We are informed, that the minister at Lynn and his friends having declined receiving the members of the North-eastern Unitarian Association, to hold their annual meeting in that town, according to a former notice, that association will be held at Wisbeach, on Thursday, June the Twenty-seventh. There will also be a public service on Wednesday evening, June 26.

Manchester College, York.

The annual examination of students will take place as usual at the close of the session, in the College Library, York, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the 25th, 26th and 27th of June. The York annual meeting of trustees will be

held at Etridge's Hotel, on the evening of Wednesday, the 26th, when all applications for the admission of divinity students on the foundation will be taken into consideration and decided upon.

The friends of the institution will dine together at Etridge's Hotel, at the close of the second and third days' examination.

As a considerable accession of new stadents is expected next session, it is par ticularly requested, that gentlemen intending to enter as lay students will make application as early as possible, in order that the necessary accommodation may be provided for them.

THOMAS HENRY ROBINSON, Secretaries. J. G. ROBBERDS,

Manchester, May 11, 1816.

THE situation of the Protestants in France has long been a subject of great uneasiness to the friends of true religion. The bloodshed in Nismes and its district excited the commiseration of every British heart that was not led away by the base calumny that Protestantism was only another word for Jacobinism. Under this latter word it is well known that the speaker means to convey an idea of all the horrors perpetrated in the violent stages of the French revolution. Strange, however, it is, that crimes attended with such infamy should not deter others from the imitation of so horrible a conduct; yet future ages may perhaps class Jacobinism and Bourbonism together as the parents of enormities at which humanity shudders.

The efforts made by various bodies in England to place this subject in its proper colours before the public are well known, A subscription was raised and information was procured which might satisfy the most incredulous. Still it was the interest of certain persons to stifle the discussion, and discourage the benevolence of England, and, to a certain degree, their measures succeeded. It was contended that the whole was a political feud, that religious opinions had nothing to do with it, that our government could not possibly interfere, or if it did, that its interference would be only disadvantageous to the anffering party. Above all, it was contended that the Bourbons could not be at

all to blame in this matter as they were perfectly friendly to religious freedom.

A debate in the House of Commons has enabled every person to form an accurate judgment on all these points; and we are much indebted to Sir Samuel Romilly for taking up the question, for stating faets as they really occurred and for making those comments on the celebrated letter of the Duke of Wellington which it really deserved. Lord Castlereagh took, as might be imagined, the other side of the question; but in spite of all his sophisms be corroborated these facts, in such a manner, that it can be no longer a doubt that murders and massacres to an incredible amount were perpetrated at Nismes and its neighbourhood, and that the murderers were suffered to escape with impunity, though the government is strong enough to repress inferior erimes without difficulty.

...We will not repeat here all the horrors committed by the Bourbonites upon this occasion. We trust that the speeches of Sir Samuel Romilly, Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Brougham will be faithfully re ported in a separate publication with such notes as may tend still more to excite an horror of religious persecution. Nat. withstanding the solicitude of the French government that our papers - should not have a free circulation in France, we have no doubt that the debate will find its way into that country; and at any rate the other nations of Europe will feel for the unhappy

sufferers in France, and hold in abhor rence that anti-christian spirit which leads a man to injure, insult and murder his neighbour on account of his religious opinions.

Above all the reflection on what has happened in France ought to make us grateful to Providence for the comparative ease which we enjoy in this country. Though our opinions differ so widely from those of the sects established by law in this island, and we who bow to no authority but that of Christ in matters of religion, are so small a body compared with those who blend with the precepts of our Saviour rules derived from human tradition and the laws or fashion of the country, yet how happy is our state compared with that of the early Christians under the Roman emperors. We are not called upon as they were to sacrifice our lives in support of our faith, and the danger we have to apprehend is not from persecution, but the indifference which such a state of ease is apt to create. The fascinations of the world may be as dangerous as its hatred, and if we do not impress upon our children the importance of our religions faith, it may be undermined by the seductions of interest. The Israelites did not all at once fall down before Baal; yet when his worship was supported by the court, by fashion, by interest, the worshippers of the true God gradually diminished till there were left only seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to the idol. In fact, nothing can preserve us and our children but the full conviction that as our Saviour has said, "to know the Father as the only true God, and to acknowledge the Christ sent by him is eternal life," and that to leave our Saviour on account of fashion or interest, or the palpable deceit of innocent compliance with a false worship, is a dere. liction of duty disgraceful to ourselves and attended with most dangerous consequences. We cannot serve God and Mammon. We cannot adore one God in our hearts and with our lips offer up prayers to three Gods. Let those who pretend to be Unitarians and yet frequent Trinitarian' worship consider this.

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himself advantages above the rest of the community to which least of all men is be entitled. The consequence of this false policy is, that the landholder cannot at present obtain a loan of money but at a much greater rate of interest than, the state of the money market requires. As the law stands, five per cent is the utmäst annual sum that can be received for a lan of money, but as the holders of inoney can make more of it than by lending at this rate, a borrower is put to his shifts to obtain a loan. The law is avoided in this manner. The borrower grants an annuity to the lender during the life of the longest of three lives named by him, redeemable on a notice specified by the deed. annuity amounts in general to ten per cent, though sometimes the money may be got at nine, and thus in another name the borrower pays from nine to ten per cent' for that sum which he might obtain, if it were not for the law, at six or seven per' cent. The borrower also pays all the law expences on the transaction, which are considerable.

This

The absurdity of the law is evident from its not distinguishing between the different securities on which money is lent. Thus, if five per cent is a fair price for money' secured on land, a greater rate is certainly to be required if it is lent merely on simple bond. Many have been the merchants and tradesmen ruined by this law, for a loan at a certain time would have preserved them, though they paid for it at the rate of ten or fifteen per cent, and the injury done to the landed and commercial interests by it may be estimated at many millions annually.

In support of this law it is argued by administration that their loans would not be so cheaply made as they are at present. But it is not considered that the trifling gain upon their loans bears no proportion to the injury occasioned to the community by the losses which it sustains. The landholder also thinks it a preventative to spendthrifts whose estates might be swallowed up by their improvident bargains, as if it were of consequence to the state what became of such wretches, and the interest of a few individual families is not to be put in competition with the general good of the country. The real fact is, that the landholders in this as in some other instances, take an unfair advantage of their situation. They have looked too much to their own supposed interests, and have paid too little attention to what is due to the community at large.

ceed, the consequence to the kingdom may be in a high degree detrimental. The readers of this report were favourable to

the abolition of the slave trade and with just reason, but the abolition of that trade and the emancipation of the blacks in the West Indies are two distinct questions. In the former case the right and propriety of parliament to legislate cannot be doubt ed, for it is a question intelligible by every member of the House. But the emancipation of the blacks or measures tending to it are questions of a very different nature, and involve the kuowledge of the relatious of several classes of people to each other in our West India islands. The abolition of slavery throughout the world is a desirable object, but care must be taken not to increase the evil nor to obtain our end by unjustifiable means. Mr. Wilberforce announces his intention to bring in a bill next sessions for registering all the slaves in the West India islands, and this is to be done under technical forms of law very oppressive to proprietors and very expensive to the colonies. Many a good job will be created by them, and salaries here and abroad are to be multiplied. The intended, measure has created very great alarm in the colonies, for it strikes at the root of their internal legislation, and excites among the slaves a restlessness which renders the masters apprehensive, of similar scenes being acted in their islands as have. taken place in St. Domingo. The promoters of the bill out of parliament have not in the mean time been inactive; they have published writings teeming with false and injurious accusations of the planters for their conduct towards the slaves, and endeavouring to make them. odious to their fellow subjects in England, Under the specious head of humanity to one class of mankind, they are guilty of inhumanity to another class; and laying hold of the interest taken by this country in the abolition of the slave trade, they aim at a new species of legislation which shall put the planters at their mercy, and hasten their object of emancipation. It is necessary that the humane should be put on their guard against these false pretences, and be particularly careful not to be led away on this subject by the appeal, made to Christianity; for the language of Scripture is very different from that used on this occasion by the supporters of this intended bill, and our religion was never, intended to interfere rudely between the master and slave, but to introduce such dispositions as would gradually overcome every evil belonging to servitude.

Both Houses were occupied in a debate, on what, though trifling at first sight, is of great importance. This was the stationing of the military in various places adjoining to the palace on certain court, days. Military parade is the great feature of arbitrary governments, and cannot, be permitted in a free state without danger to its constitution. For by being.

accustomed to see soldiers performing the duty of constables, the people will gra dually lose the distinction between those two characters; and thus the military will in time, as was the case in France, usurp all the employments of the civil power, be seen in the corners of every street, and the nation will be enslaved, and no slavery is so bad as that exercised by one part over the other of the fellow subjects! In submitting to the bayonet of a foreign soldier, a tacit respect is paid to the right of conquest; but in crouching under the sabre of ones own countrymen, the mind is de graded, rendered abject and vile, and he is fit only to lord it in his turn on similar degraded beings. This was felt by two noble lords whose progress in the open streets had been resisted by soldiers, and they complained of this outrage in their respective Houses. Both Houses entered into their feelings, and the result was a promise on the part of administration that care should be taken to remedy the evil by placing the whole under the controul of the civil power, and at a following court day the constables were seen in their proper places.

Disturbances have appeared in France, but to what extent it is not easy to determine. Grenoble is said to have been taken at one time by the insure" gents, whose defeat was attended with exes cutions of some and high rewards for, the apprehensions of other ringleaders. The French press is so completely sub jugated, that an insurrection might ex-) tend over half of the kingdom without the good people of Paris knowing any thing about it but by private information, or on its defeat by government. Their parliament has been prorogued and our, three countrymen have been tried. What ever opinion may be entertained of the nature of the misdemeanour, for which they were indicted, all parties, concurred in applauding their spirited and manlyr conduct in their defence. The court was, crowded by the principal people of both nations, English and French, at Paris, who were admitted only by tickets, and the French had an opportunity of seeing, the difference between minds formed un-der English liberty and French slavery. The sentence was three mouths? imprison...