The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-19 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

PUBLIC MEETING.

CASE OF JOHN THOROGOOD.
(From the Scotsman and the Scottish Pilot.)
On Wednesday evening a public meeting was held
in South College-street Church, " to take into consi-
deration the case of Mr. John Thorogood, of Chelms-
ford, a victim of religious intolerance, who has been
immured in a common gaol for nearly twelve months,
in consequence of his refusal to pay an ecclesiastical,
but anti-scriptural impost, called Church-rates ; and
also to consider the mischievous and degrading effects
of all compulsory exactions in support of religion."
I From 1,500 to 12,000 persons were present. Adam
Black, Esq., bookseller, was called the chair. He
was supported by Councillors Falkner, Ritchie, and
Renton ; the Rev. Messrs. French, Massie, and Har-
per ; Duncan M'Laren, John Wigham, William Tait,
John Johnstone, R. W. Jameson, Thomas Russell, and
1 James Drummond, Esqrs.
i The CHAIRMAN, after stating the purpose of the
meeting, and reading a letter of apology from Dr. John
Brown and Mr. Macallum, W.S., said, that consi-
dering the object for which they had met, they might
well ask were they living in the nineteenth or in the
thirteenth century ? Were they living under a Pro-
testant Government or under Popish domination. The
land rings (he continued) with alarms of the spread of
Popery. From the pulpit it is announced that the mys-
tery of iniquity has polluted the Court, the Ministry,
and the Parliament. And the " drum ecclesiastic" has
been most energetically beaten to warn us against the
Popery involved in the general education of the people
—against the Popery lurking in the Registry Bill—and
that the absolute destruction of Protestantism would
follow the reform of the Orange Corporations of Ireland.
In short, lynx•eyed orthodoxy has discovered that the
only object of every Liberal measure that has been
proposed has been the advancement of Popery.—
(Laughter and cheers.) I also must acknowledge that
I apprehend the prevalence of Popery in our land.
What are the most distinguishing and dreaded fea-
tures of Antichrist ? Ecclesiastical usurpation, eccle-
siastical oppression, ecclesiastical cruelty.--(Cheers.)
I care not in what denomination these hideous fea-
tures appear, they are the true marks of the beast.
Christianity repudiates them, humanity abhors them,
whether they are manifested in the tortures of the Inqui-
sition, the massacre of Rathcormac, or the incarceration
of John Thorogood at Chelmsford, or in our own Calton
gaol ; whether the Church of Rome, the Church of Eng-
land, the Church of Ireland, the Church of Scotland, or
any Church of Dissenters, are the perpetrators of such
enormities.—(Great applause.) Surely these are not
the genuine fruits of that Gospel which was ushered into
the world in the morning light with angelic songs of
peace on earth and goodwill to the children of men, but
fruits of another Gospel, which indeed is not another,
which must have been announced to the world with
midnight thunderings and lightnings, and the appalling
words of, war on earth and hatred to the children of men.
—(Loud cheers.) Is it possible that any man can
read the New Testament and pretend that it authorises
the most distant approach to anything like violence or
coercion in order to propagate or maintain the religion of
the meek and lowly Jesus ? Is there a tittle within the
four corners of that blessed book which would justify
the immuring of any man in a dungeon because he
refuses to contribute money for the support of a
system which he believes to be unscriptural ?—(Hear,
hear.) It may be asked why should we interfere
in this case, why not leave it to those who are more im-
mediately aggrieved by the imposition of Church-rates ?
My answer is, that this is not a question of pounds,
shillings, and pence. It is a question of the rights of
conscience ; and the violation of these, especially if
claimed as a privilege by either individuals or corpora-
tions, is an outrage on the religious liberty of the com-
munity, and the community should arouse thenfsclves to
abate the nuisance.—(Cheers.) True, the friends of
civil and religious liberty on the south of the Tweed
ought to have laboured at an earlier period, and ought
more generally to have manifested their sympathy with
their suffering countryman—(Hear, hear)—and they
should not have passed quietly by on the other side like
the priest and the Levite, when their unfortunate bro-
ther had fallen among thieves.—( Laughter and loud
cheers.) We may well ask are these deeds of oppres-
sion end cruelty perpetrated in the land of Milton and
Hampden, and Pym and Sr Harry Vane, and the
glorious company who laid broad and deep the foun-
dations of liberty in England, and cemented them with
their blood—who braved the powers of an unlimited
crown, broke the fetters ofan established superstition, and,
for the first time, manifested to a wondering world the
genuine principles of Civil and Religious Liberty which
exalted Great Britain in the midst of the nations, and
which, when fully understood and generally adopted,
will diffuse peace and happiness through all the nations
of the world ?—(Cheers.) He concluded by calling
upon Mr. Aytoun to address the meeting.
Mr. AYTOUN then came forward to move the first
resolution, He commenced by reading a letter from
John Thorogood to a friend in r Leicester, in which he
detailed, in the simplest and most unpretending manner,
the treatment be had undergone, and the motive by
which he was actuated in refusing to contribute to the
support of a system which, in his conscience, he believed
calculated to injure the moral and ,religious welfare of
his countrymen. Mr. Aytoun then asked, is anything
more required than a knowledge of the ;details of the
sufferings of poor Thorogood, as related by himself,
in order to call forth the sympathy of every friend to
Civil and Religious Liberty—to excite in the mind the
utmost indignation at the cruelties he has undergone ?
Here we have a man of the most unblemished re-
putation, whose only object is to support his family
by honest industry, and to fulfil the duties of that
humble station in which he is placed, torn from his wife,
his friends, and his home, and immured, without the
hope of release, in a lonesome cell, his health debilitated,
his worldly prospects ruined, and his peace and happi-
ness destroyed ; and to all this has he been subjected
because his conscience forbade him to contribute to a
rate which he believes to be anti-Scriptural, and which
he considers that in paying he would be acting in strict
disobedience to the divine commandments. Now, Gen-
tlemen, let me ask you, if such are to be the legal doings
in Great Britain, can we be said to inhabit a land of
liberty? What becomes of our frequent boast, that
England is the freest and most civilized nation of
Europe, if the best and most conscientious of our fellow-
citizens are liable to be dragged from their homes, to be
deprived of their personal liberty, and to be immolated,
persecuted, and ruined victims to the Moloch of the
State Church.—(Loud cheers.) Let it be fully under-
stood that John Thorogood has contravened no law.
The law says you must pay the rate or go to prison; it
proffers no alternative. His religious faith forbade him
to pay the rate. Thorogood has, therefore, gone to
prison, submitting gently and peacefully, like a good
citizen, to that penalty which the Ecclesiastical law of
this country, in its tender mercies, has decreed as the
punishment due to those who prefer obeying the distates
of their conscience to those of their worldly interests.
And recollect, my friends, that what is Thorogood's case
to-day, may be yours to-morrow. Recollect that you
are—every one of you—liable to be torn from your
homes, and transported to the Calton-hill Gaol, should
you refuse to pay the annuity tax—the Church-rate of
Edinburgh—an impost fixed and extended over the citi-
zens by an act of direct fraud—by a surreptitious clause
smuggled into an Act of Parliament. Let us keep this
ever in mind, and recollect that in exerting ourselves for
John Thorogood, we are in fact acting for ourselves.
The Englist hierarchy is the wealthiest in Europe. It
possesses, in fee simple, in full possession, immense
tracts of the richest ground in England and Ireland.
It has, besides, a tithe of the gross produce, nearly
equal to a third of the rental of the land possessed by
laymen. But this, it seems, is not enough to satisfy its
ravenous maw ; so what is called a Church-rate is
yearly levied over and above, to which the Nonconfor-
mist, as well as the Churchman, is obliged to contribute.
This Church-rate is not applied to the maintenance of
the Clergy ; it is appropriated to other purposes—
to the keeping in repair the fabric of those Churches
which the Dissenter never enters, and to the defraying
the expenses of that particular service which so many
of the Dissenters look upon with disgust. For instance,
the money levied from Thorogood and other Noncon-
formists is applied, in a great measure, to the repairing
the organs and tuning the fiddles and other musical in-
struments made use of in the Church of England ser-
vice,
.and to the buying, patching, and washing the
surplices and other tawdry vestments in which are
decorated their bishops, archdeacons, prebends, deans,
rectors, vicars, curates, deacons, and singing-boys—
(Laughter)--all of which' mummeries our reforming and
covenanting ancestors taught us to regard as the mere
shreds and patches of the garment of the old Lady of
Babylon—she who sitteth upon the seven hills. And
because John Thorogood demurs to subscribe to the
support of such things, which he might regard as par-
taking of idolatry and superstition, he is cast into
prison by those calling themselves the ministers of
religion, and that. too, in the name of religion—in the
name of the meek and lowly Jesus, who has declared
his kingdom not to be of this earth, and whose mis-
sion was that of peace and good-will to all mankind.
Such, however, was the natural consequence of a
Church Establishment. Ignorance may abound--.with
that the Church takes no concern ; crime may be
ex-
tending itself over the length and breadth 01 the land
—the Church turns a deaf ear to every measure pro-
posed for the abatement of the evil ; but let tithes be
menaced in Ireland, Church-rates in England, or the
' annuity-tax in Scotland, then is raised the Ecclesiastical
war cry of the " Church in danger," for the loaves and
fishes are in jeopardy, and, like a swarm of angry wasps,
when the plunder of their nest is invaded, the parsons of
the three sister Estabiishments of England, Scotland
) and Ireland, rush forth, buzzing, stinging, and perse-
-1 cuting.—(Cheers.) The clergy of Establishments are,
the same everywhere, whether Catholic, Episcopalian.
1 or Presbyterian. Their ruling impulse is the spirit of
1 ascendancy, domination, and persecution. They view
Dissent with much greater detestation than infidelity or
atheism. I am fully persuaded, if they dared, they
would relight the fires of Smithfield, they would again
resort to the gibbet, to the faggot, and the torture ;
but, being debarred from such amusements by the spirit

of the age in which we live, they are obliged to content
themselves with the gaols ! And, if they had the power
they would cause to be imprisoned for the term of
their natural lives such men as John Thorogood, who,
by their firmness, their adhesion to principle, and self-
immolation, hold forth a worthy example to others,
and raise up a spirit of resistance and indignation in the
minds of the people, which, if properly acted upon and
turned to account, must bring to a speedy termination a
system so replete with oppression and injustice. Mr.
Aytoun then went on to urge upon Dissenters the ne-
cessity of increased exertion in order to secure their reli-
gious freedom. That the claims of the Dissenters had
been so long overlooked was not altogether the fault of
the Legislature. Considerable blame was attributable
to the Dissenters and Voluntaries themselves. They
had never yet come forward as a body, on a firm, de-
cided, and commanding attitude, to demand their rights
—they had never yet made use of the power conferred
upon them by the Reform Act, to press upon their re-
presentatives and on Ministers their undoubted right, as
citizens of a free country, to be placed upon a perfect
footing of equality with their fellow-citizens, the mem-
bers of the Established Church. On almost every oc-
casion the great body of the Dissenters had trimmed and
crouched to the " powers that be." They may, from
time to time, have made a splutter about their principles
in public meetings and in newspapers, but their exer-
tions had seldom, if ever, gone further. They must all
have observed, in nearly every contested election which
took place, either in England or Scotland, that the Dis-
senting interest never hesitated to desert the voluntary
candidate—he who was pledged to their own principles
—for the Church candidate, provided the Churchman
had the ministerial influence on his side. How different
is the conduct of the Church party ! They at least bad
one merit, that of standing by their principles through
thick and thin ; for they made a point of opposing every
candidate who did not pledge himself to the principles
of the Church, to support the ascendancy, domination,
and intolerance inseparable from Establishments. The
consequence of this different line of policy adopted by
the two parties was, that the Church party were not only
favoured by the Tories, but they were soothed, courted,
and flattered by the Whigs ; while the Disssenters,
being regarded by Ministers as their humble servants—
their abject vassals—were despised, degraded, and in-
sulted on every occasion. In short, the Dissenters and
Voluntaries, or the religious equality party, as he pre-
ferred calling them, were regarded in the light of
spaniels, who, the more they were cuffed, the more they
were expected to fawn and cringe. He called upon them,
as they valued the cause of civil and religious freedom, to
eschew all false friends and truckling Journals, and rely
upon public opinion for the guidance of their conduct ;
to give up every species of truckling and all abandon-
ment of principle ; for what had they gained by their
eight years' truckling but contempt, disappointment, and
division ? He concluded by moving the first resolution.
Mr. JAMES DRUMMOND having seconded the reso-
lution,

A person (an operative, whose name we could not
learn) rose and said he had an amendment to move,
which he begged leave to read. It turned out to be a
motion in favour of universal suffrage, which was re-
ceived with mingled hisses and cheers.
_ _

Mr. AyTous-said this was not an amendment to his
resolution. The two were quite incompatible. It should
rather be brought forward as an additional resolution—
if brought forward at all—at the end of the proceedings,
when he (Mr. Aytoun) pledged himself that the speaker
should get a hearing; but in the meantime he had bet-
ter allow the business to proceed.
The CHAIRMAN said he had great doubts whether it
was at all in order to bring forward such a resolution at
the present meeting, which had been called for quite a
different purpose ; but he should leave it to the meeting.
The mover then agreed to withdraw his resolution in
the meantime.

Mr. R. W. JASIESON, W.S., rose to move the second
resolution, and was received with loud cheers. He ob-
served that they were called there to consider a question
with which they were not immediately concerned them-
selves, which touched not directly upon their own local
or patrimonial interests, and the effects of which would
only reach them as, and when they affected the common
interests of British society itself. Any interference,
therefore, on their part, must be justified, in the first
place, by the cause being such as to require such inter-
ference ; and, in the second, by the calmness and deli-
beration which should precede and give dignity and
authority to their decision. The cause, he appre-
hended, was one which a very little reflection must
show deeply concerned the freedom they themselves
enjoyed, or the,freedom they wished and ought to obtain.
A large body of their fellow-citizens—a body which
numbered itself by millions—a body which comprised
a moiety, if not a majority, of the intelligent and
well educated in the most important section of the em-
pire—by the Constitution entitled to live among their
fellow-men in perfect and joyous equality—had conceived
themselves aggrieved in being forcibly compelled to
submit to taxation, to contribute towards the splendour
of a hierarchy which ministered not to them, and the
very splendour of which they thought, in no small de-
gree, detrimental to the simplicity and influence of that
common faith which all alike profess.—(Cheers.) This
forcible taxation had been often complained of—many
schemes had been devised, and very much and very
fruitless eloquence had been expended on the subject,
when all at once it occurred to a poor honest tradesman
of Essex—one who seemed to have studied more of the
acts of the saints of old than the words of modern pro-
fessors, that if to pay the said tax went against his con-
science, there were a few words recorded in a certain
book which teaches everything of and concerning Chris-
tianity, except, perhaps, how to levy a Church-rate or an
annuity-tax—( Hear, hear)—declaring that we are to
obey God rather than man, and who, feeling that
the Christian's conscience was but the voice of God
speaking to his inmost soul, which voice he must obey
at a peril, and under a sanction against which the perils i
of law and the sanctions of society were too contemp-
tible even to be named with the same breath—he, thus
enjoined by his conscience, at once threw away all
suggestions of comfort, convenience, worldly well-being,
even the far dearer ties and claims of family affection
and duty, and submitted to the last and worst rigours
of a law which he could not and would not obey ; and
by so doing, gave a theme, and, he trusted, brought a
blush on the cheeks of thousands who would expatiate
eloquently enough on his suffering merits, but could
not, like him, afford to reach merit through suffering ; for
this had been no constructive or fancied suffering—it
had been no make-believe imprisonment that Thoro-
good had endured ; he had remained there far too long
for a mere bravado ; and the filthy damps of his un-
wholesome gaol had already eaten into his health quite
enough to satisfy his enemies, and assure his detractors
that a cause surpassing ordinary human motives had dic-
tated his endurance. But it might be argued that it
was not right in this free country to set themselves in
active or even passive resistance to any laws which, how-
ever bad, might be abrogated by the proper and constitu-
tional means. He admitted the apparent force of this
objection in both instances—he admittedits almost eternal
truth in all matters of active resistance to the law. Active
and armed resistance was justified only where the most
irresponsible power was wielded with the most remorse-
less cruelty ; and even then it should be well consi-
dered, and most reluctantly resorted to, for the armed
opposer of law brings, for the doubtful result of a fear-
ful struggle immediate misery on thousands, who,
without their consent, ought not to be made the
victims of so terrible an experiment ; but, on the other
hand, he conceived a fallacy lurked under the ob-
jection to mere passive resistance. The passive op-
ponent of a bad law submitted patiently to its ponal-
ties, and at most only injures himself, while he brings
more conspicuously before an apathetic public the
evils which, perhaps, pressing lightly on individuals, are
yet, in the aggregate, a great public enormity. Hamp-
den was often quoted—he was successful in his opposi-
tion. The rate he opposed was not legal, but he could
not foresee this ; but, whether legal or not, his resist-
ance convinced all of its oppression. How this convic-
tion told upon England's liberties you all know well. In
like manner thousands knew that Church-rates were a
nuisance, which they grudged and yet sanctioned by
paying ; but Thorogood went to gaol that every one
might feel they were a nuisance which must now be
abated. His imprisonment had roused sympathy—his
sufferings had made that sympathy active—and should
it please Providence he should sink under this oppres-
sion, how long did they think would the rich arches of
the English Cathedral sustain the accumulated burden
of public wrath which their Ministers will have brought
on themselves ? Mr. Jameson concluded by expressing
a hope that even the Lordly Prelates of the Znglish
Church will, themselves, from the real sufferings of
Thorogood, be convinced that they have done wrong,
and induce them to relieve themselves and the country
from the exaction, and thus earn for themselves a glo-
rious title to the respect and good-will of their Christian
brethren.—(Cheers.) He begged to move the second
resolution.

Mr. D. M'LAaEN said, that when he was asked to
attend the meeting he very cordially agreed to do so on
the ground that no speech was to be expected from
him. He could not, however, refrain from saying that
he deeply sympathised with John Thorogood, whose
conduct he considered as worthy of all praise. After
the eloquent remarks of Mr. Jameson, however, who
had kept strictly to the question, it was unnecessary
for him to say more. Before he sat down he might ob-
serve that he could by no means approve of the descrip-
tion given by Mr. Aytoun of the conduct of Dissenters.
He was aware that it was unusual at meetings of this
kind to enter into discussion ; but he would only take
leave to say that that description did not accord with
thea experience he had had of the feelings and
ctings
of Dissenters.—(Cheers and hisses.) That
the description might apply to particular indi-
viduals, or even to some sections of Dissenters,
might be true
; but he repeated that, as a gene-
ral description of the conduct of Dissenters, it did
nHoet
ba
eggedcc o rd w
cordiallyi t t he
experience
second
hhee r e
shado resolution
thi
oft de of f them.
proposed
by Mr. Jameson.

Mr. ANDREW NICOL, in the absence of Mr. Peddie,
\V.S., proposed the third resolution. After remark-
ing upon the persecutio❑ to which Mr. Thorogood had