The Sun.
London, England, 1828-10-24 00:00:00

10 THE OPPONENTS Or EMANCIPATION.

BROTHER FREEHOLDERS-Much has been written on
both sides of this momentous question, tending only to
awaken the passions, and not addressed to the understand-
ing. I repent this deeply, for if ever a question required
cool deliberate judgment, this 'is one. With this view,
therefore, I submit for your consideration the following
passage from Blackstone, whose opinion and authority as a
•lawyer few are hardy enough to dispute.' It follows imme-
diately after giving a summary of the penalties that had
been imposed upon the Catholics during various reigns,
and I do hope it may have some weight with those whose
minds are not decidedly warped by deep-rooted prejudice,
or led astray by interested motives
" For they are rather to be accounted for from their
history, and the urgency of the times which produced them,
than to be approved of (upon a cool review) as a standing
system of law."—"But if a time should ever arrive, and
perhaps it is not very distant, when all fears of a Pretender
shall have vanished, and the power and influence of the
Pope shall become feeble, ridiculous, and despicable, not
only in England, but in every Kingdom of Europe, it pro-
bably would not be then amiss to review and soften these
rigorous edicts ; at least till the Civil Principles of the
Roman Catholics called again upon the Legislature to renew
them : for it ought not to be left in the breast of every
Merciless bigot to drag down the vengeance of these occa••
sional laws upon inoffensive, though mistaken subjects ; its
opposition' to the ancient inclinations of the Civil Magis-
trate, and to the destruction of every principle of toleration
and Religious Liberty."—Book IV. P.. 57 and 58.
Now, let me ask you, is not the time come which this
great lawyer alludes to with almost a prophetic spirit?—
Pretender there is none—and I think there are few who
will now dispute that the influence of the Pope has become
"feeble, ridiculous, and despicable" in a great part of
Europe. Let me then intreat you to couple this extract
with -the reilectiou that -the wisest and most talented men
of all parties have been in favour of Emancipation—that a
majority of the House of Commons has several timers de-
cided to take the just clainss of the Catholics into consi-
deration—that there is every possible chance of Emanci-
pation producing the • most happy result,—and no possi-
bility, as I have before proved, of its producing any
danger,—and then, say whether it is not better to leave
the question to the cool and cairn consideration of
Parliament, uninfluenced 'by violent opinions on either
vide, than to attempt to dictate the line of conduct
Ministers ought to pursue—anti thus make this free, happy,
and quiet County stand foremost in the ranks of Bi-
gotry and Intolerance—thereby creating party prejudices
which can only lead to unkind feelings, if not bitter ani-
mosities. When we see the lofty tone taken by the
Agitators of the measure in this county, it becomes almost
impossible to prevent its descending from a great national
question, to one ofviolent party feeling. No man can re-
gret this more than I do ; but the candid person must say
that the fault does not lie with the " Liberals," but with
those who would appear to cover the weakness of their ar-
gument by the uncoutteous terms and intemperate language
they have addressed to their opponents.

Hoping this spirit will be subdued at the Meeting on the
24th, and that though we differ in opinion, we may do so
as gentlemen, I have the honour to remain, brother Free-
holders, your "Liberal " friend and well wisher,
Masted, Oct. 18. JOHN MAXWELL TYLDEN.

TO THE FREEHOLDERS OF THE COUNTY.
BE UPON YOUR GUARD !
You are culled upon to attend a Meeting on the 24th, as
the Protestant Religion is in danger froM the conduct of
the Roman Catholic Association.
-• THIS IS TRUE :
The Rothan Catholics have made constant attacks upon
the Protestant Constitution, and now demand to be ad-
mitted into Parliament, •
TO MAKE LAWS FOR AND SUBVERT IT.

ADDRESS TO THE MEN ON KENT.
(From the Kent Ileietid,Oet. 23.)
MEN or KENT !

•
To-morrow will decide the grand question. To-morrow
will be shown, whether your county is to take the lead in
the cause of enlightenment and liberality, or to become in-
famous as the strong-hold of bigotry, ignorance, and
persecution. The eyes not only of England, but of all
Europe are fixed upon the proceedings of this day ; the
character not alone of your native county, but of your
beloved England, will be estimated according to the event
of your deliberations. It will then be seen whether that
Liberty, which has been our boast for ages, is merely a
sound, a shade, a selfish delusion ; or a principle im-
planted is our hearts, ready to kindle into active benevo-
lenw, and eager to communicate its blessings to all who
appeal to its holy name. The opportunity now presents
itself for the Men of Kent to prove themselves worthy of
the high rank they have ever been allotted as champions
of freedom, as spirited and intelligent men, not to be awed
by threats, intimidated by alarms, nor duped by artifice.
This opportunity, the enemies of all liberty have unwit-
tingly given you ; you will not omit to profit by it—to
turn back on them their scheme of tyranny—to hold up
to them The mirror reflecting their own enormous moral
deformity...and scattering them in disgrace from the field,
where they had hoped to sacrifice your good name at the
shrine of their sordid interests and rancourous preju-
dices ;—scattering them, abashed at the exposure, mor-
tified at their failure, and confounded for ever at their
utter defeat.

Men of Kent !—This will he a lesson they can never
forget—this will be a humiliation from which they never
can recover. If any other argument than the general good
were needed to animate your exertions, it would be that
this evidence of your strength and of your will, must deli-
ver the county from that haughty domination which these
overbearing Aristocrats have so long sought to impose over
it. This will terminate their prospects of oppression—this
will reduce their pretensions to the narrow limits of their
actual importance—this will teach them, that though mighty
in their own halls, formidable to their dependsnts, uncon-
trouled in their sway over poachers and publicans, the dread
of the villagers, and the wonder of charity-children;—they
are contemptible in the eyes of the country at large,
pitied for their ignorance, hated for their pride, laughed
at for their self-importance, set at nought, baffled, and de-
feated, when they dare to summon independent men to
meet them in the open field of political discussion. They
may continue to be great at Quarter Sessions, omnipotent
at Rent-dinners, uuquestioned at Bible Meetings,• dogmatic
in the Justice-room, oracular in a Sunday-school ;--but
before the assembled county, before freemen,—their equals
in all personal and mental qualifications,—they must lord
it no longer :—they must be content there to meet
faces which it is in vain to frown on, brows they Can-
not daunt, hearts they cannot awe, and arguments they
cannot answer. They have thrown themselves arro-
gantly into one scale ; and the rest of the county u ill fill
the other,--thanking them for the display of an insolent
aristocracy, fairly weighed, utterly found wanting, and
kicking the beam in the great balance of public opinion.—
Men of Kent! in defeating these your peculiar,enernies,
it has happened, from the circumstances of the times and
their own presumption, that you will be defeating the great
conspiracy which has been formed against the liberties of
all British subjects, against the independence of Parlia-
ment, against the welfare, peace, and happiness of the
whole kingdom. The refusal of political' rights to a large
class of your countrymen—for are not the Irish as well as
the English Catholics, your countrymen ?—which, origi-
nating in far distant and totally different times, has been
continued by the partisans of the English Church to
secure their own power and profit, has, at last, as might
naturally be expected,
as ought to be the case with men
conscious of suffering
injustice., produced a feeling of irri-
tation and discontent almost amounting to actual insur-
rection. The Catholics, whose patient loyalty has been
cruelly trifled with, worn out by repeated insults, by the
perpetual rejection of their petitions for equal rights, as=
sunie an attitude which their wealth, their respectability,
their numbers, renders formidable. Their prayer, backed
by the recommendation of the far greater part of the
independent and intelligent Protestants, is listened to by
Government. That Government is supposed to be about
accomplishing an act of tardy justice, if not from a sense of
the iniquity of persecution, yet from the obvious policy of
preventing tllteareffusion of blood, preserving Great Britain
from
mei civil
v
dismemberment, and perhaps ultimately,
foreign subjugation. The monopolizers of " all good
things" under the present system, desperate at even a dis-
tant prospect.of being compelled to relinquish and partici-
pate some of their advantages, imperiously demand of Ali-
nisters that no conciliation shall be effected, that blood shall
Row in torrents rather than Reform, of which Emancipa-
tion is a part,, should take place. The Brunswick Clubs
assemble to overawe the King, dictate to Parliament, and
con troti I -the people. Shall they be endured ? You, Men
of Kent, to-morrow stall deride this !
An attempt will be made to inflame your passions by
an appeal to your religious feelings. Yen will be told that

Catholicism in all the horrors of past and barbarous ages,
Will, by your granting concessions to your persecuted bre-
thren, return to torture with " tire and faggot" all who
dissent from the Romish Ritual. Laugh to scorn the hy-
pocritical pretence! Throw back in the teeth of the as-
serters of this obsolate calumny, the bitter truth that the
country in which religions, persecution now reigns—is a
Protestant country ! That that country is Great Britain !
Great Britain which is hereby stigmatised by the while
world as the self-styled free domain, where alone a third
part of the population is enslaved, persecuted, and op.
pressed, for its religious opinions. Tell them that in Ca-
tholic FranCe, Protestant and Romanist are upon an equality
—live in civic peace—and are without distinction admitted
to the highest offices of the State in every branch of its
service. Tell them that England no longer shall submit
to be outdone in a generous enlightenment by its neigh-
bour—that its rival shall no longer triumph in its superior
liberality—in its truer Christian spirit !
MEN or KENT—You have, for years, weighed every
argument that can be furnished by either party. you
know, without further elaboration of the subject, that the
question is resolved, in these times, into a choice between
freedom and oppression. You know that Emancipation
means equal civil rights to all good subjects; that it
means peace and tranquillity among your countrymen,.
and security to the whole nation ;—you know that
the cry of " No Popery" means, the inviolability
of abuses, the security of the Tithe System, the
monopoly of power by the Tory faction, the stifling
of Liberty, the hazard of bloodshed, the danger of civil
war, and of the perpetration of all kinds of horrors
end atrocities ! You have only to choose between. You
have long listened to the discussion ;—to-morrow you go
to give your vote for one of these alternatives. Justice,
humanity, policy, plead for the first ; bigotry, selfishness,
ignorance, and ferocity, will strive to entrap you into the
latter ;—but it will be in vain. You have too much dis-
cernment, too much benevolence, too ardent a love of
liberty, too firm a devotion to the. real interests of your
native land to sanction by your decision to-morrow any
thing which will abridge the liberties of British subjects
and make these fair realms one hideous scene of slaughter.
You will, :by your tri►mtpbant opposition to the " Bruns-
wick conspirators" vindicate the honour of your country,
win the gratitude of Ireland for ever, and secure the ad-
miration of the whole world.—" On to Victory !"