The Sun.
London, England, 1832-05-17 00:00:00

for which, when done by him, they were to trust aril.
maintain his awn.. Foul, indeed, in other times and na-
tions, have been the deeds of public men, unblushing
their falsehood, audacious their tergiversation ; but still
there has been some pretended palliation for their crime—
some alleged alloy in their depravity. They have excused
the breach of faith by the impossibility of keeping it—they
have couched the low asperities of party in the exalted
phrase of patriotism ; the mask they have worn may have
been thin, very thin ; but they hare sirorn one. They
have neglected virtue, not defied her,--they have sneered
at troth, not trampled on it. It was reserved for the Duke
of Wellington alone to parade before the abhorrent eyes of
England ambition in all its reckless selfishness—insince-
rity in all its naked hideousness. Oh, what a fall is here I
A few months past, and meet of all parties and opinions
spoke of this man with some respect. The Reformers
might call hint arbitrary or bigoted ; but still they said
the Duke was honest. They liked him, for he always
spoke his mind ; no trick, no subterfuge in him. They
distrusted Lyndhurst, and despised Ellenborough ; but the
Duke was an honourable adversary. If be opposed the
Government, they thought it was from conviction, and
not for personal or party ends; or, if he might be called a
partisan, it was for the privileges— just as he believed
them—of his order, not for place that he was fighting.
What, then, does this man feel, when he hears one
dreadful chorus of scorn and indignation rising from a
no-longer deluded people, drowning the feeble clamours
of his military parasites ; when his effigies are given
to the tire, and his pictures to the hangman,
and his very name is become a byword for dis-
honour in the mouths of men of every political
opinion ? We answer—nothing, He who could so brave
universal obloquy and contempt for any earthly distinction,
must be insensible to the pangs they are supposed to inflict
on a►l mankind. But will the people of England endure
this public insult to all truth and ♦irtue ? Is their mo-
rality sunk so low that they vlew as calm spectators the
triumphant pageant of iniquity ? Will they accept the
medicine of their ills from such a poisoned hand ? Will
they take the Bill or any Bill from one so mired with in-
famy. No I we trust, and we believe they will not. Com-
pared with such a question as this, that of Reform itself
shrinks to insignificance. Valued, as it has long been
by the nation, as the means of good—valued as it now is
as the end itself, it were better that Reform should be in-
definitely protracted, than that our countrymen shrufd
manifest, by their acquiescence in the rule of this " triple-
turned" 3linister, that they have ❑o longer any love or
sympathy for virtue, any hatred or antipathy for vice;
that this our still glorious realm of England should brand
itself before the eyes of Europe with that most degrading
of all characters, which, provided it obtains its object,
cares not for the guilt or injustice of the means by which
it wins it, and can calmly and supinely see the authors of
its good the victims of a heroism of which their treache
roue enemies reap the benefits.—Morning Chronicle.

It will be a proud ri flection for the people of England if
they carry the great question of Reform by moral force
alone. The victory, in itself, will be great, but 'he means
by which it shall have been achieved will render it more
glorious. It will give success to that pure lustre which
belongs only to the triumphs of mind, when great acts of
political deliverance are accomplished by the power of
public opinion—by efforts of national energy without in-
temperance, and by the array of irresistible strength, un-
sullied by ferocity. From the time that the alarming an-
nouncement was made of the King having withdrawn his
support from the Reform Bill, the people of Great Britain,
from one end of the island to the other, have shown, cer-
tainly, not any want of vigeur, nor have they stained their
righteous cause by any violence. In a few instances, and
those very few, some portions of the mere rabble, as in the
case of the attack upon the Bishop of Lichfield, have
acted as if they wished to bring Reform into disgr ice;
but we have beard of no instance which militates against
the assertion that the people—and we use the term em-
phatically—have conducted themselves with a peaceable
determination and fortitude calculated to display in the
strongest light their manly firmness and power of self-
control, under the most trying circumstances of political
alarm, peril, and excitement. This is the more credit-
able to the people of this country when we recollect the
counsel which they received from many of those indiscreet
and addle-headed advisers, who substitute noise for spirit,
abuse for argument, and would have truculence of speech
pass current for energy of patriotism, Such persona
spoke and acted as if they wished to make an irr,-parabli.
breach between his Majesty anti the people, by commit-
ting one party or the other in acts of decided hostility,
and that too befote time had been given fur any explana-
tion by which the veil of tny.tery might be removed
from recent transactions, and the blame he fairly
thrown upon those to whom it was due. These
efforts to turn a temporary evil into a lasting
source of sorrow and affliction to the country have,
happily, proved abortive. For our own part, we neither
think it a sign of devoted loyalty to excessively flatter a
King, nor a proof of patriotic courage or gentlemanly
taste to grossly and personally abuse the first Magistrate
of the State. If the strict rule of consistency were ap-
plied to the actions of some of our patriots for a course of
years past, they would show strange deviations from the
right line of rigid principle. This ought surely to induce
them to exercise a little forbearance when they find that a
King is not altogether free from the errors or infirmities
of human nature. But, from whatever cause that error
of his Majesty arose, which caused a sudden and unex-
pected interruption to the progress of the Reform Bill, we
have reason to believe that the King will repair the conse-
quences of the mistake, which, if the counsels of some of
the more vehement advisers of the people had been acted
upon, might have led to the most deplorable results.
We never told the people—and, let them remember,
we do not tell them now—that the Reform Bill, when
carried into a law, will cure all the political evils of this
country ; if we did, we should lend ourselves to a great
delusion, and cause them hereafter the more bitter dis-
appointment. But it is necessary that the Reform Bill
should be passed, in order that we may have a House of
Commons, the majority, at least, of whose Members may
be the real representatives of the people, and not the no-
minees of the House of Lords. Gre it are the labours of
Government which such a House of Commons will have
to undertake :—the distressed condition of the labouring
population—the embarrassments of the financial system—
the ruinous operation of " free trade" upon our manufac-
tures—the breaking down of the interests of the ship-
owners by the abolition of the Navigation Act—the state
of Ireland and of the Colonies—the Bank Charter and
East India monopoly—the Criminal Code—the poor
laws—the pressure of inordinate taxation on the produc-
tive industry of the nation ;—all these, and other ques•
tions, will try the wisdom and integrity of Statesmen and
' reformed Parliaments ; and, therefore, it is the more ne-
cessary that Parliament should be as speedily as possible
reformed.—. Morning Herald.

Whatever force may be employed to retard the natural
progress of events, or whatever skill to cover them with a
short-lived mystery, every thing around us is rapidly
ripening to a conclusion, which, in spite of intriguers of
both sexes, must within a few hours be disclosed. That
the people of England may be enabled to act effectually,
which in the present case means promptly, they ought to
he told, without disguise, the imminent danger of their
situation. Up to a late hour last night the Reform Bill
stood
•upon a precipice. We know not that its position
is yet improved. One result of the Duke of Wellington's
interview with the King on Tuesday last, was communi-
cated by Mr. Baring to the House of Commons: it was
to the effect, that his Grace having totally failed in the
laudable endeavour to form a renegade Administration'
the authority to do so had been withdrawn from him by
the power which gave it. Had this been the " end all"
of the Tory Duke's good offices between the King and
people of England, both might have had unmixed
reason to rejoice that the attempt thus frustrated had
been so vigorously made. It would have furnished a fresh
proof of the strength inherent in an intelligent and
united nation, and might have thrown again wide open
the door of access for the Sovereign to his people's affec-
tions. But there seems to be a second result of that in-
terview, which Mr. Baring did not avow in Parliament,
and on which it does not appear to us that the King has
muck ground for rejoicing. The Noble Duke, like a ge-
nerous enemy as he is, took care, at parting from his Ma-
jesty, to leave a sting behind him. There was a com-
munication, it is rumoured, transmitted from the King
to his ostensible Ministers (for they were not yet actually
out of office), and, as Lord Grey, Lord Althorp, an
Lord Brougham told their hearers, relating to the present
critical state of public affairs. What was that communi-
cation? Was it cold, or was it cordial? If we may
trust the rumours propagated by the Conservatives
themselves, the message or letter was any thing but
such as the friends of Reform could desire, or the
Cabinet of Lord Grey could contemplate. It was in
fact, neither more nor less (we quote from a Journal of
the party) than a repetition by his Majesty of the
scouted proposals made some months ago by Lords Har-
rowby and Wharncliffe to his Ministers, viz., that Lord
Grey and his colleagues should consent to modify or muti-
late the Bill, rather than create some Peers ! When we
recollect that his Majesty had retained his Ministers in
office, and showed them every mark of kingly regard and
confidence, after he was aware that they had rejected this
very proposal now tendered to them in his name, and a,
his proper act, what must be thought of tbii alleged pro_
ceeding ? But when it is brought to mind that the Duke