The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-12 00:00:00

lit like result ? and that it may provoke an indignant
Ispirit throughout the country that may sweep the bread-
tax at once and for ever from the statute-book ? If we
may judge from the past, we should infer hat nothing
was more likely than such an occurrence, and greatly
should we be delighted to find that the Duke had
become, however reluctantly and unconsciously,
a second time our sterling benefactor. Of one thing his
Grace may rest assured—namely, that it is no longer in
his power, nor in that of any Minister of the Crown, to
check the progress of the anti-corn-law agitation, no
matter how " earnest" may be his convictions on the
subject, nor, how great his influence over the opinions
and votes of their Lordships. The movement must pro-
ceed—the question must continue daily and weekly to
gain an increased impetus, until it is brought to a
satisfactory :termination. It is not the passions
merely of the people that are enlisted in
the cause, but their judgment—their cool, deliberate,
unprejudiced understanding. When, therefore, the Duke
of RICHMOND accuses the League—as he did last night
in the House of Lords—of appealing to the inflammable
feelings of the multitude, he makes an accusation for
which he has not the slightest warrant; for this great
national confederacy has no need to resort to any such
appeals; its object is rather to calm the passions of
those to whom it addresses itself, for it is only during
such calm that men's understanding stands a chance
of being convinced. But the League, it seems, if
we may credit the Noble Duke, not only does its ut-
most to rouse all the worst and stormiest feelings of the
mob ; but, what is infinitely more inexcusable, it " is
vulgar to the last degree." It is here the shoe pinches.
His Grace of RICHMOND might possibly be induced to
overlook its intemperate appeals to the masses ; but he
cannot pardon its hopeless, unleavened vulgarity. It does
not daintily mince its words, as gentlemen should do ; it

does not wrap up the, truth in an elegant courtly dis-
guise ; but speaks what it thinks in the
first, plain, straight-forward language that comes
uppermost. Moreover, it has no white-waistcoated,
kid-gloved Exclusives among its members. It is com-
posed of men whose bow is far from perfection, and
who are by no means diligent in sacrificing to the
Graces. For these reasons his Grace, like Thwackum,
in Tom Jones, thinks it his duty to " saddle" the
League " with a judgment" and to proclaim to their
Lordships, in accents of aristocratic disgust and dismay,
his painful conviction that "it is vulgar to the last
degree." We have often been curious to know what
was the extreme• point of vulgarity which it was possible
for human nature to attain; and now we find, on the
high authority of the Duke of RICIIkOND, that the '
" last degree"—the ne plus ultra of the vulgar—consists
in being a member of the League, and speaking home
truths once a week at Covent-garden.

Few of our readers can have forgotten the melancholy
circumstances of the duel which took place, in the be-
ginning of July last, between the late Lieutenant-
Colonel Fawcwrr and Lieutenant MUNRO of the Blues.
It will be recollected that the combatants stood in the
relation of brothers-in-law to each other ; that Lieut.-
Colonel FAWCETT was an officer of great experience
and the highest reputation, and had then but recently
signalised his intrepidity and his military talent in some
brilliant operations on the coast of China ; and that
Lieutenant MUNRO had risen by his own personal merit,
from the humblest ranks of his profession—and, we
believe, in his own very distinguished regiment— to the
honourable rank which he held in it, at the time of his
fatal rencontre with Lieutenant-Colonel FAWCETT.
The latter fell by the first—perhaps, by the only—
shot which was fired. Great blame (we fear, it is
impossible to deny) attaches to those who had, in
the first place, to determine upon the character of the
circumstances under which their opinions were solicited,
primarily, as advisers, and their attendance on the
ground, subsequently, as seconds ; great blame, both in
the one capacity and the other. Before the principals
went out, these gentlemen appear to have treated the
affair without any reference to its own very special cir-
cumstances—and still less, as attaching its due degree of
weight and importance to the near affinity of their prin-
cipals, who had married sisters. After the principals
had met, the wounded and dying man was left, if we re-
member rightly, unattended to, and unwatched, except
by the medical officer who had been brought to the field
by Lieutenant Mtn-rms. The seconds had precipitately
escaped. Here, of course, our retrospect of the facts
of the duel must cease ; because nothing further has
been elicited in any legal proceedings, through which
the public have yet had cognisance of that melan-
choly transaction. But we have enough before us
to judge of the merits of the discussion which took
place, last night, in the House of Commons, on the mo-
tion of Captain BERNAL, " for the production of a copy
of any correspondence respecting the refusal of the War-
office to allow a pension to Mrs. FAWCETT," the widow
of the unfortunate officer who perished- in the duel. And
if we had not this guide, even, we might be disposed p)
eliminate some passages that would answer such a pun
pose, from the manly and affecting letter which Lieute-
nant MUNRO, as it will be seen, has addressed to Mr.
THOMAS BUNCOMBE, M.P., giving a detailed account of
the circumstances out of which his unhappy difference
with the deceased arose.
This letter is now very generally in the hands of the
public. We do Lieutenant MUNRO no manner of wrong
in declining to deal with it as evidence, for that gentle-
man will sufficiently understand the legal principle,
which precludes a statement that is purely ex park
(although that it is so may be, as in this instance,
the unavoidable result of the facts) from being ac-
cepted for evidence, without further corroborative and
legal testimony. But we are at full liberty to own that
the letter has excited in us the deepest interest and sym-
pathy, and that it is well calculated to leave strong moral
impressions on the mind of every reader, as to matters
upon which it carries with it no legal proof. For ex-
ample ; taking the document as embodying the personal
statement of Lieut. MUNRO, verified by his own signature,
and vouched by the speech of Mr. DUNCOMBE in Parlia-
ment, we may venture to assume, as admitted premises
between those who may approve, and those who may
pro
test against, the decision of Sir R. PeEt's Govern-
ment in refusing to the bereaved widow the usual
pension—first, that the quarrel between the deceased and
Lieutenant Musitto arose out of some worthless domestic
differences ; and second, that the insult given was not
offered by Lieutenant MUNRO to Lieutenant-Colonel
Fawcerr, but that it was put by the latter upon Lieu-
tenant MUNRO in the most angry, coarse, and offensive
manner it was possible to conceive. A servant was in-
vited to become a witness of the insufferable affront, by
the order of the Colonel "to keep the door open until
111 r. Mustao was turned out of the house." Now it is
enough for the argument we have to offer, if it be al-
lowed that this aggravated insult was one which Lieute-
nant MUNRO could not have passed over, without resort-
ing, in the usual way, to the opinions and guidance of
personal friends. On this fact (and we might be enti-
tled, on Lieutenant 'MUNRO'S authority, to add, fortified,
as it is, by the circumstance of his having even subse-
quently requested, and offered to the Colonel opportu-
nities for, explanatiOn) we must contend that the widow
of Colonel l'AwcErr was, from that moment, brought
into a position, the issue of which was unavoidable on
the part of her deceased husband, so long as he refused
explanation or apology to Lieutenant MUNRO, and un-
controllable by any effort of her own. What are
the grounds on which the Government deny her her
pension ? None that can be taken to impeach her con-
duct. How far do they impugn that of the deceased ?
Because, said the Right Hun. the Secretary-at-War,
" there were no palliating circumstances in a case where
two brothers-in-law rushed out to shoot one another on
account of differences which might have been settled
easily in another manner."
But they " did not rush out" in this unreasoning, bru-
tal manner. The quarrel took place on a Thursday
evening, the 29th of June last. The next two days
were unremittingly employed by Lieutenant Murillo in
consulting with officers in the army of long service, of
Sound eezhpaeraricetneere: of
Lieutenant MUNRO had non alternative
Their undoubtedunaim honour, of high and
was,usobpuintitooncali Colonelthat
'
FAWCETT out. A general
omecomm could exist un-
ders ion er went further, and said "No
officer holding her MAJESTT
an unretracted insult so insufferableiss
as
t
the Lieutenant
had received." Even on the ground, Lieut.
M
Mr. GRANT whether nothing could be doneu
iloao asked
obviatethe dreadful catastrophe which he seems to have antici-
pated ; but that gentleman told him that the Colonel
had received him the day before in so violent and obstinate
a manner, that all proposals of accommodation were
useless. What wits the real feeling of the Colonel him-
self may be inferred from the fact, that he had proposed
to Mr. GRANT that the meeting should take place the
day after the quarrel; but to this arrangement Mr.
GRANT objected. It was, then, under these circum-
stances—under this overwhelmingnecessity—that Lieu
tenant Muria° went out to fight Lieutenant-Colone,
FAWCETT.

What were the particulars, we now ask, in which
Lieut.-CoL F.twcwrr, in going out to meet him, so far
f transgressed the conventional rules, within which, it
seems, officers in her MAJESTY'S service must take es-
pecial care to be shot, if they would not leave their
widows and orphans in the thraldom of poverty, super-
added to the despair of their bereavement—that the
Government deem themselves at liberty to refuse- to
Mrs. FAWCE7'T the pension of a deceased field-officer?
If the principle of the refusal were, that duelling is, in
itself; a practice at.once unclgistian and unlawful, we