The Sun.
London, England, 1827-04-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

At a late hour last night no arrangement had
sprung out of the communications which have
taken place between Mr. Canning and the
Whigs. We believe the cause of this dilatori-
ness to be, the indifference of the moderate
Whigi to place, and the aversion of the more
ardent ones to accept of it, except upon condi-
tions that their favourite question shall be car-
ried. It has, we understand, been conceded,
that the majority of the Cabinet shall be eman-
cipationists ; and this concession must have been
effected through what may be called the media-
tion of Mr. Canning, the Kingteing understood
to be hostile to the Catholic claims. Yet, to us,
we confess, it seems an unintelligible course, to
be tenacious of a principle, and to create a power
by which it is thought that principle may be
overthrown. Pending the treaty, however, for
the formation of a Ministry, the appointment to
offices does not cease. The Chancellorship of
Ireland has been offered to Sir John Leach, and
the Mastership of the Rolls to Mr. Plunkett.
The Irishman has been less averse to come to
England, than. the Englishman to go to Ireland.
Mr. Plunkett has accepted the offer of being
Master of the Rolls ; and Sir John Leach
has refused the Chancellorship of Ireland.'
The vacated offices, therefore, filled up when
this article goes to press, are, the First
Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellorship,
the Mastership of the Rolls, the First Lord
of the Admiralty, the Master-General of the
Ordnance. It is not improbable, before the morn-
ing breaks, that we may be able to communicate the
issue of the deliberation of the Whigs, on the pro-
priety of joining Mr. Canning officially, as they have
for some time leaned to his policy in their individual
character; and may probably, in that character, con-
tinue to support his measures, though they do not
accede to his Administration.—Times.

We have reason to believe, that at last night's
meeting, alluded to in the preceding paragraph, the
feeling of the propriety of some concession on the
part of the Whigs 'was so strongly and generally pro-
nounced, as to make it not improbable that the ne-
gotiation, which was considered as virtually broken
off, will be renewed this day.--Ibid.
On many former occasions we have felt it our
duty to expose the insufferable abuses and griev-
ances by which the colonists of the Cape of
Good Hope had been afflicted, under a Govern-
ment as disgraceful to England as it was ruinous
to her African dependency.. Never did there
exist any thing like the system which was there
carried on under the name of the King of Eng-
land, and, we are compelled to add, protected
and defended by his Colonial Minister. The
people saw nothing in the law by which they
were ostensibly governed but a cloak for the ty-
ranny which that law was (ostensibly also) estab-
lished to restrain ; and, in the person of their
ruler, they recognised only a graceless offshoot
from a privileged stock, who long have enjoyed
an unlimited' power in this country, of first ap-
pointing administrators of all the national inte-
rests, arid next affording them, for maladminis-
tration, the most complete impunity. The change
which has lately occurred in the office of Colonial
Secretary of State may furnish some tolerable
guarantee, for the future, against the return
to Southern Africa, as its ruler, of a noble Lord,
whose mission thither could not have been
sanctioned by any Minister who felt the least
solicitude for the public welfare, or for his
own fame. We have now before us a publica-'
tioti which goes as far towards proving the unfit-
ness of Lord Bathurst for the office of Colonial
Secretary, as_it does in common with former evi-

dente, towards branding the name of one of his Ex-
Colonial Governors, with obloquy, which, if the
book be honest, can never perish or decay. There
is, we are afraid, in the declared author of this
pamphlet, a security not less absolute than de-
plorable, for the truth of every word contained
in it. Sir Rufane Donkin was Lieutenant-Go;
vernor of the colony, and under him, for two
years, the inhabitants had expressed themselves
contented. This Sir Rufane Donkin is the au-
thor of the work, a short one, indeed, of some
150 pages; but full of matter even to overflow-
ing : the form of the pamphlet is a Letter to
Earl. Bathurst, and its substance is a narrative of
many of the proceedings ascribed to one
Lord Charles proceedings ascribed to one
Lord Charles So'nerset, of certain others
likewise. for which it appears that Lord
Bathurst himself is morally, bBsides being constitu-
tionally, responsible. Sir Rufane Donkin received
the warm thanks of his Majesty, through the Colonial
Secretary of State, for his administration of the Go-
vernment ; and for a statement, in our opinion, the
most curious that we have read during twenty
years, connected with that very letter, which seems,
through some extraordinary jockeyship, to have
been kept from the official knowledge of the person
addressed in it, from 1821 to 1826, we refer to the
pamphlet itself: but the transactions touched upon
in the " Letter" of Sir Rufane Donkin are so mul-
tifarious and important, that we shall not impair their
interest by any partial quotations from them. We
recommend to every man capable of the leastpolitical
excitement to procure the Tamphlet, 'and read it
studiously, that he may learn thence.to cherish those
high preferences for a glittering Aristocracy through
the predominance of which, in Great Britain, if it
continues, a daily subject will perhaps be prepared,
during the next half century, for a pamphlet in most
points resembling this very striking production of Sir
Rufane Donkins's pen.—lbid.

All the Treasury Arrangements were con-
cludeu yesterday ; when Mr. Canning received
in due i'orm from his Majesty, his appointment
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as that
of first Lord of the Treasury; and Mr. Robin-
son (the late Chancellor of the Exchequer) re-
ceived the Seals of Office as one of his Majes-
ty's Principal Secretaries of State. Most of the
other Ministerial Arrangements (already stated
by us) have also been duly confirmed, and will
be formally announced in the Gazette of Tues-
day next. The triumph of Mr.' Canning may
therefore be now considered as, in every respect,
complete. The Right Hon. Gentleman has been
called to the helm of State under as happy
auspices as ever fell to the lot of any of his pre-
decessors, however great or fortunate; for, to a
strong gale of popularity, he adds the marked
respect and entire confidence of his Sovereign.
It may be truly said, that he owes very little to
fortune; and it may be as truly affirmed, that
his elevation is the result of a long course of
public services, during which he has never
veered to the right or to the left, though the
temptations to induce him to alter his course
were frequent and many. He has adhered
steadily to the wise and safe principles of
the immortal Pitt, though he was assailed
more than once by strong personal inducements
to quit the ranks in which he took his station at
the onset of his public career, but which it is
cleat never had the slightest influence ou his
conduct. During a part of this time he was
certainly under a slight cloud ; but he disdained
the use of meretricious arts in order to set him-
self right with the public. Though no man ever
set a higher value upon a just popularity, or
could enjoy it with a greater zest, yet like every
lofty and well-regulated spirit, he despised the
false glare, and preferred enduring a load of un-

merited obloquy to swerving in any degree from
the straight line he had prescribed to himself;—:
This long tried consistency, accompanied as it
has been by the most brilliant talents and the
most diversified attainments, secured to him
under all circumstances the unabated respect
and admiration of his own immediate circle of
friends, and pointed him out to the most discern-
ing and independent of his party, as the fittest
person to take the lead, whenever circumstances
should allow his genius to rise to its proper level.
As soon as the occasion offered, he mounted, not
gradually, but all at once, by the natural strength
of his genius, to the height which the concurring
suffrages of his friends had long pointed out as
his proper region. It is unnecessary to recapi-
tulate the services he rendered to his country, or
to describe the lustre he threw around the Admi-
nistration, after he had taken the direction of
our Foreign Relations, and with it, the lead in
the House of Commons; as they are too fresh
in every one's memory to require to be men-
tioned here. His greatest merit, however, and
that which chiefly showed the command-
ing mind, was the extraordinary influence .he
exercised almost immediately over both sides
of the House, and the new character which
it may be said he gave to its discussions.
In this respect, with the exception only of
the great and illustrious William Pitt in particu-
lar circumstances, he has certainly never been
excelled ; and was it not therefore most natural,
that when the first place in the Cabinet became
vacant, that the public voice should designate
him by acclamation as the most worthy to fill it ?
Or was it unreasonable that a Sovereign, whose
discernment has never been surpassed, and whose
regard for the welfare of his vast Empire is as
enlightened as it is ardent, should concur with
the suffrages of his people ? Upon this point,
we take it for granted, there can be no difference of
opinion. Fortune, therefore, as we have already
observed, has had very little to do with the present
elevation of Mr. Canning ; and it may be truly af-
firmed, that it is wholly his own work—the reward
ofa long course of the most meritorious exertions,
relieved by an undeviating consistency. For our
own part, we share none of the alarm, which some
affect to feel, lest this distinguished Statesman, now
that he has attained the loftiest pinnacle to which
an honourable ambition can aspire, should alter his
character with his situation, and become a rash ex-
perimentalist, at a moment when it would be neces-
sary to put all his wisdom and all his experience in
requisition. Those wbo form this estimate of Mr.
Canning, know very little of the exalted motives by
which he is impelled, or of the principles by which
he is in the habit of regulating his conduct. Though
ordinary merit may grow giddy at such an elevation,
the region is too congenial to real genius to produce
any other effect than a more sober and steady train
of thought—a wise and prudent decision. It breathes
there more freely, judges with more precision, sees
objects more clearly, and divests itself, it may be
said, of all the dross of human nature. A trulygreat
Statesman, when he reaches such a height, becomes
greater than he was before; and this truth, if we are
not mistaken, will receive a further illustration from
the conduct of Mr. Canning; whilst we are fully
persuaded that there will in no respect be any de-
parture from that system of wise and just policy so
gloriously and happily pursued by his predecessori,and
which has rendered Old England at once the envy
and the admiration of the Universe.=-211orning Post.
So many interests must necessarily be con-
sulted in the formation of a new Ministry, that
it.is hardly possible all
prove equally unexceptionable, and the equitable
rule for guiding us in our judgments respecting
human affairs in general, ought to be applied
here—namely, that where the good preponde-
rates, we ought to overlook the alloy of evil
connected with it, if we cannot. have the good
on other terms. WTe are so thoroughly satisfied
of the benefit the nation would derive from an
Administration formed by Mr. Canning on fair
and liberal principles, that we should consider
the failure of the attempt as one of the greatest
calamities to which the country could be well
exposed. Entertaining this opinion, it may
easily be supposed that we feel no disposition to
carp at such sacrifices to expediency, as are in-
evitable in all conjunctures like the present. But
it becomes us at the same time to observe, that
in the critical situation in which Mr. Canning is
placed, the disposition on the part of his well-
wishers to overlook what may not exactly meet
with their approbation, cannot prevent the natu-
ral effects of acts calculated to endanger, if not
defeat his ultimate object. In that respect,
every act at the present moment becomes of im-
portance. If he once enter the field, sin-rounded
with men entitled to the confidence of the na-
tion, and with all the resources of Government
at: his command, this miserably Ifffite and con-
temptible junta sink instantly into an insignifi-
cance whence they can never emerge. The mo-
ment that it is seen the machine Ls in working
train, that moment the cabal will cease even to
be spoken of. In the late Administration, they
were, with hardly an exception, only known to
the country from the Red Book ; and the men
who conciliated the nation by their candour and
spirit of fair dealing, and demonstrated how easy
it is, by honesty of intention, to gain the suf-
frages of all classes, so as to govern with, and
not in opposition to, the national feeling, have
all, with one exception, adhered to Mr. Can-
ning. But the ultimate success of this Gentle-
man must, as we have observed, depend on the
arrangements he makes ; and if by any injudici-
ous movements he deters men who dread sacri-

ficing their own character for honesty and con-
sistency, from joining him, worldly men, of fair
average understandings, may, from doubts of
the result, feel a disposition to hang back. The
working of the Government and Constitution of
this country does not depend exclusively on the
pcipularity of any one man. These observations
have been drawn from us by a report—to which,
from the source whence we had it, we own we

are disposed to give credit—that Mr. Plunkett
is to be transplanted to this country, and made
Master of the Rolls, with a Peerage, with a view
tot his services in the House of Lorda. Now,
without meaning to question the great talents of''
Mr, Plunkett as a debater, and with Out presum-
ing to pronounce any opinion as to his fitness for
the highest judicial situations in Ireland, we
can confidently say, that his appointment as
second Equity Judge in this country will be a bit-
tei4pill to the profession, and extremely unpopular
with all classes, and that it must fill with alarm

those who might otherwise feel disposed to co-
operate with Mr. Canning. Mr. PlUnkett is a
stranger to English usages, without a knowledge
of which no man can be a proper Equity Judge ;
and moreover, it is a prevailing opinion in Eng-
land that Irish Equity is not adapted for this
Country. We need observe, that no circum-
stance tends more to injure an Administration in
general estimation than unsuitable judicial ap-
pointments ; that as public opinion is necessarily
much stronger here than in any other part of the
empire, it is much more hazardous to make an
unsuitable judicial appointment here than in
Ireland ; and that if a step of this kind is at all
times to be avoided, it is more particularly so in