The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-17 00:00:00

THE POLITE LETTER-WRITER

Mr. Grnntley Berkeley, it appears, has taken up his re-
sidence at Spetchley Park, near Worcester, the seat of his
relative, IL Berkeley, Esq., and from that place has writ-
ten several letters to Mr. Visger, on the subject of the
late meeting at Gloucester. The following is the corre-
spondence

The Greenway. Nov 6. 1846

Slit—ill the Morning Hernia of the sth November (yesterday)
the following sentence is reported as having been uttered by
you at the semi.privste kind most unconstitutional and unfair
meeting held in Gloucester on Tuesday last.
' •

You are there reported to have Ku , in speaking of me, " In
many respects he was a good member; in many others he was
not ; and above all was the fact of his being ready, on account
of sonic private matter of his own, to throw the constituency
over."
Now, sir, if you did apply this passage of your speech in those
terms to me, you have stated that which is utterly, uncondi-
tionally, and disgracefully false; and you will, of course, see
the necessity of making good your words, or of correcting a
report which, if uncontradicted, is calculated to do me consi-
derable injury.
I await your immediate reply. A letter addressed by return
of post to Spetehley Park, Worcester, will find me.—Your obe-
dient humble servant, GILANTLEY F. BERKICLEY.
To Harman Visger, Esq., Bristol.

Bristol, Nov. 7,1846,

SlR—The only reply I think proper to make to your letter of
yesterday is simply to acknowledge its receipt. —I am, sir, your
obeditnt servant, (Signed) HARMAN VISGER.
To the lion. Grantley Berkeley, M.P.
Bpeteriley Park.

.S'petehleg Park, Nov. 9, 1

• ~
Sin—l have received your letter of the 7th inst., and I there
hold you ;:uilty of having deliberately and intentionally told a
dis ••racetul and unwarrantable falsehood in regard to " 11,3,
being reads to throw over my constituency ;" and I shall publish
this our correspondence.—Your moat obedient.
GRANTLEV BEnICEI

To 11 rman Visger, Esq., Bristol.
To this polite epistle Mr. Visger replies that Mr.
Berkeley is perfectly welcome to publish the correspon-
dence, and that in doing so he only anticipated his (Mr.
Visger's) intentions. He leaves it to the public to judge
which justly is most open to the charge of falsehood.
And here this little interlude ends for the present at
least.
Mr. Grantley Berkeley has published another tedious
epistle, dated " Spetchley Park," in Friday's Morning
Herald. The letter occupies more than three columns
of the paper!

PROTESTANTISM AND THE APPROACHING
ELECTION.

The Rev. G. S. Faber, of Sherburn-house, Durham. a
staunch Protestant for three-quarters of a century, has
published, in the Protestant Magazine for this month, a
most valuable letter of advice to the electors of Great
Britain, from which we make the following extract :-
1. Hitherto, the daring sin of fostering and encouraging
and endowing what our legislators themselves have de-
clared to be idolatry, rests solely with a Government
which has deliberately and now repeatedly preferred poli-
tical expediency, or what has been fancied to be such, to
a faithful fear of God. Through numerous petitions and
protests, insolently disregarded as so much waste paper,
the nation has repudiated the unhallowed deeds of their
governors : and, consequently, the wrath of Heaven has
been tempered and mitigated.
_ _

2. But if, in the approaching general election, the na-
tion, with their eyes wide open, shall uninquiringly return
a House of Commons, servilely ready to grant any en-
couragement and any endowment to Popery which may
be advocated by a Ministry prepared to sacrifice God's
word to an infidel ext ediency : it is quite clear that, as in
the parallel case of the ten tribes, the wickedness of the
Government will forthwith become the wickedness of the
nation. It is true, that various conscientious individuals
may exonerate themselves personally from guilt, by re-
fusing all participation in the gross insult offered to the
Almighty ; but this will not prevent the sin from being
national, if we return a House of Commons bent upon
encouraging the declared idolatry of Popery, and upon
discouraging the scriptural truth of Protestantism. Na-
tions as nations, have no existence beyond this present
world. Consequently, here, as in the case of the ten
tribes, must be the stage of their judicial punishment.
3. Are, then, my countrymen prepared to take upon
themselves, and thus to make their own, the daring wick-
edness of their Legislature, or rather (God be praised),
as I have noted above, the majority only of their Legis-
lature ? By this overbearing majority, under the influence
of the day, their petitions have been so contemptuously
disregarded, that they are sick of the hopeless task and
unavailing trouble of sending any more. But they have
not, I trust, been forgotten ; and now is the time to
show, by something more stringent and energetic than
humble petitions to a body which depends upon them-
selves, and which is purely their own creation, what is
really the national will, touching the encouragement of
the repeatedly declared Idolatry of Popery.
4. Nothing can be more simple than the line of action,
which on religious principles, every conscientious Pro-
testant ought to adopt. Let no honest man, who has a
vote for county or town, give it to any candidate, unless
such candidate will distinctly pledge himself to oppose all
future prnjects for either endowing the Romish priest-
hood, from whatever source the endowment may be
derived, or for making grants to their colleges in order to
the more effectual propagation of what our senators them-
selves have pronounced to be Idolatry, or for juggling in-
t. their hands exclusively, funds which are pretended to
be devoted to national education, or for promoting the
same unrighteous object in any other way which the in-
genuity of an unprincipled Minister may devise. Unless
we possessed the gift of prophecy, it is clearly impossible
to specify every mode of encouraging Popery and dis-
couraging Protestantism. But, to bind any really honest
and honourable candidate as contradistinguished from a
quibbling trickster who might have graduated in the con-
genial school of Jesuitism, nothing more can be necessary,
than the signature of a written form, purporting, that,
neither directly or indirectly, in any conceivable way that
the perverted wit of man can devise, or with any reserva-
tions or particularities, or exceptions, will the candidate,
if elected, vote for the encouragement or support or pro-
motion or endowment of Popery, whether such an en-
dowment respects the Romish priesthood at large, or May-
nooth and any oth?r of their institutions in speciality.
With this might be fi,ly associated a further pledge to re-
lieve us, if possible, from national guilt of paying the Col-
lege of Maynooth for the more effectual propagation of
what those very persons, who thus shamelessly voted
away the public money, have themselves solemnly de-
clared to be Idolatry.

5. Let such a plan he steadily carried out, and, through
God's mercy, I shall not despair of my country. But. if
by our return of an un-English expediency-mongering
House of Commons, we enable the minister of the day,
whoever be may he, to carry into effect any unprincipled
scheme of a virtual infidelity, we then make his sin a
national sin,— we then nationally challenge the Almighty
to do his worst,—we then nationally court the very ex-
tremity of God's judgments.
6. Recent events, not particularly creditable to the
actors in them, have given rise to what has been called
The Country Par, y,—a party formed for the laudable pur-
pose of giving protection to native industry and produce
Cordially do I wish this English party all success ; but
they will, I think, very much lower themselves in the
public estimation if they confine their exertions to matters
purely secular. While they strive to protect our property
from the selfish rapacity of the master-manufsc urers,
they ought equally to strive for the protection of our re-
ligion against the infidel Popery-favouring liberalism of
the present day. Unless this be done, it will naturally
enough be remarked to their disparagement, that, while
they are zealous for the protection of property. they are
indifferent as to the protection of true religion and as to
the late shameless encouragement of false r• ligion. They
were right in doing the one, but then, even for their own
influence and credit, it is desirable that they should not
leave the other undone. Would they aspire to the cha-
racter of a complete English party, they ought to guard
the religion of England with at least as much care as the
property of England.