The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-05 00:00:00

maintain—did not, because they durst not, at that
meeting, present themselves before a mixed assemblage
of the people of England ! They shrunk, with a das-
tard fear, from the comparisons which their presence
might have caused to be instituted, and from the pos.
sibility that such comparisons might have been fol-
lowed by some public demonstration of their result.
They knew the deep loathing with which they are re-
garded by nine-tenths of the people of England, and
they feared its unequivocal expression in the presence
of one from whose lips their true position, in the esti-
mation of the empire, might at length reach the ears
and startle the Sybarite slumbers of a beleaguered and
betrayed Sovereign !

But, with all their
,jesuitical cunning, the whigs were
disappointed. Political, like moral guilt, brings down
upon itself, slowly sometimes, yet always surely, its
own retribution. That obscene mendicant, the popish
reviler of the purity of the wives and matrons of Eng-
land—that hoary democrat, at whose truculent feet the
whig faction are ever ready to prostrate themselves, and
to beseech for protection from the indignation which
their own shameless imbecility has provoked the
traitor and ruffian O'Connell—dared to present his un-
clean person upon the platform, and to attempt to open
his corrupt lips in an assemblage of English gentle-
men—in an assemblage of the husbands, the wives,
and the daughters whom he has so foully slandered.
We thank Heaven that English honour and English
manhood is not yet so utterly lost as to have submitted
to such an indignity ! We thank Heaven that a noble
cause was not allowed to be defiled by the advocacy of
so consummate a scoundrel! In the torrent of scorn
by which the appearance of O'Connell was greeted,
the meanness, the contemptible baseness of the minis-
terial faction received a more_ crushing condemnation,
more fatally directed, than any which the presence
of their own insignificant persons could have called
down upon them.

We could imagine, the effect which the scene, pre-'
sented upon the appearance of O'Connell upon the
platform, must have produced upon the ingenuous
mind with which the youthful Consort of our beloved
Queen is reported to be endowed. There stood, cower-
ing and abashed for once in his shameless career, this
ruthless and unprincipled demagogue ; whilst the black

passions of his soul, restrained from bursting forth only
by his innate cowardice, were fearfully depicted in his
writhing countenance. Titre he stood, livid and black
by.turns, and there stood also the ministers of Eng-
land's Sovereign, impaled in his person by the contempt
and scorn of that vast assemblage Yes—in that des-
pised and execrated form—that concentration of moral
and political profligacy—upon whose head was poured
so unequivocal an evidence of the detestation in which
his character is held by a great nation—the youthful
Prince had presented before him a picture—strongly
delineated, it is true, but faithfully and fearfully correct
—of the strong feeling of reprobation with which the
policy of the ministers of his Queen is viewed by the
virtuous and enlightened people of Great Britain. The
storm fell only directly upon the member for Dublin ;
the burning levin of a nation's scorn fell only at his
feet; but the shock was not felt—was. not meant to be
felt—by him alone. It has scorched the souls of the
degraded and imbecile crew, who, for the corrupt pur-
poses of faction and plunder, are ever willing to rely
upon his contaminating and debasing influence !

We trust that the truths which that scene must have
flashed upon the mind of Prince Albert, and the im-
pressions generally which the meeting of Monday must
have made, will not be locked up within his own breast ;
but will be communicated without reserve to one whose
true happiness is so deeply involved in that of her peo-
ple, and whose noblest pride, we are confident, would
be to secure her people's affection and respect. Whether
these objects are best attained by the present alliaNce
of her government with the detested vampyre, who
feeds upon the vitals of his own impoverished country,
and insults the virtue and the decency of the remaining
portion of the empire, we leave to his Royal Highness
to determine.

The people of Liverpool are now about to experience the
benefits of a corporation, composed of genuine liberal mate-
rials. The immunities and privileges, by the enjoyment of
which this great town has been enabled to raise itself, in
little more than half a century, from the condition of an ob-
scure fishing hamlet to the proud position which it now oc-
cupies, of being scarcely second in commercial importance
to the metropolis itself, are about to be bartered for a mere
party object ;—in order to procure, for a despicable and
sinking faction, the means of corruption and patronage, by
which they hope to prolong for a few more years the baneful
ascendancy which they at present possess and misuse.
The proceedings of the meeting of the council on Wednes-
day—which will be found fully reported in our columns—
will serve to throw some light upon the ends which our local
legislators have in view, and the means by which they are to
be accomplished. To these proceedings we entreat the ear-
nest attention of our readers. Let them be weighed and
carefully digested. Compare the grain of patriotism with
the mountain of faction and fraud which they evince ; and
then let our readers treasure up the result of this examina-
tion, and brace up their loins for a struggle, at the next op-
portunity which offers, to rid themselves, their townsmen,
and posterity, of the certain ruin to the best interests of the
town of Liverpool, which this corrupt Whig faction is seek-
ing hourly to bring down upon it. Let them mark the men,
and the principles by which they are actuated ; and whenever
a Whig—a Liberal—aut quocunque alio nomine gaudet—
shall have the assurance to intrude his hypocritical face
upon their leisure, to entreat that he may be entrusted with
their liberties and their property in any capacity above that
of a scavenger, let them kick such a caitiff into the nearest
kennel, as the shortest method of forwarding his progress
towards the filthy courses in which it is his nature to delight.
We shall not to-day enter fully into the question which
the late proceedings of the corporation have raised, for our
consideration and that of our townsmen. Its importance is
too great to allow it to be treated lightly, and we have not
yet had sufficient time to awake from the stagnation of sur-
prise into which we have been thrown by the exposure which
Wednesday's proceedings have occasioned. In our next we
purpose entering fully into the question. We shall then lay
" a plain unvarnished tale " before our readers. To-day
we shall content ourselves with picking up a few of the rich
crumbs which the illuminati of the council and the Dock
Committee have allowed to drop during their discussion of
the question.

Our Liverpool readers are no doubt aware that the leader I
of the shameless attack made by our Dock Trustees upon the
rights and property of individuals, and which has led to the
impending sacrifices by which the corrupt object of the Whig
faction is alone to be attained‘ is a certain Alderman Evans—
a gentleman who, according to the orthodox Whig practice,
was pitehforked amongst that honourable fraternity as a re-
ward for being soundly plucked of his pretensions by the
constituency from whom he requested the honour of being
elected a councillor. Upon this gentleman was conferred,
on 'Wednesday, the somewhat questionable honour of an-
nouncing to the inhabitants of Liverpool the exact amount of
sacrifice, by which their pure and patriotic Corporation were
endeavouring to create for its own party a fund of patronage,
and to revenge upon a few individuals, most of whom, unfor-
tunately for themselves, happen to entertain sound Conserve.:
tive opinions, the lack of estimation in which Whig pretension
has of late been held amongst the electoral body of Liverpool.
Mr. Alderman Evans accordingly delivered himself of a long
oration—spluttered through a vast quantity of shallow ab-
surdity—in praise of himself and the illustrious body to which
he belongs, and in vindication of the bargain by which Liver-
pool is to give up the privileges secured to her by law, in
order that Whig-Radicalism may be secured in the possession
of the patronage and authority of corporate office.
The worthy Alderman appeared to be rather offended that
the Committee of the House of Commons had designated
the council by its proper name—" a political assembly," as
distinguished from " a mercantile body." " There were
noble lords and others" said Mr. Evans, " who were abused
by clap-trap words about political assemblies and mercantile
bodies ;" and then the worthy Alderman proceeded to the
astounding conclusion, that " that council tiras and ever
must be a great mercantile body !!" " They contained
within themselves all the mercantile knowledge, all the in-
terests of the ratepayers, with the responsibility of being
the representatives of the community at large! !" We must
confess that we are not at present precisely of Mr. Evans's
opinion, that " all the mercantile intelligence" of Liverpool
is in the council room. We fancy that the worthy Alderman
himself would find it difficult to point out the select few in
whose hands this mass of intelligence is concentrated. We
could ourselves save him some trouble by weeding out a
number of gentlemen upon whom no such intelligence is
wasted. With respect, however, to the existence of politi-
cal feelings in the council—how can Mr. Evans imagine
that, although he himself is ready to forget, a committee of
the house of Commons will also forget the very recent
manifestations of such feelings? Has the council never en-
tered so far into political discussions, as to warrant its being
called a political assembly, and being suspected of an in-
clination to use any new powers, with which it may be
intrusted, for political purposes ? We pause for a reply.
Mr. Evans is not, we should imagine from the following
passage, the most discreet gentleman in whose hands the
council could have confided their case. Alluding to one of
the points in dispute before the committee of the House of
Commons—viz., the constitution of the Dock Committee—
the worthy Alderman admits that " if the Dock Committee
at this moment were elected out of the ratepayers, the Coun-
cil would have seen such a spirit of opposition to Dock Ware-