dation would not be lost on him, and that England would see him, at all risks, and under all circumstances, do his duty. Let us hope that a mistaken view has alone led him into so vast an error. But when this error is exposed, it will be unpardonable, it will be criminal, if the remedy be not instantly applied.

In the midst of this tremendous storm and danger of shipwreck we are told not to fear, that we have men for our ministers who will guard us from all danger. I may be called a very timid mariner, but I cannot prevent myself from crying out; I loudly assert that the ship is in the utmost danger, and as yet the helmsman has done nothing visibly to preserve it; the murmurs of a portion of the crew have burst into open mutiny; and nothing but the prompt energy of the captain, or the united efforts of the remainder of the crew, can save it from destruction.

Figure apart, imminent danger is at the door of the constitution; something must instantly be done, or it may be destroyed. We must no longer wait in expectation of tardy assistance, we must act for ourselves; and if the ministers will co-operate with us, so much the better; but we must not, we will not, be sacrificed.

We are assured that the Duke of Wellington is true to our cause, but that he dares not to act of himself that he wishes to be backed by popular support. I am quite willing to believe that he does continue true to the Protestant cause, and to the preservation of those interests which are as dear to us as life itself; but if he be true, wherefore this unaccountable inaction? We know that he must be fearless; but, if fearless, how can it be explained that he dares not to act on his own ministerial responsibility, but requires the popular aid to attempt that which is peculiarly the duty of the executive ?

If my positions are as true as I firmly believe them to be, then indeed have I made out a case of extremity, and it is high time that the nation should bestir itself, and do that for itself which others either fear or refuse to do for it.

Let the nation look forward a little to the future; let it consider what must very shortly be the inevitable consequence of the present frightful state of things; it will then see the danger which stares us in the face; and if it is desirous of preserving our glorious constitution, of upholding religion, of maintaining the laws, rights, and liberties of our country, so as in some measure to merit the favor of God and man, then, I would say, let the nation arouse from its lethargy; let it stand forth in the panoply of its natural excellence; let it declare its intentions; let it demand that the Popish association shall be instantly annihilated; let it demand that the voice of treason shall be stifled; let it

demand that all Popish establishments of whatever nature, whether Jesuits' colleges or monasteries, &c. &c. shall be immediately abolished; let them demand that no Roman Catholics shall vote at elections; and finally, let them require a full and undisputed Protestant ascendancy within these realms.

This, however, must not be delayed; time presses, and the enemy is at the gate; the unanimous voice of the nation should be heard in a tone which cannot be mistaken, and our invaluable constitution will be safe against her most inveterate enemies, whether secret or avowed.

You, my dear Lord, have manfully sounded the warning trumpet; you have ably appealed to our Protestant countrymen ; I trust that they will as manfully answer to the call. They must unite in Protestant associations from one end of the country to the other; and as parliament is not sitting, they should address their Protestant king; and may God protect our country, and prosper their patriotic exertions!

I have thus endeavored, very imperfectly, I admit, to describe my notions on this momentous subject. I have written freely; why should I not? Some one must speak out; my duty and my interest compel me to conceal nothing, and in this respect I acquit myself of any deficiency. I have extenuated where I could do so with propriety; I have set down nought in malice or hostility, for I entertain none. Perilous times require strong remedies and home truths; you will perceive that I have not flinched from recommending the one, and stating the other. I am well aware that in doing this I am subjecting myself to severe animadversions; but I am heedless of consequences to myself, if I may ever so slightly benefit the great cause which is at stake. My anxiety also to prove my gratitude to you by answering to your appeal has been an additional incitement; and thus I have been doubly urged forward to the completion of my unpleasant task.

I have been led into far greater length than I at first contemplated; and it is now fit that I should assure you of the esteem with which

I am, my dear Lord,

Very sincerely and faithfully yours,

NEWCASTLE.

The Right Hon. Lord Kenyon.

MARTIN STAPYLTON, ESQ.

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

LONDON:-1828.

MY LORD DUKE,

I OBSERVE in this day's Morning Chronicle your Grace's descent into the arena of political controversy not by speeches in that House of which you are an hereditary member-but by a letter to Lord Kenyon, containing the most unmeaning complaints on the fancied outrages of our constitution, and the most rash and dangerous counsels for a confederacy, which, if generally adopted, would separate our Sister Kingdom from the throne of these

realms.

You demand the Protestant ascendancy to be supported. Wherein does the legitimate ascendancy of our Protestant church exhibit proofs of decay, and in what respect does it require the aid of continued persecution to sustain it? The doctrines of the Reformation are the leading, and the only doctrines which the dignitaries of our ecclesiastical policy acknowlege. The rights of those dignitaries have increased with revolving years. Their revenues are more abundant at present than at any preceding period; and the fines on the renewal of leases are so enlarged as to be almost oppressive on those who hold estates by church tenures, which I am happy to say I do not.

Proficiency in studies and piety in conduct as well as high birth have advanced those dignitaries to the highest offices; and no one is heard to complain when an amiable archbishop leaves, as it is reported, 200,000l. to his relatives, and his options to his successor.

Two brethren eminent for piety and learning have lately been promoted to the episcopal bench. Does your Grace suppose that either of these men, so peculiarly selected without borough patronage, have a latent attachment to the errors of Rome? and surely to such men in preference to the Brunswick clubs you may cheerfully confide the safety of the Protestant church. Moreover, without depreciation of your Grace's talents for con

troversy, you might have left your cause to the secretary of state, Mr. Peel, who since February last has been so devoted to the anticipation of the triumphs of No Popery, that he views without horror, perhaps with complacency, the immurement from comfort friends and lawyers of those lesser criminals in debt the humble debtors of the county of Sussex, in the jail at Horsham.

As your Grace is not contented with all these safeguards to the Protestant ascendancy, nor with your own exhibition of eloquence as a peer, and the influence of some dozen members with which you favor the British House of Commons to support your patronage of that ascendancy, permit me till more powerful pens extinguish the hopes which the intolerant may derive from your letter, to controvert some of its unconstitutional principles, and particularly most solemnly to asseverate in contradiction to your Grace, that the "will of the people should direct the affairs of the country." It was by that "will," and for the welfare of the people alone, that the present dynasty of our beloved monarch was permitted to fill the throne which their predecessors, not only by predilection for Popery, but by their love of tyranny disgraced; and from which, by the mere "will of the people," under the blessing of God, they were most deservedly cashiered.

If the time should ever come when a scion of the house of Brunswick shall view with contempt the will of the people, and disregard their welfare by practical tyranny, he will cease to be the chosen monarch of the British isles; he may agree and he may assort with the proprietors of boroughs as the tool of a party, but he will no longer possess that which our present king most dearly prizes the affectionate loyalty of a devoted nation.

Had Retford by the extension of the elective franchise to the hundreds been ceded to your Grace, the minister by his consent to such cession would have exemplified contempt "for the will of the people" but would he by this disgraceful exemplification of your theories have rendered more transparent the "purity of our constitution," or more strongly fortified the intrenchments of the Protestant church from the encroachments of Popish conspirators ?

No one has greater disapproval of some peculiar doctrines of the Church of Rome than the individual who addresses you; but on the question whether we should debar from their just political rights millions of oppressed Irishmen, I stop not to inquire by what precise mode of faith the Irish Christian seeks his God. Can this world be made only for one small body of the elect; and are the traffickers or proprietors of boroughs more able to judge who are so elected than those dignitaries who, less attached to the brick and mortar than to the sanctuary of the establishment,

view the errors of their Catholic brethren with a Christian's charity, and disdain not to be warmed by the same sun- -to breathe the same pure air-to associate on the same bench of justice, and in the same legislative councils of the nation to unite for the precise preservation of the British constitution?

These Catholic brethren are descended from the same common ancestors-they are our relatives or our friends. Perhaps they would have been converted, but that their more immediate predecessors disregarded the controversy of the times, and therefore were as ignorant on such subjects as the Duke of Wellington proves himself to be when he confounds Methodists with Dissenters in his letter lately published, considering Methodists to be personally interested in the late repeal of the Test Act, which most undoubtedly they were not.

By toleration, which is the very essence of the Protestant church-by the distribution of Bibles, on which that church professes itself to be founded-by fair controversy-by doing justice to oppressed Irishmen, and not by the sword let us prove the purity of our establishment, and the sanctitude of our intentions.

If I err, I err, my Lord Duke, in the beaten track of men as eminent for piety and for talent aș any who ever trod the British soil.

If the zeal of men peculiarly pious inspire you, consult Wilberforce. That great man who still graces the terrestrial globe as the regenerator of the African race, whose services to humanity, which you will perhaps style liberalism, will be remembered when your Grace and myself are forgotten, in his last conversation some time back with me, assured me that the Catholic question had become a political, and not a religious inquiry; that the time had ceased when the exclusion of Catholics from civil rights was a proper ordination; and that, in fact by the cessation of persecution, the Protestant church would acquire fresh force.

The Catholics, no longer persecuted, would have no more power to harass the state than other seceders from the establishment. Reduce the question merely to a question of faith to be determined by fair and just reasoning.

The Liturgy of the Church of England is the most perfect of all human compositions; the doctrines of that church are the most pure; the members of the clerical establishment fear not a comparison with those of any other profession, on the basis of their learning and the morality of their lives. To their argumentative talents, and to the exemplary conduct of their lives, and not to brute force, you may properly trust for having in due time the conversion of the Catholics. Confound not their labors with