The Sun. — 1835-04-21 (London, England)

THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.  Sia,—You are perfectly right in your remark of Saturday, that " Toryism is in its nature unalterable. Its very foundation is arbitrary power." This is a truth which Englishmen ought never to lose sight of, and they who neglect to thunder it in their ears are guilty of a gross abandonment of duty. The -" pressure from without" may compel the disciples of Machiavelli to varnish their deeds and lower their insolent tone, but the animus directing the whole remains untouched, and will pierce through the flimsy texture of unprevailing caution. A thick wall, of prejudices encircles Tory movements, impregnable against the attacks of reason or experience ; in vain does prophetic history unfold her pages steeped in human gore, Toryism still pursues the same path which was traced by barbarian hands. The encouragement given to the arts and sciences, together with the immense expansion of useful knowledge, have necessarily polished the frame of society, and superinduced habits and customs of a more rational and ameliorating kind ; but the evil genius of tyranny yet hovers over the land, and does not the less fatally wield its sceptre, because assuming a milder and more inviting form. We shuddet at the practices of remote, ages, when the inventor of a new instrument for excruciating his fellow-creatures was handsomely rewarded for his ingenuity ; when the whisper of Liberty was hushed by the poisoned cup ; when the vindicator of his own and the world's rights was silently removed, and never again heard of. But some plea can be offered in extenuation even of these dark proceedings. The deep ignorance in which the mind was immersed fostered the, perhaps, naturally harsh feelings of the man, and the absence of ail laws left him.the dangerous power of being able to execute them. The despotic lords, moreover, were surrounded by cringing emissaries, at hand, ready and eager to take hints for wromands ; gloomy expectants, " By the hand of nature mark'd, - Quoted and signed to do a deed of shame." . .  Besides, the unchecked violence and open profligacy were sufficient to ignite the patriot's zeal, to spur him on in his noble exertions, and, daring the horrors of the dungeon and the rack, to glory in the palm of martyrdom. In those days you were not encumbered with lukewarm friends, or lured to your fate by treacherous enemies ; there was no halting-place between a determined adherent .and a relentless adversary. Such was Toryism seated in the Inquisitorial chair, with all its engines of cruelty. The system is the same to-day, though it cannot be enforced alike. The Protean demon no longer appears in the abhorred garb of the murderer, but like a shadow it flits before our eyes, and thrusts its pale corrupting hand amid our institutions. Toryism is the embodied spirit of 'that love of evil which clings to our natures, and until some Hercules shall arise, it will never be eradicated. It is a tree Cosmopolite ; and wherever power and riches exist, there it dwells, encompassed by numerous votaries, between whom is a Masonic sign, which confounds all nations without distinction. The more our faculties develop themselves, the more dim will this shadow be to our view'; but we must not flatter ourselves to put it to flight at once. This visionary fabric, so far from being " baseless," is founded in the mind ; the root of the evil is there, and can -only.be struck at by the axe of time. A sudden revolution may hurl the defenders of a principle into oblivion and contempt, but the lapse of time alone can destroy principle itself. The influence of Toryism is gone with the power that kept it in action, but, like the vulture of Mount Caucasus, it is still gnawing upon the vitals of Liberty, which, though continually devoured, are never diminished. It would be a fatal error to imagine the fall of the Tories implies that of their principles : we have accomplished, as it were, a mere manual task, and now is beginning that mental labour which will require the aid of the good. Let public indignation settle men, but principles must be dealt with by the slower hand of reason. We cannot yet annihilate Toryism, but, by a steady course of liberal measures, we may render it impotent to do harm ; our care must be to enlighten the understanding, and firmly but mildly to clear away the rubbish of superstition which defaces politics ; it is thus that the mind will at length be cast in a finer mould, and, fortified by more elevated notions, indignantly spurn the grovelling views of arbitrary Toryism.