The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-08-23 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

Owing to the extreme length at which we have given the in-
teresting proceedings in the House of Lords on Thursday
evening,we are unavoidably compelled to solicit the indulgence
of our correspondents. Now that the recess is commeneed,
the additional space at our corm-liana will enable us to bring
up arrears.
" 4n Observer" wishes us to draw the attention of the authori-
ties to the dangerous state of the warehouse lately burnt in
Lancelot's-hey.
The note of " A Burgess" shall be submitted to the notice of
the Conservative Association.
We have no room for the " Lines to Clara."
The treatment of the lad saved from drowning at Woodside
seems to have been very hard and unreasonable. We shall
make further inquiries on the subject.
Alpha" is too long for insertion. Had he not better send his
letter to the commissioners ?

Zbe iLibtrpool

I'U-ESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 23. 1836.

SPAIN AND THE MERCHNARIES.—The cause of our be-
loiwd country at home has absorbed so much of our in-
terest and attention, feeling it our duty to watch over
domestic mercenaries, that we can only briefly touch this
subject. Let it suffice, then, that we inform our indul-
gent friends, that Isabella Segundo, the Palmerstonian
heroine, alias Madame Munoz, has sworn to the consti-
tution of 1812 ! That Messrs. Zulieta and Co.. the
agents of M. Ituriz, and the Spanish Estututo Real go-
vernment, have dishonoured the bills for payment of the
British legion ; and that they have been protested by
Carbonell and Co.,•the English agents in London. Thus
the " Westminsters" - will be sans largent ; and unless
Don Carlos takes compassion on them, sans nourriture,
min English, without bread. As "suave qui peut" is a
very natural consequence' of such a state of things ; and
the thrice valiant of Westminster having no power to
vote the supplies," even he may deem it expedient to
quit Saint Sebastian, by what is quaintly termed " French
leave." Poor pathetic Lord Palmerston—this is really
a sorry dispensation for you. Cupidon and Lambkin
may and should condole with each other ! My Lord of
Russell we leave to the invigorating care of his better
half, and Rice to his cabin tenants and their grunting
inmates!

Although we have devoted a great portion of our pre-
scribed space to the general policy of the whig cabinet,
during its sessional career, we feel it imperative to be-
stow some little attention to that all important docu-
ment, the " King's Speech," but in reality the apologe-
ic bulletin of his ministers, his Majesty generously con-
' descending to be their "mouth-piece"—to act the part
of manager for them, in their farewell (qu. ?) address to
the audience of peers and peeresses, commoners, and
non-commoners assembled upon this occasion.
The sound of the trumpet, blown by the herald of the
Times, and repeated bv one or more of our watchful
London sentinels, some three or four days back, brought
Us to our posts, armed with a table service of goose-quill
anununition, and we remained under arms, en bivouac,
cur contemporary having given warning of the secret
Preparation of a battering ram, in the Melbourne, fuze
of extraordinary dimensions, and containing a large
quantity of projectiles, to be used by his Majesty in a
Premeditated assault on the House of Peers, for the con-
tumacious defence made by their lordships in command
of the ramparts and trenches of that truly venerable for-
tress. " Old England's Constitution."
True it is, we were somewhat astounded at the intelli-
gence conveyed by the first blast of the clarion of war
but knowing the temerity (maugre the true courage) o
the enemy in possession of the camp of the Commons, we
gave credence thereto momentarily, whilst we ventured
not to surmise on the quality of the attack, nor on its mode
of execution. We were, however, duly apprised on
Wednesday morning last of an intended sortie on the
Whole of the whig positions, under the management of
the right trusty and valiant Knight of Lyndhurst, who
had determined on silencing the firing from the Holland
battery, and " blowing up" the other works of the " en -
ttenched" thereabouts ! This admirably devised sortie
Was so well conducted on Thursday night, that the assail-
ants were turned " right about," their machinery, ram,
and fuzes destroyed, and their evil designs frustrated ;
but, the sequel ! Why, they marched quietly into the
lords' garrison, on Saturday noon, carrying the ensign
Of the Lamb ! To be serious ;—this speech of the King's
ministers, the officials of Downing-street, is only remark-
nable for one quality, (for sterling merit with regard to
candour, or the true developement of our social or fo-
reign policy, in their hands, it has none,) a studious and
jesuitical avoidance in its style of any phrase calculated
to raise discussion on the topics embraced is its leading
feature, and divesting it of its sophistry and fallacious as-
"tninions,—"fallacia alia aliam trudit,"—it is posi-
tively "mill: and watet"—it hardly affords a peg whereon
,C 1 hang one-argument...." Howe
are the
mightyfallen,"
(691r.ig the language of holy writ.
Our truly able-contemporary of the Londoii Standard

anatomized this flimsy production, by anticipation, on
Saturday, and condescended to devote its energy to one
point chiefly7-the vaunted tranquillity of Ireland. The
tranquillity is, as we have intimated, altogether a pre-
tence ; but, perlraps, in his Majesty's circumstances,
condemned as he is to "see with the eyes, and hear With
the ears' of the ministers of the House of Commons, he
may feel it his duty so far to countenance the political
fiction, that Ireland really enjoys peace at this time,
when his gaol of Clonmel holds between 300 and 400
prisoners ; and whilst Mr. O'Connell is openly engaged
in exhorting his brothers, by country and creed, not to
waste in mutual violence and slaughter those energies
which he would have them direct to the overbearing the
law, and the political separation of these islands.
With regard to Spain the unfortunate whigs are
knocked down by the despatch telegraphic from Saint
Ildefonso, but even for that my Lord Cupidon has found
a placebo. Yet Don Carlos progresses in increased se-
curity, whose success it was the object of the quadruple
treaty to defeat,—nor should a British monarch have
been placed in the humiliating position of expressing his
lamentation and " regret," in a set speech from the
throne, on the possible issue of such a contest, through
the imbecile policy of his ministers We refer our in-
telligent readers to the speech itself,—they will form
their own estimate of its other value and importance,
even of this' pageant of Prospero as a mixture of twaddle
and studied evasion. For the present—" requiescat
in pace !"

We have arrived once more at the annual period for
retrospective reflection on our social legislation, and ge •
nerd national policy—the close of another session of
parliament; and we must refer to our columns of the
past. month for an illustration of our sentiments and opi-
nions on those important topics of state interest to which
we have felt it our duty, in the exercise of our censorial
or critical discretion, to draw the more immediate atten-
tion of our readers.

•
In the truly onerous task we have undertaken in be-
half of our country's weal, and in support of sound prin-
ciples of government, we, nevertheless, declare ourselves
to be entirely regardless of men, (saving and excepting
those who have glaringly allied themselves with evil,) and
that our views, whenever admissible, have been and are
stedfastly directed to the measures and the general policy
of those who have arrogated to themselves the exclusive
possession of that state wisdom and those senatorial talents
and that patriotism which were alike necessary to carry
this country through a great crisis of popular agitation
and speculative reforms, in the complex machiriery of our
disturbed institutions, and under the pressure of public
opinion.

Having assumed this position, and however warmly
attached, from principle we proudly own we are, to all
those fundamental rules of action which are not merely
associated with, but intimately bound up with the inte-
grity, honour, and independence of the British constitu-
tional monarchy; and from conscientious conviction
firmly devoted, without bigotry or intolerance, to that
holy protestant church, the choice inheritance transmit-
ted to us by the christian love, virtue, and constancy of
our forefathers, and in the bosom of which we were born
and nurtured, we would not offer a purely cynical or fac-
tious opposition, even towards those- who, in our opi-
nion, have yet infortuitousl f seized the reins of .power at
a moment of great national peril ; whilst it was impos-
sible, acting the part of common candour, to divest our-
selves of those fears and that feeling of rational preju-
dice which is the natural result of true devotion; nor to
avoid watching over the destinies of our country with a
jealous eye, when we beheld the daringly dangerous in-
roads attempted to be made on that constitution and that
church, the declared objects of our solicitude—nay, even
on the sanctity of our very religion, and the security of
our liberties and our possessions as Englishmen!
Having taken our stand on this high conservative
ground, and feeling that an Englishman's honour should
be equally independent with his pride, it is impossible
that we should stoop to mere rank, talents, or authority ;
and supposing that even some judgment was exercised at
the helm, without exerting that corrective quality of de-
liberative discrimination which is due to the cause we
have espoused,' and-to our own consistency. It could
hardly be imagine] then that we would follow in the
slavish trainof fawning vassalage, or even tacitly applaud
actions and principles, which, in radicals, infidels, or
papists, we cannot but disapprove of, merely because they.
have found favour in the hands of apostate politicians, or
happen to have one or more of the higher order of whig
officials as their advocates.

We are ready to admit that, whenever in leading
points, questions of real utility, in the hands of the execu-
tive of the day, are promoted by firmness and honest
patriotic zeal, that trifling differences in opinion should
be conceded in their favour for the sake of social har-
mony, and in promotion of the public service, as well as
to avoid that querulous and even petty war of words, and
that idle declamation which have, within the last few
years especially, brought discredit on our national intel-
ligence, the honour of the British senate, weakened our
power and influence abroad, and operated as a drag chain
to the progress of our real social improvement. But this
politic and well-intentioned forbearance—this conditional
deference to the servants of the crown—to the confidential
advisers of the sovereign for the time being, could not
possibly be extended to questions in which the very ex-
istence of the constitution itself became involved, and in
which the integrity, utility, and even the fazth of our
reformed christian church were deeply and dangerously
assailed, without a positive dereliction both of duty and
of principle, at once utterly incompatible with our feel-
ings and our professions.
Determined then on not imitating the servile crew who
have become the panegyrists and applatiders of a system
of policy we disclaim ; and, disdaining the just odium of
being blind devotees, and much less mercenary appendages
to power on the one hand, or the infatuated worshippers
of abstract principles of popular rights on the other, we
have abjured the contemplated attempts, at the .expense
of national honour and national truth, to destroy the
domestic liberties of this highly-favoured and fondly
cherished land of our birth, or to undermine that elevated
position which Britain should retain, as a purely pro-
testant state, amidst the powers of Europe—nay, even in
the great family of nations occupying the surface of the
globe

It is now sufficiently well known to all parties, that the
present whig administration came into office, and to what
they vainly conceive power, solely upon the assertion of
an abstract principle of meditated wrong to the protestant
church of Ireland—here then have we at once joined
conclusive evidence of the
issue with them, and having
true nature and extent of their tortuous system of policy,
furnished by their own nefarious opposition to the con-
servative reform cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, under the
ever memorable Litchfield House compact, we have re-
solved, on principle, to resist, inch by inch, that policy—
to contest the equity and the justice of the various mea-
sures founded thereupon, and to await the verdict of an
independent jury, and the judgment of the nation on that
resolve, rather than accept the proffered boon of parasites,
and sink into mei ited insignificance or contempt, under
the justexecrations of all those whose opinions are worthy
of estimation in the scale of social being, and genuine
English feeling.
We now come to the point at once—the gravamen of
that deeply-contemplated offence and injury against the
constitution and the church of England with which we
directly charge the Whole policy of the whig councillors
of our truly-patriotic sovereign William the Fourth
" spectemur agendo !" We will try the question with
them on its own merits, by the actions, not the hollow
superficial professions of men barefacedly leagued with the
avowed enemies of that constition and that church, from
their accession to office to the termination of this, their
second parliamentary session, of wonderful performances
in misrule.

We had before us in the first part of the session of
1835, the grateful spectacle of an English Commoner
rising frLrn the bosom of the people, under the blessings
of a free and liberal constitution, to the highest station
in our popular system of government, as the leader of
the House of Coirafroti'S; iLeao,thuielided* by the po‘i'erful