The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-11-19 00:00:00

Hated promises, hollow protestations, and list of mag-
nified grievances, have been the prime movers of every
outbreak amongst the populace which has threatened
the stability of Government in this Country. And
within the last ten years what can be more base than
their conduct towards their "patriot king i" So long
as he allowed himself to be the instrument of their
ambition, and the resolute supporter of the Reform
bill, he was covered with as much fulsome adulation
as they now seek to heap upon Queen Victoria ; but
when his eyes were opened to the true character of the
party he had called into power, and he found that on
his accession he had fallen amongst thieves, who can
have forgotten the loathsome abuse which these time-
serving parasites dared to utter against their Sovereign.
Then the " patriot king" was changed into " false,
fleeting, perjured Clarence ;" and other epithets were
used with which we will not defile our columns. That
most excellent and exemplary lady, Queen Adelaide,
was coarsely attacked, and the most unmanly and in-
jurious calumnies against her were put into circulation.
But we will not revive these filthy libels. Suffice it to
say, that the Whig party then and until the death of
King William did all they could to render monarchy
odious, and yet they would now have us believe that
they have a monopoly of loyalty, and to them alone
the Throne must look for protection and support. Out
upon such hollow hypocrisy ! It is seen and under-
stood by, and will meet soon with its deserts from, the
people of England.

There is no limit to the humbug practised by the
present degraded and imbecile Administration. The
penny postage scheme has turned out in their hands
another miserable failure. If it had been passed with
the proviso for which the Conservative party in the
House of Commons stipulated, it might have been car-
ried into immediate and beneficial operation. But for the
factious obstinacy of the ministerialists, the people of
this country would have been favoured with this most
desirable reform in our fiscal regulations. Sir Robert
Peel's advice was, however, disregarded, and the act
for the establishment of a penny postage scheme has
proved an abortion. That act was passed on the 17th
of August last, and was to continue in force and effect
until the sth of October, 1840. Above a month of the
period allotted by Parliament for the experiment of a
penny postage had expired, when, on the 12th instant,
a Treasury minute is issued, not for a penny, but for a
fourpenny one, the benefit of which will only be experi-
enced by the inhabitants of those places which are situ-
ated at a greater distance than fifteen miles from each
other ! But on this subject we shall have more to say
on Friday.

THE PROTESTANT ASSOCIATIONS are doing
their work nobly, and their numbers increase. In our
columns to-day will be found a Report of the Speeches
delivered at Sheffield last week by the Rev. Messrs.
Nl‘Ghee and M'Neile.

Mr. M`Ghee, whose speech we have abridged (we
are sorry we could not give it entire) from the Shef-
field Mercury, has added to his former masterly exhi-
bitions of the treachery and perjury of the Popish
Hierarchy and Demagogues in Ireland, a demonstra-
tion which we doubt not will produce a powerful effect.
At the labours of Mr. M`Neile we know not how to
express our astonishment. His incessant preaching
to densely crowded congregations with a lucidness of
arrangement, a power of expression, and a richness of
information, requiring unwearied study, would seem to
leave no time for speaking at public meetings; while
his speeches would in like manner seem to leave no
time for the preparation of such sermons.

His speech at Sheffield contains a brilliant exposure
of Papal ambition, derived from the pages of our his-
tory, "and combined with observations of profound wis-
dom and sagacity upon the theory and working of our
Constitution. We beg to call particular attention to
the following passage :
"There is indeed, and there was, a strictly legal and consti-
tutional dispensing power in the Crown ; but of course it had
its limits. It extended to the penalties, but not to the privi-
leges of the subject. It was, and is, constitutional in the
Crown to dispense with the sentence of the law passed upon
a convict, and to throw open his prison doors ; but it was,
and is, unconstitutional and illegal for the Crown to dispense
with the habeas corpus, and throw any subject untried into
prison. (Loud cheering for several minutes.) But even
then, supposing such an exercise of arbitrary authority, the
Sovereign is not personally responsible. The constitution
has shielded the Monarch behind the ministers who are re-
sponsible to the nation, and upon whom, as the advisers of
an illegal act, the concentrated indignation of an insulted
people should fall. (Renewed and enthusiastic cheering.)
The responsibility of the ministers of the Crown stands con-
nected with that other feature of the constitution, that no
men can continue ministers after they have lost the confi-
dence of the country. And if any men, after they have lost
the confidence of the country, and publicly confessed, in their
places in parliament, that such is the case,:shall continue to
advise the Sovereign to retain them in office, such men be-
come unconstitutional traitors ; and if the country continue
to tolerate such men, it becomes particeps criminis in the
prostration of its own liberties. (Tremendous cheering.)"
Upon the " Education Plot," also, he has added to
his well-earned reputation ; and his description of
O'Connell's reception when Mr. Mayor Rathbone ad-
ventured him into our Newsroom, is rich, and must
have been irresistible.