The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-26 00:00:00

not is well undertake to control and regulate
the seasons, to provide for the diffusion of sun-
3hine and rain, to decree that soils shall be fer-
tile or barren, as to regulate and control the
application of capital and labour which depend
on those circumstances? The conclusion to
which the Herald, unconscious of its absurdity,
comes, let us say, in all sincerity, if not in all
courtesy, is as mad as the conclusion of the un-
happy philosopher in Rasselas, who imagined
that the government of the atmosphere was
placed in his hands.
What emigration agents would have to do, and
what sort of actions the Government would make
itself responsible for, what miuutim it must at-
tend to—otherwise the acts of oppression corn-
•nitted in its name would be multitudinous—may
be inferred from the following extracts from a
correspondence which appears in the Demerara
papers. The Agent-General for Immigration
writes to the Secretary of the Government, and,
speaking of a vessel which had just brought over
a cargo of seduced free blacks from Sierra

Leone, says—
I then read his Excellency's memorandum to the im-
ported negroes, naming the various estates on which it
was proposed they should be advised to go ; they ap-
peared very much gratified, and thanked the Governor
for his kindness ; but it was evident that the head men
or delegates who have returned with them had already
made a different disposition in favour of the estates on
which they had themselves been located.
I regret that I have not been more successful in giving
effect to his Excellency's intentions, as contemplated by
the memorandum, in the allotment and location of these
people ; but more than urge his Excellency's advice to
them I could not do, and they have pleased themselves.
Writing to the Agent-General, an immigra-
tion agent of Guiana at Sierra Leone, says—
Accompanying the emigrants in the ship Superior are
the six delegates who returned from Demerara, in that
ship. Whilst they have been here I have given them the
means of subsistence at the rate of ls. per day ; this
sum was by no means adequate to their wishes.
One of the men is called Thomas Cole. I have had
every reason to be to much dissatisfied with his conduct ;
he has appeared several times before me in a state of in-
toxication, and has been the source of much annoyance
and complaint even from the authorities here ; owing to
his misconduct I have not advanced him anything, but I
have been well aware that he has had the means of sub-
sistence.
Were I to suggest a plan to the authorities at British
Guiana, it would be to send back either Tom Freeman or
the head Krooman. I send Charles Walker and the
head man of the liberated Africans, Charles B. Christian;
it would inspire the people here with confidence, and I
believe them to be intelligent, sober, and active.
The emigrants I have embarked, I believe, will be
found, for the greatest part, strong healthy labourers. It
is true that the other ships are freighted, or about to be
freighted, for the other West India colonies.
From such minute communications, now it ap-
pears, that the Government, in taking on itself
the control of a general system of immigration
into the Colonies, would make itself responsible
for the conduct of a great number of agents,
liable to great temptations, for the sort of
labourers embarked, and for their conduct;
and for the due distribution of the men amongst
the different estates when they arrived. 'We can
conceive that the claims of rival planters would
be as perpetual a source of trouble as if the Go-
vernment were to undertake to settle the quar-
rels of lovers. The description of first seducing
the Africans by Kroomen, then providing for
their passage, and finally, endeavouring to ap-
propriate them to different estates, by reading a
memorandum of the Governor, entitles us to as-
sert that there is, in fact, a revival of the slave
trade, but conducted decorously, by the Govern-
ment. The proposed scheme of the Herald
would therefore convert the Government into a
great slave trader.
If such considerations have no weight with
our statesmen, eager to rush in where angels
would shrink back, let them look at what the
~Herald states as to the effects of their interfe-
rence on the consumption of the people and re-
venue of the Government. The taxes on sugar,
raising the price, lessen the consumption. By
whatever mode the agents for carrying into effect
the control of Government over immigration be
paid, the cost of maintaining them must raise
the price of articles and limit consumption. It
is not only the tax on sugar which lessens the
consumption of it here, but the tax on bread, for
people will buy bread before suzar. The more,
therefore, that Government extends the sphere
of its operation, the more it must extract from
the resources of the people, and the more it must
limit consumption and production, and in the
end limit its own revenue. It is clear, therefore,
that this extensive system of doing everything
for the people must come to a still-stand. It
cuts its own throat, though it be by a slow pro-
cess. It increases expense on the one hand, and
diminishes means on the other. At present the
national revenue is not sufficient for the expendi-
ture ; and, under such circumstances, to increase
the former by any further restraints on the free
employment of labour and capital, instead of al-
lowing the latter to be increased by the expan-
sion of the people and their resources, is almost
as absurd as an attempt to control the seasons.

The University of Oxford is quite in a ferment
on the subject of the late conversions of clergy-
men of the Established Church to the religion of
Rome. Many of the students, it appears, are
shortly expected to declare themselves Catholics;
while not a few of the Professors are suspected
of having secretly reconciled themselves to the
Papal See. To every well-regulated mind, nur-
tured in the principles of the Reformation, such
a state of things in an English University must
be a source of sincere sorrow. Pitying, as we
do, these dupes of their own credulity, it is not
our intention to join issue with our Contempora-
ries in abusing them, or calling in question the
purity of their motives. The agony of mind
which the sincere convert to any creed, if he be
a good man, must feel before he can bring him-
self to renounce the religion of his fathers, of
his childhood, and of his country—before he
can, by implication, denounce as unhallowed by
true faith the temples in which he worshipped—
before he can bring himself to gladden the hearts
of his enemies, and fill with sorrow the breasts
of his friends by renouncing his religious fellow-
ship with them; is at least deserving of Christian
forbearance, if not of pity. Nor is such a man
,likely to be moved by revilings for having taken
such a step. The conflict through which he must
have passed must have rendered him indifferent
to what the world thinks or says upon the subject.
But while we are for avoiding everything like
a persecution of the converts to Romanism, it be-
comes a serious question how we are to close the
floodgates which admit the pestilent stream into
our Universities. Unless proper means be taken
to arrest in time the progress of the evil it actu-
ally threatens to overflow this country. Some
of the divines at Oxford are assuming all the
functions of Roman Catholic priests, without
going through any form of conversion, so that
there
is a positive danger of the Established
Church being
aoverthrownout
thewimthaotattetr.thTe
hus,
people
knowing any thing
for
example, auricular confession has been intro-
duced into the •
mversity, and there are persons
in Oxford who can testify
to such confessions being
made to, and absolutions
for sins given by,
clergymen of the Church
of England! This
may sound monstrously -
improbable,
but we
have, among others, the testimony of the Rev,
BADEN POWELL, Savilian
Professor of Geo-
metry in the University of Oxford, that it is
quite true, nevertheless. This distinguished
divine, in a sermon preached on Sunday, the
7th inst., before the Mayor and Corporation of
Oxford, gives the following account of the re-
cent doings of the Professors of Puseyism
" This system, now so extensively spreading in this
land, finds its main strength in the partial support of
numbers who think it, at least, harmless,t and still go
along with its advocates to a certain e_x en!. Itam. per-
suaded, on the contrary, that objectionthe. _rlsites atts very
foundation. I contend against it.trom first
to render itst principles.
But, if practical proofs are wanting
rlit
nature clear, I will advert to one singlecircumstance
which, I think, alone must aftbrd sufficient evidence.
Of all the artifices of the Romish system, the most
powerfully efficacious for maintaining the iron despotism
with which she ruled the consciences of men, the prolific
source of the most monstrous of her abuses, the true
found
' working of the mystery of iniquity,' has ever been
in the maintenance of what is termed auricular confes-
sion,' coupled essentially with the power of the priest to
give absolution. -
" Now (I speak not from loose reports, but from the