The Sun.
London, England, 1817-10-25 00:00:00

TEIRA 1( EVISW.

- .•
(OCT) OLb TIMES; or, POOR MAN'S HlS-
'l'oitY of'EN from the Ettrliest'Peribil dowh tto
the l'reStirt Ti11W"..:4-APPLrYA AsPIONTE,&c.isx.Ve.

are rimy come 'that-part of ibis excellent
Work which brings'ns-neareuto the present Ewa-
ment„ind when the 'stAteinents and niiiniati cif
he learned and ingenious 1/4Vtiter aredonsenuent.
iy snore luppiicatlie and tnore intcei sting.
need tint reheat one encOrnindis Of a Work which
so kireibly speaks for itself, and sO fully tngnifests
'its own ibtrinsic-inerits.

g ,
(COntindedirOm our Papei of yesterday.)

" James, and his Popish counsellors old his
Popish priocirples, were for ever separated front
the lirnish 'Constitution.: the Church of Eng-
land, as it now stands, was united With the Con-
stdotion by such strong and indissoluble ties,
that they must stand or tall together. The Glo-
tients Revolution, to Which our pretended patriots
are fur cver -referring, was effected, not only to
esclode the Papists, but all Dissenters from the
national church, from power;---not from any
waoton".disposition to .oppress, but because men
who had once betrayed their country, and still
professed principles of hostility against it, were
deemed to he mint and dlogetons agents in its
service.---1 his is mere common prudencewhich
would guide the humblest individual among you,
my Friends, in the choice of a person to guard
Lis stores, or keep watch in his shop.
" Our liberal Patriots, who, for the Most part,
have no principles at all, and certainly no reli-
gious principles to stand in the way of their pro-,
ceediogs, ate for abolishing all distinctions ; and
thi3 is perfectly natural, because, hating no pre-
-Icrence, ail are the same in their eyes ! But we,
who have seen, as we have now seen, that, for a
long series of years, civil war, bloOdshed, rapine;
fled chains, were inflicted upon our I,telathers,
and these-miseries were the consequence of de-
serting the Naimoli Establishments; when we
know, from the record of our History, that the
Papists would sacrifice our Constitution to the
first tyrant they could set up; and that the Puri-
tans, Mummers, and Calvinists, would sweep it
from the face of the earth, to set up themselves
as Protectors, and praying Colonels and Usurpers;
we must be mad and foolish indeed if we part with
the bond of our inheritance, or rashly takedown
those harriers which are the only remaining safe-
guard to the Constitution in Church and State !
" The Prince. of 01)-toge, son-io-law to Kitig
James, was placed on the vacant throne, tinder
the title of William 111., and-from this period we
arc to date the commencement of that Constitu-
tion which is the honest boast of every true Bri-
ton !—And why is it so ? Because wi,e and able
Politicians and Statesmen saw the errors which
their forefathers had committed, and benefited by
the expericilee; because they saw that too witch
Ookver its either of the three estates, that is, either
in the in the Nubility, or in the House of
Commons, was the cause of all the evils, perse-
ention, rniserie, and bloodshed, which had de-
luged the country, at cettain intervals, for seven
hundred years ; because they erected barriers
mold the Constitution, to secure it front outward
attack, and balanced it within, to guard it from

perpetual change; becanSe, they excluded all the
' foolish fancies and schemes of hot-headed Re-.
formers, who Meddle only to destroy; because
they consulted -with honest hearts, arid acted with-
out any vain display of popular professions.; be-
cause they did not new model, but only rejecvid
from the old what Was radically bad ; and had
therefore the groundwork of authority fOr practi-.
cal good, whilst they cleared the :foundations of
all the rubbish which had for ages accumulated
round ! These were the efforts -nue Pa:
triotisn, and these the
,causes of the prosperity
and glory which have ever since accompanied it:
The b4stard patriotism of our days was quick and
Alive in their days but tPe People saw with the
eyes of their great Statesmen, and spurned with
contempt 'their etiot Is to spoil the Work.
" It is the duty of Englishmen to follow this
Aright example : to take for their guides, not
Wretches who have barely escaped the gallows .for
their iniquities ; not adventure's, who trade in
politics, because they are bankrupt in all other re-
sources : [At thoie men Who, by the light of ex-
perience, heive ascertained the principles of the
Constitution, and from their pursuits and educe-
tidn'are -fitted-tOdirect others ! Should we trust
the Om in a fore-mast man when we have
,a
Pilot on' linird ?I and should we especially be
guilty of
.such stark-staring madness in 'a stormy
-sea ? Anfl,yef, my good niends, it is only amidst
political Minus and; hurricanes that these 10b...

PatriotF,,:these pettifoggers ref 'faction, are

so- forward in the offer of their services ! When
-any reverse of fortune, any struggle of national
'feeling arises, they labour to work it up, to en-
large upon the danger,—cry out Ruin and Pe.;
scruction ? and then call upon you to hang your
Pilots, and trust the ship to thent ! This
is a plain tact, obvious and „intelligible to
every Man who bares not shut his eyes
•and ears to the (nail ! and what mist tie the in-
•evitable consequence ? Why that the ship must
go to pieces ; and those who ildve,secured a plank,
'to make their own escape upon, trust to the plun-
der and spoil which their' ship Wrecked crew may
leave behind theft ! Look up, my Friends, from
• the dung-hill of-Sedition'in which this mushroom
spawn is generated, to the glorious fabric raised
by your ancestors, not in the Good Old Times'
of turbulence, usurpation, and b!ood, nut in the
brilliant era of British Glory, the year 1688 ! See,
try,estimate the value of the thing to be risked,
and never let it he said, that, with such a prize
in the hands of Englishmen, they let go their hold
in order to grasp a shadow, or, «h at is worse, the
offstourings, the refuse of the G00d.014
from which the fathers at the Revolution purged
and cleansed the Constitution, at that memorable
period !
" It would not be possible, nor Indeed would it
answer any purpose, to proceed through the four
reigns which liaeloilowed, the Revolution up to
the,present period ; it will, be. quite sufficient, by
a slight reference to some of the.ltading- events in

. . .
tsieb,to allew,.thal, even 'after an that was done
at that period, many improvements have since
been introduced, which the regularity and order
of hliliC tiffsirr, then
i first established, have en-
Mite -nl5 s (-do. with effect ; think, in the 'short
'rentilitting part of this work, I shall be able to
prove to yOir, not Only what I Maintain 1 have al-
renity .prayed, that the • Good Old Times' of
English History We're times of confusion, anarchy,
and, by far the greater (cart, of slavery, as tar as
the .People were concerned ; but that, at tit pe-
riod of our History, dating from the establis!4-
ruck of the tonstiattion at the Revolution, has
'there -istbli to hutch liberty, so much purity, or
so ifitteb public integri,y, as in the present day.—
As an instance of the first : Till the Revolu-
tion, '(says our Historian) the Liberty of the
"Press was very imperfectly enjoyed in• England,
and for a very short period. The Star-Chamber,
while that Court snbtisted., put effectual restraints
upon printing. OH the suppression of that Tri-
bunal in PS4I, the long Parliament, (the Glo-
rious Rump !) after their rupture with the King,
assumed the same power with regard to licensing
books, nod this authority was continued (luring all
the period of the Republic and Protectorship ! !
Two years after the Restoration, an Act was
passed, reviving the Republican Ordinances. The
Act expired in 1679, but Was revived in the first
of King James. The Liberty of the Pt ess did not
even commence with the Revolution.

' It was not till 1694 (six years afterwards)
that the restraints were taken off, to the great
displeasure of the King (the popular King,
William), and his Ministers, (the Whigs of the
Revolution !) who, seeing no where, hi any Go-
vernment (luring present or past ages, any exam-
ple of such unlimited freedom, doubted much of
its salutary tlfeets, and probably thought that no
books or writings would ever so much improve
the understanding of men as to, render it sate to
intrust them with an indulgence so easily abused.'
(Vol. viii, p. 332.) •
" Whether they tho'nglit right, or whether this
liberty has been abused or to-it, I leave you to de-
Eide—This has nothing to do with the question—
The Liberty ut the Press was not even establish-
ed at the Revolution ; and when you look round
you, and see the extent to which it is carried in
our days, you will, readily admit that in this one
particular (the first I have brought forward) we
have gained a one of no little import-
ance, however it may be abused, and is abused,
by miscreants, who apply a glorio4s weapon of
defence, as assassins would a victor's sword, to
strike and stab—and murder in the (lark !

" But we have to glory in the use, and not the
abuse, of this liberty ;—and it stands in proof of
what I shall -still further corroborate, that far
from degenerating, or (killing off from the example
forefathers,we, we Britons, who have, in
our duty, eclipsed all that our ancestovs.have elone
in the held of glory—we who have elevated the
fame of our country upon ,the highest pinnicle it
ever before attained I.—who have, by tile valour
and discipline of our fleets an:: armies, made the
world tremble at our frowns ; we, who have pos-
sessed ourselves of terriloiles and empires in the
utmost extremities of the earth, which the imagi-
nation of our fathers could never have dreamt
of ;—we, I say, Who stand thus exalted among
surrounding nations, have added even to the sta-
bility and purity of our national lnstituri;mS, and
improved, in our advance, upon the models of
Li-
herty and free Government supplied us by the vet y
bi.st and most glut ions periods of

4"rliE GOOD OLD TIMES."