The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

`We believe we may announce that result iof
which we yesterday indicated the probability,—that
Lord Harrowby, in his interview with his Majeity
at Windsor, declined the offered Premiership. To
that station of labour and responsibility, it was, we
believe, proposed to add, in favour of his Lordship,
the more tranquil honour of the Garter possessed by
the late Earl of Pembroke, and not yet disposed of.
Some situation might also have been found for Lord
Sandon, his Lordship's eldest son, who has for some
time attained the age of business, and has been
hitherto without employment. The refusal (.1 Lord
Harrowby to accept of the Premiership,—for we
must not disguise or mince that fact,—imposes for a
while upon Lord Goderich a kind of necessity for
discharging the functions of an office from whic'h he
has decided to retire, till a successor can be ap-
pointed. It was, we have been informed, proposed
by Lord Goderich before his resignation, together
with Lord Dudley and Mr. Huskisson, in a joint re-
presentation, that Lord Holland should be called to
the councils of his Majesty. We do not hear that
the proposition was acceded to. But it is probable
that a measure which had the recommendation of
the Ministry, with Lord Goderich at its head, will
be supported under any successor of his Lordship,
or under any minor change that may take place in
the internal organization of the present Ministry.—
Times.

Ministers are said to have had despatches yestee
day from Mr. Stratford Canning, and up to the 24th
ult., as we learn. Their contents may not be very
agreeable, as they have not transpired : yet every
one sees the extent of the mischief that can result
from the active operations of the Turks exclusively,
in the way of offensive warfare. There is, perhaps,
more to be dreaded from the pretexts afforded by
their perverseness to the desires by which others
maybe actuated for exclusive aggrandizement. How-
ever, as we hinted some three weeks ago, due time
having been now allowed to the Turk to cool, we
think that decisive measures should be taken with him.
He knows the magnitude of his supposed injury :
let him make his election. If he threaten war, we
should lose no time in making a declaration of it, in
order that our subjects may have the advantage of
prize-taking. if he acquiesces in prey.; we should
be equally prompt to secure his dominions from the
aggression to which they might be otherwise sub-
jected during this his period of vacillation. But in
every case he should be given to understand, that
his war with the Greeks is at an end.—lbid.
We gave our readers to understand, yesterday,
that Lord Goderich had resigned. This we now
repeat, notwithstanding the assertions of some of
our contemporaries to the contrary. We will not
say that Lord.Goderich may not wish to return; but
we believe we cannot be contradicted from autho-
rity when we add, that his resignation has been ac-
cepted. We will not conceal from our readers, that
we have heard a report that the Noble Lord and
some of his friends are seeking his return to power,
and we are not disinclined to believe there is some
foundation for this rumour. If such be the case, we
can only say that we wish Lord Goderich knew his
own mind a little better ; because, if he had a good
Treason for wishing to retire from office, he can hardly
have a good reason for wishing to remain in office ;
and the exhibition of irresolution and vacillation is
not calculated to add to the benefit which an Admi-
nistration could derive from his being at their head.—
Morning Chronicle.
We hear that Lord Harrowby went to Windsor
on Monday, at the eequest of his Majesty, but it is
understood that his Loedship declined the honour of
filling the situation of Lord loderich, as head of the
Government.—lbid.
A more striking proof could hardly be given of
the rancorous feelings which the Catholics and Pro-
testants entertaintowards each other at present in Ire-
land, than the trial of Father Maguire. The expence of
the prosecution was defrayed out of the stock purse of
the Saints. Of this there can be no doubt, as the
prosecutor was literally in a state bordering on men-
dicancy. There are many cases in which it may be
proper that individuals in affluent circumstances
should aid their poorer brethren in obtaining that
redress from the Courts of Law, from which their
own means preclude them. But, unquestionably,
prosecutions, of which the object is, not to aid the
poor to obtain justice, but under the pretext of ob-
taining justice for the poor, to make them mere in-
struments for running down individuals, do not come
under that description. Those who subscribed their
money for this prosecution, were either acquainted
with the character of Anne .M‘Garrahan, or they
were not acquainted. If they were not acquainted
with her, it was criminal in them to lend themselves
to proceedings, which were calculated, from the ex-
pence alone, to ruin a poor parish priest of Con-
naught. On the other hand, after hearing what so
many, witnesses swore respecting the loose be-
bs,viour of Anne M`Garrahan, with the knowledge,
too,that in country places such behaviour becomes
necessarily, a matter of notoriety, it is impossible
to believe that those who had any knowledge of the
family, could be ignorant that she was not entitled
to redress from a Court of Law, and that her father
was not entitled to seek any thing on her account.
The subscribers, therefore, sought only by the pro-
secution, to establish the fact that the Rev. Mr.
Maguire had not observed his vow of chastity, but
had allowed himself to share with others, the favours
of a lady of a certain description, with a view to
wound the Catholics, by the detection of this flaw
in the character of one of their stoutest champions.
" When Mr. Maguire (said Mr. North in his reply)
went to Innismagrath in February, 1825, he was, if
we may be permitted to judge, at that period of
life when the energies are most powerful, the feel-
ings most warm, the judgment not sufficiently con
rmed to oppose dangers and temptations alike nu-
merous and irresistible. He is, as it appears, nay,
as it has been proved to the world, a man indubitably
possessing vigour of intellect, and powers of reason-
ing, calculated to use the judgment of others as
counters in his hand, which he could dispose of at
his eville It istrue that he is a Roman Catholic Priest,
and that the possession of this elraracter has subjected
him to a course of discipline which binds him to strict
obedience to the rules of his church. I, kr one,
never spoke of him with more high respect than
when I consider the class to which he belongs. The
duties of that class are onerous and worthy—their
cares possess the deepest interest, as they include
affording consolation to the poor and afflicted; and
through, their kindly offices are justly endeared to
the great
body of the population, and more particu-
larly, as, fiom the want of a suitable endowment,'
they were more dependent on the bounty of the
people. But, amitlemen of the Jury, Roman Ca-
• tholic, or Protestant, or Presbyterian, are no more
than mere men—nature asserts her rights; she is
not to be repelled, and this case exhibits a proof
that the frailty belonging to eor ruined nature still
exists amongst us. There. was a sort of sinless
perfection attempted to be attributed to Mr.
'Maguire, which I em certain he would dis-
claim. There is nothing improbable in our case,
or that he should, at his time of life, yield to
temptation." All, then, that the establishment
of an illicit intercourse between Father Maguire
and this equivocal lady, would have ationinted to,
was merely that a man in the prime of life had
yielded to a natural impulse. It does not require a
g.host to tell us that as long as pen are men, occa-
simnel deviations from the path of ,duty will take
71ace ; and so far from finding in this a er3umph to
She Protestant, we should be disposed to attribute
the importance attached to the discovery of a single
case,a high testimony to the exemplary strictness of
life of the Catholic Clergy. If then, as Mr. North
fliers was nothing to be wondered at, had
-I"t'llagulie yielded to temptation, the poorer would
1p
havealvthe triumph of those who sought his ruin.
e
ves have said, was entirely out of the
a the abettors of the prosecution
luoltiei°vne'frrr tWoue tecnieut that he w. as deserving of coma
They eouldeetita
1331 C "%believed her an injured
woolen. e .- • etrh priesthood is merely
a matter-Of d*ClPPllleelliered to from a be-
sae-Nee'
‘7.o‘

lief that Clergymen are better able to discharge their
duties without the anxieties of a family to distract.
them, than with a family. Experience is so.far on
their side, that in those countries on the Continent,
where Catholic and Protestant Clergymen live in
the same neighbourhoods, the former are generally
Most respected by the people. Dr. Fodere, in his
work on Poverty, takes particular notice of the ad-
vantage which the Catholic Church gains by the
contrast. The Protestant Clergy, he says, present
the alMoSt -uniform spectacle of men struggling with
poverty, and steeled by it against all other conside-
, rations, but those of uneasiness for the support and
furtherance in the world, after their deaths, of their
sons and daughters. They are often reduced to the
necessity of having recourse to disreputable shifts to
subsist, and of paying unworthy court to men in
power, to obtain situations for their children. Hence
many of the Protestant Clergy, as Richard Baxter,
for instance, have disapproved of the marriage of the
priesthood.—Mid.
The Earl of Harrowby arrived in his travelling
chariot and four at the residence of Mr. Secretary
Huskisson, in Somerset-place, from Staffordshire, on
Monday morning, at eleven o'clock, and remained
with Mr. Huskisson about an hour and a half, when
the Noble Earl left London, and proceeded to at-
tend the King at the Royal Lodge, Windsor Park.
Mr. Huskisson followed the Noble Earl at one
o'clock. They were closeted with his Majesty about
two hours, after which they left on their return to
London. The consultation with the Earl of Har-
rowby upon any contemplated change in the Admi-
nistration has, no doubt, terminated, as the Noble
Earl left town yesterday soon after one o'clock, on a
visit to his brother the Bishop of Litchfield and Co-
ventry, at Wells.—ilionting Herald.

Next to asi incompetent Administration, one of the
greatest calamities which can befall a country is
to have a divided one. The latter quality, in-
deed, in some measure, implies the former; for as
horses in a team, though they may be individually
strong, yet, if . they do not draw together, spend
their strength in vain; so in the affairs of the State,
if Statesmen draw different ways, the machine of
Government not only cannot advance, but stands
the chance of either retrograding or being torn to
pieces by different and adverse pulls. There are
many, we believe, who consider that since Lord
Liverpool's political demise, this country has been
in both these situations; at any rate there can be no
doubt but that we .have been in the latter; and the
result seems to prove it in the fact of the anomalous
head of an anomalous body being anxious to retire
from a scene of action in which his own personal re-
spectability cannot maintain him with credit to hilo-
self or advantage to the country. We are not
among those who are slaves to any party ; it mat-
ters not to us whether the Administration be Whig
or Tory, so that the true interests of the coun-
try are consulted, and prosper in their hands ;
but we candidly express our conviction that an un-
prejudiced person can look back upon the state of the
country, and what it was, and what its prospects
were a twelvemonth ago, and compare both the one
and the other with what they both are now, and not
admit that, whatever Mr. Canning's claims to a mo-
nument may be from the hands of private friendship,
his memory and his measures have no such claim
upon the country. The interference (especially in
the way in which it has been brought about) between
Turkey and her Greek subjects alone is sufficient to
show how wide of any thing like statesmanlike views
a matter has been undertaken, and carried into effect,
placing the policy of the country, as it has done, in
this absurd and perilous state; when victory becomes
a calamity, and every point we gain implies a
loss of ten times more. That the Noble Lord
who succeeded Mr. Canning at his post was not
the Atlas to sustain the political world, under
the weight. and difficulty in which the measures of
his predecessor had involved it, seemed apparent
from the very first to all impartial lookers-on ; nor was
it likely that a Ministry composed of such discordant
materials could long hang or draw together. We
do not mean to trifle with infirmities when we say
that even the want of bodily health, among some
three or four of them, furnished obstacles enough to
their giving their whole energies to the service of
the country ; while the avowed fact that others had
only taken office for a time, and as substitutes for
permanent Ministers whenever they should turn up,
was sufficient to show that no very powerful or im-
portant service was to be expected from personages
who were destined ultimately neither to reap the
glory of success nor to undergo the perils of failure.
Who then can be surprised that a machine so con-
stituted moves ill, and at length, from the works
being soon out of order, stops ? The wonder
would be, that it should be otherwise. To drop
the metaphor, it now remains to be seen what
the iesult of tile present state of things will
be—viz. whether the present Members of the
Cabinet will meet Parliament after merely sup-
plying themselves with a new Head ? whether
their present Head will be prevailed upon to remain
with them a little longer ? whether we shall have an
Administration composed exclusively of the "cilligs ?
Or whether, lastly, the Members of Lord Liverpool's
Govermnent,who left office at the time of his (political)
demise, will resume it again, with such accessions
of men of their own principles as are to be found
among their peculiar party ? Of the probabilities
leading to each of these results our readers are as
capable of forming an estimate as we are to guide
them; all that we hope is, that the country will see
its affairs in the hands of competent and united per-
sons, whose attention to its interests may not be
drawn off by fears and jealousies of each other. • No
reasonable man could for a moment despair of the
country, were her difficulties even ten times greater
than they really are; but in proportion as her ener-
gies.and resources are mighty, so it is desirable that
their direction should be confided to hands capable
of so momentous a charge.—lbid.
It will be seen by our communication from Wind-
sor, that the Earl of Harrowby and Mr. Huskisson
had an audience of his Majesty on Monday last.
That this interview was in reference to the ten-
dered resignation of Lord Goderich may, we believe,
be safely affirmed; and as we have ever held the
character of T.oittfilarrovelay,in high -estimation, we
are not without -hope, that should his Lordship be
principally selected by his Majesty -to form a new
Administration, the most propitious consequences for
the country will ensue. The Noble Earl; we have
the happiness tO know, is of ,sound political princi-
ples ; and we have reason to believe that he, as
well as the Marquis Wellesley, has of late discovered
sufficient cause to induce an alteration of sentiment
ie regard to the Catholic Question. We are at
least quite certain, that neither of these Noble-
men would be desirous of ,having a prevailing
Popish Party in the Cabinet; and hence do we
cherish the pleasing expectation, that we shall ere
long find his Majesty's Councils so constituted as
to reranve all those grounds of serious apprehension
which have of 'ate been so justly entertained for the
safety of the Constitution in Church and State. Am-
ply materials are in store for tbilcheering and happy
purpose; nor do we despair of seeing shortly united
in the same Cabinet, a Wellington, a Peel, an Eldon,
a Welleakey, a Harrowby, a Melville, a Bathurst, a
Huskisson, and* Herries, if not also an amiable and
esteemed Goderich. With such a phalanx we should
have no doubt of the conntry being brought trium-
phantly through the difficulties in which it is at
present involved ; and we hope ere many weeks
elapse to have the happiness of congratulating the
King and the Nation upon " a consummation (in
every respect) so devoutly to be wished."—Morning
Past.

The rumotrs of an important change in the Mi-
nistry continue to thicken upon us. As a prelimi-
nary to the opening of Par,ljament this was to be
expected. Many things are said, and many things
are sometimes done also,
to produce that whichhad
no original existence but in assertion. Attempts of
that kind, however, are but seldom successful:
whereas it frequently
happens that those'who
have
embarked in them defeat the dearest objects of their
ambition. Let not this be forgotten. It may be

too late to teach wisdom, and yet time enough to
illustrate failure. With respect to the alleged ten-
der of resignation which is said to_ have been made,
and to have been refused, we shall only say; that
we have hitlieito seen no reason to change the
opinion which we expressed yesterday.7—New

Now that, instead of avoiding Parliament as their
opponents anticipated, his Majesty's Ministers have
hastened the period of its assembling, and directed
it to be called together nearly three weeks before
the usual time, all the Nonentities which fancy them-
selves of importance begin to rsove, and strut and
bustle, to appear to others what they are in their
own eyes. Powerless as is the attempt, it is amus-
ing and instructive. In every direction pigmies are
aping giants ; and, unmindful of the Fabulist's
warning, political frogs swell themselves up even
to bursting, in the vain hope of passing for bulls,
and, perchance, of getting into their places. That
it will lead to some sad catastrophe, is not only a
law of nature, but of necessity. Who are to be
the victims, however, being a matter of choice,
must remain a secret in the bosom of the silly
and ambitious, till they reveal, at length,
their vanity and their ambition. Amongst the least
sensible and most malignant of these politicians,
the M.ivlst; Ka>:xv, who can anticipate nothing
but difficuties, dangers, and disgrace for their
country, the cry is still, " why have we no arrivals
Whence comes it that no less than thirty days have
elapsed since the date of the last public despatches ?"
—We might answer, that if Ministers had received
despatches, the publication of which, pending ar-
rangements which require to be managed with con-
summate delicacy, might tend in the slightest degree
to hamper the operations of the Ambassadors,
they would do well to suppress them. But, in
truth, what, in his present dealings with such
diplomatists as the Divan, can Mr. Canning
have to communicate ? The Allies have made
their demand—they have submitted their projet,
—they call for no contre projet; their agents
are not in the condition of ordinary Am-
bassadors—they are not called on to compass
peace or war by • contingent sacrifices—they have
but one story to tell, but one plea to urge ; they ad-
dress the Porte with voluntary truce in the one
hand, and compulsory truce in the other, and to the
complaints and arguments of the Reis Effendi they
can only answer utrumvis accipias. To the sturdi-
ness of the Turks, it is evident that Ambassadors
so situated have but one form of opposition to offer,
namely, sturdiness as perdurable. There is no need
of discussion where one party is determined to abate
nothing from their demands. It is only when one is
disposed to come down and another to come up, that
protocols, and notes, and memoranda, are multiplied,
which are, after all, but chaffering of a higher order,
each party being desirous to cheat the other into as
good a bargain as they can. The three Powers
have, consulting the dignity of themselves and the
importance of the occasion, determined on one plain
intelligible arrangement, from which they will not
swerve. They will abate nothing of their charge.
The Turks, in all their former diplomatic dealings,
have encountered Powers who professed this line of
honourable conduct, but who have, notwithstand-
ing, invariably allowed themselves to be beaten
down. They judge of the present demands by the
past, and the mode of arguing is quite legitimate.—
They will And out their error, and the Ambassadors,
compassionating their weakness, have kindly granted
them leisure for that purpose. The delay, up to the
date of the battle of Navarin, was probably misinterpre-
ted—it was attributed, if not to the fears, at least to
the weakness of the three Powers. That victory lei 4
dispelled this delusion for ever. The Divan may
still hold out, and probably will ; but they will
yield, when they are at last convinced that no better
terms than those which they at first haughtily rejec-
ted, can be, under any circumstances, obtained. If
this should really happen, as we believe it will—if
the peace of the Levant be established—if the resto-
ration of Greece be agreed on, even putting the case
of the allied interposition, as the virulent opponents
of Ministry have put it—even on this showing, the
battle of Navarin will be one of the most glorious
that ever England was engaged in, for of none Will
the consequences have been more important nor
more permanent.—lbid.