in the island of Walcheren; it is a compressed but correct delineation of the wide-wasting destruction of a besieged town. His account of the subsequent mortality among the soldiers proves that the CLIMATE Committed much greater ravages among the troops than the sword:

"On the 13th of August, 1809, the batteries before Flushing being completed, and some frigates and bombs having taken their station, a fire was opened at half past one P.M. from upwards of fifty pieces of heavy ordnance, including mortars and howitzers, which was vigorously returned by the enemy; an additional battery was finished during the night, of six twenty-four pounders, (worked by sailors,) and the whole continued to play on the town; until late on the following day. At half-past ten on the morning of the 14th, the following line-of-battle ships (anchored in the Duerlo passage) got under weigh the St. Domingo, Blake, Repulse, Victorious, Denmark, Audacious, and Venerable, and ranged along the sea-front of the town, led in by Rear-Admiral Sir R. Strachan; but before they had opened their fire, the wind came more southerly, and the St. Domingo grounded inside the Dog-land; an officer, not knowing her situation, passed inside of her, by which means the Blake also grounded; the other ships were ordered to haul off to anchor as at first intended. The St. Domingo was soon got off, and the Blake became again afloat, and came to anchor with the rest of the squadron; the ships continued to ply the enemy with a furious cannonade until four in the afternoon, when the town presented a vast conflagration, burning in all quarters. The firing having nearly ceased from the ramparts, General Monnet, the governor, was summoned to surrender; but he having given an evasive answer, hostilities recommenced, and continued until two o'clock in the morning of the

15th, when the enemy demanded a suspension of arms, and within an hour the governor surrendered the town, (when two detachments of the Royals and 71st regiments took possession of its gates,) and the whole of the garrison, prisoners of war, besides those already taken in the different forts and islands of Walcheren, South Beveland, Shouwen, Duivland, Brouwershaven, and Zierigkzee, with all the valuable stores therein. The loss in killed, wounded, and missing of the British, during the siege, was about seven hundred and twenty, including officers.

"From this moment offensive operations seemed at an end: we were surrounded with abundance, our days were occupied in the sports of the field, our evenings passed at each other's quarters in idle and pleasant conversation, pay was issued almost to the day that it was due. Provisions of all descriptions were offered for sale at a very low rate: tea, sugar, and coffee, were not half the price of the same in England; wines, brandy, hollands, and liqueurs, might be purchased for a mere trifle; and fat fowls or ducks for tenpence the pair. In this land of plenty we were lulled into a fatal security, for, about the 20th, the soldiers fell ill, staggered, and dropped in the ranks, seized by dreadful fevers; and with such rapidity did this malady extend, that in fourteen days, twelve thousand and eighty-six soldiers were in hospital on board ship, or sent to Eng land; the deaths were numerous, and sometimes sudden; convalescence hardly ever secure; the disorders ultimately destroying the constitution, and causing eventually the destruction of thousands in far distant climes.

"The natives now became ill, and informed us that one-third of them were confined to their beds every autumn until the frosty weather set

*The sailors on board ship did not suffer much from the malady.

in, which checked the exhalations from the earth, and gave new tone to their debilitated frames, and thereby stopped the progress of the complaint. Independently of the records of the unhealthiness of these islands, where every object depicts it in the most forcible manner, the bottom of every canal that has communication with the sea is thickly covered with an ooze, which, when the tide is out, emits a most offensive effluvium; and every ditch that is filled with water, is loaded with animal and vegetable substances. If persons living in these islands from their infancy, who practise a cleanliness that cannot be excelled, and live in good houses, cannot prevent the effects of the climate, it may readily be supposed how much more a foreign army must suffer. The inhabitants informed us, that in the preceding autumn, two hundred French troops e were quartered in the village, out of whom one hundred and sixty had the fever, and seventy of them died.

"The town of Flushing, after the siege, presented a deplorable appearance, with many houses burnt down, and most of them unroofed, and scarcely supplying sufficient covering for the sick soldiers, who continued to increase so fast, that ten inhabitants to each regiment were requested to assist as attendants in the hospitals; the medical officers were extremely harassed, numbers of them became incapable of attending on their patients, being themselves seized by the same fatal malady, so that, as the fever gained ground, the doctors diminished in numbers. At one period, four hundred and ninety-eight soldiers died in a fortnight at Walcheren, which place the Austrians were very solicitous our troops should continue to occupy as long as any chance remained for them against Napoleon, who was at this time in the very heart of their empire.

move towards the coast, when we instantly packed up and reached the beach in two hours, where the troops began their embarkation.

"The next day two hundred sick soldiers and officers were removed on board small craft to proceed to England, and, as I happened to be one of those for detachment, we left the line-of-battle ship, went on board a transport, and steered our course for the Downs, where we arrived in two days, and cast anchor for fortyeight hours, then again got under weigh, and buffeted about for four days more, between the Downs and Harwich, where we landed our sick soldiers and officers.

"The evening we landed, a fine healthy - looking young serjeant brought me the orderly-book,—and, on visiting the hospital at ten o'clock the next morning, I heard he had been dead one hour. So much for the Walcheren malady! In fact, the most fatal battle could hardly have made such havock in our ranks. Thus, in the short space of seven months, the English coast had been inundated with sick soldiers and scattered regiments from the land'send to Yarmouth. Walcheren was finally evacuated in the end of December.”—Pp. 44—53.

If this communication meets with your approbation, I propose sending you some further extracts from the same work. ETA.

Spirit of the Times, No. 15.

EARL GREY'S SPEECH AT THE
MANSION-HOUSE.

The following extract. from a speech which Earl Gray delivered at the Mansion-House, on the 18th of February last, as expressing the sentiments of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, deserves to be placed on record as descriptive of the increasing aversion to war, and of an improved feeling in favour of pacific

human life. The consequences of the labour endured in these manufactures were, loss of appetite, pulmonary complaints, asthma, deformity of the spine, and other diseases of a worse character. These evils were national, when female children were compelled to endure them. Fines were exacted for a moment's tardiness; and the poor, who had no clocks, slept in anxiety, and awakened in fever, long before the necessary time, in order to avoid these fines. Thick leather straps were used as punishments, and blows from them were given on the arms, breasts, and faces of infant females. He hoped that those who amused themselves in factories, by producing such suffering and degradation, would be sent to amuse themselves on the tread-mill. Hence came demoralization and crime. The House had regulated slave labour, and no slave was allowed to work at night, nor more than nine hours by day-while six hours a day was the limit under 16 years of age. Could not the same guardianship be extended to British infants, whose emaciated forms and palid faces reproached the legislature? The Government had proclaimed a general fast; and he thought they had acted right in so doing. But let them now consecrate that fast by doing an act of justice, by relieving the sufferings of the afflicted, and by letting the oppressed go free."

Lord Althorp has intimated his intention to oppose the bill. We must confess that our statistical vision is too obtuse to see any foundation for his objections to it, that might not apply with equal force to the limitation of slave labour in our West India Colonies; and are we to have more compassion for the adult slave and his offspring, than for our own infant offspring in this boasted land of liberty? The following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted at a great public meeting, held January 30th, at Keighly, where the evil is more deeply rooted than in any town in Yorkshire, is the best answer to Lord Althorp's objections. The inhabitants of a place where the evil exists, must be better acquainted than Lord Althorp with the working of the system.

"1. That it is the opinion of this meeting, that the practice of working young children in mills and factories from twelve to sixteen hours a day, with but very short intermission for meals, is greatly to be deplored, inasmuch as such a system has an exceedingly pernicious effect on

their constitutional vigour, health, morals, and general comforts, by retarding and preventing the proper development of their natural functions, by frequently entailing on them disease, and too often producing premature death; also, by depriving them of those invaluable opportunities which children ought to have in the morning of life, for religious instruction and the cultivation of their mental powers, dooming them to perpetual ignorance, and rendering them an easy prey to immorality and vice.

66 2. That ten hours per day is as long a period for the juvenile population to labour, as is consistent with the preservation of health, the allowance of necessary relaxation and rest, and the well-being of society at large; and that it is a stain on the character of Britain, that its sons and daughters, in their infant days, should now be worked longer than the adult mechanic, agricultural labourer, or negro slave.

"3. That a restriction on the hours of labour in mills and factories would not only confer an incalculable benefit on the infantile population employed, but would also tend to regulate trade, and protect the more generous manufacturer from being obliged to sacrifice the interests of his work-people, to enable him compete with his less feeling rival.

to

"4. That the restriction act would tend materially to equalize and extend labour, by calling into employment many male adults who are a burden on the public, who though willing and ready to work, are frequently obliged, under the existing calamitous system, to spend their time in idleness, whilst female children are compelled to labour from twelve to sixteen hours per day."

On Thursday, March 8, the Archbishop of Canterbury presented a petition from Rochester in support of Mr. Sadler's bill for limiting the hours of juvenile labour, when he expressed sentiments becoming a Christian Prelate, who should be governed in all his conduct by the Word of God, and not support the hands of the oppressor who grinds the faces of the poor.

"It ought to be recollected that with children, up to the age of about 14 or 15, the time was that of innocent pleasure and enjoyment, whereas, under this system, they were confined for a most unreasonable number of hours each day at their labours, without time for relaxation or even for proper refreshment-and that, too, with very few holidays in the year.