The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-10-09 00:00:00

LETTER L

TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

Sta,—Little ingenuity is required to ascertain the charac-
teristics of party from the influence of their principles on the
minds and conduct of individuals. Certain moral effects as
surely follow the formation of certain principles .in the mind as
a definite effect follows a cause in the natural world. I shall
not enter into the question whether whig characteristics arise
from principles or the principles from the characteristics.'lt
may be theffeelings similar to those of the whigs can only find
entrance into hearts peculiarly constituted; or, on the other
hand, it may be that the feelings we see exemplified in their
conduct arise from the gradual developement in their minds of
the principles which have, from the operation of certain Causes,
found admission there. Into that question, I say, I shall not
enter. It is enough for us now to know that there are peculiar
feelings common to those who call themselves whigs, in politics,
rhich are as infa lible marks of the constitution of their moral
nature as the products of Or soil are of its distinctiveproperties.
I do trot allude to the persons who are ranked as whigs, because
they have happened to rank themselves as such at a moment of
excitement, or in a fit of caprice—l do not allude to those who
merely display whiggish propensities by occasional votes for the
destruction of something valuable, nor to those who allow per-
sonal prejudice to warp their judgments and overcloud their
reason. I confiae my observations to the genus " wing," and
I therefore exclude from consideration all who are merely so by
popular estimation, or from temporary accident, in the same
manner as in describing the genus "serpent" I should care.
fully exclude all remarks on four-footed animals.

The first characteristic to which I call your attention is that
general one of pride.

Why does Lord John Russell lead the House of Commons in
preference to his far more able colleague Sir John Hobbouse?
—Because he is an aristocrat.

Wby did Ponionhy for years lead the whig opposition inrpre-
ferenee to Brougham ?—Because he was an aristocrat.

What gave Lord John Cavendish that offica?-:Pis aristo-
crifiCai connexions.

' What seat Tvlaeauley (the ablest mark of his party) to India?
is poverty. He was a parvenu:

\%That kept Sheridan out of the whig coalition ministry, and
the whig government of 1806 ?—He was not an aristocrat.
What induced the whigs to give,Burke the situation of Pay-
master of the Forces without a seat in the cabinet?—The consi-
deration that he was not an aristocrat.

What made Lord Henry Petty Chancellor of the Exchequer?
—He was an aristocrat by birth and temper.
What gave Erskine the chief judgeship in equity—the chan-
cellorship, in preference to hominy, Leach, &c. ?—He was an
aristocrat.

What is the chief and common characteristic, individually,
of Lords Grey, and Melbourne, and Lansdowne, and Carliste
Durham ?—Their pride of birth. _ _

What made Lord Dunannon Home Secretary and after-
wards Lord Privy Seal ?—He was an aristocrat.
_ _ _

What gave Lord Morpeth the chief Secretaryship of Ire-
land?—His adventitious advantage of birth.
What rendered Whitbread ridiculous ?—His assumption of
aristocratical rank.

What kept Broughamfrom the Premiership—Plunkett from
the English Cabinet—Horner from Holland House—Mack-
intosh from the House of Peers—and Ricardo from the elite of
the Whig coterie ?—lt was their misfortune not to be born
aristocrats.

What was Lord Carlisle's treatment of Byron, when friend-
less and unconnected?—The result of deep-rooted pride.
It is a matter of history, that for years during the reigns of
George the First, George the Second, and George the Third,
the whig party's effort was to obtain the government of the
country for the confederacy of great whig peers: The Norfolks,
Devonshires, Portlands, Spencers, Berifords, Buckingliams,
and Shelbournes, and all the records of those times from Bob
Doddington's Diary and Nicholl's Reminiscences, attest the
fact, that the efforts made by the whig party aimed at that end.
The India bill alone would prove that they sought a monopoly of

power.
Thus it is, as a party, the whits advocate "equality," and
"liberty," and "toleration," and all those things which slip so
glibly from their tongues at contested elections; but still their
motive is pride. They are impatient of controul—they labour
to throw off the necessary restraint and authority of the law.
" But," squeaks some miserable being who has looked only to
names and dates in history, " the whig party is not the tame
as it was before the India bill; their cliaracteristics are surely
altered!" They are altered ;.pride is not now their on/y.party
characteristic; they have others, but pride remains; for they pre-
serve all that is bad, they have abandoned all that is good of
'their former characters. They still call themselves whips—they
still labour under "the -superstition, of a name ;" but every-
remnant of Somers's principles—every constitutional prejudice
has long vanished. Those prejudices once did divide the empire
o( with . pride aunpliett by
rancorous hatred of all they before revered—by indifference to
telighn—by sordid grasping selfishness.
They are abased, fur they are servile—they are degraded,
for they are the slaves of a demagogue.; but their pride has no
more vanished than did Satan's on his fall. Still do they aim
al monopoly—still dO they labour to put down all opposition;
but in the present time they are reckless of the means—they
look only to the end; for if the 'peers are against them, they
must sink to raise them—if the church opposes, it must be de-
stroyed. Their reform bill was an experiment to establish
whig power—they preserved whig boroughs—they destroyed
conservative inflitence. Their corporation bill—their attack
on orange lodges—their assault on the independence of the
bench, in the case of Baron Smith—were all facts of that syStem
of policy which they have been so long ptsrsuing, but happily, as
yet, pursuing in vain. From their India bill and their trick at
Oczakow, to their corp Oration robbery and church spoliation—
from their infamous coalition with Lord North, to their atroc.-
ous conspiracy with O'Connell—in every possible charge and
variety of conduct—they have acted upon one principle and from
One motive—more or less perceptibly—pride. They may have
slightly repressed it for a moment—they may have stooped low
for a special purpose ; but never have they entirely expelled it
from their breasts, even in seasons when, as in the present, it
would be even impossible to render their degradation more
complete or more contemptible.
In my next I shall make a few remarks on another character-
istic of the party—inconsistency.

I am, Sir, yours, &c

I. M. N.