Annexed to the sermon is A REPORT The manner and behaviour of the of the proceedings of the society. But as the account of these has been to a considerable degree anticipated in our number for March, p. 182, we shall not think it necessary now to detail them. We earnestly recommend the report, however, to the notice of our readers, as well calculated to excite and encourage a proper spirit of Missionary zeal among christians in general. We learn from it that Missionaries are greatly wanted in the region which lies between Tanjore and Cape Comorint, at Ceylon, and at Calcutta; and we cordially unite in the prayer which accompanies the information, that the Holy Spirit may prepare and call forth many for this great work! The Appendix contains an impressive address from the committee of the society to the Rev. Melchior Renner, and the Rev. Peter Hartwig, the first Missionaries of the society, previous to their departure for Africa. SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPORT AND EN COURAGEMENT OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AND WALES. A REPORT of the proceedings of this excellent institution has just been published, by which it appears that the schools which have either been established or assisted by this society, since its formation in 1785, amount to 2032, in which 200,787 scholars have been educated. The books which have been given away are 184,248 spelling-books, 42,680 Testaments, 6,593 Bibles, besides the sum of 4.4,112. which has been distributed to such schools as stood in need of pecuniary aid. A few extracts from the letters, which are annexed to the report with a view to shew the utility of the institution, cannot fail to prove acceptable to our readers. Holmfirth. “I have great pleasure in acquainting you for the information of the Committee of the Sunday-School Society, that the Institution of a SundaySchool at this place, has been attended with the most promising success. *The Sermon and Report are to be had at Seeley's, Ave-Maria-Lane; and Hatchard's, Piccadilly. + See Christ. Observ. for 1803, p. 506.. These Missionaries reached Sierra Leone in health on the 14th of April, and found the colony tranquil. children are so much improved, that the whole neighbourhood are thoroughly convinced of its great utility. I attended yesterday morning, and again in the evening, to hear them read, and was really astonished with their improvement since last year. They are, generally speaking, regular in their attendance, and their behaviour at church is such as to awaken the most heartfelt satisfaction in the breast of every one who can contemplate the promising state of their young minds, contrasted with what it most probably would have been, if left to range loose upon the world. Their catechism most of them can say, and I make a point of explaining such parts of it to them as their understandings are best capable of receiving. We have established a Bible Club amongst them. About sixty subscribe sixpence each, per month, and then ballot for who is to have the first book. This, I flatter myself, the Committee will highly approve, as by these means so many poor families will in time be possessed of a treasure, which it were much to be wished every poor family could be brought to consider the most valuable they can possibly possess. The greatest merit is due to their teachers, whom I have found in all respects true to the great trust I left in their charge. We should also be greatly obliged to the Committee if they books. The teachers complain of becan furnish us with a fresh supply ci ing short of Bibles, having only 30 for all the Schools. Here are 121 Testaments, and 394 Spelling-Books, many of them very much worn. The whole number of children 760. They all display the greatest willingness to attend the schools, and many of them week, either a chapter in the Testavoluntarily learn in the course of the ment, the Collect for the day, or something or other the teachers think proper to select for them." Swanage the Sunday-Schools of Swanage, and "In the name of the managers of knowledgments for the books which my own, I have to return our best achave just come to hand. "There is a manifest and great improvement in the morals and general conduct of the inhabitants of this parish, mostly composed of stone-cutters and quarriers. To this gradual progress of amelioration the. Sunday Bosbury, Herefordshire. of the lowest description, and without the aid of these Institutions, their rising generation must have remained in total ignorance and darkness. We have three Schools, one for Boys, and two for Girls; all exceedingly well attended every Lord's-day. The number of both sexes is about 120. Here Schools are entirely supported by an annual subscription, which is chiefly from farmers. We would not intrude upon your benevolence, by soliciting assistance, was it not a real case of necessity, and I hope great charity." Shipston-on-Stour, Worcestershire. "Since my last, our School has been attended in the usual manner, and I make no doubt but it will afford pleasure to the Society, that in consequence of our beginning, another similar Institution took place, and between both, our streets are cleared of the hundreds of idle boys and girls that were used to play, and swear, and fight therein." "About two years ago, I was presented to the Vicarage of Bosbury, at which time I found the parish in a wretched state with respect to religion; very few people attended the church on the Lord's-day, and hardly any children were ever seen at the church, although the population of the parish, when taken about two years ago, was 777 souls. After admonishing my parishioners very frequently upon the subject of attending divine service, but all in vain, I at length, in October last, began to try what I could do with the rising generation, and established a SundaySchool. We have now about sixtythree children who regularly attend the school, and after that the Church, every Sunday morning, and who have repeated the catechism once publicly in the Church; although, when I first took the School in hand, there were A letter from the Missionary Socievery few of them that knew their let- ty in Connecticut, inserted in the Eters. I allow a man and his wife two vangelical Magazine for the present shillings a week for teaching the month, contains the following passage. School, and the master of the Grammar-With respect to this State (ConnecSchool attends before the Church begins, to examine them in the catechism. I also attend them myself frequently, and examine them in the principles of the Christian religion." Lilleshall. "It is now upwards of eighteen years since Sunday-Schools were first instituted in this populous village. During that period their utility has manifested itself surprisingly in both sexes. The major part of the inhabitants consists of Colliers and Miners AMERICA. ticut), the laws have provided, even from the first settlement of it, that every family should be furnished with a sufficient number of Bibles. The law at present provides that, in all our schools, the master should catechize the children weekly, and hear them read daily in the Bible: and we believe that families in general, throughout New England, are furnished with Bibles.' This is an example highly worthy of the imitation of other christian legislatures. VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. FRANCE. GEORGES and eleven of his companions have been executed. On sentence of death being pronounced, they requested that priests might be allowed to attend them in their last moments, which was granted. Georges appeared very devout, and manifested his usual intrepidity. The punishment was that of the guillotine. The first who suffered was Georges. He and all who shared his fate, are said to have died exclaiming, "Vive le Roi! CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 31. Vive Louis XVIII.!" Eight of the persons who were condemned have been pardoned. The letters of pardon run in the following terms-" Napoleon, by the grace of God, and the constitutions of the empire, Emperor of the French, &c."-" His crime is great, but we wish to make him feel the effects of that clemency which we have always held in singular predilection, &c." Moreau has been sent, itis said, to Spain, in order to take his passage to America in a neutral ship. 3 M Bonaparte, desirous, as he himself expresses it, "to mark the moment of his accession to the throne by acts of indulgence and beneficence," has decreed; that an amnesty should be granted to the French who had borne arms against France, or had taken part in the civil wars; that persons condemned to imprisonment, and detained only for their fees, shall be set at liberty; "that a report be made to his majesty of the debtors to the state, that his majesty may determine who are worthy of being freed from coufinement;" that the sums due to the bureau of nurses, by necessitous fathers and mothers, be paid from the civil list; that a dowry be given to a poor and honest young woman in each communal arrondissement; and that all deserters joining their corps by a fixed time shall be forgiven, and the fines incur red by them or their parents remitted. Bonaparte has published a variety of minute regulations respecting the uniform and equipment of the crews of the French fleets and flotillas. They are to bathe, wash, comb their hair, and shave, by rule. The following, however, is the most singular regulation—" When in Europe, they are, for exercise, to dance for an hour EVERY SUNDAY*; but when in warm climates for half an hour every second day." Such members of the diplomatic body as have received their new credentials have been presented to Bonaparte, who received them on his throne, with the imperial crown and sceptre on a cushion by the side of it, and with the same etiquette which is observed on similar occasions at Vienna and Petersburgh, after the accession of a new emperor. It is said that neither the Austrian, Russian, Danish, or Swedish ministers were present, but continue to reside at Paris, without public characters. A negotiation, it is said, is proceeding between Bonaparte and the Pope, the object of which is to induce his Holiness to assist at the ceremony of the new Emperor's coronation. The Pope is said to have shewn great reluctance to undertaking a journey to Paris: but so peremptory has been the mandate of Bonaparte, that he has been advised, for the peace of the church, to submit to it. GERMANY. -The Count of Bentheim Steinfurth having availed himself of the invasion of Hanover, to appropriate to his own use the country of Bentheim, which had been placed as a deposit in the hands of our king, the envoy for the Electorate of *Has Bonaparte borrowed this economical regulation from our Defence Bills? Is Sunday-drilling more excusable than Sunday-dancing? Brunswick has addressed the Diet of Ratisbon in a spirited note on the subject. The French government having shewn a disposition to countenance the injustice complained of, there is little reason to hope that the remonstrance will produce any effect. Another note couched in strong terms has also been presented to the Diet on the part of his Majesty, respecting the occupation of Hanover by French troops, but no answer has yet been given to it. A strong wish has been expressed by the Elector of Baden, in which the Emperor of Germany himself is likely to concur, that the Diet would overlook the late flagitious violation of the Germanic neutrality in the seizure of the Duke D'Enghein. on this subject, the Russian Chargé des Affaires has presented a note to the French ministry, from which we extract a few passages as deserving particular notice. "His illustrious master has learnt, with equal astonishment and concern, the event that has taken place at Ettenheim, the circumstances that have accompanied it, and its melancholy result. The concern of the Emperor on this occasion is the more lively, as he can by no means reconcile the violation of the territory of the Elector of Baden to those principles of justice and propriety, which are held sacred among nations, and are the bulwark of their reciprocal relations. His Imperial Majesty finds in this act a violation of the rights of nations, and of a neutral territory, which, at least, was as arbitrary as it was public: a violation, the consequences of which are difficult to estimate, and which, if considered as admissible, must entirely annihilate the security and independence of Sovereign States."-" His Imperial Majesty is assured that the First Consul will feel the pressing necessity of taking the most active measures to relieve all the governments of Europe from the alarm he must have occasioned to them, and put an end to an order of things too dangerous to their safety and future independence." RUSSIA. It has been stated, with a considerable appearance of probability, that Russia and the other northern powers had refused to acknowledge the new order of things in France: and rumours have been circulated, of the intention of the Emperor Alexander to declare war against that country without delay. We do not pretend to vouch for the authenticity of either of these reports: but there seems no reason to doubt that a considerable degree of coolness subsists between the courts of Petersburgh and Paris; that the greatest activity prevails in the Russian ports in the Baltic and on the Black Sea; that large bodies of troops have been assembled near the latter; and that the Russian force, within the territory of the Republic of the Seven Islands, has, of late, been some, what augmented. ST. DOMINGO. Very contradictory reports continue to be circulated concerning the transactions in this island; some of them evidently intended to vilify the negro character, and to produce in the public mind prejudices against the proposed measure of abolishing the slave trade. An account of a massacre of the whites, said to have taken place in the month of March, was copied from an American newspaper, and carefully published in all our daily journals about the close of last month. In some of them the paragraph appeared several times at proper intervals, in precisely the same terms; and, we suppose, that its repeated insertion must have been procured by the enemies of the negro race, in order to keep alive the impression which it seemed calculated to produce. As the massacre of February, however, was supplanted by that of March, so the massacre of March is now supplanted, though, as we freely admit, with much greater semblance of probability, by that of April. Of this massacre, accounts, it is alleged, have been received both from Guadaloupe and New York. Guadaloupe, however, lying a great way to windward of St. Domingo, it is not easy to imagine how the intelligence should have been conveyed to that island. The statement said to have been received thence is further discredited, by the parti cularity which it affects. Twenty-six thousand French, forty Americans, and six Irishmen, with their families, twelve Spaniards, two Danes, and one Swede, it is stated, had been murdered up to the 20th of April. The New York account is not quite so extravagant. It makes the number massacred, up to the 8th of May, to be only two thousand five hundred. It gives at the same tine a proclamation of Dessalines, dated the 28th of April, the object of which appears to be to explain the reasons which had led him to sacrifice some Europeans, and to spare others. If it is really genuine, it only proves how tardy the negroes have been in the work of death. A proclamation was attributed to Dessalines, bearing date the 1st of January last, calling upon the people of Hayti to avenge the manes of their friends, by sacrificing the French who Had they 0remained among them. beyed that call to massacre, as was confidently affirmed, a second summons would have been superfluous. able circumstance, that neither in the newspapers nor in the private letters which have been received from Jamaica, where the means of information are easy, can we discover that a syllable is contained respecting these bloody transactions. frigate has also recently arrived from that island, bringing dispatches of so late a date It is a remark A as the 12th of June. Had all which has been reported of massacres been true; is it not probable that government would have received some official details respecting them? After all, we would not be understood as giving an opinion that vindictive executions, to a considerable extent, may not have taken place. Such an event, under all the circumstances of the case, is certainly far from improbable; particu larly as it appears, from the proclamation of Dessalines, supposing it genuine, that a plot, which was to produce "a terrible explosion," had been framed by "those incorrigible beings" to whom a pardon had been granted at the expulsion of the French. But we think that no fair account of the We would, therefore, guard our readers occurrence has yet reached this country. against the mis-representations of the friends of the slave trade, who will leave no stone unturned to poison all the sources of intelligence in order to promote their cause. It is well known, that there are ready means by which the influence of the opulent body, which has thought proper to give its active support to that nefarious traffic, may be felt by almost every newspaper and periodical publication in the Lingdom. * Inserted in the SUN of April 28, 1804. GREAT BRITAIN. PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS. THE permanent additional force bill was passed in the House of Lords on the 27th of June, by a large majority, and has since received the royal assent. On the 22nd June, in the House of Commons, Mr. Whitbread moved a vote of censure on the Lord Advocate of Scotland, for writing letters stigmatising as a disaffected person a Mr. Morison, of the county of Bamff; recommending it to his neighbours to avoid him as an infamous character; and threatening to imprison him on the first landing of the French, and to prevent his receiving any compensation for his property which might be destroyed: because he had dismissed from his service a man servant who had gone, contrary to his orders, to attend an inspection of a volunteer corps, in which he had enrolled himself. The Lord Advocate rested his justification on the necessity of the case. We were glad to hear Mr. Pitt blaming the conduct which the Lord Advocate had pursued, and expressing a hope that such a procedure would never occur again. As the motives of the Lord Advocate had evidently been patriotic, he did not, however, think that there were sufficient grounds for degrading a public offieer, who bad long and faithfully served his country. The motion was lost by a majority of 159 to 82. Acts have been passed suspending the operation of certain penalties contained in an act of Elizabeth, against the use of certain machinery in the woollen trade : making the counterfeiting of Bank Dollars a capital crime: and regulating the export and import of corn. In the Committee of Supply, a vote was passed for discharging the arrears of the civil list, amounting to 6.590,000. Almost the wliole of this debt was stated to have been necessarily incurred. Mr. Pitt intimated his intention of moving for an addition to the civil list of 2.60,000. - per annum, and of providing in future a separate estimate for charges which are now defrayed by it: such as law and po: lice charges, &c. amounting to 6.135,000. per annum; by which means future debts would be prevented. A vote of credit was given for £2,500,000. for Great Britain, and £.800,000, for Ireland. £.8000. was granted for enlarging the British Museum: 1£.28,000. for the use of the establishment at Sierra Leone: and £.1,700,000. to make Gross receipt of permanent 2 good Irish Treasury Bills issued in 1804. The Committee on the Middlesex Election closed its sittings on the 7th instant. .The substance of their report was, that Sir Francis Burdett had not been duly elected; that Mr. Mainwaring had been duly elected, and ought to have been returned; but that having committed by his agents, acts of treating, which incapacifated him to serve in' parliament, the last election was void. A new writ was then moved for the election of a member for the county of Middlesex, in the room of Sir Francis Burdett. The Committee also re. ported some further resolutions, in substance as follows, viz. That the sheriffs, R. A. Cox, Esq. and Sir. W. Rawlins, did wilfully, knowingly, and corruptly admit 300 fictitious votes to poll for Sir F. Burdett, by which a majority was obtained; but that the majority having been obtained they rejected other voters under the same circumstances: that by their general conduct they had acted in flagrant violation of their duty and that the obvious tendency of such conduct was, to admit person's who had no right to polls and to afford the greatest encouragement to perjury. We congratulate the country at large on the issue of this momentous enquiry; which, we trust, will prove a salutary check on electioneering profligacy. The decision of the House of Commons on the subject of the Loyalty Loan is, " That for every .6.100. new five per cents. the subscribers should receive £.100. pld five per cents. on the 10th of October; and on the 5th of April next, a bonus in new stock for the difference between the price of the old five per cents. on the 10th revenue.. ....£.36,677,278 Estimated produce of perma- War taxes to 5th April, 1805 Loan Vote of credit.. 200,000 350,000 270,000 15,440,000 1,370,000 14,500,000 2,500,000 Total 2.71,307,270 The total amount of the public funded debt unredeemed on the 1st of February Tast, was £.484,162,622. The following is a general view of the state of the East India Company's affairs, laid before the House of Commons by Lord Castlereagh. 4 Result of the estimates for the year 1803-4 collectively. REVENUES. Bengal......... £.8,064,981 Bengal........ £.13,472,451 5,066,940 |