The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-22 00:00:00

Commons will do (says the Standard) with cases
this, it were vain to anticipate but if we may 'refer to
the practice of Parliament, such conduct will not be
passed over without notice. We may instance the
well-known case of Dr. Hams, Minister of Bletch-
_ingly, in Surrey, who about two centuries ago, for
* by preaching or otherwise about election
--l;ament, upon complaint, was called
Commons, and there as a
---sit. to confess his
^f his

misbena,
of Members of r
to the bar of the House of
delinquent on his knees, had judgm,..
fault there, and in the country in the pulpit
parish Church ;'—or the case of Dr. Manwaring
under similar circumstances, fined 1,0001., imprisoned
during pleasure, and disqualified from the Minis-
try. Now, if Parliament has so dealt with
ministers of the Established Church, with men who
professed to hold no power of consigning to ultimate
perdition—who issue no death-warrants under the
skull-and-cross-bones signet, will Parliament take no
cognisance of tyranny exercised under the awful sanc-
tions of temporal and eternal death—sanctions yin-
dieted, as far as such can be on earth, with a certain
and a bloody promptitude ?" The skull-and-cross-
bones signet, and the temporal death, are exaggera-
tions, we suspect ; and at all events the addresses of
the Catholic Bishops have referred only to the eternal
consequences of bribery and perjury. Will Parliament
dare to take cognisance of the conduct of Clergymen
who tell their flocks that they ought not to pollute
themselves with the mammon of unrighteousness ;
that they ought to take the advice and counsel of their
landlords only when they can do so with a safe con-
science ; and that, in voting for a candidate, the only
question they ought to ask themselves is, Is he a fit
and proper person to represent the people in
the Imperial Legislature ? Our Contemporary
refers us to two cases : let us take the latter,
as stated by Mr. Hume—that of Manwaring.
" There is nothing (says the Historian and Apologist of
the House of Stuart) which tends more to excuse, if not
to justify, the extreme rigour of the Commons towards
Charles, than his open encouragement and avowal of such
general principles, as were altogether incompatible with a
limited Government. Manwaring had preached a sermon,
which the Commons found upon inquiry to be printed by
special command of the King ; and when this sermon
was looked into, it contained doctrines subversive of
all civil liberty. It taught, that though property
was commonly lodged in the subject, yet when-
ever . any exigency required supply, all property
was transferred to the Sovereign ; that the con-
sent of Parliament was not necessary for the im-
position of taxes ; and that the Divine laws re-
quired compliance with every demand, how irregular so-
ever, which the prince should make upon his subjects. For
these doctrines the Commons impeached Manwaring. The
sentence pronounced upon him by the Peers was that he
should be imprisoned during the pleasure of the House, be
fined a thousand pounds to the King, make submission and
acknowledgment for his offence, be suspended during three
years, be incapable of holding any ecclesiastical dignity or
secular office, and that his book be called in and burnt.
It may be worth notice, that no sooner was the session
ended, than this man, so justly obnoxious to both Houses,
received a pardon, and was promoted to a living of consi-
derable value. Some years after he was raised to the see of St.
Asaph. If the republican spirit of the Commons increased,
beyond all reasonable bounds, the monarchical spirit of the
Court, this latter carried to so high a pitch, tended still
farther to augment the former. And thus extremes were
everywhere affected, and the just medium was gradually
deserted by all men.
Manwaring, no doubt, preached an unconstitu-
-1 tional doctrine ; and though an impeachment is not
r- the best mode of refutation, much allowance ought to
'be made the Commons at a time when King and
Parliament were ;-;:uggling for ascendancy. When
any body of men have t;io power of determining the
extent of their own privileges, they seldom err on the
side. of excessive moderation ; and it may be said of
the House of Commons, that their privileges do not
form au exception to the rule. Mr. John Reeve was
ordered to be prosecuted by the House of Commons
in 1794, for asserting that the two Houses of Par-
liament, deriving their power from the King, were of
inferior authority ; but the prosecution was not then
generally approved of, and would now be universally
condemned. Indeed, the House of Commons might,
with equal propriety, order the prosecution of
the Standard for asserting that the King's pre-
iouative extends to the naming Ministers on his
own responsibility to God—that no Ministers are
responsible for an act, by which a country may be in-
volved in consequences of a most ruinous nature.
There is, in fact, no limit to the privileges of Parlia-
ment. But, though the House of Commons may
choose to proceed against Dr. M'Hale for publishing
addresses against bribery and corruption, because it
once impeached Dr. Manwaring for preaching in
favour of arbitrary power, we think it very unlikely
that it will do so, and we are sure that it ought not to
do so. Nine-tenths of the clergy of the Church of
England have been preaching against the measures of
the Government, from the beginning to the end of
the Whig Administration, to the great scandal
occasionally of their flocks. Yet no one ever pro-
posed that the House of Commons should order
them to its bar. If Protestant Priests may preach
nohtics, may not Catholic Priests publish political
addresses ? Our contemporary quotes the precedent of
Dr. Manwaring to justify proceedings against the
Catholic priests, yet he writes a long and laboured
article to prove that the King and Dr. Manwaring
were, after all, in the right, and the Parliament in the
wrong. Hume, with all his partiality, admits that the
exaggerated pretensions of Charles led to exaggerated
pretensions on the part of Parliament ; but our con-
temporary throws all the blame on the Parliament,
and, by way of showing the danger of Radical pre-
tensions, quotes a number of passages from such
heated productions as Symmons's Vindication of
Charles. " Had the King (says Syrnmons) been
one of those that, under pretence of vindicating the
liberty and happiness of the subject, should vote away
the subject's right to his own goods, sometimes a
twentieth part, sometimes a fifth part, sometimes all."
Why, the creatures of Charles contended, as we have
seen, that he had a right to take all : and if the con-
test between King and Parliament entailed heavy
charges on the nation, it is absurd to lay all the blame
of these charges on the Parliament, if it cannot be shown
that the King was not in fault in the outset, Even
Hume admits that the people of England are in-
debted for their liberties to the Puritans, who at last

took the field against Charles ; and if Charles had
been successful instead of the Parliament, England

would in all probability have been reduced to the con-
dition of France. The long Parliament may have out-
stripped the bounds of moderation ; but of two evils it
was better surely that a Monarch should lose his head
than that a nation should lose its liberties.—Morning
Chronicle.

Of all the blows which have been aimed at the re-
negade and unprincipled Government, with which it

hath pleased heaven in its mercy to bless this country,
that of Mr. Byng, the father of the House of Corn-
mons, and a representative of the people during a pe.
riod of 45 years, and now, we may almost say, in
twelve successive' Parliaments, is the most deadly--

the most destructive—the most incapable of anything
in the shape of honourable return. In his letter of
thanks to the electors of the county of Middlesex,
which appeared in yesterday's Advertiser, he says,—
after reminding his friends that the first vote he ever
gave was " in support of a 'motion made by Mr. Fox
for the reliof of the Dissenters by the repeal of the

Test and Corporation Acts,"—for " Lord Grey's mo-
tion on Reform"—far " Mr• Wilberforce's on the

........ ..,.. ______. ___
African Slave Trade"—for Catholic Emancipation,

and many other V measures bearing the stamp
of the utmost liberality, the Honourable Mem-
ber proceeds to lay it into the loins o
the Tories after the following fashion :—" I have
lately seen, with great surprise and regret, the same
party which formerly called themselves the Tory party,
again restored to power; but with still greater sur-
prise have I seen them, in the face of their country,
abandoning every principle they ever professed to hold,
renouncing the very name under which they so long
acted, and putting forth as their claim to public con-
fidence an intention to act upon the very pfinciples
which tiro Whigs have always maintained, and to which
they professed and were considered to be con-
scientiously hostile. To a Gpyprnment composed of

men whose former conduct belies that pr gent pro-
fessions J can give no confidence whatever ; their
continugnve in power gold Ti9t 14i1 tp excite