The Sun.
London, England, 1821-06-14 00:00:00

PROVINCIAL JOURNALS.

CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATION.
(From the Hull Packet of June 11.)
The war againSt the " Constitutional Association—against
. the laws, against loyalty, and against truth, rages most fiercely.
' Every engine is obviously at work to defeat the laudable and
patriotic exertions of this valuable Society. But let them per-
severe. They have on their side all that is honourable, and
loyal, and decorous in the country; and they have of course
against them, the needy traffickers in sedition and blasphemy,
• the disaffected, and the factious.
Mn. PARK INS,— the identical Mr. Parkins who styles him-
self on all official occasions, Mr. Ex-Sheriff Parkins---has made
an application to the Lord Mayor of London, for warrants to
apprehend " The Bridge Street Gang ;" that is, 'the heads of
, an Association composed of individuals whose names, whose
station in society, whose eminent talents, and whose unim-
peachable honour, may fearlessly scorn their depraved and
vulgar assailants. But we behold in this system the true Ra-
dical mode of waging► hostility. Nor do we forget that when
; 'Jr. Sidney first too the conduct of this Paper, a species of
brutal warfare was carried on against him, which calculated,
that a high-minded Gentleman had a natural 'aversion to be
blackguarded, and that he would, in consequence, withdraw
from the unequal contest. In this, 'however,' they were de-
ceived, for Mr. S. hurled defiance in their teeth, kept his heel
for ever raised against them, and at this moment watches them
with the eye of a Lynx and the appetite of a Tiger.
Again, Mr. Brougham has made one of his vigorous attacks
in Parliament upon-this Association, formed chiefly for the pur-
pose of putting a check to the circulation of sedition and blas-
pherny, through the medium of the Press. But Mr. Brougham's
opinion, however weighty on all other subjects, cannot be.per-
mitted to decide the character of the Constitutional Association,
which lie has honoured with his invective. We know not
whether this Association contain in itself the elements of much
public good ; but sure we axe that it can do no harm, and that
its objects are not onl legal but laudable. The dreadful out-
cry against it by the Hunts, and Hones, and Woolen, IT floe
GE NUS 03INE, is no uneqoivocal compliment to its vigour, and
hardly required the solemn confirmation of Nlr. Brougham's
remonstrance in Parlianient. 'We can see nothing either in the
principle or the objects of the Association which can give rea-
sonable offence, except to the banded enemies of the constitu-
tion—or to some innocent and over-compassionate gentleman
like Mr. Brougham, who, by a contradiction to all the known
laws of human sympathy, feels a generous interest in the fate of.
political libellers, just because he is not, and never was, a
political libeller himself.
• The Association proposes to aid in putting down blasphemy
and sedition, as they are circulated by the Press; will any one
deny that they are thus circulated to an unprecedented extent
—or dare to assert in plain language, that the suppression of
.so disgusting a nuisance would not be every way desirable ? It
is not much more than a year since the Legislature proclaimed,
by some novel enactments, the magnitude of the evil which the
licentiousness of the Press was working; and there is no way'
left, therefore, to the Whigs, in which they can decently im-
peach. the important statement. The Legislature has made
salutary enactments—the laws have adequately provided for the
punishment of offenders ; but the laws cannot be put in motion
but by the aid of a public or private prosecutor. The office
of an Attorney-General is an invidious one as to this most im-
portant matter ; and we cannot wonder if there be an occa-
sional shrinking from duty, most natural perhaps in the indi-
vidual, but most injurious to the public. What then is to be
done ? Public and private prosecutors equally shrink in their
individual characters from the risk and odium -of an urgent
duty ; and that which individuals cannot or will not perform,
must be done by combination.
Where, then, is the offence of this union ? We grant that it
must be an offence in the eyes of Mr. Brougham and of all
others—if others there be—who concur with him in voting im-
punity to all sorts of political libels, provided at least that the
.Legislature cannot reach them before hand by an apt definition
—because every expedient which shall give vigour and certainty
to the penal visitations of the law, must be deprecated by the
man wno, in effect; condemns the whole system. But if the
system 'be good and salutary, the combination which provides
for giving it effect cannot be reprehensible. Why, after all, is
Mr. Brougham so much startled .by the exertions of a comlnna-
tion not to elude but to aid in executing the laws ? Must there
be no co-operation but upon one side_—and is it only in support
of offenders that it has become lawful to combine ? A subscrip-
tion for Hone, who is by trade a vulgar, merciless libeller of
all that is sacred to British feelings, was quite right; and the
Whigs did not blush to lend to this Martyr the benefit of their
countenance, and the less equivocal aid of their purses. Now,
we would ask Mr. Henry Brougham, whether the combination
and the Whig-Radical subscriptions,. which were to aid Hone
in defying the law, or to console him for its inflictions, could be
otherwise distinguished from the union and the contributions of
the Members of the Constitutional ASsociatiOn, except that the
one was destined to resist, and the other has been established to
uphold, the laws of -the Country ? The Constitutional Asso-
ciation is accessary, of course, to the punishment of offenders,
and we know the office is always invidious, but not always
blameable • but the subscribers to Hone were accessary to the
pollution Of the public mind. and we know that such conduct
can never be guiltless. To punish the offender may seem harsh,
but must be wholesome and just ; to contaminate the People
can never cease to be infamous. '•
We repeat, that we duly .appreciate the motives which must
have influenced Mr. Brougham in his late assault upon the Con-
stitutional Association—but we cannot so readily follow his
arg
uments. The Attorney General prosecutes by ex officio
information ; that is bad and tyrannical, and Mr. Brougham
has said so an hundred times;' but the Constitutional Atsocia-
tion can only prosecute under the auspices of a Grand Jury,
and yetstlie same Mr. Brougham has most consistently declared
that it is a great deal worse. The Whigs and Radicals have
combined, and are yet perhaps combining ; but the Tories
must not combine for any one purpose, nor contribute their
mite to the good cause of the Constitution, without being de-
nounced as a new inquisition against freedom, which must be
put down. Such, at least; is the imperative and energetic lan-
guage which the reporters have presumed to put into the mouth ;
of this accomplished Commoner, when speaking of the Con-
stitutional Association. But deeply as we are known to regret
any.difference of opinion with so distinguished a statesman as

Mr. Henry Brougham, we must take leave to Sv, that he aP;•
pears in this instance 'to have been -rather more dictatorial than
argumentative ; and, that we think better of the Constitutional
Association, than to iiiiagine its existence to depend entirely
on his fiat. The epithets " conspirady, &c. so
liberally applied to the AssOciation, must go for nothing, of
course • for it must be a novel species of " inquisition" indeed
that will consent to make its way to the detection of guilt
through the forms of British justice, and the double defence of
British juries. But it must ever be a. subject of regret to us,
that the liberality of Mr. Brougham's theories should have in-
duced him to advocate that dangerous impunity for political
libellers, of which he so little requires to claim the benefit in
practice; and that the first and bitterest enemy in the house
of'Commons of the Constitutional Association should have been
the very man who, from the known temperance and decorum of
his public discussions, has least of all others to apprehend its
animadversion.