tack us, we received them with words of peace.

The example of the capital could not fail to be followed by the chief city of the Department of Gard. A convention, on

parole of honour, was agreed upon be tween the Deputies of the Municipal Council of Nismes, and the Sieur René de Bernis, your Commissioner, and Fieldmarshal Barré, commanding in your name.

nations of Europe; the Pope has resumed the chair of St. Peter, and by how much the growth of "heretical pravity," (if we may adopt the Catholic slang) has spread during his absence, by so much will his zeal now be stimulated to check its progress and extirpate the heretics. There is therefore, nothing to surprize us in the recent narrative of occurrences in the city of Nismes, and other places in the South of France. All is in train; and greatly shall we be mistaken, if we do not presently hear of much more calamitous events in that and other quarters, than those that at present arrest the public attention. It is a subject, however, that must come home to the business and bosom of our fellow christians throughout the British Empire; and it shall obtain from us all the regard to which it is so justly entitled. It will be seen by our last number that several meetings of public bodies belonging to the Distenters have already been held, whose Resolutions we have given; and we now proceed, conformable to our promise, to enter into a more parti-chief inhabitants of our city from their cular consideration of the subjecta subject of which we hope never to lose sight in our magazine, while the danger connected with it appears to exist.

The pamphlet, whose title stands at the head of this article, was printed in Paris, and suppressed, for reasons of State, which may be shrewdly conjectured. But though anonymous, we are assured by Mr. Ingram Cobbin that "it comes from the most respectable authority." After a prefatory address of six pages, intended to meet and refute the objections that have been most industriously propagated throughout this country, on the ground that the late persecutions at Nismes were of a political rather than of a religious nature, we are presented with the following

PETITION addressed to Louis XVIII. by the Principal Protestants of Nismes. SIRE,

We lay our acute miseries at the foot of your throne; in your name, in the name of the most clement of princes, our fellow-citizens are plundered and assasinated. A misled body of peasantry, in supposed obedience to your orders, have assembled, at the command of a Commissioner invested with powers from your august Nephew:-although ready to at

On the 15th we learnt your Majesty's glorious entrance into Paris, and the white flag was consequently displayed on our edifices; public tranquillity was undisturbed, and ought to have remained so. When the armed peasantry entered our walls, they attacked the garrison, consisting of 150 men, quartered in the barracks; on being summoned to surrender, they capitulated, and delivered up their arms and artillery; but they were assailed on their departure, and nearly all massacred. The greater part of our National Guard, which had hitherto preserved tranquillity, was now disarmed. Strangers paraded the city, and the houses of the principal inhabitants of the Protestant religion were attacked and plundered. We subjoin a list of them. The disorder continued during the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st, and had not entirely ceased on the 22d. Terror had driven some of the

dwellings.

conceal, or to endeavour to diminish the It would be deceiving Your Majesty to horrors which have rendered desert our good city of Nismes; arrests and proscriptions have taken place, and difference in religious opinions is the only real cause of them.

The Protestants, Sire, who are calum

niated, are defenders of the throne. children under his banners-our fortunes Your august Nephew has beheld our have been placed at his disposal.

To serve with fidelity, to love Your Majesty, we ask for nothing but peace and protection.

Although attacked without motive, the Protestants have not, even by a just resistance, furnished their enemies with a ground for calumny.

devotedness, their fears, and their hopes, As interpreters of their sentiments, their we throw ourselves with just confidence at your feet.

Save us, Sire; protect your children; extinguish the fatal brands of religious and civil war. A single act of your authority will suffice to restore political existence to a city rendered interesting by its manufactures and population. Demand an account of their conduct from the chiefs who have brought about miseries, which they should have foreseen, and yet have not prevented.

We lay before Your Majesty an exact detail of the facts, and all the document which have reached us.

The hearts of our unfortunate fellowcitizens are paralysed, and their complaints stifled by fear. Placed in a more independent situation, we have dared, in a respectful manner, to raise our voices in their behalf; and to shed, in the presence of the Father of the Country, bitter tears for our present and our future situation.

We are, with profound respect,
SIRE,

Your Majesty's, &c. &c.

The General

their religion-for such were the terms
of his answer. Sufficiently cold and un-
satisfactory as it was, some few of the
Protestants assembled in their principal
church to hear Divine Service, on the day
after this public exhibition of his sanctity,
when he left town. The persons going
afterwards assailed with stones by ban-
to the church were at first insulted, and
ditti, evidently placed for that purpose
in the adjacent streets.
Count Lagarde, a good and loyal soldier,
(faithful to the letter of the instructions he
had received), had assured the Protestants
that he would protect them to the utmost
of his power-and he accordingly called
out the only troops he had in the place-
through the whole of the South of France,
but unfortunately at Nismes as well as
the only troops, with the exception of a
few regulars, are the volunteer bands
raised and organized by the Duc D' An-
gouleme himself (the most bitter and in-
furiated enemies of the Protestants), and
they had no sooner arrived on the spot
stead of paying obedience to the orders of
where the rabble was collected, than in-
the gallant General, they joined the as-
sassins. One of the Lieutenants of Tres-

Extract of a Private Letter from Nismes. "The Duc D'Angouleme on his arrival at Nismes, had the indiscretion, to say no worse of it, to walk bare headed and barefooted in a procession of Monks, with Images, Relics, and other Symbols of Superstition, through the streets, and by this solemn demonstration of his religious principles, after all the horrors that had been committed by the zealots, to whom his own cockade had been previously given in contradiction of the orders of his Sovereigns, animated and inflamed the The most important part of the time when he told the Consistory of Prorabble anew. He did this at the very pamphlet before us, is the " Defence testant Ministers, that he should not opof the Protestants of Lower Langue-pose any obstacle to the free exercise of doc," a document, as is obvious from internal evidence, drawn up by a native of France, and in all probability by some one of the Protestant Clergymen of Nismes. It informs us that ever since the commencementof the Revolution in 1789, the Protestants and Catholics in that vicinity had lived cordially together as subjects, entitled to the same natural and civil rights, and their unhappy differences arising from religious profession, were becoming more and more extinct. But scarcely had peace been restored to that long distracted country, when the inhabitants of Nismes "heard with surprise, what was quite new to them, the words Protestant and Catholic used in a hostile sense." Presently the storm began to thicken around them-the Protestants were openly insulted in the streets and public walks-inflammatory songs were circulated, which became daily more violent; and at length one appeared in which certaiu cannibals expressed their eagerness to wash their hands in the blood of the Protestants! In the streets and public places the singers formed circles, in which they enclosed the Protestants whom they cruelly maltreated." p. 14. Such was the state of the public mind, when the Duke of Angouleme (nephew of the present King of France) arrived at Nismes. He found every heart devoted to him. A loyal army was formed; the Protestants were eager to join it; but on forming the Battalions, the Catholic populace loudly declared they would suffer no Protestants to enter the ranks, and the general clamour was we will have none of these Protestant rascals !" The following letter shews what was the prudent conduct of the Duke of Angouleme in this crisis of their affairs.

66

taillon, the chief of the band, fired a pistol at the General, by which he was severely wounded.

"This happened in the front of the Protestant place of worship. The few persons within the church were ignorant of this assassination; and divine service hear the sound of the organ, than they was begun. But no sooner did the mob cried out to burn the edifice, and sacrifice the Heretics, with it. The horrid cry reached the ears of the poor people, chiefly women, within, and by the noble exertions of a few individuals of authority, they were preserved from instant death, by being carried out at a back door leading into an adjoining lane. The ruffians then broke into the church, demolished the pulpit, the seats, &c. The organ was brought out in triumph, and a bonfire made of it in the front of the place-the volunteer army of the Duke of Angouleme assisting in the conflagration! M. de la Garde was not dead of

his wound, but he was not expected to live."

;

Leyden, Nov. 29.

A Biographical Dictionary of the living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland; comprising literary "The Duke of Angouleme, who went Memoirs and Anecdotes of their in the beginning of November to Nismes, lives, and a Chronological Register received during his stay there two Members of the Protestant Consistory, who of their publications, with the numwere the only ones that had not taken ber of editions printed. Illustrated flight, one of whom was the President by a variety of Communications, and Minister Olivier Desmond. The from persons of the first eminence Duke expressed to this deputation his re- in the world of Letters. London, gret and the chagrin, that the persecutions Printed for H. Colborn, 1816. 8vo. to which the Protestants in the Sutoh had THIS is evidently a mere literary job; been exposed, had caused him, and assured them that they should be in future pre-introduced as living authors, are no a very great majority of the persons vented and even kept down by force of arms, and that the King's Government more than obscure Pamphleteers, would afford the Protestants all protec- and some of them are as dead in fact, tion that therefore all their temples as they are to fame. In various should be immediately opened again, and instances, names of truly respectable that they might freely exercise their wor- and honourable men, are posted for ship. The Duke d' Angouleme at the the sake of affording the Biographer same time represented to this deputation, an opportunity of indulging in the that the inhabitants of the Communes had grossest calumny and abuse. We done very ill in not given up their arms are compelled by a sense of justice, when they were called upon so to do. One of the deputations observed, that the to denounce the unprovoked and maliinhabitants, though armed, had already cious attack upon the Rev. Matthew experienced so much persecution from Wilks, who is represented as making the soi-disant Royalists, that they thought his religious profession a stepping themselves obliged, for the sake of their stone, by which to advance his worldly own safety, not to suffer themselves to be interest. This most upright individisarmed. He even went further, and dual, whose integrity inspires even requested the Prince to be pleased to his enemies with esteem, is accused publish a Proclamation at Nismes, to of injuring a bookseller in Fleet make known his opinions and favourable sentiments towards the Protestants; and Street, "by drawing out of his hands, exhort the people no longer to persecute the Evangelical Magazine, and inakthem under the pretext of Royalism; but ing it the property of himself and his the Prince refused their just demand, partners, to their no little advantage." alledging that his powers did not authorise This palpable falsehood requires no him to make such Proclamation. This contradiction; it needs only to be confession of the Duke's confounded the stated, to be condemned as the wickProtestants, and inflamed the audacity of ed attempt of some nameless hireling their persecutors. It is even said that the to discredit, through the traduced deputation of the Protestants, in order to avoid the insult of the populace, was character of Mr. Wilks, that of the conducted to the Duke by a military religion which, for nearly half a escort, and entered by a back door the century, he has faithfully preached, house where the Prince put up. Accord- and in his conduct luminously exhiing to some accounts, the Protestant bited. The inaccuracies of all sorts, Deputies secretly left the town to pay which mark every page of this pretheir respects to the Duke, and to re- tending volume, are an utter disgrace commend their interests to him before he to the British Press. We might entered the city. However it be, on the notice the article "Thomas Williams" Sundayafter the Duke's departure, divine service was again performed in a Protesas displaying unpardonable ignorance. tant Church, the entrance of which was Mr. Williams never was the Editor guarded by a considerable armed force; of the Evangelical Magazine, nor is but this precaution was in vain; the he a Calvinistic Preacher. We never people being informed that the church heard of his preaching any where was open, collected together, and went except behind his counter, where he thither uttering imprecations and menaces sometimes betrays a thoughtless disforced the guard, and entered the church:regard to his own interest, by altothose who were in it with difficulty saving gether neglecting the suaviter in themselves by immediate flight. General La Garde being informed of this, modo. He is, however, an able writer repaired in person to the spot-[here and a very worthy man ;-a character follows an account of his being shot.] which we fear, his Biographer has yet to acquire.

{To be continued in our next.]

Religious and Literary Entelligence.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE
SOCIETY.

[Continued from page 382.]

He then goes on: "Among the multitude of interesting communications and liberal subscriptions laid before the Committee this day, from different distant parts of Russia, none afforded us so much pleasure as the following most interesting observation, respecting the establishment. of an Auxiliary Bible Society in the seaport town of Theodosia, in the Crimea. The communication was written by the Governor of that city, His Excellency Bronefsky, and is accompanied with a list of from 30 to 40 subscribers, of whom six are subjects of the Sultan of Constantinople, and a petition for instructions towards the establishment of a Branch of the Bible Society in that ancient city, formerly called by the Turks Kafa.

66

The Theodosian Branch Bible Society will strive to distribute the word of God among unbelievers, having hefore it a vast field, first in the Peninsula of the Crimea, and secondly in the neighbouring countries of Caucasus Anatolia. Abhazia, Mingrellia and Anatolia, being in the closest commercial connexion with Theodosia, present a wide field for the Bible Society proposed to be in that city.

means for printing the Holy Scriptures in the Georgian language, for distribution in Mingrellia, where church books are very scarce and very dear.

"The coast of Anatolia presents itself to view, well peopled, who compose the labouring part of the community. The lot of these Christians, yet our brethren, sunk in ignorance and poverty, under the iron rod of Turkish dominion, surely merits our compassion. There are still Greek and Armenian churches among them, in which divine service is performed; but this is done in a very unedifying way, which may easily be conceived, when it is known, that even the priests themselves have but a very small knowledge of letters.

"The Theodosian Branch Society will take upon itself the sacred obligations of promoting these views, having numerous facilities by the central commercial intercourse which the port of Theodosia has with Abhazi, Mingrellia, and Anatolia. From these short remarks, it is easy to observe, how important and extensive the field is, which presents itself to the zeal and activity of the Members of the Theodosian Auxiliary Bible Society. Success and further extended views depend upon God. He, by his omnipotent goodness, will direct all for the best, and will make even impossibilities possible to contrite spirits, that hunger after his righ

teousness.

Theodosia, April 3, 1815."

"It is well known that in former times the Abhazi were enlightened by the faith of Christ, and belonged to the Greek communion. Monuments of Christianity exist to the present time among them, in the reMr. Pinkerton adds:-"I leave you, my mains of churches, for which the people dear friend, to make your own observations have still respect. A proof of this, is the on this wonderful opening of Divine Proveneration which they have for the formvidence, to rekindle the Christian flame of the cross. Surely it is possible to enliven the remembrance of extinguished faith, by causing the rays of gospel light again to shine upon it,

"The inhabitants of Mingrellia have preserved the faith of their fathers in the midst of the heavy yoke of bondage which has lain upon their country for several centuries; and, notwithstanding the persecutions of cruel Mahommedans, they still continue to hold the Christian faith according to the Greek confession, and perform their religious services in the Georgian language. If the poverty of the inhabitants, the ignorance of the clergy, and the strong hold of national customs, have hitherto prevented the better organization of the Mingrellian church, which remains without pastors, and almost desolate; yet now, when this country is joined to the Russian Empire, we may surely expect that some help will be given, particularly from the exertions of the Bible Society, provided it were only possible to find VOL, I.

The

among the churches of Asia Minor, where
first the great Apostle of the Gentiles
preached the doctrine of the cross.
other day I met with a Tartar Prince, ar-
rived a few days ago from the Crimea, who
is a Major General in the Russian service,
and is about to march for the frontiers at
the head of four regiments of Tartar Cos-
sacks, belonging to that peninsula. I
made inquiries of him respecting the
character of the Mufti of the Crimea, who
subscribes 50 rubles annually to the Bible
Society, and is at the head of upwards of
10,000 Mahommedan priests. The General
said, that the Mufti was an enlightened
man, that he recommended to the preists
to read the Tartar New Testament."

Mr. Pinkerton says,--" According to the most authentic sources of information, it appears, that during 234 years, since Bibles were first printed in Russia, no more than twenty-two editions of the Sclavonian Bible have appeared, consisting in all of but about sixty thousand copies!

F