The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-10 00:00:00

tifices

—against ti

its reasoning

details; we shall only say with him, that " two such

cases of blasphemous imposition no one would have

- -
set their name to who did not imagine that there was

.., ....
credulity in England capable of swallowing such hide-
ous falsehoods, as well as monstrous absurdities."

Here then is a fact pregnant with evidence as to the
unchanged and unchangeable character of Popery, and
if like will from like, we shall make our Popish con-

temporary a present of all he may gain from charging
an eloquent champion .of our Protestant faith with in-
consequential reasoning, or " malicious insinuation,"
in connecting a detected conspiracy of Jesuits and fa-
natics of a past age, with the not impossible, but yet
distantly surmised plots and operations of a similar
coterie, in the present.

We thank Mr. Ould for his fearless and powerful
advocacy of our common cause at all times, and parti-
cularly for the very excellent speech which has let loose
the flood-gates of Popish and liberal vituperation upon
him so copiously in this instance. The howl of the

V•AS,
adversary is good proof that the arrow has pierced
him ; we should doubt that it had reached its destina-
tion, if a cry of this sort had not assailed our ears. Ile
slavers in a rage, and pours out a vast quantity of filthy
slander; nor does even this expectoration seem suffi-

ciently to relieve him ; he darkly hints at the fate a
the Rev. Mr. Gathereole. And what was this fate
Why, prosecution, and persecution by nunnery people,
eremites and friars—black, white, and grey, with all
their trumpery—the revenge of law proceedings, and

•) -
law expenses, and all the long vexation of an action
for damages, or a criminal information ! But Mr.

__. ......
Ould may well laugh at such impotent rage, and defy
the utmost malice of denunciations or menaces so per-
fectly contemptible. Let the abettors of Guy Fawkes
bring their action by all means; and when the plead-
ings are opened, the judge on the bench, and the jury
sworn, may we be there to hear and see. There are

no such men for maintaining liberty of speech, and the
liberty of the press, by suits at law, as your thorough
Liberals. We are thankful, however, that their power
is not commensurate with their inclinations, and that
their star is at present rapidly on the wane.

Lord Palmerston has had the honour of an address
consolatory from the town council of Bridgenorth, and
it is pleasant to see by his answer that his lordship's
accustomed buoyancy of spirit still survives, and sup.
ports him in adversity. He confidently expects that
the reign of the Tories, or " combination of monopo-
lists," as he has learned to call them, will be but short,
and that himself and his late colleagues—who are free-
traders to the death—will be sent for, and restored to
the seat of honour. There is a circumstance deducible
from the terms he makes use of, which will be gratify-
ng to all who love firmness of purpose and consistency
of conduct; it would seem that he is resolved to be
not always a "juvenile Whig." Having served in all
administrations, and fought under all colours, he has
got fixed at last, and sink or swim, will abide by the
cause of free trade to the end of his—political career.
We are glad to perceive in his lordship such an evi-
dence of desperate fidelity. It is natural to suppose
that so old a courtier, when he does fall in love—with
a cause—must love it with extraordinary affection, and
that free-trade and commercial people, now that be has
given himself wholly to their interests, will share an
extraordinary portion of his regard. There may be a
question as to his age as a " free-trader ;" some may
think that he is only a juvenile anti-monopolist; his
own allegation, however, is, that for one who has been
so versatile as a politician, be is tolerably mature in
this respect. "It has always been," he says, " the
study of the late government to carry into practical
application those principles of civil and religious liberty
which are founded upon natural justice." And "we
attempted to apply to the commercial legislation of the
country those principles of trade, the soundness and
truth of which have long been demonstrated in reason-
ing," &c. Now it will be granted that they made an
attempt—their budget attests it—an attempt to fix
upon foreign corn an Bs. duty, and to make those
other changes in the sugar and timber imports, of
which every body knows ; but to say that the ex-Fo
reign Secretary, and rejected of Liverpool, can found
upon this a claim to be considered a veteran advocate
of free trade, is a fact which nobody can concede to
him. Palmerston and free trade for ever ! Only think
of the association—Lord Palmerston and—a, cheap
loaf !—Lord Palmerston and—no monopoly !---nay,
nay, it won't do; we could not teach our parrot—one
of the most educationable of birds—to repeat it; his
stomach, poor old fellow, would rise against it ; he has
a conscience, and could not be induced by any mean' ,

WI eillataCd tifiGtl tho Mkiftt an,
e Rcv, ?Jr, Ould. But we would

remind his accuser that extreme mental perturbation,
such as he palpably evinces, is unfavourable to logical
discrimination, and shall take upon us to assure him
that in a sober moment, so far from regarding Mr
Ould's speech as either " malicious
" detestation," he will be forced to admit with us the
perfect candour of its statements and the soundness of

or worthy of

The name of " Guy FaWkes " may sound harshly
to some ears, but the foul conspiracy in which the in-
cendiary was engaged, and the signal deliverance which
the nation experienced from his treason, must never-
theless remain on the page of history as a warning to
the simple and an instruction to the judicious. Mr.
Ould may have excited the displeasure of the liberal
journalist by alluding to this celebrated conspirator;
but if history be " philosophy teaching by examples,"
and not, as some would like to treat it, "an old al-
manack," useful only to mislead, the reverend gentle-
man was perfectly justifiable in so doing with a view to
derive thence a useful practical lesson.
Every body must admit that the great fires which
have lately taken place, in this country, have been,
taking them in the aggregate, strange mysterious, and
remarkable; and they have not, as Mr. Ould observes,
been accounted for. The Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees al-
leges that they are the work of Jesuits, states that he
is in possession of much important information on the
subject, and that he is anxious for an opportunity of
proving his allegations before a committee of either
house of Parliament; but with that reverend barone
or his discoveries Mr. Ould does not appear to identif]
himself. Mr. 0. does not take upon himself to sai
by whom these several fires have been raised, nor whe
ther they have been the effects of-design or otherwise
On the contrary, he contemplates them as peculiarl!
mysterious, inasmuch as they have not been accounte(
for. On this subject, however, in common with
others, he gives a caution. "We are surrounded witl-
enemies," he observes, " and shall do well to be cau-
tious; remember Guy Fawkes." Ay, remember Guy
Fawkes; there's the rub. How " malicious" and
" detestable" it was of the reverend gentleman to talk
of that Popish conspirator, and allude to the Gunpow-
der 'Treason in connection with the burning of the
Houses of Parliament, the Tower, and other recent
fires ; how slanderous, how abominable of him to in-
sinuate that, as a combination of Jesuits and fanatics
had, in the year 1605, made all things ready to de-
stroy, "in a most barbarous and savage manner, be-
yond the examples of former ages," the Sovereign, the
Queen, the Princes, and all the royal branches, with
the nobility, clergy, and commons of England then
assembled in Parliament—a similar combination might
in the year 1841 be again at work, and be the effectual
authors of great undertakings of mischief—of a cha-
racter not perhaps so bloody and diabolical, but, ne-
vertheless sufficiently injurious to be considered in the
light of national calamities. Such reasoning was, to
be sure, excessively shallow, and quite illiberal ; we
have got so enlightened in these days, and Popery, Je-
suitry, and fanaticism are so different now from what
they formerly were ! On the alleged prodigious im-
provement which has taken place in Popery in latter
times, Mr. Ould adduced a most remarkable illustra-
tion from a recent letter addressed by the Earl of
Shrewsbury to Ambrose Lisle Phillips, Esq., giving a
devout pilgrim's account of two as gross, blasphe-
mous, and disgusting "lying wonders" of the Pope's
church, at the present hour, as ever were got up, and
stupidly believed in, in the darkest ages. Bernard Ca-
vanagh is, God be praised, doing penance just at pre-
sent, on the tread mill ; but if he should ever escape
thence, and make a tour to Italy, doubtless some Popish
tourist, if not my Lord Shrewsbury, will be found to
exalt him to a par with those wondrous ladies whom his
lordship describes, and for whose genuine miraculosi-
ties he vouches, namely, the Estatica of Caldaro, and the
Addolorata of Capriana. We must refer to Mr.
Ould's speech, or to the Popish Earl's letter, for the