments, on any point
pat they deem important, they are ignorant or
`lO übtful.—Spectator.

'n Friday night the principal pro tem. of
Its s •
.octety of Clifford's Inn, proposed as a toast, " Baron
It was received With the most boiNterous and
,:uty applause, by one of the most numerous parties that
4 a4seriablrd within the Hall. This simple fact is
additional proof of the unpopularity of the war against
Poat.

The polling for the cities of London and West-
minster, and five metropeliton boroughs, commences
this day. The length of our reports of the pro-
ceedings on Saturday, will not allow us to do more
now than merely advert to the present elections.
We hope, for the credit of the people, they will
return to Parliament men of probity, sound princi-
ples, and abilities to give effect to them. The
character of the candidate is a matter of first-rate
importance. It is highly proper that the electors
should be satisfied with regard to the principles of
the candidates ; but liberal professions are not
alone to be taken as a proof of the possession of
liberal principles. If the principles be but newly
taken up, they may be as speedily laid down. The
profession of good principles, at a time when it was
no advantage to profess them, ought, unquestion-
ably, to weigh much with electors. We are
satisfied that, upon the whole, the new Parlia-
ment will contain a great majority of honest and
deserving men, who will discharge the trust con-
fided to them most conscientiously. The constitu-
ency has been sufficiently enlarged to exclude the
chance of the preponderance in the returns of the
interests.-of separate We have no doubt
that the men sent to the new Parliament' will
introduce a new wra into the finances of the
country. To an honest. Ministry, an 'economical
and retrenching Parliament will be a source of
strength—not of weakness. They injure the pre-
sent Administration, who represent them as
jealous of candidates disposed to support an un-
sparing economy. Tha 'truth is, if Parliament do its
duty, Min;sters will be emboldened to do theirs ;
for as the Conservatives want place merely to
squander the money of the people, and to support
abuses, they are cut off from all hope of being able
to supplant an economical and Reforming Ministry.
The Ministry may lose themselves by placing their
reliance on any other foundation than that of the
people; but on the foundation of the people they
will remain immoveable. One feature in the pre-
sent elections proves, we think, pretty decidedly,
what the complexion of the new Parliament will be.
There are every where candidates previously but
little known, and depending chiefly on their pro-
fessions. Everywhere these candidates seek to

conciliate the electors by the liberality of their
principles. This, we think, proves the general con-
viction, that very liberal doctrines ara the most po-
pular. We do not hear anywhere of any man, who
has only professions to recommend him, professing
Conservative principles. From all this it may be
inferred, that the idea of a Reform Ministry strength-
ening themselves by holding out lures to Conserva-
tives, is a precious piece of absurdity. If good and
honest men be returned to Parliament, the Ministry
must also be honest. An honest Ministry ought
to wish to have an honest and economical Parlia-
ment. The people do not distrust Ministers ; but
they are now discharging a duty to themselves—.
the returning of men who will support Ministers if
they are found deserving of support (which, we trust,
will be the case), and no longer.—Morn. Chronic/e.
The deplorable unpopularity of his Majesty's Mi-
nisters is placed in the strongest light by the pro-
ceedings of Saturday in the metropolis. Every
where but at Westminster the crowds assembled in
front of the various hustings were not able to restrain
their feelings within the ordinary bounds of elec-
tioneering license. At ‘Vestminster only, where
an official representative appeared before the as-
sembled multitude, was any personal outrage offered
wan), candidate. The former favourite of the mob,
Sir John Cam Hobhouse, and his patron Sir Francis
Burdett, were the individuals selected from the
whole number of metropolitan candidates to mono-
polise the complimentary salutations of cabbage-
stalks, turnips, potatoes, and mud, their claim to this
distinction being simply that Sir John is Secretary
at War under Earl Grey, and that Sir Francis has
been so foolish as to identify himself with the elec-
tioneering fortunes of this victim to his alliance with
a detested Ministry. That no more dangerous
missiles were employed upon this occasion, con-
sidering the odium in which Ministers and all
connected with them are evidently held by the
mob, or, to use the now discarded term by which
Ministers were formerly in the habit of describing
such assemblages, by the people, and considering,'
too, the lessons of lawless violence which Ministers
and their partisans have been constantly instilling
for two years, is a fact which it would seem diffi-
cult to explain, unless by the supposition that some

traces may yet remain of a compact very recently
dissolved, and that brick-bats, bludgeons, and pa-
ving-stones are weapons which are still deemed ap-
propriate only to the peculiar occasions in which
murderous mobs and revolutionary Ministers are in
close confederacy with each other. The terror by
which the Ministerial candidates are agitated, lest
those whom they used to designate as the people
should employ against their own precious persons
that kind of lawless violence which the present
Ministry, and all connected with and apper-
taining to it have hitherto so sedulously and
anxiously patronised, is at once ludicrous and
instructive. This agony of apprehension has
compelled them to draw their purse-strings
wide enough, or to draw upon the secret
service money of Government, which is probably
much the same thing, so deeply as to induce the
Times to write against the violence of mobs, to
affect contempt for the power and authority of
mobs, arid even to extol the vigour of the Magi-
stracy and the efficiency of the police. It must have
cost the Times much every way—much violence to
the nature and habits of its conductors—much loss
of circulation among the classes to whose gratifica-
tion its lucubrations have been studiously and syste-
matically adapted for so long a period—to publish
such a passage as we are about to transcribe. There
must, of course, have been a suitable equivalent of-
fered on the part of those whose panic compelled
them to invoke this unparalleled tergiversation.
The compensation must .have been enormous, and
the terror in the same degree overwhelming, for hear
the brickbat and bludgeon Journal of the King's
present Ministers:—

" There is a report—of which, and of the grounds for
it, the civil authorities are well apprised—that some of
those disaffected and lawless men who have been habitual
attendants at the Rotunda and other non-.reputable places,
have prepared plans for obstructing in tlitir progress to
the poll such voters as go to support Sir John Hobhouse
in Westminster, Mr. Babhage in Finsbury, Mr. Portman
and another respectable candidate in Murylebone, and so
on. This projected ruffianism there are abundant means
to crush. If Colonel Evans have not that influence which
we are sure he would wish to have with his own declared
partisans, to keep them from committing acts of outrage
upon the persons of his adversary's voters, he may de-
pend upon it that there is another influence amply suffi-
cient for such a salutary purpose. There is now at the
disposal of the Magistrates a body of 4,000 or 5,000 stout
policemen, one-tenth of whom would break to pieces in
a few minutes the most daring mob that ever showed its

...... .
face among the streets of Westminster."
The old thirst for blood, the habitual delight in
the contemplation of " broken heads," the incen-
tives just as before to " strike in their faces," are
here visible enough, the only difference being that
For a sufficient consideration our contemporary has

been for once induced to transpose the agent and

he victims. \Ve believe that the admonitions and

the threats of the Ministerial journal are as unne-
cessary, in the actual temper of the lower orders
of the people in the metropolis, as, from the emi-
nent past services of that journal to the cause of

Ministers, we are certain that if necessary they
would be inefficacious. Ignorant and stupid as
are the mobs of every great town, they are not
so ignorant and stupid as their former flatterer
now affects to consider them. They know when
they have friends in high places. They know when
the subordinate authorities of the State may ex-
pect reward and promotion, and when they must
calculate upon prisons and prosecution on the part
of their superiors for the vigilant and vigorous dis-
charge of their duty. They will, therefore, not
meddle with Sir Francis Burdett or Sir John Cam
Hobhouse, or their voters, otherwise than by those
somewhat rough but characteristic and ordinary ex-
pression of their opinions which have always been to-
lerated upon similar occasions, and, if they were dis-
posed to do so, they would scarcely be dissuaded
from their purpose by the moral or prudential homi-
lies of the " brickbat and bludgeon" Journal. The
Secretary at War did not, we hope, expect to be
sprinkled with rose water and perfumed by incense
at this election. His whole political life has been
spent in teaching the people to expect much that
he as a man of ordinary sense and ordinary educa•
tion must have known to be impossible. He has
taken office, and more than this, he has taken the
particular office which more than any other was sure.,
to plai7e his official and his unofficial opinions in the
most striking contrast, and upon a subject too with
respect to which it is not dishonourable to have been
easily misled and inflamed by such men as he was
when he was the popular Member for West-
minster. Is not this enough to try the patience
and temper of the people ? That the opinions
upon this subject upon which Sir John has
acted since he came into office are the cor-
rect ones may or may not be true ; but it is
certainly true that they are the opposite opinions to
those which he laboured for years, and not without
success, to instil into the people. The magical wand
by which he is transformed has not been applied to
them, and, as is quite natural, they bestow upon him
the full measure of hatred and contempt which he
truly earned, not by acting upon sound principles in
office, but for teaching erroneous principles when in ,
opposition. The appointment of Sir John Cam
Hobhouse to the office of Secretary at War was an

outrage upon the feelings of the people whom he
had misled and inflamed, of which no other than a
Whig Administration could by possibility have been
guilty. The people of England will never, we
trust, be flexible and servile enough to please the
Whigs, who evidently can be satisfied with nothing
less than that the public should have two sets of
principles and two sets of feelings, to be laid aside or
produced alternately at their pleasure, which pleasure
is to be wholly dependent upon the circumstances of
their party being in or out of office.—Morning Post.
The metropolitan nominations on Saturday last
went off without riot, and that is all that can be said
of them. As for anticipating any results in favour
of this or that candidate from conjectures founded
on a mere " show of hands," nothing, of course,
would be more foolish. The multitudes which on
such occasions flock round the hustings, from idle-
ness, curiosity, or political excitement, are seldom,
indeed never, composed of electors; they represent
the rabble feeling, and none else, and are invariably
partisans of that candidate who will go the most
extravagant lengths towards an overthrow of law
and the substitution of disorder and licentiousness.
At Covent-garden the mob received the " Rump"
champion with acclamations, which, as Colonel
Evans is a gentleman, must have severely humbled
him. Amongst the marks of opprobrium with
which it was their purpose to visit Sir John Hob-
house, some of these fellows, we are told, exhi-
bited cats-o'-nine-rails, as if the present Secre-
tary at War were not one of the most strenuous
advocates for the cessation of flogging in the army.
It is difficult to imagine a perversion of truth and
justice more disgraceful than is implied in the
charge against the present Secretary at War—that
he is averse to the abolition of all such unmanly
and revolting punishments. Were there no other
proof (although it is but one of a thousand) that
Sir John Hobhouse watches with intense and un-
remitting vigilance the treatment experienced by the
British soldier from those whom he invests with
authority over him, we might refer to his conduct
in the affair of Major Wyndham and private So-
merville of the Scotch Greys for a complete refuta-
tion of the calumny. Those who make it a crime
in Sir John Hobhouse that he has abridged his own

free agency by his acceptance of office under the
Reform Cabinet, are not, perhaps, aware, or have
chosen to forget, that in the case of Somerville the
Right Hon. Baronet actually made his retention of
the War Secretaryship dependent on the institution
of a rigorous inquiry into the facts at issue between
the parties. He carried his point against the frowns
and peevishness of those whom it was difficult to
deal with, and the consequence was, a strict inves-
tigation and a full disclosure of the truth. Col. Evans,
not a month ago, declared that Sir John Hobhouse,
as Member for Westminster, had " done nothing
►o forfeit the confidence of the constituency." Yet,
ill his official character of Secretary at War, he
had long before that period brought in the Annual
Mutiny Bill. By the " mob-led" Colonel's former
declaration, therefore, the proposal of the Mutiny
Bill by Sir John Hobhouse was no political delin-
quency ; yet we find him in his harangue from the
hustings, on Saturday, dwelling on that official and
unavoidable act av one which evinced in the Secre-
tary at War a signal inconsistency and dereliction of
public principle ! It carries a sort of laughable
suspicion with it, that this tool of the " Rump," and
plaything of the rabble,—we mean the voluble and
pledge-bound Colonel Evans, should fall with so
heavy a hand upon the new police, as a force so
much less eligible than the " ancient and reverend"
watchmen. The reason for getting rid of the old
watch was, that they watched nothing, they pro-
tected nothing; had they cost the parishes but
half-a-crown per thousand, it would have been so
much money thrown away. The police, on the
contrary, have become a most efficient and trust-
worthy protection to life and property. They cost,
it is said—but we are not sure with what justice—
considerably more than the discarded old women of
the parishes, and so they ought ; they perform some
valuable service,—the watch, as we have said,
did not perform any, or worse than none, for
they were often in league with offenders. But the
especial distinction of the police force is, that the
mob are everywhere in fear (f it. Is that the mo-
tive of the " mob-led" candidate for evincing such
hatred of the police ? Does he really wish that the
rabble should have carte blanche—that every candi-
date who resisted mob law should, with his voters,

be at the mercy of the mob; and that by outrage
and brutality of every sort all electors should be
driven from the polling booths, save only those in
the interest of the " Destructive" candidate ;—is
that, we ask, the scheme of Colonel Evans ? If so,
it is worthy of some at least of his supporters. But
it is an additional ground, we submit, for the deter-
mined opposition of all honest men, to send such
candidates as Colonel Evans about their business as

speedily as possible. So in Marylebone. We have
already touched on the appearance of versonage of
ihe name of Murphy in that quarter. The question
asked by every body is, what business has be to
to draw upon himself the attention of so important
a borough ? However, a day or two ►will dispose of
him ; his light ►will go out for lack of fuel. But really
one ►would think that all Bedlam, to say nothing
of private madhouses, had broke loose when Sir
something-or-other Whalley mounts the hustings

of Marylehon,. What are this Knight's preten-
sions ? Was he bred a Statesman—for we know
not what other profession has yet rejoiced in him ?
Is he a man of independent fortune, or, what is more
important, of independent c' aracter ? The electors
have a right to ask. It is their positive right to
know his history, and all that concerns him—to
know his political principles, and whether he is of
the Reform or " re-model" school. There are,
without disparagement to any others be it said, two
gentlemen among the candidates for Marylebone,
who could riot disappoint any reasonable expecta-
tion that intelligent Reformers would entertain at
the hands of their representatives. Mr. Portman's
name and reputation as a landlord and Member of
Parliament, are ample guarantees for the discharge
of the most important duties. The Solicitor-Gene-
ral, Sir William Horne, is a public functionary,
brought forward by the Reform Government, and,
having their confidence, would neither betray it nor
his own professional character; he is a learned and
upright gen tleman,Col. Jones, again, must always have
our personal kind wishes in every honourable under-
taking; but if he feels that he cannot possibly
succeed in Marylebone, we need not ask him, as au
upright and generous man, what course he would pre-
scoihe to another candidate, similarly circumstanced
as he is now, in the actual state of parties. In
Finsbury, we will not for a moment allow ourselves I

to believe that Mr. Babbage's election can be injured
by Mr. Wakley. An infamous attempt has been
made to represent this enlightened man as the ad-
vocate of negro-slavery ; as if intelligence and bar-
barism could ever be associates ! For the general
results of this election we have no shadow of alarm :
generally speaking, we are confident that the bulk
of the House of Commons will be worthy of the
intelligent and high-principled constituency from
which it will spring. Mere pretenders will not bear
close examination. Let but due care be taken by
the civil authorities that the public peace be not
flagrantly violated,and that the electors of all parties
have full protection from all personal outrage, and
the nation can have nothing to apprehend for the

general character of the first Refer:Med Parliamen

In the course of the present week, the elections
will have begun, and in the metropolis and its dis-
tricts have finished ere its close. The Times still

continues its ravings against pledges, and its denun-
ciations against the party it terms the " Destruc-
tives"—by whom are meant all those who dare in
any county, city, or borough, set themselves up in
opposition to a Ministerial Whig. Under this
dread, it is calling on the Conservatives to join the
Whigs, rather than contribute to the triumph of the
Radicals or " Destructives." In this line of con-
duct the Times is acting a strange contradictory
part. One day it is accusing the Conservatives of
setting the country in a flame by calling public meet-
ings to oppose the Dutch war, and the next, it is in.
viting them to join the Ministerialists in their endea-
vours to withstand the progress of the Radical
" Destructives." For our parts, we see no danger
in the event of the success of the latter. They, we
are persuaded, have no desire to violate public faith
or injure private property—at the same time we
believe it is their wish to cut down our expensive
establishments to the lowest possible point con-
sistent with the welfare of the nation. Such a

course of action would probably be as unpalatable to
a Whig as to a Tory Administration, for when in
power each is in a degree compelled to be the de-
fender of abuses which it is unable or unwilling to
remedy. " Economy," as a writer in the Morning
Chronicle well observes, is "destruction to all wbo
profit by abuses and extravagance—if the spider
could speak, it would term the besom destructive."

The Times, intending, no doubt, to support his
Majesty's patriotic Ministers, is labouring hard to
divide the Reformers into two parties,—those who
would treat the Reform Act as a final measure, and
those who are bent on obtaining from that Act a
great many important consequences. With this
view, the Times is become all at once highly Con-

servative. I❑ language worthy of the—Morning
Post or the John Bull, he attacks those electors
who require, and those candidates who give, pledges;
bestowing on them the title of " Destructives,"
which he has taken either from the Standard or
Blackwood's Magazine, who frequently use it when
speaking of the Ministers and their supporters.
Now the fury of the Times on this occasion may
serve one present object of the Ministers—it may
procure some votes for Whig candidates from the

electors who are easily alarmed; but in other re-
spects it seems calculated for endless mischief. The
great circulation of the Times, and its supposed
connexion with the Government, give it extensive
influence. In this case, it speaks as the partisan of

Ministers; and, however the fact may be, the public
will suppose that Ministers approve of the following
attack upon pledge-asking electors and pledge-giving
candidates

‘‘ A system has been yot up by certain mountebanks,
under the operation of which no such thing as cool delibe-
ration or individual opinion can henceforth have the
slightest icfluence in directing the votes of Parliament, but
the whole body of measures for the next seven, or five, or
three years, or whatever may be the duration of that as-
sembly, not merely in their outline, but in all their pro-
gressive and intermediate stages, down to the most minute
details, are now, on the eve of the election, to be handed
over by paltry knots of busy and conceited meddlers
seizing the dictatorship on every hustings throughout the,
empire,—handed over, we repeat, ready cut and dry, by
these Jack Cade grandees, who assume to give orders to
every candidate, in the name of his constituents generally,
though without one particle of authority from them."

The fact, however, is, that " the whole body of
measures " on which pledges have been given or
required, amounts to about six. In some cases,
truly, more than six pledges have been offered,—as,
for example, by Me. William Brougham, who has
offered eleven; but no where, it strikes us, have
more than six been required. Sir John Hobhouse
refused to give—only four. So much for " the
whole body of measures for the next seven, or five,
or three years." In the next place, what are the
six questions on which pledges have been most com-
monly demanded? Repeal of the Septennial Act,
Vote by Ballot, Church Reform, Abolition of
Slavery, Repeal of the Corn Laws, Repeal of the
Taxes on Knowledge. All electors, then, who ask
for pledges on these subjects and all candidates who
give them, are, according to the Times, speaking for
the Whig Government, mountebanks, paltry knots,
busy conceited meddlers, Jack Cade grandees,—
Destructives! Mr. Hume, whose excessive regard
for " property " makes him no favourite with the
Abolitionists, is a Jack Cade grandee; Mr. Thornely
of Liverpool, one of the most sober of candidates, is
a mountebank ; Mr. Grote the banker, whose mo-
desty and extreme caution have rendered him hitherto
less useful than he might have been, is a busy con-
ceited meddler ; and all these, with Mr. Marshall
of Leeds, Mr. Gregory, one of the candidates for
Stamford, Mr. Gurney of Norwich, Mr. Babbage,
and Mr. Briscoe—all candidates, in short, who pro-
nuse to represent the opinions of electors, and all
electors who wish to be represented, are—llestruc-
hives. So be it ; but if so, the Times must be
reckoned amongst the Conservative journals, along
with the Morning Post, the Guardian, the
Standard, and ,Tobri Bull; and, if Ministers approve
of the Conservative tone lately adopted by the
"ones, they may as well make peace with the
Tories; for, in that case, between Whig and Tory
them would be no difference except in name. Let
us hope, however, that the Whigs are not bent on