The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-19 00:00:00

house.' "

As we have taken a lively interest in all that con-
cerns this extraordinary'youth, we shall attend with
much anxiety to the sequel of his history, and not fail
to report to our readers whatever we may be able to

collect of an important and authentic character

PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.

(From our London Correspondent.)

The proceedings of the House of Lords on Monday night
were of a character, in every point of view, most deeply to
be regretted. A great and influential portion of the public
had looked forward to the result of the motion, to be brought
forward by the Bishop of Exeter, as one which was to revive
the drooping spirits of Protestantism throughout the empire,
by affording evidence of a return, on the part of the heredi-
tary branch of the legislature, to the ancient principles of the
constitution. The sentiments expressed in a former debate
upon the same subject, by that illustrious man to whom,
under Providence, his country is already so deeply indebted
—need I mention the name of the Duke of Wellington as
that of the statesman to whom I refer ?—had filled the hearts
of thousands of his confiding fellow-countrymen with the glad
thought that he, at least, would not stand tamely by, and see
the Protestantism of any portion of the empire surrendered
se and dishonest faction, as the purchase-money of
those venal majorities by which the Church of Rome sustains
them in office, to work out her own projects against the li-
berties of Great Britain and of mankind. Those hopes—
those glad thoughts—no longer exist. The friends of Pro-
testantism—the friends of the entireness of the empire itself
—are now left to rely solely upon their own unaided strength
—upon their own resolute exertions—to protect their coun-
try from inevitable decay and ultimate dismemberment, and
to preserve to their children, untarnished and inviolate, the
faith which has been handed down to them by their fathers.
The speech of the Bishop of Exeter in favour of the motion
afforded a presage of the result which was to attend it. " I
was encouraged," observed the rev. prelate, " in the course
which I have found it my duty to pursue with respect to this
ordinance, by the sentiments expressed by the noble duke,
that he regarded it as the first direct violation of the great
principles of the reformation—sentiments which have already
been echoed with pride and satisfaction by Protestant com-
munities in every corner of the empire;—and I should in
vain attempt to describe the feelings of bitter humiliation
with which I learn that I am not to-night to be favoured
by his grace's support to this motion." This feeling, which

there are few indeed who would not have experienced in si-
milar circumstances, affected the tone of the rev. prelate's
speech throughout ; and from the circumstance that not one
of those noble lords, who have on other occasions been found
supporting in the house the integrity of the Protestant faith
of the kingdom, came forward on this occasion to his assist-
ance, we cau only conclude that the unaccountable conver-
sion of the noble duke to the advocacy of ministerial policy
with respect to the ordinance in question, had made upon
them the same impression. The country, however, will have
an opportunity of observing that, isolated as he was, and un-
supported by his party, the rev. bishop succeeded fully in
proving the incompatibility of the grant Of St. 8v1p;...Q with

the principles of the constitution, with the terms of the treaty
by which Canada became a possession of the British crown,
and with the act of union of last session ; whilst its support-
ers were satisfied to rest their case upon the assertion that
the present concession is justified by former concessions—
that a new abuse is' justified by the " precedent" of an old

I will not enter into an examination of the arguments by
which the Duke of Wellington attempted to vindicate the
course which he had deterinined to pursue upon this ques-
Lion. It is painful to ree such a man blight the hopes of his
fellow-countrymen, as the noble duke has done on this occa-
sion ; but there is one consolation—if indeed it can be called
uch—in the reflection that it is not by the prompting of his
own noble spirit, or by the exercise of his own strong powers
of judgment, that he has ever been led to do so. When
these qualities of his grace's mind are called into action by
any sudden emergency, his conduct and his sentiments are
all that his most ardent friends could desire ; but when the
impulse is allowed to cool, and the unseen influence (of which
we cannot but suspect the existence) is allowed to creep in,
to poison the springs of action—to draw aside with the
whispers of expediency that noble heart which never swerved
from its purpose by any coercion—it is then that we are
called upon almost to regret the existence of that influence
upon the minds of his fellow-countrymen, with which grati-
tude and admiration of his virtues have invested him. It is
then, too, that we are led to make the serious inquiry—
" From whose lips are breathed those fatal lessons which
have so darkly blotted the record of the political life of one
whose career of arms presents only bright pages of unsullied
and continuous glory ? " But I will not pursue the ques-
tion. There is one illustrious individual who has been said
to exercise a great influence over the mind of the duke ; but
surely—surely that individual has of late seen sufficient, of
what was on Monday evening termed " carrying out the
measure of emancipation," to induce him to withhold his
approbation from this particular portion of the " carrying
out" in question.

The flippant oration of her Majesty's Secretary of State
for the Home Department, Lord Normanby, will, I am
convinced, be read with unmingled disgust by every man of
taste in her dominions. That it was a reply to the rev.
bishop it would be a mockery to suppose for a moment—as
great a mockery, in fact, as to place the frizzle-pated author
of " Yes and No," and " Matilda, a Tale of the Day," in
competition, as to any one quality which enters into the
composition of a statesman, with the illustrious men who
have dignified that office in the better days of the constitu-
tion. The real and the only reply to the rev. bishop was the
exhibition of the Duke of Wellington in contented thrall by
the side of the ministry ; and relying upon the helpless sub-
serviency to which his grace had been brought, his lordship
thought proper to inflict upon the house the frippery of his
wit, and even, like the ass in the fable, to throw up his heels
in insult to the memory of one of the best monarchs who
ever held the throne of Great Britain—the revered grand-
father of her present Majesty. Would that his descendant
possessed one tithe of that acute perception of the character
and capabilities of men and ministers, which distinguished
her illustrious predecessor ! Were such the case, a Brea
country like this would surely not be insulted by seeing anv
portion of her interests committed to the charge of an inca
pable and insolent compound of pomatum and false hai
whom Nature never designed for any nobler duty than th
of supplying the kitchen-maids of our nobility with nauseous
and tawdry novels, or of occupying any more dignified posi-
tion than a shelf in the window of a fashionable perruquier.
The House of Commons on Monday was.occupied by a
motion brought forward by Mr. Hutt, the member for Hull,
with respect to the Sound duties, now levied by the govern-
ment of Denmark upon British tonnage passing through the
Baltic. The honourable member laid before the house, with
considerable clearness, the various treaties relating to the
duties and question ; and shewed that the rates now levied
upon many articles of merchandize exceed the rates stipu-
lated in the last of those treaties, in some instances as much
as from 1,500 to 2,200 per cent., and operate as a very seri-
ous check upon our commerce with the North of Europe.
The statements of Mr. Hutt and the effect upon British
interest's in the Baltic were admitted by Lord Palmerston,
who nevertheless was anxious that the House of Commons
should
tention of
governmenthad already been drawn to the subject,
and negotiations were in progress with the government of
Denmark"—as happens to be the case with most subjects
connected with our foreign relations which are brought be-
fore parliament. The house manifested some little disincli-
nation to accede to the wishes of the noble lord ; but ulti-
mately the motion was withdrawn, upon the understanding
that unless the negotiations in question we:e brought to a
conclusion within a reasonable time, the subject should be
brought forward again before the close of the present session.
I may remark, that the attendance of members—as is the
case in the Reformed (?) House of Commons whenever any

" merely commercial" question is to be decided—was thin
enough to have been counted at any moment.
In the House of Lords on Tuesday evening, Mr. W. Stan-
ley—an assistant poor-law commissioner for Ireland—was
brought to .he bar to answer a charge of having falsified a
return, made to that house with respect to the election of au