The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-03 00:00:00

MOll D A lc, ,-Tiktf-UAA.Y 78; -1842;

fort Was taken out of dock on Tuesday. The- :triadic-.
dive was taken out of the basin on the same day.
The Hingdove, 16, is in the basin, and ready for com-
missioning..
The Formidable, 84, Captain Sir Charles Sullivan,
Part., is nearly ready for sea, at Sheerness. She may
be expected at Spithead about the middle of the ensuing
month.

The Nautilus. 10, ;vas this week commissioned by
Lieut. Sydney Thomas.
The Carysfort, 26, was commissioned on Wednesday,
by Captain Lord George Paula.
The Hazard, 16, Commander Bell, sailed to-day, for
China.

The Driver, steam-vessel, Commander S. Harmer,
proceeded from Woolwich to Deptford dockyard on
Thursday, and was taken into dock there to examine her
bottom and have her defects made good.
The Vixen steamer, Commodore Boyes, sailed this
afternoon for Plymouth, and will proceed thence to the
Brazils.

The ship Joshua Carroll, detained by her Majesty's
ship Lily, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, on the 20th
October.

The Numa. transport sailed on Thursday for Barbadocs.
In Harbotir.—St. Vincent, Victory, Powerful, Excel-
lent, Vindictive, Warspite, Royal George, Carysfort,
Rapid, Nautilus, Adventure, naval transport, and Etth6,
steam tug.

At Spithead—Queen, Thalia, Hazard.
By the List of the Navy made up to-day, which will
be found in our third page, it will be seen that there are
in commission, as sea-going:ships, 25 sail of the line, 37
frigates, 40 sloops of war, 56 smaller vessels, 60 armed
steamers, besides surveying ships and troopers. The
sailing craft mount 4,440 guns ; the force, therefore, is
pretty much the same amount under the Tories as under
the Whin-'s ; but during the autumn all the ships in com-
mission have been getting manned, and excepting the
Queen, Formidable, Powerful, and Carysfort, which re-
quire about 1,000 men to complete them, the whole may
be reckoned on as ready for instant sea service.
The King of Prussia has conferred the order of the
Red Eagle of the 2d class on Capt. Walker, now em-
ployed as Admiral in the Turkish service.

.T HE FIREBRAND QUAKER" OF

BRIDGEWATER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIR-My duty as a good partisan, being not to
see the enemy careless in his posts and parties
without turning it to account, I take advantage
of the looseness of some of his movements, to
try to advance the object of calling on the Libe-
rals, in various quarters, and by their various in-
terests, to lift up their heads and unite on the
question of Free Trade for a general move. -
The subject which now presents itself, is an
article or letter signed " No Magistrate," in the
Times of 31 December. To whatever extent a
leading. Ministerial paper by choosing an article
fin• insertion adopts it and makes it part and
portion of the policy it maintains, to that extent
the contents are appealed to as if they were pro-
mulgated by the Government.
A " firebrand Quaker" as he is called, a
borough magistrate, at _Bridgewater as would ap-
pear, is charged with exhibiting a placard in his
window at the last election with the tbllowing :--
" Are the poor to pay 9d. per loaf, and the rich land-
owners to pocket the tax of 3d , which they invariably
do ? Or are the poor to pay 6d. per loaf, and the Con-
servative landowners to lose the 3d. ?"

In immediate juxtaposition to which, is the
following commentary :
" Could this proposal for confiscating the whole rental
of the kingdom—for making the landlords lose' all, and
falsely representing that all to be four times as great as it
actually is--could such a detestable proposal possibly pro-
ceed from a person' admitted on all hands to be fully quali-
fied for the commission of the peace ?' Sure') it may
be safely left to any honest man in the kingdom, what-
ever his politics may be, to determine on the quali-
fication of this firebrand Quaker for the magistracy,
who at a period of general excitement could exhibit to
the public so monstrous a lie—a lie, too, so likely to de-
lude and infuriate the people. Can any respectable man
doubt fin• an instant that the exhibitor of this infamous
statement was utterly disqualified fur any office which
required a respect for truth and a reverence for the lives
and property of his neighbimrs ?"

It is one thing to enjoy the elegant amusement
of calling a Quaker a liar, and another to answer
to a man's own party fur having given the op-
portunity to an adversary to invite public
opinion to determine, whether the honest
Quaker was not proceeding in a course
as consistent with religious iprinciple, and with
the duties imposed on him both as a citizen
and as a magistrate, as if be had chosen to de-
monstrate his zeal against,any other of the formu
of evil-doing which are rampant in society.
May this crocodile to Quakers have been im-
posing on the Times, and after all be some wag
of the League's, aspiring to boasting that he at-
tacked the landowners through the columns
of the Times? The position he has fixed
upon them is this,—that all the rental of the
kingdom is taken through the operation of the
Corn-laws ;—that the Corn-laws are an invention
for creating a class of men to be called rent-
owners, who otherwise and by the unaided
course of nature would never have existed;—that
they are a contrivance for causing a public loss,
of dimensions with difficulty assignable or calcu-
lable, for the single object of giving a limited and
easily calculable amount out of it to a happy
portion of society the law creates for the express
purpose of being the recipients.
The League never said so much, but the Times
has. And for any nice questions of authority, the
Times must settle them with its correspondent.
Meantime the assertion of the honest Quaker's
window stands out avowed, defended, adopted,
transferred to the hearts and heads of all in the
country who to honesty join a certain quantum
of intelligence.
Combining this with the other portion of the
letter, which is on the coup d'etat for creating
Tory magistrates, may we not hope that the
united effect will be to raise up a spirit of indi-
vidual determination in the places which have
been the scene of operation, the end of which
will be to promote the feeling of a general ne-
cessity for union on the question of Free Trade,
as the means of driving out the common enemy.
When the Neapolitans misbehaved, somebody
said they must have more of the Austrian stick.
The Tories are giving us the stick.
Yours, sincerely,
T. PERROET THOMPSON.
Blackheath, Jan. 1, 1842.

MONEY and COMMERCIAL NEWS.
(From The Sun of Saturday Evening.)

LIVERPOOL SHARE MARKET, DEc. 31.—The trans-
actions comprise—Grand Junction Half Shares 975 ;
Great Western Fifths, 101 ; Midland Counties, 85 ;
North Midland New 36:1
v•
MANCHESTER STOOK EXCHANGE., DEC. 31.—There
continues to be a considerable demand for Railway
Stock, and prices ar6 gradually advancing. The under.
mentioned sales have been reported:—Eastern Counties,
9 ; Manchester and Birmingham, 284 ; Manchester and
Leeds, 70 71 ; Ditto, Halves, 304 ; Ditto, Quarters,
31. 16s. 6d.; Manchester and Salford Water Works, 535.
The St. John's New Brunswick papers, received by
the Acadia, state that three attempts had been made
during the week to set fire to houses in the city.
Consols opened at 89$ 5 ; Three per Cents. Reduced
894 ; Threa-and-a-Half ditto, 991 a ; Bank Stock,
166 167 Exchequer Bills, 14 16 prem. Very little
business doing at present.
The settlement of the half-monthly account in the
Foreign Market yesterday passed over without any
casualty occurring. Spanish Active Stock opened rather
-flat at 24- to 25 ; Mexican Bonds remain firm at 285
to 29 ; Portuguese Five per Cents., 335 to 34 ; Ditto
Threes, 20i R.
The Continental exchanges were steady yesterday, at
much the same quotations as last post day.
There has been but little business doing in the Stock
Exchange up to the present time. Consols are now
quoted at 8n- ; Three per Cents. Reduced 895 5 ;
Three-and-a-Half per Cents., ditto, 994 5 ; Exchequer
bills 14 16 prem. ; Spanish Active Stock, 25 ; Colombian
Bonds, 22 ; Mexican, 284 29 ; Portuguese Five per
Cents. have advanced to 34.

No material alteration has taken place in the Share
Market ; the following are the quotations :—Birming-
ham and Gloucester, 641 ; Great Western, 88 ; Ditto
New, 61,1 ; Ditto Fifths, 10k ; London and Brighton,
39a ; London and Birmingham, 169 ; London and
South Western, 59?,- ; South Eastern and Dover, 221 23.
Consols, Account, 89 ; Spanish, 25k i ; Mexican,
29i 30.
It is satisfactory, as far as the consumption of the sta-
ples of Colonial produce are concerned, to find that it
had not fallen off last year, though, perhaps,
a very different result might be exhibited were
meat and bread to come within the category.
It should be borne in mind also that the year 1840 was
one of privation. The stock of goods in bond, except in
a few cases, is not so high as at this time last year, a
proof that our merchants have not been over trading.
Very few have done a profitable business, however,
during the year.