The Sun.
London, England, 1828-11-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS,

(FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE.)

We understand that two hundred tickets have
been already issued for the dinner to be given Mr.
Sheil this day. The Examiner of yesterday ob-
serves, " that the very jackass has sufficient intelb•
gence to know that the greatest of his evils are his
burthens and the cudgel." If it be rather a melan-
choly consideration that too many Englishmen have
not even the sense of 'a jackass, we are, on the other
• hand, cheered by the reflection, that there are also
many Englishmen who have more elevated notions.
than the followers of
,the \Vinchelseas and the
Knatchbulls. There are many friends of civil-and
in England.
religious liberty Those who have come
forward on this occasion to discharge their debt to
Mr. Shell feel as Englishmen ought. to feel. The
number of the friends of civil aad religious liberty,
too, is constantly increasing, while the bipeds be- ,
.
neath the Jackass are more and more relegated to
neighbourhoods where they have only long-eared ex-
emplars, like %Vinchilsea, to study and imitate.
. The Speeches at the Brunswick aids Dinner at
Maidstone, on Friday, are below criticism. The
only thing said deserving of notice was the decla-
ration of the Chaiiman, the - Earl of Winchelsea,
that the Brunswickers were not only opposed to
Popery, but to " all those Societies established in
this country, whose ultimate' object, tinder the musk
of civil and religious liberty, is to root up the
ground-work of all our Institutions, and especially
our Protestant Institutions." The Dissenters should
always bear in mind 'that the Duke of Newcastle,
Lord Winchelsea, and other leaders of thesßruns-
wicker; are not more opposed to concession to the
Catholics than they are indignant at the repeal of
the Test and Corporation Acts. But there was
diStributed at the Dinner an Address to the
Freeholders of the county of Kent, by that
great Politician and Saint, Lord Bexley, of a
snore ambitious character than the speeches of the
Brunswickers. Lord Bexley had, it seems, been
suspected of hostility to the object of the Brans-
wickets. In this Address he is at great pains to
chew in the outset, that " in the answer he made to
the very first communication he 'made on the subject
of any proceedings in the county relative to the
Catholic Question, he expressed a distinct opinion
that nothing short of the declared sense of the free-
holders, taken at a County Meeting, regularly con-
vened, could produce that effect upon public opinion
which it was the object of his Noble Friend (Win-
chelsea) to bring about." Lord Bexley is, in con-
- sequence, the god of the idolatry of .the Bruns-
wickers, and all the papers on thedr side ask pardon
for having presumed to doubt for a moment the fide-
lity of so distinguished a saint. Lord Bexley of
another instance of the slender qualifications
required for a politician of the first grade in- this
country, His Lordship, without hereditary rank, rose
to the situation of Chancellor of the Exchequer, on
account, no doubt, of his supposed political saga-
city. And the proof of that sagacity he affords us
in this address is unquestionably very convincing.—
He informs us that the situation of Ireland is one of
great danger ; that the priests have begun to exer-
cise a most tremendous power ; that they can re-
turn Members in all the counties ; and that the Pro-
testants of Ireland need greatly the protection of
Protestant England. What then does his Lordship
propose ? Nothing. He leaves us to our danger
without consoling us with any hope of diminishing
it. He tells us that the Catholic Association has
usurped tht privileges of Parliament and the prero-
gatives of the Crown; that it has imposed taxes;
that it has marshalled the people in military
array; that it has created an order of Liberators,
but he does not inform us how all this could have
been prevented. But he tells us that the Catholics
are not so liberal' as they have been represented,
for the Catholic Priests do not any where allow
the Laity to read the Bible, and that it is not true
• that " we are the only intolerant and persecuting
nation remaining," for •Spainand Portugal are still
' more intolerant, for there "no Protestant is allowed
to live, except a very limited toleration to fo-
reigners ;" that in the Now States of Spanish Ame-
rica the principle of religions toleration has been
uniformly rejected, and that in Piedmont " the
Protestants; are confined to a very few narrow moun-
tain valleys." Admirable reasons, no doubt, for
retaining Ireland . in a state of anarchy, and impo-
verishing the people of England with the expence of
the establishments necessary to keep down the Irish.
The English are not, it seems, then more intolerant
and persecuting than all Catholics, but he admits
they are more intolerant than some. In the Aus-
trian dominions, according to Hassel, there are
3,200,000 of the Greek Church, 1,312,000 Cal-
vinists, about a million Lutherans, besides
Jews, Unitarians, and Menonites, and the re-
mainder of the thirty millions are Catholics.—
All these people live peaceably one with another.
In Germany the Catholics amount to sixteen mil-
lions, the Lutherans to twelve millions, the Calvi-
nists to upwards of two millions, and every where
there is the utmost peace and harmony. All the
States of that great country contain a mixed popula-
tion in point of religion. Prussia has about four
millions of Catholics to eight millions of Lutherans
and Calvinists, &c. Bavaria has about eight hun-
dred thousand Protestants out of a population of
four millions ; \Vurtemberg has a number of Ca-
tholics; Hanover has about 160,000 Catholics ; all
these live peaceably together. In France and the
Netherlands we find 'Protestants and Catholics.
There is not one of the scone of Governments,
where the . inhabitants are of different religions, in
which there is the least persecution, or the least ap-
prehension of it. England is unquestionably the
only country in Europe, containing different religions,
in which all are not on an equal footing, with the
exception of Piedmont, in which we suppose about
six or seven thousand Protestants are not liberally
treated. In `Spam, Portugal, and Italy, there are
no Protestants, as in Sweden and Denmark there
are no Catholics. In Sweden, if a Lutheran
changes Isis religion either for Catholicism sir Cal-
vinism, he forfeits his rights as a citizen, The Oonsti-
tution of Norway
allows 1,10 Jevs to inhabit the
country. If there were Catholics or Calvinists in
Sweden, or Jews in Norway, these intolerant laws
would, no doubt, be repealed. The difference be-
tween Great Britain and Catholic Spain and Por-
tugal, and Protestant Sweden and Norway, is,
that
in Great Britain intolerance is a substantial evil,.
while in Spain, and Portugal, and Italy, and Swe-
den, and Norway, intolerance is merely concentrated
in theory. Dr. Doyle very honestly observes, that
all Christian Churches are exclusive. " Our doe-
trine is not a whit more exclusive than that of the
'Established Church, and not half so much so as
that of numberless sects of Dissenters." It has
been well remarked by Protestant writers, that
wherever ate Reformation principles had the freest
scope, the Isrinciple of intolerance was the most
firmly establishes!, and that we owe toleration not
- to the strength of Any particular Church, but to its
weakness. Toleration was deemed by all Protestants
a crime, with the single exception of the Indepen-
dents—the only religiOua body, it has been well re-
marked, who, either before or since the period of
their influence iu England, ever coesecrated the
principle of loleration. Humanity owes nothing to
i
any Church n the way of Christian charity. So
much tor the political wisdom of Lord Bexley, anti
PO much for his Protestant lihsrality.
(FROM THE MORNING HERALD.)
Another of those precious jobs, of which the Civic
body seems to form the hot-bed anti the focus, is
brought to light in the recent petition of the city
Sword-bearer to the Common Council, praying re-
muneration for the loss of the fees, on the faith of
receiving which he bought, we suppose, his office.
And of what do these emoluments so lost principallyconsist, but of money paid for permission to witness
the trials at the Old Bailey ?—so that here is the
key of the first Criminal Court in the kingdom both
sold anti mortgaged, to fiirnish out funds for the ta-
vern dinners of the Corporate body ! net the
doors of a Court of Justice—especially-, as in thi.;
case, those of the first Criminal Court in the