The Sun.
London, England, 1835-11-13 00:00:00

A dinner was given to the Liberal. Representatives for
Bath on Wednesday last, at which above seven hundred
electors of the city attended. A large building, formerly
used as a riding-school, was fitted up for the occasion in a
very elegant and handsome manner. The walls were deco-
rated with evergreens and artificial flowers, in various de-
vices. A raised platform was erected for the accommoda-
tion of the principal visitors ; two galleries, extending the
whole length of the building, were appropriated, to the use
of the ladies ; and an instrumental band was stationed in a
third gallery at the end of the room, opposite to the prin-.
cipal table. A variety of elegant banners and transparent
paintings, with appropriate devices, were displayed iu dif-
ferent parts of the room, which was splendidly illuminated
a ith jets of gas ; and to the lively and beautiful appearance
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of the very extensive arrangements had been executed
umi cr the, superintendence of a committee of twenty-five,
and too much praise cannot be bestowed either on the man-
ner in which they discharged their preliminary duties, or the
attentive solicitude with which they consulted the comfort
of the numerous guests. William Hunt, Esq., presided ;
on his right sat General Palmer, M.P., and Joseph Hume,
Esq., M.P. ; and on his left, Mr. Roebuck, M.P., and
Colonel Napier.
The dinner having concluded,
The CHAIRMAN gave " The King."—(Loud cheers.)
" The People, the source of all legitimate power."—
(Drunk with great cheering.)
The CHAIRMAN then said, that the next toast he had to
propose was " Her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria."
—(Cheers.) It was a toast which._ came with peculiar
propriety from the Radicals, who had shown the liveliest
interest in protecting her rights. He would not say that
those rights bad been openly assailed ; but recent circum-
stances had brought to light a train of things which
evinced rather a questionable intention, to say the least of
it, on the part of the Tories towards the Princess.-4-(Ve-
hement cheering.) When the Radicals wanted to attain
an object, they came forward and declared their intention
in an open, honest, and constitutional way. But what was
there, he should like to ask, either open, honest, or consti-
tutional in Orange Lodges ?—Loud cheers.) Were secret
clubs, secret meetings, and secret oaths, any indication of
open or honour4le designs ?—(Cheers.) He had thought
that the Tories were exceedingly tenacious of the inde-
feasible right of kings, and that they regarded the steps of
the throne as something like holy ground. Their unhal-
lowed lust of power, however, had convinced him of his
error—the veil had been torn from this precious epitome
of Tory loyalty ; Mr. Hume had shown that Radicalism
and loyalty could go hand in hand, and that the defenders
of the people's rights were not slow to become the defend-
ers of the Crown when its rights were assailed.—(Loud
cheers.) He did not know what might be the political
bias of the Princess Victoria—indeed, he should think her
too youthful to have formed any very strong impressions on
political subjects ; but early kindnesses made very deep im-
pressions, and he hoped she would take the tone and tenor
of her sentiments from that party which had shown the most
lively interest in protecting her rights.—(Cheers.) The
toast was drunk with the greatest enthusiasm.
The next toast was—" The Duke of Sussex—(Loud
cheers)—and the Royal Family."—(Partial cheering, and
loud cries of " No Cumberland.")
The CHAIRMAN, in proposing " Ilis Majesty's Ministers,
and may they persevere in those reforms which the people
require," observed that they had expected to have been
honoured with the presence of Lord John Russell and Sir
John liobhouse ; but engagements, distance, and other cir-
cumstances over which those distinguished gentlemen had
no controul, had precluded them from attending. They had,
however, individually authorised him to state, that they felt
the greatest interest in the present meeting, and that their
sentiments entirely accorded with the great body of those
who composed it.—(Cheers.)
The next toast was--" The Army and Navy."
Colonel NAPIER returned thanks. He must beg leave
for a few moments to separate his character of a soldier
from that of a citizen—not that he considered the two in-
compatible, but because he bore in mind the answer made
of old by a celebrated architect, the most eminent man of
his day, to the friends who reproached him with an abject
spirit, for tamely submitting to the caprices and censures of
the Roman Emperor Adrian. "It would not do (said the
architect) to dispute with the master of forty legions." It would
as little do to dispute with the legions themselves ; and ha
(Colonel Napier), therefore, hoped that, on that occasion, he
should avoid committing the error into which other eine( rs
had been recently led on similar occasions. Those officers hal
taken upon themselves to declare, not only what were the
opinions of the army at large on certain political questions, but
even what that army would do in the event of certain circum-
stances arising which those persons anticipated. This he con-
sidered extremely arrogant and presumptuous, seeing that
soldiers, like other men, were of various minds. As the
representative of the army and navy for the time being, he
thanked them for the compliment they had paid .him, be-
cause he believed it to be only a compliment, and wholly
unconnected with political considerations. He regarded it
only as an expression of that good-will which Englis:anen—
and Englishwomen, too, he should hope—(Great cheering,
and a general gaze at the ladies in the galleries)-elaern al-
ways ready to show to a plain man, who, having ,under-
taken to defend them against foreign enemies, had honour-
ably fulfilled his contract.—(Loud cheers.) Having said
thus much as a soldier, he would now resume his character
of a citizen, and in that capacity he would add for himself,
th'at he trusted and believed the British army would never
seek to meddle in any manner with political discussions.
He did not mean by this to admit the truth of the axiom,
that soldiers, as individuals, had nothing to do with politics,
an axiom which had been pushed to such an absurd extent,
that he had been frequently asked how he, a soldier, writ-
ing the history of the Peninsular war, should dare to med-
dle with the political questions connected with it. It was
sometimes put forward in ignorance, but far more fre-
quently in craft ; because it was much oftener in the
mouths of Tories than in those of other people.—(Cheers.)
He found that it was these very persons who had most fre-
quently in their mouths threats of what soldiers would do
against domestic foes and traitors—meaning always by do-
mestic foes and traitors any persons who, like that meet-
ing, were seeking for good and cheap government.—(Loud
cheers.) The sting that rankled in their breasts, though,
was the cheap government ; for though they had a strong
abstract love of tyranny, they had an inordinate love of
gain.—(Loud cheers and laughter.) Now, it was the duty
of soldiers—of English soldiers at least—to think and act
like other citizens ; it was the duty of the soldier to know
whether he was a free man fighting to maintain free institu-
tions, or whether he was a mere murderer, hired to slay or
be slain.—(Cheers.) It was the duty of the English sol-
dier to love liberty, for that nerved the soul- to noble
daring ; it was his duty also to be civilized and acquainted
with its meaning, that he might avoid that ferocity of heart
which degraded the high-minded, gallant, national soldier,
and converted him into a blood-stained mercenary.—
(Cheers.) If a soldier did not know, and did not love the
blessings arising from free institutions ; if he did not know
and love the social happiness springing from an equality of
just rights—in God's name how was he to fight as a soldier
for the national cause ? Would it he said that his pay
would support him amid all the privations and toils of war?
What if it failed ? What if the shilling a day was not
forthcoming ? Must the light and lamp of England's mi-
litary renown among the nations of the world flicker and
sink away, because the golden oil that fed it once had
failed?—(Loud cheers.) He trusted they would believe
him when he told them from experience that this had never
been, and never would be, the character of the English
soldier. He bad seen hundreds of these gallant men toil-
ing and struggling with the most undaunted spirit against
all the horrors of war—horrors of which those who had
not seen war, as he had seen it, could form no adequate
idea. He had seen them struggling against its accumu-
lated evils until Nature, quite exhausted, they had dropped
dead upon_the field—not with any weak lamentations—
not with any wailings for their own hard fate, but with the
heart-stirring, soul-inspiring aspiration that it mattered not
—they died for the glory of England.—(Cheers.) What was
England to these men ? Not the mere soil, the dirt that,
they trod under their feet. No ; in England they remem-
bered the country of the free institutions that had nurtured
them in moral pride and dignity—England, the home of
their fathers, and the protector of their children when they
were gone. This it was that made England a country to
them in the burning sense of the word, and this it was that
would always, in the long run, make free men victorious
over mercenaries and hirelings.—(Loud cheers.) These
institutions, then, he held, it should be the object of every,
wise and patriotic man to preserve and to maintain.; and it
was in this view that he hailed that great meeting with
delight. He hailed it with delight, because he saw in it,
not only a tribute of respect to their distinguished guests,
but a declaration on the part of that meeting to the world
that they were numerous, that they were determined, and
that they would improve and maintain those institutions,
which, like gallant soldiers to whom he had alluded, they,
were resolved to preserve even unto the death for the glory
of England.—(lmmense cheering.) They were met to ,
tell the people of England that it was not Mr. Hume, Mr. ,
Roebuck, or General Palmer, whose voices they heard- itli,i
the House of Commons calling for free institutions
denouncing corruption ; but the organs of the peoplerrista
England, who spoke through them now in mild and tefideVil
accents, as became men who sought only to govern fiyu
reason, but which might be swelled by the hoarse !wanton
of an indignant nation, until the stern sounds slten44. S,4listea
the boldest of their adversaries.—(Great chee,ris4* 4.44,7,
not know exactly whether he had any right to del tif sethein
in this strain, or even to address freemen at all, for he had