The Sun.
London, England, 1837-10-14 00:00:00

great Conservatives" who pledged themselves to give
" the fullest possible effect " to the laws " passed in
spite of them" deserve the name of statesmen ? In
reconciling these contradictions and absurdities, how
the writer must exult in his own ingenuity--he may
exclaim with Franklin, that " it is a most convenient
thing to be a rational being, and be able to find a pre-
text for any thing one may have an inclination to do."
In themselves the Reform and Catholic Emancipation
Acts were comparatively of little value—it was in the
principles they admitted, and the consequences which
in their fair operation might be expected to flow from
them, that their great worth consisted. They were
merely the title deeds of civil and religious liberty ;
but if possession follow not their reluctant conces-
sion, they are nothing better than waste paper. In
terror of an indignant people the Tories executed the
consignment of the deeds, but now refuse to surrender
the occupation of the premises. What signifies the
extension of the franchise if there be no protection for
its unbiassed exercise—if electors be coerced or bribed
to vote contrary to their convictions, and if even the
majority of their representatives be rendered impotent
by oligarchic domination ? What signifies Catholic
emancipation if, in defiance of the Act, the Irish
people are to be excluded from participating in their
own government to the same extent as the people
of Great Britain, solely on account of their re-
ligion ? Every practical reform is denounced as
revolution—every concession to Ireland as a step
towards Popish ascendancy, and in inveterate re-
' sistance to these " Sir Robert Peel and the great
Conservative body" keep their pledge to give " the
fullest possible effect" to those laws which were " ori-
ginally at variance with their judgment." Oh no, the
Tories have no desire to oppose Reform—in the lan-
guage of the Times it is " the Roinan Catholic dis-
turbers of the peace and safety of the realm who force
us to arm ourselves for our own security, and to strip
them of their implements of treachery and mischief.'
How these disturbers are to be stripped of their imple-
ments of treachery and mischief, and at the same time
the fullest possible effect to be given to the principles
of civil and religious liberty, we are at a loss to con-
jecture. To consider the whole assertions as a com-
pound of fraud and duplicity, they are easily under-
stood ; but their meaning, if viewed in any other light,
would certainly throw us, as the Times boasts of doing,
" into no small perplexity."—Morning Advertiser.
The Conservative manifestations to which we this
day devote so large a portion of our paper are of pe-
culiar interest. The dinner of the loyal and consti-
tutional electors of the southern division of Lincoln-
shire was attended by a greater number of persons
(the company, we believe, exceeded a thousand) than
were ever before assembled at any festive board in that
county. The circumstances which called together so
large a proportion of the constituency of this division
of Lincolnshire were calculated to elicit a fervent ex-
pression of Conservative zeal. This meeting, from
certain local circumstances, was regarded throughout
the county as a kind of test by which it was to he de-
termined whether the present Members for the divi-
sion in which it took place should be permitted, at
the next election, to resune their seats in the House
of Commons without opposition. The Conserva-
tives of South Lincolnshire were considerably disap•
pointed at the late election that none of the gentle-
men of the county, of politics congenial with their
own, came forward to accept their ready suffrages.
They were as fully prepared as their fellow-country-
men of the Northern Division of the county, who it
will be recollected returned two Conservative Mem-
bers, to achieve a triumph in the good cause. But,
owing, in pelt to some feelings of mistaken delicacy,
and in part to the respect generally and justly enter-
tained towards the present Members, who, in every
relation of life, with the exception of that which con-
nects them politically with the country, are entitled to
all respect, they were deprived of the opportunity of
manifesting their zealous devotion to the cause of the
Constitution. The electors were sufficiently eager,
but the candidates whom they anxiously solicited held
back. They were put off,' much against their will, to
another opportunity. II ever there was a sponta-
neous ebullition of popular feeling, it was at the
Lincolnshire meeting on Thursday. The idea of this
meeting, emanated from the middle class of so-
ciety. It was encouraged by the middle class of
society exclusively. It was intended from the first,
and has so been understood throughout the county, to
convey an express and unequivocal intimation on the
part of the middle class to the gentry of their own
political opinions—that, although they consented at
the last election to permit the unopposed return of two
Members of whose political opinions and conduct they
do not approve, they will -not be equally passive at the
next opportunity for exertion which may be presented
to them—that, in a word, they will have Conservative
candidates, and will elect them, whencesoever they
may come ; from among their neighbours, if possible,
but Conservative candidates whencesoever. We have
reason to believe that the -case of South Lincolnshire
is not peculiar, and that there are other constituencies
in Great Britain placed in similar circumstances, and
actuated by similar feelings;. The time is evidently not
distant when the county- representation of England
will be exclusively Conservative.—Morning Post.
Among the tricks of am expert London thief are
these—that he will either -turn round upon his accuser
and declare him to be the man, or else will join lustily
in the hue and cry raised against himself ; and in either
case, the crowd who are oftener wrong than right,
will, perhaps, join with the culprit, and, in addition to
his loss, consign his accuse ar to the horse-pond. Some-
thing like this, in more the n one of its features, is the
attempt making by some o f the Whig-Radical organs
to make the world believe - that the Roman Catholics of
Ireland are at this moment a persecuted race, and that
the Protestants are their of/ pressors. Such is evidently
part of the Agitator's game s and, therefore, part of the
dirty work of those who I iwe their political fate and
existence to his fiat, wb o are bound, of course, to
keep up and maintain th is or any other delusion
however gross and palpai ble it may be. That this
is not only a gross delusion , but the very reverse of the
truth, cannot admit of a in, omont's doubt in the mind
of any impartial looker-c ,n. What may have been
heretofore the case we n either wish to deny or to
palliate. We have agahn and again admitted that it is
to past misrule that many of the present evils of Ire-
land may be traced ; but a. century at least has elapsed
since anything like persiee ution of the Catholics has
existed ; and for at least or ie half that period, strenu-
ous efforts have been made to heal the wounds which
past mismanagement may have inflicted. Another
thing, however, is uni br tunately not less obvious,
which is this, that every• :recent effort to tranquiMse
Ireland has been repaid b y s iolence and insubordination,
and that whatever its for Ire er ills may have been, the
Irish people were much in tot T quiescent under them than
they have been since the e Ali ve branch of civil and religi-
ous freedom has been unl me sitatingly held out to them.
But what in the mean time , t Ind up to the present moment,
has been and is the case wi it; h the Protestants of Ireland ?
Have they been allowed to I enjoy tranquillity and peace?
Against them have not t torch and pike of persecu-
tion been raised in consta at warfare ? And, are there
not at this moment whol e districts in Ireland where it
is scarcely safe for a Prof tee stant, known as such, to set
his foot ? Let the judicial!: innals of Ireland be perused
both from the period of th..e Union and that of Catho-
lic Emancipation, and the 'y will be found to present
one uninterrupted series of i aggression towards those
who have been endeavourin g to hold out the hand of
fellowship to those who ore in return taught and com-
pelled to look upon them a s outlaws, and persons with
whom no faith is to be I :cl it. Is not IVIrE O'Connell,
havel o t firstthe
alluded to ?
are not his slaves in the Vtie .istry, and their subordinates
of the press, practising 01 le of the tricks
N V
Iris the Prote st ant who ise
persecuted,

Catholic ; against the fo IT ter perjury, fraud, burning,
and murder are exercised with all the impunity that an
implied sanction of aGo remount, bound to the Chariot

wheels of the wrong doe vs, can give, while the perpe-
trators of this sanitrinar r warfare are the mere tools of
him who profits by their. -4k:xcesses, and who, in return
fur the profits of their a, .tation, bestows upon them
his pity and plenary in ti Agence. Thus persecuted,
wronged, and abused, it :s the Protestants of Ireland
who have a right to look to 3 the legislature for protec-
tion. If history has no t; taught us, what is passing
before our own eyes well lorry, what the Protestants in
England as well as heir cd have to expect, should a
Catholic ascendancy ev obtain the acknowledged