SUPERHUNIANMES OF OFFICE.
IT is edifying to remark the grand air with which official gentle- men disclaim the possibility of being moved, in the exercise of their functions, by the feelings and tendencies common to human nature. Listen to a placeman, one might suppose that there was something etherializing in the service of the Crown—something that exalted the Minister above the petty desires and predilections of mortals out of place. If it is intimated in Parliament that a Secretary's cousin has obtained a grant of land in Australia on very favourable terms, because he is cousin to the Secretary—or if it is hinted that a noble Lord, who is appointed to administer even-handed justice to contend- ing parties, may chance to favour one more than the other, because he is his personal friend or relative—what an exhi- bition of offended virtue is got up! How indignantly is the very idea repelled ! It is declared to be degrading, not to him who is the natural object of the suspicion, but to him who not unnaturally entertains it. What, it it said, do you not know that the person whom you suspect of being biassed by family considerations or attachments is a Secretary of the Home De- partment, or has been Governor-General of India; and are you not ashamed of imagining that any one will be dis- satisfied with, or question the justice and propriety of, whatsoever it may please him to do? You can have no conception of the superhuman purity of his motives, the exalted nature of his aspi- rations, who has the honour to serve his King and pocket quar- terly the public cash. This was the tone in which Sir ROBERT PEEL replied to Mr. ROEBUCK the other night, when that gentleman ventured to hint, that as Lord AMHERST was a relation of Mr. HALL, against whom the Canadians had preferred complaints, it was probable that he would be suspected, however unjustly, of taking the part of Mr. HALL, and therefore that his Lordship was not the fittest person in the world to be sent out Commissioner to Canada. Sir RonEer appeared to think it a sufficient answer to remind the House, that Lord AMHERST " had been Governor-General of India." That consideration may satisfy Sir ROBERT PEEL: we hope it will not satisfy his successor; we are certain that the Canadians will be puzzled to understand bow it can be any an- swer to the specific objection to Lord AMHERST.
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