The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-22 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

in the present lam of patronage could be devised which
Dissenters would not oppose. When any new scheme
bas. d en s J.: and just principles, 511..111 be provicd, It
will be disp.ssilnately con,idercd by them, but cer-
tainly none of such a character has yet been brought

ber.re the public.
Finally, upon this subject !—While keenly alive to
the evils of intrusion, patronage, and dependence of
the Church on the civil power, no enlightened Dis-
senter can forget, that in con,idering them in relation
to the Church of Scotland, he has to judge of what is
fitting for an institution that is not a Christian Church
simply, but a part of the National Convention. His
first wish must be to sea the Church dissevered from
the State ; but if their union is to be maintained, he
is next to consider wheth,er it is better that the Church,
beinz endowed, should be also independent, or should
he effectually subordinated to the Civil Power. Of'
these alternatives he is constrained to prefer the latter,
and, in,leed, his conviction of the unavoidable depend-
ence on the State, of a Church established by law, i 4 one
main reason why he is a Dissenter. Reason farces
him to admit that this is the sole condition in which
an established religious society Call be kept in harmony
with the other department; of the State, and in whisk)
the public will can maintain that perfect control over
public affairs which is necessary to the peace and prof-

parity of society.
In thew eircurnstanees, it is certainly astonishing
that the High Church Non-Intrusion party could have
expected Dissenters to take part in their schemes, and
still more astonishing that they should brand them as
inconsistent and unprincipled for refusing their aid. It
would have bee❑ equally reasonable it the East India
Comp Any, in the days of her unbroken monopoly, had,
tired of the supervision of the Board of Control, called
on all the friends of free trade to unite in assisting them

to get rid of Govvrnment interference, an:l, asserting
"the intrinsic power" and " independence" of all commer-
cial cotnpAnies, hail branded, with inconsistency and
selfishnesi, all who should not readily contribute to give
free course and increased energy to the very evils of
which, even under that check, they had so often and so

justly complained. *
Dissenters are very wiling to assist t'ao3o members
of the Eitaldished Church who are seeking deliverance
from patronage, intrusion, and ail civil interference
with their ecclesiastical proceedings, in the only way
consistent with their principles—by joining •.,n in
an applica.ion to Parliament, to demand, as time
certain, safe, and complete remedy for those evils, the
immediate and entire abolition of the connexion be-
tween Church and State ; but to their present plans

they can be no parties. On the contrary, believing
them to be, as measures of ecclesiastical reformation, at
best useless or trifling, and as innovations on political
order, dangerous to the commonwealth, and feeling in
the ag4res,ions formerly mentioned, the first fruits.of the
ascendancy in the State of the party which promotes
them, Dissenters must hold themselves called on to take
me tsures for averting all danger, by turning to the best
account the influence which, in the present delicately
balanced position of parties, they possess. And while
Dissenting ciniches cannot take any part in political
affairs, it being a principle with all enlightened Dissent-
ers, that as the governments of tlts world have nothing
to do with Christian churches, so they ought to have
nothing to ,!.o with the governments of this world, there
can be no doubt that, as a class of citizens whose civil
rights are already, and may be still more injuriously af-
fected, Dissenters tiny, like other classes in similar
circumstances, combine for sell-defence to protect from
invasion such privileges as they have already a legal
right to, as well as to make the most of every oppor-
tunity of securing that, to which, in the words of
Locke, they are unquestionably entitled, " Absolute
liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial
liberty."
Though separate movements on the part of the citi-
zens of a free state are not in themselves desirable, and
under a rightly-constituted and properly-administered
Government—where all classes are treated with equal
justice—altogether unnecessary, yet present circum
stances seem to make it necessary that the Dissenters
of Scotland should adopt some such measure in their
oxit defence, and in justice to the great cause of reli-
gious freedom, of which they have always been the
strenuous and consistent supporters.
While, therefore, Dissenters willingly admit the
value of the aid which they have received from a great
ut.ijority of the Liberal electors who are connected with
the Established Church, and the satisfaction which they
have always felt in co-operating with them for the public
benefit ; and while they would regret that any proceed-
ings on the part of the High Church Whigs, or of a
Government which appears so anxious to obtain the
favour of that small section, should render it neces-
sary for them to detach themselves altogether from
present alliances, and by forming themselves into a
distinct political party, trust entirely to the support of
the people at large ; they will not act up to the exigen-
cies of the present crisis, if they do not, at least, de-
mand of all candidates for their suffrages, an unreserved
assert to certain leading principles which have hitherto
united all the different sections of Liberals into one
great political party ; and give an honest promise
zealously to assist in carrying them into practical effect.
These principles are—" That in a free state, there
ought to be a perfect equality of civil rights, irrespec-
tive of religious opinion or profession ;" and " That
while the Established Church exists, it should, like all
other bodies maintained at the expense of the State, be
under public control, and subject to the law of the
land as interpreted by the civil courts." Nothing can
be more self-evident than the equity and justice of these
requirements ; and those candidates who do not view
them as great practical principles, to be habitually and
steadily acted on, certainly do not deserve the suffrages
of Dissenters, or a voice in the Legislature of a free
country. The opinions of candidates should likewise
be ascertained regarding the practical grievances already
referred to, which have been entailed on Dissenters
during the last three years ; and no candidate should
obtain thi.ir votes who does not condemn these and all
similar violations of the principle of equal rights, irre-
spective of religious opinion, and give a satisfactory
assurance that he will endeavour to get these
and all similar grievances removed, and to pre-
vent the same objectionable principles from being
acted on in other cases. No true Liberal can refuse
'ibis assent to these conditions, and no Dissenter should
svote for any candidate who is not a true Liberal. In
following the course thus pointed out, the conduct of
the Dissenters would not he the counterpart, but the
contrast of that of the High Chuch Non-Intrusion party.
Tiled require of their candidates a pledge to support
measures which, if generally followed, would ultimately
slissolve tic social union, and to act in opposition to
the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty ;
thus asking pledges which no enlightened and honest
Liuersl can give. The D,Sgt'lli.CT2, On the contrary,
ask pledges w 11101 no honest Liberal can refuse.
It is believed that the most aecura'e and desirable
mode of ascertaining the opinions of candidates on the
points referred to, will be by the appointment of Com-
mittees of Dissenters for that special purpose, rather
than to trust to genural state merits which may be made
by candidates at. public meetings of the electors ; an:
(se Board recommend this to be done wherever prac-
ticable.
Shun's( the efFect of following the course of policy
now reeoinmended be to weaken, embarrass, or even
ilie;olve the present Government, this mischievous con-
semsence must be traced, not to the constrained inac-
tion of the Dissenters, (who would willingly ivave such
questions altogether, as testing questions), but to the
reckless zeal of that section of professed Liberals, who
act on Tory principles—the High Church Whigs—
who, by bringing forward candidates in the character of
" Nou-Intrusion" and " Anti-Patronage," aud " Church-
Independence" men, leave to Dissenters, who are op-
p-used to their views on these points, only the alterna-
laves of withholding their support, where, in other cir-
cumstances, it would have been gladly given, or of
seeming, to approte of principles and proceedings which
they con,cientiously condemn. Any part of the blame
which is not fairly chargeable against these High
Church Whigs, must be imputed to the short-sighted
and ungenerous policy of parties enjoying the conti
deuce
of Government, in endeavouring, by exciting. hopes
which cannot he realized, to secure the very doubt-
ful and precarious advantage of the support of a sec-
tion of the Conservative party entertaining similar
opinions on ecclesiastical matters with the High Church
Whigs, hut who, in all questions of civil policy, are the
irreconcileable enemies of every thing truly liberal.
During their brief and uncertain season of adhesion
the Liberal cause—if they should t.:Tr be induced toto
profess their attachment to it—this section would drive
as hard a bargain as passible--seeking
favour as the
price of support—which could only be gained at the ex-
pense of losing the unwilling, unpurchaseable services'
of a body of men who support the present Government
solely because they believe them to be the friends of
freedom, and who can never become either trouble-
some or dangerous to a Government which does justice
and fears not, inasmuch as they neither are, nor desire
to be, a privileged class, and are prevented by their
conscientious convictions equally from seeking less or
receiving more from any Government than what every
dutiful subject is entitled to do nand from every Go-
vernment—" the things which ere just and equal."
• For the above quotation, and the ,übsta;,ce of several
other arguments and illustration?, the is are indebted
to an able pamphlet, rectntly published by 01, (..)f their
.
oar, number,—.'. What ought the Dissrnters of Scotland
to do in the present crisis? By John Brown, D D."

ATTZNI PT TO POISON.-3001. RE WA RD.--
On Saturday large placards were posted in various parts of
the metropolis, offering a reward of 3001. for the appre-
hension and conviction of the party or parties who, on the
10th of November last, sent a Marcel by the Eapress Not-
tingham coach, from the Belle Sauvage, Ludgate-hill,
addressed to Mr. Hitching, an inhabitant of that place,
and which contained a plum loaf, impregnated with a large
quantity of arsenic. 1001. has been offered by Govern-
ment, 501. by Mr. Hitchins, and I") 0/. by friends of that
‘iten:lernan at:N-0447.k, raised by public subscription, mak-
in all .h. cunt- of 3001. The placard further states
'het, skills.: more thci one person be imp:icated in the
‘.lransieticn4,efforts wih be made to obtain a free pardon
for the party confessing, so as to insure the conviction of
his confederates.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF TIM; DAY. •
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
The Quarterly Review for December, 1840,
just published, contains a long article on our fo-
reign policy, in which Lord Palmerston is in one
part eery inefficiently attacked, and in another very
ably defended. To follow the Reviewer through his
animadversions on his Lordship's policy with regard to

Spain, Portugal, Belgium, &c., would be a very unpro-
fitable task. He can safely afford to treat attacks on
his Spanish, Portuguese, and Belgian policy with indif-
fcrence. It may be admitted that his Lordship's usual
sagacity was in fault when he patronized Mr. Ur-
quhar, and theßeviewcr makes the most of the circum-
stance, while he at the same time treats the aspersions
of ''itssrs, Attwood, Doubleday, Cardo, and Co. against
his private character as foul calumnies ; o'userving that
he is a kind and improving landlord, and that no one
who knows any thing about him would doubt his personal
honour. We pass on to the Eastern question. And here
we are called on to notice a no., elty in political discus-
sion, a defence of Russia. The Reviewer denies that
Russia contemplates the occupation of Constantinople.
It is well known," lie says, " that Catbariae the Great
—a great woman is always a very wicked or a very foolish
one, and generally both—had set her heart on extending
her dominions to Constantinople, and making it the central
scat of her empire—a silly project, which would have
ruined St. Peteraburgh, and injured Moscow, and in-
evitably have produced the division and destruction of
the vast empire which it was meant to consolidate ; and
we incline to believe, in spite of all the routine specials.
tioras and declamations of the journalists and pamphleteers
of Europe—that the successors of Catharine, and their
wise and prudent Ministers, have been long verging
towards the same or.iaion as to Constantinople and the
Tu. kish province that surround it. Nor does the noto-
rious and admitted anxiety of the successive administra-
tioas of Russia to extend themselves first to the Black and
Caspian Seas, and subsequently along them, invalidate this
hypothesis : all the great rivers of central Russia—the
aster it's of the empire—run to the Black and the Caspian
Sea=; and without a sate and secure entrance and erit
for its wants and its productions, that large poraion of the
globe—that greatest and most important part of the Rue-
sum empire—must necessarily remain in a state of isolated
barbarism. «e hag our readers to recollect that the waters
on which Moscow itself stands fall ultimately into—the
Black Sea ? No, not even into the Black Sea ! but—into
the CaTian ; and can any one be so prejudiced as to deny
that it was the natural right, nay, tl..e bounden duty, of
Russia, to secure for the vast regions washed by these
maguifieent waters a free passage to the great high-
ways of mankind ? Let us be fair ; let us be ra-
tional. Can any man in his senses contemplate a
state of things in this island of Britain, in which, after
the introduction of civilization and commerce, a bar-
barous tribe of Trinobantes, possessing the mouth of the
Thames, should have had the power of closing that
great estuary, against the interior of England? 'Who ob-
jected to the American acquisition of the mouths of the
Missi,sippi? Who can reasonably complain that Russia
feels the game want, and adopts the same principle ? Rus-
sia, if she has common sense, and the instinct of her own
security, ought not to desire the possession of Constanti-
nople. She approached it in the war of I 529, and she had
a fair belligerent right to do so ; but not less, we believe,
from her own moderation than from the general feeling of
the Powers of Europe to preserve as long as possible the
integrity of the Turkish empire, her victorious advance was
arrested by the Treaty of Adrianople, and the Mussulman
was left, and is now maintained—like Switzerland—an im-
potent but plausible stop gap against more formidable can-
didates for his commanding position."
The occupation of the country at the moutlas of her
rivers may have been all very natural, but the Reviewer,
in his instance of the Mississippi, forgets that there is a
difference between acquisition by purchase and acqui-
sition by conquest. The doctrine that the mouths of
rivers may be taken by those who possess their sources
would bt, very convenient for inland States. In another
part of the article the Reviewer adverts to the jealousy
entertained of Russia by the rest of Europe.
" For our own part," he says, " unpopular as it may be,
we hesitate not to say that we have little fear of Russia—
she is a great Power, but she is not so great as she appears.
lier limbs arc too large for her muscles ; and we believe
that she would be weaker, and less formidable, if she were
so ill advised as to possess herself of Constantinople, than
she is at this hour. She is already unwieldy; any con-

siderable increase of territory would render her unmanage
able. For her own sake, then, as well as for that of the
rest of Europe, it is desirable to maintain the Sultan at
Coustantinople; and as the Sultan's empire is not so much
one of territory as of religion, his power can be maintained
only by preserving to him the supremacy of the adjacent
Mabornetan world."
The Reviewer strenuously defends Lord Palmer-
ston's conduct throughout the whole of the proceedings
with the French Government. It would have been in•
suiting. to France, he argues, if the Four Powers, after
having prepared the Treaty,had treated her in this way :
" You have been no party to the reasonings, discussions,
mutual concessions, and amicable explanations, of which
it is the result ; but we are about to sign it ; and we
have sent for you to ask you—will you now sign it
without alteration or delay—yes or no?" But there
were other reasons.
" Could they (the Four Powers) be ignorant of M.
Thiers's secret communications with Mehemet Ali ? Of
his busy anxiety and unscrupulous eff,rts to defeat the ob-
ject of the Four Powers ? Was it not clear that the suc-
cess of the treaty would mainly depend on the celerity of
its execution; and that prudence and humanity both re-
quired that Mehemet Ali should have as little opportunity
as possible of making his resistance more desperate and
calamitous? What would have been thought of the com-
mon sense, the sincerity of the Allies, if they had commu-
nicated to France an hour before it was necessary infor-
mation which she would have instantly conveyed to Mehe-
met Ali, and of which she would no doubt have availed
herseli in every possible way towards defeating the object
of the treaty ?"
The Reviewer very properly ridicules the idea broached
by the French that England wishes to establish herself'
in Egypt.
" England has no more desire for Egypt than she has
for Switzerland or Piedmont; she wishes for good roads
through them all, with a sufficient local police, and she
does not care a fig in whose hands they are, al says ex-
cepting France, who longs for Egypt, with the avowed
object of injuring her."
With respect to the threats of France, he observes—
"lt is not safe in private life, and still less amongst
nations, to accustom unreasonable and hot-tempered
people to feel that they can obtain whatever they happen
to wish for, by flying into a passion. England has shown
—we trust to the sath,faction of Europe—assuredly to the
approbation of her own conscience—how well we can
keep our temper under severe provocation ; but for the
tu:ure quiet of our lives, we must endeavour to convince
our irascible neighbours, that wanton provocations and
appeals ab irate, as M. de Valmy calls them, are not
the erodes by which anything can be obtained from us ;
and that honour, as well as policy, will be best consulted
by civillcr manners and a more friendly spirit—of both
at which we have given, and trust we shall continue to
give, a laudable example."
We are assured that the Conservatives will never at-
tack their adversaries through the public interests, nor
attempt to embarass them ore questions on which they
have supported a national and rational policy. We are
told that the hopes of the Conservatives point to acti-
vity at the registry and in the Corporations. But we
are allowed a curious peep into the Conservative
It seems the fear of the party now is. that they will
sonn have to fight for the Reform Bill against the
Whigs. " They will prepare themselves against the
Agitation of new Reform B;i1s, which will be produced
when their adversaries shall have found that the old
ones shall have failed In answer Meir piratic pur-
poses." That we should leave lived to see the day
when the Tories view the Reform Bill is a fortress of
corruption within which they may entrench themselves!
(From the Times.)
The disclosures made in Dr. Stuve's published de-
fence of the Hanoverian Magistrates are of a nature to
excite sorrow End indignation in all right-thinking men.
It is not alone that the prosecution of the Magistrates
for high treason and sedition on grounds so flimsy as
those assigned by the Hanoverian Government, must
excite sympathy for the accused and scorn for
the accusers, it is not this alone which has in-
duced ue to denounce the policy laid bare by Dr.
Stuve. No, it is the unworthy practices which, in car-
rying out that policy, men of rank and responsibility
are proved to have resorted to, this it is which renders
it peculiarly our duty (not alone as public journalists,
but also as having, on more than one occasion, exposed
the farcical attempts at political agitation in Hanover)
to declare, that among no class of public men in free
England can such practices fled sympathy or tole-
ration. When, on the accession of the present King
of Hanover, he was assailed by the hirelings of
a venal coalition in England, we, is common with
all reflecting men, despised the cry thus raised.
We knew it to be a vulgar and ignorant cry, directed in
reality not against the King of Hanover, but against
that powerful and ministry-controlling party of Conser-
vatives with whom the Duke of Cumberland had voted
as a Peer of Parliament. We afterwards made our-
selves acquainted with the state of public opinion in the
provinces composing the kingdom of Hanover, and
with the nature of those political measures called the
constitution of 1819. and the constitution of 1833.
The result of our inquiries was the certainty that
there was no disaffection in the great body of
the rlanoverian people ; that, on the contrary, this
people is pre-eminently loyal and attached to the per-
, sou and family of their Sovereign, and that between
theconstitution of 1819 and 1833 the people of
Ilanoser would never have been at the trouble of
'giving an opinion, they being thoroughly convinced
that the pressure under which they labour will never
be relieved by :atiotnagtiuneg-fleanwcyee"rsinvvi`:ln(aiitsicolnaaiml palaver."
l a viereh."
No doubt a few
conviction, but we are speaking of the conviction en the
minds of the people generally ; and in proof of the
truth
•f our representation we appeal to the state of
political feeling in Hanover ever since the first Provi-
sional Assembly of the States av, afaorcaltlheed
sinortlBolf4r.arilina-.
tinvariably shown itself',
aen t difference,
sitting
as an yo
sc.
corn the
ams p
constituencies having often declined sending a paid
Member to an Assembly whose deliberations and deci-
sions they regarded as utterly unimportant. Thus sensible
of the real situation and feeling of the country, we, when-
ever occasion seemed to require it, contradicted the noisy