The Sun.
London, England, 1817-09-10 00:00:00

in ambition, as the demonstration of true public
feeling, and real public opinion, to which King's
and Cabinets are called upon to pay obeisance'.
When those shabby stimulants cogently apply
themselves; and establish their influence, their
disciples immediately lose all idea of a difficulty,
moral or physical. They see no way but a straight
road, and a short one, to every favou'rite object.
It is generally overhung with clouds, -and storms,
and misfortunes but then it is their true road—
it is si►nl►le--no winding!, or circuits, or defiec»
Hulls whatever---but direct upon the object. A
Government,' of• twelve centuries in growth, is
razed down to annihilation in as many hours.—
Customs hots-ever ancient, laws however vener-
able—instittnions however sanctified by the hoar
of time, are frivolorts, ridiculous little obstacles in
the way of their designs. Respect for any of these
is—corruption. A compunctious avetsion to
their destruction, the evidence of profligacy--and
any moral shivering at violent and sweeping
change, ,but. the demonstration of en oppres#ol.,
anda.slave in spirit. Faithful to themselves, how-
ever, while they are mild in the death-dance of
their freedom, they are developing their own ab-
surdity—for, while they call the moral growth of
ages but the walk of artificial despotism, and the
systematic spoliation of privilege and right—they
call that, which they themselves would establish
in its place, in a day—and would establish by
force, and maintain by coercion—the real tnani-

festation of true popular libetty ! S►► that, ac-
cording them, and from the necessity of their ar-
gument, it follows, that the longer human society
takes—following the develq,pement of its own
powers, and obeying the influence of its inherent
necessities—to settle and assurae a regular form
of polity, to be preserved as a moral good, and
handed down to pnsterity as a mord inheritance,

the greater the slavery ; and, the more rapi►lly
any old community, howrver renowned and flou-
rishing, can he squeezed and compressed into a
form utterly new, no matter how tough,-violent,
or desperate the process may be—the greater
the degre, of ci►il lihetty ! Of such stuff, and
despicable stuff it is, is the scheme of the Reformers
substantially formed.

Lord COCHRANE presented their petition—and

their petition was a Libel, and rejected PIT. the
tiolence and injustice of the language iu which it
was couched. . it stated, that the present dis-
tress of the country, the increase of beggars and
paupers—the Want of employment for itsdustry—
and the misery which resulted from this state of
things, could not he relieved by giving the suf-
ferers soup, while half their earnings was taken
away by the taxation 'under which the country
groaned, for the support of Sinecure Placemen,
Pensioners, and an insatiable Civil List ; and that
for tine evil, na adeqoate relietcorvid be. afforded,
but by a reform in t,e Parliament. A greater
mass of error never was pressed together into an
equal space. There is hot a single limb of this
motley proposition true : and the truth contained
in this part of it, is HS idle as it is self-evident—
namely, that soup will not relieve the state of
things, compounded of pauperism, beggary, the
want of employment for industry,,-and their con-
sequent Miseries. rt is true that will not cure
an evil of the sort ; but it is also true, that a

change in the constitution of the Parliament,
would not only not relieve the nation, but expose
it to misfortunes a million fold more afflicting

Liao all those that were set forth %%ill, such dis

mal ostentation, even if they existed to the ex-
tent asserted by the Reformers. -Though soup,
or, any other of those offerings: ,vhich be-
nevolence tendered to 'lessen the pressure of the

public distress, -could nut pretend to restore to
unemployed industrYi's. full silare of avocation ;
yet, it may very Willy pretend to be classed
among those temporary- expedients by which
poverty was relieved, ju some respects., and its
sufferings lesseqed—and, at all events, we shall
findas little religibn and as little morality in the
Creed of the Reformers, as wisdom or innocence

in their political pursuitli,-.it we seek for the mo-
tives which led theM to inveigh a:ainst the mea-
sures taken .fof giving Charity an effiCient system,
and • thereby 'diminishing the fund of the' public

distress. There could be but one reason for ex-
claiming against the practical virtue, which re-
flected such honour upon 'those condiiions in life,
that were enthusiastically inclined to share their
superfluities—and that was, that as .political
ctllations were founded upon the extreme degree
in which the public suffered, and upon the mis-
direction of the'sensibility of the populace ; so
every measure which contributed to lessen the

distress, diminished, at the same time, the power
of the lever, by which it was hoped to move the
public passions, and to.embroil the public condi-
tion. Every step made to bring back the suffer-
ing classes of life to patience, by the alleviation
of their hardships, was so much deducted front
the chance of revolution, by means of popular
commotionand, therefore, it was quite consist-
ent with the design of the-Reformers, to repro-
bate Charity as a weakness, and to brand it as
a vice, deserving the execration of all true friends
of their country: Their political morality was
equal to their political wisdom.—Botb were oils-
chievous and odious, and yet contemptible to
those :whti. reflected upon the true state of

affairs.
This party did not attempt to support, by any
atgument, the inconsecutive inferences which
they had so arbitrarily made. Their imaginary
reform had no foundation; but in the rash and
shabby metaphysics of the day—in the crude ab-
stractions of a few vain theory-mongets; and, as
for the populace, who were incited to support it,
by disclaiming the constituted Authorities of the
couHtry, and by hissing down or insulting every
man who was desirous, of exposing the fallacy of
the notion by aigument—they cared but little for