The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-09-10 00:00:00

ble journeyman of the Whigs, Mr. ThomAs4MAcAuLAY,
" turn your attention to Ireland, or take a leaf out of
old STEPHEN'S book, or-my own, on the West Indies."
This was excellent advice considering who the giver.
and the receiver of it were ; and it has been followed.
with unflinching fidelity, not by Mr. Tnomns MACAULAY
only, but by the whole herd of small litterateurs who
have attached themselves to the fortunes and yelped in
the rear of the Whigs.
It did not require more than a very humble modicum of
brains to string together the commonplaces of the lead.
ing and trading patriots of the day, in order to inveigh
loudly, or as the vulgar have it, eloquently, against the
wrongs of Ireland, the horrors of slavery, the cruelty
of flogging,—in short, of emancipation and reform !
These , two
.words formed the never-failing text of the
Whigs and their hirelings. The' real interests of the
country were totally overlooked in the popular rage for
sweeping changes. - The popular writers, as they called,
and perhaps still call, themselves, never condescended to
study the wants or necessities of the people,--:-never grap-
pled with commercial subjects—never discussed sys-
tems of mercantile policy—never took a comprehen-
sive view of the institutions of the country—never al-
lowed questions of religion, morality, education, or ge-
neral security and obedience, to arrest their attention for a
moment from their factious politics and their revolutionary
designs. If a Whig candidate happened to be beaten
in an election, his defeat was invariably attributed to
bribery and corruption. If a rogue or vagabond were
flogged for drunkenness or insubordination, he was in-
stantly converted into a martyr and made the object of
public sympathy. If an incorrigible poacher were sent
to the House of Correction, there was a loud yell raised
against Tory magistrate's and parson justices; and to
such an extent did this morbid and prurient . sYmpathy,
take hold of all classes, and particularly the readers o
pot-house journals, that a murderer could not be hanged
without drawing tears from drivelling scribes and liberal
old momen of both sexes.

With this people came the age. of cant and twaddle—
imbecility being deemed a virtue---qove of conntt•v.a'•
lusion-7-and a vicious and fictitious philanthropy, based
upon fraud, and the object of which was national ruin,
became the sign and symbol of a modern reformer. Did
these men ever cast a look back upon the works or the
wisdom of their fathers ? Did they ever seek inspiration
at the tomb of genius, or take history or experience far
their guide ? No ; they held in utter scorn the maxims
of the past ; they disdained to walk in the old highways
of the constitution; and the child in .leading-strings
imagined himself wiser than his poor mother who had not
been educated in a Sunday school, and had not sipped
philosophy in a mechanic's institute. How astoundinc,
to bear that most contemptible of all human beings, a
Cockney oracle, expatiating upon reform, condemning
the measures of Tory despots, and, himself bemuddled
with gin, endeavouring to bemuddle his hearers with the
oppressions of Ireland !" The Whig press of London,
never failed to minister to this diseased appetite; and
their contemporaries in the provinces had no higher duty
to perform than to borrow their phraseology and retail
their sentiments. An article on parliamentary reform,
or a libel on the church, or a sweeping condemnation of
tithes, or a tissue of base fabrications respecting the West
Indies, were as easily concocted, or rather manufactured,
as nails in Birmingham when the materials are supplied.
No dunderhead was too:obtuse for an article on these
subjects. The political tinker carried his tools with him ;
and if he wantedfuelhe had only to steal from the Times
or the Morning Chronicle. It was not necessary to.re-
flect, or combine his ideas. Any gawky school-boy, or •
discarded usher, or amateur lecturer of a debating society,
was deemed competent, in every respect, to dogmatise
on reform and emancipation—on freedom and slavery
on civil and religiousliberty—military punishments—im_
pressment of seamen—and the "pampered pride of Tories
and churchmen." Every blockhead presumed to lay
down the law in the most difficult and perplexing cases.
Innumerable were the articles written to prove that Lord
ELDON was responsible for, what were termed, the abuses
of chancery. Every chimney-sweep in literature, ad_
dieted to acts of tyranny, perhaps in a cotton factory, and
unitarianised into atheism at the weekly meetings of
" free-thinking Christians," asplred to the renown of
being the greatest doubter in religion, the finest theorist
in morals, the sternest hater of the church and its mini-
sters, and the most incorruptible patriot in polities. To
lead public opinion was the great object. To pander to
the corrupt taste of the most worthless in society was

deemed a service of inestimable value, inasmuch as it
was a lowering of grovelling ideas to the ideas of those
supposed to occupy a still more inferior station in society.

In all these scenes the Whigs were ranged in the front
seats, and the mob filled the forms behind. The one led,
and the other followed amid the clamour, till in an evil
hour we
,had a Tory ministry professedly acting upon
Whig principles, and advocating those measures which
they had opposed during their whole lives, but which
they at length supported under the pretext that the time
had come whenprinciPle must yield to expediency. From
that hour England has declined in the scale of nations,
from that hour the flood-gates of revolution have been
opened; from that hour calamity after calamity has pressed
upon a once happy and prosperous nation ; and we are now
apparently doomed to drink the bitter cup of our own
folly to the very dregs, suffer for many acts of political
apostacy, combat with anarchy in its most fearful forms,
and pass through all the dismal and heartrending alter-
nations of revolution.
Are we speaking of these things as of a dream of the
past night ? Is this the first time that the horrors of our
situation have rushed upon our minds? No, no; we
have long foreseen them, and have long been pr pared
for them—much better prepared, we suspect, than those
who are the guilty authors, and who, if their present day
be sunshine, their future will be gloom. They may tell
us that they have the power of controlling the political
elements,—that they can ride the storm,—that their
slaves are obedient,—that they can curb the monster
which they have created. Madmen ! They have proved
themselves to be utterly incompetent to govern such a
nation as this in a time of profound peace, with all the
monetary advantages conferred upon them by their pre-
decessors. They have rendered that turbid which
was comparatively placid before. They have roused the