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been, from enlarging its views, for want of means: and it will hereby be enabled to direct its chief attention to the establishment and support of missions wherever Divine Providence may open the way,

A Missionary Society takes on itself a serious responsibility in sending missionaries abroad. It cannot, like the Bible Society, relieve itself, in case of any failure of funds, by suspending its entire expenditure: nay it cannot even, for a considerable time, diminish its average outgoings: for the Missionary Society has committed itself in the support of all the stations to which it has sent missionaries, and to the unavoidable expenses connected with those stations, and all the missionaries and their families attached thereto.

The "Society for Missions to Africa and the East" has not hesitated to seize every opportunity of attaining its objects, to which Divine Providence appeared to call its exertions; assured that the public benevolence would keep pace with its prospects of usefulness and success. Seven Lutheran ministers, five lay settlers, six English students, eight wives of missionaries or settlers, and about one hundred and twenty African children, are dependent on the Society. The nett income in the year ending 31st March, 1812, was about 24001. while its actual expenditure, and the debts incurred for that year, amounted to upwards of 30001. The exertions made by the Committee, this year, in preparing for a new settlement, and in the addition of laymen to the establishment, must trench still further on the small capital of the Society; which is bound, by the 27th ReguJation, to preserve a funded property equal in amount to the subscriptions of the existing members for life.

It is evident, therefore, that great exertions are requisite to meet the present demands on the Society; and that still greater will be needed to enable the Committee to enter fully into all the designs which are before it.

In the support of this great cause Christians are now invited, in the name of their Lord, to unite with those who are endeavouring to remove the reproach of negligence from their country. The honour of our Divine Master demands it at our hands. To us the bread of life has been liberally dealt let us learn to impart á portion of that brend to our pes rishing neighbours. A sul cake.

On all the members of the Established Church, the Committee wish to press this consideration, That this is the only Society in that Church, which has for its exclu

sive object the evangelizing of the Heather World, Societies in England, in Scotland, in various parts of America, and in other places, are all pursuing the same grand design of proclaiming this Gospel among the heathen. Bat there existed, before the for mation of this Society, no association of members of the Established Church, with the exclusive object of contributing to the evangelization of the heathen world. As a churchthe pillar and ground of the Protestant faith— we have been too justly reproached with want of zeal for the diffusion of Christianity. The Church of Rome, with whatever mixture of secular motives, has done more to make known the name of Christ among the heathen than all the professors of the Reformed Faith: and, of all the nations professing that faith, Great Britain has laboured far less in this great cause, in proportion to her means and opportunities, than any other statë, While, therefore, other bodies of Christians among us are strenuously exerting themselves to remove this reproach from our land, let the United Church of England and Ireland assume that share in these exertions which becomes her. It was with the view of associating her members in this holy work, that the present institution was formed.

There is no need here for unholy rivalry. The wide world is before us. There is more than room for all the efforts which the various bodies of Christians in Europe, in America, and in the East, may be able to make for ages to come: five or six hundred millions of Pagans and Mahometans in Asia, and one hundred millions (if not double that number) in Africa, are perishing for lack of knowledge.

While the providence of God has weakened the Church of Rome, made her tremble for her own existence, shut her up from making any efforts even to maintain the missions she had established, and suffered her professed children to alienate' to their own ambitious schemes the revenues by which those efforts were supported; yet, ir the mean while, in the Protestant Church, of the United Empire In particular, a holy zeal has been kindled for the salvation of the heathen. The patient labours of the Soeiety for promoting Christian Knowledge, of the Society for propagating the Gospel, and of the Church of the United Brechiren, begin now to receive somewhat of their reward, în the applause and imitation of the Christian world. An earnest desire to diffuse the knowledge of the Scriptures has pervaded every part of the Empire, is discovered throughout the content itself, wherever the

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Christian mind is left at liberty to express its feelings, and animates both the Western and Eastern World.

The field of labour is most ample: the prospects of usefulness are great: and the call on Christians in general, and particularly on members of the Church, is now made with a confident expectation that it will be felt and answered. Let every man give, as he is able, to all such institutions as aim with simplicity at the same great object. It cannot be expected that the conversion of the world will be effected, but by the simultaneous efforts of various bodies of Christians: yet Christians may be allowed to support, and in truth they ought to support, most strenuously, the efforts of that body to which they have, of deliberate choice and settled conviction, attached themselves.

Sermons, preparatory to the formation of Church Missionary Associations, are recommended as the most effectual method of awakening the attention of a town, parish, or congregation, and of interesting the feelings of the members of the Church on this subject. And wherever a desire may be felt of forming parochial or other associations, in conformity with the plan of which we have given merely an abstract, the Secretary of the Society will furnish any further information, and will supply such papers as may be required.

Donations and subscriptions will be received by the Treasurer, H. Thornton, Esq. MP. Bartholomew Lane; by the Secretary, Rev. J. Pratt, Doughty Street, by the Deputy Secretary, Mr. T. Smith, No. 19, Little Moorfields; by the Booksellers, Mr. L. B. Seeley, 169, Fleet Street, and Mr. J. Hatchard, Piccadilly; and by Messrs. Down, Thornton, Free, and Down, Bartholomew Lane; Hoares, Fleet Street; and Ransom, Morland, and Co. Pall Mall.

On Monday the 12th instant, a special General Meeting of the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, was held at the New London Tavern, Cheapside, for the purpose of addressing and dismissing to their labours the Rev. Leopold Butscher, one of the Society's missionaries, on his return to Africa, accompanied by eight other persons, in order to strengthen and extend the Society's missions on the western coast of that continent. The President, the Right Hou. Lord Gam

bier, was in the chair; and there were present between three and four hundred persons. The Secretary, the Rev. Josiah Pratt, delivered the instructions of the Committee to the Missionary and his companions; and the Rev. Heury Budd, Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, addressed them on the subject of their duties and encouragements. Mr. Butscher, who has been six years in Africa, has become well açquainted with the character of the natives, and appears to have gained the confidence of the chiefs, replied to these addresses in a spirit of simplicity and prudent but determined zeal, which greatly impressed the meeting. Two settlements have been formed on the Rio Pongas; and a third, named Gambier, after the Noble President of the Society, is about to be formed on the Rio Dembia, Mr. Butscher takes out with him three laymen, who, it is hoped, will contribute to the success of the mission by advancing the civilization of the natives through the exercise among them of various useful arts, with which they are acquainted.

The meeting was addressed by the Secretary, the Rev. H. Budd, the Rev. D. Wilson, the Rev. Dr. Smith, and the Rev. J. W. Cunningham: and much interest appeared to be excited by the prospects opening be fore the Society. Seven Lutheran ministers, five lay settlers, six English students, eight wives of missionaries and settlers, and about 120 African children, are dependent, as has been already observed, on the Society. The income of the Society fell short of its expenditure, last year, by the sum of 6001; and being wholly inadequate to the exertions which are now making, the Noble President added liberally to his former ample contributions to the funds; and, as many persons present have regretted that they were not invited at the meeting to follow his lordship's example, it is hoped that they, and others, will fulfil their kind intentions, by sending their contributions or subscriptions to one or other of the places mentioned above.

It was likewise announced, that the "Plan of Church Missionary Associations,” of which some account has been given, was about to be extensively acted upon; and that Associations were about to be formed at Bristol, and in various other parts of the kingdom.

VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

SPAIN.

THE Marquis of Wellington, after taking possession of Madrid and establishing the authority of the Cortez in that capital, deemed it expedient to return northward, in order to prevent the remains of Marmont's army from again assuming an offensive atti tude, either in consequence of the renewal of its equipments, or of the arrival of reinforcements from France. Leaving a great part of his own army, therefore, at Madrid and its neighbourhood, he proceeded to take the command of a body of troops which he had ordered to be collected at Arevalo; and advancing thence in pursuit of the enemy, on the 6th of September he took pussession of Valladolid, which the French had just abandoned. He continued to follow them till the 17th, when he drove them to the heights close to Burgos. They retired through that town during the night, and took up a position about ten leagues to the northward of It; the main body of their army afterwards retiring to Miranda on the Ebro. The castle at Burgos had been very strongly fortified, and a garrison was left in it of 2500 men. Lord Wellington, deeming its capture essential, immediately commenced the siege of this fortress. On the 19th he carried by assault the horn-work constructed on the hill of St. Michael, which has a considerable command over some of the works of the castle. This operation cost the allies no less than 400 men in killed and wounded. An unsuccessful attempt to storm the exterior lines of the castle, on the 22d, cost them a farther loss, in killed and wounded, of 350 men. These lines, however, have since been carried, though with an additional Joss of 230 killed and wounded. Some spirited sallies have since been made by the garrison, which have retarded the siege; but no doubt was entertained of the speedy fall

of the castle.

General Hill was at Toledo on the 23d of September. Soult at that time had quitted Granada, with the view of effecting a junction with Suchet in Valencia. He was followed by the army of Ballasteros. General Maitland remained at Alicante, where he was making every effort to strengthen his position. Gen. Elio, who had succeeded to the command of the army formerly under O'Donnel, had taken Consuegra, a place about twenty leagues south of Toledo, by capitulation.

WAR IN THE NORTH.

On the 7th of September a general battle took place at a village called Borodino, on the road from Smolensk to Moscow, between the armies of Russia and France. The con flict was of the most furious and sanguinary description; and it seems probable, from a comparison of the somewhat contradictory reports which have been received from both the combatants, that the loss in killed and wounded on each side did not fall much short of 40,000 men. The fury of the con test, and the carnage which attended it, are said to have exceeded even the experience of Prussian Eylau. The Russians appear to have remained masters of the bloody field, but they did not find themselves in a condition to maintain it beyond a day or two, or to act offensively against the French. Prince Kutusoff, who commanded on the occasion, deemed it expedient even to abandon the defence of Moscow, which city the French entered on 14th September. Considerable resistance appears to have been made by the armed inhabitants, probably more with the view of giving time for the completion of the catastrophe which was to lay Moscow in the dust, than in the hope of effectually arresting the progress of the French. Pains are said to have been taken to remove from the city all the stores and other valuables which could be conveyed away; and few inhabitants were allowed to remain in it except those who could be employed in its defence. No sooner was it ascertained that the French would certainly gain possession of this ancient capital of all the Russias, than the flames began to ascend in every direction, and this immense city was involv ed in one general conflagration. The Kremlin, a large castle surrounded by a high wall, the surrounding flames. Bonaparte, who is appears to have been strangely saved amidst evidently anxious to have it understood that at least a sufficient number of houses to lodge his troops, and a sufficient quantity of stores and provisions for their comfort and subsistence, have been rescued from the general destruction, thus describes the scene:

Five-sixths of the houses were built of wood; the fire spread with a prodigious ra pidity; it was an ocean of flame: churches, of which there were 1600; above 1000 pa laces; immense magazines; nearly all have fallen a prey to the flames. The fires sub.

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sided on the 19th and 20th: three quarters of the city are burned; not above a quarter of the houses remain." This account is indeed tremendous; and the more so as it comes from the mouth of the very man who has gone forth commissioned to destroy, and as it marks by its tone his familiarity with the work of destruction. We may applaud the unbending spirit of the people which thus involved their own large and magnificent capital in flames; but can we help deploring the fatal necessity which suggested, and perhaps justified, so desperate an expedient? We may deduce from it ground of consolation and hope with respect to the issue of this mighty conflict; but can we hide from our view the intermediate misery which must accompany such sweeping desolations. Let us endeavour to realise the scene which Moscow must have exhibited on this occasion. Let us suppose the necessity suddenly to arise for applying the lighted torch to every quarter of the immense city which now fills our view, and loads the earth for many a mile; and that after three days it could be said of that city, as of Moscow, in the emphatic language of the French Emperor-"London is no more." Let us imagine to ourselves, if we can, the multitudinous and complicated forms of wretchedness which those three days must have produced. Let us summon before us the decrepitude of age and the helplessness of infancy; the wild agonies of parental apprehension; the langour of disease; the throes of labour prematurely hastened in a thou'sand instances, and arresting the fugitive in the very midst of flame; to say nothing of the universal terror and consternation, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, fatigue and depression, which would be experienced at the time, and of the innumerable changes from affluence to beggary, which, on the most favourable supposition, must follow such an event; and the mind can hardly feign to itself a tale of greater horrors. Such a tale, however, is no more than the history of what Moscow has within the last six weeks been fated to feel; Moscow, which seemed to have been far removed from the possible approach of such a calamity; and which a few years since we should have thought still Jess likely to be visited with it than London itself. Let us be grateful for our past immunity from such appalling visitations; but let us at the same time contemplate their possibility, and study by penitence and prayer to avert their infliction.

But what has been the effect of this dread ful sacrifice? The effect, we trust, has on

the whole, as far at least as the issue of the war is in question, been beneficial. Bonaparte has indeed possessed himself of the ground on which stood what once was Moscow; but we doubt whether, in its present state, it will even afford him shelter for his troops from the inclemency of a Russian winter. By his own admission he has failed to find there the supplies on which he had calculated, and which, in his address to his soldiers before the battle of Borodino, he declared to be necessary to them. His words were, " Victory is necessary to us; it will give us plenty. good quarters for the winter, and a speedy return to your country." He has been evidently disappointed in the two first of these objects; and the accounts which have last reached us from Russia, afford some ground to doubt the accomplishment of the last. While Bonaparte was occupied in taking possession of Moscow, the main Russian army, under Kutusoff, took up a position about four or five leagues south of Moscow. Another large army was posted about the same distance to the north of that city; and the advanced parties of both these armies continued so effectually to scour and command the intermediate circuit of the city, that the French had not, down to the 28th of September, ventured above a few miles in any direction. Whatever French parties had been met, had been driven in, or cut in ́ pieces. Several French detachments, and convoys of ordnance and ordnance stores, and other supplies for the army, had been taken on the Smolensko road, and in other quarters. On the Dwina, Count Wittgenstein had been successful in several rencounters; and an expedition from Riga had taken possession of Mittau on the 30th of September. A powerful Russian force is stated, by Lord Cathcart, to be assembling to the westward, of which the late Moldavian army will form a part. The different Russian armies have also been reinforced, and the Emperor is said to have ordered a farther levy of 400,000 men. Every offer on the part of Bonaparte to negotiate has been rejected; and the zeal of all ranks in the cause of their country is said to have been heightened as the danger has increased.

If we may receive this statement as correct in its full extent, and there seems no reason to question its correctness, the prospect is certainly far from discouraging, especially as Bonaparte will find, in no long time, a new and untried enemy to contend with, in the severity of a Russian winter, which, independently of all its many disad

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16th of August, the whole of it, amounting to 2500 men, surrendered as prisoners of war to a force consisting of a few British reguJars, a body of Canadian militia, and some Indian allies, the aggregate of which did not amount to more than 1500 men, supported, however, by a small naval force. Fort Detrait surrendered at the same time, with twenty-five pieces of ordnance. This service was achieved, with hardly any loss, chiefly by means of the judicious disposition of the British force, which was so posted as to cut off the enemy's supplies, and to re. duce him to the necessity of surrendering almost without firing a gun. The satisfaction arising from this bloodless victory was greatly damped by intelligence, which was received on the same day, of the capture of one of our frigates, the Guerriere, Capt. Dacres, by the American frigate Constitution, Capt. Hull, The superiority of the latter, both in men and metal, was very considerable; but still the contest might have terminated very differently, had not the Guerriere's mizen-mast been shot away in an early stage of it, which rendered the vessel unmanageable, The other two masts afterwards went over the side; and the Guerriere was so mere a wreck when she surrendered, that the captors, unable to carry her into port, set fire to per,

These are the only warlike occurrences which deserve to be mentioned, excepting that the American privateers have been very active, and also successful, in their depredations on our commerce. The Americans talk of renewing the invasion of Canada with an army of 30,000 men, and wiping out, even before the present season of action

A new conscription has been ordered in France of 140,000 men, to be taken from among the men born between the 1st January and 31st December 1793.

shall terminate, the disgrace they have sus tained by the capture of General Hull. But this we apprehend to be almost impossible, in the present state of the American army and its equipments'; so that we may regard Canada as secure for some time to come. In the mean time, we trust that the American Government will be induced to listen to reasonable terms of accommodation; so that before the return of spring, the necessity for any farther hostile movements may be ob viated. The difficulties which they expe 'rience in carrying on the war; and its unpopularity in that part of the Union, the cooperation of which would be the most es sential to its successful prosecution, we mean the northern States, we hope may come in aid of other and still more powerful reasons for an adjustment of the existing differences between the two countries. At the same time we must confess, that we can perceive no symptom of any such peaceful disposition in the present government of the United States; so that, unless the approaching elec tion shall produce a change of the president, we fear that probabilities are against an ac 'commodation.

In the northern States, the general sentiment appears to run very strongly against the policy of the war, and some energetic remonstrances on the subject have been addressed to the government. The New England States have refused to obey an order, requiring their militia to march beyond the limits of their respective territories; and they justify this refusal by a reference to the fundamental laws of the Union. They deprecate the war especially as leading to French alliance; and some of them have even gone so far as to declare, that they will have no participation whatever in measures which tend to unite their counsels with those of Bonaparte, or to link their fortunes with those of the military despotism of France; and that, under whatever pretended character the troops of that nation may approach their shores, they will receive them as enemies.

We are happy to find that Sir John Borlase Warren, who is appointed to the naval command on the American station, is armed with full powers to treat with the American Government for the restoration of peace. We are glad of this, as marking the anxiety of our Government to neglect no means in their power for putting a period to the calamaties of war, At the same time we ought to bear in mind, that concession may be car ried too far, particularly as we have to deal with a government, which, instead of duly estimating the motives to concession, appeas

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