The Sun.
London, England, 1829-11-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TILE PI7t3T,IC JOURN

For some time past the most insignificant of
our West India communities seem to think that
they may beard the general Government with
impunity, and exclaim, in Toni Thumb vela,
" 'Sdeath, be a rebel," on the most. trifling
:ittempt to correct their abuses, or counteract
their wishes. This observation is suggested by
the conduct of the Legislature of Tobago, as
:lisplaved in the Tobago Gazelle of the sth am!
the 12th of done last. These numbers of the
Colonial journal contain the report of a commit-
:cc of the General Assembly, on a message.trans-
mitted by the Governor, for the approp
by the Lords of the Treasury, of a portion of the
duties raised in the island on foreign tnerchan-
disc. By the 6th of the present was
enacted, that for the benefit of the colonial tiSsele,
the fees formerly levied in the colonial ports 6'
the payment of the Custom-house office's should
cease, and be replaced by salaries. 'Though the
interests of navigation were generally benefited
this abolition of fees, colonial relief was the
chief object of the measure. In passing this
enactment no provision was made for the Cus-
tom-house officers whose fees it abolished ; but
as it svaa never contemplated for a moment that
this relief to the colonies was to be purchased
at the expellee of throwing any adcliiional
burden on the mother country, or of robbing the
Custom-house officers, it followed, as a matter
of course, that in lieu of fees the Colonial
Treasury should supply to those public servants
another fund of income. Whether the duties
levied for this purpose: were levied under an late
perial or a colonial act, still in all cases dutiea tO
an amount sufficient for the payment oz theisa
officers were reserved as salaries bersyse the rs:-
mainiog proceeds were to be paid into the colo-
nial treasury. As a matter of convenience, and
to avoid misunderstanding, or to elude oppo-
sition, it was agreed that only a fourth part ot.
the proceeds should be taken to answer thesis
charges, Government never for a moment: how.
ever, surrendering the right_ of deasicting rho.whole expences of collection from the 'roseamount of duties paid in the colonies. IlyaMajesty's Government at the same time declared
that they would not claim a right to deduct from
the Custom-house duties of the colonies a larger
sum under the name of salaries than migiit 4.;`,.1-
stitute a reasonable remuneration for their f ter
lection, though they assumed the rigtst to judge
of the adequacy of that remuneration: Ti e
revenue levied for the use of the Crown is ‘»d'
dened with the expences of collection, as well as
that levied for the use of the colonies. That the
change from fees to salaries was a real relief to
the colonies, is evident from the circumstance,
that before the act of 182.5 the whole SUMS col-
lected under the former head was 103,000 L,
while the total of the new and reduced salaries
amounts only to 73,0001. A message, ;is
which these facts and this reasoning were con-
tained, ought in the usual course of things,
to have been received with gratitude and
executed with alacrity. But this was not the
view taken of the matter by the committee of
the General Assembly of Tobago. Its repoo
is full of groundless jealousy, clumsy sarcasm.,
and factious opposition. It begins by affectedly
exculpating the Governor of the island and the
Colonial Secretary in England from the charge
of having penned the message, and ascribes its
composition to some inferior officer in some
subordinate department of the Treasury. The
committee then complains that their remon-
strances and petitions had been three ycara liege
lected under three successive colonial secretaties.
Entering at last upon the subject of tie ines-.
sage, they declare that the substitution of salaries
for fees was no relief to the coloniea; and utter
some unmeaning words about illegal taxation and
resistance. We cam only find room for the fol-
lowing quotation on this subject, in which a.
body of men, living by the labour of slaves,
venture to quote Burke against slavery:—
" It must be admitted, that some slight advan.
tages have accrued to the colonies from some altera-
tions that have been made in the laws affecting
their commerce, or rather, some advantages may be
expected to be felt hereafter, for at present no bene-
fit has hitherto resulted. The commercial monopoly
of the mother-country has been partially relaxed :
the right to recontinue it has never been renounced.
With a right to control all their trade, and with a
right to impose, through the medium of the
Lords of the Treasury, unlimited taxation, the
colonies must see that the mother-country
now reduces them to that lamentable situAtion,
which was so forcibly depicted in the arguments on
American taxation. Statesmen of wisdom, it might
have been thought, would have gone far to keep
this out of sight, but the Lords of the Treasury have
not scrupled to expose it to the eyes of the colonists
in all its nakedness. The immediate connexion be-
tween the taxation of America by the British Par-
liament, and the loss of the valuable possessions: of
which the inhabitants renounced their allegiance,
must always be present to the minds of those inha-
bitants of those Colonies which retained theirs.—
They have seen a result not at the time anticipated.
They retain a sense of rights, out of which others
could not be argued, and they are sensitively alive
to the maintenance, and consequently to the infringe-
ment, of their own. If the claim now made—if the
right now usurped shall be persisted in, they feel by
experience, that their own degradation, even in the
eyes of the people, and people of the highest intelli-
gence in England, is complete. So strongly was the
force of t his observation impressed on the minds of that
eminent Statesman, that in his celebrated speech en
American taxation, Mr. Burke:says-4 Whether you
were right or wrong in establishing the colonies on
the principles of commercial monopoly, man r than
on that of revenue, is at this day a matter of mere
speculation. You cannot have both by the same
authority. To joie together the restraints of an
universal external and internal monopoly, with an
universal internal and external taxation, is an unna-
tural union—perfect uncompensated slavery.' And
again—' Nobody will be argued into slavery. Sit,
let the gentlemen on the other side call forth all
their ability,—let the best of them get up and tell me
what one character of liberty the Americans have,
and what one brand of slavery they are free from, if
they are bound in their property and industry, by
all the restraints you can imagine on commerce, and
at the same time are made pack-horses of every tax
you choose to impose, without the least share in
granting them. When they bear the burdens of un-
limited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the
burdens of unlimited revenue too ? The English-
men in America will feel that this is slavery—that it
is legal slavery, will be no compensation either to
his feelings or his understanding.'"
„devsantroint;
The Committee next accuses the Lords of
ir
the Treasury, or the authors of the message, of
poenalsktss'ot7the
disingenuousness,—of arbitrary caprice,—of
want of candour,--of tyrannical interference with
theo f rig o
Parliament. h e
Itc osl
• them without their own consent or the authority
and uses other phrases respecting their Lord-
ships which do not commonly meet their ears in
official documents on this side of the Atlantic.
At last, after telling the Assembly that they look
upon the " vapouring" of the Lords of the Trea-
sury about the relief afforded as mistake or hy-
pocrisy, they add—
" With regard to the alternative offered the

House, your Committee can only look on it with a
mixture of sorrow and indignation. They would
not dishonour the House by their recommendation
to accept either branch of it. The Lords of the
Treasury themselves may hereafter, on better con-
sideration see the injustice of their own conduct to-
wards the weakness of the colonies ; or, possibly, a
successful application might be made to Parliament,
where, sooner or later, injuries receive redress. If,
however, this is hopeless, and the cause of the co,
lonies be desperate, your Committee may advise a
submission to necessity, but it cannot degrade itself
by a recommendation to the House to forge fetters
for themselves."

The resolutions, with the proposal of which
this singular document concludes, import that
the Lords of the Treasury, having by their ap-
propriation of the duties on foreign merchandise
levied in the colonies, taxed the inhabitants with-
out consent of the Assembly, anti having, in so
doing, attempted to abrogate their charter and to
subvert their constitution, to secede to the pro-

positions now made them would be a base dere-
fiction of the rights of the colonial inhabitants.
It is curious that the absurdity of this language
should not strike the legislators of a slave colony,
who could not maintain themselves for- an hour
amidst their black " inhabitants" without the
protecting arm of that country which they seem
to defy,—that they should talk in such mock
heroic strains of political rights in the face of a
large population whom they hold in bondage,—
and that the advantageous conversion of a larger
fee for a smaller salary should have occasioned all
this show of resistance, merely because the pro-
position did not originate with themselves.—
Times.

The prejudices which were so ine.ustriousl]
fomented against the New System of Police, a
i:s original formation, have at length exhibited
a tendency to subside, and the results of the ex-
periment are considered so encouraging, that
without more delay than the nature of the sub-
ject demands, it is intended to enlarge the circle
of its operation ; but there are still some obsta-
cles to be got over, as well in the extension of
the improved municipal regulations, as in the
reformation of that portion of the old which has
been permitted to remain untouched. Under
the first head we would class the obstructions
which will be thrown in the way of their intro-
duction into the City--that strong hold and ci-
tadel of the enemies of innovation. Under the
last we would particularly dwell upon the mode
that has long prevailed in administering those
preliininary proceedings which are entrusted to
the Magistrates who preside in the various divi-
sional offices which superintend this branch of
our municipal code. It may be new to our
readers, as it certainly was to us, to learn that
much of the opposition to the New Police was got
lip, and the expences of it defrayed, by the joint
contributions of the watchmen about to be discar-
ded ; that the manifestoes which " stood rubric on
the wall," and the embellishments emblazoned in
the perfection of lithographic deformity, owed
their existence to the stock purse formed for the
laudable purpose of perpetuating the absurdity of
entrusting the care of life and property to men
notoriously corrupt, and in many instances phy-
sically incapable of that activity and vigilance
which their duties required—but in England,
and more particularly in London, Money is
never wanting for this or any similar purpose.
We are firmly persuaded that if the honourable
fraternity of Mendicants had any important ob-
ject to carry, the command of funds would not
be Ritual in the catalogue of deficient requisites.
We have, perhaps, dwelt too long upon a point
of opposition which, we believe, is gradually eva-
porating, and would soon disappear if it did not
rather unaccountably receive encouragement in
quarters where it was least of all to be expected.
Our readers will, probably, anticipate our ex-
planation—that the allusion applies to an esca-
pade attributed in a recent Police Report, to one
of the sitting Magistrates of Bow-street. The dif-
ficulty of bringing the proposed system to the re-
quisite perfection in that part ()fit which is borrowed
from the old, is, in itself, more formidable, and
less easily susceptible of remedy than the branch
of which we have already treated ; one of the
questions least capable of an easy solution is the
very obvious one—where are we to look for men
tapable of performing the duties of Committing
:Magistrates ? It is an admitted fact, that the
individuals to whom that trust is at present de-
legated are not, in general estimation (we dis-
claim any invidious personality in the ols-erva-
lion), competent to a satisfactory discharge of it;
and we know that this very point has been the
subject of anxious and hitherto unsuccessful so-
licitude to the Member of the Administration to
whose department this branch of domestic policy
more especially belongs. On this much can-
vassed and very comprehensive subject much re-
mains to be said. It is but justice to the parties
to whom our observations apply to admit that,
with all the patching introduced by Mr. Peel
into our system of procedure previous to trial,
or Instruction as it is termed on the Continent,
it is still confused and anomalous; and that till
the course be chalked out with something like
precision, every fresh case must exhibit a scene
of indecent wrangling calculated to lower the
magistracy in general estimation. We shall re-
vert to this subject.—Morning Chronicle.
The Bishop of Ferns tells Lord Mountcashel
that so long as Europe remains revolutionary,
the abuses of the Protestant Church must not be
touched. Touch the Church, indeed, at such
a time ! But good and evil are all wonderfully
mingled in sublunary affairs. The Gazette de
France of Friday tells us, that so long as Eu-
rope remains revolutionary, the Sovereigns of
Europe will abandon all ideas of aggrandize-
ment and rivalry. " All the Powers of Europe,"
says our Parisian Contemporary, " arc now
united in the great interest of preservation of
social order against the anarchical faction which
menaces it in all Europe. The peace has taken
place, and the English mad French fleets have
not enteied the Dardanelles, and the Emperor
of Russia has not chosen to enter Constantinople.
Europe, for forty years, has been in a situation
of which history furnishes no example. It is
agitated by an universal cause of disorder, which
acts in the same manner on every society ; hence
every State has an internal enemy which de-
mands its whole attention, and which can
only be vanquished by the union of all the
powers of order ; in England, the Radicals ; in
Italy, the Carbonari ; in France, the Jaco-
bins ; in Germany, the Sandiats ; in Russia, the
Military Conspirators ; in Belgium, in Poland,
in the provinces of the Rhine, in the Milanese,
the Independents. All these men, agitated by
the same spirit, march towards a common ob-
ject. So long as these revolutionary ferments
shall exist, all Kings will be united b) a com-
mon interest, and that interest will. impose silence
on queistiOrA.ptrivalry, on ideas of aggrandize-
menttaraalf. that_ ordinarily: troubles the liar-
eMPiies.'' - The lovers of peace, then,
listg.p.thisthepr;y, :ought to wish, if not
see At Iftstiong ids to the eause of Ja-

rnon.

lua,„-)

cobinism, Radicalism, &c. Physicians say that
two distinct diseases cannot exist in the system
at the same time, and hence some of -them de-
fine medicine to be the science of creating one
disease to destroy another. Radicalism, in po.
litical medicine, is the disease which is created
to cure the disease of ambition to make con-

quests. But then again Radicals and Jacobins
can only exist where there arc glaring political
abuses ; so that we must have glaring political
abuses to have Radicals and Jacobins, and Ra-
dials and Jacobins to prevent Kings from knock-
ing their heads against each other. Thus every
thing, as we shall be told, works for the best
in this best of all possible worlds.—lbid.
The dirferent Quarter Sessions throughout the
country seem desirous of showing people how
little advantage there can be in the old maxim of
appealing " from Philip drunk to Philip sober,"
By Mr. Estcourt's famous Licensing Act, a
great promise of improvement was held out by
giving persons a power of appealing to the Ses-
sions against the refusal of a license by Magis-
trates at their Division Meetings. The experi-
ment has been tried, and what has been the re-
sult ? In Essex the Sessions have gravely de-
termined that unless " corrupt motives" can be
traced home to, and proved upon, the Magis-
trates, their decision ought not to be disturbed ;
which, in fact, is to put on appellants the onus
of proving, in most cases, an impossibility. In
Middlesex it has been adjudged that unless per-
sonal notice has been served upon every one of
the Magistrates attending the Licensing Meeting
(though neither the name nor person of any one
of them may be known to the applicant) the
appeal cannot be so much as entertained. In
Sussex the refusal by only two persons to license
a large hotel at a watering-place is held to be
right, merely because those two persons had
thought so. In Hampshire, though acting
within the malaria of a rotten borough, the judg-
ments of the licensing Magistrates is held to be
most wholesome and unassailable ; whilst in
Devonshire alone, after a very close-run divi-
sion, one of these appeals has succeeded.—
The monstrous folly and injustice of infusing
into these, or any other judicial proceedings,
a feeling of esprit dii corps, are too palpable, we
should imagine, to require any illustration ; but,
if any were wanting, it would be at once sup-
plied by comparing the conduct of the Magistrates
in this respect with that of the Judges of the
Courts in Westminster Hall, great part of whose
time is occupied in hearing motions for new
trials, and in correcting misdirections to Juries
and erroneous decisions, alleged to be given by
members of their own body. But did any one
ever dream of a motion for a new trial, or an
argument on a writ of error, being refused to be
entered into out of courtesy to the Judge who
had tried the cause ? The idea is too absurd to
be so much as thought of. On the contrary,
the highest Judga of the land treat each other s
opinions with the greatest freedom, and in a
manner becoming great and liberal minds, bent
only on discovering truth and administering jus-
tice. Nothing, indeed, can display a narrow
mind more glaringly than a disposition to adhere
to mere authority, stripped of the attributes for
which alone authority is venerable ; and in most
of the cases before us we have that illustrated up
to the highest mark of pompous imbecility.—
Must not the Legislature see, then, that its ef.
forts in this respect have proved wholly unavail-
ii.g ? And is it not high time that a power,
which is so exercised originally, and against the
abuse of which the remedy by appeal is rendered
almost nugatory in practice, should be abolished
altogether, or transferred to hands capable of
exercising it with sound and impartial discre-
tion ?—Morning Herald.
We have received a great number of letters on
a subject, the discussion of which we have, for
various reasons, been anxious to avoid, we mean
the late refusal of music licences to a great num-
ber of most respectably conducted taverns and
hotels : indeed, we may add to almost every one
in favour of which, however numerously or re•
spectably the petition may have been signed, an
application was made. Such conduct, as the
have been called upon to express our opinion,
we have no hesitation in setting down as exhi-
biting a disregard to the enjoyments of the
middling and lower classes of society, which is
neither very honourable to the understanding, or
very creditable to the hearts of those who have
it in their power to show different feelings.
What injury can arise to society from a public
dinner being accompanied with music, or a con-
cert performed in a tavern or hotel, we are at
as much loss to divine, as why the Duke of
Wellington, or any other Nobleman, should be
allowed to have both in his own domicile with.
out licence, and without risk of fine ; while
those who do not move in the same sphere,
and have not the same means of gratifying
their tastes, should be forbidden to indulge them
in an inferior mode. If in consequence of grant-
ing a music licence, either the neighbourhood of
a tavern became subject to annoyance, or the
tavern itself a scene of riot and confusion, and
an incentive to immorality; the Magistrates have
it amply in their power to punish the guilty, not
only by withholding a licence for the performance
of music in future, taut even by refusing a
common licence for the house and person
on a subsequent application ; and is not this
risk enough to induce any reasonable man
neither to abuse his licence, or permit dis-
orderly conduct therein ? But the truth is
that there has, for some years past, been a
growing disposition to abridge the amuse-
ments of the people, and in abridging them
to vilify one of the most respectable bodies in the
metropolis ; and the decisions to which we
have alluded have their origin, we fear, much
more in these feelings than m that extraordinary
profession of anxiety for the public morals which
is thrust upon us from the Bench with such
earnestness, and with such magisterial gravity.—
The parties themselves, however, as those who
are in the secret well know, have no objection,
when they meet to enjoy themselves, after the
toils of a licensing day, to having their dinner
seasoned by the sweet sounds of music, and their
wines flavoured by the performance of what, in
any other place, would subject the landlord to a
penalty of 1001.—Morning Advertiser.
We were ye,terday called before the Court o
King's Bench, to answer a charge of libel brough
against us by a man named Wilks, a printer in
Chancery-lane, for publishing a police case in the
News of January 11th last, which was said to
have held the said Wilks up to ridicule for hav-
ing a wooden leg, and otherwise hurt his feelings,
and injured his character and reputation. The
case is reported in a preceding part of our pre-
sent number. Wilks laid his damages at 5001.
and the Jury gave him forty shillings. There
are one or two circumstances connected with this
affair, which, as they were not laid before the
Jury, we think the public should be acquainted
with ; if only to show the nature of our law of
libel. In the first place, the alleged libel, we

call it "alleged," for with all due deference to
the lynx eyes of lawyers, we can see no malice,
or ought else, but a harmless joke in the article
in question, was verbatim copied into The
News of January 11, from a Morning Paper of
111
January 6, preceding. We should not wish to
shelter ourselves under this plea, were the libel
of an outrageous nature ; but so little do
Wilks's feelings seem to have been affected by it,
that he allowed a whole term—the then ensuing Hi-
lary—to pass over, and it was not until the latter
end of May, that we ever heard of his intention of
commencing an action against us. We have
already said that the libel was a verbatim copy
from a Morning Paper—it was so ; but though
we have reason to believe that IVilks has also
commenced an action against the same Mo►ntng
Paper, for the same libel, yet he preferred to
bring the case of the mere copyist on first, in-
stead of making the original culprit take pre-
cedence. In the next place the alleged libel was
not the mere coinage of the brain of a news-
paper reporter, but a true and faithful statement
of what actually cccurred at the office at Bow-
street, at the time alluded to. Wilks did intrude
himself in the manner there stated, and we had
four witnesses to prove that the words put into
the mouths of Sir R. Birnie and of Wilks were
the substance, fairly and honestly reported, of
what they each uttered.* With respect to
the boyish ridicule about Wilks's wooden leg,
we can only say, that, if' a man of upwards of
fifty years of age, and who has availed himself
of that admirable substitute, for more than

twenty years—(longer for aught we know)—
cannot bear a silly joke on it, the world must
have treated him with great indulgence, or his
feelings must be of a more sensitive nature than
fall to the lot of most men.—. News.

It would appear from our report of the trial that
these witnesses were not examined, because Mr. Brougham
had promised the Attorney-General that no witnesses
should be produced in the defence. If this were the fact,
we can only say that Mr. Brougham gave sach promise
unknown to his client, or his solicitor. The witnesses had
been attending the Court :for two days, and one of them
was called, and all but sworn --(Ed. News.)