The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-18 00:00:00

AIN AKV

LONDON :
FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 18,1842.

There is an avowed conflict going on, not only
in England and Europe, but in America, be-
tween the aristocratic and democratic principles,
and hence our Tory Contemporaries, Who neces-
sarily champion the former, have thought it their
duty to excuse and palliate the late exposures in
our Courts of Law of the vices of some members
of the aristocracy. They set forth that the
Peerage contains, amongst its members, " the
brightest ornaments Of the nation, men of pro-
found learning, practical ability, and sound,
statesmanlike views." " The'Peerage," they say,
"affords, in the bulk of its members, examples
of pure-life; 'decent ,conduct, generous charity,
and justice well -zlMinistered." They speak of
the nERTFORDS, the FRANKFORTS, the HUNTING-
TOWER:4.,
.and the CIIESTERFIELDS, as mere ex-
ceptions to the general high character of the
Peerage; and they call upon the body to make
war upon those individuals who are bringing the
whole of the Peerage to • public shame. Our
Tory Contemporaries have not acted with their
usual prudence in directing attention- to these
blots in the escutcheon of the Peerage, and it
would have been wiser for them to have followed
their usual course, and have passed stains unno-
ticed which only become the deeper and extend
the further the more they are rubbed.

If the Peerage contain men of protbund
learning and great practical ability, they I►ave
not in general been born in that station. For
twenty years the principal man in the Upper
House, despite the great sagacity of Lord
GRENVILLE, the vast and playful learning of
Lord HOLLAND, the majestic good sense of
Earl Gagy, and the official influence of Lord
LivERPOOI., was the son of a Newcastle coal-
whipper. Rarely—very rarely, indeed—is any
commanding talent found in a Peer who has in-
herited his title through three generations. The
leading men there, like Lords LYNDHURST and
BROUGHAM, were born members of the demo-
cracy, and their original, hardy, or virtuous
nature enabled them to rise in influence and in-
tellectual power, high above the great majority
of those born in the Peerage. Nor can the
Duke ot WELLINGTON, the younge►• son of a
poor Ir4h Peer, and schooled in the army, be
considered an exception to the rule. Of all our
great Admirals, in modern times at least, though
the navy has been freely open to the aristocracy,

.'"iliap..-

',...N.,„.

NELSON, DUNCAN, COLLINGWOOD, EXMOUTH
not one, we believe, except, perhaps, Lord
HOWE, was by birth a member of the Peerage,
or of a flimily allied to the Peerage. For the
sake of human nature, for the sake of those whose
parents pass a toilsome or a turbulent life, in
order to transmit coronets to the brows of their
children, the truth must be impressed on the
public mind that, in the majority of cases, to be
born in the Peerage is to be the heir of compa-
rative imbecility, It is a sad ambition that men
should waste their own happiness, and sometimes
sacrifice their peace, in order to doom their
posterity to certain feebleness, if not to annihi-
lation.

Is not also, let us calmly inquire, the apology
for the Peerage carried too far, when it is asserted
that those individuals who have of late made
themselves notorious, are rather the exceptions
than the rule In their case the vice was bla-
zoned before the face of the world; but are not
similar deeds common among the aristocracy ?
Is it anything rare or strange for a married Peer
to have a mistress? Is it uncommon for Peers
to barter settlements for the possession of a
woman ? Do not a great many of the scions
of nobility incur, like Lord HUNTINGTOWER,
,great debts, which they expect to pay. hen they
come of age ? Most of the reproachful
acts committed by the late Marquis of HERT-
FORD, by • Lord FRANKFORT, by the Earl of
CHESTERFIELD, and by Lord HUNTINGTOWER,
are of every-day occurrence, among men
of title and wealth. What is remarkable
in these cases, and proves, we think, the
low tone of moral feeling and debasement of
the class, as much as of the individuals, is this
—they went voluntarily into a Court of Law to
make known their depravity, which if they had
possessed one scintilla of right feelinc, they
would have given the wealth of worlds to hide.
To the Marquis of HERTFORD, of course, the
remark does not apply. No ; it applies with
great force to his executors, to his family, and
friends—to a class, rather than an individual,
who, for the sake of a few thousand francs, or
perhaps to gratify a vindictive feeling, unfolded
all that old man's hideous private life to the
scorn and detestation of all decent people. To
Lord FRANKFORT, tO Lord HUNTINGTOWER, tO
COMA BATHYANY, to Lord CHESTERFIELD, and
to all their friends and advisers, the remark does
apply. At a comparatively small sacrifice—for
of what value was Lord FRANKFORT'S trinkets,
Lord CHESTERFIELD'S 3001. a year, if he had to pay
it himself, or ten times Lord HUNTINGTOWER'S
whole estates, compared to a good name ?—these
noblemen and their friends 'might halite -pre
vented the public coming to any knowledge of
their conduct. But they rushed into Court
and proclaimed their own vices to the world, as if
they knew not that they were vices. That is an
almost infallible index to the moral opinions of
the class among whom, and by whom, they were
educated, and with whom they live, and move,
and have their being. It proves, as clearly as if
similar facts were brought home to every Peer of
the realm, that the conduct which the Times and
the Iferaldi vehemently and justly condemn is
commons arnßngst the upper classes, and is not
by them branded with shame and disgrace.
Another index to the general character of the
Peerage is to be found in their corporate acts.
There can be no mistake about what the body
does publicly. "In no country," says the He-
rald, " has the Peerage such inducements to
virtuous and patriotic careers as in England.'
They have " the SOVEREIGN'S favour, national
honours, the people's applause, power, and the
gratification of ambition." " They are secured in
the possession of their estates, they have perma-
nent wealth and permanent power." How have they
rewarded the generous and confiding people for
their vast social advantages ? They have, for their
own selfish purposes, to add a little to their
wealth, and extend their power, doomed the
industrious classes to still severer toils to obtain
a living, and doomed many of them to the slow
and torturing death of starvation. Tell us not
of any political expediency in the Corn-laws;
tell us not of any patriotic notion of making the
nation independent of foreigners, in those who
almost live on foreign productions—that was the
after-found-out defence of a pre-enacted ini-
quity; tell us not of any Wish to have a great
abundance of strong-backed and independent
minded agricultural labourers—which, of all
things, the landowners abhor; none of these
dictated the Corn-laws. They were avowedly
dictated by a low and mean desire in the aris-
tocracy to increase their wealth, and keep up
their state and their extravagance. If, instead
of increasing rent, the Corn-laws had been sup-
posed to lower rent, they would have been,
regardless of every'interest but that of the aris-

tocracy, at once swept out of the statute-book.
If the aristocracy, too, as a body, had been as
generous as they are extortionate, supposing the
Corn-laws to be productive of wealth to them,
they would have been sensible of the bias their
minds must receive by their own advantage, and
they would have spurned the dishonest proposal
to enrich themselves by laws which plunder the
people. But they are neither generous nor
grateful to the people, who submit to unheard-of
privations out of respect to them, and show by

their corporate acts that the world may readily
believe the whispered stories of the shamelessness
of their private lives.

If they had those feelings of charity, of bro-
therly love to their kind, of respect for justice,
which the Herald ascribes to them, would they go
on, year after year,obstinatelyenacting one punish-
ment after another for trespasses which only the
poor and humble classes can possibly commit, when

experience has proved that the punishments are
so much gratuitous misery, for they prevent no
crimes ? Men of the most lukewarm feelings of
humanity would recoil from ordaining
Meting, month after month, and year after year,
those slow and lingering tortures in prison, to
which the Press has lately adverted, for offences
which spring from slicer poverty and want, such
as the Peers can never experience. Law after
law, heaping these tortures on their fellow-
creatures, and Sharpening them, have the Peers
passed, selfishly to protect their own sports.
They have unthinkingly or wilfully inflicted such
misery on their fellow-creatures for killing a par-
tridge or a hare as no man of average humanity
would doom a dog to suffer. The statute-book
is the index to the generosity and Imtnanity or
the Peerage.. Its numerous and bloody decrees,
its sad and disgraceful enactments regarding
such things as young trees and young birds, to
which a fellow-creature's life is as nothing, which

have been somewhat meliorated, or retbrmed, as

the intelligence of the middle classes has come

influence the decision of the Legislature--,-the nu

merous, sad, disgraceful, and bloody decrees, whic

have encumbered, and still encumber, the st

tute-book, which the Peerage have zealously

preserved as long as possible, show that they

have no respect for their fellow-creatures, n

love for their kind, and no confidence in huina

nature. All that is a sign of men degraded, not
ennobled, by the.wealth,vprivilages, and honours
they enjoy.

The meeting held at the Crown and Anchor
Tavern, last evening, to which we yesterday ad-
verted, was numerously attended. Mr. DUN-
' COMBE was in the chair. The resolutions were
carried unanimously, and, were of a description,
we believe, to command a very general assent,
The fewer examples there are, and happily they
are very few, of Judges:exhibiting themselves as
intemperate political partisans, and expressing
opinions vindictively hostile to the men they are
about to try, the more necessary it is, when such
a case does occur, that the public should pro-
nounce a•strong and unanimous condemnation on
such conduct. Possibly the expression of
public opinion, to Which a beginning and
an impulse were last night appropriately
given, mcy not suffice to remove Lord &BINGER
from the Bench, but we are sure that it will suf-
fice to impress a lesson of moderation and caution
on him and all other Judges. Considering how
very strongly the feelings of a large portion of
the people are excited by the late proceedings in
the north, their conduct last night seems to have
been highly
creditable. Several ladies were pre-
sent. The meeting was peaceably conducted to
its close.

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 18, 1842.

s
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4
ti
nte

SUN OFFICE Three o'Clock

We must own that, despite the assurance
given apparently from authority, " that the under-
writers at LLOYD'S are satisfied of the sea-worthi-
ness of the 'Waterloo, and have agreed to settle
for the loss at once," we have many misgivings
as to the strength of that ship. We should be
able to form a more correct judgment of the
Value of this decision, did we know the amount
of the premium and the nature of the policy. In
our ignorance of those circumstances, we cannot
help thinking, and we must be permitted to say,
remembering that two or three other cases have
occurred, within these few years, of the loss of
transports carrying convicts, that sufficient care
is not taken to provide proper ships for the con-
veyance of such large numbers of persons, who
can exercise no volition of their own• in the
matter, to the other side of the globe. We shall
briefly allude to the circumstance which makes
us conclude that the Waterloo was not a proper
ship for such a purpose.
We saw from the first moment that we read
the accounts, some reason, in the facts, that the
Waterloo had drifted broad-side on the beach,
while the Abercrombie Robinson had gone end
on, why one ship should much more speedily be
destroyed than the other. The one ship parted
her cables and ran on the beach, the other ship
dragged her anchors and drove broad-side on the
bead'. It would be rash to judge and condemn
on such imperfect evidence as we possess, but
we have always understood it to be a part of
seamanship, when it is found impossible to save
.a vessel from wreck, to put her head if prac-
ticable to the beach and force her as high on
the land as possible. In the case of the Aber-
cromby Robinson, this appears to have been
done, and it appears not to have been attempted
in the Waterloo. If there were any oversight
of that kind it was the fault of those who had
the ship in. charge.
As to the sea-worthiness of the ship, she was
27 years old, she had been, it is said, completely
repaired, had a new deck and been doubled ; but.
those circumstances do not vouch for her sound-
ness. We say nothing of her age, which is not
very great provided she were priginallyia„sub
istantial, 'built ship but'27 -yearS:ago, just at
the close of the 'war, when prices were very
high and timber scarce, we are inclined to believe
that it was not the custom to build ships re-
markably strong. The doubling, as our
readers are probably aware, is putting an addi-
tional outside case on the ship, adding conside-
rably to her weight, without, necessarily impart-
ing any new strength to the frame-work, on
which all depends. It is often employed to make
an old ship hold together, and will answer that
end well in fair weather, and under no adverse
circumstances; but it does not add to, in old
ships, ability to resist the destructive power. of
waves and rocks.

Such a ship can be insured, at some premium
or other; so can all the goods which are sent in her;
but a cargo of living beings cannot be insured. It

seems to us highly improper to send vessels of
that description to the other side of the globe, so
laden. We feel pretty confident that the chief'
of the Transport-office and the surveyors of
transports, would not select such a vessel to con-
vesy their own families, and therefore we con-
clude that she ought not to be employed by then.'
to convey men who have no will of their own.

On the heels of such a great misfortune, when
many hearts are sorrowing and suffering, we are
averse from employing strong language, but we
must advert to the subject, because it is only at
such times that the public can be sufficiently in-
terested in such a matter as to make its opinion
of commanding weight with men in office. The
honour and humanity of the country are con-
cerned. England is not very tender of the lives
of poor criminals, and successive accidents like
that of the Waterloo may receive a name from
foreigners, borrowed from the worst period of the
French Revolution. We must be careful not to
merit such a terrible stigma.

Besides the defects in the ship, she seems not
to have been well provided with means for the
me►i to escape. We read of no boats being
launched, no apparatus brought into use either
by the officers of the ship or the persons on
shore, which could contribute to save life. No
attempt was made either to send a line from
the shore to the ship, or, which probably
would haVe been more easy, to send a line
from the ship to the shore. We hope that
such circumstances will call the attention ,of
men in authority to the provisions made for safety
in convict ships, and that they will take care
that every transport carrying convicts be pro-
vided with all the ordinary means of escape,
under such dreadful circumstances proportionate
to the number of the people on board. We trust,
too,
will canchorages, whether colonial or
other, toremain so destitute of
' that l
b) e )
auoved
the means of help onl an emergency, which will
cost only a few pounds, as Table Bay appears
to have been on the lamentable occasion of the
wreck of the Waterloo.

The Belfast News _Letter states, that it is in
contemplation to commemorate the great moral
revolution effected by Father MATHEW through-
out Ireland, and that. a national testimonial in
• his honour is also Contemplated by his friends.
"No Irishman," observes our, Contemporary,
"deserves better that his really patriotic services
should be rewarded. He has, indeed, effected a
great moral revolution in the country. By the
magic power of temperance, the aspect of affairs
has been wonderfully altered. Men of
different religious creeds, and different po-
litical opinions, have borne decided and
concurrent testimony - to the spread of
temperance in Ireland, and the god fruits it is
producing. There is now peace instead of quar-
rel, -industry instead of idleness. Irishmen are
improving in their, worldly circumstances.'
When we state that it is a Tory journal which
holds this language—one of the organs of that
party, which; when Father MATHEW first com-
menced his grand experiment, styled him a
dreamer and visionary, and ridiculed his ideas as
Utopian and impracticable, our readers will
readily admit that the Temperance Apostle's
exertions must indeed have been successful to
have wrung such an acknowledgment from an
avowed enemy. In fltet, so) ;successful has Fa-
ther MATHEW been in his comprehensive scheme
of working out the moral regeneration of his
country, that the Tories are now taking
etalgvee o s
advantage of
his peaceful triumph to benefit
a.nd have actually the cool impu-
dence to assert that the pacification of Ireland is
owing, not to the spread of temperance, but to
Earl DE GREY'S Government! Never was a
greater fltlsehood Yet promulgated, even by ex-
perienced and unscrupulous Toryism. II Ire-
land be now comparatively tranquil, it is in spite
of Earl DE GREY'S halting Administration, not
in consequence of it. The real Pacificator is
Father MATnuw. He has achieved what Tory
Government after Government has been in vain
attempting for the last fifty years and upwards.

By arrivals this mornium we learn, from Ber-
lin, that the session of
the Provincial States
closed on the 4th instant, having
lasted twenty-
two days. The close of the session somewhat
resembled the prorogation of the British Par-
liament, with this difference, that the Royal
Speech was not
delivered in a formal manner
from the Throne, but
at a hospitable mite:win-
ment given by his MAJESTY, to which the Minis-
ters, Marshals, and Deputies were invited. The
KING thanked them for the efficient manner in
which they had deliberated on the different mea-
sures of State presented to them by his Mi-
nister, and expressed his high satisfac-
tion at the good order and discretion
which had marked their proceedings. His MA.
JESTY has adopted at least one point of the Char-
ter, for, on the Deputies closing their labours,
he ordered three dollars a day, with travelling