The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-05-06 00:00:00

To WILLIAM EWAIIT, Eso.; M.P.

SIR,—You are not indebted to any intellectual qualifiations or moral
efrcellencies of your own for the notice which I now take of you, but
merely to the circumstance of your having been thrust into a situation
where your small talents enable you. to work much mischief. Jona-

than Martin, notwithstanding his insignificance wielded the fire-brand
which well nigh destroyed one of our most magnificent national tern-
nles ; Bellingham, unknown, until distinguished by his crime, was
the means of depriving his country of its prime minister ; and Necker
precipitated the French revolution. Although I of course grant that
you possess neither the frenzy of Martin, the audacity and cruelty of
Bellingham, nor the ability of Necker, yet there is often lurking in
the breasts of ambitious men a moral phreory. and a political delin-
quency More fatal to.the nation at large than the fire-brand of thejn-
ecndiary, or the knife of the assassin. It is more in pity than in anger
that I notice your late conduct in your place in parliament, where in
the lowest and most reckless society you were found acting as a
" teller" against the attempt of •In.tter men 'than - you your asso-
ciates, to give to the poor man the blessed repose of the,sabbath, and
you were theie found aiding the attempt of the ungodly-, and " sitting
in the seat of the scornful."

Whatever may be your private feelings on 'sabbath legislation, you
ought at least to have respected the SUBJECT; you ought to have res-
pected tbe feelings of hundreds of thousands who appear to have-bet-
ter notions of propriety and decency than m..ny members of your ho-
nourable (7) parliamentary friends in the house. An old hook, not
much read now-a-days by men professing liberal opinions," de-
clares, that " rn:hteousness exalts a nation;" and promises national
blessings to those who keep the sabbath, as it prediets"national curses
against those who break and desecrate that holy clay. You, Sir, are
fond of France, and, judging from your society, cannot much dislike
popery. Have not these predictions been fulfilled in that unhappy
land h—where Providence, to punish the abominable iniquity of the
nation, first permitted them to be given up to the councils of such su-
perficial and vain legislators as yourself and then—l need not repeat
what followed.

Let me tell you, young man, seriously, that you are in a dangerous
position ; that, having voluntarily placed yourself in front of the he-
terogeneous assemblage of atheists:of free thinkers. of mere political
dissenters, and of nothingarians. you must go forward or be trampled
under foot. The party known as yours, miscalled liberal, will not
show their liberality by allowing you the benefit of your.own opinions ;
you are in the estimation of the modest, the thinking, and the wise,
the mere delegate of the mass ;. their mouth-piece in a parliament
where you are scarcely regarded, and where your continual chatterings
are the subject of ridicule. That you have degenerated from the ho-
nourable and straight forward loyalty of your esteemed father,' who,
had lie lived, would have frowned upon your conduct ; that you have
altered the tone of your family friendships and will finally succeed in
driving them from Liverpool, and then in following them yourself—
these are subjects for private reflection, rather than for public ani-
madversion—although it would be considered a public loss to lose a fa-
milY so distinguished for their commercial enterprise as yours have
uniformly been: But, I repeat, Sir, you have made your own bed,
and you must now lie down upon it and slumber if you can. As long
as you are the willing tool of the destructi'Ve association, and do their
dirty and degrading work; as long •as you are found the rolvocate
against the established caurcb as long as you are found humbly foil-
lowing in the wake Of O'ConnelL:anti rushing into fill up the vacuum
caused by his progress, so long will you have the cheers of the radicals
and the papists. I, for one, Sir, have little or no hope of your reform-
ation, because you have no will of your own ; ambition prompts you.'
at the expense of your country's best interests, and you have neither
the dignity to assert your own independence, nor the magnanimity to
carry it into effect, if you possessed any.
Liverpool, sir, is morally disgraced by having yon for itarepresenta-
tive. It w'as left for the vilified Lord Saudon alone to rebuke the
levity and ribaldry of the house ,and to stand up boldly for the honeu.
of truereligion, while You, sir, in company with Roebuck, O'Connellr
and such like, could net only join in the disgraceful sneer, but act as a
" teller" to throw out the sahbath bill on its first introduction; a thing,
contrary to the usage of parliament on the most common question.
.•
Now, sir, I ask the respectable•dissenters of this town to look well to
your conduct, to scan your principles,, and to watch your downward
progress. , How they can support yob, Won' the intelligent and pious
and able Men who fill the pulpits of Great George-street, and Lime-
street, and Duncan-street, chapels, and who there faithfully warn sab-
bath-breakers; how they and their. fellow-labourera\can again vote
`for you and preserve their religious consistency will be truly mar-
vellous.. But it is one of those happy circumstances in the ordinations
of providence that error defeats itself;—" Vaulting ambition, &c.,"
you delight in quotations and can supply the remainder. You have
for ,once fairly overshot the mark, and I do hope that on the first op-
portunity your political services will be dispensed with, and that we
shall be nolorig,er misrepresented by one whose opinions are at vari-
ance With the spirit of sacred writ, and whose unthinking help is
bringing disgrace on the land.
Ponder on your conduct, your situation, your progress, and recol-
lect, sir, that there 'is another tribunal, higher than public opinion,
where motives will be regarded ; where situations of eminence will be
found' to have entailed fearful responsibilities, and where are, before
whom kings and statesmen and mighty men are as nothing, will re-
quire of you an account of your motives as well as opinions when it
will be too late to retract an error or retrace a step.—Yours, &c.
Liverpool, .4pril 29th, 1836. VIELLIARD.