The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-14 00:00:00

The *lva.

LONDON,
SATURDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 14, 1835.

We are inclined to believe that the Tories have
seen the error of their ways, and now sincerely repent
them of their folly, in having staked so much on the
re-election of the late Speaker. They would now be
overjoyed to find some decent loop-hole through which
to withdraw the object of their too ardent affection.
They see too late the dangerous predicament in which
they stand, and to which they have been reduced by that
blindness of mind and hardness of heart—that insensibi-
lity to everything that is passing out of their own narrow
circle—which has ever been their distinguishing charac-
teristic as a party. Had they laid to heart, as they
ought to have done, the lessons they received during
!Ire progress of the late election, —had they been
capab.lf+ of appreciating the popular feeling so uni-
formly displayed wherever the people could raise
their unbiassed voices—they ought to have abstained
from the commission of any overt act tending to render
them, if possible, more offensive to the nation.
They ought, in common prudence, to have done this,
even if they had succeeded in securing, by the cor-
rupt means which they so unscrupulously employed,
a majority in the House of Commons. But how
much more incumbent upon them was it to pursue
this conciliatory course, when they knew that there
was an overwhelming majority against them I
Their conduct, infatuated as it is, is pregnant with
instruction. If, with the current of popular opinion
setting so strong against them, and that opinion
so powerfully represented in the New Parliament, they
could venture to propose for the Chair of the House
of Commons, a man whose political sentiments were
always opposed to those of the people, and who has
now rendered himself doubly obnoxious by the un-
seemly exhibition of party feelings, while clothed with
an official character, the purity of which is stained
when its impartiality is gone ;—what, we ask, would
such men have stuck at, had they procured a majority
of the Representative body to second their arbitrary
proceedings ?

Great pains, we are well aware, have been taken to
remove this stumbling-block from the feet of those
who have tender consciences. Much ingenuity has
been wasted in attempting to prove that Sir C. M
SUTTON, in taking so active a part in the Ministerial

discussions which followed on the dismissal of the
MELBOURNE Administration, acted not in his capa-
city of Speaker of the House of Commons, but in
that of a Privy Councillor. The futility of such
sophistry is obvious to every one. The very defence
implies condemnation of the Speaker, while it asserts
the right of the Privy Councillor. If the Speaker
had felt any qualms of conscience, we dare say the
Privy Councillor would have obtained a respite from

the exercise of his functions, without much solicitation.
But the truth is, the SPEAKER was intended for ano-
ther office, and the idea of responsibility to the House
never entered his mind. That intention was afterwards
changed, but the Right Hon. Gentleman's impar-
tiality had been compromised—the mischief was done,
and could not be undone.

The feelings of the country are now deeply inte-
rested in this question,—and Hon. Members are well
aware that such is the fact. No neutrality can be
allowed in such a case—and it will assuredly be con-
sidered by the people as downright hostility. Here
does the maxim pre-eminently hold good: " whoever

Ls not for us is against us."

The general interest excited by the question to be
decided on the 19th, so far from being abated, seems
to increase in intensity as the day more nearly ap-
proaches. Every argument which ingenuity, rancour,
or party spirit could devise, has over and over again
been employed by the respective disputants, to influence
the important decision. The public are fully sensible
that the nauseating arguments upon the relative quali-
fications or disqualifications of the two candidates, in
whose persons the great political conflict will be settled,
have very little to do do with the struggle in reality.
The Conservatives have been moving heaven and earth
together to make the matter personal ; and conse-
quently whilst Mr. ABERCROMBY has been shown up as
the very grossest of pensioners—for no other flaw have
they discovered in him—Sir C it A lir-ES is paraded forth
as the very choicest specimen of human excellence, the
most super-perfect pattern of a Speaker that the world
ever beheld. The Liberals, on the other hand, have very
discreetly made it one of principle ; but, because this
necessarily engages on their side the support of every
sect of Reformers, whatever happens to be the diver-
sified shades of- their opinions, the most moderate and
influential among that party have been stigmatised for
entertaining the same extreme views which the Ultras
are now and the❑ unwisely advocating. Names are
obtruded, and .persons associated, whose politics on
many important points are as opposite as the poles ;
but because they are now leagued in a common cause
they must, therefore, for ever afterwards become
united for the furtherance of " common measures."
As Mr. O'CONNELL has deemed it wise to agitate
for a Repeal of the Union, the Russells and the Mel-
bournes are to become Repealers, because his vote goes
side by *side with their's on this occasion I In
fact the Tories have contorted the anti-Tory alli-
ance into an O'CONNELL job : the whole opposition
is taken to be the work of that " cheat and liar," as
the Thunderer modestly calls him, and nothing short
of the most frightful havoc and confusion can result
from a Tory defeat under his commandership in chief.
That this stretch of a fertile imagination may delude
some minds is more possible than probable, but we do
not think the Conservatives will much increase their
supporters by a trick so stale, or by abuse and persona-
lities so outrageous.
A far luckier thought, however, has just occurred to
them, and though it
_manifests their terror too clearly
to be mistaken, the successful issue of their appeal
would do much to revive their drooping hopes. They
have sent -up a cry to Lord GREY that' he would be
pleased to " come forward and protect his SOVEREIGN
against the (liberal) cabal ;" that he will stretch forth
his arm, and break tire " bond of confederacy which
threatens their ruin ; that he will add another bright
leaf to the crown of his glory, or, give the only re-
paration he can offer to the country for the evils
he has wrought by this, the last great public act
he can ever be called upon to perform I It would be in-
sulting to the fame of Lord GREY to suppose him
capable of so disgraceful an act of political tergiversa-
tion, or to argue upon the possibility of his belying the
whole tenor of his political life and opinions, by accord-
ing to such a prayer. His Lordship, though in his
71st year, is not labouring under the affliction of
of mental infirmity, which could alone be the apology
for such a base desertion of his duty ; his intellect is
unimpaired, and his honour as sensibly perceptive of
pollution as ever. To imagine, therefore, that he could
give his countenance to the Tory candidate, would be
to imply the loss of one or both. They have, by this
appeal, added another item to the sum _of their dis-
grace; they tried hard to intrigue him out of power,
and failed—now, in the extremity of their distress,
they whiningly supplicate for his assistance. Miserable
hope I—at what will not drowning men catch ? With
the rejection of Sir CHARLES, down go the Tories,
and by so much is it the " question of principle,"
which they have such difficulty to understand.—AßEß-
C ROMBY and Liberalism, or SUTTON and Toryism,
—that is the question, and that the principle.

We have received the Paris Papers of Thursday,
with intelligence from Madrid, bearing date the 4th
instant. The unusual stillness which at present per-
vades the political atmosphere occasions us more alarm
than when we beheld the clouds sailing hither and
thither, borne along by the current of the fitful gales
suddenly springing up in opposite directions. At this
instant there is not a breath stirring. In France all
parties are wearied discussing the amnesty question—
the respective compensatory claims of Austria and the
United States—and the rumoured changes in the Ca-
binet : in Spain the civil war is still being carried on,
but in a manner so desultory that neither party has yet
obtained any solid advantage from it : the Swiss Direc-
tory continues silent on the question at issue between
the Republic and the Empire of Austria : and in
Austria every eye is turned to the struggle in England,
and the political movements which are hourly expected
to take_ place in France. Russia is equally silent with
her compeers ; but, though silent, she is neither idle
nor inattentive to what is passing around her. Her
Asiatic frontier has been strongly garrisoned ; and as
her boundaries in that quarter have not been marked
with all that care which land-agents are in the habit of
observing when parcelling out estates, she has not
evinced any squeamish scrupulousness in fixing her land-
marks. To prove her disinterestedness, she left the whole
affair to be arranged by her Cossacks, and they—gene-
rous souls I—showed their soldiery spirit, by here and
there appropriating a village, a town, and now and then a
province or so, for the benefit of their Imperial master.
Let it not be presumed, however, that because Russia
has possessed herself, by wll4 a vilifying, world
would call treachery, of the provinces of Wallachia,
Moldavia, and Silistria—and now fills them with the

fiercest of her soldiery, that she meditates any unfriendly
purpose against the honour or the peace of the SUL-
TAN. On the contrary, we have the authority of
the Imperial NICHOLAS himself—famed throughout
the earth for his veracity, and clemency in the
case of Poland—for asserting that the SULTAN'S
honour, peace, security, and happiness are much dearer
to the tender-hearted CZAR than are his own.
NICHOLAS declares he dearly loves the SULTAN ;
and we ourselves are persuaded that so well does he
think of his Highness's subjects, that he has every
wish to make them early acquainted with his more
than paternal regard for them. For our part, and that
of the British press generally, we are for ever mis-
taking the purity of his motives, and misinterpreting
the most disinterested of his actions. If his Cos-
sacks possess themselves of a province belonging
to the SULTAN, we rail about breaches of
treaties,—never for a moment reflecting that the
act originated with the CZAR, out of a most
disinterested wish to prevent civil war, and to
rid the SULTAN of the government of a swarm of the
vilest traitors that ever disturbed the equanimity of
the Divan. It is the same with all other apparent
aggressions on the PORTE made by Russia. The
marching of an army into the interior of the SUL-
TAN'S dominions is not with an intent to plunder,
but with the design of crushing some plotting Pasha,
or disaffected Emir—nothing more. A people so
civilized as the Russians, and a Prince so wise, so
clement, so long-suffering, so merciful, and so paternal
as NICHOLAS, ought—out of mere politeness—to be
considered incapable of taking any unfair advantage of
the unsuspecting confidence of the PORTE.
In the mean while France must find her situation
rather uncomfortable. Having procured M. DE
RIGNY'S declaration of non-intervention with respect
to Switzerland, Austria, encouraged by the example of
Russia and the United States, has opened a negocia-
tion with France, on the score of compensation for
losses sustained by her during the war. We have not
heard the amount of Austria's claims ; but we learn
from the French journals that Count D' APPONY has
pressed the subject with much earnestness on the
attention of the French Government. We stated
at the time that Russia had addressed the French
Government, on the subject of debts due to
the Duchy of Warsaw, that if the Ministers
took the question into consideration, one of the
most dangerous consequences would be the revival
of the other claim's, which it would be out of the power
of France either to meet or satisfy. The result has
proved the faithfulness of this prediction.
The Chamber of Deputies sat as usual on Wednes-
day. The Minister of War introduced the project of
a law, granting 14,000,000 francs for the payment of
the military pensions. The rest of the sitting was
occupied with amendments in the Bankruptcy laws.
This day is fixed upon in these JQurnals for the de-