The Sun.
London, England, 1832-06-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Sir Robert Peel has, more than once, volun-1
teered Parliamentary allusions to the Duke of
Wellington, which, whatever may have been the
motive for risking them, could not fail to be re-
garded by his Grace as not merelyintrusive, but
offensive. Every one recollects that the smooth-
faced Baronet took pains to manage the defence
of his own conduct, on the late occasion of an
expected change of Ministry, in such a manner,
as of necessity to heap reproach and shame upon
the Duke of Wellington, just in the same de-
gree in which it exonerated Sir Robert Peel from
censure. If the Duke ever forgives the candid
speech made on that occasion, he is more
pigeon-livered than we think him. But
Sir Robert was not long in finding another
opportunity of left-handed tenderness towards
his illustrious friend. The late outrage upon
his Grace was too good a thing to he lost by the
protecting baronet. So good indeed, that he
dragged it in by head and shoulders, upon the
discussion of Wednesday's address of attach-
ment to the King. We should like to hear any
rational account of the connexion subsisting in
nature, or analogy, between those two disgusting
occurrences. We should like to hear it plainly
and soberly stated, what connexion there was
between the posse of ruffians who expressed at
Lincoln's-inn and elsewhere, in a brutal manner,
their dislike of the Duke of Wellington, because
of the general unpopularity of his politics, and
the vindictive rascal (perhaps maniac) Collins,
who at Ascot-heath, from a feeling of con fess•
edly private vengeance, outraged the sacred per-
son of the King. There was no particle nor
shadow of pretext for forcing in the name or
mob-adventures of the Duke of Wellington upon
an occasion which had as little to say to them as
the attack by Peg Nicholson on George 111., or
that of the wretched fanatic by whom Louis
XV. was wounded. However, such as it
was, Sir Robert Peel would have it. He would
a second time be the guardian of his illustrious
repudiator--for such has the Duke of Welling-
ton long since become. Then for the method
of doing it. The Duke of Wellington has in
every company made a laughing matter of a
scene, wherein there was not a decent individual
within sight or hearing, who did not regard
with disgust the assaults of the ruffian multitude.
The Duke, we say, acts wisely in treating the
whole business with contempt. Not so, how-
ever, his Right Hon. protector. His wisdom
was of another qu Ality. For if the outrage
could be magnified and made much of—if the
attempt to injure the Duke could be blown up
into an association with prodigious public ex-
citement, and worked into an evidence of the
dreadfid unpopularity which attached to the
name and person of the Duke of Wellington, it
is a clear case that the Duke would be pro tanto
lowered in the political scale, as a candidate for
power, and by consequence, that certain other
persons would have more of the field to them-
selves ! So much for the views with which vo-
lunteer protection may now and then be granted.
So much for the dexterity of your prudent and
long-sighted people. Nobody is better prepared
than the Duke of Wellington to encounter open
enemies, and dispose of them ; but his Grace
may not always have been equally successful ill
swinging clear of his friends.—Times.
The Jacobinical opinions of Joseph Surface,
and his notions of the law of constructive trea-
son, are extremely amusing and edifying. The
Right Honourable Baronet, Sir Robert Peel,
ingeniously contrived, for palpable party pur-
poses, to couple the scandalous attack on his
Majesty by a wretched maniac with the vulgar
violence of a low metropolitan mob against the
Duke of Wellington ; and thence, by that artful
and cunning logic of the old Parliamentary and
horoughmongering school of politicians, to fasten
the responsibility and origin of the two outrages
on the Reformers, with the usual spice of ma-
levolence against the cause of Reform. The
Right Honourable Baronet entertains peculiar
doctrines of ,‘ equality," in thus characterizing as
the same crime treason against the King and a
common assault and battery on the person of
an obnoxious political subject.: We do not think
that lie will find favour in the sight of the
good old Tories, and the Courtiers of the
old regime. A more despicable device of a
party-man was never displayed within the
walls of St. Stephen's Chapel: and we are
glad to know that it is received with the
dis-
gust due to the barefaced acting of the artificial
orator, who made such a vulgar abuse of politi-
cal debate. It is equally amusing to see Mr.
John Wilson Croker, one of the invariable dra-
matis personer in the cast of these political
farces. In vain may these two remnants of the
Castlereagh class of politicians attempt to vamp
up the fallen public character of the Duke of
Wellington. The political reputation of his
Grace can never be redeemed ; he may be eter-
nally played off in conjunction with associations
of royalty and loyalty, but the country has com-
mitted the remains of his Grace's political in-
tegrity to the grave of inconsistent and unprin-
cipled politicians. The time was when the
name of the Duke of Wellington was formi-
dable in his native land, but the spell is broken ;
it no longer denotes any terrors. The events of
last month have dissolved that charm by the dis-
play of popular power infinitely superior to the
mysterious gunpowder associations heretofore
connected with the military name of the Noble
Duke. Contempt has supplanted respect ;
and the honest men of all parties de-
pise the craft which the recent pseudo Tory
gambols of opinion have exposed to public scorn
and derision. The miscarriage of the plot—its
breakage in the egg-shell from its own rottenness
--not a little contributed to the complete de-
struction of the public influence of those men
who attempted to destroy the Cabinet of Lord
i
Grey, that they might adopt its principles f they
could but. obtain the seals of his offices. And
let not Sir Robert Peel flatter or conceit himself
that his selfish and bungling attempts to escape
detection, and to avoid all past participation iu
the past transactions and Court intrigues, have
ameliorated his own personal condition. True
it is that Sir Robert Peel, by sacrificing the po-
litical honesty of the Duke of Wellington (in
his memorable and never-to•be-forgotten speech
on the miserable plot to form a new and tempo-
rary Administration), vainly sought to draw a
veil over his own schemes and future intentions ' •
but the monk's hood did not conceal his face,
and he stands before the country more disgrace-
fully
culpable than the would-he Premier, be-
cause lacking the courage to take a step which
he (Sir R. Peel) originally stimulated another
to take. Warming-pan places are well-known
utensils in the scullery of politics. The public
now fully discern and comprehend the whole
chicanery. We recommend the Right Hon.
Baronet to employ himself in the ensuing long

vacation at his seat, Tamworth, in learning the
alphabet of political sincerity, and studying the