Star.
London, England, 1831-04-06 00:00:00

SPJRIT OF THE JOURNALS.

Trwts.--Well ! Are the public now satisfied as to the pure, and
patriodc, and disinterested motives of certain Members of Parliament,
calling themselves representatives of the people of England, for oppos.
hag Parliamentary Reform? Have they read the Weymouth cue 7—we
ask them—the Weymouth case, copied into yesterday's Times, front
the columns of the Caledonian Mercury ? • Do the public believe,
that the representation of IVeymoutlt was made the subject of bargain and
pale by Col. Gordon, of Cluny, with a learned personage who had been
Sachet... General to the King of England, viz.—Sir K Sugden ? Do the
public believe, on the authority of the statements alluded to, that Sir
Edward Sugden, late Solicitor. General to his Majesty, stipulated that
he should be returned on Colonel Gordon's interest for Weymouth, he
allowing (a King's Counsel and late Solicitor General, allowing) Col.
Gordon " to sell two of the three remaining seats !" and this the sub.
ject of a distinct and formal agreement between the said parties--one of
them, SirlFAlward Sugden ? We repeat the question, 1)o the people
of England believe all this ? Sell—what ? a seat in Parliament ! . the
privilege of ruling over the English nation,— of raising money
from the pockets of the Nation ;—of exercising every species
of power, over a people,—every individual of whom might he
prosecuted as a libeller, and would be so, at the instance
of one at least of the culprits themselves, for daring to allege on
any other than official authority, that such corrupt and monstrous prac-
tices existed ! Sir Charles Wetherell roared loudly against the pre.
sumption of any man, requiring that the members for close boroughs
should retire from the discussion of the reform question, as not being
disinterested parties. Now let us suppose for one moment, that Sir
Charles Wetherell had been the individual agreeing to make the borough
of 'Weymouth a subject of bargain and sale with Colonel Gordon,—not
referring, or pretending to refer, to the voters for that borough, acknow-
ledged even by the wretched borough constitution as now existing,
but merely bargaining with a patron. " You shall give one seat to
me, and on that condition you may sell two seats to any one that suits
your fancy." Supposing Sir Charles Wetherell to have been drc person
pointed at, can it be imagined, that with all that learned gentleman's
confidence in himself, and apparent contempt for some of those who
heard him, he would have ventured to complain of any man who
exhorted him to leave the house ? It is true that the documents
relating to the alleged conduct of Sir Edward Sugden form but
a collateral, or indeed irrelevant part of the Scotch law papers, ,
from which they have been extracted ; but they constitute the
only part with which the public are concerned. Although ins.
material to the issue as between Gordon and Fraser' they are
of vital importance in " John Bull versus Sugden," and as il-
lustrative of the true intent and purpose with which the latter
gentleman got up to make a long defence of the borough system—or
more properly, a fierce attack on the principles and provisions of the
reform bill. We hold the extract from the Caledonian Mercury to be
altogether invaluable. Thus are the people treated,—and yet they tell
us that the "system works well." What system ? That, by virtue of
which the legal right of taxing and coercing us, is exercised by men to
whom we, the people, have never thought of delegating that, or any
other trust. The system does, indeed, "work well" for those who " work
ill." It gives great influence, and official honours, and large incomes,
to a band of worthless and rapacious adventurers, carrying on a perpe.
tual piracy against the nation,—men who have so long comineered over
the finances, resources, and liberties of the realm, that they uncon.
sciously argue as if England were theirs by right of conquest. After such
a series of Parliamentary and other discussions on this great subject, we
admit that nothing new can be said,— Oa vo invention can add another
argument, and no power of language or of linty can enforce (much less
can it invalidate) those with which the country has int.g since been fa.
miller. Nor would it be now a lit season fur controversy, even were
matetials less rare. 'When the victory is all but won, the soldier will
not trouble himself much about the merits of the contest—he pants only
to secure and to enjoy it.

• It is but justice to ourselves to state, that the exposure
of the Weymouth case, in London, was taken by the Times
from the columns of the STA it. It appeared in the Cale-
donian Mercury of Thursday, the 31st ult. from which paper
we abridged the statement for the STAR of Monday, which
abridgment, verbatim et literatim, was copied into the
Times of yesterday, and has given rise to the present im-
portant discussion.
HESALD.—The Duke of Wellington's avowed hostility to Parlia-
mentary Reform, in any shape or in any degree, must be a source of
mortifying reflection to thousands, who, exulting in the splendour of his
military career, cannot but grieve to see that splendour tarnished by his
Grace's evident want of tact and generalship as a Minister. For, sup-
posing the Duke sincere, as no doubt he is, in his hostility to all
reform, and in his alarms as to its danger, who, we may ask, had so
prominent a hand in accelerating the crisis he so much deprecates
as his Grace himself, by his ill-judged and untimely avowal of
that hostility at the commencement of the present Session
of Parliament 1 And who, next • to the Duke himself, have
so much accelerated the arrival of the great object of all
their present groundless fears and alarms as the other leaden of the
saute party, who have, from time to time, done all in their power to
prevent the smallest approach to any attempt at healing, by degrees,
those wounds in the Constitution which now call for a so much larger
and more ample remedy?
The Duke of ‘Vellington, on this one subject, at least, forms a
striking Instance of the rare and extraordinary fact, that it is possible
for a man, endowed with strong powers of genius in one particular de-
partment, to pass through the scenes of a long and active life without
acquiring that knowledge of mankind, and of the real state of affairs,
which one would think must be almost forced upon him.
We do not argue the matter in this point of view so much with re-
ference to any vast importance which we attach to the Duke of Wel-
lingtoo's opinion upon the subject, u from a feeling of regret at
seeing a public man, who stands so prominent and eminent in the
history of the age, risking his high character in one department by
lowering it in another. We should rejoice to see the Duke of Welling-
ton in advance, not in arrest, of the age. We should wish to see him
one of the first subjects of a free country—the friend, not the enemy, of
free institutions. But, if this cannot be so, we would warn the most
credulous among our countrymen to attach no weight to the Duke's
alarms on the subject of Parliamentary reform, seeing how very lately
his Grace's similar alarms on that of the Catholic emancipation have
been completely falsified, and have vanished into air.
POST—Braggarts generally prove to be cowards in their heart.—
The falsest boasts are ever the loudest. In applying these remarks to
the conduct of his Majesty's ministers, it would seem vety safe to con-
clude that they endute at the present moment the painful consdousness
of expiring power—that they know their Royal Master to be really
averse to the revolution upon which they have pledged their political
existence—and that they have not even that unbounded confidence In
popular support which they so elaborately affect. We have been
led to these reflections by the proceedings at a dinner given
the day before (yesterday by that eminently sagadous person the
Lord Mayor of the City of London, for the purpose appa-
rently of gratifying his Majesty's Ministers by providing for

them a fitting audience, to bear the eternal repetition of their aseuvanes
that they enjoy the full confidence, and their revolutionary project the
unqualified favour of the King. We have at this city dinner, to which
no doubt they repaired foe the express purpose, first, the Duke of Sus-
sex, then Lord Brougham, then Earl Grey, and last of all, Lord J.
Russell; protesting, as If the contest had been who should protest the
hardest, that in respect to the reform bill the King of Eng.
land is entirely of their way of thinking. Surely they must
have a very large fund of credulity who can believe any
thing which is protested with so much industry and emphasis. The
King cannot be fettered by any pledge to promote the success of any
particular measure until the period arrives for its receiving the Royal
Assent. Nor will the combined assertions of the Duke of Sussex,
Lord Brougham, Earl Grey, and Lord John Russell suffice, in the
estimation of a loyal and reflecting people, to divest the Sovereign
of this valuable immunity, of this Royal privilege, the value of
which the personages above mentioned so manifestly dread.
As to the unanimous concurrence of the nation, of which the revolu-
tionists make their secondary boast, we have fortunately the means of
appreciating it, and the testimony upon which it rests. That the com.
pany at the Lord Mayor's dinner were unanimous, we have no doubt;
but we shall be greatly mistaken if Earl Grey and his colleagues do not
speedily learn, to their mortification and regret, that neither the selected
guests of Don Key, nor the rabble whose vociferation, determine the re-
sult of public meetings, constitute any adequate specimen of the British
nation.

CHIIOIIICLI.--In almostrorom society it is assumed as a matter of
course that the Reform p by Ministers must become law, and
to this event most anti-reformers, from their subdued tone of late, seem
to be fully resigned. The stories of Court intrigues produce but little
impression on the public, because it is known that no men in their
senses would ever think of running counter to the feeling which per-
vades the whole British Nation. Whatever the inclinations of people
about Court may be, even if we had not the strongest assurances of
his Majesty's unshaken determination to support his present Mi-
nisters, we might be sure that he has too much good sense to expose
the country to the dangers which would necessarily result
from a disappointment of their well.founded expectations. The
people know, too, that the Boroughmon are wi-bout support—that
no Ministry can be formed on the priaeipie of opposition to Reform, or,
what is the same thing, • " bit and bit Reform. The time
has passed When a Reform, which should leave the power of the
boronghmongers tritest, would be accepted. Nothing less than
the total annihilation of hmongering will now satisfy
them. The instinct of the people of England leads them to
embrace, and cordially to support, the course which promises to
preserve order and tranquillity. Having ones expressed themselves in
favour of reform, they will take care by their unanimity to extin-
guish in the evil-disposed all hope of being able to disturb tran-
quillity. The public man who sees this must be insane to think of
forming a government of which the object is to baulk the people.—
Many think that a dissolution will yet be necessary. We confess we
do not. The specimens of public spirit at the elections which have
lately taken place, must satisfy the most factious that a dissolution
would soon set matters right, and entail on them a fruitless expense.

NORTHAMPTON.