The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-09-30 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

If "A Reader" will take the trouble to make a few inquiries
into the previous career of Father Maguire. he will soon ascer-
tain that the line of conduct pursued by Mr. M`Neile was the
only justifiable course to be adopted in treating with such a
character. In acting as he has done, the rev. gentleman has
at once consulted the dignity of his office and the sacred in-
terests of truth.
The letter of " Observator " does not possess sufficient interest
for publication.
Blackwood shall be noticed in our next.

zbe Eibtrpool g:tanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING. SEPTEMBER 30, 1836.

The French papers of Monday contain no fresh news
of importance. The most important topic of discussion
during the preceding week is the assembling of an am.
bassadorial congress at Paris, a step which appears to be
absolutely rendered necessary by the revolutionary
feeling which pervades the whole of the western Euro-
pean continent. The organ of M. Guizot's party, Le
Paix, had already formally announced this project.
The Ztfoniteur states that the Madrid government has
dismissed General Aldarna from his command, and ap-
pointed Gurrea iu his stead. The camp marshal, Serrano,
to the political department of the interior. The Phare de
Bayonne announces the junction of Gomez with Cabre-
ra and the chiefs Serrador, Juilez, and Esperanzo. The
fortified town of Regerena had been occupied previously
by his forces. Don Carlos had not left Estella; but be
had despatched a fresh expedition of 2,000 men to Arra-
gon, under the command of Pablo Lanz, his camp
marshal. From Portugal, we have no fresh intelligence.
We may here add, that the present French government
has given positive orders for the immediate disbanding
of the legion assembled at Pau. M. Bidand, a superior
ip Meer., attached to the war department, had arrived at
"Bayonne, charged with this duty. Alas ! poor Lord
Palmerston ! We would advise your making terms with
Don Carlos, or the "destiny which watches over Spain"
will elude your vigorous grasp !

Mr. Edward Baines, of Leeds, proprietor of the "Mer-
cury," and whig member in parliament for that borough,
has given the blustering demagogue, the King of the
Justice Association, his dose. Whatever striking differ-
ences of opinion exist between Mr. Baines and ourselves
in politics, we rejoice to find, that he has come forward,
with the true spirit of a man, and sustained the honour
of the English gentleman, by the castigation he has in-
flicted on that untamed and dishonourable disturber, who,
not content with keeping his " unfortunate country "' in
one perpetual fever of turmoil and agitation, has the
stupid ignorance, and the consummate impudence, to
imagine, that he may with impunity beard every man,
and no matter of what rank or station in our English so-
ciety, with his vulgar sarcasm, and coarse obloquy, who
may presume to post himself in the gap he has opened,
for the avowed purpose of levelling our best Institu-
tions with the dust. The assumptions of this braggart
asserter of undefined Justice are upon a par with his
total indifference to the ordinary usages of civilized life,
—affecting to feel sensibly the reproofs given to himself,
for his many gross provocations, lie yet cuts away with
the scalping knife of his malignant detraction, and whilst
pleading for " freedom of conscience," and " freedom
of opinion," insolently denies the right of private judg-
ment—the exercise of independent thought, to every
man who may possess the wisdom and the manhood to
dispute his pretensions, or to disclaim his dark policy.
This is precisely the case of Mr. Baines, as he states in
his becoming answer, usually voting with his antagonist,
on the general number and principle of the measures
brought forward by their united party, or the govern-
ment they support. We cannot possibly feel any com-
miseration for the whigs generally, nor individually,
under the punishment they have justly brought upon
themselves, by an alliance offensive and defensive with
a man, who has put himself out of the pale of all con-
sideration as a rational being—as an unreasonable
despot in argument, and a tyrant in practice, making
himself, under a false plea, irresponsible for what-
ever injury he may please .eventually to inflict on

others, whilst eternally talking " responsibility " !
His insolence, however, in this instance, will be
productive of one practical good,—it will, if it has
not already, remove the bandage from Mr. Baines's
eyes entirely, and from the eyes of others, who have had
the folly and the meanness to suffer themselves to be first
hoodwinked, by this Ostler of a government, which have
submitted to have the curb-bit put into its mouth, with
tacit docility, that noble animals would never have en-
dured, but kicked him to merited destruction. "Blind
Baines of Leeds"—(Mr. Daniel O'Connell's elegant
phrase) at ali events, it would appear, now sees his man
with a lucid eye; and, we think, that he bids fair to
prove a match for Daniel in gentlemanly discussion,
though we very much doubt the equal strength of his
competitorship, with the shaft of blackguardisnt. One con-
solation remains for society,—common nuisances like
the individual moral pest, of whom we treat, exist but for
a time,—Providence has kindly limited their mischievous
duration to a span,—they " strut and fret their hour,"
and are seen and heard no more ; whilst the re-action of
reason disperses the vapour of their ephemeral insignifi-
cance. They are, strictly, what the arch satirist 'Voltaire
described, and nothing more-"the stinging two-I,gged
Pismires of a day " ! !

. .
We have thus freely discussed the relative position of
Mr. Edward Baines, M.P. and Mr. Daniel O'Connell, as
supreme dictator for all Ireland ; we now come to an ex-
traordinary contrast, in the. person of Mr. Wentworth
Beaumont, the whig member for South Northumberland,
and we find this gentleman, rich in consistency, stultify-
ing his own freely-expressed opinions relative to the
dangerous course of the said Daniel—here are the two
Abbots fraternising in true revolutionary style—here is
the Abbot of Hexham and the Abbot of Derrynane in
fraternal hug, a choice subject for " H. 13. ;" the Abbot
of Hexharn presenting his expiation to his superior in
the shape of a hundred pound penance offering to the
" justice rint," and " buying a truce" from the holy men-
dicant disciple of Saint Ignatius ! There is no account-
ing for the glaring inconsistency and folly of public men ;
and here is a choice specimen of the difficulty we critics
of the mighty press have to encounter, in our diurnal
vocation, that of fathoming the incongruities of the human
character—of showing that common sense and common
honesty are really rare ingredients in the mental compo-
sition of those who set themselves up to be arbiters of
the destinies of their fellow-mortals, in a state of political
society. When we consider that hardly a short twelve-
month has elapsed since this very gentleman, the pro-
prietor of a lordly domain at Hexhatn Abbey, publicly
and severely reprobated the conduct of the " missionary"
mountebank, in his itinerary career through the -provin-

ces of England, and although the language, course:and

SEPT. au ,

conduct of the said worthy persomge now manifests the self-
same cynanthropy, as shown by his attack on Mr. Baines,
Mr!:. tien t worth Beaumont is blind enough to write
to him, and e2Tress his concurrence and approbation, and
to make his peace by the enclosure of a cheque for £lOO !
The explanation given by this independent gentleman
in his letter, is altogether the most preposterous we ever
remember to have read, as coming from an otherwise
presumed sensible man. He (Mr. Wentworth Beau-
mont) prefaces that letter by admitting that " he spoke
very unceremoniously of the expediency (! ) of his, Mr.
Daniel O'Connell's, agitation in England, from a convic-
tion that he was doing a practical injury to the cause of
liberty—(to the cause of whiggery, if you please, Mr.
Beaumont !)—and adds, "So when I now see you pro-
ceeding in a right course, I do not hesitate, with equal
frankness, to offer you my humble assistance!" Admi-
rable patriotic consistency ! worthy this of the pen of
the Christian who shall condescend to record the doings
of the whig legion of 1836 ! So strong is the conviction
of Mr. Wentworth Beaumont, under his early conversion.
that he has discovered an angel where he lately beheld
a being- of an entirely opposite character ; and he is re-
" solved not to be outdone, even by the church-property-
loving Duke of Bedford, and he frees himself from the
political anathema of the reclaimed papal saint, by pur-
chasing his forbearance fot one hundred pounds !
All this is certainly very complimentary to the chief
instigator of Ireland's woes ; but for the very life of us,
we are totally unable to discover any, the least, differ-
ence in the position of the amiable Knight of Kerry this
year, to that he filled last,—he is, to all intents and pur-
poses, the same brawling designing mischievous agent,
armed only with a new power of his own creation, to
which Mr. Beaumont bows submission, and pays pecu-
niary homage. He is the same propounder of Organic
Change—the same advocate for aggression against the
House of Lords, and the same temporary defender of
the entire negation of all principle, which stamps the
Whig government, as he was on his English tour, with
this difference merely, that he (against himself) is shorn
of some of his " laurels"—his capability of working
evil, by the general burst of indignation, with which his
mendicancy and his objects were met in England by all
classes. We therefore, come to the quality of Mr.
Wentworth Beaumont's patriotism at once, and sorry
are we to be compelled to exhibit it in a light which
does not redound to his advantage. It may be, that
he fancies some small atonement is due to his Pro-
tog**, and his justice association, for the hasty opi-
nions he, Mr. Beaumont, expressed at the Whig-radical
meeting at Edinburgh ; or that, with more probability,
he has had a gentle hint from Russell head-quarters, that
he must sustain the falling interests of Whiggery, by the
registration crusade in Ireland, as the Ministerial " for-
lorn hope," which we have already declared it to be
but, this " barking of your friends" will not palliate the
tergiversation of a man placed in Mr. Beaumont's situa-
tion, nor excuse the compromise of his independence, at
the cost of his consistency—his reputation, as an En-
glishman, ncr be compensated by being made one of the
first members of Mr. Daniel O'Connell's elective
irresponsible Peerage !

There has been a great fuss relative to the aqair be-
. _ _

tween the Courier, London newspaper, and Lord Nugent,
the "heavy whig dragoon of Buckinghamshire," and lately
Lord High Commissioner of the lonian Isles, in which
have figured Mr. James Stuart, managing proprietor of
the said journal and new factory commissioner, Mr.
Pearce, his solicitor, Mr. Coles, the solicitor of Lord
Nugent, Lord John Russell, his Majesty's Secretary for
the Home Department, and Lord Holland, Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster. In consequence of some scan-
dal, or alleged scandal, published in the Courier upwards
of twelve months back, Lord Nugent, it appears, instructed
his solicitor to bring an action, upon which his lordship's
right valiant and noble friends threw themselves into
the breach, and essayed a fusilade of epistolary corre-
spondence against the Courier proprietor and factory
commissioner, the cabinet ministers deeming it utterly
inexpedient that the " sayings and doings" of the Lord
High Commissioner, nothwithstanding his lordship's ire,
should be brought before the public gaze and scrutiny by
the perseverance of the ungrateful factory commissioner;
and, whetheritrue or untrue, that the peccadilloes of their
noble friend should be made the subject of vulgar discus-
sion, to the disparagement of the high morality of the
entire whig-radical cabinet ! Hence there has been a
negotiation to effect a compromise between the high and
hostile functionaries, and consultations and legal coquet-
ting, consequent thereupon, in the first place, and in the
second, on the part of the noble interposing arbiters, an
attempt to shut out the lawyers altogether, which the
sound lawyers, to their credit be it spoken, did not tamely
succumb to, feeling that they ought not to be thrust out
of court so ungenteelly, their case and briefs being ready
cut and dry for counsel, and the learned wigs of West-
minster Hall being in full expectation, that some
special retainers, as hinted, would speedily drop in.
Thus we have full -five columns of Monday's Morning
Post taken up with this stupid unmeaning correspond-
ence, which one would imagine the lively lord of Holland
House had adroitly concocted with his liberal associate,
under the hope that its publication would draw off the
attention and divert the public eye from the more onerous
position of the whig cabinet. We give Lord Holland
great credit for his ruse on this occasion, hut will not
compromise our own credit by inflicting on our readers a
perusal, in detail, in our columns, the letters which
hive passed to and fro between the two cabinet minis-
ters and the new commissioner of one of them, on
this occasion. They possess no public interest what-
ever, beyond that inspired by the ridiculous ; and
whilst this great and intelligent people have vital
interests at stake, demanding a lofty bearing and
statesmanlike deportment, we enjoin our conservative
friends to have a steady eye to the " fugleman," and
leave the " bats" and the "owls," and the lovers of scan.
mag. and twaddle, to satiate their appetites on this paltry
feast.

In the same way may we treat the correspondence
which has passed between Lord John Russell and Mr.
Silk Buckingham ; but there is one value in this which
does not exist in the other, and that is, it gives a further
exposition of the utter worthlessness of Whig faith, in its
modern flimsy covering of assumed liberality—we leave
our readers to draw their own inferences—from the letters
of Lord J. Russell, we have published in the latter case,
their silky glossing will not hide their breach of faith nor
their want of honour, whatever may be our objections to
the general polities of Mr. Silk Buckingham. Since.
writing the preceding we find that the celebrated Mr,
Joseph Parkes, the union lawyer and corporation com-
missioner, has finally treated the difference between the
Courier and Lord Nugent.

We understand, that the independent Whig Electors
of Cornwall have sent a requisition to the Tory Lord
Eliot, inviting his lordship to stand for that division of
the county, in the looked-for event of a vacancy ; and as
it has been hinted, that Major- General Palmer, the
wbig member for Bath, also " wishes to retire," the
friends of Sir W. Molesworth have been feeling the
pulse of the "liberals" in that borough. The worthy
General, it is said, has reflected upon the demonstration
made by Sir George Strickland at Leeds, and the modera-
tion of his friends, Mr. Ayshford Sandford, and Colonel
Tynte, at Taunton; and he begins to doubt the expe-
diency- of the extreme measures propounded, or more
probably, the power of Messrs. Melbourne and Co. to
perform their contract ; and repudiating the notion of a
woeful minority, has resolved to effect a retreat without
sound of drum ! We are uncommonly amused at the
quandary in which we are assured the "powers that be"
find themselves placed. There is a great deal of smug-
gling going on, but we have our " scouts" on the alert,
and assure out conservative friends that nothing is re-
quired but steady and unflinching perseverance. Our
Newton display has already done wonders, as may be
gathered from the speeches at Wicklow, and the spleen
developed. We mean nothing personal towards the
Irish nation—we take her in her moral and political
state, and maintain that, under the domination of a
tyrannous priesthood, bigotted, selfish, and uncotn,-
promising, and under the- uncultivated condition of