her subjects to kneel to her; a homage which, she observes, is due only to God. She calls on all the clergy to make her subjects sensible of this, which she complains she herself has been hitherto nable to do.

REFORMATION OF THE CONVICTS AT SHEERNESS.

The following extract of a letter from a quarter on which we place depen dence, and referring to circumstances highly interesting in themselves, we willingly lay before our readers.

"On my return from a late accidental visit to Sheerness, I have felt so impressed by the scene I witnessed on board the Bellerophon convict ship; that I am led to believe, if an account of it could be given to the public, it might be productive of much good, and would hold out to all persons in authority, and to the clergy in particular, the encouraging prospect of much fruit being produced under God's blessing, from the most untoward soil, by persevering and unwearied culture. The profligacy of convicts has been hitherto justly proverbial: not so the case on board the Bellerophon, where at this time are about four hundred and fifty persons of that description. Their rules oblige them to assemble for Divine worship, in the chapel of the ship, every Sunday: but besides this, every night in the week, except Saturday, (when only the singers meet, the others being employed in cleaning and fitting themselves for Sunday,) upwards of three hundred regularly and voluntarily assemble in the chapel for school. Those who are capable of it instruct the others; and numbers, even of old men, have, with much delight and comfort to themselves, learned to read during their imprisonment, and now declare that they feel an happiness from their Bible which no other thing ever afforded them. Nay further, they are often heard to assert, that they should never be ashamed to eonfess that they had been confined on board a convict ship; since they have learnt far more in that situation, than they had done at any period of their life before. The sight is gratifying in the highest degree, to see upwards of three hundred of these once unfortunate men and boys, some instructing, and others attentively learning, and then all closing the evening together with prayers and praises; their chaplain, the Rev. E, Edwards, and the commanding offi

cer of the ship, Captain Owen, and the other officers superintending and conducting the whole. A profane or ob scene word is not heard amongst them: and I can in the utmost sincerity declare, having been present several evenings in the chapel aboard the Bellerophon, that I never in my life saw a congregation met together amongst whom there appeared more real devo. tion.

"The good order and decorum of these men is indeed wonderful; and they seem to feel for their chaplain and commanding officer an affection and sense of duty like that of children for parents; which indeed these deserving persons have well earned by their humane, though firm, superintending care of the prisoners, whose welfare and everlasting happiness, I believe, they constantly feel the most anxious desire to promote. To so much earnestness have the men themselves been brought for spiritual improvement, that some of them every evening repeat from memory, the Lessons of the day; on Sunday, the Epistle and Gospel; and occasionally the whole Thirty-nine Articles,and several homilies. During my visit, a lad repeated a double homily in the chapel, without the least hesitation or a single mistake.

"It is not to be supposed that this has been effected without the most unwearied zeal and diligence of the abovementioned chaplain, aided and assisted in all his pious and moral plans by Captain Owen, and the officers under him. The Almighty, who generally may be observed to prosper a diligent use of the means of grace, has blessed their which affords the brightest omen for all zealons endeavours with a success, who are desirous to emulate their pious labours.

"A pleasing instance of honesty lately occurred amongst the convicts :-one of whom, whilst at his labour in the Dock Yard, found a purse containing four three shilling pieces, which he could un discovered have converted to his own use; but he carried it to his officer to have the owner found, who proved to be one of the drivers of the carts employed in the Yard.

:

"The teachers of the different classes in the evening school, in several instances, have subscribed amongst them selves, to have silver medals struck, as rewards of merit to the lads for their

acquirements and good conduct; and, indeed, to see the zeal evidenced by these persons, to promote in themselves and each other correct and industrious habits, with a spirit of religion and corresponding morals, is a pleasing proof, that no class of men ought to be abandoned as beyond the reach of mercy, and finally given up to impenitence and destruction."

This extract needs no commeat, tu that which every well-disposed reader will have anticipated. If added to the reform at Newgate, and similar facts which have come to our knowledge, it furnishes a powerful argument" not to be weary in well doing, seeing that in due time we shall reap, if we faint not."

In drawing up our usual abstract of public occurrences, we shall pass over with a simple notice, the endless debates in the French chambers; the severe hurricane in the West Indies; the destructive fires in Newfoundland; the restoration of peace with the Mahratta powers; and the wise determination of our government to preserve a strict neutrality in the affairs of Spanish America, evidenced by a prohibition laid upon British officers from joining the standard of either party;-and shall call the attention of our readers particularly to a subject of great importance to the community; we mean the result of the recent state prosecutions for the publication of profane and seditions libels.

In reference to the latter, it may not be improper to trace back the evil, and to view it but as one among a large number of measures, all tending, in their degree, to the destruction of the English constitution both in church and state. It appears, that ever since the early part of the French Revolution, and subsequently to the suppression of the corresponding societies, there existed in these kingdoms not a few disaffected men, who, though insignificant in point of numbers when compared with the mass of the people, yet found opportunity for propagating their mischievous doctrines by a variety of means; among which, inflammatory speeches and pamphlets have had their full share. To the sentiments of these persons there became many converts; and the history of the country furnishes us with several real, though absurd and impotent attempts, to form something

like a regular plan for effecting the objects of this nefarious conspiracy. Among these, the case of Colonel Despard is fresh in the memory of our readers. The vigilance of government happily prevented, from time to time, the organization of any thing like a formidable confederacy; so that little could be done, by the partizans of revolutionary principles, except to turn every passing event into a source of grievance; and by means of books, and speeches, and resolutions, to point out, as far as could be done with impunity, the necessity of essentially interfering with the existing constitution of the country.

About the year 1812, the manufacturing disputes at Nottingham gave rise to the association of persons called Luddites, who were regularly formed into divisions, and boasted of daily accessions to their numbers. The ontrages of these misguided men, and their plan of operations, need not be recapitulated. It was not long before politics were introduced among them; when correspondences were opened with Manchester, Sheffield, Wakefield, Birmingham, and other places; and deputies were regularly appointed to manage the affairs of the confederacy. The distresses of the poor, arising from various causes, were seized with avidity as a powerful instrument for promoting discontent. The minds of the lower orders thus became soured and perverted; every thing appeared throngh a false medium, and government was considered as the cause of all the evils which were either felt or imagined. Hampden clubs now arose on every side; viclent petitions were circulated

for signature; inflammatory resolutions and declarations were widely diffused, till at length it became no secret, that nothing less than a complete revolution, both in church and state, would satisfy not a few of the deluded populace.

We shall not retrace the march of these unlawful machinations, or the desultory efforts of individual malcontents, up to the time when the transactions in Spa-fields, and afterwards at Manchester, suddenly opened the eyes of every lover of his country to their magnitude and portentous consequences. From this period, the most vigorous measures were pursued to suppress the evil; and the legislature itself, justly alarmed by the increasing numbers and infatuation of the disaffected, found it necessary to suspend the Habeas Cor pus Act, and to exert every means in their power for preserving our internal peace.

These strong measures, with the healing hand of time, and still more those blessings of Divine Providence, a favourable harvest, and returning prosperity in our trade and commerce, have already effected much towards restoring the tranquillity of the country: as a proof of which, ministers have ventured to release a number of the persons confined under the discretionary powers given them by parliament. Of the numerous individuals found guilty of high treason, at the late trials at Derby, three only, Jeremiah Brandreth, Wm. Turner, and Isaac Ludlam, have suffered the capital penalty adjudged by the laws of their country to their treasonable proceedings. Eleven of the other convicts are to be transported for life, and the remainder for limited periods. The conspiracy appears now to have lost every thing like active and efficient or ganization.

Among the various means employed to excite all this disaffection, we are now called upon to remind our readers of one of the most popular and mischievous; namely, seditious and profane parodies upon the justly venerated formularies of the Established Church. It was easily seen, that affection for these is usually connected with a spirit favourable to the existing order of things, and that in proportion as the veneration for them was destroyed, facilities would arise for effecting the designs of the discontented. The wish, therefore, of every moral and loyal member of the

community for the legal suppression of the works in question was clearly expressed; and we have no hesitation in declaring our opinion, whatever may have been the result of the late trials, that the law-officers of the crown would have been deemed guilty of neglecting their duty, had they failed to bring before an English court and jury, the infamous productions which have given rise to the present remarks. The only just ground of censure is, that such publications were permitted so long and so firmly to entrench themselves behind authority and precedent, that a jury, whatever might be the real guilt of any particular individual concerned, could not but feel some difficulty in visiting on a single offender, and on the first occasion of trial, a crime which in so many other instances had been committed with impunity.

This remark applies very closely to the late trials of Mr. Hone, against whom the Attorney-General exhibited three informations, for parodies on the Common Prayer generally, and on the Litany and Catechism of the Church, and the Athanasian Creed in particular. The trials came on successively on the 18th, the 19th, and the 20th instant, before the Court of King's Bench; and on each of these days Hone acted as his own advocate, with an ability worthy of a better cause. He avowed the fact of publication, and rested his defence upon the ground that the parodies, however exceptionable in other respects, were neither seditious nor profane. In pursuance of his argument, he contrived to bring forward from numerous, and, we are sorry to say, some of them in other respects reputable authors, a mass of indecency and impiety, which we trust has sufficed to nauseate the public with such lawless and unhallowed productions. Some of the personal allusions made by the defendant, however painful to the parties concerned, will, we trust, tend to correct in future that trifling with sacred things and sacred names which has occasionally occurred even in places where decency, to say nothing of religion, required a very different mode of conduct. On each of the three trials, the court was fully of opinion that the parodies came fully under the legal description in the information; but the jury, assuming their unquestioned right in the case of libel to judge of the whole question of law as well as fact, brought in a ver,

dict of Not Guilty. their decision was

On what grounds formed, of course,

has not transpired. They might be of opinion, that as Hone was not the first or the only publisher of these or similar parodies; and as it appeared in evidence that he had suppressed the work shortly after its publication, as soon indeed as it had been noticed in parliament; and as it was possible, under all the circumstances of the case, that his incentive might have been poverty, mixed up with strong political feeling, rather than any distinct purpose of bringing religion into contempt; and still more, as he had already suffered a confinement, which may have appeared in some measure to punish his offence, that it was their duty to acquit him : and we can conceive that in such a case, a jury might lean to the side of acquittal, without by any means intending to lay it down as their opinion that such parodies, abstractedly considered, are not illegal and grossly libellous. If, however, the latter inference could be drawn from this verdict, which we do not apprehend, then indeed it would open wide the very flood-gates of sedition and blasphemy, and we should be at a loss eveu to imagine where the evil might end. It is true a jury has nothing to do with the consequences that may follow from their verdiet, and have only to adjudge, as doubtless they did to the best of their

conviction, the case immediately before them. We therefore by no means intend to impeach the correctness of their decision, when we say that it has filled us with some alarms and appre bensions, from the apparent sanction which it may seem to bestow upon pub. lications of the most injurious and impious nature. Christianity is publicly recognized as part of the law of the land; and the regulations and formu laries of the Established Church are placed under the same gnardianship. We should be much distressed, therefore, to find that the acquittal of Hone had given new courage to those who were already but too active: and we trust that our law officers will only be the more vigilant, in consequence of what has happened, to bring to trial every similar outrage, were it only, if the existing laws shall prove too feeble to repress them, that new laws may be framed for that pur pose.

With regard to Hone himself, he has expressed his intention never more to publish either these or any other works of a similar description, and “to exhort all his fellow-citizens to abstain from parodying the litany, or the service of the Church of England;" and yet we understand that he is preparing for publication an account of his trial, is which the parodies will be reprinted at full length.

PHILO-CHRISTOS has been received.

10

EXTRACTS FROM UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF THE LATE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

(Concluded from p. 764.) AY I write to you again after so long a silence? I hope I may, for I feel I must. I have seriously purposed writing for some time past; and I believe I should have addressed a letter to you at P. in the course of this

month, had not Mr. L called last week, and told me that I might write by your brother, who expected to meet you soon in Silesia. Your husband, and my friend, it seems is removed from this poor world: I call him my friend, for though the interval of our personal acquaintance was short, I recollect pleasing tokens of his friendship, both at that time and since the Lord grant that we may all meet at last in that land where friendship and happiness will be complete. And may God himself be a husband to you, and a father to your children.

"What a changing world do we live in! But the unseen state to which we are hasting is unchangable. Then we shall be at home: we shall pass from waking dreams and shadows to realities. Your removal into Germany will bring you considerably nearer to us: but if CHRIST. OBSERV. Apr.

we cannot meet face to face, the different distances of Russia, or Silesia, or even Bedford, are little more than ideal. Whether any future turns in providence may lead you again to England, especially in my time, I know not.. I hope, however, to meet with you at last before the throne of God. In the mean while, wherever you live, I shall think of you with affection, and shall find a pleasure in the persuasion that I am not forgotten by you. The earth is the Lord's; and in our widest separations we are but as in different rooms of the same great house, and equally under the eye of the same Great Shepherd, who affords the same proofs of his power and care to all who put their trust in him.

my

"Dear Miss P-- Bdear E-, Mr. L——, and many others with whom we have had sweet fellowship, are gone before us. The longer we live, the more we shall resemble the trees which drop their leaves in swift succession as the winter approaches. May we be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises, and all shall be well at last. Our sweet E--, at the age of fourteen years and eight months, met her summons with the faith and comfort of a martyr. The 5 Q