The Sun.
London, England, 1829-01-19 00:00:00

(FROM THE MORNING POST.)

The Devon County Meeting took place on Friday
List, and most cordially do we congratulate the
public upon the triumphant and glorious result. Au
ample report of the proceeding. is given in our pre-
ceding columns; by which it will be sten that at the
meat numerous and respectable meeting ever held
in that great county, notwithstanding the unprece-
dented efforts made by the Catholic party to defeat
the object of the friends of the Constitution in Church
and State, the proposed petition against the Catho-
lic Claims to political power and consequent supreme
ascendancy, was carried by a proud majority of at
least fifteen to one! The erer-to-be commended
example of the County of Kent being thus laud-
ably followed by Devonshire, as well as Che-
shire, and numberless other places in every
part of the United Kingdom, we may fairly pro-
nounce the Constitution to he now in a suite of
perfect safety; and upon this happy event we
cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of ag:►in most
heartily congratulating the Nation upon so truly
gratifying and happy a result. Well and truly did
the high Sheriff of Devon observe, " that if he
might judge tom t.e weight, respectability, and
talent of the assembly, it was fair to presume that
the true sense of the County would be ascertained
en the occasion." That sense has been unequi-
vocally ascertained to be in favour of the Consti-
tinions in Church and state; nor can we help ob-
serving, that the opposition displayed on the oc-
casion was unworthy even of the blind zeal of
Lordy.brington, whose sentiments exhibited so
markek a weakness and total disregard of facts as
to place his Lordship 8611 lower than ever in our

•
estaMlttion. His view of the immediate question
was of the most erroneous description ; his ideas
were borrowed from factious publications of the
most common place sand desperate character; and
his wretched adoption of the ignorant and misehlev-
ous in-intuitions of the worst ie,ral bAsest enem'es of
the State in regard ri the effect of the conduct of
his 3lsjesy's Ministers upon the Councils of Fo-
reic.ft Nations (which is known to be powerfully
cn. ?tennis.l
e •
. at the present moment beyond all pre,
cedent), proves him to be either toteliy ig-ndrant
of the subject upon which he ptesumes to spew,
or that he factiour.ly asserts what the lii6e,t
superficial observer must know is directly At reverse
of nniversady acknowledged AyrA obvious facts.
Finely and truly did Thomas l.ethbridge
observe on this ee'easion--" I rather think it will
he found Oral those who lived before us were as
wise as ourselves; they knew what they wree
about ; they had enemies'to deal with) e.nd so have
we; and at their head I pet the Oatholic Associa-
tion of Ireland, of which the Noble Lord (Ebring-
ton) is a mvrabtr.—(Elear, hear, hear.)--I had
heard Ai much before, and if he had not admitted
'.71 the manly , way he has done, I should
have thought it my duty to elicit it. The Catho-
lic Association is opposed, in tan, to the principles
of the Constitution ; it includes in its body, sorry
am I to say it, my Lord Ebrington; and it assembles
what ? why men' whom, judging by their speeches,
I am compelled to denounce, before this Assembly,
as traitors to the Constitution!" (Cheers.) Towards
the conclusion of the proceedings, the impatience
of the Meeting f'r the Question, in consequence
of the /,.t4e.ness of the hour, became so great that
seete Gentlemen who akressed the assemblage
Were almost wholly inaudible; nor is this to be
wondered at when it is considered (as has been
well observed) that the Meeting took place in
the very scene in which Popery was permitted to
commit its last atrocities in England; but the free-
holders of Devon are formed in a great measure of
the sons of those whose klood still cries from the
ground against the murderous House of Stuart,and
against the infernal conspiracy, to pervert the law of
God, and to extinguish the liberties of man, of
which the last crowned member of that murderous
House was but the unconscious laioister; or if not
of the descendants of the actual victims; of the sons
of those" who saw," to use the words of Hume,
" the whole country strewed with heads and limbs,
when every village beheld the dead carcase of a
wretched inhabitant."