The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-06 00:00:00

Mr. HENRY WOOD, Churchwarden, in the Chair.

The following Petition to the House of Commons was unani-
mously edopted by the Meeting, and ordered to be submitted
to the Parishioners for the Signature of all who approve
thereof:— •
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of

Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled

We, the undersigned, the Minister, Churchwardens, Vestry,
and inhabitants of the Parish of st. Thomas, in the City of
Bristol, have observed with the utmost -solicitude and alarm,
the unconstitutional proceedings which have, of late, been so
openly and systitnatically pursued in Ireland, for the purpose
of subverting one of the main pillars of the Constitution—the
Protestant Ascendancy—and re-establishing in its place the
Supremacy of the Church of Rome.
The happy delivery of these kingdoms from the galling and
debasing yoke of Papal usurpation we have ever regardd as
the prime source of our lib:vies and national prosperity ; it
is impossible, therefore, that we should look with indifference
upon the attempts which are making to rob us of this inesti-
mable bleSsing and to restore again the reign of ignorance and
superstition.
Friends to' religious toleration in its utmost latitude, so long
as the views of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects appear to
be confined within that limit they had our most cordial con-
currence, but when political power became their avowed ob-
ject, when, Hot content with every indulgence in the exercise of
their religious worship, they sought admission into the highest
offices of the State, we felt it our duty, in common with the
rest of his Majesty's Protestant subjects, to raise our voice
against their demands', convinced that the concession of politi-
cal rank and influence to the members of the church funda-
mentally opposed to the Reformed Protestant Religion, aild
under the government of a foreign power, would be-dangeratis
to the State, and incompatible with the secure enjoyment of our
dearest and most scared rights.
Defeated in this attempt by the good sense and awakened
feelings of the country, th.a tormenters of disaffection in the Sister
Kingdom have had recourse to measures of a more daring and
less equivocal character. An organized confederacy, under
the name of The Catholic Rent Association, has been formed,
for the evident purpose of enforcing their demands, and dic-
tz.ting to the Government of the country. Emancipation is
now no longer held forth as the ostensible object of their pursuit,
but Political reform, another name for revolution is substituted
in its room. -

That an Association so constituted and composed, acting in
avowed hostility to one of the fundamental Establishments of
the Cmistitution, assuming to itself the functions of Govern-
ment, holding regular Meetings for debate, collecting taxes
under the title of Contributions, and exercising, through the
Priesthood, an unlimited controul over the minds of a mis-
guided populace, can be suffered to exist, consistently with the
public safety, is a proposition, we conceive, too monstrous to
be entertained. That it must lead to the most deplorable re-
sults, unless promptly suppressed, it appears to us impossible
to doubt; and we rejoice to observe that it has already attracted
the notice of his Majesty's Government.
Under these conscientious impressions, we presume to draw
the attention of your Honourable House to a subject of such
vital importance to the best interests of the empire, in the anxious
hope that it may be taken into early consideration. For the
preservation of the public tranquillity, for the maintenance of
the Constitution as established in Church and State, for the
protection of .our Protestant fellow subjects in Ireland, and in
mercy to the deluded Roman Catholics themselves, we most
earnestly implore. that prompt and effectual measures may be
taken to suppress their unconstitutional proceedings, and to
bring them back to a sense of their Duty as British subjects.