The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-11 00:00:00

be, as an illustrious General said of the battle of Wa-
terloo, " as great a pounding match as ever was seen."
The letter of the Presbyterian champion containing the
challenge is very characteristic. The following is a
passage from it
I propose, accordingly, the following plan for your
consideration :
" I. Your proposed Repeal meeting in Belfast, instead
of a meeting for uarangues, 'all on the one side,' shall be
a discussion between yourself and your humble servant.
2. The meeting shall be managed by a Committee
composed equally of your friends and mine.
" 3. Tickets (free) shall be issued under their common
authority—one half to your friend's, one half to mine.
" 4. Subject—The advantages or disadvantages of a re-
peal of the Union to Ireland—in its bearing on agricul-
ture, manufactures, general trade, safety of the present
settlement of all property, and the protection of civil and
religious liberty.
" 5. Each speaker to confine himself, as• far as pos.
sible, to two hours' speeches ; but no absolute limit beyond
the feeling of the speaker; but if the opener of the dis-
cussion occupies three hours he shall forfeit his right cf
reply.

" 6. The meeting to be governed by two chairmen, one
chosen h% each discussi,nist.
" And now, Mr. O'Connell, let me speak a word very
plainly to you. You cannot avoid this discussion. lam
the man you have often reviled behind his back—eau you
do less than meet him
.face to face ? You cannot pro-
nounce me too ignoble for argument, when you did tot
judge me too obscure for your abuse, Turn the
matter as you will, you can fild no excuse or eva,ion.
Let your friends hint that it may endanjer the peace.
Tae. tire to hove thought of that was when they invited
you to mule an experiment upon our northern patience.
Sat, in point of fact, Mr. O'Connell, the discussion wdl
be the surest mode to preserve the peace, which your
preFence can never once endengrr."
We ..re very anxkuis to see what answer the doughty
Daniel will make to this challenge. Our present
opinion is. that he will avoid the conflict, either by net
going to Belirst at all, or by going when the Rev. Dr.
Cooke is not there. Mr. O'Coundl, with all
boldness (of a certain kind), does not like encountering'
such antagonists as the sturdy, stout-lunged Dr. Cook.

(From the Times.)
When the Irish agitators were trying to carry the C..-
atone Question, their principles and pretensions, but h
civil and ecelesiastieel, were the most reasonable and the
moat temperate. It was not political power that they
wanted, but only a relief from political degradation. It
was not the destruction of the Protestant Establishment
that they sought, but merely the rescue of their own
commur.ieants from iat So spoke the
evil genius while it lay pent in narrow durance. Now
that its liberation has been effected, it dilates itself to
its o‘vn monstrous dimensions, and threatens the very
existence of its dehverers. There is an end to for-
bearance and to disguise. Wherever Popery is power-
ful, whether in Ireland, which as yet has no separated
Legislature, or in Newfoundland, which does possess
that curse, war is openly declared against the institu-
tions, the liberties, and the viry lives of the Peotcatant
people. The more cuaning, indeed, of the agitators—
the persons in immediate connection with the Ministers—
find it. necessary, for the appearances of the Govern-
ment, to abstain from a full avowal of their purposes.
Mr. O'Connell, for instance, who is a lawyer, and, in a
certain low sense, a men of the world, -knows better
than to blurt out all his ultimate deslj,ns. He talks
only of means—not of ends. His ostensible motive for
desiring the repeal of the Union is to procure for Ire-
land a constitution which shall entitle every male adult
to rn equal vote in the election of representatives. But
to what account those equal votes are to be turned, he,
for the present, judiciously abstains from announcing.
His ecclesiastical colleagues, not being so much used to
public business, are less discreet. Dr: M'Hale, the ;Le-
man Catholic Archbishop of 'Tam, who nominated Mr.
Blake at the Mayo election, tells the world in plain terms
what objects the Repeal is really wanted to accomplish
—namely, to get rid of the present system of education
—to get rid of the Protestant Church—and to get rid
of the police. On the education question we say not a
word ; for there, this titular Archbishop is opposed by
another Prelate of his own church, Dr. Murray ; and,
between these two conflicting infallibles, we leave the
truly faithful to choose for themselves. But Dr.
M'Hale cannot tolerate a Protestant Establishment in
Ireland, and boldly demands a repeal of the Union to
put down so abominable a nuisance. Says this sophis-
tical priest, " a nation clinging to its eminent faith and
hierarchy, should not be burdened with a new estabdsh-
ment." Now, he knows right well that the new esta-
blishment, as lie designates the Protestant Church, is
not maintained by the " nation." He knows that it is
maintained by the specific lands and hereditaments
given by private owners to the national Church, which
Church, originally Romish, became afterwards Protes-
tant ; and there is the grievance. He dares not reclaim
these revenues directly for the Roman Catholic Church
—that might be startling ; and, therefore, for the pur-
pose of rendering the Protestant Church obnoxious, he
tells the people that these revenues are a burden
upon them. These revenues are not even a burden
upon the landlords, through whose hands they are
paid ; for those landlords took their lands, whether
by deed, by will, or by descent, subject to these
revenues ; and suck a charge is no more a part of
any landlord's property than is the interest of a mort-
gage which his ancestor may have left upon the estate.
You may argue that the devise, having been given ori-
ginally for the unreformed Church, was not applicable by
the State to that same Church in its reformed condition
—you may say that the property belonged still to the ad-
herents of Rome, or you may say that it reverted to
the heirs of the donors, but to say that it is the pro-
perty of the nation, and that the rectipt of it by the
Protestant Church forms a burden which the nation
bears, is at once so foolish and so wicked, that we
scarcely know whether to ascribe the doctrine of this
repealing Prelate to a want of understanding or to a
want of principle. We arc led unwillingly to suspect
the latter, for the reason which we now proceed to
state. And this brings us to the third great object
of the Right Rev. Separatist—the reduction of the
police. " Tho freeholders," he says, " have a right to
demand of their representatives their efficient aid
in reducing this unnecessary staff." There are more
sorts of wrongdoers than one, to whom a police
force is objectionable. In the towns of England the
glazed hat and the blue coat, numbered on the collar,
which are so disagreeable to the pickpocket, give equal
umbrage to the receiver who keeps that pickpocket in
his employ. Among the mountain farms of Ireland,
that same constabulary force which is unpopular with
the principal actors in scenes of assault and arson, is
also odious to the priest who prompts and pardons their
deeds of political vengeance, and consequently to the
prelate by whom that priest is ordained and patronized.
We are persuaded that we are drawing no uncharitable
conclusion when we refer Dr. M'Hale's misrepresen-
tation about Church revenues to the same frame of mind
which renders him so uneasy about the continuance of the;
police. The results, then, anticipated from Repeal by
its own advocates arc—first, the destruction of the Pro-
testant Church ; and, secondly, the destruction of the
police force ; that is, in two words, Popery and anarchy.
Nov, what Ireland is on a larger scale, Newfound-
land is on a smaller—a community of enfranchised
Papists under a Protestant monarchy ; but the
priesthood of Newfoundland having achieved that for
which the priesthood of Ireland have hitherto mu-
tinied in vain—a separate Legislature—are already
exhibiting, in actual practice, the enormities which
Dr. M'Hale and his brethren are obliged to content
themselves with merely plotting. The Conception-
Bay election, of which the news arrived last week,
was a contest between the Protestants and the priests.
On the 9th of December a special messenger ar-
rived at the seat of Government, bringing tidings
that the returning officer had been obliged to close
the poll without making any return. The mob who
opposed the election of the Protestant candidate had
proceeded to the last extremities. The Magistrates
had attempted in :vain to suppress the riot. One
of them, Mr. Ridley, was knocked down by a tre-
mendous blow, inflicted with a heavy instrument on
the back of his head : his skull was fractured. The
mob destroyed in° houses, of which they pulled down
one, and set fire to the other. At half-past two,
when the Protestant candidate was a-bead on the
poll, and the Popish tallies exhausted, a boat heaved
in sight with a fresh reinforcement of Protestants. The
rage of the priests' party then rose to madness. Hun-
dreds of pickets were torn from the nearest fence, and,
without a moment's warning, broken in shivers upon the
heads of the Magistrates and other gentlemen who had
accompanied the Protestant candidate to Carbonear
" Scores of our peaceful inhabitants," says the comes
pondent of the Newfoundland Public Ledger, " are
mangled in the most horrible manner." Subsequent
advises state, that the priests' party had threatened to
go in a body to Harbour Grace and fire the town, but
that the inhabitants had armed themselves for resistance.
The leader of these outrages appears to have been a
certain -priest, named Cummings, who, on a Sunday in
August, 1838, after some of his brethren had in the
chapel solemnly imprecated a curse from the Al-
mighty, even to the death, on the head of Chief
Justice Boulton, in the hearing of his lady, called out
to the populace who had surrounded her carriage in
the Chapel-yard, to get a horsewhip and drive her
away. The same Christian spirit continued to actuate
him at the late election. " A sly fox," said he, describ-
ing to the rabble an intended victim, "has done his
utmost to put down our influence ; but we will hunt
him to his own burrow, and after, find him die like a
snake in the grass." The people were not to kill him ;
oh l no ; they were only to '‘‘ find him die." But what
was the Governor about, while the priests were inciting,
and the mobs murdering and burning ? The complaints
of his reluctance to afford the necessary protection are
' many and grievous, and he must be called on to answer
them. Perhaps it was thought necessary, in order to
complete the parallel with the Irish case, that New-
foundland should have a Governor afraid to repress
insurrection when priests were the insurgents. Let the
Parliament and the people of this country take timely
warning by these movements. They may seem small
matters in a North American colony ; hut erect in
the sister kingdom, as Dr. Mt Hale wou.d hare you, u
separate, that is, a Popish Legislature—destroy then,
as he desires, your Church and your police—and there