The Sun.
London, England, 1828-09-18 00:00:00

PROTESTANT MEETING IN KENT•

ncss of this day to discuss or decide." And
again—" How far further the Roman Catholics
should be
.admitted to participate of civil power,
was a matter for awful consideration, and of
great responsibility." As the Clubmen of Kent,
therefore, not being Ministers, have no respon-
sibility, we presume it is meant to be inferred
that they had better abstain from meddling with
the question of emancipation. Sir John Brydges,
M.P., estimated the Protestants in the United
Kingdom to the Catholics, as 14 to 6. 'lad
Sir John understood common division, he would
have . found out . that this proportion is the
same as seven to three. Mr. Wells, M.P.
also declared that " he would fight up to his
knees in blood, in defence of our glorious con-
stitution." Colonel Stratford talked a little
about " blood," hut not so terrible as Mr. Wells ;
the gallant Colonel only said, that " so long as
he had blood in his veins, he should always be
ready to support a meeting called for such a pur-
pose. It is to be understood that this is not a
county meeting, hut it is now proposed to call a
meeting of the county, for the purpose of esta-
blishing a similar club, and a requisition to be
signed to the Sheriff to call it. if these clubs
are general, it is evident that the Duke of Wel-
lington can only govern the country in the sense
of the clubs, or retire nom his station.—lbid.
A Protestant Meeting, as it is called, was
held on Tuesday at Maidstone, for the forma-
tion of a Brunswick Club. The meeting of
course was a packed one, though Sir Edward
Knatchbull says, it had been announced by ad-
vertisement in the Newspapers. He must mean
local NewSpapers, circulating among particular
classes of the .inhabitants; for very little was
known of it in most parts of the county. We
copied on Saturday a paragraph from the Kent
Herald, alluding to " an anonymous but evi-
dently a demi-official advertisement, calling a
meeting of the Protestants of Kent," which had
appeared in the columms of their " Tory con-
temporaries ;" and to this partial circulation it
is owing that so little was known of the Meeting
by many most respectable gentlemen of the
county. This we know, that on Saturday last
we were within eight miles of the place of meet-
ing, and in consequence of the paragraph, made
inquiries of gentlemen who are Protestants, and
possessed of good estates in the county, who
had never before heard of the Meeting, and be-
lieved there would be none. The Meeting, there-
fore, was a packed one, in even sense of the
word. A Requisition, however, for a County
Meeting was agreed to on Tuesday, which re-
seived a number of signatures, so that it will
be seen whether the county generally do or do
not acquiesce in the opinion broached at this
Protestant Meeting. Sir John Brydges esti-
mated the number of Catholic to the Protestants
of the whole Empire at six to fourteen, and seemed
to think as fourteen could hardly fail to
beat six, the sooner we came to blows
the better. The tone of several of the speakers
was warlike. But what was to be expected
from men whose hearts or whose intellects
would allow them to set about such a design as
the formation, in England, of Brunswick Clubs ?
We regret the exhibition ; because, though we
know the men who figured away at Maidstone,—
the Winchelseas, the Bexleys, the Sydneys, the
Brydges, the Knatchbulls, &c.,—are the very
scorn of the well-informed part of the people of
England, we are not the less aware that the ac-
cident of rank and fortune gives to these men an
influence in their neighbourhoods ;. and because
we fear there are but too many of the clergy dis•
posed to make common cause with them. The
spirit of the Clergy throughout England is no-
toriously bad, on the subject of the Catholic
Question ; but however little influence they may
poskess in towns, the share of the property of
the country which they possess in the shape of
tithes, and, still more, the power of harassing
their parishioners, which the mode of collecting
this revenue gives them, if they choose to exer-
cise it, render them formidable in their neigh-
bourhoods. The great body of the people of
England sympathise neither with the Pitt. Clubs,
nor with the Brunswick Clubs, which are a re-
construction of these Clubs on purely intolerant
principles ; but, unfortunately, under the Consti-
tution of this country, the people have little power,
and the Aristocracy and their minions, the Clergy,
have a great deal. There can be no question
that a confederacy of this kind will hamper the
Duke of Wellington's Government ; and that
is, no doubt, the object of the founders of the
Clubs. The calculation on which they pro-
ceed is probably this—By this manifestation we
shall either intimidate the Duke of Wellington,
and compel him to retrograde ; or he will be
compelled to strengthen himself by a junction
with the Whigs ; and then we may, by intrigu-
ing, break up the Administration. But what is
to be gained by all this? The Protestants are,
no doubt, as fourteen to six ; but who are the
Protestants who entertain the mad notion of
fighting it out with the Catholics, or re-enacting
the Penal Laws ? Are there one million of
Parsons, such Protestants in this island, including all
muddle-headed Lords, all the
the miserable creatures ir. Corporations and else-
where, whom they can influence ? We do not
believe it. In all populous places, the friends of
Emancipation are the great majority, Take Lon-
don, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Norwio,,
the people are every where friendly to the resti-
tution to the Catholics of their civil rights. The
idea of having recourse to the sword in Ireland
would excite abhorrence throughout the esountry.
The Irish have many good qualities, but they
have some of an equivocal character ; and
among the latter we include their tendency toW be
e
too easily elated or depressed by events.
trust that this manifestation of bad feeling among
our higher ranks will not throw the Catholics off
their guard, so as to give their adversaries any
advantage over them. They should cojigider,
this as an additional reason for being cool and
firm, and as a tribute to their • power.0 lf they
persevere, and keep within the limits of the law,
5o as to give their adversaries no hold over them
no pretence for drawing on the resources of Brie
tain, they must succeed. They are fighting our
battles as well as their own, We are both the
and
of a vile contemptible
slavesaristocracy, but
in England we are also the slaves of the luxury
and arts of civilization. The Catholics having
nothing to lose, and being but half civilized, are
but too prone to rise ; the English, on the other
hand, being the wealthiest and most civilized of
the European nations, are necessarily
. the most
submissive.—Morning Chronicle.
We last night came athwart one of
i the Par-
liamentary blue books, called " Slavery n India."
The pages we shall have to wade through are
937. We wonder when we shall have a blue
book to be called " Slavery in England," as
instanced in the King's Bench, Fleet, White-
cross-strect, Nlarshalsea, &c. It is extraordinary
how alive our Legislators are to slavery in fo-
reign countries, and how quiet they are with re-
aped to slavery in their own. But, as the scrip-

ture says, they attend to the outside of the pot
while' the corrupt inside remains unnoticed.—
Moniing

It is hardly to be credited that, while so much 1
has been said and written on the necessity of
providing some means of preventing criminals
from relapsing almost unavoidably into bad
courses, there actually exists, in the out-
skirts of the metropolis, a Society (we mean " The
Refuge for the Destitute") which has already
done a vast deal in that way, and could accom-
plish much more, were its funds equal to its
other means. We are indebted to a Correspon-
dent for drawing our attention to this Society,
the details of which have not escaped the inqui-
ries of the Police Committee, from whose exa-
mination of Mr. Ross, the superintendent of the
male part of the establishment, we find that
though it would hold and provide for. five
hundred persons in its present state, as to
servants, &c., there are, for want of funds,
only sixty males and as many females in
it, being less than half the good this one
establishment could do were it better supported.
We would not wish to depreciate other charities,
all of which are, doubtless, more or less laudable
in their way ; but, when we see the enormous
sums which are appropriated to education, to the
diffusion of religious tracts, and to objects of
not so doubtful a nature, that those who sub-
scribe their money can never see to its applica-
tion, we cannot help thinking that, even in the
laudable work of charity, there must be. a sad
want of discrimination, where an object, so every
way laudable and desirable as the reform of cri-
minal offenders, should be deprived of more
than half its usefulness for the 'want of those
means which are so prodigally bestowed upon
objects of far less worth and importance.—/bid.
We have more than once spoken in terms of
the highest praise of Colonel Evans's Work on
the " Designs of Russia ;" but much as we have
found in it to justify our encomiums, there is no
part of it, we think, that deserves the more serious
consideration of the English Public than that
which relates to the
_consequences which would
result from the capture of Constantinople' by the
Russians, and the permanent establishment of their
power there. The admirers of Nicholas, both
here and on the Continent, see nothing iu such
an addition to the Autocrat's territories, but an
accession of strength to the progress of civilize-
tion—as if an inundation of Cossacks, Calmucks,
and other savage tribes, were at once to
destroy the bigotry of • the Turk—to infuse 1
into him a desire of promoting " the march
of intellect "—and instead of the contented
animal which he now is, to transform him in a
day into the restless though polished European.
Such notions can only proceed from the grossest
ignorance of the real state of civilization in the
two empires. And what has Russia to boast of
beyond 'what Turkey possesses ? Nothing that
we are aware of. Every thing that has been
done in Russia bearing the shape of improve-
ment has been accomplished by foreigners—there
is nothing Russian in it from beginning to end
—not even the building of the few men-of-
war which she possesses, nor the disciplining
of the immense military force which she
possesses. All is European—it is German,
English, or French—not Russian ; and it
would he about just as wise to have given
the credit to the French of having executed
the beautiful statues which were exhibited in the
Louvre in 1814, as to praise the Russians now
for the few marks of civilization which they ex-
' bibit. Try the Turks and the Russians by every
possible standard of civilization, and the latter
will kick the beam. all private obligations
the Ttirks are almost universally allowed to be
superior—their polities, to say the least of them,
are of a more honourable character—in literature
the pretensions of the two nations are pretty
much on a par, if indeed there be any means in
either case of forming a judgment—and in war
—which, by-the-bye, is the game of savages, and
not of civilized people, except under extraordi-
nary circumstances—the Turks have not as yet
shown themselves inferior. The political mora-
lity of the Russians is, in fact, the basest, since
the time of the Romans, that has ever been ex,
hibited. It is a morality without restraint as
without remorse—a morality which has only one
object in view—we mean aggrandizement—and
for the sake of securing that object, will wend its
path through heaps of carnage, and oceans of
blood, and evcry state of misery, desolation, and
despair which the most ardent imagination could
conjure up. Where, then, is the superiority of
the Russians ? No where, in our opinion. On
the contrary, they appear to us to be even centuries •
behind' the Turks in the arts and decencies of
life ; and if it be said, as it has been, that the
Russians are using every endeavour after improve-
ment, it may be added with equal truth, that the
Turks are doing so likewise. The present Sultan
is, in fact, the greatest reformer, and, all circum-
stances considered, the most liberal wan in
Europe. But we are wandering from our subject
—we mean the consequences which would result
from the possession of Constantinople by Russia.
" Mahmoud, we are told," says Colonel Evans,
" will hold with a firm grasp the last fragment of
dominion, and that he is resolved to bury himself
beneath the ruins of his capital. This (if it be so)
would probably quite accord with the policy of the
invaders; nor is it ut all unlikely that their occult
machinations may purposely lead to that result. The
signal massacre to be anticipated in such case,
would, in tha estimation of such calculators, be
amply compensated by the added terror of the Rus-
sian arms, and the consternation it would spread, espe-
cially in Asia. The final extinguishment of the Maho-
metaa power might thus ah,o be forwarded. And,
though the whole of the edifices at present composing
the capital, from the serai, mosques, and minarets,
down to the humblest shed, were thus given to the
flameq, what would that signify ? Unlike the fall of
Carthage, this pre-eminent place must rapidly rise
again to more than a renovated and palmy zenith of
commandi t
of
grandeur. The heroic conqueror of the former once
weptpoweialrfuelxceicityitiisngsatidhetostheranv,e
ungenerous over -
s. --
But
the Senate, flip last blow may be considered to have
been struck in the accomplishment of the unbounded
dthtaot ttiplee,nait.
domination of the republic;—all the rest was an un-
resis" mach
otredvictltioa'tTß. OtnAell(!.4xylelbiatet
aratiVc degree, the assured, well.
ctronntiso,
prepondermg mass of physical force
titbleatiii;seLPlP .
as well as on the land."
that she
otirlgatanßizuescsliaantiodw
does. Thence forward it was
Sher
subject.
tat
o i
prise every thing that
tookilie hery stationi)
last onhi.i the seas,es colt
'iced be said on this
• " Thenceforward it was to..
land ." and will
on the seas, as well as on
,ot.ssit
teimtopookrti
Has she note qual
not Russia do so likewise ?
ambition, and will she not have equal means ?
Nay, has she not more ? With one arm resting
Oil the Baltic, and another extending
from the
Euxine to the Mediterranean, would she not
only become a great naval power, but greatly
intercept also the prosperous flow of British
commerce ? We put these questions that our
readers may think of them—to-morrow, with
the aid.of Colonel Evans, we shall furnish cer-
tain answers to them.—Morning Advertiser.

An extremely numerous and most respectable
Meeting of the Protestant inhabitants of Kent was
held at Maidstone, on Tuesday, to consider the best
"node of evincing their attachment to the principles
of the Constitution, and their determination to up.
hold the principles which placed the House of Bruns-
wick on the Throne. The meeting was to have
been held at the Bell Inn; but the room being found
inconveniently small for the accommodation of the
crowds wha pressed to the Meeting, an adjourn-
ment to the Town Hall was deemed necessary,
After the Chairman, the Hon. Colonel WINGFIELD
STRATFORD, of Addington, had been appointed,

The Earl of WTINCIIELSEA opened the business of
the day, by proposing the first resolution, for the
formation of a Club to maintain the principles al-
ready alluded to, to be called " The Kentish Bruns-
wick Constitutional Club." His Lordship said,
the object of the Meeting was not to consider any
question of foreign or domestic policy, but to ex-
press their warm attachment to the principles of the
Protestant Ascendancy in Church and State, and
to resist, by every Constitutional means, the encroach-
ments of those who were manifestly aiming at its
subversion. His Lordship, after adverting to the
conduct of the Irish Catholic Association, declared
his opinion that- the time was at length come, when
every individual who estimated the blessings of the
Censtitution should boldly stand forth initsdefence,
and declare his determination to resist the encroach-
ing spirit of Popery. They did not intend to inter-
fere with or distrust the Government in any steps
they were about to take ; but they wished to con-
vey to them the unalterable attachnient:of the people
of this country to the Protestant Constitution. liis
Lordship cleared himself of the imputation of incon-
sistency in supporting this. Club, as he had invariably
hitherto abstained from any such associations—he
had done so because he conceived them only meant
to serve particular parties, or particular purposes ;
but this was to include all who felt an attachment to
the Constitution. His Lordship concluded by mov-
ing the resolution, amid loud cheers.

Sir J. BRYDGES, M.P., seconded the Resolution.
He would not have trespassed en their attention,
but that he felt the present a time when every lover
of Protestantism should speak out. They were not
met to discuss faiths, but to declare their determi-
nation never to sacrifice the principles of the glori-
ous Revolution of 1688. The Roman Catholics
and the Protestants were now at issue—the former
had thrown down the gauntlet, and unless they
meant to yield all to them they must take it up.
He thanked God they had done so; for the sooner
they measured their strength with them the better.
—(Loud cheering for some time.)—Of the issue
there cculd be no doubt. Sir John then entered
into a long refutation of the argument drawn in fa-
vour of the Catholics, from their numbers in Ire-
land, and asserted that to the whole British and
Irish population they bore a proportion of only six
to fourteen ; but this was sot a question of num-
bers—it was whether we were to grant to intimi-
dation what had been refused to prayers. The Ca-
tholics would never be satisfied until they establish-
ed Popery in place of Protestantism—for to extir-
pate heretics was part of their creed. Should
the Protestants be guilty of suicide ? he would not
believe it—it would be better to die in the trenches.
The present was the moment when the country must
determine whether it was to be in future Roman
Catholic or Protestant. lie denied that there was
cruelty or injustice in excluding a Papist from power
—they-were so excluded by the solemn convention
of 1688, and had no right to complain. He desig-
nated " the liberitlity" of the present day as .dis-
guised revolution, and said that civil and religious
liberty was enjoyed more extensively in England
than any where in the world. They had a ProteS-
tent and a patriot King, and men at the head of
affairs too courageous and high-minded to yield to
clamour. Let them with ope heart and voice rally
round the Throne and Constitution—and let the
" loyal, brave, and free" yeomanry of Kent, whose
motto was " Invicta," lead the van, and convince
the enemies of the Constitution that they not only
felt Protestantism in their hearts, but that they were
prepared to give expression to that feeling, with
zeal, energy, and perseverance, at the hazard of their
lives.—(Loud cheering frequently interrupted the
delivery of this speech.)—The Resolution was put
.and carried unanimously.
Lord TEYNBAM addressed the Meeting at con-
siderable length, in moving that the " Meeting do
then Adjourn." He regretted; though he'had not
opposed the last resolution, that at a time w hen
every word breathed by the King's Lieutenant to
the people of Ireland spoke peace and- harmony,
it was then the men cf Kent should interrupt the
benign operation. The present condition of Europe,
the state of our finances, the dangers of an expected
war, all demand that peace should be given to Ire-
land. His Lordship then pointed out the numbers
of the Catholics of the empire, which he stated to
be fully one-third of the whole population. They
should not, therefore, stir up the flames of civil war
between two such mighty parties. The present
system observed towards Ireland obliged a standing
army of 35,000 men to be kept up there, at an an-
nual expense to this country of five millions, while
2,000 men were all that were required for the whole
of Scotland. His Lordship then deprecated the
formation of these Clubs. The Orange Clubs of
Ireland had produced all the re-action on the part of
the Catholics now so much complained of.
Lord BEXLEY wished to correct a misapprehension
on the part of the Noble Lord who spoke last. No-
thing was farther from the intentions of those form-
ing this Club than to stir up the flame of civil war ;
neither did they desire to dictate to his Majesty's
Government the course they should pursue, or to
interfere in that just share of the management of
public affairs, the responsibility of which legally de-
volved on them ; but they met to declare their at-
tachment to the Protestant Constitution in Church
and State, and to convey that declaration to the
Ministers. Whether that Constitution were to be
safest maintained by remaining where we are, or by
giving some safe modification, grounded in sufficient
and satisfactory securities, this Meeting could not
determine ; that must be the result of long and im-
portant discussion and deliberation in the Legisla-
ture. He trusted Parliament would maintain the
safety and inviolability of the Constitution, and stand
firmly, above all, on -the basis of the glorious com-
pact of 1688.—(Loud cheers.)—Great relaxation,
and he thought safely and wisely, had already been
made towards the Catholics, but many were of opi-
nion they should proceed no further; at all events,
they could stand safely where they now were.
Sir W. BRABAZON, an Irish Baronet, here essayed
to address the Meeting, but after some conversation
between hiss and Sir Edw. Knatchbull, he sat doWn.
Major WatTnE, it being here found that Lord
Teytiham's motion of adjournment was not yet se-
conded, supplied that omission. He thought the
present meeting ill-timed and mischievous. Tbo
Noble Lord (Bexley) had denied their intentions to
be to promote civil war. What else did the decla-
ration of Sir John Brydges, that the Catholics had
thrown the gauntlet down, and that they . (the Pro-
testants) must take it up, mean ? Why were the
Catholics proscribed and plundered ? Because of
their loyalty to Charles the First and King James.
What did they seek ?—only their just rights. Was
the county of Kent to be the first to say, " You
shall not have these rights."—(Cries of No, no.)—
What else did this Club mean ? The Orange So-
cieties of Ireland, after having been put down by
law, were new reviving in the shape of Brunswick
Clubs, which were merely Orange Clubs in disguise.
Were not the Orangemen altnost in arms ?—Cries
of No, and hisses.)
Sir EDWARD KNATCHRULL next addressed the
Meeting at considerable length, in support of the
formation of the Club, Ile always desired to .meet
the freeholders of Kent, and learn their real senti-
ments, which, in most cases, he found to coiecide
svith his own. He denied that the present, was an
ex paste Meeting; it had been convened by adver-
tisement in the public papers, and did not purport

to be a County Meeting, but one of such Protes-
tants of Kent as desired to declare their determina-
tion to maintain the principles of the Constitution.
The vital and important question of further conces-
sion ought not to be agitated at this Meeting; but
if it became necessary to take the sense of the
county, there was a legal mode of convening the
county for the purpose--a step which he (Sit-
Edward Knatchbull) recommended. He denied
that the purposes of the Club had any incendiary
motives—quite the contrary; he was convinced; if
they had, the present Meeting would immediately
scout such en idea. The Protestants were not the
assailants—they associated for mutual defence; they
wished not to withhold from the Catholics of Ire-
land, nay, would grant them all they demanded, pro-
vided it could be done with safety to the Constitu-
tion ; and it was lest the contrary should occur,
that the proposed Club was to he established. Its
object was, to place the Protestonts of Kent in an
attitude of defence, in the event of any alarm or
danger. They had heard much of conciliation ; he did
not object to conciliation, if it meant an equitable
adjustment, and a desire to do so on both sides; but
if it meant, as of late years, concession after con-
cession, he feared its ultimate consequence would
be the destruction of the Constitution—(Loud ap-
plause)—and that all true Protestants would resist
to the last.

Lord TZVNIIA3I explained, and, on an under.
standing that a requisition should be drawn up, con-
vening a Meeting of the County to consider the
Catholic Question, consented to withdraw his mo-
tion of adjournment.
The business- of the Club, its future regulations,
&c. then proceeded. Letters were read from Lords
Alyergavenny, Guilford; Harris, Le Despenser, Sir
Egerton Brydges, and others, intimating their ap-
proval of the Club, if formed, and their desire to
become members thereof.

Several gentlemen subsequently addressed the
Chair in support of the other Resolutions, nomi-
nating the President, Vice-Presidents, Committee,
Treasurer, and Secretary of the Club. All the re-
solutions were carried unanimously.
Mr. WELLS, one of the Members for Maidstone,
spoke at much length on the state and threats of the
Irish Catholics. lie was, he said, now old, and he
hoped the conflict would not come in his days; but
if it did, his heart's blood would beat within him,
and be would fight up to the knees in blood in de-
fence of the Protestant Constitution. This declara-
tion was received with loud cheering. Like the
Honourable Baronet, he was. willing to concede
every thing they demanded, if the safety of the Con-
stitution IN ere not compromised ; but at the same
time his opinion was, that fire and water would as
soon amalgamate as the Catholic Religion and the
British Constitution.

• Sir W.Deering, General Mulcaster, Lord Sydney,
and others declared their adherence to the Club, and
attachment to its principles.
On the motion of Lord SYDNEY, a vote of thanks
to the Honourable and Gallant Chairman was passed
with acclamation, and followed with cheers, four
times four—at the conclusion of which Sir John
Brydges called for " one cheer more."
A similar token of enthusiastic approbation fol-
lowed a vote of thanks to the Earl of Winchelsea,
for his exertions in awakening the Protestant Spirit
of Kent.

A Requisition to the High Sheriff to call a Gene-
ral Meeting of the County to petition Parliament on
the subject of the Catholic Claims was sent round,
and signed by five Peers and upwards of fifty per.
sons of distinction, wealth, and influence in the
county, present.