The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-23 00:00:00

Mr. O'Connell has been exposed to a different treat-
ment, and without provoking the indignation which,
in the case of any Englishman, such treatment would
not fail to excite. In this our adversaries have had
encouragement. It denotes prejudices and jealousies
which, if found to any depth, will be a precious mine
of mischief to the Tories. Let this hope be realized,
and they will use the foibles of the people for their
division, their conquest, and their punishment.
Wherever there is a weak place in the national charac-
ter, there our enemies have a hold; and entertaining,
as they do, an insolent contempt for the people, they
fancy their power of tampering with the prejudices far
greater than we believe it wil; prove ; but yet they
have a greater advantage of this sort than we can see
with composure.
We observe a mean, a pusillanimous truckling' to
the Tory clamour against O'Connell, which gives us
much disgust. Even some friends, nay, Members of
the Ministry, seem to think it a fine thing to intimate
plainly that they think of Mr. O'Connell pretty much
as their virulent enemies do. One gentleman of liberal
professions, Mr. Hanbury, the candidate for Northamp-
tonshire, supported by Mr. Vernon Smith, would not
admit that he was behind the Tories in hatred of the
Representative of the Irish nation. All men who hold
this sort of language are in effect fighting in the Tory
ranks, no matter what their nominal position may be.
We have seen the single point at which the enemy
have been perseveringly driving for the last twelve-
month, and the Whigs, and Radicals (if there be any
such), who co-operate in the attack, are aiding and
abetting in the design. Sir Robert Peel, when he un-
dertook the Government last December, built his hopes
of success upon disunion between the O'Connell party
and the Whigs. He was disappointed. He had " sold
the bear's skin before he had killed it ;" the Tories,
having seen the error, are now beginning at the be-
ginning, and endeavouring to get the bear into their
toils, and some of their Liberal antagonists are very
busily at work assisting them in digging the pit. Sir
Robert was out in his reckoning upon disunion, and
assumed the Government before the ground was broken
for it in divisions on the popular side ; but now his
party are proceeding more metnodically, in aiming at
producing a disunion, which would be as much without
future remedy, as without present excuse ; and marvel-
lous to behold, professed Reformers and Ministerialists
are lending themselves to the destructive design ! And,
on the part of the latter persons, what is the object—what
have they in view—what would they have—what
do they desire ? To repudiate O'Connell may sound
very fine, and vastly gentlemanly ; but if a quarrel
with him were the thing in the world- most to be
wished, how are we to set about it ? So long as he
supports the present Ministry, because its policy con-
forms with the principles he deems just and beneficial,
how is he to be thrown off, without throwing off also
every claim to the support of the people ? The way
to quarrel with Mr. O'Connell would be to pass the
Irish Tithe Bill without the appropriation clause ; to
drop the excellent project of Municipal Reform ; to
govern Ireland by the Orange faction, instead of the
rule of impartial justice, first established by Lord
Mulgrave ; to provoke by every insult, oppression, and
iniquity, the fierce passions of the people, and then to
break the sword of violence in execution upon them.
By this course the quarrel would be had with O'Con-
nell, and soon brought to an issue ; but the Govern-
ment would fall into the hands of the Tories, with the
first move to their abhorred policy.
To diminish the influence of Mr. O'Connell would
be another and a very different sort of task, far easier ;
and we earnestly recommend it as in every way better
than the quarrel.

The influence of O'Connell rests on the grievances
of his country—a broad basis, certainly, but on which
it will be a labour of love to contract. Every wrong
. ..

that is redressed—every oppression that is lightened—
every abuse that is removed—is so much taken from
the foundation of O'Connell's power. To undermine
it nothing is necessary but just Government, a few
years of which would leave O'Connell little more of
hold on his countrymen, than what should be all to him
—the gratitude of a happy, an elevated, and a pros-
perous people.

. .
In making these remarks, we shall not be suspected
of partiality, as we have never been blind to the faults
of Mr. O'Connell, nor silent upon them, for-we have
regarded them at once as disgraces and impediments to
his good cause. In the intoxication of his northern
tour, when others were applauding the. triumph, our
congratulations were wanting, for we foresaw the acid
fermentation to which all those sweets would turn.
The Ministerial press pursued another course, and
committed more than its usual blunder in adulating
O'Connell ; for in his true proportions of power and
merit, he was obnoxious enough to envy and jealousy,
more especially as an Irishman.
Among the Ministerialists who now delight in re-
pudiating O'Connell, are some who arc quite free from
any sentiment of national prejudice or jealousy of any
kind, and it is with them a matter of taste to dislike
the co-operation of O'Connell—or rather, we believe,
we should more correctly say—to dislike their obliga-
tions to O'Connell. Persons of this way of feeling
remind us of ]Esop's stag, who took sadly to
heart the ugliness of his legs, and grieved that they
were so unworthy of the beauty of his horns. The
next time that the hunters were at his heels, he was
oaught in the thicket by his antlers, and as the hounds
were rushing on to destroy him, he too late be-
wailed the injustice he had done to the despised legs
that would best have befriended him in his need.—
Examiner.

The immense wealth of Mr. Bowes, father of the
late Countess of Strathmore, arose in great part from his
mines in Durham. He paid in tithe to the rector of one
parish in an equitable modes of 700/. per annum. The
living, exclusive of this, was worth only 1001. The rector
became covetous of a larger modes, and demanded 1,000/.
per annum. Mr. Bowes desired a few days to consider
the matter. In the interim he sent for his head miner, and
gave him orders to shut up the shaft then in use, and to
open one in the next parish, where was a very poor living.
He then sent word to the covetous man that the shaft was
shut up, and should never be opened while -the living was
held by him.