The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-09 00:00:00

cashire must not look so much to what would please
themselves, as to what they have led the nation to
expect at their hands. England- looks not to them
for a man of any particular family, or connected with
any particular interest; the general body of free-
traders, which has come forward at their summons
throughout the country has little knowledge and less
care about local connections, prejudices, and asso-
ciations ; they look to see a great principle asserted,
and they care as little about the name, family, local
influence, or conventional position of the person
chosen to represent that principle, as they do about
the colour of his, hair or the cut of his coat ; they ask
for "free trade," not this or that free-trader.
Under ordinary circumstances such a wealthy and
numerous constituency as that of South Lancashire
would have a right to require a combination of varied
qualifications in the candidate offering himself for
their representation. But they have themselves ap-
pealed to the constituencies throughout the empire to
merge all qualifications in the one great principle in-
volving not merely the prosperity, but the very
vitality of England's commerce and manufactures,
and they are bound to give an example of the ex-
clusive devotedness which they have so strenuously
recommended to others. We are glad to see that
the Council of the League has already addressed the
constituency in this spirit, putting forward not a man,
but a principle ; canvassing for a national object, not
for an individual or a party.
Many, we doubt not, are ambitious of the honour
of representing such a constituency as that which is
now vacant, and the task of selection may perhaps be
difficult and invidious ; but the free-traders of South
Lancashire have so often given proof of the un-
bounded confidence which they repose in their
leaders that we believe they will not object to any
one who has satisfied those leaders of his steadfast-
ness in the cause of free trade, and his unflinching
determination to use every exertion to bring the war
against monopoly to a successful issue. Under such
circumstances the canvass should not be delayed until
the candidate is named, for the individual candidate
is about the least important person in the struggle ;
the free-traders of England are not so much in-
terested in procuring for any individual, however
worthy or exalted, a seat in Parliament, as they are
in obtaining a triumph over a system of ruinous mis-
government, pernicious in its present effects, and
threatening to be still more destructive in its future
consequences.
We never remember an election in which national
interests were more directly involved in a local con-
test, and we are therefore anxious to impress on the
constituency of South Lancashire, not merely the
importance, but the absolute necessity, of sinking
everything local in the great national object. The
electors must vote for free trade, and for nothing else ;
attention to any other consideration is a breach of
confidence to the thousands and tens of thousands, who,
at their call, have come forward to aid them in the
great struggle against monopoly. When the Lom-
bard cities, in the olden time, took up arms to defend
their liberties, some dispute arose respecting the
choice of a standard-bearer, but the dissensions were
ended when the soldiers exclaimed with one accord,
"We will fight for our banner by whomsoever
borne I" They marched forward to assured victory,
and so trifling did the dispute respecting the coveted
banner appear, that history has not recorded to whom
the standard was committed on the day of battle.
Such should be the policy of the electors of South
Lancashire ; they are to struggle for the success of a
cause, and not of an individual, and their battle-cry
should be "Fight for the banner of Free Trade by
whomsoever it may be borne !"

At a ball and supper given to Lord ELLENBOROUGU
at Calcutta, his Lordship disburthened himself of a
speech—in reply to the President, who had proposed
his health—which is not less remarkable for its
matter than its manner. "Most people," observed
the Noble Lord—we quote from the Calcutta Star—
" come to this country to make their fortunes, but I

came here to do my duty. I have met with oppo-
sition, but I have put down all opposition that may
arise. I have done my duty. I have never abused
patronage. lam ready to sacrifice fortune—my life,
if necessary. Ido not care for any man living.
Whoever best serves the State, is my friend.

Ilitherto, my measures have all been triumphant and
successful. I take no credit for that. How far they
may continue successful, Heaven only knows ; at all
events it will not be my fault. I deserve success—
that's a fact! /am come amongst you, like an Eng-
lish gentleman among his tenants. If you receive
me politely, well and good ; if not, it is your fault,
not mine." The Report concludes by observing that
his Lordship " tossed off a bumper of Burgundy
amidst rapturous applauqe." His Lordship, we sus-
pect, must have tossed off more than one bumper of
Burgundy before he could have brought himself
to perpetrate the above remarks. lhe inspiration of
an influence far stronger than water is manifest in
every sentence. Mark, for instance, the ind;screet—
the insufferable egotism, faintly disguised under a show
of modesty, which is exhibited in the eternal repetition
of that imposing monosyllable "I." It was "I" did this
—"I" d;cl that ! But "I" take no credit for what " I"

lid! God forbid, "I" am naturally a modest man ;
but this "I" may say with perfect truth—namely,
that if "my" measures do not continue successful, it

will not be "my " fault, for "I" deserve success
Not a word, in praise of the gallant soldiers who acted
under his command! Not a word in praise of the
triumphant NAPIER, who gained a victory unparalleled
in Indian annals. From his Lordship's speech it might
be inferred that his only was the head that
conceived the plan, and the hand tl.at achieved the
triumphs on the banks of the Indus—that he acted,
on the occasion, in the two-fold capacity of statesman
And soldier—in a word, that it was he himself, and
none other, that accomplished everything ! Was
ever such a superlative instance of double-dis-
tilled bashfulness yet exhibited by an individual
holding the august and dignified post of Governor-
General of India! Then, observe the exquisite super-
ciliousness of the remark, " most people come to this
country to make their fortunes, but I came here to
do my duty"—an impressive confession, which at
' once sets the speaker, in point of public virtue and
disinterestedness, at an immeasurable distance above
all other Anglo-Indian officials. They came to make
their fortunes—" I," to do my duty ! Glorious and
unapproachable Unit ! How grateful ought we not
to be, that in the person of Lord ELLENBOROUGII we
have at least one important public servant who, come
what may, is resolved at all risks, sternly to do his
duty ! The concluding sentence of his Lordship's
speech is worthy of its imposing commencement.
If the Calcutta folks do not receive him
politely, "the fault," he coolly and cavalierly tells
them, "will be yours, not mine." It is utterly im-
possible that he should be the sufferer by their in-
civility. They will be the sole victims. He moves,
like the sun, along his course in solitary and splendid
majesty, at a height so far above their mark, that
any attempt to influence or annoy him by their
opinions, their prejudices, their discourtesy, or their
downright opposition, is as hopeless a task as
it would be to fill the sieve of the Da-
naides ! On a calm consideration of his
Lordship's most unaccountable speech, we have
come to the conclusion that it was intended—to quote
the words of the Duke of WELLINGTON—" as a
song of triumph," similar to that which he chaunted
on the glorious occasion of his levanting with the
gates of Sonmauth. Viewed in this light all that
is perplexing in it ceases at once to be
a marvel and a mystery, and we recognise in
it a fine poetical Ossianic rhapsody, whose
very
egotism and hyperbole are the strongest possi-
ble recommendations
possible t
obe
in
seriousifavour.tsonsuch a theme—we
Buttobese
serious
—if it be
can scarcely bring ourselves to believe that the pas-
sage on which we have been commenting, was
really and truly spoken by Lord ELLENBOROUGH.
We always knew him to be a vain and somewhat
indiscreet man, who, when he once took up a crotchet,
stuck to it with the tenacity of a horse-leech ; but we
knew him also to be shrewd, intelligent, energetic,
and enterprising; and these are qualities incompatible
with that sickly, purblind, inflated vanity and egotism
which pervades every sentence, and is ingrained into
the very texture, of his Calcutta speech.

At the Mansion-house, on Saturday last, one o
those cases occurred of heartless oppression on the
one hand, and domestic suffering on the other, which
painfully depict the penalties that social legislation, in
this as in every other European capital, visits upon