The Sun.
London, England, 1828-09-27 00:00:00

CATHOLIC QUESTION-BRUNSWICK

CLUBS,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Silt--The alarm and consternation displayed at
this juncture by the opponents of all • measures of
relief for Ireland, is one of the strongest evidences
that can be given of the rapid progress which the
cause of truth and justice has made throughout the
country. At former periods the opinion of the
people at large on the question of Emancipation
might, perhaps, have been doubted, and hence-the
manifest wisdom of that system of neutrality which
has .of late years been adopted by the Government
—a system which has allowed. the arguments on
birth sides to be weighed far more dispassionately
than would have been generally practicable if the
whole of the influence of those in 'Power had been
thrown into either scale.- The neutrality has been

. -
indeed far from perfect; no inconsiderable degree of
what is called Government influence having always
operated against the Catholics; but even this im-
perfect and limited neutrality has been favourable to
calm investigation and free discussion, and the con-
sequence has been that the opinion of the more in-
telligent and informed part of our population has
become more decided than ever in favour of that
great measure, without which Ireland can. never be
tranquil, nor England just and free. A state of
things so auspicious to the best interests of the
country, moral and political, has naturally excited
anxiety and alarm in a certain well-known party,
which has long endeavoured to sway the councils of
the empire upon the principles of . exclusion and in-
tolerance, and to secure to itself a sordid and illi-
beral advantage by the persecution of all opinions,
and the extinction of all power but its own. Hence
the formation of Brunswick Clubs and Constitu-
tional Associations, falsely so called, and the pub-
licatioa of certain .ominous letters and manifestoes
signed " KENON" and " NEWCASTLE," against
the influence of which, in particular quarters, it be-
comes the friends of truth and rational freedom, and
true Protestantism, to put the unsuspecting part of
the public upon its guard.
In proffering a vigorous and determined resist-
ance to this new crusade against the common sense
of the people of England, and the dearest civil inte-
rests of the bitterly-oppressed people of Irelatid, and

the union and prosperity of both countries, we have
in the first instance to congratulate ourselves that
the principles upon Which our adversaries have de-
termined to act have been deliberately adopted arid
publicly avowed. With an edifying lack of caution,
whiCh has already startled not a few of their ex-
pected adherents, they have distinctly acknowledged,
in these very letters, principles of policy and legisla-
tion which, if acted upon, would identify the system
of our Gevernment with the barbarism of the middle
ages, arrest the progress of knowledge and civiliza-

lion, subvert all that has been done since the Re-
formation towards the recognition of the rights of
conscience, degrade Protestantism and the Church
of England, by representing persecution as essential
to their protection, and plunge the United Kingdom
in all the horrors of a civil war. The calm and wise
neutrality professed by the Government on the in-
teresting question of the safety of conceding toseven
millions of petitioners those right 6 to which every
British subject is born, but which have been fatally
withheld from them, to the imminent peril of the
State, and the grievous scandal of Protestantism, on
account of their erroneous religious faith—is openly
called by his Grace of NEWCASTLE an " accursed
system of liberalism, neutrality, and conciliation."—
The " spread of knowledge and philosophy" are
sounds which, he says, " make the heart sick."—
I The mere. forbearance of. Government on the ques-

tion of emancipation has brought the Protestant
Constitation; according to his Grace, to the verge of
utter ruin—that Constitution being unable, on this
showing, to sustain itself, without having recourse
to a legalised system of political persecution, as exe-
crable in principle as the worst conduct attributed to
the Catholics themselves in the darkest ages. The
'repeal of the Act enforcing the sacramental test, that
foulest blot on the Church of England, that disgust-
ing profanation of the holiest of rites, compared with
which the idolatry of the mass itself is almost inno-
cent, inasmuch as it may possibly result, in some
instances, from a. speculative Mistake; the repeal
of this hateful and most mischievous Act is described
as an utter dereliction of principle, calculated, it is
said, in the worst cant of fanaticism, to make God
desert us. The great body of Protestant Dissenters,
who hold their dissent as conscientiously as his
Grace holds his churchmanship, are unceremo-
niously stigmatised as " haters of all order.'.' And,
lastly, the people of England, the mob, are called
upon by this distinguished Aristocrat to oppose Go-
vernment, and to clamour for an open and declared
persecution of the Catholics—for the abolition of
Catholic establishments, the withdrawment of the
elective franchise, and the re-enactment of the hor-
rors of the Penal Code. Such are the principles
avowed by the leaders- and projectors of the forth-
coming Associations, called " Brunswick Clubs,"
probably as an ironical coinpliment to our most gra-
cious SOV.k;REIGN, whose prosperous Government
has been 'peculiarly characterised by that system
of " conciliation" of which his visit to Ireland
was the pledge; but which certain of his
loyal and conspiring subjects are now pleased
to style an " accursed system." It is a happy cir-
cumstance, we repeat, that the principles upon
which these clubs are founded has been thus ex-
plicitly stated in language which no one can mis-
take; and these precious letters may always be ap-
pealed to., so long as these pestilent institutions
exist, as proofs of the views in which they briginated,
and the,neeessary mischievousness of their operation.
The rattle of the serpent has reminded us of its
malignant existence, and warned us of its near ap-
proach.. It is no longer a snake concealed among
flowers of which we complain; it is the hydra of
civil proscription and religious intolerance which,
touched by the spear of truth, starts up in its full
proportions, threatening its utmost vengeance, and
calling for the most relentless and uncompromising
opposition. It is the same monster which our .an-
cestors expelled with the STUARTS, and which now
proposes to return among us, calling itself Proles-
tanlisni, and appealing with an. odd mixtup of hypo-
crisy and effrontery to the principles
Avhich placed
the House of'Bßusiswfvx on the throie—principles
as much opposed to those of the., clubs as truth is
opposed to falsehood, or darkness to light.
We content ourselves for the present with sug.
gesting two inquiries—will the people. of England
be duped by 411 e sophistry of these people ? and
will the Duke of WELi,R;GToN renounce all claim to
the character of a statesman, or to the possession of
Ordinary firmness of mind, by suffering himself to be.
scared from his purpose by their clamour? To
dupe the people, and to intimidate the Government,
Constitute in the nature of things the leading objects
of the BrunsWick Clubs, and there can be little:
-dos& but thitt_both olieets will utterly fail:
The petit& of England cannot, by the 'ceaseless