The Sun.
London, England, 1827-09-29 00:00:00

We recollect that when Mr. Willa resigned his
office, he had still influence enough to have
a son of his put ill nomination, and very strongly
supported, as candidate-for the same situation;
At that time the defalcation in the accounts was
strongly urged by those .who were opposed to
the appointment of Mr: Rowland Wilks, and
they argued at the same time, that as the parish
intended to prosecute the elder Mr. Wilks, it
Would be very unseemly as well as unwise to elect
the son to an office which would impose '
upon him the duty of prosecuting his own.
father. The son, however, with a noble
disdain of those common instincts which
men of less heroic public virtue would have consi-
dered insurmountable, declared that the duty of
prosecuting his father at the command of the
parish would form no objection to his acceptance
of the office, as he would be quite ready to do it
when directed. The parish did not then put his
principles to the test, as he lost the election;
but since that we believe he has succeeded to the
office, by some arrangement (if we are wrong we
should like to have better information), and from
diet time to this we have not heard that any legal
proceedings whatever have been taken against the
elder Mr. Wilks. In the mean time, it appears,
loom what was stated at Worship-street on
Tuesday, that the parishioners were taxed in a
larger sum than usual for the purpose of making
up this deficiency in the accounts of Mr. Wilks!
It was mentioned by Mr. M'Hugh, that the
former rate of tenpence, which was sufficient for
all legal purposes, was now raised to one shilling,
in order to make good the deficiency in the
parish accounts by Mr. Wilks's defalcation.
We do not hesitate to say, that the overseers
have no legal authority to increase the rate for
any such purpose. If Mr. Was was an agent
of the parish officers, and they placed the funds
in his hands, there is nothing clearer than that
they are answerable for them, as the trustees of
these funds for the benefit of the poor. Did
they take competent security of Mr. Wilks for
the proper discharge of his office, or did they;
not ? If they did, they have of course their re-
medy against his sureties for the sum in which
they were bound ; and if they did not take se-
curity, they deserve to be at the loss of the
money for their negligence, or partiality, or what-
ever it may be that induced them to act so
unlike men of business and common-sense in
this matter. We wonder that the parishioners
have not before now brought the subject under
the notice of a competent tribunal. If persons
who suffer from such doings as these in St.
Luke's parish will be supine—will take no active
measures for redress—they must expect the result
to which all people are subject who have not the
spirit to defend their rights—an increase of the
grievances of which they already have so much
cause to complain 'bid _ •

The case of the Peninsula, from which the
unexpected obstinacy of the Porte, and the con-
sequences to which it might posibly lead, had
for the moment withdrawn the eyes of the pub-
lic, will now, when the fears respecting a war in
the Levant begin to subside, claim once more
our attention and that of our readers. We know,
very little of the Prince Don Miguel.- It is not
very easy, therefore, to predict what effect his
assumption of the Regency, under his Imperial
Brother, may produce in Portugal. The forms
of the Charter, from which the more sanguine of
our countrymen have looked for more than there
is any chance of its ever realizing, will in all pro-
bability be preserved. It is, indeed, not easy to
see how he can consistently or safely abrogate a
law on, which his own authority depends : nor..
do we mean to say that the mere forms of civil
liberty are by any means to be despised. It is
much that the caprices of despotism, or the man-
dates of absolute power, should be compelled to
issue through certain recognized - channels, and
to be executed by certain recognized ofliciaries.
In this way much of their noxious qualities are
purified during their progress. The Portuguese
are at present only recovering from their political
blindness; they are incapable of fully comprehend-
ing the benefits, and unfitted to bear the restraints
of freedom. They are yet as raw levies, who re-
quire much time and much instruction before they
can be trained to the endurance of legal disci-
pline. For many years to come we may expect
that, under the most enlightened system of Go-
vernment, they will prefer the stiletto to the po-
lice officer, and bribe the judge instead of teeing
the advocate. It requires but a slight acquaint-
ance with history and human nature to be con-
vinced that man has his political as well as his
physical childhood. The duration of that age
of weakness will, indeed, differ greatly in States
as well as in individuals, and some miserable
ricketty specimens seem destibed by nature never
to be emancipated from it. But it ought to be
recollected that the feebleness of infancy may be
unnaturally prolonged into manhood, as easily by
too much as by too little care—that tight ban-
daging may prove as injurious as broken limbs.
To drop metaphor, the attempt to subject a na-
tion, while ignorant, and impatient of regulated
controul, to the rules and institutions from which
an intelligent community derives peace and hap-
piness, may be as injurious to its political ad-
vancement as to leave it unprotected by law alto-
gether. We have, on more occasions than one,
endeavoured to impress this truth on the public,
and we feel the necessity of recurring toit again
and again, because there is no point on which
the public are so hard of conviction. Not only
do we perpetually hear the contrary doctrine from
the ignorant and the short sighted, but from
many of our contemporaries, whose re-
searches, observations, and general sagacity, must
have taught them its falsehood. Whenever the
condition of a people is proposed to be ame-
liorated, no matter what that condition happens
to be, nor what causes have -placed them in it,
the first step that is proposed by an Englishman
is to get up a charter for them. How can any
political regeneration be expected without a
Charter ? Has not England a Charter ?—And
by the same very conclusive argument, a House
of Lords, and a House of Commons, must be'
formed, because the liberties of England have
long been linked with those institutions.. Add:
to these the accompaniments of Trial by Jury,
and a Free Press, and, presto pass, begone ! thet
lying cheating Greek—the wily and vindictive
Italian—the bigotted and lazy Spaniard—the'
cowardly and lascivious Portuguese—are all, and'
every one of them, converted in a month, into so
many plain, honest, strait-forward, independent
John Bulls ! Now, it is of importance to call.
on those who attribute such supernatural powers
to those institutions, to remember, that for ages
after the Charter of their liberties was gained
from the pusillanimous Lackland, the tyranny
under which the people of England groaned, was
rather transferred than removed; that for ages
after the usurper Leicester had laid the founda-
tion of a Commons House •of Parliament, it con-
tinued the pitiful abject tool of every successive
Minister ; that Juries have been made on many
occasions the instruments of the most wanton