Vie _Metropolis.
. The members of the Protestant Society for the Promotion of Reli- gious Liberty, held their twenty-seventh annual meeting on Saturday last, at the London Tavern ; the Duke of Sussex in the chair. A large portion of the meeting consisted of ladies. After the routine business had been transacted, several gentlemen delivered speeches in praise of blinisters, and expressive of gratitude to the Queen for her resistance SO Sir Robert Peel. Sir Culling Smith and Mr.. Baines were particu- larlyzealous. The Duke of Sussex, in his closing speech, made some talus= to the state of parties ; but the reporter has made his Royal Highness speak twaddle and very bad English, though at the same time he says it was "tremendously cheered."
nAmong those thing,s which have given me peculiar pleasure, I may men- tion the manner in which you received the name of her most gracious Majesty. Ins present at her birth ; nave ever since looked to her with intense in- terest and affection. How gratifying it is to me to find that her name now ex- cites that feeling of loyalty and attachment in the breasts of her subjects which 'sovereign who acts on the right principles ought eveT to inspire. Then with reference to her Majesty's late Ministers—you will of course -perceive that in
07 situation I could not say. much on this subject ; but I think I may it is ai pleasure we find that snstead of a stronger and harsher eapression Of our Onion, We can congratulate ourselves -upon the recall oft/cc Liberal Ministry to power. And of this I am sure, that if they act manfully upon the great prin- ciples which they profess, they will secure the support and affection of the nation. But there must be no shuffling. They must go on steadily, but slowly and surely—tee want no galloping:2 A dinner of the Religious Freedom Society took place on Wednes- day, at the London Tavern ; Mr. Charles Lushington, President of the Society, in the chair. The opportunity was used for the delivery of .sondry Melbourne. Ministerial harangues. On giving the Queen's health, Mr. Lushington said—
He proposed that they should drink to that illustrious and beloved name to which all Reformers were deeply indebted, and which more recently had been 'additionally endeared to them by a magnanimity of conduct which the plaudits of grateful millions were powerless adequately to acknowledge,—so young, andyet Orin; so ingenuous, and yet so discreet; so exalted, and yet so gracious; so in.
• .esperieneea in friendship, and yet so faithful in it ! By a recent act, her Majesty Queen Victoria had shown that royalty could lose nolustre by decorously, yielding :tithe generous feelings of human impulses ; and her Majesty had evinced that she could combine the dignity of the monarch with the tenderness of the wo- ;man. He might almost say that her Majesty had imbibed enlightened prin- ciples with her earliest nutriment : education had matured and fortified. them ; 'and when she was brought to the test by the exercise of power, she grew in her linlitical steadfastness by the choice of Liberal Ministers, and subsequently in her social virtues by her steadfast attachment to her intimate adherents.
Mr. Ward proposed " The health of Ministers"— It had been his fortune openly and strongly to object to the course offich her Majesty's Ministers haditdopted, disappointing as it did the just ex- leetations of the country and of their friends, and involving those who wished to act with them as a party in difficulties. The toast, however, under existing -cireamstances, be felt that they, as Liberals—and considering the opinions they entertained upon one subject, he took them to be Liberals upon all—would drink with considerable pleasure. * * * Let them recollect that the indi- iduni liti:TtiCS or the people were now indissolubly connected with the honour .:tuid liberty of our Queen. It had rested with a girl of nineteen to decide inci- dentally the stake of the greatest question in the country. She had felt her own liberties assailed by a party which was the enemy of all those whom these present professed to support ; and she had, without counsel or advice from any one, [How does Mr. IA ard know that?] but prompted by her own rectitude of feeling, taken a course in which the people of tins country would not &it to eup orther, and in which undoubtedly they ought to support her, if they re-
ed her or their own interests. By that act of her Majesty, the efforts of Ole Conservative party during the last three years had been absolutely thrown oway; but still their organization remained—all the materials for a protracted struggle remained behind. They bad a formidable enemy, therefore, to contend with, and that enemy could only be defeated by a perfect union, and by the greatest concessions among themselves. Let the Ministers, then, show but the disposition to move on, &c. &c.
[We had imagined that the efforts of the Conservative party had been unceasingly directed during the last three years to the accomplishment of that organization which, Mr. Ward says, still remains. How then have their efforts been "thrown away ?"]
Mr. White, M.P. for Sunderland, said—
Re hoped every sect would unite to support her Majesty's Ministers ; who he Wes convinced would come forward with more liberal measures, by which he hoped the Voluntaries of England would be placed in a position in which they would be enabled better to carry out their views. [What a pity Mr. White did not state the grounds of his conviction ! Does he think the continuance in office of the noble author of the Stroud Letter a sufficient guarantee for the movement in advance I.] Mr. Baines said, his maxim was, " Put in whom you like, but keep out the Tories."
Mr. Hawes could not refrain from some remarks on Mr. 13aines's sentiment— Let them beware of sacrificing the principles for which they had been so long contending, in their hatred of the Tories. Let them not tell those who irere hi power, that such was the People's hatred of the Tories that they might run riot, no that the Tories were kept out. If Chive whom he was ac- customed to support on certain principles neglected those principles, they !night as certainly count on his opposition. Ministers had now got a new tease: no thanks to themselves—no thanks to the People—b\at from the course taI1! by a noble and ingenuous mind, which had almost gone the length of sacrificing public duty to private friendship. They were now bound to support the Queen, and he hoped they would do so. Ile,_ however sensible he might be of the recent errors of the Administration, could never forget what they had , Qom Ile could never forget what Lord John Russell had done for the cause
of civil and religious liberty; yet he felt bound not to forget what had been the recent acts of the Minister, however high might be his respect for the man.
[Mr. Hawes could not gulp down all the nauseous stuff which these "Independent Reformers " uttered, and his sensible observations did not elicit a single cheer.]
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