The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-03-07 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS,

We had prepared some remarks on the subject of the trial
and verdict in the case of M`Naghten, but are compelled
to withdraw them at a late hour.

ebe Eiberpool &tan Darb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MARCH 7, 1543

We received last night Jamaica papers to the 3d tilt.,
and the Guiana Herald of the 24th, 26th, and 28th
January. A summary of their contents will be found
in another column. The papers have been brought by
the West India Mail Packet The Forth, which arrived
at Southampton on Sunday night, having left St.
Thomas on the 7th ult. and Bermuda on the 16th. She
has brought 31 passengers, 400,000 dollars, and 227
serons of cochineal.

The gentlemen of the League appear to be just now
in an awful state of perturbation. They are haunted
with the fear of " a plot," hatching by somebody or
other—they forget to say who—against their maiden
reputation; and are elongating their ears, in the direc-
tion of Lancaster, with an earnestness and trepidation
which it is quite painful to contemplate. What Lan-
caster has to do with them and their agitation it is not
so easy to say. The Chartist O'Connor, and others,
it is true, are there, upon their trial ; but what have
virtuous, patriotic, peaceful people, such as the mem-
bers of the League, to do with Feargus and his
satellites ?

" What's Hecuba to them or they to Hecuba?"

The Attorney-General, too, is at Lancaster, and a host
of witnesses of, and actors in, the eventful scenes of
August last are there; but what have innocent people
to fear from these or any such circumstances ? The
Secretary of State for the Home Department has been
also subpoenaed, and actually attended for three days,
as a witness in'the trials in question ; but what has the
League to fear from Sir James Graham, or from the
witness for whose production it seems the right hon.
baronet was held as a kind of lien or pledge ? We are
really at a loss. The affair is far too mysterious for
our ingenuity to solve.

There is one thing, however, which strikes us very
forcibly. The Manchester Guardian of Wednesday
last first raised this novel cry of " Plot—plot," and
on Saturday vouchsafed us the information that up to
that date it had not exploded—a fact which we were
perfectly ready to believe, from the eminently tranquil
state of the atmosphere, and other circumstances of a
similar nature. Mr. Richard Cobden, too, on Wednes-
day last, at a meeting of Cockney philosophers, held
at the Crown-and-Anchor, in the Strand, raised the
same cry of " Plot" and " Conspiracy," and, in fact,
almost predicted that something shocking was about
to transpire, affecting most seriously the character of
the League, against which, however, his hearers were
resolutely to shut their ears. Now the thing which
strikes us forcibly, as we have above remarked, is this.
It is not usual for innocent men to say to their friends
or to the public, " You will shor4 hear something
very dreadful against my character; but don't believe
it !" or, " That scoundrel C or 1) is to be tried this
assizes for burglary, and will very likely implicate me
as the receiver; but don't believe him !" Such is not
the usual course with innocent people—the innocent
are proverbially fearless; and, with all due deference
to the superior acumen of the Manchester Guardian,
we must candidly confess that our impression of the
,purity of the League body is by no means deepened
)y the anxiety displayed to prepare the world for the
)robable impeachment.
" The thief doth fear each bush an officer !"

We briefly referred in our last to the result of the
livision upon Mr. Roebuck's motion, for a committee
o enquire into the origin and policy of the Affghan
var. We were not disappointed in that result. The
nember for Bath, admitting the ability of his address
ipon the subject, and the independence and manliness
)f his general conduct in Parliament, was not the man
rotn whom such a motion might best have originated.
"he ground which he took was far beneath the occa-
What was, in every sense of the word, a
ational crime of the deepest dye, descended, in his

hands, into an act of raw malversation of their office,
on the part of the late Governor-General of India,
Lord Palmerston, and Sir John C. Hobhouse; and by
the loophole thus furnished, an opportunity was given
to Sir Robert Peel and the Conservative party to exer-
cise that excessive generosity towards their opponents,
which, however amiable a feeling in itself, is one the
increasing practice of which is fast making shipwreck
of the dignity of Parliament, and undermining one of
the main bulwarks of British liberty. •

The policy of the Affghan war is denounced by
every Conservative, in Parliament and out of doors,
and by a large majority of the liberal party as well.
That it was not a merely mistaken policy—an error—
the result of ignorance or weakness,—but a wrong de-
liberately committed, in defiance of warning as to its
injustice and probable consequences, is more than
suggested, for it can be, and, in fact, has been proved.
In the pursuit of this injustice an army was sacrificed,
and thousands of British subjects savagely massacred;
the revenues of India, to the extent of twelve or four-
teen millions sterling, wantonly squandered, and the
safety of that important possession itself—a possession
such as no country in modern history has been master
of—placed in jeopardy. What, then, we ask, becomes
of the constitutional responsibility of British ministers
—that responsibility which the Whig press has of late
so sedulously proclaimed—if the authors of such a war,
distinguished equally by its criminal origin and the
disasters by which it has been attended, are to be kept
harmless, unvisited even with the condemnation of
Parliament, by the protecting delicacy and forbearance
of a Conservative ministry ? What is the precedent
thus established, but one of perfect impunity for poli-
tical crime ?

We respect—all men must respect—that amiability
of feeling which hesitates to crush a fallen antagonist;
but we cannot admit that this was a fitting occasion
for its display. The criminal here was not a penitent
supplicant for mercy; but a boastful profligate who,
from the bar at which he was arraigned, threw back
insult and arrogant justification of his conduct upon
his accusers, and upon the very hands which inter-
posed to shield him from merited disgrace and punish-
ment. The bearing of Lord Palmerston, in particular,
was not one to win sympathy or forbearance ; and we
cannot but express regret, and in so doing we express
the feeling of nine-tenths of the community, that Sir
Robert Peel permitted any considerations, so trivial as
those urged by him on "Wednesday, to interfere with
the course of justice and the constitutional practice of
Parliament. Most assuredly the favour which he con-
ferred is one not very likely to be reciprocated, should
an opportunity occur for its exercise

After all, however, Whiggery has little to plume
itself upon in its escape. The condemnation of 85
independent members of the House of Commons, on
an occasion when a ministry, which equally condemns
the crime, interposed to screen the offenders, is a token
not likely to be very gratifying to the conceited ex-
Minister for Foreign Affairs, or to his small band of
admirers. By the bye, shall we hear more of the
threatened impeachment of Lord Ellenborough ? We
suspect not !

We have the sincerest pleasure and delight in being
able to announce to our readers, that an opportunity
is now afforded them of testifying their, approbation,
and the esteem in which they hold the eminent services
rendered to our town and the country at large, by our
highly gifted and talented townsman, the Rev. Hugh
WNeile, to whose exertions and manly courage we
owe, in a material degree, our present enviable social
position.

A few friends of the reverend gentleman lately met,
and passed a resolution to the effect that "it is de-
sirable to adopt some plan to mark the sense of the
public services of the Rev. Hugh M`Neile, and of the
benefit conferred by him not only upon the town of
Liverpool but the country at large, especially as regards
the promotion of religious instruction."

After due consideration, it was unanimously agreed
to enter into a subscription for the purpose of estab-
lishing scholarships connected with the Collegiate Insti-
tution of this town, to be called "The M'Neile Scho-
larships." For further details we must refer our
readers to the advertisement elsewhere.
We know of no means so pure, so disinterested, and
so completely divested of all sinister objects ; and no
compliment more likely to meet with the approbation
of the rev. gentlemen, whose high-minded and chival-
rous notions, arid complete disregard of personal
advantage, are so well known, where a possible benefit
may be conferred on the community at large. This is a
compliment worthy of the town to bestow, and worthy
of the distinguished individual's acceptance on whom
it is bestowed; and while it confers honour upon him,
it at the same time confers a lasting benefit on our
town, and the Collegiate Institution, by offering a sti-
mulus to the exertion of our children to contend for
so fair and honourable a prize.
The subscriptions are limited to £5 for each indivi-
dual, and we have not the smallest doubt the call will
be responded to joyfully : we feel persuaded very many
clergymen's names will grace the list of contributors ;
and we have the high satisfaction of observing, it is
already honoured with the names of our venerated and
highly-esteemed Bishop, and the Worshipful the
Chancellor of the Diocese, as well as the Members
for the Borough, and the noble champion of scriptural
education, Lord Ashley.