Star.
London, England, 1830-01-07 00:00:00

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE

PARLIAMENT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.
SIR—You may readily imagine—feeling as I do for
the state of our common country—that the temptation
to address it through a channel so unpolluted as the
columns of the STAR, is too powerful for me to resist
at such a crisis. When examples of prostration so
alarming as that afforded by the Kent Letter, give token
of the mental servitude—the bondage—to which this
once high-minded and generous nation is reduced, it is
time for those, who not participating in the common de-
generacy, still feel that their country can be ransomed by
their exertions, to make a stand by her yet undemo-
fished institutions : to show a faltering and faint-hearted
people that there are yet among them spirits, capable
and willing to undertake their salvation—minds yet un-
terrified at the freaks of power, yet undefiled by the
mammon of corruption.

Cordially acquiescing in an opinion which I find ex-
pressed in your paper of Monday lasts and intensely
sensitive of the truth of the doctrine therein enforced,
that the REPAESZNTATION of the People in Parliament
is the master-key to all the grievances which now afflict
us : convinced, as I am, Sir, that on this pivot all our
primary exertions ought to be made to turn, I desire to
be permitted to avail myself of your instrumentality, for
the purpose of directing to this important—this over-
whelming subject—the attention of him, under whose
almost absolute controul

seem to have con•

spired to compress the mental energies of a whole empire.
It may be profitable to investigate the probable working,
and the possible issue, of this all-pervading principle;
and while we deplore its emasculate character, and
hideous proportions, to endeavour to extract front the
unwholesome weed a salutary balsam ; a powerful
and efficacious—who knows? perhaps, a renovating
remedy—a strong discutient medicine for the cure
of the disease now feeding on the vitals of the body
politic. If, Sir, the contemplation of the slavery to which
we have been brought—quite as much by our own crimi-
nal supineness, as by his unparalleled usurpations—excite
us at last in shame and anger to burst the bonds of our
unseemly vassalage, it may issue even to our advantage,
ultimately, that this slavery has been put upon us. For
without that keen stimulant which the deep sense of our
humiliation now supplies, who knows whether we might
not have sunk inglorious below the mark of possible re-
generation, beneath the slow and tempered encroach-
ments of a less glaring—and therefore, more undermin-
ing—ambition ?
Humbled and fallen as the souls of Englishmen now
appear, the point of revulsion—l am persuaded—lies
closer to the surface, than this lordly minister inn-.
gines. I call, then, on the Duke of WELLING-
TON—whiIe he yet possesses it—to turn to good
account this ascendency that he holds over men's
minds. I call upon him to be honest to his
countrymen—l call on him to be honest to hiruselL
I tell the Duke of WELLINGTON that the hoar h at
' band, when neither Special Juries can avail to op-
press the demonstration of public opinion, nor consort
*clear:lEs in his Parliament, to extricate him from the
self-chosen and awdal responsibility to which he stands
committed. Let him, then, if he will be wise in time—ifl
he will not turn quite a deaf ear to one, who
would proffer honest counsel—if ho would set
wholly spurn the dictates of prudence, let hiss
pull up, and check his dangerous career. Let
him know, and feel assured, that his fellow-subjects
will no longer passively assent to bear the continued
pressure of undeserved wrongs ; that they will no
longer tamely witness his invasion of the public
liberties, nor submit unresisting to the fraudulent de-
nial of rights, too long injuriously withheld. Let him
not lay to his bosom the fallacious hope, that—without
the intervention of some extraordinary legislative enact-
ment—the Vessel of the State can ever again right itself:
but, opening his mind to the admission of a great truth,
to the clear Ind forcible conviction of the imperative ne-
cessity under which he lies, to strengthen his adminis-
tration by some bold and all-healing measure ; let hint
announce to his MASTER and his Colleagues, his de-
termination to use the unbounded prevalence by which
he governs—if that prevalence have not yet deserted
hint—to introduce as a Cabinet measure the all-para-
mount question of REFORM, in the representation of Us
—the PEOPLE—in Parliament.

Then, indeed, may the Duke of Watunosos at-.

tempt the arduous task of endeavouring to put things in
order. Then, may he hope to repair the effects
of a calamitous policy, and to succeed in unra-
velling the web, which a continuance therein will
but the more intricately entangle : and then--but not
until then—may be look to regain and secure the affec-
tions of a much abused, but ever indulgent, people.
' Ant cult tonere mala et non potest, ant potest et non
cult: nut neque milt 'segue potest, nut et milt et potest.
Si vult et non potest, imbecilins est—Si potest et non
cult, invidus est—Si segue cult neque potest, et isividus
et imbecillus est—Ss cult et potut, wide ergb aunt
mala ? Ant cur ills non tollit ?

If the Duke of WILLINGTON refuse Ids tongue to
these interrogatories, in his conduct we stay read the
answer.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

ARRIVALS.

Lord Dynewor, at awkenham, from his seat, Barrington Park,
Oxfordshire; Sir C. Saxton, Bart. at the Brunswick Hotel, Jet-
mg's-street, from his seat, Circoort, Berks; Capt. and Mr.. Grant,
In Brook-street. from the Continent; Host. Col. Howard, 11. P. at
his seat, Elford, Staffordshire, from Westmorland ; Mr. and Mrs.
!Mho% in Oranressor-place, from Hastings; Wm. Loess, Fag at
the British Hotel,Jermyn-street, from Oxford ; Capt. Maclean, at
ditto, from Ireland; the Earl of Outlaw, in Albemarle•street,from
his seat in Surrey.