At Chester, on Tuesday, there was a grand Tory dinner
given by the South Cheshire Conservative Association to Sir Philip Egerton ; Lord De Tebley in the chair. The speeches, with one exception, were beneath notice; but the Reverend Joshua King, with whose name and peculiar claims on notoriety our readers are not unacquainted, spoke in the style of old-fashioned Toryism, before Conservatism had reared its head under the auspices of Wellisigton and Peel. Some of Joshua's vituperation will amuse 0111' readers- " Probably, among the whole of the clerical body there is not an individual against whom the rage of the Government and Revolutionary press and private anonymous scribblers have vehred their vindictive scurrility and abuse more copiously than against rupelf. Held up as a compound of every thing that is vile and contemptible, a:14 threatened as I have repeatedly been by the Liberals or brawlers for cb.il u:.d religious liberty with assassination, (for such menaces could proceed Guru no other quarter,) how happens it that so base and con- temptible a character as I have been represented to be should possess twice as much ib!lue%ce in the hundred of Wirral as the whole of the Papists and Whig- Radicals combined, although nearly all the landed property in the hundred be- longs to them? And, gentlemen, they are not scrupulous as to the manner in which they use their influence, or the expedients to which they resort. By their agents alone intimidation was used at the last contested election. And a private and confidential letter of mine was stolen by them, conveyed to the Popish head-quarters at Hooton, and from thence, through Mr. Wilbraham's Committee, sent to the press and placarded. I should not have condescended to advert to this circumstance, had not a private letter of mine been stolen on a former occasion, conveyed to the same head-quarters, the thief taken into confi- dence and employ, and the letter so surreptitiously obtained made the ground- work of an atrocious, and, as was proved by the unanimous suffrages of a jury of my countrymen, a malicious prosecution. As George Wilbraham, however, the Representative of Popery and Dissent, and their patron saint, has in every vote he has given connected with the Church advocated public robbery, it ought not probably to be a matter of surprise that his supporters should carry out his principles to their legitimate object, in becoming sneaking petty thieves. Whig- gery and trickery have long been considered in every part of the kingdom as synonymous terms; but Whiggery and thievery are now deemed synonymous terms in the hundred of Wirral."
But Joshua eareth not for the Whigs and their newspapers, and re- joiceth in being the thing that Liberals rail at— 'Bidding defiance to the blackguardism of the editors of the Government and Revolutionary press, who are enemies to our church, enemies to our country, enemies to social order, and to every sound moral and religious prin- ciple which the wise and the good revere, I am proud to acknowledge the dis- tinction of being a pluralist, knowing by what means my plurality was obtained —and proud also of being abused by the worst panderers to the vices of the people, estimating my usefulness by the extent of the abuse which is heaped upon me."
The dinner at Truro, which we alluded to last week, was not given
Zig the electors to Mr. Turner, but by him to them. Many of his guests, being Tories, refused to drink the Liberal toasts. We perceive
by a printed address of Mr. Tooke to the electors, that that gentle- man is preparing for publication an account of the "causes and pro- bable consequences" of his late defeat. This Mr. Turner, it seems, is resident managing director of a Joint Stock Bank in Truro,—a con- cern which, we suspect, will have full as large a portion of his attention as the affairs of his constituents in Parliament.
On Thursday, the Members of the South Lincolnshire Conservative Association had a grand dinner at Sleaford. The speeches were full of confidence and exultation at the prospects of the Tory party. The Earl of Darlington was one of the principal speakers. He avowed himself to be a Constitutional Whig ; which he considered the same as a Conservative. Lord Winchilsea was as vehement as usual ; and 'vented the Whigs that "the day of retribution was at hand." Mr. G. J. Ileatlicote refused to attend their dinner, on the ground that he always avoided the political clubs of both parties.
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