The Sun.
London, England, 1828-09-10 00:00:00

ANSW ER TO TIIE CLONMEL ADDRLSS.

" lam much gratified by the very ob.iging terms
of your address.

Since I have occupied the high station in-
trusted to me by our gracious Sovereign, it has been
my study to maintain the laws with tirinness,—to
administer them with moderation,—to cultivate the
feelings of good fellowship amongst all classes of
his Majesty's subjects--to acknowledge no party
distinctions,---to consider as the true patriot him
who best obeys the laws
" Such are the principles upon which I will still
continue to act, being convinced that, by such a
course, I shall ensure the approbat; f the King,
advance the best interests of Ireland, secure the
co-operation of every lover of his country;— Times.
Charge--recently
In the Bishop of Bath's
published at the request of the Clergy—on the
Spiritual Duties of a Christian Minister, a
tribute is paid to the merits of the Roman Ca-
tholic Priesthood, which is highly creditable to
Ids own liberality :--" The dominion and sway,"
lie observes, " which the "roman Catholic
Priesthood possesses over the minds of the
people, may suggest an additional admonition
and incitement to ourselves. For to what cause
can this effect, in fairness, he attributed ? In
some degree, certainly, to the influence of that
personal and religious intercourse which is so
continually taking place between the Priest and
his flock. They are brought almost daily into
contact with each other. The opinions and
conduct of each individual arc thoroughly
known to his Pastor. The same watchfulness
over our own people, the same attention to their
spiritual concerns, would, though on different
principles, and on truly Christian grounds,
strengthen our hold upon the. public mind, and
proportionately advance the interests of religion
and morals. And do not the times require our
utmost vigilance ? Do not they call for our re-
doubled exertions ? That a spirit of disaffection
to the Established Church is growing up, and
widely spreading, We must be blind indeed if we
do not perceive and acknowledge." It strikes
us, that a Protestant Priesthooenever can pos-
sess the dominion and sway over the: minds of
the people which are possessed by the Ca_
tholic Priesthood. The discipline of the Ca-
tholic Church does not leave it to the discre-
tion of the Clergy whether or not they shall
come in contact with their flocks ; people and
Priest . must, of necessity, come frequently
together. The Protestants retained confession
a well as the Catholics; but by degrees it came
to be neglected, and the practice never can be
resumed. This one branch of the Catholic

, • .
' discipline is a mine of influence to the Priest-
hood. The celibacy of the Priesthood, too,
gives them a strong advantage over the Protes-
tant Clergy. A Protestant °Clergyman, with a
large family, must often bestir himself to provide
fbr his children ; and while the Catholic Priest
is going about from house to house inquiring
into the condition of his flock, the Protestant
Clergyman is cultivatieg the acquaintance of time
rick and powerful, that through their influence
he may obtain a better living, and be able to
place his sons advatitegeotisly in the world.—
The PHestant Dissenters in that respect can
hardly be said to have any great advantage over
the Established Clergy. They have very little
discipline ; and their ministration is in a great
measure confined to preaching. Dr. Priestley
states, that the Presbyterians began to abandon
their discipline so early as the beginuine of last
cent► rye But time Ministers are the choice of
their congregations, and that alone goes fir a
great deal. We confess; however, we do not
much regret the absence of that dominion and
sway possessed by the Catholic Priests over the
minds of their flocks. We suspect it will be
found that wherever the influence of the Clergy
is great the people are ignorant and degraded,
and that the ignorance is the main source of the
influence. There are about twenty departments
of the centre of France in which the Clergy
possess very great influence indeed ; but these
departments are the abode of ignorance, and
poverty, and misery. In proportion as education
is diffused among the people of a country, the
people learn to think for themselves, and to trust to
the resources of their own minds, and, there-
fore, they. are not easily influenced by others.—
A man who has been accustomed to rely on his
own resources, and who can command well-
written books on any subject, is not likely to
display that prostration of the will and the un-
derstanding which would give a priest influence
ever him. Hence it would seem to follow that
priestly influence must necessarily decline with
the progress of civilization. In great cities like
London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester,
and Glasgow, the visits of a clergyman, would,
we fear, be deemed an intrusion ; and the clergy
have the good sense not to run counter to the
general feeling. The great point is, to suit our-
selves to the altered circumstances of :society.--
The mode of influencing the people must here-
after be principally through the medium of
the press. The people of England arc in that
stage of civilization which disposes them power-
fully to gratify their curiosity by reading ; and
those who wish to benefit them, cannot do bet-
ter than follow the plan which has been adopted
iu several parts of Scotland, of introducing
moveable circulating libraries among them, and
placing well-written treatises, on the most im-
portant subjects, withie their reach. The ex-
tent to which the people have entered into Be-
nefit Societies, is an unanswerable argument to
all those who charge them with want of fore-
thought. They may have been occasionally out
in their calculations, from want of sufficient
guides ; but their claim to forethought is not
the less evident. The Bishop of Bath ob-
serves, " the sum and substance of Christianity
may be compressed into a small compass." But
nature is an extensive volume, and themind which
has once Been impregnated with the love of
knowledge, may find in that volume an inex-
haustible source of gratification. The best pre-
servative against vice is employment which inte- •
rests the mind. The poorest man has leisure at
his command, and it is of immense consequence
that he should be enabled to occupy that leisure
in a manner which, while it is gratifying to him-
self, may not be injurious to society. The igno-
rant man will always be more addicted to sensual
enjoyments than the man who has the command
of intellectual resources ; and it must always be
borne in mind that the passion for drink leads to
want and desperate courses. That the people of
England are, upon the whole, higher in time scale
of civilization than the French, is proved by this,
that whenever instruction has been placed
within the reach of the English, it has been em-
braced with avidity. There are many depart-
ments
of France in which the people are not suf-
ficiently advanced to be able to appreciate educa-
tion. Let, then, rich and benevolent indivi-
duals abandon the idea of perpetuating time
influence of the Priesthood over the people,
which can only be possessed in times of igno-
rance, and supply the void by the communication
of valuable works to them.. In this respect little
has been done. • The religious books circulated
among them arc generally fanatical ravings. In
the field of morals and politics much remains to
be done. In this country, where all men are
called on, to decide on public affairs, it is proper
that time people should be enabled to come to a
proper judgment.—Morning Chronicle.
If anything were wanting to demonstrate the
folly as well as injustice of the existing laws
"for time protection of trade," the circumstances
that were brought to light before the Magistrates
of Bow-street on Saturday, connected with a gang
of swindlers, would be sufficient. It appeared
that these wretches had been playing their pranks
in various parts of the country as well as of the
town, and that great numbers: of people had
been defrauded to a large extent, yet not one
would come forward to prosecute. Nay, even
the Society for the " Prosecution of Swindlers,"
in Essex-street, Strand, could not spare one clerk,
nor
ythe bringing to justice as mis-
chievous i x
oLuestocaeaeidt in
glingia:gi as ever detected. This
strange.lowas Is " public spirit"
at a discount among tradesmen ; or are they con-
tent with the power they
poss.ess of arresting and
throwing into • gaol debtors instead of swindlers ?
I of "the • increase of crimes against pro-
perty !" How cant be otherwise when swindlers
are taught that there is a smaller chance of their
st than
being proceeded again 'honest men ?
Taking the numb of persons who have been de-
frauded by this gang at 100, and only one of
whom seems disposed to proceed, swindlers will
argue that it is 99 chances to cue
that they will
escape the legal consequences of- each act of
swindling, Here is a premium on crime ! But,
supposing these swindlers were honest, but un-
fortunate, or imprudent people, and had con-
tracted debts with the same persons, •with time
full intention of paying for time articles supplied
as soon as they could, how many of the hundred
creditors would have refrained from exercising
the power Ivhich they are allowed to possess of
arresting and throwing into gaol the very indivi-
duals they now refuse to prosecute ? It appears
that roguery is a preventive of prosecution, and
-ho-
nesty an inducement ; that persoils who would pay
if they could are cast into prison, but those who
never intend to pay are allowed to go at large ;
if
we examine matters more narrowly, we shall disco-
ver the secret of this an omaly, we shall discover that
swindlers escape, because prosecutors are obliged
to suffer pecuniary loss and personal inconveni-
ence, without a chairee of getting any thing in
the end ; but that debtors are thrown into gaol,
because creditors are not Compelled to suffer any

personal inconvenience, nor to expend so much
as in a criminal prosecution, with the hope of
at last getting their money by the process of
extracting blood from stones:" Were all cre-
ditors obliged by law to be present at the arrest
of their debtors, what a dual of motley would be
saved from the lawyers and the bailiffs, and how
empty those '' pest-houses," the debtors' prisons,
would become The saute cause, Ns' h v:11 prevents
tradesmen prOsectiting swindlers would, in most
cases, prevent them from harrassing debtors—
viz., that nothing is to be got by it ; and if they
have any feeling of humanity, or even of policy,
in waiting for better times, the sight of a wretched
apartment, a haggard mother, and her starving
children, and the absence of clothing and furni-
ture, accounted for by certain bits of paper called
duplicates, they would pause ere they ordered the
bailiff to seize his prey, or the lawyer to put his
hands into their pockets, to throw good money
after bad.—Morning Herald.

It would appear from a letter, which has been
addressed by the Shipowners' Society of North
shields to other Associations of the same de-
scription, that the Society has received a pro-
mise from the Ministers, through the Vice-Pre-
sident of the Board of Trade, that the complaints
of the Shipowners shall be taken into considera-
tion by Government, " without bias or partiality
to any particular systerm." The latter part of
the pledge, it may, undoubtedly, be taken for
granted, will be redeemed to the very letter ; for,
unlike any other Presidents or Vice-Presidents
of the Board of Trade, those who now occupy
those high offices have no system, and have their
minds as pure from any impression, either liberal
or anti-liberal, as a " sheet of blank paper."
With regard to the former, however, we entertain
some hope that no other change of system will
ensue from the consideration of the Shipowners'
claims, but one which, while it will prove bene-
ficial to them, will not, at the same time, be
injurious to other classes of the community—we
mean a reduction of the duties on the numerous
and expensive materials employed in shipping,
and off all the great articles of merchandize,
which form the bulk of our export and import
trade, along with such an extension of our com-
mercial intercourse with other nations as it may
be possible to effect. These are the only means
by which the Shipowners can be effectually
relieved, and the other classes of so-
ciety benefitted at the same time. Any
other change would certainly add to the
grievances of which they complain, while it
would inevitably add to the distress of other
classes. With such a change, therefore, we
trust that the Shipowners and the present Go-
vernment will be satisfied. The effect of Mr.
Huskisson's system has been greatly to increase
the number of vessels arriving inwards, and
sailing outwards, from the British dorninions—a
certain proof that it has not been injurious to the
trade of the country, and were the duties re-
duced in the manner we have mentioned, there
can he no question that the next great deside-
ratum with the Shipowners—we mean an in-
crease of profits----would also be attained.—
Morning Advertiser.
A correspondent has sent us an account of
some models exhibiting in St. Magnus' Church,
of the intended approaches to London new
Bridge. He says that the arch is proposed to
prevent the line of vehicles, passing down and
up Thames-street, from crossing the line that
passes over the bridge. This is one, and the
smallest, reason for the arch. The first great
purpose of it is to render access to the bridge at-
tainable without an ascent all but impossible for
any laden carriage, and the next is to allow of the
finest structure in the world, Waterloo Bridge
only excepted, to be seen by the inhabitants of
the city, whose chiefest boast it is destined to
be. The plan of carrying the road-way, down
into the dirtiest and narrowest street in Lon-
don by a slope which will require the wheels
of an empty cart to be locked, then turning to
the right for two hundred yards, and again to the
left, up a steep equally formidable, and .all this
for the sake of certain shopkeepers in Fish-
street-hill, who may have some ten years' inte-
rest at most to oppose to the perfecting of a
building which will stand in all probability for
ten thousand, if the world last as long, is one of
the most impudent proposals that any petty self
interest ever made to common sense and com-
mon decency. We confess ourselves astonished
that at a moment when every-thing is doing to
beautify and adorn the metropolis, any man of
respectability in society should come forward to
advocate plans so utterly opposed to every prin-
ciple of taste as well as of convenience.—New