The Sun.
London, England, 1829-12-23 00:00:00

IPIRIT OP THE PUBLIAJOURNA.LS.

. . .
We publish a letter from 'lr. PiercevMahony,
introducing his own formerVargspondence (as
,gent for Lord George BeresVn4with Messrs.
STeil and O'Connell. Mr. Mab*""l*l tement_,'
is drawn up with clearness, force;-,a-a4etnpkr;
Although any question relating to Mr. Daniel
O'Connell has now become rather a musty sub-
ject, even with Irish Catholics, it may, for the
common cause of truth and honesty, be as well
to point attention to facts which are manifest
upon the face of the letters :-Ist, That before a
word was hinted to him about any specific fee,
and only an assurance offered from Mr. Mahony
of " ample remuneration," he, O'Connell, ex-
pressed " some doubt whether the proposal of
retaining him for the Beresfords" would be re-
peated, " as out ?perm" (says the Counsellor)
" I made Villiers Stuart pay me 600/." Verily;
this sounds like huxtering for a fee. 2d, That
the sum of 900/. was not offered to O'Connell,
though he so solemnly asserted it ; hut 300/. in
the whole if there should be no election, and
600/. in the whole if there should be one, That;
so far from his " indignantly rejecting," as this
blusterer boasted, both in speech and writing;
that he had done, the proposal oldie Beresfords
to be their counsel,—considering the offer a
bribe for the desertion of his principles,— the
second sentence of his very first letter states him
to be " exceedingly delighted at the offer made"
to him. A subsequent passage of the same
letter (after the hint of the 6001. fee) declares
that " I have always been exceedingly well
treated by that family, when they employed:
as a professional man ;" and his second letter,
dated only a week after the first, says, that I
proud of the selection made of me, by Lori
Waterford, as a professional man." a 1 would
not have it conceived for one moment, that 3:'y
declining to accept the retainer has any ct;:er•
motive than this ; —meaning the possibilire of
his being called upon to sit as a Member of Par-
liament on an election committee, in case of a
petition against the return for Waterford ; and,
lastly, " I again beg leave to express my great
gratification at the matter and manner of the
communication made to me." After this I—bur
probably the public has already had enough cif
the virtuous indignation of Mr. Daniel O'Con.
nell.— Times.

The trial of the Proprietors and Publisher
of the Morning Journal, for a Libel against
the Lord Chancellor, came on yesterday; taid
a verdict of guilty was returned. Therg
can be but one opinion, we should suppose;
with regard to the nature of the attacks on ll'e!
Lord Chancellor, which fbrmed the subject of
this prosecution. Most men will subscribe to
;he opinion of the Attorney-General, that
" although the public conduct of public men
ought to be open to the most free discussion,
yet they ought not merely, on account of their
high character, to be abused and scandalized."
To charge a Lord Chancellor with selling or be-
stowing a legal appointment for the considera.
Lion of a loan of 30,0001., is to state that which
is calculated materially to lower his Lordship itt
the public estimation. So many distinguished
men in both Houses of Parliament lent them-
selves lately to schemes for plundering the
simple and credulous, by means of Bubble Com-
panies (for some of the Companies could never
be taken from the beginning for anything but
bubbles), that there is a general disposition at
present to attribute great laxity of prinetimi
to the higher ranks of this country ; arid
though to all well-informed persons the idea that
a man so distinguished in his profession as the
Solicitor-General would lend 30,0001. for his
appointment, was sufficiently silly (even if the
appointment were with the Lord Chancellcr) ;
yet it would be hard that a public man should be
believed by ill-informed persons corrupt and venal.
When a specific charge of corruption was there-
fore made against his Lordship, it was generally
' allowed that he ought to have an opportunity of
meeting it ; and the proceedings instituted by his
Lordship himself met therefore with nearly general
approbation. That a man should be allowed to
set himself right with the world, by some judi-
cial proceeding, is a point respecting which there
can be no doubt ; the consequences with which
the procedure ought to be followed is a matter
involved in more difficulty. We will not, now-
ever, at present, agitate this question. We have
a few observations to offer on the speech of Sir
James Scarlett. " All must admit (he said),
and I do to the fullest extent, that the Press
has a most salutary influence on public and pri-
vate conduct; an influence which has increased
with the increasing intelligence of Europe."
So far so good. " If the publication (he after-
wards observed) which I now venture to bring
before you were allowed to pass unobserved
among the many others which too much distin-
guish the present day, it would, I am con•
vißced, have the effect of placing all newspapers
on the same level ; and, no matter with what pe-
culiar caution they may be conducted, they would
be involved in the common cause with this
paper, and all alike entitled to contempt. I
never was afraid, in any place, of avowing my
opinion on this subject ; and however anxious I
am that the right of printing and publishing
should be preserved, I here freely declare, that
for the last ten years the license of the Press
has, in my judgment, been too much unrestrain-
ed, and that its wholesome use would he better
preserved if more restraints had been placed on
it. The time when the present publication took
place was, perhaps, more than any other distin-
guished for the calumnies which were daily di-
rected against the public and private characters
of those who had been selected to fill offices of
trust by his Majesty." We are at once at issue
with Sir James as to the facts. During the last
ten years the Press has, generally speaking, been
less factious, less intemperate, than during any
ten years since it was emancipated from the Li-
censer. Two or three Papers, at most, during
that period, have laid themselves out in the way
of calumny ; but this is not a new phenomenon
in the history of the Press ; on the contrary, in
former periods the abuse used to be greater and
more frequent. But calumny leads its victims
to seek redress in Courts of Law, and Juries have
not, shown any disposition to screen the offenders.
At the time when the publication alluded to took
place, there was much inflammatory language in
Parliament, and at Meetings, as was to he expected
in the agitation, with a view to the settlement of a
question which, a year or two before, few men
thought could he carried ; and when Lord El-
don could, in his place in Parliament, express a
fervent aspiration that his voice might, by some
means, be conveyed from one extremity of the
kingdom to the other, with the view to obtain-
ing such an expression of the public feeling as
might intimidate the Legislature ; are we to
wonder that the language of that portion of the
Press enlisted in his Lordship's cause should be
extravagant ? We are ready to allow that in the
race of rhodomontade, some of the Newspapers
in that interest were not behind some of the

speakers in Parliament, which is saying quite
enough ; but why the necessity for restraint ?
g
What was the complaint generally made in Pa -
liament ? Was it not that the Press had been
gained over unfairly to countenance Ministers ?
Was it not alleged again and again that the
Press, from some inexplicable cause, had be-
come truant to the people ? It was true that if
the country had been polled on the Catholic
Question, a numerical majority would have beet)
against Ministers ; but it was not true that of
the class who read newspapers, a majority was
against them. Five-sixths of the Press of the
Metropolis were on the side of Ministers ;
it proof, at OAI events, that men in office
had little ground to complain of the Press
generally.. But would it have been just,
would it have been expedient, with this
preponderance of services from the Press, if the
remaining portion could have been- silenced,
that Ministers should have silenced it ? Did
they lose any thing by the extravagance of which
the Attorney-General complains? Not any man
In his senses, on coolly examining the matter, will
say they did. They gained by the very extrava-
gance of the articles of which Sir James Scar-
lett complains. The Press represents the middle
classes of society ; and it was in these classes
precisely that the Ministry was strongest. The
higher classes who are so meek in Parliament
are, comparatively, unimportant with the Press,
and hence the contrast between the House of
Peers and the Newspapers. With the Press
Ministers had little trouble. With the House
of Peers they had much ; and we all know that
a very different sort of reasoning was brought to
bear on a number of needy Peers from that
which is to be acquired from Dr. Whatelv. Sir
James returns to this subject —" I will ask you
whether it did not mean to throw dishonour and
disgrace on his Majesty's Government, to insi-
nuate that a Member of that Government had
attained his situation by granting a loan of thirty
thousand pounds to another? If by possibility
such a thing could be true, would it not be
matter of reproach and condemnation to the
Government which could permit so base a
traffic? If so, what is this but a libel ? That
the insinuation is false, no man can doubt who
has reason and experience. But there are many
persons who take their creed from the Newspa-
pers, and as long as one part of the Press was
*sonducted with ability and honour, that part was
injured by publications such as the Morning
Journal, which brought all into equal discredit
with the thinking part of the community, though •
relied upon by the credulous and uninquiring."
What sort of logic is this ? The thinking part
of the community, who can see that five-sixths
of thei Press promulgate opinions of which they
approve, and disseminate statements which they
know to be true, overlook all this, and because
A portion of the Press circulates opinions and
statements of a different description, which form
the creed of the readers, all the papers, good
and bad, are brought into equal discredit with
them ! Truly this is thinking to very little par-
pose. We trust there are few thinkers in
this most thinking nation who think so per-
versely. What should we say of the think.
era who, because: a :portion of the inhabitants
of the metropolis are addicted to stealing and
picking of pockets, should hold all the inha-
bitants to be discredited on that account ?
What should we think of the thinkers who, be-
cause two or three Barristers are restrained
neither by decency nor principle from saying what
they are heard to say, however disgraceful to them,
should deem all Barristers to be discredited
_by
the circumstance ? Why do the thinking
people alluded to by Sir James take our paper
in preference to another, if all arc in equal dis-
credit with them ? If they perceive the false-
hood of the one, they perceive the truth of the
other ; and the one and the other cannot, with-
out supposing them monsters, be both in dis-
credit. If they perceive neither the truth of the
one, nor the falsehood of the other, they are not
in a state of mind to hold anything in discredit.
This is one of the swaggering statements which
we hear occasionally from Barristers, which pass
in the hurry of debate, but which, when analysed,
appear sheer nonsense. If Ministers adopt the
recommendation of Sir James, to improve the
press by curtailing it of its freedom, by restrain-
ing it, as he says, they may prevent some things
being said for them. The advocacy of the Press
will lose its value when it is known that oppo-
sition is put down. We protest against the
doctrine ; and we lament that we should have
lived to hear the moderation of a Tory Adminis
tration decried by a Whig Attorney-General.—
Morning Chronicle.

Another long letter has appeared on the state
of the Irish Church establishment from the Earl
of Mountcashel to the Bishop of Ferns. This
correspondence has now extended to such a
length as to wear out the interest which origi-
nally attached to it. We have heretofore given
the letters on both sides, but we cannot find
space bar any others without excluding matter of
more immediate consideration, or, at least, of
more novelty. We do not desire that our
readers should be under the necessity of recalling
to our recollection that maxim of Terence, of
which the Press ought never to lose sight, and
which controversialists, whether on matters sacred
or profane, ought always to ke2p in view, and which
is expressed in the emphatic words 71C quid nimis.
The tediousness of this correspondence might
have been avoided if the Earl of Mountcashel
had not involved himself in matter of detail, not
at ad essential to his argument, as showing the
necessity of Church reform. He should have
confined himself; in the present stage of the in-
quiry, to what may be called the moral evidence
of the question:. He should have demand-
ed of the opponents of reform, what good
the Church of Ireland had hitherto effected,
proporionate. with its means of doing good. He
should have asked for proofs of the progress
which this richly endowed establishment had
made during the course of centuries, in diffus-
ing the light of Christian truth and the love and
knowledge of an enlightened religion. He
should have appealed to the records of history,
and then he would have taken his stand on a
position from which lie could not be dislodged
by the small artillery of those who, incapable of
grappling with the great principle, take advan-
tage of little inaccuracies of detail. But the
controversy has been of some value notwith-
standing. It has disturbed the stagnant waters,
and the ripple of a wholesome and purifying.
agitation is now upon their surface. We can-
not enter into the subject at present. \Ve were
the first to call the attention of the Engl..)h pub-
lic to the meeting at Cork, and shall take an
early opportunity of putting, upon ►what we con-
sider its real merits, a question which so mate-
rially involves the interests of Ireland and the
empire.--Morning Herald.

On the trial for libel in the Court of King's
Bench, or rather on the alleged libel, we shall
only make on© remark ; and that is, that even if

the true construction of the libellous paragraph
were that which has been put upon it by his
Majesty's Attorney-General, and the witnesses
whom he called in support of his opinion, the
icknowledged integrity of the Lord Chancellor
ought to have proved a sufficient shield against
its malice, and the total absence of any mis-
chievous effects having resulted from it to have
rendered the prosecution useless. One fact
respecting it we will mention as having come
to us from competent authority, and that is,
that the principal defendant on the trial—we
mean Mr. Alexander—never wrote the article
which gave rise yesterday to such a mustering
of Counsel and evidence. It was, we are in-
formed, sent to him by an occasional contributor,
and inserted with very slight examination, and
without any knowledge of its being intended to
apply to the Lord Chancellor. Had this fact
been stated in evidence, we think the Jury would
have found it necessary to accompany their ver-
dict of Guilty with a special recommendation to
be moderate in the infliction of punishment.—
But, however this may be, there is assuredly no
Act on the Statute Book which stands in
greater need of revision than the law of libel—
none that is so oppressive, so far as the' Press
is concerned—nor any of which it would
be more difficult to give a satisfactory ex-
planation. Even to mention it, is, in the
language of the Roman poet, to mention the
ii!fizndum dolorem of the Press—the heavy
chain which binds every writer, printer, and pub-
lisher of a newspaper to give part only instead
of the whole of the truth—to be silent when to
speak out would be beneficial to the community,
and to suppress many facts as important as they
are true, simply because it is dangerous to state
them, and because the veriest truth is as great a
libel as the veriest falsehood. In the United
States of America, things are ordered dif-
ferently—nothing is considered libellous which
does not contain a falsehood respecting indivi-
duals ; and we can see no reason why a similar
enactment might not be made by the Parliament
of England. The law in question has been
productive of no evil consequence in America;
and what reason is there to suppose that it would
do harm here ?—Morning Advertiser.
We have given at full length a report of the
trial of the Morning Journal yesterday. For ob-
vious reasons we shall make no remarks on
the subject here. To-morrow it is possible
that it may be in our power to offer some more
complete observations on the unprecedented
proceedings against us than we can do
under existing circumstances. In the mean-
time we request the fair attention of our readers
to the nature of the libel, the rank and station of
the plaintiff, the mode of conducting the prose-
cution, the selection of the defendants, and the
choice of witnesses. If the people of England
think that all was as it ought to be they may be
contented to have no independent newspaper in
less than twelve months—at all events none that
will dare whisper, even in parables, any
thing that may be construed, by a whig At-
torney-General non-obstante the disclaimer
of its author, into an affront upon any great
functionary of the law. We perceive that
the patrons and advocates of the freedom of the
Press and the liberty of discussion are, as usual,
either acquiescent in their attacks upon us or
mute. We must, however, except the Globe,
which ventures yesterday evening on a few com-
mon-places on the abstract impropriety of libel
prosecutions, such as that which yesterday occu-
pied the attention of the King's Bench. Our
shrew&contemporary concludes by saying--

" The theory of nuncupative law-giving is only, we
fear, dictated by a desire of keeping that practice of prose-
cution for libel in a state of suspended animation till the
King Sebastian of toryism shallcosere.from Barbary to re-
establish the ancient sway, and of reserving for those best
of all possible occasional legislatures, special juries, selected
by some new. Gibbs or Perceval, the power of calling in
' manifold circumstanoes' to justify them in trampling
down all opposition to the opinions which shall then be
dominant. This will not do."

No, indeed, it will not do. Nor will it do
for the Globe to talk about Gibbs and Perceval,
as if (to say nothing of the difference of the
times) they ever brought ex-officios for libels
against Lord Eldon, or to invoke any King
Sebastian of toryinn, when the Attorney-Gene-
ral is that greatest of all Whig lawyers, Sir
James Scarlett. But we shall, or will, or what.
ever else is the proper Creole phrase, pursue
the matter no further for the Present.— Morning
Journal.

It has always been our desire to abstain from
prejudging any matters about to be submitted to
a legal and competent tribunal ; and in obedience
to this feeling we have refrained as much as pos-
sible, and in circumstances of extraordinary ex-
citement and provocation, from offering any opi-
nion upon the libel cases, the first of which was
yesterday submitted to a Jury of the country.
The decision of that Jury has in a considerable
degree released us from that duty of painful
and difficult reserve which we have hitherto
struggled to fulfil, and has left us free to pro-
nounce an opinion upon the conduct of the
parties accused, without incurring the imputa-
tion of a design to poison the sources of jus-
tice, or to erect our private judgment into a
standard by which the guilt or innocence of
others ought co be determined. But now that
we are at liberty to speak, we cannot re-
frain from offering our cordial congratu-
lations to the Press and the Country upon a
verdict which was evidently necessary to vindi-
cate and protect the character of the Press, and
to rescue it from a degradation which must have
greatly impaired its value. We have no wish
to' press hardly upon the individuals now under
conviction ; yet nothing can be more evident
than that the Press must lose its whole value
and respectability—all that entitles and enables
it to influence the opinions and feelings of man-
kind, from the moment when its conductors
are permitted to asperse, gratuitously and with
impunity, the characters of eminent men.
We do not wish to see the time when the
general character of the Press shall be so low
that Ministers of State may afford to disregard
the iniptuation of corruption levelled against
them by its means. And we certainly do
not know how this degradation can so effectually
he prevented as by the punishment of those who
cab in the aid of calumny, to give that zest to
their lucubrations which they know not how
otherwise to impart. It is not necessary, in speak-
ing of this particular case, to discuss any nice
questions as to the proper limits of political dis-
cussion ; for if a Lord Chancellor might safely
be accused of selling the office of Attorney-
General, it is obvious that there would
no longer be any limits either to discussion
or assertion. Neither does the occasion
offer any peculiar temptation to animadvert,
as some of our Cotemporaries have done,
upon the distinctness of the law of libel ;
for that law would not be distinct, but non-
existent, if so flagrant a violation of decency
and truth could escape legal reprehension.
So long as the law is administered by Juries

selected impartially from among the people, there
can be no danger of that vagueness of the law,
which is a very old subject of complaint, becom-
ing a snare to men whose intentions have been
innocent ; but there would, on the other hand,
be great danger that dexterous guilt might find
the means of evading the provisions of a law that
vainly attempted the accurate and precise defini-
tion of an offence, the possible forms and dis-
guises of which are infinitely various. Those who
complain of the indistinctness of tl►e law of
libel ought certainly of all men to be the last to
reprehend the prosecution of which we have
just witnessed the result ; for had it not been in-
stituted, it is clear that by this very omissio►► the
law would have become more indeterminate than
it now is. There may be a question whether any
proceedings were necessary to protect the cha-
racter of the Lord :Chancellor :or that of his
Majesty's Government, against such imputations,
proceeding from such assailants ; but little doubt
can be entertained, that had the law been per-
mitted to sleep upon this occasion, an argument
calculated to perplex future Juries would have
been educed from this instance of its inactivity.
—Morning Post.

THE ARMY.

(From the Limerick Chronicle of Saturday.)

The 6ed Regiment, now in garrison, leave this country
in March next for England, and will embark the May fol-
lowing at Chatham for India.

Major-General Sir G. Bingham leaves Cork to hold a
military inquiry at Fermoy, on Monday.
We regret to announce the death of Lieut.-General Sir
Henry Clinton, G.C.B. and G.C.H. He was son of
General Sir Henry Clinton, who was conspicuous in the
American war, and brother to Lieutenant-General Sir W.
Clinton, late Commander-in-Chief in Portugal. Sir
I-lenry Clinton was a distinguished officer, awl had seen
much service. He wore the honorary cross, clasp, and
medal for the battles of Salamanca, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes,
Toulouse, and Waterloo.

The Colonelcy of the 3d Regiment of Foot has become
vacant by the death of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry
Clinton, G.C.B. and G.C.H.

The honourable selection by the Horse Guards of that
distingui.lied veteran Officer, Major-General Sir John
Elley, K.C.B. to the Chief Coloneley of the 17th Lancers,
is no less creditable to the known discernment and impar-
tiality of General Lord Hill, than it is to the high charsc--
ter of Sir John Elley during many years of arduous and
active service devoted to the interests of his Sovereign and
his country. This gallant Officer commanded in the South
West District, head-quarters in this city a few years ago,
when his gentlemanly deportment and courteous manners
gained, without exception, the esteem and regard of all
classes. To the British Army it would be unnecessary to
recite the merits of Sir John Elley; the harassing cam-
paigns of the Peninsula, and the sanguinary field of Wa-
terloo, are unfading monuments of his services.
The deduction of threepence in the pound from the full
and half-pay of the officers of the navy, for the Widows'
Fund, has been discontinued by order of the Admiralty,
the fund being sufficiently rich.

Wheat. Barley. Oats. i Beans.
Per Quarter. s. to s. s. to s. s. to s. s. to s.
Boston , 53 27 19 31
Gainsborough .... 57 29 —.. lil 32
Grantham 52 (10 30 35 22 26 43 45
Grimsby 4l 58 20 28 16 22 20 38
Horncastle ~.... 45 52 25 32 15 20 30 48
Lincoln
Spilsby 46 51 21 32 18 22 32 34
Stamford-- —= 49 60 25 33 20 23 43
York— 48 56 26 32 20 28 38 41
NORWICH. Dec. 19.

Our market continues to be well supplied. The Wheat
trade to-day was dull, and prices gave way Is. to 2s. per
quarter. Barley remains at last week's quotations, and
we observe no alteration in the value of other Grain.
Flour is dull sale.

Wheat (per qr.) 4os. 58s. 635. I Beans (per qr.)......... 2fis. 325.
Barley
Oats 2os. '24s. 295. Flour, fine (per sack) 435. 45..