The Sun.
London, England, 1836-04-30 00:00:00

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LONDON,
SATURDAY EVENING, APRIL 30, 1836.

A Public Meeting was held yesterday, at Exeter
Hall, of the friends and supporters of the Society for
promoting the better observance of the Sabbath. Sir
ANDREW AGNEw was present, as a matter of course ;
and so, too, as a matter of course, was Sir OSWA LD
MOSEL EY, who observed, that he cared less for ridi-
cule than any Saint within the Bills of Mortality.
POPE'S Codrus, we remember, was equally thick-
skinned :

" Let peals of laughter. Codrus, round thee break,
Thou unconcerned can'st hear the mighty crack,
Pit, box, and gallery, in convulsions hurled.
Thou stand'st unshook amid a laughing world."

The Bishop of LONDON, who was in the chair, ob-
served, that " upon Sundays neither he, nor any other
of the Prelates, ever used their carriages, except they
were engaged on works of charity ;" by which, of
course, his Lordship means, that the Episcopa!
Bench never take a drive out on the Sabbath, except
when they are going to preach a, charity sermon.
Doubtless, this is true ; but what necessity is there,
we should be glad to know, for a sturdy Bishop to
drive to Church in his carriage ? Can he not trudge
a-foot, lowlily and reverently, like any other un-
mitred Minister ? Is it absolutely indispensable to
his apostolic dignity, that he should roll along
the streets in all the pride and pomp of asistocratic
splendour—he who is bound to inculcate doctrines of
humility, to praise the beauty of meekness, and expa-
tiate on the advantages of poverty, as they influence
the human heart ? We can see no earthly necessity
for such parade. When the Divine Author of our
religion entered Jerusalem, for the purpose of praying
in the Temple, it was not in a lordly vehicle, but
an the back of the lowliest of animals. He did not ap-
pi-oach the Temple in Pharisaic state, but in the
meek and humble manner of the Publican. What,
then, is to prevent a healthy muscular Bishop, like him
of LoistpON or EXETER, for instance, from setting a

similar example of humility ? Are the devotional re-
flections of the Prelate's coachman not liable to be in-
terrupted by the chive to Church in the Prelate's '
carriage ? We apprehend they must be sadly
disturbed by such an " untoward " duty ; and
that the case is one which demands the immediate in-
terpoSition of those bright Baronets, S:r A. AGNEW
and Sir OswALD MOSELEY. But will either of
-these spotless Saints dare to stir an inch in the busi-
ness ? Not they They will tell you that it is all
perfectly right that the Bishop should order out his
carriage and horses on Sundays, for he is a privileged
person ; but for the poor, who can plead no such pri-
vilege—for them to presume to take a drive, though it
be only in a tax-cart, is abhorrent to all ideas of pro-
priety, and sheer blasphemy as respects religion ! It
gives us pleasure to state, that the Exeter Hall Meet-
ing was a perfect failure.

Despatches of au important nature have been re-
ceived from Upper Canada. It appears that the whole
of the Executive Council had tendered their resigna-
tions to the Lieutenant-Governor, and that the same
had been accepted by his Excellency. The I-louse of
Assembly had addressed the Governor on the occasion,
requesting to be informed of the cause of disagreement
between him and his Council ; to which address the
Governor gave a prompt and frank reply, accompanied
with copies of the communications which had passed
between him and the Council. What further proceed-
ings may have taken place cannot be known until the
next arrivals.

The ground of dispute between the parties is the na-
ture and extent of the duties which devolve upon the
Executive Council, the members of which insist on
being consulted on all the affairs which come under the
consideration of the Governor in his official capacity,
without limitation or restriction, while the Governor
maintains that he alone is responsible for the acts done
.by the Council who arc sworn to secrecy, and that it
rests with him to determine on what affairs he shall
resort to them for advice. Without at present enter-
ing into the question, what ought to be the constitu-
tion of the Canadian Government, we shall. merely ob-
serve that nothing can be clearer than that the Council
have taken an erroneous view of the purpose for
which they are appointed by his MAJESTY. The
expression "on the Affairs of the Province," which
occurs in an Act of Parliament, and on which they
solely rely to substantiate their claim, seems to us not
to possess the least weight in the absence of all other
evidence, and in opposition to the uninterrupted
stream of pradice down to the present moment.
The very circumstance that no such claim has
ever been heard of till now, is of itself the
strongest presumptive evidence against its being
well-founded ; for we can hardly suppose that a dis-
covery of such importance, as that the power of the
Council was co-ordinate with- that of the Governor,
would not have been made before this time.
But we are not left to merely negative evidence on
this point. Sir FRANCIS HEAD shows, from the words
of the document in which an Executive Council is
constituted for the Province, that it is left to the dis-
cretion of the Governor when to avail himself of the
assistance of the Council.

The Seventeenth Number of the Portfolio contains
the report of an interview between Count KRASINSKY
and Prince METTERNICH on the Bth of June, 1829
addressed by the Count, as an official communication,
to the Emperor NICHOLAS. METTERNICH is the
only speaker throughout ; and his object is to explain
and defend the policy of Austria, which had then
fallen under the suspicions of the Cabinet of St.
Petersburg. Incidentally we come at the knowledge
of some curious, as well as important, facts, through
the publication of this document, in which, as in a
miror, we catch a glimpse of the reflected policy of the
Austrian Minister. We have before dwelt upon the
fact, that METTERNICII was the only Statesman in
Europe who clearly foresaw, and endeavoured to pre-
' vent, the destruction of the independence of the Porte
during the Russian campaign of 1828. His appeals
to France and England were, however, unheeded.
NESSELRODE found no difficulty in making dupes of
such politicians as CHARLES X. and the Duke of
WELLINGTON. In the meantime Russia triumphed;
but in the hour.of victory she remembered METTER-
NICH. To revenge herself upon Austria for the crime
of possessing a Minister, who had sufficient sagacity to
penetrate tp the very bottom of her designs, was the
first wish that suggested itself. But a pretext was
wanting. Such a measure could not be adopted
without one—and what was still more vexatious, one
that would pass current with France and England,
whom, however, she dreaded not being able to dupe
.
successfully a second time. But NESSELROLE was
instructed to discover something wrong, and to trust to
the chapter of accidents for the rest. Accordingly it
was found out that certain treasonable caricaturists had
published likenesses of the young Duke of REISCH-
STA DT, son of NAPOLEON, in which they had taken
leave to bestow upon him the kingdom of Poland.
This was a decent grievance ; and the Emperor pre-
pared to make the most of it. The next was that
Austria, after having previously reduced her army to a
peace establishment, began to purchase horses, and re-
vived the •Landwehr. This looked like a distrust of
Russia, if nothing worse. The other complaints were
" a part and parcel" of the revival of the Landwehr.
The military magazines were observed to be busier
than usual—artillery and ammunition were passing
into Hungary by the Danube—the Hungarian fort-
resses were repairing—and general officers were crowd-
ing in suspicious haste and numbers to Vienna. Count
KRASINSKY received instructions to press this cata-
logue of grievances upon the attention of METTER-
NICH, and to demand explanations upon every point,
without himself pretending to have received the Em-
PEROR'S commands. The Austrian Minister saw the
whole drift of Russia at a glance. He knew that he
had only to renounce all connection with the move-
ment party in Western Europe, to satisfy a Cabinet
ever ready to sacrifice its private feelings to the ad-
vancement of the system of which it then aimed at
being, and now is, the representative. It was, there-
fore, merely for form's sake, that METTERNICH sought
copies of caricatures which he well knew never existed.
The other charges he passed over in silence ; content-
ing himself with an exposition of his own opinions
with respect to the means by which Austria had com-
bated, and Would continue to oppose, the progress of
liberalism in Europe. That exposition is the subject
of the document now before us—ample evidence of its
importance. The difference between the French and
Austrian systems are thus pointed out by METTER-
N ICH :

" You have served in France; you ought to know it. Na-
poleon was right in saying that France does not wish, and
never will wish for liberty ; but she wishes for equality, and
that is the point which should always be the basis of all theo-
ries. It is that which undermines them, for a Sovereign who
shall be in direct contact with the People, will never have any
one on whom he can rely.
" The masses have their fluctuations like the sea, which is
always moved from the side whence the wind comes, and the
interest of the Throne cannot always give the impulse, which
ought to be conservative and systematic. Equality is nothing
but an antipathy to every social elevation, it induces the Peo-
ple only to recognise its masters in its flatterers, leaving an
open field to every intriguer and to all the ambitious. So-that,
instead of everything coming, as it ought, from the Throne,
everything will come from those who, at present or later, will
be able to carry the People into courses already known, or yet
to be experienced.
"The Emperor of Austria, in his actual position, knows
only one enemy, who is equally the enemy of every throne ;
ho knows only two combatants, the force of destruction and