The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-25 00:00:00

- 31

THEATRE-ROYAL LIVERPOOL

Under the Management of Mr. CLARKE, Sole Lessee.

THE PERFORMANCES DURING THE SUMMER SEASON,
WILL COMMENCE AT HALF-PAST SEVEN.-DOORS TO

DE OPENED AT SEVEN.
Last Night but Three of Mr. and Mrs. YATES. Mr. PAUL
BEDFORD, Mr. WRIGHT, Mr. LYON, and Mr.
WIELAND, the celebrated BOLENO FAMILY, and
Miss C. WEBSTER and Master WEBSTER.
The New Comic Pantomime, having been received last night
with the most rapturous applause, will be repeated every
Evening.
THIS present TUESDAY, the 25th instant, will be re-
peated, for the last time here, an Original Drama, in
Three Acts, which was performed upwards of Eighty Nights
last season in London, called
AGNES ST. AUBIN;
OR, THE Two HUSBANDS.
Produced under the immediate direction and superintendence
of Mr. Yates.
Monsieur St. Aubin
Monsieur Darcourt
Mr. Thomas Tomkins Mr. Wright.
Doligny, alias 5im5........ Mr. Paul Bedford.
Madame St. Aubin Mrs. Yates.
To conclude with (for the second time here) a New Comic
Pantomime, with New Scenery, Machinery, Tricks, &c.,
called
HARLEQUIN AND THE FLYING LADY;
OR, THE WITCH OF THE MAGIC KITCHEN.
Produced under the direction of Signor Boleno and Mr.
Wieland.

Harlequin....
Pantaloon. M. Masson Boleno.
Clown Signor Boleno.
Columbine Miss C. Webster.
Fat Sylph Mr. Wieland.
TO-MORROW, (Wednesday,) will be produced, for the
first time here,an Original Drama, called ROBESPIERRE;
or, Two DAYS OF THE REVOLUTION. Robespierre, Mr.
Lyon ; Cato Boze, Mr. Paul Bedford ; Gracchus Guyot,
Mr. Wright; Honore, Mrs. Yates, as originally performed
by them in Loudon.—To conclude with the NEW COMIC
PANTOMIME.

TO CORRESPONDENTS

[ADVERTISEMENT.]

MANCHESTER DICTATION.—We have authority from
the Chairmen of the Conservative Associations to
utterly disclaim their connexion with any placards
recently posted, save and except the bill to which
their names are attached.

THE Ray. J. B. M'CREA.—This gentleman, in his mistaken
hunt after popularity, has at last induced the editor of a
radical contemporary to give insertion to two letters, one
dated the Bth and the other the 13th inst. Much indigna-
tion is affected because we presumed to characterise several
passages in the former production by an epithet justly
merited, and Mr. M'Crea has not hesitated, in the over-
flowing of his petulance, to disgrace his name and cause by
sundry peevish expressions, to designate the course we
chose to adopt in refusing to publish his communication.
If the charge of "an affected rivalry of the mother and
mistress of all churches" brought against the Church of
England, be not vituperation, surely such expressions as
" exclusive bigotry," and " the vain glorious first-born of
the mother of harlots," deserve even more castigation than
we chose at the moment to inflict upon such uncalled-for
language. We hope Mr. Baylee will not be deterred from
pursuing his objects in the controversy with Dr. Butler,
through the unnecessary interference of Mr. M'Crea, who
is so remarkably captious and belligerent, that he does not
hesitate to offer a most unprovoked opposition to the la-
bours and preaching of Mr. Bates, (the incumbent of the
new church at Waterloo), a man only known to be univer-
sally respected and beloved. This is all we need say at
present; but if Mr. M'Crea again indulges in his false
assertions respecting the STANDARD, we shall not allow
him to escape so easily.

Cinrpool attanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 25, 1841

In the London Times of last Thursday, we find an
article of most questionable complexion put forth, re-
lative to the recent transaction in Dublin, in which a
mother abbess, certain police magistrates, and a Pro-
testant clergyman, were the principal characters en-
gaged. Matters of this kind excite a great deal of in-
terest in Ireland, and the commentaries which they
elicit at this side of the water, especially from journals
of great circulation and influence, are anxiously looked
for. Now it occurs to us that this demonstration of
the Times will give rise to a good deal of speculation—
and some of a kind the reverse of agreeable—in the
mind of Irish Protestants. They will be likely to re-
mark the peculiar moment selected by a Conservative
journal for sending forth a manifesto, in which the
Protestant clergyman is denounced in the most un-
qualified and, we must say, opprobrious manner ;
whilst the part enacted by the Popish party is alluded
to in the most subdued tone—scarcely at all censured,
or altogether applauded. They will observe that the
Times was silent and neutral whilst the fate of the
Whig administration remained uncertain, but that the
instant there seemed a likelihood of their being suc-
ceeded by Tories, it availed itself of this incident to
intimate that Tories highly disapprove of any defect of
veneration being shewn to keepers of nunneries, or to
the " old mother of abominations" herself—that Tories
will not be different in this respect from Whigs—and
that when they come into office, liberalism as to reli-
gion will still continue to be, as it is now, the " order
of the day" !
We do not say that such inferences would be justi-
fiable; we think, indeed, that an editorial article in the
Times, just now, would afford but slender foundation
for erecting so formidable a structure upon ; but di-
vesting it of these or any other suspicions to which it
might be capable of giving rise, we say that it was in
itself a most unwarrantable production—such, indeed,
as we might expect to emanate from the Chronicle, the
Globe, the Sun, or any other Whig and Popish print ;
but altogether unworthy of, and unsuitable to, the
columns of a journal recognised as in any degree the
organ of Conservative principles.
The Times is enraged that a Papist should be called
an " idolator," and Popery " idolatry ;" but he should
reserve his rage for the homilies of our church and the
laws of the land, (to say nothing of the truth itself,)
which fully justify these epithets. He says :—" Could
" we be far mistaken in suggesting that the man who
" not only describes Fenelon, Pascal, Barromeo, Xa-
" vier, &c., as idolators, but advises all who cannot
" adopt the same language to join the Church of Rome,
" might probably be a Jesuit in disguise ? Fanaticism
" more wild, more coarse and revolting, cannot be found
" in the history of the Covenanters, even as caricatured
" by Sir Walter Scott."
Now this diatribe is, in the first place, an exhibition
of the sheerest ignorance, and has far more resem-
blance to what we should really expect from a " Jesuit
in disguise" than anything with which it professes to
find fault. If our laws and church declare the sacri-
fice of the mass to be " damnable and idolatrous"--a
" blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit," there is
surely no fanaticism (whatever impropriety there might
be under certain circumstances) in saying that the per-
son who partakes in that sacrifice is an " idolator."
It is consistent in the writer who calls such language
fanatical to claim for Popery the title of a Christian—
instead of, what we think it is, an anti-Christian--
church ; and the whole series of his observations
would, in fact, be perfectly intelligible if he avowed
himself at once a Papist ; but the difficulty consists in
accounting for, or understanding, such language as
the language of Protestantism. If the Church of
Rome be a " Christian" church, or may properly be
termed so, we of the Church of England have been

wrong all this time in protesting against, and decidedly
schismatical in separating from, it ; and if the sacrifice
of the mass be not a " blasphemous fable and danger-
ous deceit "—" damnable," moreover, and " idola-

trous"7our laws and church are much to blame in
calling it so. Let the writer in the Times, however,
arrange these matters with the church and the legisla-
ture first of all, and then, if he succeed in having the
protest cancelled, he may rail and rant without that
palpable grossness of inconsistency and absurdity
which he now exhibits.

The false colouring which he gives to the transac-
tion in Dublin, and the perverted view he takes of it,
are natural enough in one whose mind is dark on this
essential point. With the high veneration he seems
to entertain for the Pope's church, no wonder that he
should conceive the lying, kidnapping, mother abbess
to be a most benevolent lady, who, in endeavouring to
detain a little heretic in her establishment, was doing
a most meritorious, praiseworthy act; and the clergy-
man of the Church of England, who assisted her bro-
thers and relatives in endeavouring to remove her, a
most " bigoted fanatic," who " richly deserved " to be
pelted by the rabble—a " would-be martyr," who was
only too fortunate in afterwards escaping " prema-
turely" from that punishment to which he was con-
signed through what he himself called an unjust and
" idolatrous" influence operating against him even on
the pretended seat of justice---but of course, according
to the Times, most erroneously and unwarrantably so.
The whole tenour of this writer's remarks is, from
first to last, manifestly tainted with Popish prejudice,
and in direct opposition to truth and fact. His state-
ment is garbled—his course of observation unfounded
—and the impression which he seeks to convey, false
and injurious in every point of view. The moral with

which he winds up the whole is in these words:—

" We trust that all who possess influence in Ireland, and
have the welfare of the established church at heart, will take
some decided way of marking their discountenance and dis-
approbation of such proceedings as these, and of such per-
sons as this Mr. Gregg. A contrary course might prove, in
its effect, a far heavier blow and greater discouragement to
true religion in that distracted country than it ever has been,
or ever will be, in the power of a Whig ministry to inflict."

For our part, the moral with which we should point
the tale, would be simply this—" Beware of mother
abbesses !" Quarrels with such functionaries are, in
Ireland, anything but pleasant affairs to have in hand,
especially when there are Popish magistrates on the
bench to adjudicate between them and mere heretics,
for whom a prison is too good. Open collisions with
prime favourites of the government ought, in point of
prudence, we admit, to be eschewed, or very cautiously
conducted ; but, nevertheless, we are far from thinking
that the individual who happens to love truth more
than his own convenience, and is willing to incur a
little annoyance for its sake, however unwise he may
be in the esteem of some, is one whose proceedings we
should mark, as this writer recommends, with " dis-
countenance and disapprobation" ; and we are quite
sure that " all those who possess influence in Ireland"
will do nothing of the kind.

If an uncompromising opposition to the god that
rules in that distracted country, be calculated to inflict
a heavy blow and great discouragement on true reli-
gion, what may we expect to be the consequence of
aiding his divinity, submitting to his supremacy, and
diffusing his authority in every possible way ? Truly,
the Times seems much disposed to give him a
friendly hand. If mother abbesses are to be exalted,
and magistrates who deal out unrighteous judgment
to be defended—if those who prefer honesty to equi-
vocation, and truth to expediency, are to be hunted
down as " bigots" and " fanatics "—what hope can
we possibly entertain for " true religion " in the
country where such miserable expedients_aiv recom-
mended ? But we sincerely hope that the writer in
the Times has no commission in this respect.

The Whigs having resolved, with what Lord Dar-
lington calls a " tenacity unparalleled in the history of
governments," to remain in ojice, it becomes every
man who values the constitution of his country and
the happiness of the people to try to defeat this most
flagitious attempt, and reward it as it deserves. The
question to be determined at the hustings will be this :
are such men—are men capable of committing such
acts as they stand convicted of—fit to be the advisers
of our youthful Sovereign—fit to hold in their hands
the administration of this great empire, and all its mo-
mentous interests ? It is not the question which the
Whigs would like to put themselves; it is not the
question which their time-serving partisans do now, or
will hereafter put ; but it is, nevertheless, the question
which ought to be put, and which, we trust, the Con-
servatives will on every occasion submit to the electors
of the kingdom. Need we explain for what reason
the Whigs will shy it, or upon what account it would
be disagreeable to them ? The thing is too manifest ;
there is a " conscience which makes cowards " of all
men, even of Whigs ; their character won't bear exa-
mination ; their words and deeds are upon record, and
they tell with condemning energy against them. With
an increasing revenue they have been every year add-
ing to the burden of the public debt, and, during the
last five years, have contrived to increase it by the se-
rious amount of seven millions. Still there is a defi-
ciency, and they come forward, in despair of success
from every other resource, with a new plan to supply
the want and waste specially caused by their own ra-
pacity and extravagance.

With them then the question may very well be, whe-
ther or not the people approve of their plan ; but we
say that the people should, and will ask, whether such
vile managers ought to be any longer entrusted with
the finances or government of the country in any shape
whatever. With them the question may be the plan;
but with us it must and ought to he the men.

It is true that the Conservatives have no fear to meet
them on any ground whatever ; but what we naturally
and fairly say is, that if their scheme were the very
best in the world, such acknowledged renegades are
not fit to be entrusted with the execution of it. Have
they not by anticipation frequently passed the strong-
est condemnation on it themselves ? To repeal the
corn duties—why it was in their eyes "madness"!
To encourage slavery—oh, it was unheard of villainy ;
and as to colonial timber, it was a staple article
of trade which must not be touched. The same
int n now come forward eating their leek, and
a: kin; the country not so much to smile upon their
abject and contemptible recantation, as to give them a
House of Commons that will basely support them in
whatever they choose to propose, and betray the nation
into their hands.

They care nothing for cheap corn, Baltic timber, or
slave sugar,--or the convenience and benefit of the
people in anything relating to such things ; these arti-
cles indeed form the staple of their "panic budget" ;
but what they really want, is, a subservient house to
agree to anything they may ask, to give them a work-
ing majority, and keep them "in place."

It is said that the Whigs were under pledges to
O'Connell not to resign without an appeal to the coun-
try, and that when the affrighted animals seemed in-
clined to fly, (unmindful of the engagement to their
cruel, unrelenting keeper,) the " Irish pig-driver" flou-
rished his shillelah, and swore they should not budge
a foot till they had paid him the last farthing. The
animals huddled themselves into a corner, and held a
cabinet council ; the terms of the " compact " were
referred to ; the " driver " threatened to expose them
if they refused obedience to his demand ; and, after a
long debate, they determined to yield. Out then came
the panic budget" by the Irishman's orders, and into
his hands their affairs are now completely surren-
dered.

As to this story, we know not whether it be literally
true or not; there is certainly a vraisemblance about
it ; but that there is substantial truth in it, we do most
potently and implicitly believe. We heard nothing of
the panic budget till Lord Morpeth's Irish universal
suffrage bill was kicked out : mark that. And who
more deeply concerned in that bill than Mr. Daniel
O'Connell ?—who more interested in keeping the
Whigs in, than that identical gentleman ? Ireland is
his price—her patronage his pay for supporting the
Whigs ; and he—who more ready ?—will of course
work heaven and earth to keep his useful tools just

where they are.
We are decidedly of opinion that the agitation which
has already commenced was entirely of this man's
suggesting, and that all who join in it will just be the
dupes of this crafty Jesuit. He has already had the
assurance to put himself forward as a leader in the
movement—to avow himself the champion of " free
trade" ; and he " assisted, " at a public meeting in
Covent Garden Market, on Thursday, in which this
was the theme. Mark this, then : a ministry which
has lost the confidence of a House of Commons of its
own calling—which has over and over again been
beaten, rejected, and condemned by it--takes the un-
constitutional course of remaining in office in defiance
of the most express "want of confidence" of that
house, and then appeals to the country to give it a new
one more favourable ;—this ministry, we say, comes
to the people, and sends—whom ? Mr. Daniel O'Con-
nell at its pioneer—yes, O'Connell—to agitate England
as he has agitated Ireland—and eventually serve the
English, doubtless, as he now serves his own country-
men- This base betrayer of his country calls for free
trade—free foreign trade in corn and provisions—in
almost the only articles in which the Irish people deal
--and expects, we suppose, that the people of England
will listen to him while he is thus attempting to con-
Sign his country and countrymen to irretrievable ruin,
under the hypocritical pretence of, forsooth, disinte-
rested concern for English mill-owners and their ope-
ratives ! Faugh ; the thing is rank and abominable,
and "smells to heaven." Why, this Papist O'Connell
hates England and the English with a bigoted hatred
of which they have no conception ; and will they be-
lieve that he is now seeking to embroil them in t his
free-trade agitation from any c,ther motive but the love
he bears them ? Certainly not . none at least but the
veriest flats will suppose anything of the sort,
O'Connell has virtually ruled England for some time
past, and all he wants now is to continue his reign ;
he would purchase it any price. He has never been
nything but the direst enemy to his own country; he
would readily sacrifice to insure his present do-
minion; but let the Conservatives of England be up

and doing. Now is the time to put down this Popish
—O'Connell tyranny, and Whig treachery together.
Let us not be humbugged with the delusive cry of
free trade. We can meet that cry too on its own
ground; but in this case it is only used to draw away
our attention from what is really dangerous and alarm-
ing. Liberalism and Popery have joined their hands
against the Protestant Established Church and admi-
rable constitution of this realm ; and the question
simply is, shall we surrender both into their hands, or
will we not defend them resolutely, and drive back into
kindred shade the unholy league that has assailed
them ? We anticipate the answer which this question
will receive.

The present aspect of affairs has thrown the Whigs
of this town into an awful state of ferment. The disso-
lution, which they longed for, is about to come to
them, and now they find themselves wholly unpre-
pared to meet it. They want candidates—want steam
—and above all, want coal to get the steam up. The
doctors disagree upon the case. One advises Sir Joshua
Walmsley and Mr. Labouchere to be called in ; ano-
ther, Mr. Baring Wall and Lord Palmerston—the latter
of whom, by the by, is about to be called to a seat in
another assembly ; and, in short, distracted and di-
vided in their councils, they have the dolce concento
in nothing but that their affairs look blue as possible.
For this emergency we suppose it was that the Coun-
cil of the Manchester Anti Corn-law League vouch-
safed to come over and help them. Knowing well the
overwhelming strength of Conservatism in this bo-
rough, the poor loco-focoos could not muster up face
enough to look at the electors and talk about " Sir
Joshua Walmsley and free trade "—" sugar and spice,
and all that's nice "—so they left the job to be done—
or rather begun—by strangers, by a deputation from
the millocrats of a neighbouring town. These "millo-
crats ", it seems, have quite impudence enough for
themselves, and their neighbours too—and in the cool-
est way possible, they actually sent round to all the
electors of the borough, an invitation to meet them in
the Amphitheatre, and receive their " thunder and
lightning " upon slave sugar, agricultural expatria-
tion, colonial taxation, &c.—together with " parti-
cular advice and directions " how to conduct them-
selves at the approaching election ! Well ! we defy
millocratical, or any other sort of assurance, to go be-
yond this. But it received a very proper answer—in
the first instance by the following resolution agreed to
at a meeting of gentlemen, who lost no time in assem-
bling to consider the matter. It was in these words :

" Resolved unanimously,—That this meeting will not
sanction or countenance the dictation of men totally uncon-
nected with this town ; nor will they consent to be made the
tools of a party which is traversing the country for the pur-
pose of propping up a weak and tottering administration, at
this peculiar crisis, and for obvious purposes, to excite,
mislead, and deceive, the electors of this borough, as they
have lately attempted to do those of other places.

" James Aspinall, Chairman,
" Alex. Smith, Chairman of the
Tradesmen's Conservative Association.
" Daniel Ledson, Chairman of the
Operative Conservative Association.
" Conservative Association Office,
" May 22, 1841."
We thank these gentlemen for their promptness on this
occasion, and the perfect fidelity with which they have
expressed the sentiments of at least two-thirds of the
electors.

The free-trade crimps must stick theirloaf on a pole,
and beat up for recruits in some other quarter : here
it will never do.

By the way, some of the liberal journals talk as if
the Conservative party had not reason to rejoice at the
prospect of a dissolution of parliament—as if they had
some fear of it—as if they did not wish for it ; but
they are most egregiously mistaken. We say that it
is downright scandalous for the dirty Whigs not to re-
sign ; we say they ought to resign now—that they
ought to have done so long ago; but since they basely
and meanly " adhere " still, why we shall thank them
a thousand times over for dissolving. Their resigna-
tion would be more acceptable; but dissolution is good,
and will answer all our purposes.
There is no affection in the people for these cring-
ing Whigs ; why should there be ? They deserve
nothing but contempt. The proffered bribe of bread
and sugar will not shame the people into liking them.
They know it is a cheat. Wherefore we are not afraid
to appeal to them, even upon the issues which the In-
capables themselves have selected. The people justly
dislike monopolists; but there never were such mono-
polists of place and its perquisites as these Whig mi-
nisters; and we are confident, therefore, that the people
will send them to the right-about. The rogues in
grain must be dismissed, and when the parliament
comes to its dissolution, we predict that their dissolu-
tion will very soon follow. As to Liverpool, its Con-
servative representation is perfectly secure.
With regard to the "great demonstration" of last
night, we must, for the present, suffer our reporter to
speak on that subject. All we have to say of our own
knowledge is, that we were very glad to depute to
others the perilous task of effecting an entrance on the
opening of the doors. This, it will be said, bespeaks a
full house—a well-packed meeting ; and we dispute not
the inference. The crowd was certainly "prodigious";
we grant that ; but of what sort of persons was it com-
posed ? How many in the assembly were electors, and
of those who were electors, how many will give any real
support to the schemes of the millocrats, or join any
further in their self-seeking, self-interested, and selfish
agitations ? That remains to be seen hereafter. As to
the mere heterogeneous gathering collected last night,
it does not afford the smallest proof that Manchester
dictation is popular in Liverpool, or that the tottering
regime of whiggery will be supported here ; not the
least. We are only astonished that the excitement of
the moment did not draw a much greater number of
the unwashed, and the curious.

Sir Joshua Walmsley, our would-be representative;
[how sadly Liverpool must be at a loss when she
chooses the chairman-knight .1] was quite astonished
that the conservatives, instead of issuing the resolution
which we have inserted above, did not attend at the
meeting and discuss the corn-laws, &c., there along
with the learned Manchesterian missionaries. What a
pretty place for a discussion ! Attend there, indeed, to
re-debate the eight nights' discussion in the Commons,
and further, to anticipate another eight nights' discus-
sion on the corn duties ! What a humbug. No; the
conservatives will take their own course, and meet, and
discuss, when it suits them, without any dictation ; but
we must defer any further remarks to our next.

Mr. John Gladstone has published another letter, in
which that eminent merchant completely prostrates the
fallacies propounded by the ministerialists on the sub-
ject of slave-grown sugar. Most earnestly do we direct
attention to Mr. Gladstone's remarks; they abound
with practical knowledge, and are supported by incon-
trovertible reasoning. The letter will be found in
another column.