The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-12-03 00:00:00

THEATRE-ROYAL, LIVERPOOL

POR TILE BENEFIT OF MR. SMART.
011,MONDAY next, the 9th instant, will be performed,
11,1„
o'ne first time these twelve years, Shakspeare, s historical
I f

, KING HENRY THE FIFTH ;
lie, uR, THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT.
""Ythe Fifth Mr. Stuart,
\i' his first appearance in that character'.
Wraoreland.. Mr. Lynne. I Fluellen
11111 ........ Mr. Slaiter. I Montjoy.. Mr. W. H. Bland.
Isabella of France....
Princess End of
Katherine
of the Play, the celebrated Scotch SONG, " The Mac-
gregor's are Gathering," by Miss Graut.
In„:,, ipopular , b Mr. Bker.
-"mental toAtheopaftaerpiSONGecie, " Ll y w eellyn ar
and his Patience
dear," by Miss Grant.
To conclude with Morton's Play of
TOWN AND COUNTRY ;
OR, WHICH IS BEST.
Reuben Glenroy
Cav his first appearance in that charsicter.
'e y• ......... Mr. Baker. I Hunchback .... Mr. Slaiter.
1, .„. Hon. Mrs. Glenroy • Miss Cleaver.
aunve. (with a Song) Miss Grant.
Mrs. Trot
Rosalie
Somers Miss Faucit.
tf eets to be had of Mr. STUART, 32, Upper Beau-street,
~.s.7' o, and at the Box-office.

Tiny, „
'1; CLOSE OF THE EXHIBITION.
XE-1181'1'10N of the LIVERPOOL ACADEMY
ltry of the WORKS of MODERN ARTISTS, at the Gal-
lu: Church-street, WILL CLOSE on SATURDAY, the
December instant. Open from Nine in the Morning
dusk. Admission. One Shilling •,*: Catalogues, Ono
Go 4 cng• Also, every Evening, Brilliantly Illuminated with
' 'r°llll Seven o'clock until Ten. Admission, One Shilling.
SAML. EGLINGTO,
ee. 2, 1839• N
Secretary to the Academy.

,our of the frontier, in order to prevent any disagree-

le consequences

The Special Council, convoked by proclamation,
met on Monday, the 11th ult., at the Government

House, Montreal. The Council was composed of six-
teen members. His Excellency the Governor was pre-
sent, and laid before the Council drafts of three ordi-
nances of local interest. His Excellency also made a
communication to the Council on the subject of the
union of the Canadas, the precise import of which had
not reached the newspapers.

His Excellency Sir George Arthur, who had had an
interview with the. Governor-general at Montreal, had
returned to Toronto. The interview is said to have
been highly satisfactory.
The Montreal Courier says that the Governor-Gene-
ral would not dissolve the present Assembly of Upper
Canada, but that he would proceed to Toronto on the
18th ult., and open the session in person, leaving Ge-
neral Jackson to administer the government in the
Lower Province during his absence. - The Courier also
states that the Governor is an advocate for local re-
sponsibility, but not to the extent proposed by Lord
Durham.

A serjeant in Major M‘Grath's troop of Lancers has
been tried in Upper Canada, for having conspired,
with other persons, to effect the assassination, of Sir
George Arthur and several other public officerS, and
to set fire to the public buildings of Toronto. He
was found guilty, but sentence was deferred.
Sir George Arthur had issued a proclamation, con-
voking the Provincial Legislature to meet, for the des-
patch of business, at Toronto, on the 30th of December.
No report had as yet been published by the British
Commissioners on the Boundary Question.

We rejoice to find that the talismanic motto " Ships,
Colonies, and Commerce," is likely, once more, to
rouse the dormant energies of the people of this
country, and to bring them to a proper sense of the
great interests at. stake in the vital question of colonial
protection, and its corollary colonial prosperity. We
understand that the West India interest in this town,
in co-operation with the West India Associations in
London, Bristol, Glasgow, Dublin, &c., are determined
to bring the subject of Emigration into the Colonies
with which they are connected more prominently be-
..ore the government and the country. Of their suc-
his praiseworthy enterprise we entertain the
most sanguine hopes.

The accounts which have been transmitted, during
the last two years, from various parts of the British
possessions in the West Indies, have uniformly and
concurrently represented the declining state of cultiva-
tion generally, and have proved to demonstration that
unless a system of emigration is speedily adopted, many
of the estates now in cultivation must necessarily be
relinquished. We have already given copious details
of the alarming decrease which has taken place in the
amount of the exports from the West Indies during

the period which we have mentioned. The arrival o
every West India mail serves but to swell the catalogue
of defective crops and half-ruined estates. This is
especially the case in reference to Jamaica and British
Guiana, where the scanty and inadequate supply of
labour has been most prejudicially experienced. The
accounts which we have furnished, from time to time,
have fully established the fact that the deficiency in the
exports from the West Indies has not been owing to
bad seasons, or to any other cause than the want of
continuous labour ; many field labourers having had
recourse to petty trading, others to idleness, whilst
those who have remained on the estates have been ex-
tremely irregular and desultory in the discharge of their
duties, even under the tempting inducement of extra-
vagant wages—wages utterly disproportionate with the
means of the planters or the prices obtainable for the
produce of their estates. The loss that has thus ac-
crued to the planters, and to all connected with the
trade of the West Indies, has been incalculable. Some-
thing must speedily be done, or one of the most impor-
tant markets for British produce and manufactures
must be entirely cut off. The remedy is in the hands
of the people of Great Britain, and we have no doubt
that it will be promptly and effectually applied. That
remedy is immediate emigration on a scale correspond-
ing to the wants and capabilities of the British West
India Colonies.
W hil, imnnisc has
been given to emigration within the last few years, and
that there exist many boundless fields for the employ-
ment of British capital and the exercise of British
industry in various parts of the world, we have had to
regret that the West Indies—the most promising field
for British enterprise—have been comparatively ne-
glected. These invaluable Colonies, than which there
are not any in the world capable of being rendered
more productive, seem to have been latterly forgotten.
At the present moment the West India colonies pos-
sess peculiar claims upon the attention of the British
people. A grand experiment—interesting to every true
philanthropist—has been recently tried in those colo-
nies—an experiment which, if the issue should, prove
successful, may form the prelude to the universal abo-
lition of slavery in every clime and among every race.
England has now got rid of the stigma of slavery
throughout all her vast dominions, and it has now be-
come the duty of every lover of his country, every true
Christian, and every friend of humanity, to join hand
in hand in working out successfully and propitiously
the great work of emancipation. This is a duty in-
cumbent upon all who are the friends of liberty, and
upon none more imperatively than upon those who
have been so actively engaged-during the last twenty
or thirty years in endeavouring to procure the entire
suppression of slavery in the British colonies. To
them we may with confidence make our strongest ap-
peals. We call upon all our countrymen, of every class,
and of every shade of politics, to unite in one grand
effort for the supply of our West India colonies with
free labour ; so that we may not be under the necessity
of having any of our wants supplied by those countries
in which slavery or the slave trade is still tolerated.
England has now an opportunity of setting a noble
example to the whole world. Let her discountenance
slavery in other countries by rendering herself inde-
pendent of supplies of slave produce. Let her prove
to other nations that she can have all her wants sup-
plied without consuming any thing produced under the
terror of the lash, the manacle, or the dungeon. She
has vast, important, and prolific colonies in the West
Indies, that will soon, by the improvement of steam
navigation, be brought within three weeks' journey of
her shores, capable of supplying almost every article
which she requires. Let her people these magnificent
colonies, now pointed out, as by the finger of Provi-
dence, as the schools of civilization for the benighted
sons of Africa, and as asylums for the suffering and
pining outcasts of India. These rich and magnificent
colonies, whose value is not yet known, for want of a
numerous and industrious population, are capable of
being rendered subservient, to a degree unparalleled in
the history of the world, to the increase of our national
wealth and prosperity. There is " ample scope and
verge enough" for the employment of hundreds of
thousands of Africans and Indians, now in a state of
barbarism and destitution, but who would, on their in.
troduction into our colonies, be under the protection of
British laws, and in the enjoyment of the inestimable
boon of liberty in its mest generous and elevated
sense. Located in British Guiana, Trinidad, or Ja-
maica, they would be as accessible to the visits of those
who might feel anxious for their welfare as were for-
merly the inhabitants of the south of Ireland.
The people of Great Britain are under the greatest
obligations to those spirited and enterprising gentle-
men who have lately got up the West India Steam Na-
vigation Company, and who have realised a capital 01
£1,500,000 for the purpose of opening a rapid, com•
modious, and regular communication with the richest
of our colonial possessions. We must also concede to
the present Government the credit of having so libe-
herally contributed to the support and encouragement
of that company—the only good thing that the Govern-
ment has done for the colonies during many years.
The introduction of steam navigation into our inter-
course with the Wrest Indies will be the means of bring-
ing about a new era in the history of our colonial pros-
perity. It will make this nation more sensible of the
value and importance of our 'West Indian colonies.
Unfortunately for this country and for those colonies,
the bulk of the nation have been hitherto grossly and
fraudulently imposed upon by the misrepresentations
of certain parties, who have driven a profitable trade
with no better capital than an assumed philantrophy :
while the Government has done every thing to blast
the prosperity, and to keep down the rising commer-

cial greatuess of our colonies. It is time that we
should be no longer, as a nation, blind to the value of
our colonies, or indifferent to the means within our
power of conferring happiness upon millions of our
fellow creatures, who are now in the most abject state
of degradation to which humanity can be reduced.
We have it in our power to give these suffering mil-
lions access to the finest and richest countries in the

where profitable and congenial employment
awaits them, and where they would, on bended knee,
return thanks to their benefactors for enabling them
to aspire to the true dignity of human beings, and for
placing them on a soil which almost spontaneously pro-
duces every thing to supply their necessities.
We cannot avoid again expressing our unfeigned
satisfaction that means are now being resorted to for
making each of our West Indian colonies an El Do-
rado. In prosecuting these means the friends of those
colonies have our best wishes for their success. It will
always of brd us the highest gratification to use our
humble endeavours in promoting the great objects
which they have in view.

A controversy, which will gratify the enemies much
more than the friends of the British aristocracy, has
been carried on for some time by the London press
respecting the morality of the individuals in attendance
upon the two Courts of George IV. and Queen Vic-
toria.

It is in every way painful to approach such a sub-
ject, but it is beyond measure disgusting to see the
line of defence adopted by the Ministerialists on this
occasion. They seem to think that two blacks will
make a white, and that if they succeed in establishing
the profligacy of many of the high officers of state and
courtiers in the times of the Regency and reign of
George IV., they do all that is requisite in refuting the
charge brought against Lord Melbourne of having
placed in close proximity and relation to the Queen,
persons whose moral characters have been blighted by
recorded judgments and notorious liaisons.
But what do the people of England care if it can
be shewn, with as much truth as it is with violence
asserted, that the annals of the British Court during a
preceding reign were too frequently disgraced by fla-
grant acts of immorality ? Mark the logic of Liberals.
Because a gay and youthful Prince chose to associate
with men whose character, to say the least of it, was
very equivocal, and plunge into a career of unjustifia-
ble dissipation ; and because, when that Prince became
a ruling Sovereign, there were to be found about his
Court many whose private lives would hardly bear the
light of day.—Lord Melbourne thinks that this is pre-
cedent sufficient to exculpate him from the charge of
bringing near the person, and placing in offices of dig-
nity and trust under the eye of a Princess—a youthful
maiden, about whom everything ought to be " pure as
unsunned snow"—grey-headed roues and profligates,
whose character, on that point about which the female
mind is and ought to be most sensitive, rests not on
vague rumour and ill-natured scandal, but stands forth
branded by the verdict given by a British jury against
the titled adulterer.

We are not going to defend the private life, or stickle
for the purity of the Court, of George IV. ; but, when
we hear so much of the immorality of the Tory King
and turpitude of the Tory aristocracy, we would just
ask who were the associates of George IV. in his early
days, and who were the men who, by their influence
and example, gave the first bias to his tastes and in-
clinations ? They were all exclusively Whigs : two of
his most intimate friends were Charles James Fox and
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the former of whom pa-
raded a woman who was not his wife (nay, we believe,
at the time the wife of another man) through half the
towns of Europe, and of the latter we will only say
that he never was considered by his friends entitled to
lay claim to the character of a Joseph.
But were the case worse than it really is, and were

the precedent (?) still more unfavourable to the fair
fame of our aristocracy, we ask, in the name of de-
cency and common sense, what justification this affords
for the course which Ministers have pursued in the
arrangement of the Court of her present Majesty ? It
is something in this world—nay, it is a matter of pa-
ramount importance—to keep up appearances; and
surely this prudent' maxim is set at nought, when a
man, whose criminality is as notorious and certain as
a recorded the Courts at West-
minster can make it, is selected as one ot the Lor s of
the Bedchamber in the service of a virgin Queen.
But mutual recriminations and comparisons of ini-
quity do no good. Wherever the Ministerial journals
can detect and prove guilt in the Tory aristocracy, we
will condemn it as heartily as they can desire, without
reference to party. We never wished to throw the
mantle of impunity over the sins of Conservative no-
blemen, and we shall therefore never be deterred from
the discharge of our duty in marking our just sense of
the delinquencies of Whig-Radical courtiers and offi-
cers of the Household.

A correspondence has taken place between the Ad
jutant-General and Colonel Thomas, in which we think
the latter has been harshly and unfairly dealt with by
the Commander-in-Chief. It will be recollected by
our readers that Col. Thomas was present at a Con-
servative dinner given at Ashton-under-Lyne, where
Mr. Roby made use of very strong language about the
court of Queen Victoria. Some time after this event
occurred, and after the Whig-Radical papers had been
labouring to attach a ridiculous degree of importance
to the hasty language of an after-dinner speech, Lord
Hill directs his official to write to Colonel Thomas, and
ask him the simple question whether he was present on
that occasion, and heard certain expressions made use
of by Mr. Roby which were attributed to that gentle-
man, in the newspapers; adding, that Lord Hill was
much pained to see his name and the names of other
officers in the list of those who attended the dinner.
Colonel Thomas wrote back in answer that the whole
tenour of Mr.• Roby's speech " breathed a high spirit
of loyalty to the monarchy," and that he heard nothing
which justified his interference either as a soldier or a
gentleman. This from an officer like the gallant Co-
lonel of the 20th ought to have satisfied Lord Hill—
but it did not. Another letter was sent, reiterating the
specific `question as to Colonel Thomas having been
present when the particular expressions objected to
were used, and couched in a language anything but
satisfactory to the nice feelings of a British soldier.
Colonel Thomas wrote a spirited reply, in which he de-
clared that, as he had before denied having heard the
expressions complained of, he had nothing further to
say ; and, in contradiction to Lord Hill's doctrine that
military men are not to attend political dinners, boldly
asserted his privilege and right to do so. And Colonel
Thomas is right. Our gallant officers are not to be
deprived of the birthright of Englishmen publicly to
avow their political predilections ; and it is too much
to assert that they are to be held responsible for every
idle word which escapes the lips of an impetuous
speaker, who rises to deliver an after-dinner oration at
which they happen to be present : and the real fact is,
that the scope and tendency of Mr. Roby's speech was
anything but disloyal. He was attacking the Minis-
try, who placed their satellites about the Court, but did
not breathe a word against her Majesty herself. The
expressions selected by Lord Hill have been animad-
verted upon by us in a former article, and disapproved
of ; but Colonel Thomas distinctly states that he did
not hear them made use of ; and, therefore, all shadow
of a justification for eensuring him on that ground is
removed. If Lord Hill means to lay down the rule
that a British officer is not to attend a public dinner
in which the conduct of the Government is violently
attacked, we venture to say that he will only make him-
self ridiculous by an impossible attempt, and needlessly
provoke the indignation of the British army.

We commented a few days ago upon certain pro
ceedings in the Town Council of Congleton, which
reflected but little credit upon that august body. We
have, however, reason to think that we were a
indiscriMinate in our censure. This arose from our
ignorance of the circumstances which preceded the
scene so graphically described by our contemporary of
the Macclesfield Courier. We have since ascertained,
on authority upon which we can implicitly rely, that
the late Mayor, J. F. Reade, Esq. (who is a Conser-
vative, and who was a member of the old Town Coun:-
cil), had determined upon taking upon himself the
odium of proposing, before he retired from the mayor-
alty, that a borough rate should be levied, for the
purpose of raising a sum of six hundred pounds,
which was absolutely necessary, in order to pro-
vide for the good government of the borough. The