The Sun.
London, England, 1821-01-09 00:00:00

DLTRIIAM COUNTY.

[Pram the Durl,avn County Advertiser, Jatt.
LETTER IL*
TO J. G. LAMBTON) ESQ. M. I', •
SlR—Before 1 proceed from the ostensible to
the seat purpose of your County Meeting, I must repair a
slight omission that •I made relating to the former, and add
• a few remarks on your declamation as reported in the public
Journals.
One of the avowed objects for which the Freeholders were
• summoned was, to protest against ulterior attempts to prose-
cute the Queen; i. e. we•were called upon to wrestle with a
shadow ; the Requisitionists raised a ghost for the pleasure
of laying it; for what ground, what pretence was there for
believing that any further investigation is intended ? The
suppusitiop is pot unto gratuitous but improbable, unless in-
deed the Queen, herself should demand a new trial in hopes of
reversing the decision of the last: it is nor usual for plaintiff's
who have gained a verdict, to wove-a re-bearing of their case.
It suits, however, the tactics of your party to charge your op-
ponents with designs which they never entertained ; and
then to boast of cortuteractiog them; I bus dispensing odious
to others, and honour to yourselves, equally unmerited.
But, Sir, if by a condemnation of further measures against
her Ma!esty you mean (as I conceive you do mean) a demand
of are sores in favour of her Majesty, if your objection to
fresh proceedings he nothing but a claim to fresh proceedings
of an opposite description, and presuming, in spite of fact,
hat the Queen has been acqqitted, you require that all the
honours of inuocence shall be awarded to her, that our
Liturgy shall he blotted with her name, that her settlement
he 'established with splendour and munificence,and her palace
he the theatre of British manners, and the resort of British
Ladies, if you intend her to figure at a Coronation, and to
share a Throne that she-has sullied and insulted, you. will he
opposed by all the honesty and intelligence of Eugland ; it
is one thing to refrain fruits punishing a convict; it is another
to reward one.
Indignant- at the censures east upon - this Vestal, you ex-
claim, " Is there no frjead to tell his Royal Master that the
example of offering insult to Royalty is not easily checked'"
Sir, there is a tone of menace in this question, and more per-
haps.is meant by it than meets the ear : if you regretted the
insults to which the King has been exposed, and were fear-
ful of those which may be yet in store for him, there was as
little of consistency, as of decency and ,truth, in your decla-
ration that the charges against the Queen originated in a
conspiracy, matured and fostered by hands that should have
afforded her protection. Yet, fp-south, you -complain of
slander, as if the Whigs were patentees of that coaimodity :
produce the Charter, Sir, by which you and your confederates
may calumniate,- not only public but private men, nut only-
the Monarch and his Ministers, but every one who pre-
sumes. to think for himself, and does not happen to think
as you do. •
Your allusions to the Chancellor, Mr. Vansittart, and Lord
Redesdale, were• mere buffoonery, suited to your audience,
and were too contemptible for comment: but to 'designate
Mr. Wilberforce by the -nick-name of l)r. Cantwell is no ve-
nial offence, fur it strikes at piety itself ; some of Isis doctri-
nal tenets may be erroneous, but he is a man of unquestion-
able morals, of warm and diffusive charity, a sincere-Chris-
tian, a zealous patriot, and the ardent and indefatigaolr
author of the abolition of the Slave Trade. His reputation
is public property, and I heartily wish that his maligners were
as void of offence towards God and mark
Sir, you deal largely in exclamation ; " Good God," you
exclaim, " what a spectacle has England exhibited iii the eyes
of Europe !" Alas ! the spectacle is indeed humiliating ;
from the pinnacle of glory we are sunk into contempt, from
power to insignificance, from security to danger; we had
the character of wisdom, and we play the fool ; the fame of
attachment-to our laws, and we invade them; the reputation
of piety and morals, and we tolerate blasphemers and idolize
adultery; and fin this degeneracy your party is responsible.
But you proceed to contrast our situation with that of Spain,
a country which excites your envy and admi.ation, not only
for its novel mode of attaching liberty to bayonets (as Ma-
hornet made couverta with the sword), but chiefly on account
of the appropriation of Church revenues to the uses of the
State. I believe, Sir, that every one who heard you under
stood this to he designed fi' our example and instruction,
that it was in fact an instigation.to seize the revenues of the
Church of England. Now, Si!, beside the injustice and in-
humanity of such a spoliation by which thousands, not of men
only but of women and children, would be reduced from com--.
petence to want, I marvel much at your indiscretion, (if in-
deed you hive any fellowship at all with prudence) ; I am
astonished that, whether it sprang from obliquity of mind, or
malignity of heart, a suggestion so portentously perilous,
should escape a Gentleman whose possessions being far•
greater than that of any Clergyman, must of course be a
greater object of cupidity; if your judgment were not blinded
by antipathy, you world remember what occurred in France,
and would reflect that, as the security of all property what-
ever is dependent on the laws, the guarantee must be invio-
late in every case, or it will he so its none. Tua res agitur
paries emu proximus ardet ; when the work of phmderis once
begun, be assured that no exertion, no remonstrance, no re-
morse oo your part will fix its limits, or direct its-course.- •
Sir, below I dismiss the ostensible reasons for your Meet-
ing, I must remark that, in conformity with the Requisition,
you declared that one object of that convention was the main-
Insane.: of public tranquillity. Now, to collect and harangue
a multitude, as you did, on the very subject which had bred
a ferment, is a singular method of allaying it ; to prolong
and promote an irritation is a new kind of sedative of which,
so far as I know, you are the inventor, hut on the efficacy of
which you place such reliance that, not content with your
County Meeting, you petition the House of Commons to call.
for an immediate, 'full, and rigorous inquiry into the same
subject; and of course with the same patriotic purpose of
quieting the public mind.

- •
Sir, I proceed now to the real, object of your Meeting,
which, as I before stated, was to drive our present pilots
from the steerage, and entrust it to the Whigs. For my
own part, I have no personal concern in this arrangement
(none I mean distinct from the common interest,) being
equally unconnected with those who possess and those who
are struggling fur power: toy judgment is perfectly impartial,
fur in no instance have I received, its none shall I ever court
or expect ministerial assistance : my sole ambition is to pass
the remnant of. a closing life in the exercise of duties al-
lotted to my station, and provided the nation be well gavern7
ed, I care not who .are the men to govern it. -But, Sir,
I cannot be an indifferent spectator of the evils in which your,
associates have involved us ; and without malevolence to one
party, or attachment to the other, I do not hesitate to say.
that every unprejudiced and thinking man must' prefer
the present ministers to their oppouents. Let ns but compare
them. During a long period the condition of this count:),
has been dithcult and perilous; externally grappled by an
active, implacable, gigantic enemy, who devoted us to ruin,
and who seldom broke his word when he threatened e'en : in-
ternally harassed by a faction that crippled our exertions,.
poisoned ns with discord, and laboured to subdue our spirit,
and depress our hope ; we were deserted by all the world, and'
a protracted warfare had nearly exhausted our resources. In
the midst of this distress, :our Ministers matured a vast con-
federation, and, in spite of domestic predictions and obstruc-
tions, they closed the;contest with a series of triumphs un-,
,
exampled in the annals of the world. Peace was restored to
Europe on conditions that shed a lost re on British maguani-
mity, and of which the only error was too touch forbearance
towards an inveterate but prostrate. foe. All this, Sir, is mat-
ter of record; f am not the eulogist of Ministers, any farther'
than thecotstrast with your party obliges me to be so ; they
have encountered perplexitir a and peril's of no ordinary mag-
nitude, and if they might have done better on some occasions,
sure I am that their adversarielAeould not have dune so well.
The administration at boric his been conducted with more
temper and moderation than the exigence required; there
has been nooppression, except indeed of loyalty by disaffec-
tion, of the industrious and peaceful by the turbulent and
Wk.; -and the worst error of Government has been that the
good have not been shielded from the bad ; hot I trust the
gate is coming !JIM) the former will associate to protect
themselies, since the arm of authority is palsied. During:my
remembrance (and it is not a short one) the Royal Preroga-
tive far from having hero enlarged, bas suffered a gradual
hut great redaction; the encroachments have been all on the
other side.—But I find myself digressing, and resume my sub-
ject.

As in the natural body fever is followed by debility, so the
body politic is weakened by violent exertiou, and-ere we re-
gain the vigour we expended in such a conflict as that with
France, we •should wait fur a time with patience; but the
Ministers have beet► anxious to abridge that time, and have
been as unremitting in their efforts to restore prosperity' as
the Whigs have been to mar it. Such Sir, is my unbiassed
judgment of the present Administration : I -believe then► to
be upright, honourable, patriotic Statesmen, and it others
e been more intrepid, we read of none who had more in-
tegrity, and see none now a days t,o trusty or so wise.
Fur truly, Sir, we cannot trust the Whigs, and I know not
any quality to which t hey bare less pretension than to wisdom.
'l'l►e wisest of their acts was time assumption of their title, for
it is blended with the fame of patriots and politicians with
whom your party have nothing its common but a name ; and.
you yourself, Sir, might as Well usurp the name of Solomon

• Fur Letter 1. see I'u Sun SUN of the 47th ult.