The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-01-28 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRE qs.

CHINA.—WARLIKE PREPARATIONS.
(From the Cork Constitution.)
"PORTSMOUTH, JAN. 18.—There is no question but that
Government have determined to take active measures against
the Chinese, and that the month will not pass away, without
our dealing *Rh the Celestials, as becomes their long and
continued insolence not only to his country, but to all other
nations trading with them. The Blenheim, 72, Blonde, 46,
Andromache, 28, all destined to reinforce the East India Sta.•
tion, are nearly ready for sea, and will go out of harbour in a
few days. These ships take as many flat-bottomed boats for
the landing of troops as they can stow, and also as much ord-
nance stores and missiles as their magazines will hold. They
should take, also, flat boats in frame of a character to be able
to carry the 10 inch hollow-shotguns, as we learn that above
Wampoa, the river leading. to Canton has only eleven feet
water; therefore none but our smallest men of war can reach
that city ; and then only by discharging water, ballast, stores,
and every weighty article.—Orders are received at Woolwich,
for the embarkation in these ships mentioned, of a Captain and
Lieutenant, and a strong party of Royal Artillery, who are to
take with them, rockets of the largest magnitude, Shrapnel
shells, &c. and they will he here in a feW days. Sixty ma-
rines, with an officer, are also to embark on board the Blen-
heim, as supernumeraries."—Hampshire Telegraph.
So, then, we are to have a brush with the " Celesti-
als," and we are to deal with them as becomes—" their
long-continued insolence !" It is an enterprise wot thy
of Lord Palmerston. The Genius of the Foreign Of,
fice must have been, like the dissatisfied Irishman,
" blue mouldy for want of a beating," when it fixed
upon China for a battle-field. We are so well off at
home—have so little to occupy the attention of our
statesmen, and our coffers are so encumbered with su-
perabundant wealth, that, to exercise our ships and
keep our hands in practice, our soldiers, our sailors' and
our marines, in the absence of any prospect of employ-
ment in Europe, are to be sent to "flesh their valour"
at the other side of the Pacific; and, at the mouth of
the cannon, to instruct the Chinese in the way it be-
hoves them to conduct themselves towards those who
do them the favour of introducing into their domini-
ons, in opposition to their interests and their laws, what
Sir Robert Inglis has rightly called the most.pernici-
ous product of the earth." Is it not, we ask, an enter-
prise
worthy of Lord Palmerston ? and yet we can
scarcely believe that even he has decided on a crusade
so indefencible as this. What should we say to the
Power which dared to threaten England thus—which
dared to prate about our insolence towards those who
trade with us, and to fit out fleets and flat-boats for the
blockade of our rivers and the invasion of our shores ?
—and the measure which we would not consent to take,
shall we insist upon our right to give ? And then,
when we come to count the cost :—are our finances in
so flourishing a condition that we can afford it ? What
will Mr. Baring say when he finds his income falling
short of his expenditure ? Even as it is, lie will soon
be calling on the country for assistance. He has lost
no trifle by the Postage. The Temperance Society •is
rapidly reducing the " receipts of custom," and with-
out some new resource, he will find it difficult enough
to meet his ordinary outlay. Except, then, there be
something more than has vet come before the public,
we apprehend there will be no war with China. Cer-
tainly the injuries said to have been inflicted on Bri-
tish subjects will not justify it if, as it is to he feared,
those injuries have been the result of their voluntary
violation of the Chinese law.
But in its present precarious condition our connec-
tion with China cannot continue. Some arrangement
we must have ; and justice, humanity, and interest de-
mand that it be pacific. Even were the country con-
tent to forego the use of tea, can we afford to lose the
three or four millions sterling which the Chancellor of
the Exchequer derives from its consumption ? Where
will he find a tax so lightly felt and so cheerfully ac-
quiesced in ? Or, if he could, will our merchants, al-
ready suffering from the competition of •the. foreigner,
consent to close a channel which ensures such exten-
sive employment to their shipping. and themselves ?,
No, our policy is, to enlarge our intercourse; not to
contract it ; and now that we find ourselves by the na-
tural and necessary operation of events uncontrollable
by legislation, forced from countries in which we have
hitherto found a market for our goods, a prudent go-
vernment would endeavour to compensate the loss by
seeking access to others in which no such_ privilege has.
been allowed us. China is one of:ihese,•for, W.ith th 6;
exception of Canton, from nearly the whole of-her im-
mense empire we are shut out. It is vain to clamour
against corn-laws----vainer still to charge upon thenithe
alleged diminution of our manufacturing prospEirify:
Were those laws abolished to-morrow,•it is the interest
of continental kingdoms to render themselves inde-
pendent of us, and that interest, even were the -not in-
cited to it by the employment thus provided for- their
own people—that interest they will pursue, regardless
of the consequences to any but themselves. This is a
result for which we ought to have been prepared, and
if the manufacturer is suffering, it is not by dragging
the agriculturist downward to the same depth that he
is to be relieved. There is enough in our present pro-
spects to enlist the sympathies and to employ the abi-
lities of every one who feels for the welfare and the
honour of his country, but until men apply themselves
to their consideration in a different spirit from that
which has been exhibited respecting the Corn and the
Chinese questions, we see little hope of either the re-
removal of her difficulties or the relief of her dis-
tress.

ADDRESS OF THE PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION
TO THE ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND.

The time has now arrived when it-is necessary to decide
on what principles this great empire shall henceforth be-go-
verned—whether on the pure and sound Protestant,princi-
ples of our forefathers, which formerly 'Secured to Great
Britain God's blessing, and under which she attained un-
equalled national prosperity and renown, or by the new sys-
tem of modern liberalism, under which truth and error are
to be alike sanctioned, or alike disregarded.
. . . .

By you, fellow-countrymen ! by your votes at the election
of your representatives must an answer be given to this im-
portant, this vital question. Let each man then remember,
that in exercising the elective franchise, he discharges a great
public trust, and either fulfils or abandons his duty.
Consider, we beseech you, the real state of affairs ; be
not led away by idle words ; but look, and look carefully
to facts. Popery, the former scourge and bane of the coun-
try—Popery, the curse of Ireland, and Italy, and Spain—
Popery, the prophesied "Mystery of Iniquity, is again
making progress among us. In 1837 forty-one Papists were
returned to Parliament ; by these men on nearly every divi-
sion since, has the scale been turned. By Papists, therefore,
you have of late been virtually governed.
Think not, brother electors ! that Popery has neglected
to use the enormous power thus possessed.
In three short years Popery has placed her votaries in the
palace, in the council, and on the bench. A Papist is the
treasurer of the Queen's household, four of the Queen's
privy councillors, three of the Irish judges, one of the lords
of the Treasury, the Irish Solicitor-General, •the Vice-
President of the Board of Trade, the Secretary of the Ad-
miralty, these, and minor officers of state, at home and abroad,
are now Papists. Very much of this progress has been made
since 1837. Return such another Parliament—and what
Will Popery be contented with what she has? Far from it.
She is ambitious, and craves supremacy; she is despotic, and
will turn power into tyranny !
•, And what is this Popery ? Some new or some amended
religion ? No! Popery is unchanged and unchangeable ; she
is the author of the Inquisition, the ancient persecutor of the
Church of God ; and even now, in the 19th century, teaches
in her colleges the doctrines that so long degraded Christen-'
dom, and deluded nation after nation with blood. To Pa
pists the Bible without comments is still a forbidden book •,
they still are deluded with the mummeries and idolatry of
the mass. And what has been her treatment of Protestants ?
Let the atrocities of the Inquisition, the Gunpowder - Plot,
the fires of Smithfield, the massacre of St. Bartholemew, the
slaughters in Ireland and the Low Countries, and the recent
banishment of nearly 500 Protestants from the Tyrol, reply
to this thrilling question !
Brother Protestants ! this.very Popery is now supported
by grants from the public treasury—£so,ooo a-year is paid
for a system of education cdnducted almost entirely by
Romish priests in Ireland—a systerh in which the Bible is
mutilated, and therefore God is dishonoured. £9,000 is an-
nually paid to the College of Maynooth, where Popish priests
are trained to disseminate her baneful principles throughout
Ireland. £2,350 was paid in 1838 to build Popish chapels in
Ireland. £14,764 is annually paid to Popish priests in the
Colonies.
These are facts. Do you approve of them ? If Popery be
true, why is so little done for her—if false, why anything at
all ? Remember, our present gracious Queen, when she
ascended the throne, was required solemnly to declare that
Popery was superstitious and idolatrous. And is she, almost
as soon as seated there, to be surrounded by Popish coun-
cillors ?
Fellow-countrymen, be not deceived. We do not ask you
to vote for this party or for that • but we implore you to
pause before you vote for any one who directly or indirectly
favours Popery or infidelity.-
Vote then for true Protestants, and for such men only.
Oppose all who oppose •them, and once more give to Great
Britain a Protestant House of Commons, and restore 'to her
the character of a Protestant nation. This, at the present
crisis, when Jesuits and iiitidels, when chartists and social,
ists, are banded together with revolutionary designs—this,
fellow-countrymen, is your great political duty. For the
blessings you now enjoy, martyrs have perished at the stake,
and the blood of your ancestors has been profusely shed.
Oh ! let it not be in vain ! Let not the blood of your fathers
reproach you with treachery to the good old cause they loved,
and with indifference to their glorious examples. Return
God-fearing men to parliament, and then the light- of the
Lord's countenance will shine on our senate, his Spirit will
guide their deliberations, and the righteousness which
exalteth a nation" will again bring down his blessings.
upon us.
" Provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God,
men of truth, hating covetousness."—Exodus xviii. 21.

FACETIff:

" Too tight to be fashionable," as the rabbit said with his
• neck in tuh snare.
I mse tgo down—l hope we part friends"—as the stick
said to the expiring rocket.
The horn of the mail coach guard is now called the
"- Penny Trumpet."
LORD MELBOURNE'S LAST.—What herb does her Ma-
Rsty's postage remind you of? D've give it up ? Penny
Royal.
The Picayenne says there is a man in New Orleans with so
hot i temper, that it roasts his eggs for breakfast.
M.tacu ot, M IND.—A rev. clergyman discoursing, 'last
Sunday, on the propensity of the present age to rapid pro-
gress in everything, moral or physical, somewhat quaintly,
htit too truly remarked, that the march (f mind, at the pre-
' sent time, notwithstanding all that was said of it, carried a
great deal of luggage.
• Whether the following joke has previously got into print
ie know not—it is not a bad one Somebody, after hear-
ing the very astounding evidence given by Sir T. Phillips,
the late Mayor of Newport, on the trial of his 6-decant
associates, asked what sort of a knight he could be. A
Frosty knight, to be sure !' was the answer."—John Bull.
ANTI-ELECTRICAL.—The following story is related of
Your " half horse and half aligator St. Lawrence boatthen.
Said he, "Heis a hard head—for he stood under an' oak in`
a thunder-stork-li, when the lightiling struck the tree, and he
dodged it SEVENTEEN times, when finding he could dodge
-it any longer, he stood and took nine claps in succession on
k. Lg pad, and never flinched."
pt.
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