The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-02-09 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 9, 1836.

The parliamentary campaign commenced on Thursday
fast. We reprint the King's speech, which appeared in
our second edition of Friday. In reading it from the
throne the infirmities of old age in our revered sovereign
were so ill attended to by the official servants who sur-
rounded him that the King could not proceed, and was
obliged to order lights, which, being procured, his Ma-
jesty began de novo, and read with an audible voice one
of the most jesuitical productions that ever was listened
to within the walls of parliament.
This was rather an unpropitious opening of the ses-
sion; but the ending of the first day was still more omi-
nous of disaster. The gloom of mid-day was not at all
enlivened by the unanimity of midnight. An amend-
ment was moved in both houses relative to some expres-
sions in the speech, which seemed calculated if not in-
tended to pledge parliament to a similar measure of mu-
nicipal reform in Ireland as has been granted to England
and Scotland. The ministerial peers, led by the pre-
mier, concurred in the amendment; but the ministerial
lords in the House of Commons, led by Lord JOHN RUS-
SELL, stoutly opposed it, and carried the , original ad-
dress, which, by the way, was of Sheffield manufacture,
by a poor majority of forty-one.
This, we admit, evinced immense- prowess on the part
of the home secretary, who was backed to the uttermost
by the mendicant legion from Ireland ; but we question
if it proves any wisdom. The weakness and want of
cordiality on the part of the cabinet was thereby, and
most unnecessarily, made manifest. Lord MELBOURNE
and Lord LANSDOWNE acquiesced in the justice and pro-
priety of that which Lord JOHN and DANIEL disputed.
How long they are to ride in the same carriage, or smell
at the same rose, with such diametrically opposite senti-
ments to reconcile, we leave the reader to conjecture.
One thing, however, is plain enough. Lord MELBOURNE
is evidently disgusted with the popish alliance, and leaves
all the dirty work and the consequent pollUtion to Lord
JOHN. He is to feast, embrace, and cajole the beggar;
but my Lord Premier is to be saved the indignity and
the odour of coming into contact with him.
OUr readers, we know, will gladly
,enough.spare us
the trouble and themselves the slavery of wading through
the various.topics alluded to in the royal speech. There
are one or two, however, which we cannot pass over.

His Majesty is advised to say that he. approves of the
"prudent and vigorous conduct of the present govern.
ment of Spain ;" that he has offered his "mediation in
order to compose the dißrence which has arisen between
France and the United States.f! and that he continues to
receive from his allies, and "generally from all foreign
powers, assurances of their unaltered desire to cultivate
friendly relations."
Let us take, these in their order.

It is singular, if not humiliating, that the King of
England should be induced or persuaded by his ministers
to call that " vigour" on the part of the Queen Regent
of Spain which is exemplified by a series of the most in-
human murders, and to call. that " prudence" which con-
sists in forging accounts of victories for the purpose of
swindling in all the stock and money markets of Europe.
It is strange that ministers should boast, through the
medium of the King's speech, that they are mediators in
a "difference" between France and the United States,
while they do not condescend • to'say a single word about
their own "difference" with the same republic upon the
boundary question. How grateful the people must be to
a ministry which takes so deep an interest in what con-
cerns foreigners, and takes no interest at all in what con-
cerns ourselves.

The allusion to other powers is curious. His Majesty
is made to say that "generally" he receives from " all
foreign powers" friendly assurances. If from " all,"
why "generally" from all Y When a man says ".1 have
generally received support in my canvass for the honour
of representing Whig-cum-kick in the ensuing parlia-
ment," he means to say that he has received many pro-
mises, but that he has also met several electors who are
decidedly opposed to him. The King's speech, in using
the word " generally," means nothing more than this.
There are powerful enemies somewhere ; and can we
wonder at it, when we see his Majesty's ministers in
boasted alliance with France, the natural enemy of Eng-
land, and' the most pestilent and revolutionary nation in
Europe ? How comes it that his Majesty's ministers
have no sympathies to interchange with any of the con-
tinental sovereigns, except the remorseless and perfidious
Louis PHILIPPE of France, and the worthless woman,
with her hired cheats, who trample upon the laws and
berties of Spain ? How comes it that the Dutch and
Belgic question is not alluded to, as heretofore, by the
ministers of England ? Have they no-allies but the mob
tyrants of Washington and Paris ? Do they take no in-
terest in the mean and unprincipled pensioner, the pro-
testant husband of the PrincesS CHARLOTTE, whom Lord
GREY placed upon the provincial throne of Belgium,
who has since espoused a popish princess, and who has
conformed, in consequence of marital engagements and
obsequious baseness, to all the impositions of the most
bigotted heirarchy in the liomish church? He is not
even alluded to. The young Princess of Portugal is
equally forgotten, simply because she cannot, any more
aid to the party now in
than LEOPOLD, render any

power.
Rpia, however, and the King of the Netherlands are
pointed at, although not by name. The naval estimates
are to be increased. The rumour in the best circles is,
that five thousand men, and a proportional number of of
ficers and ships, are to be added to our fleet in the Me-
diterranean. The pretext is that our extended commerce
requires this additional force. ,Where our commerce has'
extended to since this time 'twelvemonths we are utterly
at a loss to know; but even, if extended, why the neces-
sity for a more powerful fleet, seeing that his Maje'sty's
government are receiving friendly assurances generally
from all foreign powers ?
But the sooner the mask is dropped the better. France
has virtually declared war against Russia, in favour, of
the treacherous, dishonest, and demoralized Poles, and
England is now so pitiably in the hands of the present
administration that she cannot avoid taking part in a
struggle that must inevitably cover her with disgrace,
ruin her eastern.empire, and give Turkey—and a large
portion of Asiatic Turkey too—to NICHOLAS. On the
• first hostile movement by France or England, the King
of the Netherlands will march into Belgium—the Em-
peror of Russia upon Constantinople. Austria will be
compelled to join Russia for the sake of her own inter-
nal tranquillization. She cannot afford to lose Venice
or Italy. She must contest the admiSsiort of French
principles into any part of her territory ;' and, before
many weeks a ftet the rupture, Prussia will see the policy
of attaching herself to the interests of her nearest neigh-,

bours. •
But will France follow up the professions of an unsta,
ble prince, and a perpetually shifting administration, in a