The Sun.
London, England, 1832-11-24 00:00:00

ries , was popular at its commencement, however
the feelings and opinions of the community may
have changed under the pressure of those calamities
and burdens which are inseparable from any war,
and which will speedily be discovered to be insep
rable from the present ; whereas this war excites
from the first an unanimous expression of disgust
and horror and reprobation from all classes and
parties in the country,its authors are assailed on every
side by the most significant manifestations of national
alienation and displeasure, and, notwithstanding they
have in every part of the country agents and par-
tisans the most active, experienced, zealous, and un-
scrupulous, they can collect from no quarter the
least hint of encouragement, applause, or sympathy.
The merchants of London, of Hull, and of Bristol,
have already condemned the war as deeply injurious
to their interests, while those of Liverpool, and of
every other seaport in the kingdom, are about to
re-echo and confirm the sentence. The cotton-ma•
nufacturers of Rochdale, the stocking-weavers of
Nottingham, the worsted and silk-manufacturers of
Norwich, the clothiers of Leeds and Huddersfield,
the iron-masters of Dudley and its neighbourhood,
loudly condemn the war, as deeply injurious to their
several interests ; and a similar cry is ready to
burst forth from Manchester, and every other consi-
derable seat of manufacturing industry. The agricul-
tural inhabitants of East Kent, of Hertfordshire, and
of Essex, have denounced the war as pregnant
with: calamity to the country at large, and as
seriously detrimental to the great interest of which
they form -a part, and which must of necessity share
largely in the effect of any general suffering. The
same sentiment predominates, and will speedily find
articulate utterance, in every other country. And
whence all this ? Why this universal insurrection,
we might almost term it, of every class of the com-
munity against this war ? Is it that their apprehen-
sion of immediate loss and suffering is so acute as
to make them regardless of the permanent interests
or the true glory of their country ? Can they be
suspected of forgetting that they are not only mer-
chants, manufacturers, and agriculturists, but Eng-
glishmen; or of reluctance, in a just and honour-
able quarrel, to sacrifice their separate interests to
the great paramount, universal, and endearing inte-
rest, that of the public welfare and honour ? As-
suredly not. Their conduct upon all former occa-
sions of impending war proves that they cannot be
actuated by considerations so narrow and so mean.
It is that they feel and know the war in which their
individual welfare is about to be sacrificed to be an
unjust, an unnecessary,a base,and dishonourable war.
It is that they perceive it tobe a war in which neither
honour nor advantage can be acquired by England ;
that they perceive it to be a war in which England
can take no share without both ignominy and loss;
that they perceive it to be war of oppression against
a weak State, which we are bound by our express
obligations, no less than by our permanent interests,
to protect ; a war of subserviency towards a power-
ful and encroaching Government, which it is our
special duty and true policy to restrain; a war in
which we desert and betray the connections and
alliances which we are called upon by every consi-
deration of honour and of interest to cherish and
perpetuate. We boldly say, then, that the English
nation is unanimous in its detestation of this insane,
unnatural, and unprincipled war. Some individuals of
the very lowest class in point of respectability or
importance at Leeds and Huddersfield have re-
fused, we shall perhaps be told, to join in the
public expression of this feeling. Be it so;
we estimate these persons at their true
value when we say that they deduct nothing from
the unanimity of the nation. They have permitted
local passions and local politics to interrupt, in ap-
pearance, local unanimity upon a great public ques-
tion. They are persons, besides, who, in taking
the suffrages of the community upon such a ques-
lion as that of peace or war, have no claim to be
counted, since nothing is more certain than that,
however they may vote for war now, they will, at
the first moment when the burden of war begins
to be felt, be, of all others, the most clamorous for
peace. They promote a war of crime for sake of
an electioneering triumph, as they would clamour
for a peace of dishonour and disgrace in order to
get rid of a tax. The King of the Netherlands may
reasonably omit such persons from his estimate of
the sense of the British people, and conclude, just
as confidently as if there were no such persons in
existence, that the unanimous opinion of England is
opposed to the base and unprincipled aggression
which he is preparing to resist. Let the faithful,
loyal, and brave people of Holland, then, be encou-
raged by the assurance that the British nation is ac-
tuated by one feeling of sympathy for their misfor-
tunes, of admiration of their firm and unbending pa-
tsiptism, of hatred and contempt for their oppressors.
thetn know that no Government of great Bri-
tain can be formidable against them so long as they
are true to themselves. Let them be assured that
no Administration will dare to levy a new tax, to
contract for a new loan, to enlist an additional sol-
dier, or to impress a single seaman in Great Britain,
in order to supply the progressive demands of a war
which the nation universally regards with horror
and with esesrn.—Morning Post.
The expression of public opinion against the
" coercive measures" against Holland has been de-
pounced, by a Ministerial Morning Paper, as an
offence which, if not amounting to treason, is cer- '
tainly sedition. We wonder it does not at once
propose that the first act of the Reformed Parlia-
ment shall he to signalise itself by passing Gagging
Bills, to save the Government the inconvenience of
having the injustice and the weakness of its foreign
policy discussed and exposed. The doctrine of con-
structive treason has, upon some former occasions,
been carried to great lengths in this country, and
certainly our versatile contemporary, who was so
lately en advocate for peace, at any price—who even
laughed at :he " ridiculous notion ' of a warlike
finale to the protocols, but now " thunders" against
all the friends of peace, under the fierce ascendancy
of Mars—now seems very well disposed to revive
that doctrine in practice, for the benefit of all those
who dare to warn his Majesty's Ministers of the
danger of persisting in a course in which success can
bring neither honour nor advantage, and failure must
lead to the most ruinous consequences. Our contem-
porary, no doubt, makes those terrific allusions
to treason on the ground that we are at war with
Holland, and that it is treasonable to give aid or
encouragement to an alien enemy; yet, with curious
inconsistency, denies, in almost the same breath,
that we are at war with the Dutch nation ;—nay,
maintains that the embargo, the sending out a fleet
to blockade the coasts of Holland, and the becoming
warty to a convention, by which the cannon of the
rerseh are to commence the work of slaughter upon
the stl,l'.iects of the King of Holland, are acts
which a° not alter our relations of peace and
amity with tiec Dutch nation. The absurd confu-
sion of ideas upon which such contradictory attempts
at reasoning is founded, is too palpable to require
further comment. But, taking it for granted that
we are at war with Holland, as those whose capaci-
ties are too dull to perceive the nice diplomatic
distinctions of Lord Palmerston and Sir Robert
Adair, believe we are, is it unreasonable—is it un-
patriotic, or in any sense improper, hat those who
believe our warlike proceedings unjust and unne-
cesary, should describe them as such in the most
public manner, and remonstrate against an obstinate
perseverance in a course disreputable to the character
of England, and mischievous to her interests ? The
Whig-sycophants say, " Yes," but Whig-Precedents
say, "No." After the commencement of the war against
the French nation by Mr. Pitt's Ministry in 1793, Mr.
Fox, whom it is not enough to describe as the great
lea ier of the Whigs, but as the personification of
Whiggism, denounced, as all the Whigs who re-
mained faithful to his banners did, that war. He
;;;denounced it both at public meetings, in a pam-
,
in Parliament. He asserted his right to
investigate' the causes that led to it, and, finding
therb notgiounded either in justice or necessity, or
. sound policy,'re hold them up to the 'indignant cen-
sure of public :;Opinion. On one occasion, being
ch.read by 117ra;;_ Rtirlt • with pi.r.ra,rarriner France in

her hostility to this country, he observed (and his
words are an answer to the Whig calumniators
of the opponents of an unjust and unnecessary
war, at the present day)—" It is a new thing,

I am told, to state arguments against my country
at a time when we are at war. What 1 not he
allowed to arraign the misconduct of the King's
Ministers without being accused of speaking against
the interests of my country. It is a new doctrine
t hat although Parliament has concurred with his
Majesty generally in supporting a war, we are also
obliged to approve of all that the King's Ministers
have done, or may do. If this were to be esta-
blished, better would it be to shut up the doors of
the House during the continuance of war, and to
declare at once all debates to be mischievous until
peace shall have been proclaimed." Thus did Mr.
Fox repel the charge of acting in a manner unbe-
coming an Englishman and a patriot in holding up
to public reprobation the misconduct of Ministers,
in reference to a war in which the country was then
engaged, and which had the approbation of Parlia-
mentary majorities. Our present warlike proceed-
ings have not yet had the sanction of the great
Council of the nation. The convention with France
is the act of Alinisters only, and therefore lies
still more open to animadversion, than a war
sanctioned by Parliament. Though, in either
case, a war, manifestly unjust as the present is,
cannot be too severely condemned by that in-
telligent public opinion which operates as the
most effective check to the errors or the crimes of
power. We quoted a few days ago Mr. (now
Lord) Grey's opinion of the disgraceful apathy
which the Ministry of that day evinced in regard to
the fate of Poland, while they interfered in other
continental questions which could not redound so
much to their honour. We now give the deliberate
opinion of Mr. Fox on that subject, contained in one
of a series of resolutions which be moved against the
prosecution of the war after hostilities had com-
menced. It is as follows :—" That it does not ap-
pear that the security of Europe, and the-rights of
independent nations, which have been stated as
grounds of war against France (for France read
Holland) have been attended to by his Majesty's
Ministers in the case of Poland, in the inva-
sion of which unhappy country, both in the last
year and more recently, the most open contempt
of the laws and nations and the most un-
justifiable spirit of aggrandisement have been
manifested, without having produced, as far
as appears to this House, any remonstrance
from his Majesty's Ministers." With the slight
alteration of the one word which we have
suggested, this resolution of censure is as ap-
plicable to the foreign policy of the present
\Vhig Government as it was to that of the Tory
Administration against which it was originally di-
rected. We might multiply examples, but we
shall stop at present, presuming that Mr. Fox's au-
thority, for the right of the subject to discuss the
causes of a war even after it has commenced, and to
condemn and hold it up to public indignation if it
should appear to be unjust or unnecessary, will not
be repudiated by the Whigs. Nor was it when the
French war was a week, or a month, or a year old,
t hat Mr. Fox and his friends openly denounced it
as an unjust and profligate measure. For years,
both in and out of Parliament, they spoke with un-
disguised abhorrence of the war, and the policy in
,which it was founded. Yet the Whig Ministers
will not say that they thereby acted in a seditious
manner, or gave treasonable encouragement to the
enemies of their King and country; for some of
those who thus reprobated the French war during
its continuance are Members of the present Admi-
nistration.—Maniing Herald.

From all accounts it appears, that a majority o
the Chamber of Deputies will demand that the
Duchess of Berry shall be tried before the Chamber
of Peers. That part of the King's Speech which
has reference to this subject has given great dissatis-
faction. " The name of the Duchess (says our cor-
respondent, 0. P. Q.) is not mentioned—her crime
is not referred to—no expression of feeling is in-
dulged in, though four Departments have, through
her temerity, been deluged by blood; no law is
proposed relating to her—no development made of
the intention of the French Government respecting
her; but an event of such magnitude is thus slurred
over by the Doctrinnaires. Are we surprised at
this ? By no means. But we are not less grieved,
or the less insulted." The Constitutionnel affects to
view in this reserve almost a disavowal of the design
of the Ministry to violate " the most sacred of all
laws—equality, before justice." " A recent and deci-
sive event for the public peace will destroy the last
hopes of the party (the counter revolution)."
" That (says the Constitutionnel) is all—absolutely
svhich it was thought right to say on the arrest of the
Duchess of Berry. But, far from blaming the signifi-
cant reserve, we praise it ; for, either the Ministry has
had the prudence to spare Royalty the sad respon-
sibility of the ordinance of November Bth, or, which
Is still more probable, Royalty itself has refused to
accept it. In either case, the future is free; and
the silence of the Throne, on this flagrant violation
of the most holy of all laws—equality before the
law—may almost pass for a disavowal. Royalty, no
doubt, wished to regulate itself for the future with
regard to any measure, whether judicial or mini-
sterial, more in harmony with the wishes of France,
which it will soon learn through the official organ of
those wishes. We cannot, therefore, praise too
much this prudent reserve ; and we notice it to ob-
serve, that nothing, either in this delicate passage of
the speech, or in any other part of it, engages or as-
sociates the Throne of July with the Ministry of
the II th of October; that in no part of it is this
Ministry presented, either as the necessary re-
sult of circumstances, as a rampart against factions,
or as an anchor of safety in tempests, or, above all, as
the last expression of the monarchical principle. In-
formed by the Press, the sentinel of liberty, Royalty
undoubtedly has desired to wait till the Deputies of
France—the more solemn, but not the more de-
voted, defenders of this liberty—,hould repeat our
cry of alarm. The Chamber will not be long in
replying to this wise foresight." The defeat re-
ceived from the Tribunal respecting the placing of
Paris in a state of siege, and this second defeat
which the Government will experience in the Cham-
ber, ought to teach Louis Philip a salutary lesson—
if a personage so filled with conceit as he seems to
be, is capable of profiting by any lesson. The
French are peculiarly jealous of everything like as-
sumption by classes or individuals of distinction,
like that implied in the withdrawing the Duchess of
Berry from the Tribunals. The revolution gave
to them equality before the law; and they have not
been accustomed, like ourselves, to a century and a
half's oligarchical legislation. A boroughmon-
gering Parliament could make law and set aside law
at pleasure; but the Doctrinnaires, with all the dis-
position to trickery arid governing by corruption of
our oligarchy, notwithstanding the defective state
of the representation in Franceffiave, in the French
Chambers, a more difficult body to manage than our
unreformed Parliament.—Morning Chronicle.
At a meeting of the electors of Middlesex last
night, in the Town-hall of Poplar, Mr. Hume
alluded to a point which we think of considerable
importance. In speaking of the Court of Chancery,
he said, " Especially do I think that no judicial
person ought to occupy a seat in the House of Com-
mons.—(A laugh.) Ido not particularly allude to
my Noble opponent, but I must be allowed to take
the liberty of saying, that his duties in the Court of
Chancery cannot have been very closely atte►►ded to
during the last twenty-five days of canvass.—
(Laughter arid applause.)" This is really a serious
matter. Lord Henley fingers about 4,0001. of the
public money per annum, and the public have cer-
tainly a light to demand that the person receiving so
large a sum should not trifle with his duties. He
must fail in his duty either as Master of Chancery,
Or as representative of the people. The duties of
a representative of the people are sufficient to en-
gross the undivided attention of any man; and it is
an insult to the people to treat that duty as it ha
hitherto been treated by our young men of fashion,