The Sun.
London, England, 1827-01-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

At twenty minutes past 9 o'clock last night, in Rutland
house, Arlington-street, died, his Royal Highness Frede-
rick, Duke of York and Albany, in the 64th year of his
age.. The painful indisposition of his Royal Highness has
long been a subject of notoriety and regret. It had for
some time assumed a form which indicated a general break-
ing up of the constitution, and which, in their despair of
a complete recovery, left the • medical attendants of his
Royal Highness no hope but that, of administering some
partial mitigation to sufferings in their nature too powerful
for human skill to contend with, The deceased . Prince,
whoie kindness of disposition rendered him popular in his
life..da4e, and will make his death generally lamented, had
been; what.is termed a free liver. He liked wine—he
loved play—and he had other tastes,unfortunately too
often iniulged.in by men of all professions, but of which
thi..ioultivation is perhaps less excusable in many other
wall; of, life than in those of a Prince, beset from infancy.
}),,i the Seduetions of a Court—and the soldier, to whom,
if his mind be not of more than ordinary intellectual and
moral force, habits of licentiousness come fatally recom-
minded by those of his reckless associates. We are 'not
now excusing the miserable morality which interposes
the prejudices and conventions of artificial life, between
that to which Providence has affixed the seal of actual

-
guilt with all its dreadful consequences, and the grave re-
s; prehension which, in the eye of truth, of virtue, and reli-
y, glop, belongs to it ; but, in judging, so far as his fellow-
e' creatures may presume to judge, the individual man, it is,
we trust,neit her unpardonable nor unreasonable, to allow for
the temptations which befall him, and the greater or less faci-
a': lity of resistance which his place in the world affords. On sa
'. the class of failings to which we have now alluded, it will
4} not be necessary to dwell much longer ; and the sacrifice
of feeling to integrity which we have already made, has
.'" not been undergone without reluctance. Men, however,
of eminent rank and fortune, marked out for the keen oh-
''
;' nervation of society, by the hand eehieli lifted them above
e...' the allotted level of their species, must he honestly appreci- le,l
s. ated and represented, or the best landmarks of morals bid I,'l
al fair to be finally overthrown. If that which is made, cen-
surable by the law of God can, be turned into praise by the
• sophie.try of his creatures, there is an end of all moral din- '
.t,. crimination in the universe. As humbler individuals are '
prone to copy the great in all things, they, will most readily
0 imitate their frailties, if these be not branded with just
k4i4 and inflexible reproach. We do riot, therefore, animadvert
1 with any pleasure upon the private infirmities of the Royal
personage deceased; but it Is our imperious duty to warn
others, that they mistake not his errors for subjects of pane-
n
gyric, and to beware of so neutralizing the general colour of
spas his propensities, as to aid mankind in their too frequent 'it
kil indifference between things substantially right and Wrong.
LI Besides the Duke of York's attachment to the excesses
1,.s of the table ; to gambling on the turf and elsewhere ; and .7
to r.nother class of immoral indulgences, which, without :
vs tieing named, may be sufficiently comprehended; his Royal s,
q Higlinees was weakly—we are bound to add culpably, as f"
Lii weii as most unhappily, insensible to the real use of money. -.4
Notwithstanding the vast income afforded him by the -:
tild liberality of the British nation, he contracted enormous
debts, without the means, or even the thought, as it would
appear, of discharging them ; and involved in distress
many hundreds of families, to whom he is now cut off for
iever, and might at any time haVe been equally pre- ,
eluded, from offering the smallest reparation: This is, un- •
, happily, regarded as one among the ,most venial offences
3s, of the aristocracy of England. It is positive injustice: :
14 it may not be deliberate, but it .is intrinsic 'robbery. a
its it finds men careless,--it makes them' callous,—it.
ends by plunging debtor -arid creditor into the same
0 gulf of despair. It is notorious how much the rapi-
dity of the ,Duke of York's disorder was accelerated by
the growing pressure of his pecuniary difficulties. So see
Nvere, so degrading were the forms in which those ember-
-1 l resements assailed the illustrious and unfortunate Prince, ks
,' that neither a house, nor furniture, nor horse, nor tan- ft
Obis. property of any kind incidental to the condition of a
',` gentleman, remained towards the close of life irnhis_pos- a,
c session. Yet, thus destitute and fallen—owing an error-
:.1
moue debt, cof which he could not pay a shilling—with
; the resistless grasp of death about him, through what
demon was it, that this iilsadvised member of the Royal .
.i Family commenced the building of a palace, the construe- -
`-' non, decoration, and furnishing of which, were not to be 'St.
%-I
completed for less than half a million sterling!
" Tu seeunda marmora,
" Loess sub ipsuna funus; et sepulcri
4.,
:'
Immemor—straia donum"
";'his is a lesson to the prodigal debtor. Let an equi-
~iQ
1
> vai„s Leison be put on record for the griping but still
' thriftless mo-geTniendet—bY the solemn and inexorable
. refuW of parijam,eut to discharge a mass of debts, which I
could not have been co.'
promptitude with which acco7a
is tendered to the exigencies of e'Yen the
V, -
tracted at all, but for the hideous ~
rnodation, in this country, 11,
most desperate ;4
.:, fortune. In the political conduct of . the Duke of York, es
.f'. there are but two points which we shall at present stop 4
to remark upon. Extravagance threw his Royal
to u High- es
ness into that needy state, which compelled biro n-
's.: dere-o the cruel humiliation of accepting 10,0001, per an-'
`1„
sC' nuri-i, for driving once a week from London to Winudscee to d.,
visit his afflicted parent ; and indiscretion, however well- •
e' meaning, prompted him to deliver an irrevocable judg- .lit.,
s mere on a much-controverted question of state policy, its-
voicing the peace of two great kingdoms, and the civil ei
- relations of 22,000,000 of men ! We should hardly here -''
hive touched upon the painful investigation in which the 71
-i
Commons of England were unfortunately engaged seven-'.
'
teen years ago,. were it not, Ist, that the ei4gl;l,4l' occur-
r= rein e to which we allude must, in spite of us, live in our
s history and blot our Parliamentary records; and, 2d, that
" the result proved strikingly beneficial to the army
and to the kingdom at large. 0 Happy are they,"
e' says the proverb, " whom other men's dangers '
r;: render
,prudent ;" and it is the neat degree of
'- happiness to learn experience from our own misfortunes. ',,t,
••since that remarkable epoch, there have been no more .'l.•
':.complaints ; disapdointment itself has ceased to clamour, ts-
,
and envy to whisper, that promotions have been obtained t
' throngis a secret and impure interference. We turn now
e the
pleasing side. of this historical canvass. The
. to more A e
Duke •a Volk, in private society, was warmly and de. A.
1
atervedly beloved--echeerful, affable, open, brave, and gene..,
edi55.......a steady and needle' frierid—gratefill fo
wsses rei
''; —inviolable in pie engagements—placable in his fer kindnesses
rel
~,:. sentro.en;s—humane and cornpeesionate to all whose dis-
i.,
an tresses he had the means of reiiviiig, , No man of his
s of Henry fir, of France, has
~, high rank, sh.:ee the day
_ ever conciliated more personal attachments, .ur retained
; them longer. No ratan has provoked less private ale., ~,..
: ' sity, or disarmed it scanner. He was the willing and con-
stant protector of thoussnds, who had no help to rely upoe
but that of his Royal iiighatis. He was easy and nnassum-
• ing among the higher classes with whom lie lived? He was
s considerate, kind, and beneficent towards those over whom
his power extended. In dispensing his official patronage,
he was no less exempt from vindictive and Tnalia' ,
riant impulses, than from ehildish and unfair peedilec- P!
;
. ~ lions; and the character of the Duke of York, quite as
much as his illustrious rank and station, qualli,ed him to
emerge an honest public servant from those corruptions
with which Ministerial importunity is too prone to sill-
round the head of a great executive department. The
- memory of his Royal Highness will long be dear to all
,-•;iits take a serious interest in the honour, welfare, and et-'
..' ticacy of the British army. If that force has heretofore:
', been too extensive far the finances of the kingdom, or for
the Seerning demands of a peace establishment, the fault did
rapt "rest with his Royal Highness ; nor is this the moment
at which we feel disposed to .consider as a national burden
#l.o.esistenne of a few thousand superAiguerary troops of
e• line. It hence becomes a consideration a gent um-
Meat to provide a successor to his late Royal Ilieseeso,
'qualified to act tern those principles of command vi-46$ ,
havervlttailed spelt hareem. on his memory, and to follow
p_that wise and upright system through which, while the
Moral character of the British army has been conspicuously
improved, that which constitutes the soy.) of an army, the
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