The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Lord Lieutenant has distributed the patronage
which fell to his disposal by the death of the late
Bishop of Cloyne, among the curates whom he found
upOn the several benefices. Had he done otherwise
no person could complain ; for the administration of
the diocese of Cloyne, together with an increase of
income, has fallen in to the Bishop of Cork, Dr.
Kyle ; and as the patronage annexed to it is the best
of any diocese in Ireland, it would have been quite ex-
cusable had the Lord Lieutenant left the curates to be
provided for by their spiritual father and protector.
We are very sure that such would have been the course
in asimilar contingency under the sway of the Church-
and-State men. For they were notorious, at all periods
of their power, for leaving the working, meritorious cler-
gymen to-the care of any that would help them. In
this instance, the Bishop would have no pretext to
murmur, had such an obligation been laid upon him,
at the same time that he received the most ample
means of discharging it ; and least of all could it be
thought hard upon Bishop Kyle, who has presided
over his other diocese for five years, and in that time
done as much as the prying nature of modern censure
would permit, to avoid the charge of heathenism which
lies against such as neglect their own. His sons and
relatives enjoy splendid endowments in the Church.
Into Cloyne, then, he goes with hands unencumbered
and free ; and consequently to leave to him the charge
of all its curates would have been perfectly reasonable.
Another consideration which might have influenced
the Lord Lieutenant differently in the disposal of these
preferments, is the contracted share of Church patro-
nage which the operation of the Irish Church Reform
Act has left to the Government. Formerly, when a
mitre became vacant, an occasion was given for promo-
ting several of the clerical friends of the Government.
The first movement generally made room for two or
three more ; and with a bishopric it was usual to see
other dignities and many benefices changing hands.
Now, all that is done away, and the Church favours
of the Irish Governthent are confined to the filling up
of occasional lapses in the few and inferior benefices,
which are in its immediate presentation. This might
have operated as an additional inducement with the
Lord Lieutenant to commend the Cloyne curates to
the paternal guardianship of their new Bishop, and to
take advantage of the rare occasion which presented
itself, of promoting others whom he may be personally
solicitous to serve. But Lord Mulgrave appears to
regard the exercise of this, as of the other depart-
ments of his high office, as a trust for which he is
answerable to his own conscience, not less than to
public opinion. The, duty .of the superior eccle-
siastical authorities, to distinguish and reward the
services of those who minister under them, does
not exonerate the Government from its proper
share of responsibility in the same province. At
least, so Lord Mularave appears to have conceived of
the matter ; and therefore, when the patronage of
three considerable benefices was placed in his absolute
gift, he gave them to the curate'. We need not ask
how Sir Robert Peel's Lieutenant would have acted in
a like case ; for we know how Sir Robert himself and
his liberal friend, the Bishop of London, acted in a
case far more urgent and moreimperative—a case,
indeed, in which neither justice nor generosity would
suffer any person but a political casuist to see more
than one. fair course to he followed. We allude, of
course, to the treatment which that par nubile inflicted
upon poor Mr. Rowlatt. It is a fine thing, surely, to
stand up in the Freemasons' Tavern, mantled in the
liquorish fumes and the aroma of soups and sauces,
and to prophesy against the horrible chimera of "stare
ing out the Protcstant religion." Such a theme
might well stir up the inner maw of any digni-
tary ; and urged as it was with the oily pathos
of a Blomfield, what wonder if it made even
angels weep ? But Lord Mulgravc has a more prac-
tical method of declaring his sympathy with those
supporters of the Protestant faith with whom starva-
tion is a thing of ancient date, though there has never
been a meeting at the Freemason's Tavern to protect
that faith suffering and " starving" in their persons.
Teo long' has that religion been guided and gorman-
dized Out of Ireland. The Government to which
Lord Mulgravc Uongs, Would have purged away—
" The different plague of etch calamity,"
and left the Church in the full fruition of the wise
mans prayer, " Give me neither poverty nor riches."
But the Lords, and especially the Lord Bishops,
seem to have abhorred that as the worst kind of star-
. vation. Far better, in their judgment, were it to re-
fuse all sustenance for the Irish clergy, and leave
unprovided, " till famine cling them," than to
abandon the sacred and indefeasible rights of the second
course. Ant Cesar cot nrdlas was their cry ; and
having involved thclr hapless protegs in its conse-
quences, they have now the exceeding modesty to turn
round, and lay the whole calamity at the door of the
Whigs. But, as we said before, the benevolence of
the- Whigs is of a more practical nature. Compared
with that cf their opponents, it has at least some
negative characteristics to recommend it. It does not
slight off the claims and the services of those who ply
the labouring oar, in order to pile its favours in triple
heaps on the Marcus Beresfords and the Trenches.
And, certainly, while the Church preferment of the
Government in Ireland continues to be dispensed by
Lord Mulgiave, we do not see any reason to appre-
hend that a Christian community will ever be offended
and disgusted at the sight of a pious and eloquent
preacher of the Gospel, in straitened circumstances,
and with a family of eleven children dependent upon
his professional exertions, being quibbled and lurched
out of his equitable right by a Minister of the Crown,
and a Prelate who can make the ladies cry at the dis-
tresses of the Irish clergy.—Morning Chronicle.

The answer made by the Legislative Council or
Lower Canada to Lord Gosford's speeCh is, as might
have been expected, a much more cordial piece of
thanksgiving than that of the House of Assembly.
It even administers a back-handed blow to the latter
body, by turning round upon the inconveniences whirh
have arisen from a stoppage (by the House of As-
sembly) of supplies, which had been wanted for the
current expenses of the Government, and for the
Courts of Justice. But as the Legislative Council
itself, as at present constituted, is among the list of
grievances harped upon by Mr. Papineau and his
democratic brethren in the Assembly and out of it,
nothing would be more absurd than to speculate on
any facilities to be afforded to Lord Gosford in his
efforts at pacification, or on any deduction from the
Timbers or influence of the discontented party, be-
cause of the apparent willingness of the Legislative
Council to support him. Our impression remains
unchanged, that the demands of the Canadian mal-
contents are so extensive, and the spirit which per-
vades their party so encroaching and implacable, as
to put it wholly out of the power of the King's Go-
vernment to satisfy or soften them, but by conces-
sions which will amount to a total surrender of the
sovereign supremacy of Great Britain. It has been
said for the Canadians that they have no desire to be
incorporated with the United States. We are of opi-
nion that England ought to bear in mind, and with
sentiments of grateful recollection, the fact of Canada
having once before clung to her in the hour of distress
and difficulty, when she was abandoned by her other
colonies, and warred against by the rest of the world.
It would be ungenerous, in our estimate of the Cana-
dians, to overlook that critical and honourable portion
of their history. But if they meet our suspicion of
their being at present actuated by a wish to transfer
their allegiance from England to the republican states
of North America, by assuring us that they have no
such disposition or design, is it not fair to ask them
whether, in case of their separation from Great
Britain, they can flatter themselves that their future
destiny would be altogether dependent on their
own will ? Arc they convinced of their ability to
resist the United States, should that spirit of con-
quest, from which republican councils have not at
all times been exempted, push on the contiguous
powers of New York, Vermont, &c., to hug their Ca-
nadian brethren in somewhat of a too bear-like
fashion? This, we beg leave to say, is a question
which affects Great Britain equally with Canada, in-
asmuch as, taking for granted the indifference of Eng-
lishmen towards the mere separation of the Canadas,
„IljetAtittAilklardly be supposed that we should look on
/,...„--, p.-;--.=,1 4101y*. arid witness their annexation to a foreign—in
-*- r..,f..j r—'#.',ltiii6t .4 s a rival—and in all points of view an
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