The Sun.
London, England, 1817-11-01 00:00:00

'Parsons, 'Might to hate no Op;Ilion el- voice, 'orie
way or timelier, upon political subjects ; what
have they to do with the fans hot to ohey them—
but an trigument pressed too far cuts like a two•
edged sword, Had tint tinfrequently recoils upon
the front of the assailant. Ii is true that a Par-
son should be a passive antomaeon, never looking
lie,yond the lt ohne, or presuming to otter advice
upon temporal matters, but if we push this opi-
nion home upon thetn, sante of these refractory
hlaek-coats may take it into their wise heads to
retott that a Linen-draper his nothing to do but
to atteml to his -due measure of stay-tape and
hockram; to how behind his counter, and bet..
rangur upon the merits of Manchester stuff, or a
sintiggled shawl! 'chat he is Ott of his elenient
when he shot., up shop, and mounts the rostrum
as a political Speaker ; aunt, after a long-life spent
in iisrertaiciing to a penoy tile value of a bale of
dowlass (filthy dowlass) or of a piece of Gingham,
that lie is lit le fitted to lay down the, law of -na-
tions, or to affect the character of a Solon or Ly-
ciargus, in reforming the State at home. No of-
fence; my good Sir,—l mention the possibility of
such a term t, which, upon neutrals and unthink-
ing persons, might produce some effect ; and you
will recollect, front the honk which you and Mr.
Bunistead have so thoroughly digested, that " the
measure Frith which you mete, it shall be measured
to you again." Fortunately this is not a trading
maxim, and if I am rightly informed, the.autho-
rify is of no great weight at Biackfriars,.bowever
useful it may be at Guildhall!
There is perhaps another point which might
excite animadversion—not ,from auy defect of

princilde on your part—that has long ceased to be
matter of dispute—lna as affording a handle to

the " Sons of Corruption" (as our dear exiled
friend tibed to call tl►enm) to impute improper n►o-

tives to,us. -Now this wicked Chaplain, it ap-,
pears, only recommended obedience. to the laws,
which, by the bye,, you know we cannot deny to
he one of the most emphatic ;I)j:suctions connected
with our social duties in scripture, and has cer-
tainly, though perhaps foolishly, 'ocen considered
as the first duty of a subject by every constitutional
man who has ever written or spoken upon the
subject in this country. Perhaps it was going a
little too far (in public I mean) to charge hint
therefore with a deliberate intention of aspersing
the character of our most solemn Conucil for it
might be inferred (maliciously I-grant you), that
either you and the whole band of Linen.drapery
Patriots maintain that the Laws should not he
obeyed, or that you have been doing, or are
doing, something which is likely to he subversive
of the Laws altogether ! Now, I know that no-
thing is further Iron your contemplation, pro-
vided these said Sons of Corruption would but
see your Merits in their true point of view. It,
indeed, they continue perversely-blind, they must
take the consequences. Yon have: fairly given
them warning, and your.great prototype,JouNNY
WILFLEs ('bough, by the bye, he •was a geode-.
man), %vould perhaps have incited down the mace.
and burnt all the Chaplains in if he had
not locked to enjoy, what in his first outset ap-

pearcd at an initttensurable distance from his am-
bition. 1 say, 1 know all this—hot the Itanhle
does not know it—and the Quit-law:6, and Ale,
house Poiiticiazs do r.ot even suspect it. It •is

not prudent therefore, I repeat, to open a loop-
h •)le which. way let in daylight upon the real mo-
tives of your daily efforts, and splendid ()rations !

Rarer upon the failure of your tvvll-laid plan of
Gity.Representation ! The poor Alderman fell a
-sacrifice to the manceovre, and your fortunes
were baffled by a coup de main (1 might say a
coup de baton), when you thought them most
secure ! Such things may happen again. 1 cry,
therefore, Prudence, Prudence !
I say nothing of the event of the late State
Trials. It everts better not to abuse the poor
victims of our seditious harangues. They stick

to HUNT and HUNT sticks to Us—and to shake
him off, without bursting the whole Bubble, is
impossible. We must sink or swim together ! We
should, therefore,, profess to Pity—not stigmatize
them. I regret ako, my good Sir, the necessity

under which 1 doubt not you laboured, of throw-
ing out a doctrine which is in its very nat ore and
principle congenial with all we have pretended to
arraign and reprobate iu the practice of our oppo-
nents—those Sons of Corruption. If the City
Chaplain 'really thought what he said—if he felt
it to be his duty to state his opinions, by what
sort of authority, taken even irons our own Code,
wetlo s pretend to silence him ! As for political
sermons between ourselves, we only- object to

them, you know, when they tire inipudenly op-
posed to our own schemes. I speak confiden-
tially. You remember the old Gentleman in the
large whiff;, who properly smoked the Ministers
in his own way ; and though I did not pretend to
understand above one half the anglo-grecisms of
his macaronis Rhapsody, there was enough in'
plain English, to shew what he would be at, and
we hailed the Doctor as a proper claimant for the
lawn, whenever we should gerthe tipper hand, if
in our wisdom we did not dispense with the lawn.
altogether. It was, therefore, I must say, goirtg
somewhat too far to sanction by a public avowal
a principle which goes to gag one set of men,
and clap a padlock on their opinions altogether,
whilst we claim unlimited license of speech for
ourselves ! It is true, indeed, we never suffer any
intruder to be heard in our Halls and Councils,
who is disposed to thwart our measures or oppose
our schemes, but these have nothing to do with
principle you know. Principle is what we talk of,
and not what We do—and if we contradict our
own principle in words, there is a strong chance
of our being exposed for inconsistency. You,

indeed, who are so learned—and so used to con-
quer knotty points in controversy, may have some
notions in reserve which, my humble capacity
cannot reach ; but. it appears to me that if we
propose gagging the Parsons, others way turn
the arguments against ourselves, and set at work
to gag us; for it is • beyond Myiparrow view of
the rule of right to discover, why a Linen-draper
or a Chandler (which•l humbly profess myself to
be) may leave his shop to spout politics all the
week—and the Parson be denied all allusion to

them on one day, in tike discharge of whit he con-
scientiously believes to be tiffs duty?—Why you,
ur i, my good Sir, may convert our counters into
Rostra to set the peovte by the ears together, and
our-Chaplain or Rector be (killed the privilege at