The Sun.
London, England, 1829-01-01 00:00:00

APIR!T OF THE LONDON JOUIiNALS.

We were not sure when the Duke of Welling-
ton's letter to Dr. Curtis first appeared in print,
whether it had been printed with his Grace's
per Mission or otherwise. That ignorance, how-
ever, is now removed by the publication of a
reply from the Catholic Archbishop, which con-
tains a formal apology to the Duke of Welling-
ton for having suffered- the private expression of
his Grace's sentiments to be laid before the pub-
lic. Perhaps the reason assigned for this act,
avowedly unauthorized by the party whom it
most affected, may, infbro conscienticr, be sof-
fieient. Perhaps the Deke may not have been
displeased with it. We would like to see the
first letter of Dr. Curtis, dated the •4th of De-
cember, to the Duke ; and his Grace's answer
to this present production, if he has transmitted
any ; though it is probable that a paper war with
a veteran controversialist is not exactly that spe-
cies of conflict into which the leader of victo-
rious armies would be most easily seduced.—
Apart frOm these questions of taste and delicacy,
we are bound :0 say that in -the composition
now before us, the Catholic Prelate has turned
the Field-Marshal, as completely as 'the latter out-
flanked his opponents at Salamanca. We have
once or twice, on former occasions, lamented the
conscious confession of political weakness made
by the Duke of Wellington, when he treated as
inammeuntable the difficulties which factious
violence had thrown in the way of Emancipa-
tion ; and the other, the intellectual weakness
which he betrayed, without being conscious of
it, in fancying that the period will ever come
when such difficulties—namely, those caused by
party feeling"—can cease to " be mixed
with the question" until it shall have been ac•
wally settled. Dr. Curtis touches his Grace
pretty smartly on these points. fie tells him to
the effect that an expression of mere good wishes
towards a measure which the Duke admits
would he a national benefit, might be sufficient
were he a private nobleman ; but that it does
not redeem the honour, and ought not to satisfy
the self-approbation, of a powerful and inde-
pendent Minister. Dr. Curtis adds—what we
are convinced is true—that half the abuee which
has been pouted out against Emancipation is not
founded on an equivalent and bona fide hatred
or the measure, but may be placed to the account
of mere bullying, to deter the King's Govern-
ment from making the attempt, and the Legis-
lature front affixing its sanction. We agree
• With the Catholic prelate in these observations.
The Duke of Wellington, it appears to us, need
only circulate througn the upper classes his re-
solution to settle Iretaud, and the whole necro-
mancy of Orangeism will vanish like a spectre at
the break of day. The-Test Act, that." mighty
bulwark" of the Constitution, was levelled by the
first fire from the Ministerial trenches, and who
now utters one word of lamentation for its fall,
ortorments himself about rebuilding the " mighty
bulwark ?" So would it be with Catholic ex-
c:usion. Prejudice, ignorance, and terror sur-
round it as with a mist, through which its reality
as a fortress is assumed, and its defensive po;vers
are magnified : approach and demolish it, and
you will, not scrape from among the ruins one
ounce of convertible matter. If the Duke of
Wellington flatters himself that- the wise men of
this age, or teat any class of men in the next ge-
neration, wili :dank him for words of barren
benevolence towards the great cause of religious
freedom—words, unsupported by any proof of
their sincerity—by any active struggle against
obstinacy among the great—against the unmean-
ing bigotry of the vulgar—bv any independent
risk of place or manly sacrifice of personal quiet
—if he declines to exert the natural influence of
his station for the relief of millions of his fellow-
subjects, because, with careless and supercilious
scepticism, he distrusts the tenability of a glo-
rious principle by the same power which has
often shoWn itself unconquerable when employed
in vindicating the most desperate and atrocious
job—we.say that the Duke of Wellington may
win a thousand battles, but that he is not a man
for empire, or for immortality—that he has yet to
study the rudiments of his (long-deferred)profes-
sion as an English statesman. - if his Grace would
not hasten the destruction of that Irish Church
establishment, which perhaps it may require the
utmost stretch of political wisdom and virtue to
perpetuate, he will seek counsel even from Dr.
Curtis rather than from some pretended cham-
pions of the '' Constitution in Church and
State."— Times.
Our readers will see, from our extracts from
the Scotch Papers, that the doings at Edinburgh
turn out to Kaye been far more atrocious than
the wildest imagination eould possibly have con-
ceived. The Caledonian Mercury says, that
Burke now admits having sold, in all, from
thirty to thirty-five uninterred bodies during the
last two years. "If (observes the same paper)
it be true, as Burke now states, that, in the
course of the last two years, he sold to one in-
dividual from thirty to forty uninterred bodies,
be and his associate must have committed as
weeny murelee?." it adds, that "it has been
remarked that e enbers of the unfortunate fe-
males upon the town have disappeared, no one
knew how. Natural deaths have become rarer
among that class; and for some time past the
interment of one of them has scarcely been heard
of." In Burke's house there is bloody &tray;
in the corner, a heap of bloody clothes on the
floor, and a pile of old boots and shoes, amount-
iag to several dozens. Some of these ruffian:.
had the effrontery to proceed to a teacher
of anatomy with a body in a sack, which,
when turned out, proved to be the body of a
woman on the town in her clothes, .and with her
shoes and stockings on. The assistant of the
teacher having been startled, proceeded to exa-
mine the body, when he found an enormous
fracture on the back part of the head, and a
large portion of the skull driven in, as if ky a
blow from the blunt part of a hatchet, or some
such weapon. On making the discovery he in-
stantly exclaimed, " You villains ! where
and how did you get this body ?" To which one
of them replied, with great sang froid, that it
was time body of a who had been popped
in a row (murdered in a brawl) in Halkerston's
Wynd ; and that if he did not choose to take it,
another would. While he was taking measures
to have them detained, the ruffians, three in
number, besides the porter, immediately with-
drew with their horrid cargo. Neither Hare
nor Burke were resurrectionists ; so that their
supply must have been altogether the fruits of
mum der. Those w'm obtain bodies, in what
the Scotch papers say may now be called the
regular and legitimate way—viz. by disinter-'
meet alone—know them not; and they could
not have followed this business, without being
known to the other members of this infamous
craft, " who are said to be all leagued together,
and to know one another, and to-suffet no in-
terloper to interfere. with their business, or
to pursue it exchtaively on his own account."
According to the 'Courant packages used to