The Sun.
London, England, 1827-04-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

There is now not a shadow of reason to doubt
that certain high personages were, within these
three days, secure in their confidence of Mr.
Caaning's accepting the offer which they had
brought themselves to make him ; and there, is
alinost equal cause for congratulating the Right
Hon. Gentleman himself, and the people of Eng-
land, on his prompt and peremptory refusal of a
proposition by which he would have been at once
enfeebled and disgraced. Why should Mr. Can-
ning submit to any, even the slightest attempt to
humble him ? Why should. he, whom his coun-
trymen appreciate highly; be considered by any
knot or faction capable of disparaging himself.?
Mr. Canning has judged wisely in acting proudly.—
Had he condescended to terms which none but a
northern pedlar could have thought of imposing on
an English Statesman, or pledged himself to be
guided by rules of policy congenial only to the petti-
fogging conceptions of an attorney's clerk, would
there, we ask, :have existed on earth a man so
wretched, so lost, as Mr. Canning ? We repeat
our cordial congratulations to the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman and to the country, on his display of the
manly spirit which becomes them both. Let him
but persevere—let him assure himself that there is
nothing but weakness and rottenness to oppose him.

We publish another letttr on the subject of
St. James's Park, and. the odious mixture there
exhibited of whatev,ier is most barbarous in taste,
most regardless of utility, most offensive to the
public feeling, and most susceptible of all the
varieties and dexterities of vulgar, mercenary
jobbing. Was there ever such a display of vile
aar!L miserable selfishness, as in the preservation
of an extensive grove of magnificent timber at
the back of Pall-mall, just so long as it could be
made subservient to the convenience or decora-
tion of a certain princely palace--combined with
its instantaneous demolition, just at the moment
when that palace ceased to be inhabited by the
Prince, and when the trees could only serve to
gratify the people ? Was there ever, again, a
more Hottentot proceeding than the destruction
of the aventi.d -of trees which hitherto formed the
ornament of the Bird-cage Walk? A Royal
residence of huge dimensions has indeed grown up
in the inunediate neighbourhood of that walk; but
if it be not intended that the contiguity of the So-
vereign shall be always marked by the devastation
of natural beauty, and the sacrifice of private corn-
foet—always dreaded as a thing possessed with
blighting and desolating attributes, with manifesta-
tions of contempt for the enjoyments of British sub-
jects, and of an indifference more than Oriental
towards their dispositions and habits—we would'
entreat the conspirators against good taste, whoever
they are, to reflect for a short time on what they
are contemplating, before they strip the Park of its
trees and e'nolee it with brick and mortar.—lbid.
The tharacters of public men are the property
of tht country, and though it is the fashion of
these who dread (and therefore shrink from) the
ordeal of public opinion, to allege that the Press
is the constant assailant of character, we do not
hesitate to say, that it is by the fair, the open,
and manly discrimination of the Press, that the
characters of public men are rescued from the
obloquy and injustice which private whispers
throw upon them, and are ultimately placed
upon that pedestal of honour which history pre-
pares for them. Few men probably have had
more to upbraid and to applaud the Press for
than Lord Eldon. That Noble and Learned
Lord has now been fifty years before the public,
and nearly forty rears in ostensible puislie.
tions ; for we belleire his Lordship held the office
of Solicitor-General as long ago as the period
of Paine's trial in 1792. His Lordship, there-
fore, has lived and acted no unimportant a part
in the most eventiiii period the world has ever
witnessed; and having acted a prominent part
during the age of Pitt, of Fox, of Burke, of
Grattan, of Nelson, of Wellington, of Buona-
parte, and the various other Statesmen and War-
riors who have illustrated the last half century,
he now remains, in the vigour of a green old age,
almost the only survivor of what may be called
the classical age in which he has lived. Of his
eminence in his own profession no one has ever
ventured so much as to whisper a doubt ; but
had his talents been less, and his powers of de-
cision greater, the world, perhaps, would have
owed more to the former tin a they now do. In
his political character he may lay claim to one
feature which none of his rivals or opponents can,
for a moment, attempt to gainsay—we mean a rigid
and undeviating consistency. Whether Lord El-
don's opinions upon public affairs have been right
or wrong, is for history to decide. They have, at all
events, remained the same; and while others
have changed with circumstances or with conve-
nience, no man can say, that in any point ofhis poli-
tical creed, the Lord Chancellor has ever varied one
iota. Lord Eldon's weakness seems to be the love
of money. Endeavouring to emulate and boasting
himself as the undeviating follower of Mr. Pitt, his
eves appear to be closed to a difference
which, though it implies no difference in opinion,
places
the character of the pupil far, very far indeed,
below that of his master. Ambition is the charac-
ter of great minds, as avarice is their reproach. Mr.
Pitt possessed the one in the highest degree, but
was utterly a stranger to the other; while Lord
Eldon seems to have so far varied from his prototype
as to have possessed all his ambition, but with a de-
gree of worldly-mindedness to which his master was
a stranger. It is upon this rock that the Chancel-
lor is saffering the well earned reputation of half a
century to be wrecked. He might well exclaim
with many others, " Save me from my friends,"
were it not pretty well understood that the friends
of whom he would otherwise have but too much
reason to complain, are only the forced and unwil-
ling organs of his own sentiments. That the Chan-
cellor more upon his hands, and upon his mind,
even the vigour of
than youth could undergo, must
be apparent to every one, and that he clings to the
whole of this with an evident physical inability to
fulfil his own wishes and intentions, is no less cer-
tain. We would not quote the " Solve senescentem" of
Horace offensively upon Lord Eldon, because we feel con-
vinced that the " ridendus" can never apply to him ; but
valuing as we do, his high reputation, and anxious that
it should descend with him to the grave, we do regret to
see the pertinacity, and the evident clinging
to profit, which
House Commons for ever to op-
prompts his organs in the
character pose the mere personal feelings. and of Lord Eldon
ation which is sought for, and
to every inquiry and inform
to perform •
which may tend to show his inability mpomi_
it be to
bilities. How much more honourable would d the
Lord Chancellor to lend himself anxiously an willingly to
• •-'
those reforms in the practice and division of labour in his
1
Court, which are so evidently called for, and which must
so certainly take place when he himself no lonFer presents
an obstacle. What is there that could furnish a more use-
ful and honourable conclusion to an honourable profes-
sional and political life, than to be the ready and active
instrument of that reform, which all the world knows and
feels is indisputably necessary. We trust that the tenor of
these remarks (though urged with the freedom which, we
trust, will always characterize the sentiments of this pa-
IV are any thing but hostile to the Lord Chancellor.—
aliOstlney rate, We know that they are offered in any but a
spirit-3i • orntng Herald.
t(),'nall
with parts of the country, the accounts
resp
people, ect to trade and the employment of the
aa'e more and more
`Tow Chronicle • gloomy. The Glas-
6selling
theirstea_tes that, by great exertions,
from friends,
ectg, and receiving assistance
- v
neazlq_ 300 • • • adunduals are now

safely on board two vellSelB in the Clyde, waiting
the first fair wind for New York
The heads of families, it is said, have in general a re-
spectable exterior, most of them are what would be
considered as belonging to the better-informed class of
Scottish mechanics, those who were industrious, had good
moral and religious characters, and fulfilled all the duties
connected with their respective spheres of life with honour
and credit till the long-continued depression threatened to
sink them to the level of paupers, if they did not make
one last bold effort to escape from it. The emigrants are
from Lanarkshire, Ayrabil-e, Dumbartonshire, Renfrew-
shire, Perthshire, Coupar Angus, &c. About thirty are
froth the parish of Hamilton alone. There are a few small
farmers and labourers, but the great majority consist of trades-
men, such as masons, bricklayers, blacksmiths, honse-wrights,
joiners, and cabinet-makers, founders, cotton-spinners,
tailors, bakers, grocers, &c. With the exception of a few
who have friends in the United States, and have the pros-
pect of work on their arrival, they go away on speculation.
It caused a sensation of regret to behold such a number of
useful mechanics and their families departing to a foreign
State, and the universal answer given as to their motives in
quitting their native country was, that it was distress alone
that compelled them—that they were pleased with the Go-
vernment and the adminiatcation of the laws, but they were
without the means of subsistence. Many of them had had
no work for a number of months. Others had only been
partially employed, and their children were in want of
bread, while the distress was still accumulating. A few
of the emigrants are advanced in years, but most of them
are middle-aged."
Painful as it must be to men in middle life,
and still more to those of a more advanced age,
to be torn from their friends and associates, and
forced to begin life and form connections anew
in a strange land, still the condition of the for-
tunate few who have been enabled to raise funds
for their conveyance to America will no doubt
be considered enviable by hundreds of thousands
in these kingdoms at the present moment. They
7.sk only to have leave to toil for a wretched sub-
sistence, but they ask in vain. The emigrants,
says the article, " were well pleased with the
Government and the administration of the laws,
but they were without the means of subsistence."
This shows what an enduring animal man may
become. These poor wretches are perfectly satisfied'
with a Government substantially in the hands of a
set of men who care far less for human beings than
for hares and partridges, and with whom political
wisdom means merely the devising of contrivances
for dividing the people, and arraying them against
each other, and of specious pretexts for living at
the public expence. They are amused with stories
of Coronation Oaths and Protestant Constitutions,
and divided allegiance, while the fruits of their in-
dustry are consumed by the receivers of tithes and
taxes, for the interests of whom alone our system of
Government is contrived. One of the great divisions
of the Empire is retained in a state of which
every other Government in Europe would be
ashamed, merely to gratify a few, who, to add to the
insult to common sense, derive their warrant for
misgovernment from religion. Yet, in a country in
which such things are done, these wretches are
satisfied. They are, perhaps, even persuaded that
no ether country has anything to compare with
the glory which we derive from a particular
class, who constitute what forms the grand dis-
tinction of this Ration in Europe. They would wil-
lingly toil sixteen hours a day on meal and water,
proud of contributing their share of the burden entailed by
the war undertaken to put down Jacobinistn, and support-
ing our Holy Religion, satisfied with belonging to a coun-
try which has acquired so much glory. Yet, moderate
as their expectations are, they cannot he gratified. They
cannot even have the satisfaction of toiling almost beyond
human endurance, certainly far beyond what any other
nation in Europe would endure. But it appears to us,
that this state of things ought to fill the breasts of our rulers
with some apprehension. The business of Government
has hitherto in this country been an extremely easy one ;
it has been merely to look on while the people are toiling,
and dipping ever and anon into their pockets. This was
all very well as long as the people could be employed. But
we have now been for nearly two years in a continually
retrograding state; the revenue is half a million less this

mercial shock ; and every branch of our industry is be-
coming more and more paralysed.—Morning Chronicle.

Mr. D. W. Harvey's motion on the Court of
Chancery was singular in itself, and produced a
very singular exhibition from that side of the
House which is graced by his presence. -We
should have thought that the table of the House
of Commons was already so loaded with returns
concerning the business of the Court of Chan-
cery, of every species which could be suggested,
that a man, who knew what lie wanted, might
have found in them every detail which numbers
could express. But it is easier to make a
new motion than to explore the mass of papers
which have been already printed on the subject ;
and, therefore, forsooth, Mr. D. W. Harvey
thinks proper to move " for returns of the num-
ber of Causes set down before the Lord Chancel-
lor, from the year 1820 to the present time,
specifying when they were set down, how dis-
posed of, how many referred to the Master, and
how many pending—similar returns relative to
the causes set down before the Master of the
Rolls, the Vice-Chancellor, and the Chief Baron
in Equity—the number of Appeals to the Lord
Chancellor from the Master of the Rolls and
the Vice-Chancellor—the number of Appeals
from the Lord Chancellor to the House of
Lords—and the number of Lunatic Petitions
before the Lord Chancellor." And this infor-
mation he affected to call for, because the infor-
mation which would be contained in these re-
turns was necessary to enable the House to form
a correct judgment of the Bill which had been
introduced by the Master of the Rolls. If Mr,
D. W. Harvey he right, then, not only the Mas-
ter of the Rolls, but all the Members of the
Chancery Commission,must have been sadly in the
dark; since they have framed a series of proposed
alterations, without that knowledge which was
essential to enable them to understand what they
were about. In truth, however, neither Mr. D.
W. Harvey, nor any other person, pretended to
show, in what respect any of the proposed re-
turns could illustrate any of the proposed enact-
ments of the Bill which is now pending. That
Bill consists of a great number of specific regula-
tions ; and the arithmetical knowledge which
the Member for Colchester craves, could not
assist us in judging, whether any of these regula-
tions are advisable or not. Such numerical de-
tails are too easily gotten, to be of much use ;
and well would it be for us, if the reformers of
our laws could he made, by means so cheap and
vulgar, to understand the subject with which they
mean to intermeddle. What Mr. D. W. Har-
vey meant by calling for returns of how the causes
set down since 1820 were disposed of, and how
many were referred to the Master, we do not
pretend to understand any more than he him-
self did : still less can we divine, what possible
inferences could have been safely deduced, from
any possible results, which the required returns
might have
exhibited, unless he was prepared to
examine the circumstances of each particular cause ;
to inquire into the diligence and prudence of the
parties in conducting it; and to revise, as a Judge of
Appeal, the propriety of the different' orders which
had been made in it, ire rather suspect, that the
intention was to obtain a kind of tabular picture of
all the work done by our Courts of Equity. If so,
he was grossly in error; for he forgot that motions
and cause petitions make a great part of the business
Ys one-half of
of all :he Courts; and that, probabi
the Chancellor's time is occupied with that species
of business to which the returns be applied for did
not extend. Could this omission be wilful, in the
hope that a pretext might, hereafter, be furnished
for unjustly disparaging the work done by Lord

Eldon ? We will not entertain such a notion; we
will regard the omission as the blunder of ignorance,
rather than as the device of malice. We might
have leaned towards a different notion, had it been
the Judges of the Courts of Law, whose conduct
was in question; for, under their sentence, Mr.
D. W. Harvey has suffered in a way we
need not specify. But the Lord Chancel-
lor never did him any harm, and should, therefore, escape
his enmity. Mr. D. W. Harvey does not rank high in
our estimation, but how respectable did even he become
when compared with Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor, and
Mr. John Cam llobhouse, who made two of the boldest
experiments on the patience of the House that imputi,At
ignorance has for some time dared to attempt. Poor Mr.
'Taylor is very apt to be quizzed by his good-natured
friends; and we must respectfully suggest to him, that
he lends too credulous au ear to what they tell him. "A
few days back he remembered, the Lord Chancellor gave
judgment in a case. All the counsel stared at each other,
not knowing what side they were on ; but agreed, that his
Lordship's judgment must he correct. Some three days
after, however, his Lordship came down to the Court,
and said, that his judgment in that case bad been wrong.
All the Counsel then said, that it certainly was wrong._
All this proved to the public that the Court wanted re-
forming." But, unluckily, all this is a pure invention,
with which some admirer of Mr. Taylor's dinners has
mystified his host; and if he will prove that what he so
gravely states did happen, we shall believe, that vox et
prreterea nihil is not so descriptive of Mr. Michael Angelo
Taylor as it has been hitherto supposed to be.—New Times.