The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-10-04 00:00:00

his cab in the bright sunshine along the Boulevards.
But, despite all this, it is a great consolation to every
liberal and philosopher' to know that, "by the charter,
the press is free !" By the same rule, a man is most at
liberty when he is in a dungeon, and most independent
when he is going to be hanged

We refer to another page for an account, taken from
the Morning Herald, of the great fire at Constantinople.
One-fourth of that sublime city is laid in ashes. The
craven SULTAN dared not face the conflagration or meet
his people, but took refuge in Pera, the location appro-
priated to Christians and Jews. The reign of MAHMOUD
has been the most unfortunate in the history of the Turk-
ish empire. He began his sway as a reformer —he
courted popularity—he affected the airs of a liberal Mus-
sulman—he walked through the Bazaars of Stamboul as
if he had been Lord JOHN' RUSSELL at a fancy fair in
Peckham, buying penny trumpets, twopenny horses with
grey tails, and other toys for his children ; and he conde-
scended to command his faithful people not to recognise
him on those excursions, but o treat him as a private
citizen, or an utter strahger. t
Such is MAHMOUD the last, we suspect, of the Sultans.
He has liberalised himself into a mere vassal. Despised
at home, ridiculed abroad, hated by one party and im-
posed upon by another, the object of distrust and the
subject of spoliation, he has contrived by his errors,
weaknesses and blunders, aided by the blockheads of
Whig diplomacy, to give his vast dominions to Russia.
He is, in fact, a serf of that empire. He has tamely
surrendered himself to the arms and the tender mercies
of his worst enemy. Flattered and menaced—deserted
by old and hugged by pretended friends—he has sacri-
ficed the independence of his country, and given the
finest part of Europe, and the best port in the world, and
all its commanding advantages, to the CZAR. The
Balkan, once deemed impassable, is now proved to be
a commodious and comfortable highway for Russian Cos-
sacks, leading from the realms of fog to everlasting sun-
shine—from the deserts -of the north•to the Paradise on
the banks of the Bosphorus.
English alliance! The word is a word of ridicule and
contempt. English diplomacy ! we feel sick at the bare
mention of it. Are we not excluded from the Black Sea?
liiiire not the castles of the Dardanelles frowned upon
Sir PULTENEY MAICOLM ? " Is that sea not a sort of
marine seraglio, into which no British admiral is allowed
to enter ? Ay, verily, we are shut out. Russia has it
all to herself, and she will take good care that a ship of
war with the broad pendant of England is never seen
1
floating over its green and yellow . waters. Be it so.
We say " content," as a criminal does who knows that
he is to be hanged on Wednesday next.
We are considered intruders in that sea. We have
been kicked out as a dog by a footman from a lady's
drawing-room. The country which we inhabit, the ad-
mirals who once commanded the seas of the globe, the
brave men who have fought in every clime, the heroes
who maintained the rights of an ancient alliance, for the
honour of their national valour, are warned off; are told
to keep their distance, are excluded from a sea which
washes the southern frontiers of Russia, and are, more-
over, told that if they presume to pass the Dardanelles
a thousand guns will be spotted, pointed, and.fired upon
the red-cross flag of St. George.
All this,. of course, we must bear for the present. The
Whigs being ii 4 office, we have no alternative but to sub-
mit to every indignity which they are pleased to impose
upon their sovereign and his loyal subjects. Loyalty, by
the way, is sadly at a discount. WILLIAM the 'FOURTH
is made the patron of every upstart kingly mendicant and
usurper in Europe. He is treated as if he were a parvenu
among the mushroom kings of this-quarter of Christen-
dom. He is constrained to recognize that unfortunate
pensioner, tailed LEOPOLD of the £50,000 a year.' He is
lugged into the disgrace of giving Belgium to France.
He is• constrained to recognize a poor child as Queen of
PORTUGAL, whose claims are like those of the Princess
OLIVE to the honours and fortune of the late Duke of
CUMBERLAND. France and England are joined in the
absurd contest of dissevering Holland from Belgium.
Their narrow and selfish policy gave Poland to Russia.
They. instigated the rebels, cheered them on in their
schemes, and then laughed when they saw them over-
thrown by Cossack lances. In short, the Whigs have
collected the materials for a terrible war—a war of right
as concerns HENRY V, a war of right as concerns the son
of BERNADOTTE, a war of right as concerns poor Donna
MARIA, a war of principle as concerns all the other Eu-
ropean nations.
~
_____

Mr. JAMES BROUGHAM, the LORD CHANCELLOR'S fa-
vourite brother, has been taking immense pains lately to
render himself as illustrious among the heroes of reform
as the immortal and immaculate Sir JOHN KEY.. Mr.
WM. BROUGHAM, by counselling the people to resist the
payment of the taxes, has already established his reputa-
tion. M stands nearly as high as Lord FITZWILLIAM,
or that equally respectable person, Mr. COUSINS, the
Linter, of Lineuhs-inn-Fields,-who the other day hanged
ords GREY and BROUGHAM—in effigy. Mr. JAMES,
however, is doing his best, not perhaps to forestall WIL-
LIAM in the affections of his noble and learned brother,
but to rival him in the game of patriotism. How far he
has succeeded remains to be explained.
We have already, by quotations from the Carlisle Pa-
triot and otherwise, informed our readers, that Mr.
JAMES BROUGHAM is a tithe proctor and a tithe prosecu-
tor—one of those obnoxious persons, whom the Whigs
have hunted and badgered for the last twenty years—one
of those " vermin," to use the elegant phraseology of the
Times newspaper, which live in the farmer's hay ricks,
decimate his turnips, devour his poultry, do havoc among
his lambs, and are even guilty of preying upon the cot-
tager's milk-pail and his sucking pigs. The sincerity, or
rather the odious hypocrisy, of the "base Whigs, has
been pretty well exposed during the last few years ; and:
therefore no surprise need be expressed at the conduct
of Mr. JAMES BROUGHAM. But it is a little strange, ne-
vertheless, that a gentleman who has joined in the popu-
lar clamour against churchmen and tithes, who has been
a party to every slander against the religious institutions
of the country, who has made war, along with Unitarians
and other infidels, upon bishops and parsons, should be
himself a tithe proctor, a dealer in tithes, a person who
rents the tithes. of a parish in order to make a profit by
the keenness of his exactions, and the griping and grasp-
ing nature of his demands. And Mr. JAMES BROUGHAM,
be it known, is no ordinary trafficker in this species of
property. He stands in the repulsive character of a
sharp attorney, who makes the most of his client's rights,
levying more from the occupant of the farm than the cler-
gyman does himself. He must screw more money out
of the farmer than the rector can do, or has hitherto done,
else the leasing of his claims would be of no value to Mr.
JAMES BROUGHAM. He must drive a harder bargain
than the incumbent, otherwise his labour would be
vain, and his lease not worth having. This, in point of
fact, is admitted on all sides. The honourable member
for Kendal is not so perfect a fool as to enact the part of
the " parson's representative" for nothing. He contracts
to pay a stipulated sum to the rector, and he has, as all
accounts agree, contracted to pay him a larger sum than
he has hitherto been in the practice of receiving. The
natural inference from this is, that- the . rector, and his
church, and his order, are all subjected to unmerited cen-
sure and obloquy for no other reason on earth but that
JAMES BROUGIIAM may make money by the speculation.
The only way in which this money can be made is by
applying the screw and the force-pump to the tenant.
The profit consists in extorting the uttermost farthing
that can legally be claimed—in tithing every potatoe and
cabbage that is grown—in claiming an agistment or
grass-land composition—in counting and tithing the
calves and lambs—in seeing how many bullocks rest du-
ring Sunday on their way to the south—how many tra-
velling sheep feed upon turnips—and how many jades of
horses are allowed to vegetate upon coarse grass during
summer, at a charge of perhaps fifteen or thirty shillings
per head. The clergyman who leased his tithes to Mr.
BROUGHAM is not altogether excusable. He is a party
to the ultra exaction. He is responsible fur the petty
tyranny of his tenant,-and through him clergymen gener-
ally and the whole church are exposed to popular con-
demnation. We confess, that where such practices pre-
vail there is good ground for complaint; for the extra
exaction, though perfectly legal, is a grievance. The
tenant does not grudge the rector his dues, but lie natu-
rally and justly thiriks it hard that he should be screwed
and grindstoned by a sharp tithe proctor or attorney.
Mr. JAMES BROUGHAM, the brother of the LORD HIGH
CHANCELLOR, performs this odious and obnoxious part.
He trades upon the revenues of the church ; and after
levying a toll for the "parson," levies another for him-
self. 'The thing is scandalous, as regards the systeM,
but it is doubly so when we consider who and what Mr.
JAMES BROUGHAM iS. It is a mean, shabby, dirty trans-
action altogether.
We regret that we cannot afford room for the last let-
ter of the honourable tithe-proctor on the subject, as it
appeared in the Carlisle Patriot, or the demolishing
which it received in that able journal. It is enough to
say that Mr. JAMES BROUGHAM has been convicted of
something very like direct falsehood. In his letter lie
asserts that he leased these tithes before Lord Lonsdale
was the purchaser of the estate in question. It turns
out, however, that it was not until the land had passed
into the possession of the noble Earl, that Mr. BROUGIIAM
had any thing to do with the tithes. He denies that he
is the originator of the suit in Chancery fir the payment
of agistment, but it is impossible to believe him, for it
happens singularly enough that although there are other
farms in the parish similarly situated, no bill has been
filed with respect to them. Mr. Baoitorram's tithes alone
are the subject of the proceedings before his brother, the
LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR. Mr. BROUGHAM is openly ac-
cused of misrepresentation by the very person whom he
has brought into his, brother's court. The following
letter is as plain as possible :