The Sun. — 1841-05-27 (London, England)

TIMES. —A mong the falsehoods and misrepresentations with which the Government prints attempt to disguise the wickedness of the coup d'etat which Ministers are endeavouring to perpetrate, none is more barefaced than the assertion that they are actin.. in a manner warranted by constitutional precedents. The period of history to which they have the boldness to appeal is the year 1783 • and the person in whose steps the disciples of Fox and Erskine now pretend to be treading is William Pitt. We might pause, if we were so disposed, to admire the singularity of this very novel situation • we might quote from the speeches of the great oracle of the Whig party. delivered during the progress of that remarkable struggle to which reference is made, expressions far transcending in severity any censure to which we have given utterance against Lord Melbourne's conduct. Mr. Fox denounced the course then pursued by Mr. Pitt as subversive of liberty, as rash, desperate, and dangerous; and even went so far as openly to threaten him with impeachment. If, therefore, the present Ministers were really following tho example of their illustrious Tory predecessor, they would be doing what their party have never hesitated to condemn in others, and what upon their own principles it would be impossible to defend. But we waive all ad hominem arguments ;we are as little disposed under existing circumstances, to press the point of inconsistency or mere political dishonour against Lord John Russell and his colleagues, as we should be to urge a charge of petty larceny against a convicted murderer. We are contented to give them the full benefit of Mr. Pitt's precedents, as much as if they had never protested against them ; we are perfectly prepared to acquit them of doing violence to the Constitution now, if they can prove that the events of 1783 furnish any parallel to their conduct. In 1783, upon the defeat of Mr. Fox's India Bill in the House of Lords, the King dismissed the Coalition Ministry of Mr. Fox and Lord North, and called Mr. Pitt to his councils. The House of Commons then sitting, which supported the coalition by a decisive majority, had been elected in 1780, while Lord North was Minister, and from the first declared against Mr. Pitt, without giving him a trial, or having had any experience of his policy. Here, then, is at the out-. set a broad distinction between the two cases. The present House of Commons was called together by Lord Melbourne's own Government, and after supporting him for the space of four years, has at length been moved by the accumulated misdeeds of his Administration to pronounce it unworthy of any further confidence. Mr. Pitt came into office under circumstances which made a dissolution of the Parliament, known to be unfriendly to him, an absolute sine qua nor; and accordingly he dissolved it, calculating upon a decisive majority in his favour in the new House of Commons, and Ls.ving no object in view except to carry on the King's Coverm.'ent conformably to the principles of the Constitution. r The event ): mms:lroved the accuracy of his calculation ; and the people by an i nse majority of their representatives ratified the choice of the erne.:n. Lord Melbourne, like Mr. Pitt, is placed in a position in whk hit is necessary for him either to .s; d resign or to dissolve ; but if he dissolves, it will not be for the purpose of enabling him to carry o:2 the Government of the country, or with the slightest expmaii,32 of such a result, but , with a design of unparalleled audacity Queen's hat of zickedness— embarrassing his successors, and converting tth: prerogative into an instrument of opposition to her Lk.:ernment. There is not a man in England who does not know this: a general election will diminish, instead of increasing, the nisiber of the suppdrters of the present Ministers in Parliament.