The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-07 00:00:00

CO URT CIRCULAR.

ITENnson. FRIDAY.—The. Queen and Prince Albert
stud the Duke Ernest of NV urtenberg waiiud softie
time in the grounds adjacent to the Castle this morn-
ing. Her Majesty and his Royal• Highness again
promenaded in the pleasure-grounds in the afternoon.
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the
Princess Royal, and the Princess Alice, were taken
for their accustomed early airings on the Terrace and
in the pleasure-grounds. His Royal Highness Prince
Alfred was also taken out to-day.

To-morrow (Saturday) her Majesty and Prince
AlhTt, and their Royal Highnesses the Duke and
Duchess of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, the Duke
Ernest of Wurternberg,. and the Royal Family, will
leave the Castle in private for Claremont, where they
will remain until after the funeral of her late Royal
Highness the Princess Sophia Matilda.
The Governor of the Bank of England and the
Deputy-Governor had an interview with the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer yesterday, at his official resi-
dence in Downing-street.
A deputation from the Tring, Worcester, and Wol-
verhampton Railway, consisting of Mr. G. C. Glyn,
Mr. J. Whitmore Isaac, Mr. Robert Stephenson, Mr.
Benbow, and Mr. Carter, had an interview with the
Earl of Dalhousie yesterday, at the office of the
Board of Trade.
A deputation from the Torquay and Newton Rail-
way, consisting of Mr. Thomas Kitson, Chairman of
the Provisional Committee ; Mr. Dymond, engineer ;
Mr. Charles Kitson, solicitor; and Mr. Burke, Par-
liamentary agent, had an interview yesterday with
the Earl of Dalhousie.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer had an interview
with Sir James Graham yesterday, at the Home- office.
A deputation from the Great Southern and Western
Railway Company, Ireland, consisting of Sir John
Macneill, engineer; Messrs. Boothby, Hardy, and
Hutton, directors ; Mr. Barrington and Mr. Young,
solicitors, had an interview with the Earl of Dalhousi
yesterday.
Sir John Kirkland, Mr. Francis Mills, and Mr.
James M‘Gregor, Directors of the South-Eastern
Railway, accompanied by Mr. Robert Stephenson,
Mr. P. W. Barlow, Captain William O'Brien, and
Mr. J. P. Fearon, had an interview yesterday with
the Earl of Dalhousie, at the Board of Trade.

A deputation from the North Devon Railway (from
Crediton to Barnstaple, with a branch to Bideford),
consisting of Mr. L. W. Buck, M.P. ; Messrs.
Thomas Burnel Chanter, Mayor of Bideford ; Mr.
James Carrot Wilcox, of Exeter ; Mr. Henry Hooper,
of Exeter; and Mr. Edward Davy, of Crediton, Pro-
visional Directors; Mr. Brunel, engineer; Mr.
Dymond, Surveyor ; Mr. Bremridge, solicitor ; and
Mr. Burke, Parliamentary agent, had an interview
yesterday with the Earl of Dalhousie.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat
yesterday. The appeal, " Pryce Jones v. Francis
Godrich," from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury,
was resumed. The Solicitor-General was heard for
the respondent.—The case was adjourned.

TO SIR ROBERT PEEL.
(From the Times.)
Srn,—lu August, 1841, the Whigs reached the climax
of their fate. To narrate to you, Sir, the causes of
fall would be at once superfluous and impertinent. I
pass, too, over the great measures of their early Admi-
nistration. It makes a man's head turn round to think
of the alterations and changes which were crowded
within the narrow limits of a few years. It was an era
of gigantic legislation, whether for good or for evil.
That much of what is truly and permanently beneficial
was then accomplished, I freely admit ; that great poli-
tical faults. I had almost said crimes, were committed,
you, Sir, will be, or would have been, the last to deny.
But a change came at last over the spirit of the public.
In 1840, and before that, the national hot fit was passing
away ; the cold one rapidly approaching. It did not
require a deficient revenue met by temporary expedi-
ents, an Irish alliance injurious because degrading, or
violent attacks upon the Constitution, to effect, at least
for the time, the complete ruin of the Liberal party.
The truth is, that revolutionary reform had lost its
charm, and England became weary of the Whigs. These
politicians, after exhausting to the dregs their former
popularity, and straining or departing from the old prin-
ciples of their party, fell into great disfavour. This was
not sensibly diminished by the adoption of a foreign policy,
brilliant, it is true, but full of peril, or by a most able
administration of the highest branch of equity. The
change of public opinion had been made sufficiently
manifest. The Whigs, however, were not to be easily
warned out of Downing-street. They struggled vainly
and unworthily. They introduced, under circumstances
of much suspicion. large and radical measures of com-
mercial reform. Finally, they appealed to the country.
The success of that appeal is well known. But even
after Parliament had assembled, and the question had
been placed beyond a doubt, men beheld with indigna-
tion, not unmixed with contempt, a great party, pro•
fessing to he guided by constitutional principles, clinging
to the seals of office with a hold only loosened by a direct
vote of want of confidence. During the decline and fall
of the world than deNd.iridroetli'baotlul
formallySs
iralr teod clothedb
w tt
with
of the Whigs, no man occupied a larger space in the eyes
Eveny
wer
,t
3ieonu,
nih andad. Govern-
ment
fbfo_ eortfrhosearoeminly,cmn
ninNe%t'
the late apt(e)
e administrationd
that
youof thee culd ountry. r y.
our N o
fu-
ture Prime Minister. It was common observationtat the time, that you could do as well without your
party as they without you. You had revived amongo
the troops of gentlemen who sat behind you on the
Opposition benches, the spirit of the old Macedonian
phalanx. Like, and yet unlike, the northern clan, their
swords were a thousand, their bosoms not one. Many a
time and oft might you have led them on to the attack
as to an assured victory. Their keen anxiety that you
should have availed yourself of these opportunities it is
needless to enlarge upon ; and their general behaviour
upon such occasions convinces one of the extent of their
confidence, or of the severity of the discipline. If a
high-spirited D'lsraeli tilted at an opponent with too ad-
venturous a bravery—if an Inglis, impatient under a
system to him almost unbearable, ran rusty in debate—
the rebuke administered was at least proportionate to
the offence. Such feats of undisciplined valour endan-
gered the order of battle, and disarranged your general
plans. You were biding your time. The pear was not
quite ripe.
The mystery with which, Sir, you chose to surround
yourself added terror to your name. Through the mist
you loomed upon your enemies with the dimensions of a
giant. When the Whigs, in their last struggles, called
upon you, in loud tones, and with all the energy of de-
spair, to explain yourself, to state what you would re-
commend, you answered them in mocking tones. You
could not then say. You were not in possession of all the
circumstances of the case. You would reserve your pre-
scription until the patient was in your hands, and all his
symptoms made known to you. You would then adminis-
ter the medicine, and—receive the fee. This reserve
contributed also to fix the support of your friends. Each
of them interpreted it favourably for the principles
which he secretly cherished. They knew that by fol-
lowing almost the only piece of advice you had conde-
scended to give them, they had been remarkably suc-
cessful. They had diligently attended to the registries,
where, Sir, according to the principles of your philo-
sophy, the constitutional battle must be fought. They
had confidence, therefore, in their silent oracle, whose
decrees they obeyed with alacrity, if not love.
Sir, your accession to power was marked by circum-
stances of extraordinary good fortune. You had with
you the Church, the aristocracy,
including the great
interest, the bar; I may add also, the great ma-
jority of manufacturing and commercial men. The
middle classes regarded your Government with some-
thing more than complacency—with positive approba-
tion. The Radical Rump, with a consistency perhaps to
be expected, were your most unscrupulous partisans.
Finally, last and least, if your Administration derived nd
o
credit from the officious aid of Lord Brougham, yielde
not so much from love to you as from hatred to his
former friends, it was at least saved from his chattering
malignity.
Opposed to you, Sir, was a party so wanting in union
and spirit, so weak, so wo-begone, that it could scarcely
form its ranks with sufficient firmness to afford you the
satisfaction of an easy victory.
Such, Sir, in 1841, was the position of your Gov
that
vern-
ment, emphatically called " the strong." 'What i
position now ? During the last session of Parliament
you at times scarcely commanded a bare majority by the
aid of your enemies ; more than once you were defeated
by the strenuous exertions of your friends. Could thesem
enemies have gained anything by driving you fro
power, had some of these friends acted more consistednin-
tly
upon the principles which they professed, you ha
evitably perished. How to :explain this extraordinary
fact ? Have circumstances warred against you since
you became First Minister ? No ; fortune appears to
have waited upon you. The harvests have been abun-
re-
dant. Heaven, in its goodness, has bounteously
warded the labours of man. The manufacturing depres-
sion under which the country had so long laboured, has
very much disappeared. Trade has steadily reverive the
d.
The foreign policy of your Government, und
guidance of a discreet and firm hand, has been, consi-
dering the difficulties to be encountered, surprisingly
successful. Two distant and expensive wars have been
brought to a satisfactory conclusion. Our injured honour
has been avenged in the horrible passes of Caubul.
From China redrew has been obtained, and her markets
have been opened to the world. At least one source of
contention with the ambitious and unprincipled Republi-
cans of North America have been dried up ;
while ou
later differences with France have been adjusted with
success and with honour.
What fatal influences, then, have been at work, Sir,
to reduce your Administration to its present deplorable
condition? They are sufficiently obvious.
The Church, after a century of lethargic slumber,
suddenly, and within a recent memory, woke up and
found one-third of England without her fold. Many of
the richer and middle classes, either indifferent or es.
tranged, continued to be Churchmen as much
policy and interest as from any higher motives ;
while
multitudes of the poor were sunk in ignorance so gross
as to be but imperfectly acquainted with the first articles
of belief. In the meantime also our vast and wonderful
manufacturing system had sprung p. Large bodies of
people were massed together at points, particularly in
the north of England. The machinery of the church
was quite inadequate to the sudden demand, and p.monget
these new multitudes Dissent and Infidelity PlitiPta*4
e doubtful contest.
Vesiedy roused, however, the Church prepared hefullyaelf
with energy foe tlie combat. Her clergy, who had y
shared in the fatal repose, became animated with a new
spirit—some, indeed, by one a tot much activity. No
douW, Sir Robert Peer, you saw with .•- .. this
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