The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-15 00:00:00

Lord BaouGHANt proposed the healths of the ladies
present, which was drunk with true Kentish fire.
The healths of Sir Martin Archer Shee, his High-
ness the Nabob of Oude, and the Trustees of the As-
sociation, having been drunk with all the honours, the
Chairman left the chair, and the hall was soon after-
wards deserted by the rest of the company.
Among the subscriptions were—Thomas Chapman,
Esq , 21/. ; Lord Denman, 10/. ; Charles Dickens,
Esq., 10/. 10s. ; R. B. Cabbell, Esq., 10/. 10s.";. Earl
of Ripon, 101. ; Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 101. 10s. i
Duke of Buckingham, second donation, 10/. ; Marquis
of Lansdowne, second donation, 10/. ; Lord Lyndhurst,
second donation, 101. 10s. ; Broadwood and Mundell,
10/. 103. ; the Lord Mayor, 10/. 10s. ; Henry Colburn,
Esq., 101. 10s. ; L••rd Brougham, 101. 10s.; his High-
ness the Prince of Oude, 10/. 10s. ; John T. Leader,
Esq., 10/. ; with about 50 subscribers of 5/. and under.

MR. GIBSON'S SPEECH at IPSWICH

ON FRIDAY.

Mr. GIBsoN then presented himself to the meeting,
and said that he thanked the Hon. Member for East
Suffolk, as well as Mr. Cobboid, for the kind and tem-
perate speeches which they had made in proposing his
Hon. opponent. He thanked them for the kind and
considerate spirit which animated their speeches, know-
ing how apt all men were to be led away from the
calm investigation of truth, leaning to influence and
party spirit.—(Hear.) He was glad to hear the Hon.
Member for East Suffolk express his regret for coming
forward upon this occasion, he was also glad to hear
from him the expression that he had been compelled to
come forward, because the electors of Ipswich would
feel, after the explanation he should give, that his Friend
had departed from what must be his private feelings
and convictions, owing to the pressure and compulsion
of others. His Hon. Friend depended for his support
upon the votes of those of the agricultural and landed
interest which returned him to Parliament, and
therefore felt driven to oppose an enemy of Corn-laws.
He hoped that his Hon. Friend was prepared to
stand upon his own principles, and his own integrity,
and not upon the principles suggested to him by Mr.
William Holmes, or Sir R. Peel, or the Duke of Wel-
lington ; be trusted those men were not the keepers of
his conscience, although they professed to be the keepers
of the conscience of the State.—( Cheers.) There
were two modes of acting in the /10113 C of Commons
—the one was based upon party morality ; the other and
the superior one, was to follow the light of one's own
bosom, and to give those votes which arc sincerely be-
lieved to be for the good of the country. He bad no
interest in following a party, or being actuated by party
ambition ! he was no captain, and never could be an ad-
miral—(Laughter)—he was no soldier, and never could
be a General ; he was no clergyman, and could never
be a Bishop ; and he was no lawyer, and therefore never
could be a Solicitor-General.—(Loud cheers and
laughter.) He acted upon the simple ground of fol-
lowing his own opinions,and not of taking those opinions
at second hand, from ally Holmes, Sir Robert Peel
or from any other man. They had heard from two of
his Honourable Friends who had addressed them, a great
There were two sorts of con-
deal of °' consistency."
sistency ; first, the consistency of men who had no opi-
nions at all, and therefore have none to change ;
and then there was the consistency of men, who must
change in the progress of inquiry and investigation. In
reference to the latter, it was the greatest absurdity to
place a reasoning man in this situation ; to tell him that
he must at once jump to what was the best course of
action upon all political questions ; that whatever infor-
mation he might afterwards acquire he was not to be
guided by, and whatever light might break in upon him
was not to direct his path. He did hope that the party
which put themselves forward to the notion as the great
representatives of religious feeling, and the only true
expounders of the Scriptures, and the keepers of the
State conscience, the monopolists of the favour of
heaven—that they would show that they were prac-
tically influenced by religious sentiments, and do
not raise the cry of " religion in danger" as an instru-
ment to obtain political power.—(Hear, hear.) God
forbid that he should not respect true piety—no one
admired it more ; but it had been observed by a great
philosopher that it was too often the case that statesmen
and politicians who cry out religion frequently only
mean to trample on men's cis rights under the pre-
tence of saving their souls.—( Hear, hear !) He had
been much misrepresented upon the subject of his opi-
nions respecting religion—he had been much decried,
but, of course, he expected to feel the violence of the
same system which had been unflinchingly made use of
to gain a party triumph in the county. The course
upon the subject of education which he had followed in
Parliament would be found to be strictly in accordance
with an address which he had put forth to the electors
previous to his first election. In that address it would
be found that he had called himself a zealous advocate
of religious liberty and the cause of general education.
—(Hear.) Education, in his opinion, could not be
general if it were particular.--(Cheers.) When they
allowed two Societies to monopolize the public funds
voted from the general taxation for the purpose of pub-
lic instruction—viz., the National School Society and
the Foreign Society—they confined to particular
classes the benefits of education, which ought, if gene-
ral, to be diffused equally amongst all. To mention
the particular classes who could alone be instructed
was a direct admission that they had departed from
the principle of generality. When they said that it
was an essential condition of receiving secular
instruction that the child should be taught particular
doctrines on religious matters, they must of necessity
deprive men of the enjoyment of the certain civil benefit
of secular instruction, on the ground of difference of re-
ligion, and those religious sentiments, the ground of ex-
clusion from participation in civil rights. It was not
allowing that a man's religion should be in accordance
with his conscientious opinions. Was it not saying
that if men did not permit their children to adopt a
particular catechism, or to give their adhesion to the
Thirty-nine Articles, which were drawn up by Act of
Parliament, they should not be entitled to participate
in the civil advantages of the secular instruction which
they were prepared to afford, not out of a particular
fund, but out of the general funds to which the Roman
Catholic and the Protestant, and every Dissenter, were
forced to contribute—indeed, every man who consumed
the common necessarios of life, which are so grievously
and heavily taxed in this country. Upon this ques-
tion of education he denied that there had been any
inconsistency in his conduct, as he was prepared
to show from his printed address.—(Hear.) Was
it because it suited the views of Billy Holmes, or Sir
*Robert Peel, or Mr. Bonham, to think that this reli-
gious question would afford a good opportunity for a
party triumph, that he was to be called upon to vote
black white, and stultify himself for the purpose of plac-
ing those men in power? He states that his opinion
upon the folly of religious instruction being mixed up
with secular knowledge, according to the plan of the
secretary to the National School, was swpported by
great Church and State writers, and testimony of the
highest authority. Does not Dr. Southey say that the
early piety taught on the mother's knee is eradicated by
the system of religious instruction in our public schools ?
Does not the spirit of his remarks tell us plainly that
he thinks the method to which he alludes a mockery,
and calculated to produce habitual irreverence of sacred

things, though it may lodge in the memory a catechism
and a creed ? Gentlemen here talked of inconsistency.
They had heard also a great cry about the absurdity of
general religious instruction as proposed by the Govern-
ment. Had they heard that two years ago a system of
general religious instruction, leaving out particular doc-
trines, was advocated by the Tory party?—(Cheers.)
When the University of London was established it had
been proposed that there should be general religious in-
struction, leaving out particular doctrines, so that they
might include all sects of Christians. The Master and
Fellows of the King's College, London, drew up a me-
morial recommending the Ministry to establish a system
of general religious examination, in which the same
principle is involved which the Bishop od' London now
regards as " the abomination of desolatio a."—(Cheers.)
Hook, of Leeds, says that for a labourer to be able to
write his own name—for a labourer to know a little
arithmetic, and to have a little practicul knowledge,
without learning a particular catechism, its " the abomi-
nation of desolation."—(Cheers, and la aghter.) The
Bishop of London, at a meeting which took place in
Willis's Rooms, had, in addressing the Tory party, told
his followers to call out, " like the children of Nehe-
miah; when the city was besieged, and they' would not
have reason to regret it." He knew- the value of
a reliaious cry for party warfare.
He knew they
certainly would regret if they bad neglected
such an opportunity of sustaining themselvesin
power. He venerated true piety, but when he saw
religion made use of as an instrument of power, when
he saw men talking about zeal for the welfare of the
souls of others, and violating thernselv es the practical
Precepts of Christianity, he thought, in the words of
that great philosopher Locke, that they sought for
some other dominion, and not the dominion of the king-
dom of God.—(Cheers.) He did hopt that his honour.
able opponent had come prepared to state that he had
got in his pocket a copy of the adulte rated Scriptures,
which he talked so much of in his as ldress.—(Cheers
and laughter.) He did trust that his :honourable oppo-
nent would produce it, and satisfy rtbem that such a
thing existed. His honourable app anent could not
surely mean such copies of the Sc riptures as had
been adopted by the consciences at td judgment of
men who have as much right to pri%•ato judgment as
himself. The right of private judgmen t in interpereting
the Scriptures was one of the most sa( :red principles of
the reformation. When they attacke d that principle
they assailed the essence of Protestants m, which they
gloried their fathers had obtained, and it) t the support
of which they had shed their blood. (Cheers.)
He wondered that his honourable opponent could
have presumed by this address abomt the adulte-
rated Scriptures to insult the unders'andings of the
He dared to say that the half of
people of Ipswich.
them at least very well knew the edition of the Scrip-
tures which was thus reviled had been once published at
Oxford—that inexhaustible fountain of orthodoxy.
The principle of the Reformation was this—amd he

would use the words of Locke—that every man was
orthodox to himself ; and those who now assumed ortho-
doxy in themselves and errors in others assumed the
great principle of the Roman Catholic Church—infal-
libility. Lord Stanley had laid it down that the school-
master must be a man of sound doctrine, and, in order
thereto, must be subject to the Ordinary, and supported
his position by reference to the dark ages, and the worst
period of religious tyranny in our history, when men
were burnt and their bowels dragged out for their reli-
gious opinions ; and now he was to be told that he had
abandoned the electors who returned him to Parlia-
ment, because he did not take his stand with the
bigots and the state-conscience men who were about
to overwhelm Sir Robert Peel himself in the com-
mon ruin of civil and religious liberty. With regard
to one point which his Honourable Friend Sir
Charles Vere had referred, and for which he asked
him for an explanation, he must tell him what he had
said upon it. He had been told by a Noble Lord that
he (the Noble Lord) had an objection that the child of
the labourer should be taught to be able to write. He
(Mr. Gibson) replied that he could have no objection
to the child of the poor man being taught to write.
" Then," said the Noble Lord to him," you are a Radi-
cal."—(Cheers and laughter.) He was not bound to
say who the Noble Lord was ; he merely related it as a
circumstance that happened to himself, and his Hon.
Friend had applied the story to a certain individual.
He was sure the Noble Lord to whom he referred
would tell the same if he were there. He should men-
tion no names—he had not. He (Mr. Gibson) might
be wrong, and the Noble Lord might be right. It
might be, indeed, a very dangerous—it might be con-
sidered, and was thought by many, an undesirable thing
for a poor child to be taught to write ; for he might
write things of a very unsatisfactory character.—
(Laughter.) He might, if the Tories would let him have
the penny postage, tell the labourer in the North what they
were doing in East Suffolk, and a man in Manchester
might tell him that it would be well to have working
men's associations, and thus discuss together their poli-
cal grievances. There might be an interchange of
thought betwixt north and south, east and west, that
Noble Lords and the pri‘ileg,ed classes did not much
fancy or like.—(Cheers.) He now ealled upon Mr.
Kelly to vote for the penny-postage, inasmuch as they
in Ipswich had petitioned for it ; and then if Mr. Kelly
would not thus vote, he hoped the electors would call
upon him to resign.—(Cheers.) Perhaps Billy Holmes
would let him off voting with Peel against the penny-
postage, if he thought he would be called upon to re-
sign. He was sure that Billy Holmes and Sir Robert
must feel annoyed at the Whigs passing this most
popular and reasonable measure ; for they might think
that it would be best for them to pass it, and the popu
larity which the Goverment will gain may keep off the
day when they would rush into power, to share a.nongst
themselves the little which the Whigs may leave them.
--(Laughter.) He (Mr. Gibson) should, if in Parlia-
ment, vote against Sir Robert Peel on the question of
penny-postage. . The country, in his opinion, was not
in such difficulties that it could not afford to accede to
so great a boon. They had never heard of the expense,
when it was necessary to send troops to Canada, or
to send an army to Ireland to collect the tithes
—they never heard of expense when there was to be a
squabble on some petty point with foreign nations, and
turn all the half-pays into full-pays—they only heard
of it, when it might afford a boon to the people. But
should they now be told that this most important boon
to the country could not be granted on the score of
expense, when the Post-office ought rather to be at the
cost of the revenue than one of its sources, as was well
said by Dr. Charming ; and how absurd—how novel
—how preposterous—that the Tory party should come
in the new character of economists to prevent it.—
(Cries of " No" from Messrs. Fitzroy, Kelly, and
others.)—that they (the Tories) should at least pursue
such a course of proceeding as would put off the day
when this great boon should be granted ! The Minis-
ters said that they called upon the House of Com.
mons to pledge itself to make up the deficiency
caused by the postage experiment. He said it was
the duty of the House of Commons to pledge itself to
the national creditor. It was nothing then but a pre-
tence to impede such a measure, which induced Sir
Robert Peel and the Tories to pursue the line they
now adopted—it was because they themselves could not
pass the measure that thoy would not permit to the
other party the credit and popularity of having carried
it.—(Cheers and cries of " no, no.") He could tell them
this, that there were not more than one or two of the
Tory members, except himself, who had accompanied
the deputation to the Ministry to urge upon them the
great necessity of bringing forward the penny postage.
He did not know what Mr. Kelly would do, but he him-
self could say that lie would not stop to ask Billy
Holmes's leave to vote for it, nor care what his party
thought ; but he would resolve to do that which he

knew- would be conformable to the wishes and interests

of the electors of Ipswich.—(Cheers.) He did think of
them, and would think of them, were he returned, and

yet now was he to be told that he had abandoned them,

and they were prepared to abandon him. Why
was he not entitled to an explanation ? Why was
not an opportunity given to him to explain his
Parliamentary conduct ? Why had they without
hearinc, him, raised the banner of' hostility ? and
why hade' the Carlton Club sent down a man per-
haps at their own expense, to oppose him.—(Loud
cheers.) There were those who told them that every
man was expected, and this principle is acted on fully
in the new Poor-law, to depend upon his own resources.

This being the case, they could not but see the import-
ance of a labourer corresponding, and by means of the

cheap postage acquiring such information upon which he
might, only when he could beneficially, emigrate to
another part of the kingdom. Were the penny post-
age adopted, the poor man would not have to de-
pend upon the information of overseers and parish-
officers interested in saving the rates of the parish

and getting rid of him some bow or other ; the poor
agricultural labourer would he able to correspond with
his friends or connexions in the manufacturing district,
would be able to acquire an actual knowledge of their
state and situation. A party opposed to such an ex-

periment, upn the ground of a pretended expediency,
could not hold sympathies in accordance with the good
or the interests of the working classes, could
not be a party which had the true moral
and social advancement of the people at heart.
—(Hear, hear.) The men to whose exertions and
energy the country is really indebted for the penny
postage, Mr. Warburton, Mr. Wallace, and others,

had shown themselves on all occasions to be rigid econo-

mists, looking to the public revenue.—(Hear, hear.)
But now they are liberal and generous, they are opposed,
forsooth, by Tory economy. He had now to refer to the
question of the Corn-laws. He did not consider, what.
ever might be said on the subject, that the Corn-laws
ought to be a party question. The leading Tory paper,
that talks more about Popery and infidelity than all
the Press put together—the Times—is an advocate

. -
for a repeal of the Corn-laws. Dr. Chalmers, whom
the Tories are proud to quote when it suits their
purpose, has said that nothing could tend so much
to sweeten the breath of British society, as a re-

peal of the impost on foreign corn. Dr. Chalmers
was made use of as a powerful ally in support
of the Established Church—why do not the clergy
take his advice upon the Corn-laws? He told
them that the real and paramount interest of the
agricultural party was not in supporting the corn-laws.
These laws might prop up the temporary interests of
some landlords, but it was not in a general point of
view, a farmer's question. The landlords make the
farmers say that it is—vote at elections accordingly ;

but they in their minds know that low prices, arc as
remunerating to them as high prices, if they
have made their agreements accordingly. The farmers

are beginnig to smell a rat. Every great writer, all the
leading authorities on political and financial science have
declared that the Corn-laws are injurious and indefen-

sible. Sir Robert Peel had told -them that political
economists differed from each other in the science

of political economy. So they do ; but like a wily

and dexterous debater, he had abstained from tclling
them that they were all agreed as to the Corn-laws.

Sir Robert Peel drew their attention to the differences
between political economists instead of the resemblance
between them, in the same manner as others, instead of
directing attention to the resemblance of various re-

ligious sects in each other, only dwelt upon the differ-
ences between them.—(Cheers.) Entertaining the same
opinions as all these great authorities—and it is no
mean company to be in, quite as good as that of the
Duke of Buckingham—in respect to such a question,
was he to resist the pressure which was put upon
him ? Was he to vote contrary to his convictions and
to his feelings, with regard to the operation of the corn-
laws ? Was he not to speak truth because he happened
to sit on the Tory side ? Was he, as a Conservative, al-
ways to be spell-bound ?—(Loud cheers) But then some
talked to him of consistency upon such a matter. He
had never professed an opinion on the subject previous
to his election. Now, he would undertake to state his
belief that Sir Robert Peel would some day give way to
a repeal of the Corn-laws. He will throw the Duke of
Buckingham over. He had a right to say this, judging
of the previous political conduct of Sir Robert Peel.
Had not Sir Robert Peel grown wary upon many
great questions, in opposing which his laurels and his
fame had been acquired ? Had not Sir Robert Peel
made a great name for himself by opposing the
repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts ; and in op-
posing Catholic emancipation ; and yet was not Sir R
Peel the man who had come down to the House of
Commons, and who, retaining office though he resigned
his seat, proposed the very measures which he had all
his life been opposing ?—(Loud cheers.) Did not most
of the Bishops in the House of Lords do the same
thing ; and the man in whose Tory principles they had
the most confidence—Lord Eldon—declared that they
were traitors, and deserved to be execrated. He did
not mean to say these were the exact words of Lord
Eldon, but he did say that such words were used by the
Tory party at that time, when Lord Winchilsea and
the Duke of Wellington, in consequence of the abuse
heaped on the illustrious general, like two school-boys
went out to pop at each other ;—a sort of trial by com-
bat of the great question of the religious liberties of the