The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-03 00:00:00

TUESDAY 11101?A,ING, DEC. 3, 1844

Most firmly are we convinced that the great
struggle of the coming session must be for the main-
tenance of the Protestantism of the British Con-
stitution. It is in vain that we seek to hide from
ourselves the fact that an inroad is about to be at-
tempted, by a professedly Protestant and Conserva-
tive Ministry, upon the principles of the Reforma-
tion—that Popery, conciliated, or attempted to be
conciliated, by repeals of the penal laws, by greater
toleration given to her professors, by the yielding up
of revenues left for Protestant purposes to aggres-
sion from every quarter, and even by direct encou-
ragement to the wrong, and obstacles thrown in the
way of the spread of right principles, is about to
have extended to her the helping hand of the state,
and to become an institution—not a tolerated error,
but an established and protected blot upon the face
of British society. She is no longer to he merely
winked at in her steps—no longer to be merely per-
mitted to darken the faith of millions with the
blighting shadow of her superstitions—but to be
placed erect, and aided in her fell attempts against
the liberties of Englishmen and of the truth which,
above all others, they have fought for and wor-
shipped.
The Church of Rome is to be endowed! The
blackness of her darkness is to be burnished with
British gold. The money of the industrious Pro-
testant British people is to flow into her coffers, to
give splendour to her shrines, to add meretricious
adornment to her idolatrous ceremonies, to feed the
vanity and the rapacity of her domineering priest-
hood. And all this is to be done for conciliation's
sake; for expediency's cake; in the hope of making
that priesthood, what it has never been from the first
hour of its blasphemous apostacy, a loyal and obe-
dient body of men to a Protestant, or a truly Chris-
tian government. Vain hope ! Fatal expectation !
Vain in its very fallaciousness, and fatal—assuredly
fatal—in its calamitous results to the liberties of the
people, by whose rulers it is attempted to be rea-
lised !
But that such an attempt will not be permitted
to be made, without strenuous opposition from all
faithful men, we feel assured, as we do that it will
recoil with fearful effect upon the heads of Sir R.
Peel's ministry. Let us not be despairingly told of
the strength of that ministry to resist all interference
from without ! There never, in all previous history,
was a ministry strong enough to outrage with im-
punity the feelings of a majority of the British peo-
ple. There never was a dynasty which succeeded
in such an attempt. We may be sunk in mammon-
worship ; we may be blinded with undue confidence
ih our rulers; we may he too much wrapped up in
reliance upon the elastic properties of our institu-
tions : but we are not beyond hope, we shall yet be
aroused when the Protestantism of the realm is
openly assailed. Truckling statesmen may imagine
that we shall "die and make no sign ;" that we shall
,bow unresistingly before aggression from imagined
friends ; that we shall kiss the hand which smites us,
because such hand is one which we have clasped in
fellowship : but truckling statesmen, even though
they may be such men, so valued, so respected, as
are Sir Robert Peel and his Conservative collea-
gues, will discover their error when the day of trial
comes. The attempted outrage upon our Protes-
tant liberties cannot succeed, and will not succeed.
Why are we thus confident ? It is because we
have amongst the clergy of our Church, despite of
recent wooings of Rome and her ceremonies, faith-
ful men who will not hesitate, at all sacrifices save
that of truth, to stand up in the van of the battle,
which we know to be approaching, and to encourage
ill that struggle the laity, which looks up to them
for advice and support. We know that by those
faithful men the apostee'.ce of Sir Robert Peel, or
whatever other minister may abet them, will receive
prompt and indignant rebrobation. Nor are we
without present promise of such faithful teaching, or
evidence that it exists throughout the British com-
munity. We have before us a letter by the Rev.
W. Tatham, 8.D., the respected minister of a se-
cluded parish (Oswaldwistle, Lancashire), which
proclaims already the spirit in which the projected
attack upon our Protestant privileges will be met,
and contains more than one passage of indignant re-
probation of its unprincipled nature, and more than
one warning of its calamitous effects. The following
extract we cannot resist the temptation of offering
to our readers :

" The religion of the established church is the religion
of the reformation or it is not ; if it be the religion of the
reformation, then is protestantism the religion of the
state ; and who that knows the Bible can doubt that pro-
testantism is the religion of God. What is the papacy ?
To call it a religion in any Christian sense, is an abuse of
the term—to call it a church is to give it a title which the
19th article of the established church declares to belong
' to a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure
Word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ad-
ministered,' not one of which requisites is possessed by
the papacy. It is in reality a political system with an
ecclesiastical mask, and has no pretension to be called a
religion, except so far as its ecclesiastical exterior con-
tains some of the worst corruptions of Christianity, which
it brings to hear with fearful force on the natural weak-
ness of fallen humanity. Its objects are secular under a
spiritual cover. Its kingdom is of this world, and the
weapons of its warfare when and where they could be
safely used, have ever been carnal and cruel ; the sword,
the rack, and the faggot. The path of its triumphs has
ever been marked by persecution and intolerance, and
wherever it has risen in supremacy over the minds of men,
it has invariably revealed itself as ' the woman drunk with
the blood of the saints.' Wherever she has been able to
embody her principles in acts, she has aimed at a com-
plete ascendancy over the rights and liberties of man;
for what is the history of Europe but a history of what
the papacy can effect to retard the civilization of the hu-
man race—and how her religious corruptions have curdled
the very life-blood in the heart of Christendom ? Where-
ever it has been planted and grown, everything around
has withered but itself; like the tree described by Hum-
boldt, in the Andes, that flourishes most, when it has
ruined by its roots, the soil from which it springs. Even
in the distant islands of the Pacific we have at this time
an instance of her aggressive policy,—and we see in the
conflict there, on a small scale, the antagonism of protes-
tant truth and papal error. The history of her missions
is the history of her conquests,7-the passion of Romanism
is the passion of proselytism,—in all lands, in all ages she
has acted on the principle of universal subjugation, and
wherever shs has succeeded, she has erected a tremendous
tyranny over mind and conscience, and exacted from her
victims, a blind and implicit obedience to her authority
and her laws."

Such a church, then, it is which Sir Robert Peel
proposes to aggrandise !—a church whose objects
are secular, under an ecclesiastical mask, and which
is, at this moment, only seeking, in humble guise,
the secular aid of government, as the step to tyranny
over that government, and the subjugation of the
British people to its yoke. And it is to propitiate (!)
such a church that we seek—to propitiate a rapacity
of power which in all ages of Christendom has shewn
itself inexhaustible ! Absurd folly ! wanton and
indescribable madness !

The attempt is made, however, to justify, or at
least to palliate, the guilt of such aggrandisement.
Popery, it may be said, has changed. In an age like
this it cannot but have received some naedification from
the advanced state of useful knowledge,' the increase of
education, and the improvements of science; or if not, it
may be modified by a little more conciliation and conces-
sion. But popery has not changed, it cannot change: the
very secret of its power, of its existence, is its unchange.
ableness : the slightest transformation would be its de.
struction. It is the apostacy of eighteen hundred years,
and a corruption of this duration cannot be cured in a
gradual way. The fallen angel may counterfeit, but he
never can become an angel of light. Lucifer once fallen,
has fallen never to rise. When Rome is to be destroyed,

it will be suddenly, in an instant, as by the fall of a mill-
stone her plagues shall come in one day.' We must
either come out of her, or perish with her. Rome, then,
has surrendered none of her pretensions, and of this the
government of the nations stand warned : in spirit and
principle she is as vigorous this moment as at any period
of her history—imperious and intolerant, insisting on as-
cendancy and prohibiting freedom of thought and inquiry ;
•and she can as little as ever be governed by a sense of ob-
ligation, for that conscience by which subjects should be
guided in the discharge of their civil duties, is not an
oracle within or a light from heaven, but a decree of the
Popedom ; and, as regards her connexion with secular
governments, as long as Romish bishops swear the bishop's
oath, and Romish priests their assent and consent to the
creed of Pope Pius IV., it is hopeless to expect that en-
gagements or treaties will be kedt longer than there is op-
pertimity or ability to break them.
" Such is the system from its very nature and constitu-
tion antagonist to the religion of the reformation, or the
truth of the established and united Church of England
. and Ireland. Are their claims compatible? Is it pos-
sible to pacify or conciliate popery without the subversion
of protestantism, or the church which establishes and
teeches it in the land ? Will Rome be propitiated by any
other sacrifice ? Will the policy of what is called moderate
protestantism appease or satisfy her ? Moderate protes-
tantism, or the protestantism of expediency, is a contra-
diction. Protestantism, from its very essence, excludes
all neutrality and compromise; it par akes too much of
the religion of the Great Teacher, who declared, that he
who was not with him was against him, and whose ser-
vice is so exclusive as to know no other master, we must
either hate tile one and love the other, or hold to the one
and despise the other.
" Here, then, is on the one hand, an established church,
whose truth the state is bound to defend and propagate;
and, on the other hand, a false, idolatrous, and dangerous
system, which it is, by necessary inference, bound, by
every fair and legitimate means, to discountenance and
weaken. It would be culpable i❑ the state to stand neu-
tra► even between two such antagonist systems. What
must be the guilt of aiding and abetting the enemy against
the ally—of supporting and fostering that which is op-
posed to the truth of the established church, as darkness
to light, and especially of patronising and endowing that
college, the nursery of its priesthood, which 'trains and
educates those who are the chief agents of its propagation,
the teachers of its blasphemous fables—the performers of
the horrible sacrilege of the mass."

The concluding portion of the letter, from which
we have taken the liberty of quoting, contains an
appeal to Sir Robert Peel, which with such effect
and eloquently conveys our own sentiments, that
we cannot resist giving it, although we have already
trespassed largely. Would that Sir Robert Peel
was to be persuaded to follow such advice, and save
himself from the utter destruction with which his
character for Protestant fidelity is menaced !
" Sir, what multitudes who admire your matchless
talents would rejoice to see you take this decided stand
for truth and give a tone of resolution to the thousands
who are wavering under the almost uncontrollable influ-
ence of your example. Boldness and faithfulness like
this would raise up for you a host of the best of friends
and supporters, and give you a position as the chief minis-
ter of this great protestant empire, that could never be
shaken ; and you would have the solace and satisfaction,
to your conscience in the view of a coming eternity, and
that judgment at which you must account for your im-
mense responsibilities, that you did not use the opportu-
nities and influence you possessed to the advancement of
a system, opposed to the temporal and spiritual welfare
of your country, and happily through your instrumenta-
lity our national church, threatened as she is by the as-
saults of open foes without, and the treachery of false
friends within, may yet emerge from. the trial and the I
danger, with her unchangeable doctrine, and her celestial
voice.

" If, however, you have already resolved on a policy
that must only strengthen the hands of her enemies, while
it cannot give stability to your government, and, as has
been proved by past experience, only give them greater
power in enforcing their demands for further advantages ;
for the true meaning of the present outcry in Ireland, is
not the repeal of the union, but the repeal of the reforma-
tion ; then we may tremble for the ark of God, then in-
deed will her enemies have triumphed over her. But I
fervently hope, if you have taken such a resolve, it may
yet he shaken. 0 let it not be recorded in the page of
history, that in your administration the church was at
last betrayed by the state : that in the administration of
him who passed the fatal bill that blotted out the great
national protest, was the work of evil irretrievably con-
summated, and, perhaps, by the only man who could have
warded it off, the final blow was given which sealed the
doom and destruction of the established church (I speak
of the church as a national establishment, for the invisible
church is indestructible), hut from that period may be
dated her decline and fall, and with the fall of England's
church, the setting of her national glory."

In another part of our paper we give a report of
the proceedings of the Justices of this borough, at a
meeting held in the Magistrates' Room on Thurs-
day, and the consequent proceedings of the Watch
Committee, at their weekly meeting on Saturday
last, which on that occasion was thrown open to the
reporters for the local press. To both of these we
shall have to call the attention of our readers; and,
as the first in order, we proceed to examine the
proceedings of the worshipful the bench.
The meeting of this body appears to have been
called for the purpose of receiving its sanction of an
irregularity, which we noticed in our last, committed
by Mr. Rushton, an individual magistrate, in direct-
ing Mr. Dowling, the acting heed-constable, to ab-
stain from carrying out that portion of the resolu-
tions of the late meeting of the bench, by which he
was ordered to enter those resolutions amongst the
general orders of the police force ; and also for the
purpose of considering the request of the Watch
Committee, to have handed to them a copy of the
depositions taken by the magistrates in the case of
Mr. Parker. Of the propriety of such a meeting
there can be no doubt. The Bench, in their origi-
nal resolutions, had committed an "inadvertency"
—so it is termed—in directing the performance, by
Mr. Dowling, of an illegal act ; and Mr. Rushton
having been guilty of assumption, in volunteering
his individual interference to stay the execution of
such act, took the only course open to him to pro-
cure the sanction to such interference of the collec-
tive body. The necessity of such sanction being
sought for was an admission, on his part, of error in
taking upon himself undue powers, as the fact of his
interference was an acknowledgment of the unad-
vised haste of the proceedings with which he felt
himself compelled to interfere. The application of
the Watch Committee was so much a matter of
course, and so reasonable in itself, that it could
scarcely have been expected to excite discussion.
Under such circumstances, it is painful to find
that a body of gentlemen, such as those composing
the bench of this borougn, could not meet on such
an occasion without having to witness the unseemly
explosions of temper which occurred—without wit-
nessing the manifest predisposition of a portion of
their number for a collision with the members of
the Watch Committee, represented there by its
chairman. We are perfectly ready to admit that,
in the explanation of his conduct which Mr. Rush-
ton felt compelled to make, there was much seeming
desire to conciliate, and even to flatter the Watch
Committee upon the tone with which they had met
the views of the justices. But when, in doing so,
he repeated the claim of superior authority over t he
police force put forward by the magistrates and re-
pudiated by the committee—when he claimed a
" pre-eminent right " in the magistrates to issue
orders, amounting to "regulations," directly to the
police force—when, moreover, he imputed to the
committee, as evidenced in the " skilful drawing"
of their resolutions, a disposition to fencd with the
question at issue between the two bodies—he could
not be surprised that the chairman of the Watch
Committee should feel himself compelled to lay
fully before the meeting the views of that body
with respect to the whole subject under discussion,
and Mr. Rushton's own proceedings in particular.
We challenge any man to point out in Mr. David
Hodgson's remarks a single instance of unnecessary
asperity, in language or manner, which could call
forth from any gentleman, possessed of that equable
temper which should adorn the judicial bench, the
warmth and violent feeling displayed in reply by
Mr. Rushton. Mr. Hodgson had a perfect right
to condemn the interference of that gentleman with
the execution of the orders of the assembled bench.
It was, to all intents and purposes, such ?n inter-
ference with an officer in the discharge of his duty
as the magistrates had already condemned. It was
a precedent which could not come from any quarter
with impunity, and which, if it had been set, under
any pretence, by Mr. David Hodgson, in his indi-
vidual capacity as a magistrate, would have drawn
down upon him the severest reprehension of Mr.
Rushton himself ! Mr. Hodgson had also a right
to state his impressions of the influences under
which Mr. Dowling had acted in obeying Mr.
Rushton's dictates—impressions which, although
not borne out by the examination of the Commis-
sioner of Police before the magistrates, have been
fully borne out, as warranted, by subsequent in-
quiry before the Watch Committee. There was
nothing, we repeat, in Mr. Hodgson's tone and
manner, in laying his opinions before his fellow-
magistrates, which ought to have excited warmth
of feeling, still less unworthy passion and persona-
lities.

We beg to direct the attention of our readers to
the very opposite temper of Mr. Rushton's reply.
We wish we could place before them his infuriated
demeanour. We ask Mr. Rushton himself whether
it was in keeping with the magisterial character to

bully a brother magistrate with threats of personal
chastisement—whether the threat of what he would
have done, as a private individual towards a prirate
individual in another place, ought in decency to
come from a man judicially entrusted with the pre-
servati( n of the public peace ? We ask him, fur-
ther, what is the meaning of his passionate inter-
jection addressed to Mr. Hodgson—" The less you
sit with Mr. Rushton the better, if you please,"
as given by a contemporary of Friday; or, as our
rep3rter and that of a Saturday's contemporary
have it—" The less you say about Mr. Rushton the
better, if you please " ? In either version it is
scandalously improper, unbecoming the place where
uttered, or the party y whom uttered.
Of the subsequent proceedings of the meeting,
and particularly of the indecent manner in which
the attack of Mr. Rushton was seconded by the
small fry of the Radical faction—the Earles, the
Rathbones, and Boltons, who, although put forth
by, the indignant voice of their fellow-townsmen
from all interference in their local concerns, are
still unhappily permitted to perform their antics
upon the magisterial bench—we shall not trust our-
selves to remark. Their convicted imbecility is
their safeguard.
We turn with pleasure from this sad display to
the more calm and dignified proceedings of the
Watch Committee on Saturday; and, first, we shall
briefly glance at the preliminary conversation which
took place with respect to Mr. Parker's case, for the
purpose of correcting an imputation which we re-
cently brought against Mr. Dowling, of over-offi-
ciousness, and something like truckling to the
magistrates, in that matter. We assumed on that
occasion, as of course we had a right to assume,
that the charge against Mr. Parker of "interference"
with the officers, at the Rose-hill station and at
Allen's house, had come before the magistrates in
the ordinary way, by information from the proper
authority. We were also warranted in this assump-
tion by the expressions used by Mr. Rushton before
the magistrates—" Here is a man " (pointing to
Mr. Commissioner Dowling) " in whom I have
unbounded confidence, who has taken every step
without consulting me "; and again—" If I read
my functions aright, or understand the law of
England, every man ought to applaud Mr. Dowling."
Certainly a plain-enough intimation this that the
commissioner had taken some leading part in caus-
ing the whole subject to be brought before the sti-
pendiary !
Now what are the real circumstances of the case,
as they have transpired before the Watch Commit-
tee ? In the first place, it is a remarkable circum-
stance that there is not a report in the books of the
Rose-hill station-house of any interference of Mr.
Parker with the officers there, or of any other
charge against that gentleman, although those
books record such trifling and minute matters as
the " finding a gate open or a gas-light out."
There was no information of such interference laid
of their own accord by the officers, or by Mr. Dow-
ling, before the magistrates. Finally, as we are
informed by Mr. Hugh Hornby, " a magistrate,
having read the circumstance in a letter inserted in
one of the public prints, asked if anything was
known with regard to it. The stipendiary magis-
trate stated that the information had come to his
knowledge incidentally, and that he had not heard it
from the chief commissioner." And further, " the
magistrates directed the head constable to report."
Plainly, then, Mr. Dowling owes our wrong con-
ception of his conduct in the matter to the fulsome
adulation heaped upon him by Mr. Rushton, by
which the entire onus was strangely—and, we may,
add, unfairly, as calculated to injure the commis-
sioner with the Watch Committee—removed from
the shoulders of the former to those of the latter.
If Mr. Hugh Hornby has correctly stated the facts
of the case now, so far as Mr. Dowling's share in it
is concerned, Mr. Rushton mis-stated them before,
The two statements are quite irreconcilable with
each other; and we leave Mr. Rushton to the task
of explanation. A gentleman so forward in impu-
ting incorrect statements to others, should keep his
own free from th possibility of being doubted.
We pass from this portion of the proceedings,
referring our readers to the manly letter of Mr.
Parker, and the very proper course taken upon it
by the Watch Committee; and now proceed very
briefly to notice the evidence, upon which Mr.
Rushton's charge of falsehood against Mr. David
Hodgson has been rebutted. It is clear from the
whole of this evidence (saving that of Mr. Hugh
Hornby and Mr. Thornhill, the latter of whom was

not present during the whole period of the meetings
of the 20th and 23nd), that Mr. Dowling consi-
dered, and left the impression upon the minds of
those with whom he spoke upon the subject, that
Mr. Rushton's intimation to him of the course to be

pursued in case of his refusing to obey the orders of
the magistrates, was virtually a threat of dismissal.
It is true that, before the hoard he guarded himself
by saying that " he drew his own inferences," an
expression significant enough; but to Mr. Thomp-
son he distinctly stated, that he regarded the object
of the threatened meeting of the magistrates to he,
" that he might be dismissed." Under these cir-

cumstances we cannot but regret, that before the
assembled bench, the replies of Mr. Dowling were
not more straightforward, and that he should have

appeared more inclined to permit Mr. Rushton to
enjoy a temporary, and after all a pitiful triumph,
than boldly to acknowledge what he considered the
real meaning of the threat held over him.

We have 'trespassed already so largely upon the
very limited space to-day at our disposal, that we
must waive for the present the consideration of some
matters arising out of these proceedings, of far more
importance to the public, than the proceedings
themselves. We shall return to them.

The report of the proceedings at the last repeal
meeting in the Conciliation-hall supplies us with
materials well worthy of the attention of the magis-
trates of this town, as evidencing the wide spread
of treasonable feeling amongst the Irish portion of
our population. The sum of £lO 15s. was pre-
sented by Mr. M. O'Connell as the weekly contri-
bution of the repealers of Liverpool to the parent
association, when that gentleman took occasion to,
state, as an incentive to the people of Dublin, that
whilst that city, the centre of the agitation, contri-
buted only £lO3 per week, the average amount from
Liverpool was £2O per week. Surely such a fact
should be a lesson to the authorities of our town,
and impress upon them the necessity, whilst so
much anti-English sentiment is silently smoulder-
ing beneath their very feet, to strengthen themselves
by placing around them, as the guardians of their
property and their lives, men of assured loyalty and
tried fidelity to the institutions of their country
Surely this is not a time for them to turn the cold
shoulder to such men—to make their very loyalty a
disqualification for every office of trust, whilst no
notice is taken of the presence of would-be traitors
in the very force to whose watchfulness and fidelity
are confided the peace of the town and the safe
keeping of the vast masses of property which it
contains. How many of these repealers are mem-
bers of our police force ? How much of this twenty
pounds per week is either drawn from the funds of
the borough, or from the pockets of those Conser-
vative merchants, who fill their warehouses with
plausible and designing Irish Papists, whilst Pro-
testant Englishmen, natives of their own town,
because not so fawning in manner and specious in
tongue, may walk our dock quays or our streets,
willing to toil, and yet penniless ? This must be
reformed. The practice is not kindly to our own,
and, moreover, it is not safe

THE FUNDS : SATURDAY NIGHT. The absence of
business to-day caused a slight depression in the value of
the English securities, and quotations for Consols left off
rather lower than those quoted yesterday, the money
price being 1004 buyers, and for the account 1001 to 101
sellers ; Bank Stock was steady at 287 to 209 ; India
Stock, 287 to 289 ; Exchequer-bills, 575. to 595. premium ;
Three per Cents. Reduced, 991 to 100 ; Three-and-a..
Quarter per Cents., 1021 to ,4 ; and Long Annuities,
12 1-16. In the foreign house the dealings have been of
the most limited description, but quotations, generally
speaking, exhibit much steadiness. Spanish Five per
Cents. left off 241 to 1; and Three per Cents., 3n to a ;
Russian, 1181 to 1191 ; Peruvian, 241 to 25/ ; Portuguese,
55 to 56 • Mexican, 364 to ; the Deferred, 16a to i;
Dutch iwo-and-a •Half per Cents., 621 to 638; the Five
per Cents., the Five per Cents., 99 to 1 ; Danish, 89 to
90; Colornbiun, 131 to 141; Cbilian, 100 to 101 ; Buenos
Ayres, 36 to 37 ; and Belgian, 101 c to 1021.
CAUTION TO SEAMEN.—Yesterday, at the Police-
court, an American seaman named M'Cappin, of the
ship Solons, wa4 charged with smuggling 10113. weight of
tobacco. Mr. Brook, of the Customs, conducted the
case, and proved, by several officers, that the article was
found in the prisoner's chest nailed to the side with tacks,
and that the prisoner gave a key which fitted the chest.
The prisoner said he was ignorant of the laws of the
country, and thought he would not be guilty of smuggling,
unless he brought the tobacco on shore, which he had no
intention to do. Mr. Rushton said be was clearly liable,
and adjudged him to pay a fine of £lOO, or be imprisoned,
intimating, however, that the prisoner might memo-
rialize the Lords Commissioners for a mitigation.