The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-30 00:00:00

fourth, conveying the Duchess of Buccleuch ; the Lady
in Waiting, the Viscountess Canning ; the Lady in
Waiting to the Queen Dowager, the Countess of Shef-
field ; and the Master of the Horse. The fifth, convey-
ing her Majesty the Queen, her Majesty the Queen
Dowager, her Royal llighness the Duchess of Cambridge,
and his Serene Highness Prince Edward of Saxe
Weimar.
His Royal Highness Prince Albert rode out on horse-
back yesterday, attended by Colonel Wylde, Equerry in
Waiting.
The Royal Family were taken airings yesterday, in
the Royal Garthns of Buckingham Palace.
His Royal highness Prince Albert, honoured Mr.
Sheriff Moon with an interview, yesterday.
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester, vi-
sited her Majesty the Queen Dowager, yesterday, at
Marlborough llouse.
The Bishop of Newfoundland had an interview with
Lord Stanley yesterday, at the Colonial-office.
Mr. Freshfield had an interview with the Chancellor
of the Exchequer yesterday, at his official residence in
Downing-street.
Dispatches from Sir Charles Metcalfe, Governor of
Canada, and the Governors of the other North American
provinces, were received yesterday, at
.the Colonial-
office.

DISSENTERS' CHAPELS BILL.
A meeting was held yesterday in the great room of Exeter
Hall, of members of the Established Church, the Presby-
terian Church of Ireland, the Free Church of Scotland, and
several denominations of Protestant Dissenters, for the pur-
pose of devising measures to prevent the passing of the Dis-
senters' Chapels Bill, introduced into Parliament, in March
last, by the Lord Chancellor, and now, having passed the
House of Lords, awaiting its second reading in the House of
Commons.
There was a moderately full attendance in the body of the
room, and upon the platform we observed the following
gentlemen :
Hon. Fox Maule, M.P., in the chair ; Colonel Verner,
M.P. ' • J. Boyd, Esq., M.P. ; J. Rashleigh, Esq., M.P. ; Sir
W. R. Farquhar, Bart. ; Sir G. H. Rose, Bart. ; Admiral
llawker, Hon. Captain Maude, Captain Vernon Harcourt,
henry Pownall, Esq. ; Henry Blanchard, Esq. ; John Wilks,
Esq. ; T. Farmer, Esq. ; A. Gillespie, Esq. ; Rev. Dr. Dealtry,
rector of Clapham ; Rev. D. 'Wilson, vicar of Islington ;
Rev. Edw. Auriol, Rev. E. Bickersteth, Rev. E. Holland,
Rev. Dr. Holloway, Rev. Alex. Irvine, Rev. R. Monre, Rev.
H. Cole, Rev. P. Hall, Rev. R. Davies, Rev. R. W. Dibdin,
Rev. D. Buell, Rev. T. Redwar, Rev. J. C. Miller, Rev. M.
Preston, Rev. A. Thelwall, Rev. H. Beamish, Rev. Jos.
Pratt, Rev. R. Brandrain, Rev. J. P. Smith, of the Estab-
lished Church : Rev. J. Blackburn, Rev. R. Ainslie, Rev.
J. Sherman, Rev. J. Burnet, Rev. J. Robinson, Rev. J. T.
Hunt, Rev. George Evans, Rev. J. Woodwork, Rev. Dr.
Jenkvn, Independents : Rev. Dr. Bunting, Rev. C. Prest,
Rev.-Jacob Stanley, Rev. J. Crowther, Rev. W. M. Bunting,
Wesleyan Methodists : Rev. Dr. Cooke, of Belfast ; Rev. Dr.
Stewart, moderator of the General Assembly of Ulster.
The Earl of Mountcashel was to have taken the chair on
the occasion, but a few minutes after eleven o'clock,
Mr. WILK'S read letters from Lord Ashley, M.P., Sir R. H.
Inglis, M.P., the Rev. Hugh Stowell, of Manchester, the Rev.
Mr. urgess, of Chelsea, the Rev. Mr. Champneys, of White-
chapel, and others, apologising for their unavoidable absence
from the meeting, but expressing their entire concurrence in
its objects.
The Rev. Mr. BIACKBURN read the report of the Commit-
tee, detailing the origin of the Bill, the progress it had thus
far made, and the views of the Committee as to the necessity
of opposing its passing into a law. •
Mr. Fox MAULS then proceeded to address the meeting.
He trusted that in discussing the important question upon
which they had assembled, it was unnecessary for him to ap-
peal to them to enter upon that discussion calmly, and in the
order of business.—(Hear, hear.) It appeared to him that
the Bill had been brought before the public, to say the least
of it, in a surreptitiOus manner; and he could not help admi-
ring, while he at the same time deprecated, the shrewdness
and cleverness of its author, who, in so small a space as two
little pages and three short sections, had contrived to embody
so extensive a mischief—(Hear, hear, and cheers.) The
title of the Bill was, " An Act for the Regulation of Suits re-
lating to Meeting-houses and ether Property held for Religious
Purposes by persons dissenting from the United Church of
England and Ireland." Now, looking at that title, one
would suppose that it was a Bill in which the great body of
Dissenters of the empire were deeply concerned. But when
he came to ask himself the question, what body of Dissenters
asked for or petitioned for this Bill—whether the Wesleyan
thought it necessary for their well-being; whether the Inde-
pendents, Presbyterians, or Baptists, thought it requisite for the
well-being, or for the maintenance and security of their esta-
blishments, endowments, or foundations, he found that not
one individual of these bodies had ever dreamt of petition-
ing for it ; but, on the contrary, the moment they had be-
come acquainted with its provisions, they one and all
simultaneously and loudly exclaimed against it.—(Cheers.)
Then he thought the Church of England might have thought
it in some way necessary.—(A laugh.) But when he looked
at the debate in the House of Lords, he saw the Bishops of
London and Exeter leading the opposition raised against it,
in a manner which did credit to their known character and
abilities, and their zeal for the interests of that Church of
which they were such distinguished members.—(Cheers.)
Then, he asked, what body of Dissenters applied for this Bill.
—(Hear, hear.) And he found one small section for whose
benefit alone the whole equanimity, if he might so say, of
the religious trusts of this country, were to be put in peril
and subverted.—(Hear, hear, and cheers.) Ile was very glad
to find, out of the Commission appointed to inquire into the
charitable trusts of this country (and there was great ne-
cessity for such a Commission), that discoveries had been
made of mal-appropriation of the funds and endowments of
charitable trusts, and that the law had been enabled to set
these mal-appropriations right. He was rejoiced to find this,
because in all cases wherever the testator left funds to be
applied to particular purposes, whether secular or religious
(if in consonance with the principles of law and the consti-
tution), they ought to be strictly followed out.—(Cheers.) Now,
it had been found that certain individuals, for a long time,
had been in the enjoyment of property to which they
had no right or title, and a spirited person had
brought the matter to an issue by submitting the question to
the tests of the Courts of law, and subsequently to the
highest tribunal in the realm—he alluded to the case of Lady
Hewley's charity. Upon the decision of that question im-
portant results had depended ; for it was proved thereby that
those who held property illegally could, in the ordinary
course of law, be compelled to give it up.—(Hear, hear.)
What was the consequence of this decision ? One would
naturally expect in this country, and in every country in
which order existed, that to the equity of the law as well as
to the majesty of the law, all were bound to submit.—(Hear,
hear.) Here, however, they had the Lord Chancellor of
England proposing the doctrine—not that the subject must
bend to the law, but that the law is bound to submit to the
subject.—(Cheers.) Now he (Mr. Fox Maule) must for
one, protest against such doctrine as this.—(hear, hear.)
The other day, on a festive occasion, they might
have observed the Prime Minister and the Lord
Chancellor coquetting together, as to which had been
the greater law reformer. But if this was a specimen of
their law reform, ho would say, " May we be delivered
from such law reformers as the Lord Chancellor."—
(Cheers and laughter.) But it was said that the object of
the Bill was to prevent litigation. Now, his opinion was
that this would not be the effect of the Bill, even if there
were no other objection ; so far from preventing litigation,
although it might solder up some inconvenient suits for the
time being, it would eventually unsettle every Dissenting
trust throughout the kingdom—(Cheers)—and in the course
of a very few years occasion more litigation than any men-
pure which had ever come within his knowledge.—(Bear,
hear.) There was another point of objection to which he
wished to direct attention—viz., that the Bill went to apply
the principle of prescriptive tenure to property devised or left
in the hands of trustees for religious purposes. That was, as
he believed, a decided alteration of the existing law.—
'(Cheers.) But although, on consideration, he did not see
why property devised for religious purposes might not have
the same description of tenure applied to it, by right of
prescription, as property devised for civil purposes, he could
not admit hat any law, so interfering with religious pro-
perty, should be retrospective in its operation.—(Cheers.)
In Scotland there was a prescriptive right for property
held for forty years, without dispute or question ; but
would be most unjust if, in the case of a party who had
until within a short period of the expiration of the forty
years' limit, chosen, or been compelled by circumstances,
to forego his right of questioning the title of the posses-
sor,
should, when in a position to proceed to recover his
property, be told, " You cannot recover, for a Bill has
been passed, enacting that twenty-five years shall give
a prescriptive right, and the parties who have wrongfully
held the property during that time shall be confirmed in their
title for the future." Would such an act of injustice be tole-
rated? And yet that was no more than this Bill proposed
to do in respect to the property with which it would in-
terfere.—(Cheers.) The third clause of the measure foreclosed
the rights of the parties at present claiming, and was there-
fore retrospective; andalthough in the marginal note to the
clause it appeared that pending suits were to be exempted
in the clause itself, that exemption did not exist, it having
been expunged (as he understood) at the third reading of
the Bill in the House of Lords. If it were proposed to apply
the principle of this measure to common and every day cases
the people would generally condemn it.—(Cheers.) Take
the case of a piece of ground left in trust for the purposes of
public recreation and amusement, but that, in the course of
'ime, the trustees inclosed the land as their own private

property, and alienated it altogether from the objects for
which it was devised. Would the people tolerate for a mo-
ment a Bill giving to those trustees a legal title to the pro-
perty they had thus become fraudulently possessed of?—
(Cheers.) Yet the cases were exactly parallel. He would call,
therefore, upon those who did not look upon the question in
a religious point of view, to look at in the moral point of
view, and they must necessarily join in opposing the pro-
position. Now, with regard to the retrospective operation of
the Bill. There were perhaps no cases in England or in
Scotland in which the retrospective operation would arise ;
then he must look to Ireland for instances of its effects ; and
in Ireland he found two cases, one of them a very special
case, and in reference to which more particularly he was
inclined to believe this third clause had been introduced.—
(Hear, hear.) That case, which involved property to the
amount of 24,000/. a-year, and was almost equal, therefore, in
importance to the celebrated Lady Hewley's charity case,
had been made the subject of litigation, had passed through
all its hearings, the Lord Chancellor's opinion had been
given upon it, and the property now only awaited the final
and formal judgment to be transferred to the possession of
the parties to whom it justly and rightfully belonged,
and appropriated once more to the purposes for which
it had been originally bequeathed, instead of to purposes
abhorrent to the feelings and intentions of the founders.
—(Hear, hear.) Ile could not but feel surprised and
alarmed at the unseemly haste with which the Bill had
been forced through the house of Lords, and he knew that
it was considered by the promoters of the measure that it
was necessary to legislate with haste on the question.—
(Hear, hear.) But there had been another decision which
ono would have thought demanded at least equal haste—he
alluded to the decision in the case of the Queen against
Mellis, by which mixed Presbyterian marriages in Ireland,
a practice:which had existed for 200 years, had been declared
illegal. Surely, if ever a case called for legislation, and re-
trospective legislation, that was one, yet nothing had been
done, so much haste had been shown there.—(Hear, hear.)
He contended that it was absolutely unjust, at a time when
the Irish Presbyterians were labouring under this grievance,
that they should be attacked in this way upon the subject of
their trust charities, and that by this Bill the property should
be taken from their bands at the moment they are about to
regain possession of it, and enjoy its fruits. The Bill was
altogether founded in injustice, and they had a right to de-
mand that it should not receive the concurrence of the Legis-
lature.—( Hear, hear.)
Resolutions were then proposed and carried condemnatory
of the Bill, and pledging the meeting to merge all minor dif-
ferences, and to unite in protesting before the Parliament and
the country against the passing of a measure so dishonour-
able to the Legislature, and so pregnant with danger to the
cause of religious truth and that a petition, founded on the
resolutions, be prepared, and being signed by the Chairman
on behalf of the meeting, be presented to the House of Com-
mons by Sir Thomas Wilde.
The meeting was addressed by several of the Reverend