liveliest emotions by every friend of humanity, the dreadful miseries and privations endured by the French army, in their retreat from Moscow, through a wild and un cultivated country, annoyed by incessant attacks from numerous swarms of ferocious Cossacks hovering closely on their rear, and exposed to a bleak and gloomy atmosphere 16 and 18 degrees be low the freezing point, are minutely and circumstantially detailed without palliation or disguise.

In this ever memorable retreat, which will hereafter be ranked with the most extraordinary and celebrated exploits either of ancient or modern history, nearly 40,000 horses are computed to have perished from cold and fatigue, and all the artillery, ammunition, and transports, of the French army to have been lost and destroyed The roads were covered with ice, and every winding

row defile, presented eith or nar

an am

bushed enemy, or an open and exasperated foe. Those veteran forces, long inured to hardships and accustomed to conquer, who had so long borne up amidst increasing perils, and calmly look. ed death in the face, now, for the first time, lost their usual spirits, under the benumbing influence of these frozen and inhospital regions; and thousands of half-famished and exhausted soldiers, incapable of sustaining their complicated miseries, either threw down their arms, and yielded themselves an easy prey to their merciless pursuers, or fell lifeless on the earth, the miserable victims of cold, hunger, and despair! It is a terrible document of human woe, and will long serve as an awful, and we would fain hope, not uninstructive, memento of the direful effects of wild ambition, and of the widewasting and murderous ravages of all-destroying war! In a single sledge, and under the borrowed name of the Duke of Vicenza, this extraordinary man, born as it would seem to be either the universal

blessing or curse of mankind, tra-. versed secretly and unobserved the boundaries of this widely extended empire, through hostile ranks,, amidst dangerous and doubtful allies, and eluding the combined efforts of the numerous forces that were every where hemming him in and surrounding him, has once more escaped and reached in safety the capital of his own dominions, there perhaps to meditate new plans of conquest, and turn the doubtful fortune of the day!

Of the manner in which Napoleon has reached his good and faithful city of Paris, and of the consequences that may be expected to ensue from the publication of his late reverses, various are the sen timents of contemporary writers. However great have been the miseries and distresses endured by his army, until the very moment when his absence became indispensibly necessary for his own personal se curity and the safety of all France, he was present amidst their toils and labours, and shared in the suf ferings and privations of the meanest of his fellow-soldiers!—He was at least an eye witness of their accumulated miseries, and was compelled to bear an equal share in those frightful evils which, his wild ambition and his rash enterprises had so fully provoked!-He tasted the sad and bitter fruits of his own cruel and destructive policy; and if he sacrifieed the lives of Frenchmen, in the furtherance of his ambitious projects, he at the same time voluntarily encountered the same risk and hazard of his fate!

Yet another year has rolled away, and still the cry is War!-When we look back upon the course pur. sued for the last twenty years, the havoc which has been made, the desolation which has ensued, the merciless and

savage mischief which has been so unremittingly persisted in, it is a retrospect of horror, of fearful and wonderful appearance; as if the World, by general consent, had risen in arms, H

and, like the fabled monsters of antiquity, had braved the high omnipotence of Heaven, and vowed eternal entity to nature. Yet we are Christian Nations that are thus contending, the advocates of that religion, whose very principle is peace, whose precept is forbearanee and good will to all. Is not the mockery impious, which thus in sults the justice of Providence? and shall we wonder at its dread ful visitations! While we employ the little means assigned us, so daringly to tempt its power, to frustrate and annul its blessing and its bounties, while we consent to see the gifts of nature wantonly abused or wickedly laid waste, to suit the baneful purposes of the ambitious or the proud, while thus we act, shall we tax Heaven with injustice, or pray for those blessings we so wastefully destroy? If we would live by the sword, shall we not perish by the sword? Is this not a consequence as well as an ordinance of nature! a dreadful consequence, à just and equitable ordination! Yet how few there be that waste a thought on either, although experience is daily verifying the awful truth! We see one Nation become the Scourge of others, till, in its turn, it feels the rod of Vengeance again the tide of fortune changes, and pours destruction forth on either side. Do we seek the cause of all this prodigal and savage waste, we find it has its rise, for the most part, in the base pas sions and caprices of a certain few, of those who should be proof against ambition, whose duty it should be to foster peace, and promote the general welfare of mankind.

To look around and view the horrid scene which every where presents itself, in every Country, under every form, how awful is the scene, how melancholy the reflection? If we look abroad, we ste two mighty potentates madly engaged in mutual slaughter; the one hurrying forth the whole popu

lation to ravage and destroy his adversary's possessions; the other, to disappoint and harass the proud invader, with remorseless hand is seen laying waste his own lands, burning his cities, impoverishing his people, driving his subjects from their homes to herd with the brutes of the forest, and rendering his whole country nothing less than a frightful desert. Yet even in this work of desolation, there are men, calling themselves Christians, who appear to take a pleasing interest, and employ their minds and means to assist and propagate the horrid mischief!

In the discomfiture of this foe of the human race, we trace the awful rod of retribution: Him and his mighty means have been overthrown, have felt the vengeance of offended Heaven; nor could its sacred justice be arraigned, if, like the Assyrian robber and his host, him and his my. riads, in one awful night, had been converted to a lifeless heap! But surely it is not in venting idle anathema, or indulging vain and futile expectation, that the evil can be stayed, or its consequence averted; the remedy, now lies within our reach, is centred in ourselves. If our Enemy has been discomfited, and to such extent as some among us would infer,if his adventurous spirit has been humbled, so much as many would have us understand, or his aspiring hopes so totally destroyed, his means so crippled, as to dispel the apprehension of his pride or power, is not the moment come, offered to us as it were by the interposing hand of Providence, to call for PEACE Instead of seeking to keep alive the spirit of contention, for the purpose of retaliation or revenge, instead of urging him to fresh exertions, to make new efforts to convulse the world and complete the havoc of mankind; not our duty, the imperious duty of every Power that has felt the long protracted miseries of this hateful war, to follow the exam

is it

ple even of Him they despise, and in the hour of prosperity proffer the hand of conciliation? Here indeed would be afforded a full and permanent relief, not to the houseless people of Russia alone, but to the harassed population of Europe. Then might we hope to see our gallant Countrymen, now placed in peril in a foreign land, once more return in safety, together with those blessings which an industrious and deserving People are entitled to enjoy.

ADDRESS

Of the Roman Catholic Prelates to the Clergy and Laity of the the Roman Catholic Churches in Ireland.

RE

EVEREND Brothers and be. loved children, Peace be to you! Recurring exigencies in the course of the last few years have repeatedly induced us, as guardians of the Roman Catholic Religion in Ireland, to declare our sentiments upon the subject of its concerns; and we have had the unspeakable satisfaction of witnessing, that such declarations, on our part, were received by you with that unanimity and that spirit, which proclaim to the world, that your inviolable attachment to the Creed of your ancestors hath not hitherto been, and, under the Divine Protection, never will be lessened, or impaired by privations, penalties, or hardships. Of that conscientious loyalty, which all good sebjects owe to their King and to the State, and which the spirit of our Religion so emphatically inculcates, you have given such unequivocal assurtances, such unparalleled and satisfactory proofs, that the most distrustful ingenuity cannot possible devise securities more binding. We learn, notwithstanding, with the deepest regret, that in the opinion of many repectable individuals, your restoration to the full enjoyment of the blessings of the constitution ought to be postponed, until what we

consider necessary to the integri, ty of our Religion, shall have been first surrendered: a surrender, to which, with the assistance of God, we shall prefer that of our lives, We are also concerned to observe, that various attempts have been made and are still persisted in, to mislead the public mind. Periodical papers and pamphlets, replete with misrepresentation, are unceasingly employed to frustrate the exertions of our friends, and exasperate the prejudices of our opponents. Amongst these publications, we find it necessary to particularise certain tracts, which have lately appeared, under the title of Columbanus ad Hibernos, fraught with misrepresentation and calumny, and presuming to dic. tate, as Roman Catholic tenets, opinions contrary to the genuine doctrines, and subversive of the discipline of the Roman Catholis Church. To obviate, as far as in our power, these mischievous at tempts, we deem it a duty to an nounce to you the subsequent Re solutions, which we have this day unanimously adopted:

I. That we do hereby confirm and declare our unaltered adhe

rence to the Resolutions unanimously entered into at our last General Meeting, on the 26th of February, 1810.*

II. That we do hereby confirm our condemnation and censure of

*These Resolutions are seventeen in number:-by the first of them the Prelates claim to their Order the exclusive right of deciding on all matters relative to the Roman Catholic Religion; by the intermediate Resolutions they refute and reject the arguments in favour of the Veto, and similar arrangements; and, by the last, they return their thanks to Dr. Milner, for his firmness in withstanding these, at a Meeting of certain English Catholics, at the St. Alban's Tavern, Feb. 1, 1810.

certain propositions, extracted from a book, entitled Abus sansexample, &c. by Pierre Louis Blanchard, printed by Juigne, London, 1808; and specified in our Declaration of the 3d of July; and 21st of August, 1809 and further, we in like manner declare, that we will not grant faculties of any kind to any clergyman who may or shall assert, that our afflicted Holy Father is a Heretic, or a Schismatic, or the Author, or the Abettor of Hercsy or Schism.

III. That, although the substance of the answers returned by six Roman Catholic Universities, rela. tive to the duties of subjects, in the years 1788 & 1789, is manifestly contained in the Oath of Allegiance and Declaration, which we have soJemnly sworn; we think it, nevertheless, fitting to declare, that we consider those answers as perfectly conformable to the doctrine and tenets of our Religion, and that we adopt them as our own. *

IV. That admiring as we do, the determination of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, to persevere in their temperate, firm, and constitu. tional efforts for the removal of the disabilities which still continue to affect them; we contemplate with peculiar satisfaction, the zeal which they have evinced in their readiness to forego the attainment of civil advantages, rather than purchase them at the expence of any sacrifice, which might compromise, or endanger the safety and integrity of their Religion.

V.That as we are at present precluded from any intercourse with our Supreme Pastor, we feel our

By this Declaration, the Prelates censure certain French schis matics, chiefly resident in London, who, under the conduct of a certain Peter Louis Blanchard, have declared war against the present Pope, for that conduct, by which the great bulk of their brethern in England were restored to their own country, in 1801.

selves utterly incompetent to propose, or agree to any change, in the long established mode of appointing Irish Roman Catholic Bi shops.

VI. That we are firmly convinced that no pledges or securities of more efficient obligation can be devised, than those which we have already given; most humbly conceiving that our long continued endurance under the pressure of the Penal Code, from which a sacrifice of conscience would have instantly relieved us, is proof incontrovertible, that the sacredness of an oath is no where more binding than on the conscience of Irish Roman Catholics.

VII. That our warmest thanks are justly due to James Bernard Clinch, Esq. for the ability, learning, and zeal, which he has successfully displayed in his refutation of the errors and slanders published under the title of Columbanus ad Hibernos.--We conclude, Rev. Brothers, beloved Children, by exhorting you to persevere in the faith of your forefathers, in Christ; to rest your hope on Him, whose promises cannot fail; and that your Faith and Hope be ever enlightened by Charity. Once more, Rev. Brethren, beloved Chil dren, peace be with you! Amen.. Dublin, Nov. 18, 1812.

THE Grand Jury of Dublin have among other Resolutions lately passed, declared, "That upon

the most mature deliberation, respecting the demand of their Roman Catholic fellow subjects, they are of opinion that they ought to rest contented with the most complete toleration of their religion, the fullest security of their property, and perfect the pe sonal liberty they at present enjoy. And to prove equally their love of toleration and affection for their native country," they add, "That any farther concession to the demands of the Catholics would endanger the Protestant constitution, and the connection between Ireland and Great Britain."