The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-25 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION

On January Ist will be published, price Is., handsomely printed
in medium Bvo., the First Number of
-p 0 0 R A C K-•
By CAPTAIN MARRYAT,
Author of " Peter Simple," Sze.
With Illustrations by Clarkson Stanfield, R. A.
To be completed in Twenty Monthly Numbers.
London : Longman, Orme, and Co.

THEATRE ROYAL COVENT GARDEN.
UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OE MADAME

YESTRIS.
THIS EVENING, MONDAY, Nov. 25, 1839,
Will be repeated the New Original Play, in Fire Acts, written
by James Sheridan Knowles, called
LOVE.
Duke of Carinthia, Mr. Cooper ; Sir Rupert of Lorch, Mr.
J. Yining ; Huon, Mr. Anderson ; the Countess of Eppel,'
•
stein, Miss Ellen Tree ; Katherine, Madame Yestris.
After which,

THE BEGGAR'S OPERA.
Captain Macheath, M. W. Harrison ; Peachum, Mr. W.
Farren ; Lockit, Mr. Bartley ; Filch, Mr. Harley ; Mrs.
Peachum, Mrs. C. Jones; Polly ['eachum, Miss Austin; Lucy
Lockit, Madame Vestris.
To-morrow, Love, with The Beggar's Opera.
Dress Boxes, 7s; Second Price, 3s. 643. ; First and Second
Circles, ss. ; Second Price, 2s. 6d. ; Pit, 3s. ; Second Price,
2s. ; Gallery, Is.
Doors to be opened at half-past Six—the performances to
commence at Seven o'Clock. •
Tickets and places for the Boxes to be taken of Mr. Netter,
at the Box-office, from Ten till Four, where Season Tickets
may be had upon application.
Private Boxes to be had solely of Mr. Andrews, bookseller,
167, New Bond-street.

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE.
The production of Ainsworth's " Jack Sheppard," has attracted
eemplete overflows, and ',seen pronounced to be the greatest
achievement ever yet attempted, it will consequently be
acted every Evening.
THIS EVENING, Nov. 25,
Will be acted, Ainsworth's celebrated Drama of
JACK SHEPPARD.
Illustrating all Cruikshanks' inimitable Tableaux Vivant'
Characters by Messrs. Saville, Dale, Heslop, Laws, Smith,
Ross, Neville ; Mrs. Vining, Mrs. Daly, Miss Martin,
Grant Mrs. Laws, &c.
To conclude with an Extraordinary Drama, in Two Acts, entitled
THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTERS; OR, HELL'S BELLES.
Astaroth, Mr. Neville ; Cerberus, Mr. Cullen ; DiavoliV
Miss Martin ! Robert, Mrs. H. Vining; Polycarpe, Mr.
Smith; Tambour, Mr. Ross.

HioIi.VVATER AT LONDON BRIDGE TO. •• OR 110 W.
Morning fiminutes atter 5 ; Evening 21 minutes atter .

•
ltrA, .Saec,

Zin -'•••1-riai.

LONDON :
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1839.

HER MAJESTY'S MARRIAGE.
In our Second Edition on Saturday we pub-
lished the declaration which her MAJESTY made
to the Privy Council concerning her intended mar-
riage with Prince ALBERT of Saxe Cobourg•
Before reading it we had some misgivings that her
d
MAJESTY, a young lady scarcely of age, would
have found it an unpleasant office to announce
au
intention of that nature, personally, to so ma"
gentlemen of almost all ages. After reading it we
can readily believe that her MAJESTY might de-
liver it with a composed and dignified mien. The
declaration is most properly worded, and says every;
thing which it was requisite to say, in the best and
most delicate manner. It is a very business-like
document, and does credit to its author. lier
MAJESTY will, we are persuaded, be the more
endeared to her people by the suitableness of her
choice and the judicious manner in which it was
announced to the public.
We cannot, however, allow her MAJESTY'S
intention to be thus publicly and authoritatively
declared, without reminding our readers that The
Sun informed them in the early part of the year that
her MAJESTY'S marriage with Prince ALBERT
was then determined on. For making that an-
nouncement we were jeered by the great body of
the press ; but, confident in the correctness of our
information, we waited, as we then said, with eljre
equanimity, for time to do justice to our assertion'
It must now be :universally allowed that we did not
make the assertion recklessly and at hazard/ but
from correct information.

We IN ere indeed somewhat in error the
as to
period at which the intended marriage would be
announced to the nation, but we continue to be-
lieve that, when we made the statement shortly'
before the Parliament assembled, a design was en-
tertained of making a communication to it on the
subject during the last Session. What circum-
stances caused the design to be postponed
for a season, we know not ; but We
have good reason to suppose that some unexpected
circumstances did arise to cause it be postponed,
and so make our announcement incorrect as to
time, but as to time only. We do not remind our
readers of having forestalled our Contemporarie!
and having therefore been exposed to the ,ir
sneers, with any view of taking credit to ourselv
but simply to do justice between them and us, e.nd
to express thus publicly our unabated conficir,nce
in the correctness of the authority from whic'n we
derived our information.

The Times of this morning seems to have for-
gotten that an Act was passed in 1829, which put
an end to the ascendancy of Protestantism as a'
State religion. By that Act, though th'e possess°l.
of the Crown, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland) and
the Lord Chancellors of England and Ireland, oles,
i_
be Protestants, Protestantism, asthe onlyreligi°n:
it)haeinSstaatned,tlpleenobalsteiervs,anlcveasofw
removedhieh is
t if; from its
be
e ilf reformerciul
dominant position. The SOVEREIGN for the first
time became the ruler of the people without regard
to their religion, and if, as M:r. GREGG
and
others have observed, there still remain
se-
veral laws on the statute-book, consistent only
with the former persecution. of the cattle-
lies, and inconsistent with their present state'
that is a reason for purging the statute-book._ oe
these old enormities, not for again making the (ip6d
vernment an instrument for oppressing one sect a°
exalting another. By the Act of 1829 the I've
man Catholics, from being a degraded and slavel
class under the law, were elevated to the same Je
with the rest of the people ; but the
Times, under the
direction of the bigots, wishes
.
been denoun
to revive perser:
,1
ution in our manners after it h"
'Je. in the statute-book. It is quite'
furious, therefore this erefore, morning be cause her MA...
JESTY 'was not advised, in declaring her inteeued
mart.; age, to return. to the old char acter of the Se'
vev.eigns of these realms, and declare herself the
Sovereign
of only one sect. Her MAJESTY'S
Ministers are severely censured for not having
taken the opportunity of pledgiug 'herself for the Pre'
testantism of Prince ALBERT, and of reminding
her Catholic subjects that she is the enemy of
their faith. In the present state of the religious
world the hatred of Roman Catholicism, which
caused the protests of our ancestors, has no longe I
a justifiable cause, and it is little less than absur'''., 0
preserve the expression of that hatred in all State
ceremonies, to the insult of eight million,- , of her
MAJESTY'S subjects.
The Times quotes what GEortG• E 111. said
when he declared his intention to war y, and inSiStO •
that the precedent opght to have he
~
--•.en strictly fol—
lowed. Would that Journal he'vella d herMAJEsTI
say,
" I have ever since toy accessi on to the Throne
i turned my thoughts tov:ars the choice of a Prince •
for a consort." indelicacy o f such a statement
is not greater lihan the abstn:dity of wishing her '
IVIAJEsTt continually to decltare that she is the-
Sovereign only of a sect.

There exists, we think, great confusion in, the
pub!,ic mind, at least in the wri ;jugs of public
--e

journalists, between certa', opinions and the mode
of giving effect to th,2io. For example, ( )range
Societies, with secret pass-words and chiefs, all com-
municating with one grand Orange lodge, with
a Grand Master at its head, having soldiers in
its ranks, and control over the military, ars con-
founded with the opinions entertained by the indi-
viduals composing them, and zealous-minded men
called out to put down Orange Societies and
Orangeism. In like manner, persons who are more
zealous than discriminating, now observe that as
Orangeism and Orange Societies were put down,
so the Government ought now to put down
Chartism and the societies of the Chartists. But
the Government never put down Orangeism, and
between the secret society and the opinion—the one
an action the other an embodied thought, there is a
wide difference, which should be remembered by the
public.

For secret societies meeting with pass words, and
a peculiar organization, the law has already pro-
vided. No matter what opinions the members of
such societies profess, they are illegal, and, what is
more to the purpose, in general they are immoral.
Concealment implies a consciousness of wrong,
either doing or hatching ; and so far as such socie-
ties have a general object in view, intending either
to seduce or coerce other men, they are plots and
contrivances to overreach and injure, and are
decidedly immoral. The only case, we believe, in
Which they can be justified is where the persons
meeting in secret are in a state of oppression and
slavery, and all communion and association is pro-
hibited as a means of retaining the oppressed in
slavery. Then secret meetings become moral
from their very necessity, which shows by
one word the great advantage of allowing pub•
he meetings of all classes. Now, against all
secret meetings, whether held by Chai Lists
or Orangemen, which are both illegal and immoral,
the vigour of the law may with great propriety and
strict justice be called forth. But when the lovers
of authority proceed a step further, and quoting
some, to them, obnoxious opinions, about all men
being equal, claiming equal rights, and denouncing
the slavery of the many for the aggrandizement of
the few, as Mr. T. PROTHEROE did at Newport, and
thereupon proceed, like some Tory newspapers, to
denounce the Ministers for not putting down these
opinions, and to call on the authorities to exert
force to put them down, they confound a most in-
nocent and perhaps just opinion with an immoral
act. The latter is the object of punishment—the
former not.

There can, abstractly speaking, be no more cri-
minality in forming an opinion that all men have
equal rights to the gifts of nature, than in forming an
opinion that a few, and they perhaps the weakest
and worst of the society—according to " PIGEON
PALEY" (as Dr. PALEY was called, for his well-
known illustration of Monarchical Government),
have a right to a large share of the produce of the
whole, and that while they riot in abundance the
great majority must starve. No man, and conse-
quently no union of men, is authorized in saving,
My opinion of this or that form of society is alone a
a correct opinion, and I will suppress every different
opinion. Whatever may be the opinions of the
Chartists, therefore, they have a right to entertain
them, but they have no right to organise secret so-
cieties or employ force to make other persons con-
form to their opinions. To put an end to all such
societies is the duty of the Government ; but it is not
justified in making any kind of war on the opinions
of the Chartists. .
To us it seems of great importance to remember
this distinction, because, while all men will support
the Government in putting an end to secret associa-
tions, the reflecting and liberal part of society may
be revolted by an attempt to coerce men's opinions.
The ease of the Welsh Chartists is bad enough,
without o.ne particle of exaggeration or overstepping
the bounds of justice. How far they might have
seen justified had the Tories been in office, it is
impossible to say, but the open manner in which
the Convention was allowed to meet by the
Whigs the freedom, the almost uninter-
rupted freedom, the Chartists enjoyed, till
the fatal attack on them at Birmingham, to
disseminate their opinions, left them without
the shadow of a shade of a justification for
secret, illegal, and immoral meetings, to plot and
hatch the means of making their will and opinions
the law for other men. The Chartists are just as
intGJerant as the M'GHEES and the GREGGS of
Protestantism, with the additional wrong of work-
ing in secret. The great advantage of a Liberal
over a Tory Government, in such a crisis
of a nation's affairs, is at once made evident.
The secret meetings, which are immoral where
liberty to meet is allowed, would have been moral
' under the prohibitions and prosecutions of a zea-
lous Tory Attorney-General, urged on by the strife-
nwlting, persecuting Standards, Times, and Posts
of the Press. The liberty which the Chartists
enjoyed is the very circumstance which makes their
secret meetings, and conspiracies, and their out-
rageous recourse to arms, so extremely heinous in
the sight of all men.

We have inserted elsewhere a letter from an In-
habitant of Christchurch on the subject of the late
decision of Sir HERBERT JENNER in the case of
Mr. APSLEY PELLATT. We noticed that deci-
b;on at the time it was pronounced, and took the
same view of it as our Correspondent does, but the
public attention cannot be too often called to the
gross injustice and grievous oppressions of which
that baneful excrescence on the jurisprudence of
the country, the Sp:.ritual Court, is the fruitful