The Sun.
London, England, 1827-09-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE •Pt'Bl_lC

The Ministry is now completed ; the agita-
tions of hope and. fear, so far as these sentiments
had been excited by any doubt on which side
the balance of power would preponderate, have
happily blown over ; and when history can no
longer be made subservient to mischievous and
factious ends, it may not be without its use to
bring together a few particulars, not extensively,
at least not publicly, known, which have occurred
in the course of the late negotiations, and have
more or less affected their issue.- It is desirable,
in the first place, to ascertain what were The ori.
ginal views of the King with regard to the fittest
mode of repairing the loss of which his Majesty
and the nation had alike been sensible in the
death of Mr. Canning. Did his Majesty send
for Mr. Peel, or for Lord Eldon, or Lords Ba-
thurst,or Colchester, to succeed that
Gentleman, and to supersede his
R principlesigh t
HMoenbl.vily letheirs ? It has for _ some months
been shouted in our ears, that Mr., Canning had
played off some sort of magical deception to en-
trap the senses of his Sovereign-s-tO separate
him from his real friends—to render him deaf
to the voice of his own Royal wisdom—to en.
thral his Majesty by tricks and legerdemain
against his predilections—against his declara-
tions—against his own happiness, his judgment,
and his conscience. Well, then, the magician
-dies, when, by every law and precedent of " gra-
marie," the spell ought to perish also. Of course,
therefore, his Majesty, no longer mystified-410
longer cheated—with no chimeras of liberty or
commerce, or national improvement, or popular
affection, to cajole him—would enjoy the benefit
of his own clear organs of intellectuaLvision ;
the penal laws would at once resume their natu-
-1 ral likeness to the spirit of Christianity ; the
Holy Alliance would again put on those charms
by which the virtuous Castlereagh was de-
bauched ; prohibitory duties on .foreign goods
would recommend themselves as an infallible
nostrum for the extension of English . com-
merce ; the rigid exclusion of any but English
ships from our harbours, would secure us against
all retaliation by neighbouring states; the Bri-
tish landowner would be best protected by the
inability of the manufacturing labourers to buy
his corn ; and, as for its effects upon the multi-
tude, famine itself (to the 'restored eysight of
the King) would lost its fictitious terrors. Such,
in all strictness of logical reasoning, ought to
have been the changes wrought upon his Majes-
ty's opinions by the death of a man who had
succeeded in upholding those opinions through foul
and unworthy practice. To the astonisinnent, there-
fore, of the Tories (no doubt), His Majesty
did not, on Mr. Canning's death, appeal to
Lord Londonderry, or Eldon, or any other of
this much-honoured school of statesmen, to re-
establish the good old Government out of which.
he had been swindled by the deceased Prime
I Minister. The King sent for Lord Goderich,
—Mr. Canning's colleague, it is true, but with
nothing of a necromancer or wizard about him,
that we have heard alleged on any respectable
commu-
nicatedtlieaeobmfi
nbt
ehe
treehdTa )do
been
yoeeC
authority. What then, was the
insensibly,order
by his Majesty (after the recovery of
aopbriodnsesGte,s_osdeciteo-,
leis reasonymwohr
more
which that
earinltabtreecri
sn
rich ? Was it even to call in the assistance of
restore by degrees, and as it were
sp°nieritobr
&c. ? No, it was this—distinctly this
---,6 t 0
continue the Cabinet of Mr. Canningvor " rather
to reconstruct it out of the materials which he
had left in it when he died l" Here, at least,
we find his Majesty a free agent : no conjuring,
surely, can be ascribed to Lord Goderich in the
voluntary summons sent him by his Majesty, or
in the command which followed it. Lord Lans-
downe expressed his willingness, on the above
condition, to remain, but urged the, expediency
of strengthening the Government by the accession
of Lord ?Tolland. This recommendation was vitt
overruled, but merely postponed for the present,
as not coming within the principle on which,
until some fit vacancy should occur, tla Admi-
nistration was to be formed. Some days after-
wards, Lord Goderich—omitting to consult his
colleagues—offered the Chancellorship of the
Exchequer to Mr. Herries, with whose financial
talents a long co-operation in the Treasury had
familiarised his Lordship. But Mr. Herries,.on
the ground of ill health, at once . declined the
offer. Lord Goderich then procured a letter
from his Majesty to Mr. Herriescalling
, upon
him, as is conjectured, to reconsider his refusal,
but did not immediately put it into .his hand.
The effect, however, of this letter was-to induce
Mr. Herries to accede -to it, of which Lord
Goderich received intelligence on the night of
Mr. Canning's funeral. In the 'meariliine, Lord
Lansdown, and' the rest of the Cabinet, did not
hear of Lord Goderich's offer to Mr. Herries,
until they heard also that he had declined it., For,
the day after the funeral,
_a Council was sum-
moned at Windsor, and Mr. Herries having then
apprised Lord Goderich. of ,his acceptance of
the office, was summoned to attend it. ' But the
Noble Lord not anticipating the.slightest objec-
tion on the part of his colleagues, did not com-
municate with them on the su-bject, his.former
announcement that the Right Hon. Gentleman
had been solicited and reyiised, not having ap-
peared to them to require any distinct expression
of their sentiments. On the arrival of the other
, Ministers at Windsor, they, found Mr.
Henries
there; and when Lard Godericlt explained the
reason, they declared their inability .to recognize
an appointtnent so introduced to them, the cir-
eumstances which there appeared giving the trans-
, action the air of a direct nomination bythe King,
unsanctioned by his advisers. Besides this,
they entertained a false (as it has since turned
out) impression. that Mr. Herries was not cc •
dially disposed to the liberal system of policy on
which the Administration had-been established.
From this double cause arose their opposition to
Mr. Herries, and their contingent resolution to re-
sign. The subsequent facts ofthe case are as follows:
Ist. It was proved that Lord Goderich had re-
commended Mr. Henries to the King—not his
Majesty to Lord Goderich : the constit,,itio„at
objection was here overturned in the crutset.__
2d. The King having assented to Ltird Gode-
rich's recommendation, agreed tci wave that as-
sent in favour of Mr. iliiskissAi or Mr. Sturges
Bourne (Mr. Tierney, we. repeat, had been al-
ready applied • to by his colleagues, . and had,
without a momead hesitation, refused), and
Mr. 'Terries offered to serve again under either
of them as Secretary to the Treasur ' -8d On'
-
both. of the above gentlemen being*
.-- •
pressed re-
peatedly and declining, his M •
ajesty is reported
to have said—" I have 'tone all I could to avoid
a nomination which, since my first agreeing to
it, I now..under
stand would not be agreeable to
many of my Cabinet ; my
resources are ex-
hausted ; I must-revert to Mr. •
'Terries and I
whose, servic
heartily trust that a man, ' '
es I so
highly value as Lord Lans owne d - -'s "1 , wnnot, un-
der the circumstances in whichlAd
n myself,
see cause for breaking up a GoiernMent which

lam most desirous to maintain." His Majesty
further wrote on the same day (last Friday) in
terms of kindness to Lord Lansdowne, desiring
to see him, in order to represent to him the
great embarrassment which his Lordship's re-
tirement from the Ministry would produce, both
at home and abroad. It was in the interim
made clear to Lord Lansdowne, that had I;een
misinformed as to the political sentiments of Mr.
Herries. That Right Hon. Gentleman pro-
duced certain written communications with Mr.
Canning, which proved that he entirely concur-
red in the present policy of the Government
that he had quitted the Treasury on the ground
of health alone, and was to have returned to it
under Mr. Canning in another office. Both
Jon objections on which the Whigs had acted
being thus explained, the question fee:the coun-
try is, whether Lord Lansdowne arid his friends
would have been justified in abandoning the
King's Government, in the teeth of his Ma-
jesty's expressed solicitude to retain them, and
at the risk of all those consequences which would
result from a Tory Administration.—Times.
The absence of Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Wynn,
and Mr. Tierney, who may be considered the
Whig part of the Ministry, feom the King's
Court on Monday, roust necessarily have a very
strange appearance to the country, and indicates,
we imagine, any thing but a very cordial and
solid state of the Ministry. A Morning Paper,
indeed, which is said to represent Lord Lans-
downe's movements and sentiments, asserts that
the Noble Marquis actually resigned the Seals
of the Home Office on Saturday, lint, at his
Majesty's reqnest, was kind enough to keep
them. Another Paper tells us that the people
at the Mint were actually employed in making
up their accounts preparatory to Mr. Tierney's
departure ; and a certain paid Commissioner at
the India Board, we know, made no secret that
he was staying in town preparatory to the sur-
render of, his keys and stationery, on following
the fortunes of his chief. All this seems to us
a mighty silly, childish way of acting on the part
of Statesmen, from whom the world are wont to
expect something more dignified and consistent
than this kind of alternate pouting and bo-peep.
—What is there, may we ask, in the actual state
of affairs, or the avowed principles of the Go-
vernment, different from what they both were at
the time the Whigs came into office, or at the
time of Mr. Canning's death ? It is true that
by that event they may feel that they have lost
the loadstone which drew them into the Cabinet,
and the principal link which maintained them
there ; but their true policy surely would be, not,
as on a former memorable occasion, to build a
wall to run their own heads against, but to throw
both the necessity 'and the odium of their quit-
ting the Government upon their political oppo-
nents. At any rate, if the apparent breach is
healed, and they continue to hold office, surely
it would be better to do so cordially and openly,
and not by absenting themselves from a Court
held for the purpose of inaugurating their col-
leagues, show the world that there is something
rankling in their minds, to which they cannot or
dare not give vent. Again and again we would
deprecate these little narrow selfish views among
public men, in whatever quarter they are to be
found. Though Statesmen are but men, and
are subject to the common infirmities of our na-
ture, still the world is apt to look up to them as
men possessing minds above the ordinary stamp ;
and though there may be often more of imagina-
tion than of reality in the grounds of the homage
which is thus paid them, yet they themselves
should be among the last to withdraw the veil.
If men looked to their country more, and less to
themselves, the grounds for such observations as
these would not so often arise.—Morning
Herald.

The Gazette of last night announces the ap-
pointments of Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Grant—
the former to the War and Colonial Secretary-
ship, the latter to the Presidentship of the Board
of Trade. The appointments of Lord Gode-
rich and Mr. Herries, respectively, as First Lord
of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, though they have both entered upon their
Important official duties, could not at the same
time be publicly announced, as the Letters Pa-
tent for constituting the new Board of Treasury
had not then passed the Great Seal. All the
necessary forms, however, have propably by this
time taken place ; and there is no doubt of the
follovvi:ig announcement appearing in the Lon-
don Gazette of Friday next :

The King has been pleased to direct Letters Patent to
be passed under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, constituting aid appointing the
Right Hon. Frederick John Viscount Goderich ; the Right
Hon. James Charles Herries ; Francis Nathaniel Conyng-
ham, Esq. (commonly called Earl of Mount Charles) ;
Frances Leveson Gower, Esq. (commonly called Lord
Francis Leveson Gower) ; Edward Granville Elliot, Esq.
(commonly called Lord Elliot) ; and the Right Hen.
Maurice Fitzgerald ; and also Edmund Alexander M'Nagh.
ten, Esq., to be Commissioners for executing the offices of
Treasurer of the Exchequer of Great Britain and Lord
High Treasurer of Ireland.
And the King has also been pleased to direct Letters
Patent to be passed under the Great Seal of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, granting to the
Right Hon. James Charles Herries the offices of Chancellor
and Under Treasurer of his Majesty's Exchequer.

'The list of the Cabinet a' at present consti-
tuted, given in our Paper of yesterday, was per-
fectly correct. Even with the desirable intro-
duction of Mr. Herries, our readers will with
us have perceived, with feelings of painful appre-
hension, that the advocates of the Catholic
Claims form a majority of at least two thirds of
its Members. This appalling fact, so directly
contrary to the wish, and so obviously repugnant
to the feelings of the Monarch as well as of the
Nation, the friends of the Constitution in Church
and State will not fail duly and most seriously to
consider. No time is to be lost in conveying
the loyal and dutiful sentiments of the people to
his Majesty upon this most important of all
national subjects.— Morning Post.
Of all the monuments which the admiration
of posterity can rear to a departed genius, were
he, to whom they are consecrated, free to choose
there can be little doubt that he would say—
', Honour and observe my principles." There is,
indeed, something in such honour and obser-
vance, that makes us live in death, and bestows
activity upon that state, in which it has been
emphatically said, there is no device nor working.
The dreams of ambition go no farther than tins,
to influence the destinies cif our fellow men, even
when we have ceased to sojourn among them.—
Some Divines have supposed, that even in the
purity of a higher state of being, the spirit may
derive gratification from such a contemplation,
but whether this be more than a phantasy, there
can be no doubt that the anticipation, not of
posthu'nous renown merely, but of what may be
called poituntno
us power, is the highest stimu-
lus to virt
tious action
that can be presented'• to
man. Sornetw
I like that stimulus we doubt
N
not the great Minister who lately left us must
have felt, and what was due to the wisdom and
benevolence of his plans
has not, in the event,
been denied to his memory. In the Ministry,