of land; and which was to be discussed and carried at a period in which the people were expecting, by the cessation of war, a restoration to a state of comparative easeit was scarcely possible that the voice of the people should not be heard; and that some more weighty arguments than the mere flourishes of rhetoric should not be addressed to our national representatives. The tide of tumult, however, rose more rapidly and furiously than was expected. It appears, indeed, to have found some of our civil sentinels asleep upon their posts. That the confusion should so suddenly van. ish when the constituted authorities began really to act, amounts to a presumption that at first they did not act with becoming vigour. In consequence of this, the houses of some of the King's Ministers, together with those of various individuals who supported, or were supposed to support, the Corn Bill, have had to sustain the storm of popular indignation. And, if the opinions of men could be changed as easily as win. dows are broken, we should probably have become one of the most unanimous nations in the world. But the Houses of Parliament have acted with the dignity which might have been expected from them.They have yielded nothing to the violence of their angry countrymen, and have, whether wisely or not, yet, at least, calmly and deliberately, and by immense majori ties, maintained their own judgment in defiance of the opinion of their electors.

It appears to us, looking at this vast subject, through the loop holes of our retreat," that both parties have been, as to some points, a little mistaken in their policy-some of the opposers of the Corn Bill, in not admitting the necessity of this, or some analogous bill, for the protection of agriculture; its advocates, in not shewing a little more deference to the numerous applications of the people; and both, perhaps, in not agreeing to such a mean between a very high protecting price and no protecting price at all, as might have at the same time secured the interests of the landholder and satisfied the wishes of the people.

But whilst we thus venture to animadvert on some things in the proceedings of both parties, we also find much to admire. It is impossible, for instance, not to admire the promptitude and decision with which the opponents of the bill took part with the Government against the lawless mob which would control the deliberations of

the Legislature. And it is equally impossible not to applaud the dignity and courage of those parliamentary supporters of the Bill, whose voices have been heard, amidst the din of riot and insubordination, quietly defending the principles they deemed it right to maintain.

Our surprise, we will own, throughout the whole of the struggle has been, that so little doubt should have been expressed by either party as to the course to be pursued. We confess, that we have found innumerable obstacles to the formation of a clear and decisive judgment upon the question; and, if we have come to any decision, it is this-that some such bill was necessary

but that perhaps a little more delay and investigation were due to the supplications of so large a number of petitioners; and that a protecting price of 72 shillings would have been better suited to the conflicting interests of the country than that which has been adopted -The grand argument, we conceive, in favour of the bill, is the expediency of securing a tolerably regular price and fair market to the cultivator; and this, perhaps, is to be done only by yielding to him a species of protection granted to almost every other class in the community. Nor can it be denied that if a tolerably moderate and regular price of corn could have been secured by the measure, every class of society would be benefited equally with the cultivator.

But then, on the other hand, let us consider for a moment the actual influence of an importing system on the welfare of the country. Under an exporting system, it appears, that the population of England and Wales decreased in the first ten years of the last century, 275,000 souls. On the contrary, under an importing system, the population increased in the first ten years of this century, 1,320.000 souls. Look next at the wealth of the country. It is true, that, in the 21 years beginning in 1792, we imported to the amount of 58 millions, sterling. But then the exports from Great Britain in the single year, beginning Jan. 5, 1811, were 63,300,431 in value. Next let us look, for a moment, at the effect of an importing system, even upon the agricultural interests of the country, and here it will be admitted that the farmer has been growing rich; that rents have very greatly improved: and, which is a singular fact, that, in five years, beginning in 1808, the number of enclosure bills, (which are no

bad measure of the agricultural spirit) has amounted to 592.-But we quit a subject on which, if any error has been com. mitted, we conndently expect, through the mercy of God, a correction from the wisdom of Parliament, in order to advert to one, which, alas! not Parliament, but the sword, as we fear, must decide.

On the 26th of February, Bonaparte quitted Elba, in four vessels, with about 900 men; and, escaping all the cruisers, both French and English, landed on the 1st inst. in the Gulf of Juan, near Antibes. The garrison of Antibes appears to have refus ed to receive him; but, with this single exception, he pursued an unresisted and indeed almost triumphant course to Paris. He proceeded from the Gulf of Juan through Cannes, Bareme, Digne, and Gap, to Grenoble. Here was the first semblance of opposition: a body of men had advanced apparently to arrest his progress. He alighted and approached them, was instantly recognised, and received with an enthusiastic shout of Vive l'Empereur! He advanced to Grenoble, where the garrison and the population joined in the same shout; and at 10 o'clock of the night of the 7th, he was master of Grenoble, and of its magazines, and had added upwards of 6000 regular troops to his little army.

From Grenoble he proceeded, by forced marches, to Lyons, which he reached by nine o'clock of the 10th. The Count d'Artois had made every exertion to secure the troops of this garrison, but in vain. He was obliged to withdraw, and Bonaparte made his entry into the second city of France with scarcely an attendant, and was received with the mingled acclamations of the soldiery and people. After remaining two days at Lyons, he pursued his march to the capital; at every step receiving fresh proofs that his return was acceptable to the armies, and even to the people of France. He reached Fontainbleau early in the morning of the 20th. Learning, soon after, that Louis XVIII. had quitted Paris the day be. fore, he set off for that city, and entered the palace of the Thuilleries at nine the same evening.

The French government first heard of the landing of Bonaparte on the 5th instant. They appear to have adopted every means in their power of arresting his progress; But all means were unavailing. The sol

diery, and even the superior officers, with a very few exceptions, were all eager for the restoration of a chief, whose crimes they appear to have merged in the hope of his avenging their past defeats, and reviving the military glory of France. They no sooner approached Bonaparte than their defection instantly followed. And the very army which had been prepared at Paris to overwhelm him, together with the whole of the national guard,the only military body on which the slightest reliance could be placed, laid down their arms as soon as he ap peared, and hailed him with the loudest bursts of exultation.

Louis XVIII. continued at his post while there remained the faintest hope of saving France. But the treachery of one army and commander after another,even of those, as Ney, who had most strongly professed their attachment to him; and the manifest state of public feeling in Paris, and in all the provinces through which Bonaparte had passed, left no room at length for hesitation. He quitted Paris on the 19th, and proceeded to Flanders, followed by a small body of troops; his intention being evidently to unite himself to the allied armies which still hover on the borders of France. What course they will pursue, it is impos sible, as yet, to say; but the probability is, that Bonaparte will leave them no alterna. tive, and that he will, without delay, make an effort to re-annex Belgium to France.If so, the war is at once re-kindled, and the united armies of Europe will have once more to contend with this military adven turer for the peace and freedom of the world. The Duke of Wellington is said to have been appointed generalissimo of all the allied armies.

From the moment Bonaparte entered France, he distributed proclamations which were most insidiously adapted to promote his own views both with the soldiery and the lower classes of the people; and we have little doubt that these proclamations have had a mighty influence. We must look, however, to a higher Source for the real cause of this fearful change. The Almighty has his own purposes to answer by the dispensation; and we await with awe and trembling, but not without hope, their development.

Bonaparte, since his return to France, has not been slow or sparing in the

work of overthrowing all that had been done in his absence. He has abrogated the constitutional charter; dissolved the two legislative chambers; banished from France, before the 28th inst. all emigrants returned during his abdication, who, if found linger. ing beyond that time, will be punished with death; stript of their military rank those who have entered the service during the same period; suppressed the household troops and Swiss guards; annulled the orders of St. Louis, St. Michael, and the Holy Ghost; sequestrated the private property of the Bourbons, with the unsold domains that were restored to the former possessors; prohibited the titles of the ancient noblesse; and reared again the tri coloured flag and cockade, in place of the royal flag and cockade. Among the ministers he has named, are Davoust, Savary, Fouche, Carnot, Cambaceres, and Caulincourt.

In these awful circumstances, but one feeling, we should conceive, can fill the breast of any honest, wise, or benevolent man-and but one prayer can arise from every corner of the civilized world. With Bonaparte on the throne of France Europe cannot have the smallest security for peace, and we fear must continue to be a great military commonwealth. The prospect is truly tremendous, whether we look to the renewed visitations of war with all its attendant calamities; to the increase of our own financial difficulties; or to the moral evils which may be anticipated. May the Almighty avert them!-We will, however, freely confess, that we are less astonished than grieved at the present state of things. Many reports had indeed reached us of the most ominous nature to the Bourbon interest; and it was evident that the state of public feeling in France was very unfavourable to the continuance of their tranquil reign. But what chiefly pressed upon our minds, was the doubt whether the dreadful inflictions which France and Europe had sustained, had produced their intended effect in the progress of truth and holiness. What are the grand moral lessons which the world has derived from the unexpected close of the late contest, and from the calamitous struggles which preceded it? What higher and better principle has discovered itself in the late Congress at Vienna ? What acceleration is given to the march of piety and justice? What new and important truth is recog. nised by the nations, so long afflicted, and so providentially rescued? If still some of

the sovereigns of Europe can endure the slavery of millions of human beings-can some of them even partake in a traffic in blood, and in the devastation of a whole quarter of the globe ;*if in one place we see the extinguished fires of the Inquisition again kindled; in another, the most demoralizing institutions revived and cherished; in a third, the exploded mummery of the papal superstition restored;-if, in addition to this, there has been on the part of the allied monarchs any violation of plighted faith, or any deliberate deviation from the high principles avowed in the face of Europe, then, we must say, that, much as the soil has been ploughed by the share of adversity, the proper harvest has not sprung up on it. Nor do we expect to see peace resume its permanent empire in the world, till the powers of the world display, to a greater extent, a disposition to employ that peace for the best purposes: If we have been stricken in vain, we probably shall be stricken more deeply.-It certainly is no small consolation to ourselves, that the troubled waves do not appear to have rolled over this country without leaving at least some precious deposit behind them. Perhaps during no period of our history have more important advances been made in the persuits of religion and benevolence, than during the last 20 years The abolition of the Slave Trade, the vast extension

* Lord Castlereagh stated in the House of Commons, that the following was the agreement effected at Congress, on the subject of the Slave Trade :-France adhered to it for the five years specified in the treaty of Paris, but had agreed to exempt a portion of Northern Africa, not yet very precisely defined, from its ravages. Portugal agreed to abolish the Slave Trade on the coast north of the Equator; and both Portugal and Spain engaged to abolish it entirely at the end of eight years. Spain, moreover, consented to limit her Slave Trade to an extent of ten degrees of latitude; but had unfortunately selected ten degrees north of the Equator, the very space where England had begun the work of civilization, where Portugal had abolished, and France was inclined to abolish, the trade. Lord Castlereagb, however, was of opinion that she would exchange this space for ten degrees south of the line. Spain also engaged that her flag should not be employed to protect any Slave Trade not bona fide Spanish.

ciple over the languor of disease and decrepitude, that, till almost the hour of his death, he was employed rarely less than nine hours daily in preparing for the press a Syriac copy of the Scriptures a copy designed for the especial use of a large body of native Christians in India whom he himself had visited, and in whose fate he was deeply interested. When we consider the motives by which he was influenced, the principle on which he acted, the integrity and vigour with which he carried that principle into effect-the contest, even to his dying moment, with all that is usually supposed to warrant repose and self-indulgence-may we not confidently say, "Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing?"

It need scarcely be added, that the zeal of Dr. Buchanan had been mainly directed to the conversion of the natives of India. In no very long time after he had planted his feet upon that burning soil, he seems to have felt himself called to plead the cause of that benighted country. For a certain time his exertions were chiefly confined to the sphere in which he moved in India. But at length he deemed it right to endeavour to draw the attention of his Countrymen in Europe, to the state of the East. And, by the wide circulation of important and indisputable documents; by the offer of magnificent prizes, for essays, poems, and sermons, to the Universities of England and Scotland; by the strenuous exercise of his personal influence with many who loved and respected

him;

and prayers of a few pious and obscure men, be contrasted with that in which the tables of Parliament were groaning with petitions, and with petitions no sooner heard than granted-we cannot but thank God who "put it into his heart" to engage in this great work, and protracted his life till, at least, greater facilities were obtained for its completion. In our gratitude to living champions of this cause, let us not forget who was ever foremost in the ranks of our successful warfare :—it was Claudius Buchanan. He may be said to have marched in the front of this Eastern crusade.-He instructed us also in what we cannot but deem the best means of securing the conquests which may be made by Christianity in the East, viz. the placing of the conquests of churchmen under the wing of the mother church-that wing under which piety and virtue have found a refuge for so many generations. We conclude with expressing a devout wish and prayer, that the labours of Dr. Buchanan may not fail of their consequences, by any negligence in those who survive him. It is for those to whom God has given health and strength, to stand in the breach which his death has occasioned. It is for them to sow the seed, now that he has prepared the soil. It is for them, as he has done, to travel through good report and evil report; to pray, to toil, to sacrifice for the salvation of uncounted millions of human creatures. It is for us all to consider his death as a fresh stimulus to active exertion. If our benevolence should slumber, if our zeal should be paralized, let us call to mind his labours, offer new and more anxious supplication for the assistance of Heaven, and solemnly engage that we will, by the mercy of God, live and die soldiers in the same cause for which he lived and died.

he certainly became a means, in the hand of Providence, of stimulating the nation to exertions for the instruction of the East, more worthy of its character and of the religion of Christ.

If the present state of opinion in this country be compared with its state when Dr. Buchanan entered upon these labours-if its condition when little was to be heard but the half-suppressed wishes

Small was the preparation by which this servant of God was summoned