The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-01-15 00:00:00

TO JOSEPH HUME, ESQ., M.P.

(From the Times.)
SIR,--You have at length dropped the mask; and it be-
coming my avowed assailant, you permit me to relate circum-
stances which would long ago have silenced the idle controversy
with which the evening organ of Whig politics has attempted to
cloak its recent disgraceful discomfiture. I have mentioned in
my letter to the editor of The 7 imes, that I have only met you
once, and that was at the House of Commons. It appears you
were then attending the Indian committee. Yoo know very
well under what circumstances I was forced to apply to you per-
sonally on that occasion. You know you had conducted your-
self towards me in a manner which was not only a violation of
all the courtesies, but of the common honesty, of life. You
know the extreme difficulty whichl had in extracting from you
a satisfactory explanation. and I cannot forget, though you may,
the offers of service which on that occasion you Made me, and
Which I declined. Some mouths' after this, a vacancy, which
never occurred; being threatened in the borough pf. Marvlebone,
I announced inyself in oppesition to the wing candidate, who
was already in the field. In the course'of my canvass I called
upon Mr. Joseph Flume, an influential elector of that borough,
one, too, recently so profuse in his offers of service, and now in
violent opposition to that party which I had ever resisted. You
were, I was informed, severely indisposed. You were not seen
by me, hut I explained to your clerk or secretary the object of
my
visit,
and, that nu error might occur, I wrote a letter in your
house, which I delivered-to that secretary. Doubtless, being a
canvassing epistle, it was sufficiently complimentary. It is ob-
vious you take very good care of these documents. But why is
not this letter produced? -Becauseit would have explained how
your secretary remembered my calling at your residence, and
because it would have confirmed my previous account, that when
I did call I had not the honour of seeing yourself. Your "im-
pression" that T did call upOn'you in Bryanston-square, at the
beginning of your letter, at the end of your communication
swells into certainty. Why were you more certain at the ter-
mination of your epistle than at the beginning? Were you
strengthened by your secretary's recollection of me? I have
. shown how we chanced to meet. The truth is, you wished to
Confirm an anonymous libeller in his statement, that 1 had
sought a formal interview with you -before I became a candidate
at Wycombe, and it is obvious, from the cautious mendacity at
the commencement of your letter, that you were aware that you
were countenancing a lie.
But I have not done with you. Whether you wrote a letter
of nie or to me at Wycombe—whether Caw you when I called
at your house, or not—whether we met half-a-dozen times, or
only once—what, after all, has this miserable trifling to do with
the merits of the question? This controversy commenced by
the evening organ of the whigs being instructed by its masters
to attack and answer my Vindication of the Engli.,ll Constitution.
The unlettered editor of' the Globe, as ignorant of the history as
he is of the language of his country, puzzled and confounded,
sought refuge in the vile and vulgar expedient of personally
abusing the author. If he cannot redeem his oft-repeated blus-
ter of refutation, let his masters hire another, and abler; hack'
to baffle that exposure of the plots and fallacies of their unprin-
cipled faction. The illogical'editor of the Globe, incompetent
to distinguish between principles and measures, accused me of
political tergiversation, because, with the same principles as I
had ever professed, I was not of opinion that in 1835 two particu-
la.r measures were necessary, which I deemed expedient in 1832.
I stated my reasons why I 'ho longer deemed those measures
expedient. The editor of the Globe has never answered them;
but if the editor of the' Globe require any further information on
this subject—if he be 'still anxious-to learn hew it may be pos-
sible, without any fdrfeiture•of political prineiples, to hold dif-
ferent •opinions at different seasons respecting political mea-
sures,' I refer him to his patron, Lord John Russell; the whilome
tupporter of triennial parliaments, or his ancient master, Lord
Spencer, the -uniqiihile advocate of the ballet. If these right
hon. personages cannot succeed in introducing a comprehension
of this' subje6t into the unparalleled skull of the' editor of the
Globe, why then he must eVen haie recourse to that Magnus
Apollo of the Treasury bench, 'Sir 'John Hohhouse, who will
doubtless make it most lucidly •oh4iious to him how a man Who
commences' a political career pledged to annual parliaments
and universal suffrage, may duly dwindle into a low whig up-
holder of a senatorial existence of seven years, and a suffrage
limited to the mysticatbourulary of a' £lO franchise.
But; sir; as you are so' happy •in addressing letters to the
editor of the Globe, and since your political consistency.is so
universally acknowledged that you, as you classically express
it; "cannot put pen to paper"- without producing some fresh
evidence of public integrity, permit me to ask you what is your
opinion of the'consistency of that man who, after having scraped
together a fortrine by jobbing in governuient contracts in 'a
colony; and entering the House Of Commons as the tciry repre-
sentative of a close corporatien, suddenly becomes the apostle
of economy and unrestricted stiffrage,ntid closes a careei'corn
menced and matured in corruption, by spouting sedition iq
Middlesex, and 'counselling rebellion in Car4da ?--Your obe-
dient servant, B. DISRAELI.
31, Upper Grosvenor-she-et, Monday Evenhig.