The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-09-23 00:00:00

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those sentiments which have now happily become gene-
ral through the land, and rallying all classes of persons
around him as their landlord, friend, and leader in the
great and glorious cause of protestantism and civil
liberty ?
And here we would inquire, what is the actual result
of the boasted reformation which has been extended to
the English people ? The reform bill which was to have
performed such wonders—to have lessened our taxes—to
have given a new spring -to our national industry, and to
have produced a more equable distribution of property—
and to have given increased temper to the spring of pub-
lic credit and public confidence—what has it done ? At
one fell swoop, like the furious surge rising over the
heavily laden vessel, it has swept away most of her best
bulwarks—all the peculiar and well known privileges of
the manufacturing and the intelligent classes—all the
ancient rights and freedom of corporate bodies, allied
with the constitutional principle of the British monarchy
—all the rights of service and apprenticeship—all the
franchises and immunities connected with personal pur-
chase and local interests, simply to introduce a. deluge of
new principles centring in one compound of irrational
legislation—the Municipal Bill. With Ireland, follow-
ing the measure of catholic emancipation, and where it
was to have worked wonders—to have put down agita-
tion—to have reconciled the conflicting interests between
protestants and catholics—to have lessened crime, and to
have increased the authority of the law, and thereby es-
sentially promoted the general prosperity of the country,
by giving increased confidence to capitalists—what has
reform done there ? Increased all the evils it was vainly
designed to remove, four-fold ; and, in addition, brought
into absolute jeopardy the very existence of the protest-
ant church—the established reformed religion of the land,
and the permanency of the legislative union. It has
then, as regards both England and Ireland, ended in DIS-
APPOINTMENT !
There is yet, however, a greater evil to be apprehended
—the entire desecration of the staple principle on which
the British monarchy is founded—namely, its protestant
christianity, This has been partially affected under the
latitudinarian policy of our present conventional rulers;
and, as the whole series of evils before referred to, may
be properly attributed to the departure from the grand
principle of state protestantism, so the more aggravated,
and assuredly fatal consequences will follow our increased
declension from that sterling principle. Let every man
capable of sober reflection ponder the inevitable results
of our tamely suffering ourselves to be dragged forward
by such a system of policy, as that fearlessly depicted by
Lord Wilton, under his responsibility, as a moral British
peer, a gentleman, and a christian, in the face of Heaven,
and of a thousand of his assembled countrymen, to bear
him witness in his solemn abjuration of the immorality—
the dishonour—the injustice—and the irreligion of that
compact which binds the existing government, and directs
its rule over a land of moral freemen ! Here, verily, is
a memento for our deliberation, the counterpart of which
we may look for in vain in British history. There ex-
ists no parallel case on record; but Lord Wilton's denun-
ciation will, indeed, be a record—" in perpetuam rei me-
moriam "—not of virtue—not of good faith—not of
ablility—not of integrity—but the very opposite, in the
adoption of that baser machiavellian policy, embracing
the desertion of all these vital qualities, and rendered
doubly vicious, proportionately, with its category of
measures levelled against the remaining securities of
English liberty.
No nation or people, in the history of the world, ever
rose to power, or flourished in prosperity, without setting
out with a leading principle in its governing polity—
retrace back all the archives of ancient history, and this
important fact presents itself to view; and whether that
leading principle rested on superstition—fanaticism—
despotism—monarchy—or republicanism—we find the
nation or people adopting it to have flourished or de-
clined, in proportion to its retention or its desertion.
The leading principle of Britain, infinitely superior td
all or any of these, was founded in christianity, and it
ended in the establishment of a perfectly free constitution,
dedicating, in the emphatic words of Mr. Wilkins, in his
eloquent speech, at Newton, its noblest apartment to
the worship of our God! This, then, has been our case
as a people—we adopted a leading principle for our polar
star—a principle the most pure the world ever knew,
founded on the sacred immutability of truth, and, accord-
ingly, as we cherished it in our governing system we
rose to prosperity and to power—it was the cementing
bond of all our actions—the connecting link of all our
social affections—and the main-spring of our energies.
To the general desertion of that principle, in favour of a
false philosophy—to this grave error in potitics, may pro-
perly be assigned the popular turmoil and the agitation
which has, for the last few years, in the midst of profound
peace, shook the state to its very foundation—it has been
the prolific source of all the impure legislation which has
taken place, paripassez, with the inflamed judgment of
the people, in the hands of crafty and ambitious men,
and it had nearly left that people although proud, intelli

gent, and enterprising, without a rallying point. As the
greater delusion has passed away, and the excitement of
popular prejudice, in a great measure, subsided, what is
now the paramount duty of that hitherto deluded and de-
ceived people ? Simply to perform the conservative part
of bringing back the government of this christian coun-
try to the vitally fundamental principle we have shown to
be the key-stone of its stability and the propelliug en-
gine of its power—and this is what the great body, form-
ing the English people, insulted in its judgment, and its
majesty, (for we exclude the mob altogether) can do, and
is doing daily and hourly, as the proceedings at the hust-
ings and our constitutional associations proudly testify.
It has been well observed that " national protestantism is

ie only title of the House of Hanover to the throne o

these realms." The struggle has been, and still is on the
part of the present government, and its supporters, upon
Lord Melbourne's own showing, to subvert this princi-

ple—to give, confessedly, a " great discouragement " to
it; and thus to pave the way to the abrogation of the
act of settlement itself. Will Englishmen, with their
eyes open, submit to this ? Impossible ! "To save this
country," however, .in the impressively concluding lan-
guage of Lord Wilton, "from the rule of an irresponsible
oligarchy, at this very moment striving /to coerce the
wills of the peers and the people, it is absolutely neces-

sary to rally round the standard of our association—to
remember, that each, in his individual capacity, forms
a link of that great social chain, by which the institutions
of this country are held together; and which, if broken,
either by internal dissension or by the pressure from
without, this great country will be thrown down from
that proud pedestal amongst surrounding nations upon
which her constitution has placed her." And who is
there amongst us who will not respond, cordially respond,
to such sentiments as those expressed by the Earl of Wil-
ton on this occasion--,-sentiments which alike do honour
to his heart as an Englishman, and to his understanding
as a man and a patriot. He has accepted the trust, and
may say for himself, without egotism, that he has nobly
fulfilled it, in support and vindication of the acts of that
illustrious assembly, of which he forms so prominent an.
ornament. Talk not of your liberal peers—your pro-

pounders of fallacies—of them, who confessedly, and
avowedly declare, that they cannot distinguish the differ-
ence between good and ovil—that one system of religion
is as good as another in their estimation—that it vvould

be better for our protestant church to be poor, debased,
and degraded, than affluent, useful, learned, independent,

and protective—that religion ought to be subservient to
politics, and not politics subservient to the control of re-

ligion—and that Ireland, ignorant, fanatic, priestly, des-
potic, and revolutionary, should, in all things be placed
upon a par with protestant England, under the degraded,
the polluted term JUSTICE! Such sentiments—such prin-
ciples might have passed current with the revolutionary
democrats of infidel France, in the day of her lowest de-

basement—heathenism we have shown would not have

suffered them, and when made known they cannot pos-
sibly be tolerated in a christian age, by either a moral

or christian cumnunity.

It now becomes our duty to consider what this moral
government, as stamped by Lord Wilton, is prepared to

do towards that high estate of the realu► comprehended
in the hereditary British peerage. And here use find our

key-text in the upright and manly eapos.e of that truly

I' SEPT. 23. 1836.

excellent peer Lord Skeltnersdale, on whom the angel
spirit which once defended Latham !Ponce, in the form
of a woman, seems to have alighted, in the fervour of his
Protestantism, as its present possessor. But before we
proceed to the combat against the mighty oligarchs, it is
needful, as our constitutional championship is yet young
with our Standard spear• to select a trusty and able
knight to perform the part of esquire to us in our conflict
with the erudite cynics in whiggery, and the acute rea-
Boners in radical logic; for as regards the jesuitical advo-
cates of popM-%• we dare them single-handed to the en-
Spirit of the mighty Burke, thou wilt respond
to our call! From the electric fire of thy genius we will
throw a light on the elements from which the assailed
British Peerage has been compounded. We will take
your authority as our standard—as that of the greatest
political philosopher, since the days of Aristotle; and we
invite the greatest amongst the whigs, and the most pro-
found amonst the liberal•, to furnish the counterpart in
their splendid oligarchy, or their reformed republic !
"To be bred in a place of estimation,—to see nothing low or
sordid from one's infancy,—to be habituated to the censorial in-
spection of the public eye,—to stand upon such elevated ground
as to be enabled to taken view of the wide-spread combination
of men and affairs in a large society,—to have leisure to read,
reflect, and converse,—to be enabled to draw around them the
Wise and the learned, wherever they are to be found,—to be
taught to despise danger in the pursuit of honour and duty,—to
be habituated in armies to command and to obey,—to be formed .
to exercffse the greatest degree of vigilance, foresight, and cir-
cumspection, in a state of things in which no fault is Committed
with impunity, and the slightest mistakes draw on the Most se-
rious consequences,—to be led to a guarded and well-regulated
conduct, from a sense of feeling that you are considered the in-
structor of your fellow-citizens, in their highest concerns,—to'be
employed as an administrator of laws and justice, and to be
thereby amongst the first benefactors of mankind,—to be a pro-
fessor of political science—to be amongst such traders, who,
from their success, are presumed to possess clear and vigorous
understandings,—to possess the virtues of diligence, order, con-
stancy, and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative
justice;—those are the circumstances of men that form, what I
should call a natural aristocracy, without which there is no
NATION I"

counter.

From this profound combination in our great society,
growing gradually from a small beginning, has arisen the
second estate of this realm—the English Peerage. If
men as individuals do not attain to one or other of the
component parts or limbs of this deeply described super-
structure, the fault is within themselves—not in the con-
stitution which has cemented its construction, and wherein
the great principle of redemption, renovation, and im-
provement still exists in its pristine energy! Again, we
call upon our opponents—our Chronicles, our Globes, our
Suns, and our Mercuries, to favour us with the elements
of their social system, formed upon the break up of that
we have described from the pen of their Master—their
towering superior in reason, comprehension, learning,
philosophy, and religion. Let us have no false play upon
words, nor garbled sentences,—if their system or their
foundation of its principles, admits of illustration, let us
have it in a substantive form. We have thrown down
the gauntlet to them ; but in so doing, we are not pre-
pared to grapple with shadows!
From the beautiful association described by Burke, re-
sults the theory of the Briti.sh constitutional monarchy,—
a government of King, Lords, and Commons. Let us
now canvass briefly the moral consequences which must
inevitably accrue from the threatened design of making
the peerage elective! for the question is no longer treated
as a matter of hypothetical speculation, but asserted as a
principle, by the destructive movement party, tile com-
pound Irish and liberal junta out of doors, and tacitly
supported by the whig government, as the medium of
pacifying their faithful allies, and of enabling the "mon-
ster Chimera," so poetically described by Lord Wilton,
to move forward, whisking its serpentine tail and carry-
ing destruction in its course. As we do not aspire to the
high learning of the modern Solons who like my Lord
Plunkett deem history an " old almanack, and deep phi-
losophy obsolete," we must found our judgment of the sci-
ence of legislation and government upon the experience
of ancient history, supported by the events of modern
times,—and here we discover the: astounding truth, that
a purely popular assembly never was, and from the very
nature of its composition, never can be rendered fit to
govern. All the struggles about liberty, and the con-
tentions between the rival principles of monarchy, abso-
lutism, and republicanism, since men entered on the wiile
field of. society, corroborate this pOint. In every well-
regulated state, there must be some balancing authority •
interposed as a corrective, between the rash passion of
popular influence, and the more sober energy of general
or national legislation. It is needful that there should be
some consolidated piinciple of deliberative action for the
purpose of affording time for reflection to the people at
large, who are all deeply interested in the issue; and not

merely a party, or section of the people, influenced by
some peculiar views of self-interested or local advantage,
*or led on by some designing leader or leaders. It is
needful that there should be some well constituted de-
fence, framed by the general wisdom of the nation, to
act as a counterpoise to the fantastic schemes of indivi-
duals, or to repel the undue ebullition of popular excite-.
tnent. This controlling principle has been admitted and
its necessity urged by the most intelligent men in every
age, and those who deny it, display a total ignorance of
the science of government, or the desire to pervert the
truth, for the furtherance of impure objects.
Again,—the institution of an independent senate, as
illustrated in the ancient governments of Greece and of
Rome, has been the inevitable resource against the flue--
tuation—the fury and the ruin of republicani*, or the

tyranny of arbitrary monarchy. The glory, and the
strength of ancient Rome rested in its Patrician Senate,

—its misery and declension in the destruction of that
body, or of its due authority. This then is maker of
history--let our antagonists disprove it, if they can. But
we can go further—the minor and very republican go-
vernments of modern Italy were only kept together so
long as they were preserved from direct popular control.
Even America, the vaunted perfection of republican in-
stitutions, has a controlling senate,—her legislature is po-
pular, and her executive monarchical, and so are ours,
with this distinction, that our Second Chamber, and our
Presidency, as best adapted to a matured state, are re-
moved from direct popular influence, and therefore not so

likely to be counteracted by the dictation of impure party
spirit or annihilated by the fickleness or the turbulence
of an unreflecting multitude, set free from all restraint.
The ingredients of the dark cup of sedition, which drove
France into madness, anarchy, and atheism, were mixed
up by those very pretenders to liberty, who, swamping
all orders and ranks in one legislativs assembly, made the.
tyrannous will of the populace the supreme law, and thus
destroyed even its boasted republic,—it was left to one
master mind to restore order, by introducing a military
despotism. What would be the condition of Britain,
within a very few short years, were an irresponsible oli-
garchy—the talismanic hope of the modern Whigs, elected
by the majority of Irish papists, and Scotch radicals, de-.
cide the legislation for this now independent empire
What security would there remain for the permanency of
the monarchy, on the one hand, or the church on tiro.
other, or even for individual possessions, under the acts
of a Chamber, subject to the free domination of the hero
of Derrynane, and his amiable colleagues, Messieurs
Hume, Roebuck, and Molesworth ? It is therefore es.-
sential to the liberties of tlifs Christian kingdom, that
the second estate of the legislature should remain tho-
roughly independent, as the guardian of such important
trusts, in the hands of a class of men, as its members,
eminent for their probitp—their fortitude, and their
knowledge, and by their station retained as remote from
Impure influence or control, as the judgment seat itself.
It is a well-known apophthegm of the great Lord Bur-
leigh, that "England can never be ruined but by her
Parliament "—and it has also been observed by Sir Mat-
thew Hale, with reference to the high legislative authority
and grave importance of the second estate, that "this
being the highest and greatest court, over which none
other can have, or exercise, any jurisdiction in the king-'

dom; if by any means a misg ou' eennient should in anY
way fall upon it, the subjects of this kingdom are left
without all manner of remedy." Here is our case against
the Derrynaue cabinet—we have shown the consequences,
of their threatened projected centralization of power, la
the hands Of an oligarchy; and the consequent 'super-
cession of the monarchy of this reaho, to make way for.