dying to obtain an hour's repose, amidst the groans and shrieks of the wretched sufferers.

About midnight, the army commenced its movements. The division of count Osterman continued its march without interruption, and the Russian head-quarters were fixed three leagues in front of Koningsberg, where they continued until the third day, when general Beningzen transferred them into the city, and withdrew his army to Mulhausen, while general Lestocy received directions to cover the Pregel and Aller at Friedland, to which he passed by the wood of Domnau, through Lampash, without any interruption from the enemy. Several skirmishes ensued; and the cossacks, elated with their successes, allowed the enemy no repose by night or day. Fifteen hundred of the wounded French cavalry were deposited in the prisons and hospitals, and the slain amounted to an equal number: the Russians seldom granted quarter, and the emperor had been compelled to prevent the effusion of bloodshed by the gift of a ducat for every captive.

Buonaparte, convinced that his cavalry was unable to cover his army, apprehensive of still more daring opposition, baffled in his avowed expectation that Beningzen would retire behind the Pregel, unable to obtain an armistice, and repulsed in his offer of peace, resolved to retire upon the Vistula. On the 19th, Preuss Eylau was evacuated by his troops, but the houses remained filled with French and Russian wounded, and above 200 French tumbrils tracked the enemy's rout to Landsberg. In the latter town were abandoned 760 French soldiers, and a number of their officers, and above 20 pieces of cannon were discovered in the lakes about Eylau, which the enemy, unable to remove them, had forced through the ice for the purpose of concealment. The soldiery and peasantry had, since the battle, been continually employed in burying the dead; the ground was still covered with human carcases, and many parts of the road to Landsberg, were literally paved with frozen and encrusted bodies, which the returning cannon-wheels had lacerated and deformed.

TH

HE new parliament assembled according to appointment, on the 15th of December, 1806, and a speech was delivered by the commissioners, which descanted on the rupture of the late negotiation, lamented the ambition and in justice of the enemy which had kindled a fresh war in Europe, and congratulated the nation, that, notwithstanding the late calamities, the good faith of his majesty's allies had remained unshaken. The speech proceeded to declare the necessity of the public burdens, complimented the loyalty and energy of the people, recommended the most rigid economy in the administration of the public revenues, and expressed the firmest confidence in the discipline of our fleets and armies, the unimpaired resources of our prosperity and strength, and the general union of sentiment and action. It concluded by an assurance that with these advantages, and an humble reliance on the protection of divine Providence, his majesty was prepared to meet the exigencies of this important crisis, confident of receiving the surest support from the wisdom of his parliament, and from the

affectiou, loyalty, and public spirit of his people.

The address was carried after a long debate, in which lord Castlereagh defended the conduct of sir Home Popham, accused the ministry of neglecting to send reinforcements to Buenos Ayres, and expatiated on their general negligence and imbecility. Thanks were voted by acclamation to sir John Stuart and the victors of Maida; and, on a motion of lord Howick, another address was presented to his majesty, expressive of decided coincidence with the ministry on the subject of the late ne gotiations, and the political arrangements with foreign powers. After long but frivolous discussions, the resolutions connected with the army bill of Mr. Windham were agreed to. A conversation took place on the motion for an addition of £5000 to the sum of £8000 already granted to the Roman Catholic college of Maynooth in Ireland, which was strenuously opposed by Mr. Wilberforce, on the ground that it would cramp the growth of Protestantism in Ireland. It would be cruel, he observed, to oppress or restrain, the

Catholic religion, but its members could not reasonably expect that they should be favored to the injury of the protestant establishment. Notwithstanding these objections, the motion was unanimously passed with the warm participation of every friend of toleration and humanity.

The commission of military enquiry, which had been appointed in the latter year of Mr. Pitt's administration, after detecting the minor inadvertencies of lord Melville, discovered abuses of the most enormous and extensive kind in the barrack department. It appeared that general Delancey, barrack-master-general had been in the habit of drawing, through the medium of Mr. Greenwood, the army agent, immense sums of the public money long before they were wanted, and that in a part only of his accounts, (as the commissioners had not yet examined the whole,) there were overcharges and misstatements to the amount of no less a sum than £90,000.

The third report of the commissioners, made at an early period of the session, related to Mr. Alexander Davison, banker, and colonel of a regiment of volunteers. This man, who had been lately tried for bribery at elections, and imprisoned for that offence, soon after his liberation from prison, had been made treasurer of the orduance, an office in which between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 passed through his bands of the public money. It appeared from the report, that, in consequence of a bargain with general Delancey, Davison was to receive a commission of two and a half per cent. for supplying the articles of beds, bedding, sheets, blankets, towels, ironmongery, candles, beer, and forage; but as to coals he was to supply that article as a merchant.

It appeared also, from the report that the mode in which the public was injured by Davison, was two-fold. First, by following the example of Delancey in drawing immense sums of money long before they were expended for the public service, so that he always retained in hand 1,000,000 or more of the public treasure of which he embezzled the interest. Secondly, he Imposed upon the public in the price of

the articles purchased. There did not appear to be appear to be any means of discovery respecting the articles on commission, but ample means of detection were found with respect to the coals. It appeared that Davison, by his contract was to buy the coals on his own account, and to sell them to the barrack office at the wholesale prices, and deliver them at the several places where the barracks were situated. That these prices might be ascertained in a regular way, Davison was to produce certificates from persons of perfect respectability, that his prices were fair. But it appeared that Delancey never made any enquiry into the character or responsibility of the persons who signed Davison's certificates, and among them was one individual named Walker, for some time the agent of Davison, who was found guilty of perjury and executed.

In the investigation of these delinquenoies, it appeared that he charged in point of measure, as a retailer, not making the allowance expected from wholesale dealers, of one chaldron in twenty, so that, supposing his prices to have been fair, he thus gained one twentieth part more than would have been demanded by a fair wholesale dealer. The average price charged to the public was 81 shillings per chaldron, and the average price paid by Davison was 61 shillings. To this sum must be added, the one chaldron in twenty, making altogether a gain of £30 in every hundred. He was bound to make the deliveries in the most favorable season, instead of which he made nearly the whole of them in winter, when coals were dearest, though he had bought them at the cheapest seasons. The wealth accumulated by this person from the plunder of the public, must have been immense; nor was he at any pains to conceal his guilt, but seemed desirous to display it by the utmost splendor and magnificence. He was a purchaser of the most valuable pictures and estates, and was in the habit of giving splendid and expensive entertainments to the prince of Wales, the junior branches of the royal family, and the nobility.

The commissioners of barrack accounts

communicated to the lords of the treasury their opinion that Mr. Davison should be required to produce his cash-account with the barrack-master-general. Mr. Davison, after many delays, declared his readiness to give such information respecting his cash-account, as he could give, but stated, at the same time, that his cashaccount was so mixed with other accounts, that it was impossible he could give a clear view of it; he wrote at the same time to the lords of the treasury, stating that he would produce in his own defence, an account which would prove satisfactory. The commissioners, however, by the direction of the treasury, called for the cash-account, and directions were given for the recovery of the sums due.

The day appointed for the second reading of the bill for abolishing the slave trade, was Wednesday, the 5th of February, and it was carried by 100 voices against 36, a glorious and decisive victory to the persevering and indefatigable advocates of philanthropy. But the triumph of the friends of humanity was not obtained but after a severe contention with the sophistries and misrepresentations of the enemies of the bill, The reasoning of the antiabolitionists, on the ground of policy or expediency, may be reduced to the following dilemma. Either the black population of the colonies could support itself, or it could not. If it could, it must increase: for population is never exactly stationary. The proportion of whites to blacks would be more and more diminished. And the horrors of St. Domingo proclaimed the fate of a colony, in which the power of the Africans predominated over that of the Europeans. But if it should not be able to support itself, hands would be wanting more and more for the cultivation of the soil, and the value of estates, and the come merce, naval power, and revenue of the empire, be more and more diminished. With regard to humanity, it was alleged, that if the prisoners taken in war, were not sold as slaves, they would be either put to death by their savage conquerors, or sacrificed to their gods, or at best retained in a state of the most rigorous and horrid

slavery in their own country.-As to justice, slavery was one of the conditions in which a very great portion of mankind had existed in all ages, and in Africa particularly. There are gradations of ranks or conditions of life, and that of the slave, though at the bottom of the scale, was one of them.-It was mentioned without either abhorrence or disapprobation in the sacred scripture.-But if slavery was allowed both by the order observed in the course of Providence, and by revelation, it was reasonable to infer, that a trade in slaves was allowed also. Was no advantage to be taken of any benefit that might be traced to the follies and vices of men? This doctrine, carried into all its consequences, would throw society back into a state of wild, ferocious, and uncomfortable barbarism. The British legislature, in taking measures for the civilization of Africa, went entirely beyond the limits of their province. The general government of the world was in the hands of the Almighty Ruler, who had permitted evil, both physical and moral, to be blended with good, but who, by the operation of general laws, educed good out of evil, in his own time and way. The British government would find sufficient exercise for all their philanthropy and legislative wisdom at home. The Scallags in the Hebrides, the fishermen in the isles of the Shetlands, and the Orkneys were as much slaves as the negroes in our West India islands, and in circumstances far less comfortable.—The laboring poor, and other classes in England, Scotland, and Ireland, were also objects of great commiseration. The first attentions of the British legislature were due to these sufferers.-Their sufferings it might alleviate. But it was wholly beyond their power to prevent those evils which arise out of the ambition, the jealousy, the ani mosity, the rage and revenge which produce incessant war, and slavery among that multitude of chiefs and princes under whose dominion the vast peninsula of Africa is divided. The greatest good that Britain could do to Africa, would be to continue a trade, by which the condition of the captives taken in war is rendered

so much better than what it would be if they remained in the hands of their most barbarous captors. It was clearly the interest of the masters to treat the slaves well. And measures had been recommended to the colonial assemblies, which if adopted, as they no doubt would be, would certainly effect, though gradually and progressively, the abolition of the slave trade.

It was argued on the other side, that the population of the negroes on our islands was capable of supporting itself, if they were treated with common humanity. Why should it be supposed that an universal law of nature should be resisted, opposed, and overpowered, only in, the West Indies? and that there alone the human species should not continue, in obeying the call of nature, to increase and multiply? In fact, the population of our great settlement Jamaica had been found competent to support itself, notwithstanding many adverse circumstances, which, it might be expected, the abolition of the slave trade would remove. It had been ascertained by the most accurate calculations respecting the negro population of Jamaica, that from the year 1698 to 1730, the excess of deaths above the births amounted to 3 per cent.; from 1730 to 1755, to 2 per cent. ; from 1755 to 1769, 14.per cent.; from 1769 to 1780, to 3-5ths per cent. And the average of three years ending in 1800, gave an excess of deaths of only 1-24th per cent.-It was remarkable also, that in Dominica, although a newer settlement, and although new lands were known to be inimical to population, there was an excess of population above the deaths, and so there was also in the Bermudas and Bahamas. Fresh importations of labourers, therefore, were not necessary to the cultivation of the islands, or those parts of the islands that were already under cultivation. And, with respect to the cultivation of new lands, the continuance of the slave trade for that purpose, would be to ruin the planters, who were now distressed by the accumulation of produce on their hands for which they could not find a market.-With respect to the general security of the islands, the

VOL. I.

danger did not arise from those negroes who had been long settled in them, and used to their masters, but from those who had been freshly imported and were smarting under recent wrongs. The case of St. Domingo had been cited as an example of caution against the adoption of any measure that might tend to stir up, and agitate the passions of our negroes, or to unite them, by an esprit de corps, in a design to assert their liberty. But the events which had taken place in that island, ought to serve as a warning against successive importations for it was well known that, just before the insurrections and commotions which prevailed in that ill-fated island, there had been unusually large importations from Africa. The passions of men had been let loose and inflamed at the commencement of the French revolution, throughout every part of the French empire, Hence St. Domingo became a prey to intestine commotions, and was divided into different political parties; each of which in their turn endeavored to avail themselves of the assistance of the blacks. And the fresh and large importations from Africa during that period, served as fuel to the flames of discord, insurrection, and all the fury of war: whereas among the old slaves, and such particularly as were natives of the island, there were a great many instances of faithful and attached slaves saving, at the expense of their own, the lives of their mistresses and masters. The newly im-ported African was much more dangerousthan the man born in the island. It deserved to be remembered, that Dessalines himself was an imported African. It was admitted that St. Domingo in its present state was not a good neighbour, and that emissaries had been sent from thence to excite revolt in Jamaica. But emissaries would have been sent if the present question had never been agitated. And the effects of the abolition would be to counteract the attempts of such emissaries, by tending to make the situation of the negroesmore comfortable.

It had been argued that this measure would tend to diminish the white population in the islands by discouraging those -4 z.