The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-03-15 00:00:00

THE BRITISH COURT.

_
(From the Dublin Evening Mail.)
We give froth our London Contemporaries, Without note
or comment, several extracts in reference to the
" Court "
'of her Most Gracious MAJESTY—and these extracts,
it will
he seen, are taken indiscriminately from the columns of
Tory, Whip" Radical, and neutral journals. The Government
press has taken an extraordinary course in reference to the
rumours, and charges the Conservative press With an attempt
to malign her MAJESTY, and traduce her illustrious mother.
This charge is preposterous, and utterly inconsistent with the
upon the "Court'', fact. An attackdoes not_ necessarily
involve a'calumnY upon the QUEEN, no more than does a
vindication of the Ladies in Waiting, relieve from odium the
Lords of the Bed Chamber :

(From the Globe)
The Standard has not ventured a word in explanation or
extenuation of the foul caluniny upon our youthful Queen
and her Court, and which we on Thursday, so triumphantly
refuted, and which was rendered yet more odious by the
whining hypociisy—the disgusting pretence to superior sanc-
tity, in which the fabricators clothed it, for the purpose of
giving it currency. Where are the " hundreds of letters" to
the same effect with that which the Standard introduced, in
terms which established beyond reasonable doubt an identity
between the writer of the article and the writer of the letter ?
We call for their production, if they have a being, that we
may meet and disprove their slandars, as we have done those
which the Standard has had the temerity to publish ? Are
these the methods by which the vaunting monopolists of loy-
alty and religion support their claims ? To misrepresent and
damage the acts of the government may be construed into
mere party attacks, for political objects; but is it loyal to libel
the Sovereign and to calumniate her Court ? Can the inter-
ests of religion be protected by slander, or be advanced by
lies ? Religion comprehends and affixes its high sanction to
honor, virtue, truth, and denounces alike the forger and the
wilful publisher of a lie ! She repudiates with foul scorn both
the acts and the agents of such • practices as those in which
the Standard is habitually employed. We know of no depth
of infamy more profound than that in which this slave of the
worst section of Toryism is now plunged. We have removed
the mask of sanctity, which to conceal its features was as-
sumed—we have branded its front with the terms expressive
of the indignant feeling we are unable to suppress—and which
will be shared by all who do not affect the loyalty they do
not feel, and a zeal for religion, the morality of which they
despise !"

(From the Standard.)
We need scarcely say that the Standard never spoke of
our youthful Queen otherwise than in terms of the most
loyal and reverential respect. We did speak of the court by
which Lord Melbourne has surrounded her Majesty as not
what it ought to be, and we referred to hundreds of letters
which we have received upon the subject [the number has
been considerably augmented since Friday.] As regards the
supposed dismissal of Miss Davys, we quoted the affimative
statement from one whig-radical journal, the negative upon
that statement from another, leaving it to our readers to
decide between the conflicting authorities, and without even
declaring our own impression, which was and is that for a
time at least Miss Davys was out of office—the letter which we
published was a due tribute to Miss Davys's character, and
to her father, in the circumstances of the case. As to the
dissertation upon religion, in which the Ribbonman indulges,
we do not see what it has to do in the case ; one needs not to
be very religious to look with disgust upon some of Lord
Melbourne's appointments in the court of a maiden Queen.
Mr. Thomas Mooke has, we believe, escaped the reputation
of a Puritan, and yet he, as a gentleman, felt the impropriety
of a prince, at the muture age of 60, admitting to his society
a convicted adulterer. We allude to his verses in the Two-
penny Post Bag, very justly reproving the familiarity of the
Prince Regent with the late Marquis 'of Headfort. They
begin—

" We missed you last night at the hoary old sinners," &c.
And contain, among other lines, the following—
" When the dinner was over we drank, every one,
In a bumper, the venial delights of trim. con.
At which Headfort, with warm reminiscences gloated,"
&c., &c., &c.

Now, if it was permitted to Mr. Thomas Moore, without
incurring the imputation of affected sanctity, to satarise, as
he did very justly, the bad taste of an elderly prince, of in-
different fame himself, as regards the moral duties, because
he permitted the society of the late Marquis of Headford,
why are we to be taxed with hypocrisy if we complain that
Lord Melbourne has placed a _person exactly in the same
disqualifying circumstances at the late Marquis of Headfort
in attendance upon a young and inexperienced and unsus-
pecting young woman of nineteen. We say again that ap-
pointment was not such as any good man, any Christian, or
any gentleman could make• advisedly ; or. having made in-
advertently, could hesitate to rescind, upon consideration of
the circumstances, and we will be judged by Mr. Thomas
Moore—no very straight-laced arbitrator—but a gentleman.
(From the Court Journal.)
THE DELICATE INVESTIGATION.—A lady, not more dis-
tinguished by the beauty of her person than by the refine-
ment of her manners, the delicacy 'of . her conduct, and the
strength of her intellect, is attached to the household of an
illustrious person whom every Englishman reveres for the
prudence of her conduct. This lady, feeling indisposed,
called in a physician enjoying the favour and confidence of
the highest personage in the realm, who immediately after
his visit requested a conference with a noble married lady in
the same household. To this lady he made a communication
which, if true, would be either a proof of a romantic, because
secret, union on the part of his patient, or utterly subversive
of her title to be considered a woman of honour. This state-
ment the most honourable lady repeated to her husband, who
felt it his duty to lay the whole circumstances before a noble
relative of the aspersed lady. Who can describe the anguish
of the nobleman on hearing this statement? He proceeded
at once to the palace, and immediately brought the affair on
the tapir. The injured lady was thunderstruck; and indig-
nantly denied the existence of any ground for the suspicions
of the physician. It was then proposed that a medical man
of high character, who enjoyed the particular confidence of
his late Majesty, should he called upon to report upon the
truth or falsity of the physician's suspicion. The aspersed
lady and her noble relative positively refused to submit to
any such reference, arguing; and most properly too, that the
word and honour of the injured lady ought at once to he con-
sidered decisive evidence of the falsity of the injurious sur-
mise. What course will be pursued by the family of the lady
we are at present ignorant. The physician, we have since
learnt, denies that such a communication was made to the
noble lady as she reported to her husband ! ! !
(From the Gazette.)
It is with extreme gratification we learn that there is not
the slightest foundation for a very disgraceful report which
has been circulated by a certain party in attendance at the
Palace, and which had for its object the destruction of the
fair fame of one of the ladies in immediate attendance upon
our gracious Sovereign. So satisfied is her Majesty of the
grossness of the calumny of this report, that the young and
lovely object it was intended to injure, has been commanded
to remain in waiting on the person of the Queen for the next
six months without intermission. Time will show the truth
or falsehood of this scan. 'nag., and should it prove, as we
have every reason to expect it will—

" An odious, damned lie !"
we trust there will be found those among the high-born and
noble of the land who will not scruple to unmask the base
notorious knave ! the scurvy fellow ! who contrived this mis-
chief :

"Oh, heaven, that such companions thou'dst unfold,
And put in every honest hand a whip
To lash the rascal naked through the world,
Even from the•east to the west 1"

Our information on this subject is of that nature that we
should not scruple to take the offender in hand ourselves,
and show him to the world with all his imperfections on his
head.

(From the Spectator.)
The political barometer this week was still pointing to
" very dry," when there came a refreshing shower of court
scandal to the relief of the daily papers. We could not, if
we would, pass altogether over a subject which has so forced
itself on public notice—a subject to which, in its germinant
state, we were ourselves amongst the first to direct attention.
That subject, divested of its incumbrances, appears to us to
relate solely and simply to the conduct of the nobleman at
the head of the government ; and to resolve itself into the
question—whether his present position and influence are
conducive to the honour and stability of the throne, or com-
patible with the interests of the nation and the due admi-
nistration of its affairs. Time was when we could afford to
laugh at the Major-domo of the Palace, and count his
spunging visits as so many capital jokes ; but
• "Hmnugte seria ducunt
" In mala;"
and the public is beginning already to taste something of
their bitterness. With the details of the gossiping stories to
which allusion has been made, we will not waste our own or
our readers' time ; contenting ourselves with this general
observation—that if these stories are open to doubt, so is
their denial. " Nothing easier," it may be said, " than to
invent rumours and give them currency." " Yes, one thing,"
we reply, "to deny their truth." To give a very wide cir-
culation to a false story, is not a very easy matter, we appre-
hend ; and, generally speaking, stories do not gain extensive
credence without being either true or probable. On the
other hand, their contradiction only requires some usual
treasury hack to come forward with his usual swagger and
shuffle, and begin, in the usual tone of mock authority,
" We are glad to be able to give the most unqualified denial ; '
or, " We beg to announce that there is not one syllable of
truth in the statement of a contemporary," &c. ;—just as if
one of a gang being brought up for judgment, another of the
same gang should leap on the bench, (some " Artful Dodger,")
and affecting to pronounce his acquittal, gravely proceed—
' " Bill Sykes, it gives me pleasure to say that you leave this
court without a spot on your character !" If the mere cir-
culation of a report, then, is not sufficient to establish its
truth, so neither is the mere denial sufficient to attest its
falsehood. "It may be spread corruptly, and to, serve a
party." The answer is, it may be denied corruptly, and to
save a party. In short, where the means of authentication
are wanting, denial is just as unavailing as assertion—may
just as much be a fiction, just as much an "insult," just as
much a " base, abominable aspersion ;" and, in the end, the
belief or non-belief of such rumours will depend on the good
sense of the public ; according to their means of judgment,
they will receive or reject impressions, without reference to
any ipse dixits either on the side of accusation or of artful
dodgery. Now, we will only say further respecting these
rumours, that they had been circulating some time in the
whispering gallery of fashionable life, before they found their
way into the circles below, and began to be echoed by the
louder voices of the press ; so that, if they are altogether
false, delusion has been carried further in this instance than
it was certainly ever known to be before. We have ourselves
heard various editions of various stories, some not a little
tempting to sport, if we could bring ourselves—which we
cannot—to look on this subject in any other than a serious
light, But let us make what deductions we may from them ;
let us explain away this, mid doubt that, and
.palliate the
other—the result of all is, that the court of Queen Victoria
is fallen from its proper government, and that not the Queen,
but the " Governor,' is to blame. Whatever bit of court
scandal is put into the alembic of truth to be purged of its
alloy, though every other ingredient fly off in the process,
there always appears to remain a residuum of Melbourne at
the bottom. TIA influence of this nobleman with our young
Queen has never been disputed, either by ministeiialists—
with whom it is a boast, or by the opponents of the govern-
ment—who resent it as a grievance. Now, let any one ask
himself, whether, if that influence were exercised to a
beneficial purpose, it would be possible—we will not say,
for those proceedings to take place at court, which tran-
spire from time to time—but (doubting to the utmost limits
of reasonable doubt) for the rumours themselves—for the
very breath of such ill reports—to escape the gates of
royalty ? Should we not look, rather, after so long term of
uninterrupted tutelage, for the beginning of some good and
solid effects ? Would not a press subservieneto the noble and
daily tutor, be found, not alone repelling charges of unworthy
conduct, but putting forth proofs of a directly contrary nature?
Should we not find it—if there were but a reed to hang one
of your tales on—launching forth in counter-narratives, and
ceaunting the praises of the Premier and the wonders of his
guardianship, as loudly as it is now confined to the task of de-
fending him from continual new allegations of a treacherous
misuse of that guardianship, and of the influence it has
unhappily invested him with over the mind of a young and
confiding girl, whose character and future conduct—now
taking their share for good or evil—involve at once those
national interests which ought to be dear to her, and that
security to her own peace and happiness which is dear to the
nation ? We pause for a reply.

Mr. George Robins is said to be the first of his profession
who has been selected to sell the honour and dignity of a
baron.

THE CRUMB AND CRUST OF THE CORN-LAW
QUESTION,

To the Editor of the Worcester Journal.
Sin,—The, independent and honorable stand made by the
conductors of the Worcester Journal on behalf of the landed
interest generally, which includes all its classes, from the higher
aristocracy to the agricultural labourer downwards, and the
smaller tenants of land more immediately, and which I con-
ceive also include therein the security and prosperity of all the
manufacturing and trading interests of this country, which first
sprang from the wealth and the support of the soil, are the
grounds of my apology for communicating to my fellow country-
men of all classes, through your medium, what (after sober re-
flection and mature calculation) I humbly take to be the crumb
and crust of this all-potent question. And in coming to the
succeeding conclusion, I wish my readers fully to understand
that I have no personal interest in connexion with landed pro-
perty, abtractedly considered, and apart from commercial en-
terprise and its benefits, to create an unfair bias, but that, on
the contrary, I have entered warmly and largely into com-
mercial speculation and science, sustained in safety as I hold
them to be by the integrity of landedpossession in this king-
dom, as their rallying point under any and every fluctuation
and emergency.
The landed proprietors of the present day `date from—that
is, they go back for their title to the period of the Cohquest,
and mainly take their stand upon its arrangement. Now I
conceive, without another national conquest, such arrange-
ment is nationally binding. Commerce in England was then
unknown, or, if known and applied, was very limited in extent.
History establishes this fact. William's baronial officers had
the land divided amongst them, and under what is known as
the "fuedal system" possessed it for their own benefit, subject
to certain services to the Crown. This gave the Barons ab-
solute, or at all events, virtual authority Over the whole
population. By degrees the baronial land became sub-infeuded
or divided, and this led to the institution of "freeholders"
and copyholders (viliains) upon the baronial title,—all holding
from the Crown. As population increased and prospered,
and civilization and intelligence generally advanced, the former
gradually acquired wealth, in gold and silver, and partly by
the agency of rude manufactures, building, &c., but princi-
pally by implements and materials for agriculture, for many
ages. As the barons became more luxurious, a mutual in-
terest arose from the artificial wants of the one, and the
ambition and the self-interest of the other—at this time the
trading portion only. By this means, land gradually in
process of time, by purchase or partition, became more gener-
ally divided among successive generations of the careful trader
and the thrifty and the prosperous artisan. Thus—with the
exception of a very limited class, in the comparison, and the
succeeding hereditary members of which represent some of the
chief captains of the Conquest, and who now, by the fair in-
crease in the national value of land, possess princely domains ;
upon this irrefutable basis, is legitimately founded the general
title of all our landed proprietors of every kind.
It must be evident from the above showing that the landed
proprietors became the feeders of the people in the mass, and
that consequently they were fairly entitled to make their own
laws in regard to the principle on which corn, the produce of
their own land, should be sold or protected. But as popula-
tion still increased, and as a commerce became necessary to
the general well-being and wants of the state, in the further
employment of that' population and its enrichment, a new
class arose under the further creation of wealth, which wealth
becoming at once both cause and effect in its hands, this has
been followed by an exhaustless train of comparative over-
production, in exercising the general enterprise and intellect
of the people, stimulating them to a rivalry with foreign na-
tons. Hence we trace the early navigation of the world, and
the interchange first arising from artificial wants rather than
actual necessities ; and as mankind became luxurious the
more radiant productions of the globe became centred or
concentrated in this remarkable island, favoured by its pecu-
liar locality. This has placed its inhabitants in greater power,
honour, wealth, and intelligence, than history records of any
previous people. But the successive struggles by which this
wealth and ascendancy were first accomplished and have since
been maintained have encumbered the present generation with
a heavy public debt, a debt that must he held sacred, being
the national loan of our own ancestors, upon the public faith,
to the price of our national security against usurpation, and
by means alone of which we have maintained our own sta-
tion and independence, and commanded the world.
Contemporary with our progress in the arts and manufac-
tures, and the riches of commerce, have been the advances of
our neighbours of foreign countries, who have not, under
either their wants, position, or institutions, or their interests
for preservation, become encumbered with so large a debt ;
and consequently, labour being cheaper, under a far poorer
population, when applied to the growth and production cif
bread corn, in can be afforded to the consumer with them at
even less than half of the cost to us ; and the cases are in no
way similar between us. Hence arises a natural but diffi-
cult problem—bow to balance the account in the interests of
nation against nation, and to balance the interests of conflict-
ing classes in the same nation, and into which its inhabitants
are necessarily thrown by the results of increased population
and purely natural causes. But this is not to be equitably
effected by the destruction or even the partial injury of one
staple class (and that the only original one) to propitiate or
chiefly benefit others.

The manufacturers, who have hitherto prospered well and
made large profits, now loudly proclaim that they are in
danger from the rivalry of continental Europe, the main
lever whereof is ' cheapness of bread,' and of losing their
present wide custom of the world, and that the supply al-
ready exceeds the dciaand (forgetting that this supply has
been produced by the comparatively cheap agency of ma-
chinery) ; and as a rc:nedy for their own particular interests,
they call out for an open trade in corn, which would enable
them not only to supply their present foreign connexion, but
to create a much more considerable one in the countries from
which a supply of corn, in years of scarcity especially, would
come ; and that their property, necessarily enlarging, would
not merely confirm the prosperity of the holders of land, and
lessen their burdens by feeding the people with cheap bread,
but simultaneously promote navigation and interchange, and
consequently sustain for all time to come the right arm
.of
our national strength ; that in fact the interests of the ma-
nufacturer and the landowner and agricultural producer are
identical." On the other hand, to this purely theoretical
conclusion the landowners say—" The long-established prac-
tice and the facts and the security and the obligation—an are
against it ; for remember that we in the first place created
you : our power, our swords, our possession, our wealth, our
wants (the latter real or imaginary,) first produced you and
all your subsequent prosperity, by our first protection ; and
(although we willingly admit the present reciprocal benefits)
all the important national results arising from your enter-
prise, your talent, and your capital, was first of all acquired
from us. Let it not, good Sirs, be forgotten by you that in
the early struggles we alone give men and means ; we formed
the chief or onlyjimlwark, and the rallying nucleus around
which your ancestors and their institutions ranged themselves,
and preserved you, their descendants, from foreign conquest
and tyranny ; that in all subsequent national struggles we
have borne ' the brunt of the fray ;' and that even now, we
are not only the legal holders of the soil, but are in no trifling
degree or proportion also the funded creditors of the whole
nation. The State imposts have ever been more than pro-
portionately heavy and burthensome upon us, because our
property was tangible and visible, and always heavily taxed
for your benefit as well as our own, and during the late
successful ' life struggle' was freely handled by the State.
We then, by-our cordial desire to cherish you, protected by
our blood and treasure the manufactures you have so well
established, besides having always been ourselves the largest
consumers and the best paymasters; and, as far as it has
been practicable, have given you the monopoly of the home
market, to the exclusion of the foreinier,—and thus have ad-
ditionally taxed ourselves. We therefore deem it but just
that our manufacture, which'is bread corn—produced by our
capital and labour in agriculture (which is the staff of the
land)—should likewise be duly protected. Until then some
equitable national plan can be devised bywhich its great cre-
ditor may be satisfied, and State taxation lessened, it is im-
possible without absolutely robbing and wronging us, the pro-
ducers, with ten times the capital at stake you have, to suffer
foreign-grown corn to come in duty free, or even under the
restrictions of a fixed duty, inapplicable to variable seasons
and variable supply. We admit that the soil is capable of
much improvement and greater production, by increased cul-
tivation, through the advance of science and the further ap-
plication of capital ; but much outlay is required to reclaim
the millions of acres of yet uncultivated land in England and
Ireland; and with the designs in hand, and the irrational
threats propounded by you, more capital will hardly be ven-
tured upon so precarious a vista ; Moreover, in sound state
policy, we cannot see the national advantage of an unlimited
extension of machinery and manufactures. You possess from
us of the land remember, both iron and coal, forming together
the grand fulcrum lever of all your operations: We also sup-
ply you with lead, copper, tin, timber, pottery wares, &c.,
and as we consume your home-made goods largely in return,
are entitled to the first consideration in your dealings, as well
as in sound patriotism. All those advantages you possess from
us, in much greater proportion, and at far lighter cost, for
• your steam engines and your workshops, than we supply them
to any of your foreign competitors ; and as they form the
active elements of all your power and wealth, and all your
means of profit, are, we conceive, a fair ample counterpoise
against the purely comparative high price of corn, in relation
to the value of money and its return, and the payment for in-
dustry, in the shape of wages, threefold those of the wretched
abject population of Russia and Poland. We, of the land,
have also a moral view of the question, entirely lost sight of
in your manufacturing calculations We nurse, rear, and
desire to preserve a hardy rural population, as essential to the
state. If you can preserve your present relative position
with your foreign rivals (without our actual injury) all is ob-
tained that you ought to obtain or require ; and we consider,
that those increased riches or wealth to be made by you,
which would destroy the whole nursery of the " bold pea-
santry, its country's pride,"—that would propagate over our
" corn-cropped land' the squalid vice—the sickly form—
the wretchedness—ay, more, the irreligious habits and exam-
ple of your general town population, would irretrievably
blight the whole morale of this sea-girt isle"—paralyse all
its noble energies, and eventually destroy its power. This
is our case."

I thus put the preliminary case of the landholders and that
of the manufacturers, with their objections' and the answer
of the former, for this letter. If favoured by its insertion,
in your next number I purpose giving the replication of the
manufacturers, and a general and impartial summary of the
arguments on behalf of the proprietors and tenants of the soil,
in another• letter, for the calm consideration of my fellow
countrymen in both interests.
I am, Sir,
Your's with esteem,
AN ENGLISHMAN.

Feb. 23d, 1839.

DENCEUMENT OF THE AGRARIAN CONSPIRACY.

In his reply to Mr. Shaw's motion for an inquiry into the
state of crime in Ireland, Mr. O'Connell attempts not to
deny the existence of extent .of the agrarian conspiracy ; but
enters into an elaborate defence of the conspirators and their
crimes : justifying the one as a consequence of the Act of
Settlement (or present arrangement of property), and the
other as retaliatory punishments for the cruelty and miscon-
duct of the land proprietors !
Well, let the apology stand for what it is worth. The
existence and denoeument of thq conspiracy is what we are
• more concerned with at present. The conspiracy is admitted
to exist—to be extensively ramified—and to be organized to
a high pitch. What is to follow ? How is to be wound up
and closed? This we learn—not from his parliamentary ad-
missions—but from the communications of Mr. O'Connell to
his active agents of agitation in Ireland. This gentleman
announces to th'e Precursor Society, in a letter dated March
7th; that he will come to Ireland, and remain there during
the Easter recess, organising the popular party for more
strenuous exertion ; and that having tried a further experi-
ment or two on the United Legislature, he will forthwith set
up. for himself in College-green—or rather, take the preli-
minary steps, and conquer or die in the achievement :
" Being defeated in these attempts (he says), I will then
submit to the Predursor Society the necessity of either dis-
solving, or making way for the National Association for the
Repeal of the Union.

a This last plan must be carefully digested, in order to
make as many friends and as few enemies as possible. I
mean of course in Ireland, but if I stand alone, I will then
commence the repeal agitation, and never abandon it, save
in success, or in my grave."
When this; bone of contention, together with the agrarian
grievances, shall have been thrown into the seething caldron
of Irish disaffection, it may be conjectured, but not described,
what a new and monstrous " tranquillity" the Irish govern-
ment will have to boast of producing.—Dublin Evening Mail.

CRIME IN SWEDEN.-It appears that in 1835, the total
population of Sweden being less than three millions, one in
every 140 persons was convicted of some criminal offence :
while in England and Wales the proportion was one in every
1,005, and even in Ireland one in 723.