The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-28 00:00:00

LONDON :
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1839.

The Whigs are openly accused of apostacy be.
cause they were the great opponents of popery
under WILLIAM 111. and Queen ANNE, and under
Queen VICTORIA look to her Catholic subjects for
support, and have placed Papists in office. Such
an accusation proves how much the mind of reason.
ing man is controlled by language. Unreflecting
politicians, like ALADDIN when lie struck the
lamp with the wrong hand, get pommelled to death
by the words they invoke.
What was the situation of England at the close
of the seventeenth century and at present
After WILLIAM was placed on the throne, he
had to contend for his independence, supported by
the Whigs, who, though the most enlightened,
were not the majority of the people, against a
Monarch who inherited the prescriptive rights of
many ages, and the attachment of a large body of
the people. England and Holland, at the head of
the Protestants of Europe, had to struggle against
France, then a rigid Catholic country—against
Spain, still more bigoted, though momentarily a
prey to a war for the succession of the Crown,
which the Whigs turned to the account of the Pro-
testant cause—against Austria, in principle Catholic,
though politically hostile to France— and against the
Papacy, which was then still a Power, both civil
and religious, of alarming magnitude. More, pro-
bably, than one-half of Ireland, numerically speak-
ing, was disaffected to both WILLIAM and ANNE,
served their enemies, and sought their overthrow.
Their principal supporters were found in the towns
of England and Scotland, and among the Whig
aristocracy and their dependents. In England a
large and powerful party clung to the
exiled Monarch. The lesser country gen-
tlemen, a great number of the High Church
Clergy, and not a few leading politicians, were
staunch Jacobites, who preferred hereditary right to
religion,
and looked to St. Germains or Rome as the
abode
of their lawful Sovereign. Bo L NGBROK E
and his friends treated with JAMES and his
son, and did all in their power, first to re.
store the former, and then to place the
latter on the throne. There was then a
Papal claimant to the throne possessing an un-
doubted hereditary right, and around him all the
Papists of the empire, and a great number of Pro-
testants, were at all times ready to rally and subvert
the throne which the Whigs had established. The
Revolution was their work, and having achieved it
they did right to maintain it by all the means in
their power. A hatred of the Papacy was then
another phrase for the maintenance of civil liberty ;
and the penal laws, to which they subjected the
Papists, being time followers of JAMES 11. and his
son, and the allies of Catholic France and Spain,
were equally politic and wise.
Now the whole people of the empire are united
round the throne of VICTORIA. There is no
longer a Catholic Pretender in existence, and the
Jacobites, having merged in the Tories, though
still High Churchmen, have become loyal to the
Whig-established throne. Of all other changes
that which has converted the Tories and the Jac°-
into supporters of the House of Hanover is
ost important, and the one, because it has
•.place in themselves, they are the least
o notice. They have reached now the poin
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