The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-28 00:00:00

Obiening

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1845.

The recent letter of the Duke of NEWCASTLE, ad-
dressed to an Evening Contemporary, is a document
too remarkable to be passed over in silence—although
we are very far, indeed, from any desire to impeach
the truth and.genuino character of its nvermeets. No
mere associations of party shall ever make us wit-
tingly unjust to persons. We therefore feel it our
first duty, in considering this letter, to separate our
recollections of the staunch Tory opponent of Reform
and the progre3s of liberal opinions fru those which
regard the personal character and reputation of nn
English nobleman of the highest rank, family, and
fortune. It has happened to us to have had con-
siderable opportunity for forming an unbiassed judg-
ment upon the deportment of his Grace in this dis•
tinguisheil position; and we are bound to declare that
we have always heard, moreover, from others who
have had the best and the nearest means, in the
transaction both of private and professional affairs, of
observing► that deportment, that he has discharged, in
the most unexceptionable manner, all the relations
and duties of private life, as a parent, a landlord, and
a master, at steady friend, and an excellent neighbour.
That the Duke of NEWCASTLE should be prepared,
at any time, amply to vindicate his personal
integrity and honour against all impeachment,
was no more than we were at all times fully prepared
to expect. The vindication of his Grace, therefore,
on the present cccasion,from the constructive imputa-
tion (for his Grace will allow us to remark that, after
all, the motion which has occasioned him so much
annoyance implied nothing more, and died abso-
lutely in the moment of so perfect an explanation ns
it had already elicited from Lord LitzscoLN)---this
vindication, we say, does not move us by any emotion
of surprise. We may intimate a doubt of the dis-
cretio►l of his Grace's proceeding, with as much free-
dom as we have excepted, in times past, to certain
unfortunate declarations made by him in the House
of Lords. But we can as frankly declare, that we
respect the very excitement under which he writes so
boldly, albeit perhaps tr_ttelvisedly, as we adhere to
the emphatic protests, we have repeatedly !mule
against the general '.enour of his political views and
connexions. A'A tho Duke, to (h) him justice, leaves
neither to UP, nor to any others who have most vehe-
mently a'.t►nt,,lvcrted on his ultra-Toryism, any plea
of (IPociilt:), in reconciling past with present profes-
sil)lls. Ile manfully, if wrongly, adheres to his con-
'..skot text. Ile is no political latitudinarian. Ile
nay have compromised the expediency politics of
the party with which ho was once connected, bu►
ho will not compromise his own deliberately
recorded opinions. From that party he has
ni►w withdrawn. This secession from the
parts• adopted in the earlier period of a
public man's public career, is the mess common thing
in the woi Id in our times. But he has not passed
over to the opposite party, nor changed his opinions
in that transit. This is one of the rarest phenomena
now to be witnrssed in the political horizon. In so
far, therefore, as regards singleness of purpose, con-
sistency of party adhesion, uncompromising profes-
aion flf a political faith, which it has become the
almost universal fashion of its former votaries to ab-
jure—this ktter is no every-day production. But it
WS yet more signal nut liminotivo properties about
it. There is n straight• forward, searching, stern, and
almost tr►isarithrop''' tri'thfulne,s of statement about
it, which is es hunotirahl to himself as we fear it
will be distasteful to his quondam connexions, and
even to bit o,tin family. There is no mincing o
matters alts► the Doke. In his ju-litication, even
his assn haul riot gone for enough. Ills Grace
seems to have been indifferent about going too far,
provide I be could completely justify himself from the
imputation that might, as tt'• say, be constructively
inferred from the terms of Mr. I luM L's or Mr. Wm-
masts's motion. Is he determioeil to set out tht
whole truth, oven at the cost of some revelations of
private concernmei ti which it must be, at all times, a
painful sacrifice for such a man to make to
a sense of duty ? If the extreme step the
Duke has taken might have been avoided, as it is
reasonable to infer fr ►rn the prompt acknowledgment
with which Lord LiNcoest's speech was responded to
by all p Tsons who !ward it—it is now too late to
lament, and impossible to recal it. We, like the
rest of the world, are c xempted from all liability to
the charge of indelicacy in further discussing a pub-
li-hed le:ter, after readily acknowledging that it has
completely answered its purposes of c ►mplete vindi
eat lon.

For, surely, there is a moral beyond the matter
in hand, on the prest nt occasion, to b, drawn from
this document. What, after all, k this phantom of
Parlismentary influence, of aristocratical distinction,
of Ministerial connexion, of the authority attaching
to vast propertf and high alliances, of all, in short,
that goes to make up the showy pageant which men
call "power," and the attno•phere of whose existence
is denlitrinted public life ? Here is a ducal mantle
withdrawn from the glittering mystery it covered ;
and that mystery, for the mastery of which min sa-
crifice their cons ietions, their opinions, the con-
nexions of their youth, the deliberate pledges re-
corded by reflective manhood, the geed will of those
frian wh an only applause is worth the earning, the
confidence of constituents, the respect of a contem-
porary public, and the favourable judgment ofpos-
terity ? It is a shapeless, revolting, hollow, mock.
ing 11: fortuity. The heir of the honours and for-
tune, estates and grandeur of the PErmams, the
liSiN ESES 1111.1 the CLINTONS tells you so.
e tells you tl:nt he has been made, for
years past, the subject of deliberate misre-
presentation and vilife•ntioo on account of opi-
nions he never professed ; :yet chat he now finds him.
self comparatively alone, in the profession of those
which he did unvt does profess, which his former poli-
tical connexions did pr.sfess, and have now, ono by
one, abandoned. So much for the fate of political
singleness of purpose ; for the duplicity of political
connexions. All the accilenk of position, all the de-

mPlots of suet:cm were with the Duk,,, nod he broadly
tivows that, "at his tlrat entrance into public life
he posacired great rower in a political point of view."

It is evident that the sapping operation of selfish in-
terests, the cabals of treacherous associates, and the
secret defection of trusted loaders, making their own
terms at the expense of the parties who trust thcm,do
more to wreck political " power " Om the moot
stormy shocks of violent but open enmity. Then
Nene* the Duke's expcsition of his borough property,
and the authority that gave him in the Legislature.
We arm. mplite %%Milli{ to believe that his Grove is not
less valiant in Li k ilcciartainn that he never made use
of this property in the way of mliNhonest traffic or for
purposes of gain, and that he dispensed it by nomina-
tions the roost eligible and the best adapted for the
public interests, according to hi own notions or %,‘ hat
those interests requirm d. We cannot go along with him
in considering it a grievance which any British Peer
can be in a condition to plead, that if the sacrifice of
these boroughs, by the Reform dill, entailed a pecu-
"

i:try 10:42, equivalent to '200,0001., he lets nev;r re-

(liked noy cumpenaation fur that kiss. Ifut we think
he ii entitled to the praibe of great and most honour-
able moderation, looking to the immense importance
of his influence and support to any Tory Government,
in having exacted—we should rather say accepted—
so very little in the shape of mere honorary
distinctions,—so ulimolutely nothing in th 9
shape of public money or official pay. his conduct

with regard to the olti•ri of the Garter to him—hip

unoly waiver of that high honour in favour of
the Duke of ‘Vsz.i.troTuv, when bo wee himself re-

commended of it on tho ground of eminent publio