The Sun.
London, England, 1822-08-08 00:00:00

[BRITISH PRESS.

The termination of the Session of Parliamen
naturqlly leads to a retrospect of its labours
They have been of a lower excitement than those
of several other Sessions within- the last twenty-
five years, but of no less importance than th e
most busy and anxious. They are not so much
remarkable for their direct efficacy, as for their
pregnancy with the matter of deeper and more
important events. They clearly mark the crisis
of the military fever and spirit of foreign do-
mination which have made the councils and
exploits of • this kingdom at once the hatred
and admiration of the nations of Europe. At the
commencement of the sittings there did linger
somewhat of the old hectoring style in the
orations of the Noble Marquis, the Foreign Se-
cretary. His opprobrium of the, Spanish and Por-
tuguese revolutions were thought at the time to
indicate a mad continuance in the projects of
the Holy Alliance. The Earl of Liverpool said
something of the new Constitutions scarcely
more civil. But it would not do any longer.—
Perhaps we owe it to agricultural distress. So
it was, that the country gentlemen were able to
perceive for the first time the malevolent ab-
surdity of a Government opposipg the most rea-
sonable and moderate improvements in the worst
governed States. Even Lord St4nley took fire
at last—and, forgetful of his effective sup,
port of the six Acts, did so belabour the
pragmatic legitimacy of the polite Marquis
with the doctrines of the Bill of Rights, that St.
Stephen's was filled with wonder, and it is said
Mr. Wilberforce and the Saints looked to be
witnesses of a second visitation with the gift of
tongues. Meantime the secret scales of the
Cabinet seemed to have been completely equi-
poised with regard to the revolutions. The
Spanish Minister was refused admittance at
Court, most likely by way of preparation
for his prompt and disgraceful dismissal, in case
of successful counter-working, then evidently
much hoped for. The progress of the Session
seemed by degrees to have done away the most dis-
tant prospect of interference. This is the only in-
stance, since that of the Property Tax, in which
the voice of Parliament has been effectually op-
posed to the avowed or implied wishes of the Mi-
nister, with the entire concurrence of the people.
Was this to be attributed to the independence
and integrity of Parliament ? The result ought
to satisfy us; but doubts will linger that it was
more owing to the sensitiveness of the great land-
lords,' who just then began`to discover that, what-
ever the management of the war, the expence
first or last must mainly devolve on the lands.

IRELAND.—EXECUTION OF NINE M EX.-0 11
Thursday last were executed in front of the new County Gaol,
Limerick, James Cleary, James Browne, Thomas Neill,
Thomas Gorman, and John APDonough, or the murder of
'the Shanagolden postboy, on the 21st of. March. Of these
five, two were only 21 years of age, and the other three did
not exceed 21i. And on this day (Saturday), William Walsh,
Lawrence Walsh, Edmond Dooley, and. William Martin, re-
ceived a similar ignominious death at the same place, for the
murder of young Mr. Hoskins. They all appeared resigned to
their fate, and acknowledged the justness of their sentence.—
From the moment of their conviction they hail attended' to the
admonition of their pdstor with becoming seriousness.and con-
trition.—(Limerick Paper, August 3.)
._';'UICJDE.-Yesterday afternoon an Inquisition
was held at the Jolly Gardeners in Rochester-row, Tothill-
•fields, before J. H. CELL, Esq., on the body of Miss Maitha'
Sims, a maiden lady, aged 85, who hung herself on the pre-
ceding day at her lodgings in Brunswick-low, 'Westminster.
—lt appeared from the evidence of Mrs.. Bevin, a woman
who resided in the same house with the deceased, that she was
informed of the occurrence by a man in whose room she lodged,
that some misfortune had happened, as he had fallen over her
legs, he being a blind man; and on entering the apartnient she
° found the deceased hanging from 'the bed-post, who appeared
quite dead. • She had been noticed for some days to be in a ycry
feeble state, and apparently childish. The poor old man had
only left her while he went to procure some sausages for dinner,
and it was during his temporary absence that she committed
the deed.—The Jury, without any hesitation, returned a ver-
dict, That the deceased committed the rash act while labouring
under a state of insanity.

FOR THE SUN.

LETTER XVIII.
Mu. EDITOR—The Constitution has withstood

.he most insidious attack that had ever been

made upon the venerable Fabric ; and the cock-
atrice's egg, which, had it been thoroughly
hatched, would have produced a serpent, has
happily been ci ushed. The Roman Catholic
Peers' Bill was, indeed, a most specious and
deep device—a master-stroke, to take the Citadel
by surprise ; as it was imagined that the admis-
sion of seven Romish Peers into the House of

Lords, on the pleas of justice and their high cha-
racters, might more easily have been effected,
than at once to break' through all the guards
placed around the Constitution by the wisdom
of our ancestors—that once obtained, the rest
must follow of course ; and the whipt-sillabub
speech with which it was introduced,
" Dazzled the eyes and bewilder'd the brains"
Of too great a number ; but it could not impose
upon a man of Mr. Peel's strong understanding
and quick discernment ; and he fully and ably
refuted all the sophistical arguments of the Right
Honourable Mover of. the Bill. The luminous
and argumentative speeches also of the Earl of
Liverpool, the Lord Chancellor, and the Lords
Colchester and Redesdale exposed at once the
iniquity of the stratagem, and the danger with
which it threatened the Constitution in Church
and State as settled at the glorious Revolution.
To the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrews-
bury, and the Lords Stourton, Petre, Arundel,
Dermor, arid Clifford, as individuals, there could
be no objection : the objection to the religion
they profess, which has been " able to work it-
self into the simple, grand, sublime, holy insti-
tution of Christianity ; and so to intervene in its
abominations with the truth, as to 'occupy the
strongest passions of the soul, and to controul
the strongest understandings;" it is againSt Po-
pery the objection lies ; and from Popery arises
the danger to a Protestant State; Popery, that
" forms manacles and mufflers for the human
mind ;" thereby debarring its votaries of the
privilege of rational creatures to judge for them-
selves ; Popery, that holds these two master-
principles as fundamental, " that we must believe
as the Church ordains, and that there is no sal-
vation out of that Church." No Roman Catho-
lic, therefore, can be master of his thoughts, still
less of his actions. He " must believe as the
Church, ordains," however contrary to the light
of reason and to common sense. He must obey
all the mandates of the " infallible Church,"
however contrary to his duty of allegiance, his
principles of honour, or his feelings of huma-
nity.. He must, as I shewed in my Fifteenth
Letter, violate his marriage vows, repudiate
the wife, probably of his affections, and desert
his offspring, if the " Holy Father," or one of
his vassal Priests, shall so ordain ; or the last
Sacrament of the Church will be withheld from
him in his dying moments—a threat that no Ro-
' man Catholic can withstand.

The present Pontiff seems well disposed to
regain his spiritual authority in the Christian
world, if we may judge by the re-establishment,
shortly after his restoration to his dominions, of
that infernal tribunal, " the Holy Inquisition ;"
and of that Society of religiously political Blood-
hounds, the Jesuits, who had been expelled from
every State in Christendom, Popish as well as
Protestant, but who have once more gained-foot-
ing in the British Isles. Suppose, then, that
Mr. Canning's dangerous Bill had passed both
Houses of Parliament, and .received the Royal
Assent (which last, I am convinced, never could
have happened); and that « His Holiness,"
wishing, as doubtless he does, to regain .his spi-
ritual authority in the British dominions, should
command those seven Noble Lords to promote
his views by every means in their power, both in
Parliament and out of it,—will any man say
that they dare to refuse implicit obedience to his
decrees, with the terror of excommunication,
and its consequent refusal of the last Sacrament
held over them ? No 1. Sir, " all the blood
of all the Howards" could not resist such au-
thority, and so enforced ; and, with such auxili-
aries as those at Stonyhurst in Lancashire, and.
in the county of Kildarei in Ireland, it wonl4 be
difficult to say what might not be effected;
In the event of the resuscitation of, Papal
Tyranny in the British. Dominions, some persons
who have advocated the cause of Popery may
have cause to repent them of their infatuation,
when too late. I mean those whose families have
been enriched by what Papists consider to have
been the C 4 spoils of Mother Church," under
a " profane usurpation" for, if the. Pope should
ever have the power, there can be little doubt, at
least, that he would attempt to rescind those im-
pious grants, under which many hold their im-
mense possessions ; so that Woburn Abbey, after
due exorcism, might once more become the re-
treat of holy Monks, in which to mortify their
carnal lusts ; and the Chief of the Noble House
of_ Bentinck might have no dependence but his
Lady's fortune, which certainly could not be
considered as the spoliation of the Church.—Some
of those advocates have certainly shewn that they
possess minds superior to all narrow` prejudices,
by
,their liberal• contributions to " the suffer-
ing Hone," who has been described by Mr.,
Gifford, Editor of the Quarterly Review, as
44 the.. mocker of his God—the rude scorner of
his Saviour—the buffoon parodist of Holy Writ—
the obscene caricaturist of his Prince—the cold-
blooded, heartless, malicious infidel, who labours
day and night, to rob the sick of the consolation
of their religion, and the dying of their hopes of
immortality." But they will do -well to remem-
ber that, should Popery be re-established in its
former splendour and power, there would be a
greater likelihood that they would be plundered
of their present large possessions, than that they
should be further enriched by the revenues of
the Protestant Church, as their ancestors had
been, by those of the Romish, on the abolition of
Monasteries.
• As good, however; sometimes arises from evil,
I trust that this happy consequence will result
from Mr. Canning's late Popery Bill—that the
spirit it has aroused throughout the Empire
will not again be lulled into criminal supine-
ness and fatal security, as had been too