The Sun.
London, England, 1822-07-03 00:00:00

[MORNING POST.]

Mr. Hohhouse, last night, not of his own will,
as he informed the House, but " by command of
his Constituents, whom he was bound to obey,"
brought forwad his motion for a repeal of the
House and Window Light Duties. The Hon.
Gentlema❑ had of course no hope that such a
proposition would be adopted at this particular
time, and signified as much at the commence-
ment of his , speech. The subject of his mo-
tion he embodied in a set of Resolutions, the
first of which, as the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer observed, was one of those truisms
which no person ever thought of disput-
ing, namely, that taxation should not exceed
what the safety and well being of the State
required. The second Resolution declared the
Sinking Fund a delusion ; and the third went to
abolish the Window Light and House Duties.
Laying aside for a moment the subject matter of
the two last, we cannot avoid condoling with the
Hon. Member upon the success with which, on
this occasion, he has finally settled down to that
unenviable station in the Senate which fate had
pre-ordained. I t will he little less than a miracle
if he ever recovers, even in the estimation of his
fondest admirers, the speech of last ❑ight. Any
thing so, studiously dull, bombastic, and absurd,
has seldom been inflicted on the House of Com-

mons ; nor from the school-boy quotations with
which it was garnished, together with the daub-
ing of stale imagery, would a stranger hesi-
tate to father it on some raw student at one
of our -Universities. Not the least remark-
able feature in this exercise is the un-
handsome and grossly_ unjust application of a
passage in Hume's character of Cromwell, to one
of the ablest Ministers and most polished Noble-
men which England has ever had to bowit of.—
We know there are strange means by which men
may attract notice when they seek notoriety ;
but we are sure Mr. Hobhouse has never hoped
for popularity by snapping at the heels of great
men, in order that they may turn round and
cuff him. The Honourable Gentleman could
not harbour such an idea, and we must therefore
intreat, that in future evil-disposed persons
may not imagine they see any reason to draw
the inference. The two distinguished characters
who have been alluded to in the lapse of this
and last Session, cannot be seduced from that
course of propriety which they uniformly pursue,
by unworthy and ambiguous language, and this
alone ought to restrain the use of it. The queer
notions on public affairs which Mr. llobhouse
broached last night, show that he has no spare
genius to waste on matters of less importance.—

Ills speech, in short, was a mere hash of all the
fragments of opinions which the Opposition have
been using during the Session on the subject of
distress and taxation.

[THE TIMES.]
When Ministers, as a boon to the commerce
of our merchants with South America, proposed
to open the ports of the United Kingdom to the
vessels of the liberated colonies of Spain, we
questioned, in plain terms, the efficacy of such
an offer, on the ground that Mr. Zea's note re-
quired a recognition of the independent sove-
reignty of these states, as a sine qua non of
that commercial intercourse, the enjoyment
of which the Ministers of Great Britain ap-
peared to think it their own privilege to grant
or to withhold at pleasure. But the case
was exposed to difficulty from a third party,
which has since come forward, and of which the
British Government manifestly never thought.—
If the trade were to carried on with indepen-
dent States, the recognition was a necessary act
on our part, to render the traffic legal ; for if we
decline to acknowledge the South American
Republics, we must embrace the other alter-
native, and, when pushed upon the subject,
admit them to be still so many Spanish colonies,
and subject to Spanish laws. The trade, there-
fore, to which the Ministry made us welcome,
had not only this absurdity attached to it, viz.
that the permission of the South Americans with
whom it was carried on had not been pre-
viously obtained,- but the further ridicule that
the old Spaniards, under their well-known pro-
hibitory system of colonial law, might, if the
trade should be vouchsafed to us by the republics,
capture every British merchantman engar;ed in it,
without so much as incurring any reasonable im-
putation of unlawfulness or national injustice.
This has now been proved. A case has occurred
of a British ship, the Lord Collingwood, bound
from Buenos Ayres to Havannah, with a cargo
consisting of hides, being captured by the Spanish
privateer La Panchuta, taken into Porto Rico,
and there, on the MI of last December, con-
demned as lawful prize.

[NEW TIMES.]

The Morning Chronicle very modestly sup-
poses, that if we had seen the pamphlet " on the
Consumption of Public Wealth by the Clergy,"
we should not have called the proposed plan of
the author " Church robbery." Now we happen
to have the pamphlet lying open before us; and
though we are willing enough to suppose that the
author did not think he was proposing a rob-
bery, we really do not know what else his
proposal ought to be called. All that is pro-
posed is merely to appoint certain Commis-
sioners " to sell all Church property, both

tithes and estates "—to pay off with the proceeds
a portion of the National Debt—to allow pen-
sions to about one-sixth of the Clergy—and to
turn the rest of that body adrift—that's all !
Now, let us suppose the nation to go so far,
which it can only do (be it observed) on the prin-
ciple that the nation wants the property of the
Church, and therefore takes it:—why should not
the nation go a step further, on the same just and
conscientious grounds, and say to the present, or
any future Duke of Bedford," Now, Sir, we come
to you—we have seized certain lands given by
Henry the Eighth for the support of the Church
and the maintenance of certain Religious Esta-
blishments, and we have now to inquire whether
the same Monarch did not bestow certain other
estates upon your Grace, which will be. equally
useful to the State, and which it is equally in
our power to confiscate. As the holders in
the present instance, performed certain duties
for, the revenues which they held, we have
assigned them fixed allowances, that those
duties may still be performed. But as your
Grace is not, as far as, we are aware, in the habit
of making any return of duty or service for the
possessions with which you have been endowed,
there is not of course any occasion for compen-
sation on our parts." Would the Morning Chro-
nicle call this plunder? I f so, perhaps it will point
out the distinction between the two cases. It is
said, France and Spain have confiscated the re-
venues of their Church Establishments, and why
should not we ? They have so. But what have
they gained by it ? The possessions of the
French Church in former times are stated by this
writer at 7,400,0001. per annum. These have
been seized, and by them have hundreds of the
butchers of the French Revolution been enriched.
But what has the Nation gained ? She has
gained an annual charge of upwards of a Million
Sterling, to be paid in the shape of stipends out
of the taxes. That is her profit by this confisca-
tion.

At her Midsummer Rent Day, Mrs. BROCK..
MAN, of Beachborough, returned 10 per Cent. to
her tenants at Staple.
A steam vessel, formed entirely of iron, which
is to carry six guns, is building near Southampton.