indisposition, a few months previous to his decease, will be read with interest. Alluding to some symptoms of illness, he remarks, “I believe it right in any event, to accept this little addition to many warnings, that it is needful to set the house in order, whether it be for life or death,-whether the stewardship be continued a little longer, or that accusing account be called for, which humblingly teaches us that we have no foundation on which to build a hope, but the free and unmerited mercy of God in Christ Jesus, our crucified and risen Lord. It is my desire that my will may be made in this, and in all other respects, conformable to the Divine will; and I have been preserved from much anxiety throughout; yet while the spirit is at times thus ready, how deeply do I feel that the flesh is indeed weak. A large portion of life's outside measure has been already filled up to some of us, and we know not how soon the midnight cry may be heard in our streets; how much then does it concern us to be increasingly vigilant, in order that when the certain and appointed time does come, we may be prepared to meet the Bridegroom, with our lamps, trimmed, and oil in our vessels." of the rural districts was still more intensely | mind. The following extract from a letter to a wretched, and he, in common with Friends in beloved friend, written under feelings of bodily all parts of Ireland, believed they had a service of love to perform towards the sufferers beyond their own localities;-they living chiefly in the principal towns. As is well known, large funds were contributed in England, Ireland, and America, and placed at the disposal of the Central Committee of Friends in Dublin; and from the peculiarly suffering condition of many parts of the counties of Cork and Kerry, it was felt that these districts had large claims on the funds thus benevolently contributed. An Auxiliary Committee of Friends was formed in Cork, to act in connection with the central body in Dublin, and on them devolved an important charge, calling for the exercise of much discretion and decision. We shall not, we are persuaded, offend any one of the survivors by saying that. the principal weight of this onerous trust devolved on their departed and lamented colleague; and they would testify, that this service was discharged in a manner alike satisfactory to his friends, and to the numerous parties, in various circumstances of life, with whom he corresponded, relative to the state of the country, and the best means of applying relief. This correspondence occupied a large portion of his time and thought, and with other cares pressed heavily upon him. It was with difficulty he could feel himself liberated to attend the Quarterly Meeting in Clonmel, in 4th month, last; and here several of his friends were sensible of a change in his aspect, and that the usual liveliness of his manner had given place to an earnest seriousness of expression, which shewed how deeply he had felt. In the meeting for discipline he addressed his friends impressively on the subject in which he was so greatly interested; he reminded them how mercifully the members of our Society, had been preserved from suffering by the visitation of famine, under which so many of their afflicted countrymen had sunk into the grave. He referred to the progress of disease, (then becoming awfully prevalent,) and remarked, that "they could not expect ex-markably free from anxiety, expressing a belief emption from a calamity, which spared no age or rank;" adding his belief, "that it would come near to some of us, even to our very doors." He subsequently attended the Yearly Meeting in Dublin, of which he had long been a constant attender and valuable member; entering into its concerns with that Christian interest and unassuming zeal, which conspicuously marked his character on these occasions. During these opportunities of intercourse with his friends, as well as after his return home, he expressed a belief that it would be right for him to circumscribe his attention, to some of the objects of public interest, and lessen some of the cares which had much occupied his attention. He was fully sensible that his health had suffered by the labour in which he had been engaged, and by the anxiety that had lately pressed on his And his surviving friends have abundant reason to believe, that this last desire was indeed mercifully granted, and that he was found with his "lamp trimmed and waiting for the coming of his Lord," when that awful summons arrived, which he had thus been enabled to contemplate with Christian calmness. His last act of public duty, was the attendance of the relief committee, in which he had so assiduously laboured. On returning home he felt ill; and the following day continuing poorly, medical aid was called in, and the disorder pronounced to be typhus fever. Though fully aware of the nature of the disease, and as he himself expressed, that “his life as it were hung in the balance," he was preserved in calm and patient resignation, and re that which ever way his illness terminated, all would be well, adding, "I have nothing to trust to, but simply to the mercy of our Saviour, the mercy provided for all." In allusion to matters of public interest in which he had been engaged, he observed, "he felt the necessity of self being kept in subjection, and of not allowing the ap probation of man to have undue influence over the mind," expressing a hope that he had maintained watchfulness in this respect, and adding with evident feeling, "I have been but an unprofitable servant." At times during his illness, his mind wandered, but almost invariably to the scene of those philanthropic exertions, in which so much of his time and attention had latterly been employed. 66 Deep was the interest felt, not only in his native city, but by Friends in the south of Ireland generally, when it was known that one so much | pounds sterling was a full compensation for their beloved, was struggling with this insidious slaves. That the consumption of sugar last year malady; for a time, hopes were entertained of his recovery, but it pleased Infinite Wisdom to order otherwise, and his reduced strength sunk under the disease:-he expired on the 22d of 8th month, and his remains were, on the 25th, accompanied to the grave, by a large and sorrowful company of friends, as well as by many of his fellow citizens, anxious to pay the last tribute of respect to one so deservedly esteemed. In the retrospect of such a course, there is little to be added; his end was peace, and some of us sensibly feel in reference to this our much loved friend, that the memory of the Just is precious. Annual Monitor. For Friends' Review. DEBATE ON THE SUGAR DUTIES. The Correspondent of the National Intelligencer furnishes an interesting summary of the debate in the British Parliament on the opening of the present session, upon the question of a repeal of the act of 1846, providing for the equalization of the duties on colonial and foreign sugars. Great interest attaches to this question from its important bearing upon slavery and the slave-trade. The following brief notice of the facts stated on both sides, is intended to put the reader of the Review in possession of the views taken by the opposing parties, without endorsing any of the statements. Lord George Bentinck, on the part of the West India interest, affirmed that the Island of Barbadoes was the most densely inhabited country in the world-that the free negroes of Jamaica were no great lovers of labour-that on a plantation where 150 labourers were employed, the most industrious person was a woman, who worked 164 days during the year, and the most industrious man worked 154 days-the day's work consisting of about seven hours-that there were in British Guiana 25,000 free black labourers, receiving $3 each for a week's labour of five days, and about six hours each day. He estimated the total value of the slaves in the British Islands at forty-five million pounds sterling, for which they received twenty millions pounds. The Chancellor of the Exchequer denied that a protective duty was necessary to save the planters from ruin. He showed that the fall in sugar was not owing to the repeal of the discriminating duty, or the abolition of slavery. Indigo, rice and sugar had fallen in nearly the same ratio. He denied that the reduction in the price of sago was owing to the introduction of that grown in foreign countries; and he attempted to prove this by showing that during the past year the proportion of foreign sugar imported was much greater when sugar was high, than when the price had fallen. That it had been shown from documents furnished by the planters themselves, that fifteen millions of was 300,000 tons, and that the protection claimed by the West India interest would therefore cost the people of Great Britain three million pounds sterling per annum for the exclusive benefit of the growers of sugar, which he distinctly announced that the government would not consent to. He went into some statements to show that the colonial interests would be benefitted by the use of sugar in breweries and for distillation, and he disclosed the lamentable fact, that in consequence of the diminished duty on rum, the consumption of that article during the past year in Scotland and Ireland alone, had increased 636 thousand gallons, or nearly 25 per cent, on the consumption of 1846. The measures which the Government proposed for the relief of the West India planters, were the admission of molasses and cane juice for distillation at a proper duty,-a loan for the promotion of free emigration of laborers,—the removal of captured negroes to the West Indies at the cost of government, and a renewal of certain loans. These measures, with more energy and improved methods in the cultivation of sugar, were deemed sufficient. He affirmed that, since the abolition of slavery, the improvements of other countries had not been introduced into the West Indies. He attributed the present condition of the West India interest to the baneful want of energy which principally arose out of a reliance upon protection. I. Wilson argued that there were 250,000 tons of sugar raised by free labour in countries east of the Cape of Good Hope, and that if slave labour sugar was excluded from Great Britain, the West Indies could not compete with the free produce of those countries. He stated that the white population in the British West India Islands was only 7 per cent of the whole, and the proprietors, being absentees, did not manage their estates so economically as in Cuba, where the owners resided on their property. Internal improvements had also been better attended to in Cuba than in the British Islands-there being eight hundred miles of railroad in the former, and not more than a dozen in the latter. A member showed that the export of printed and dyed cotton goods to the British Islands had fallen off in 1847 considerably more than 25 per cent. of the amount exported in 1846, while the exports to Brazil in the same period had increased more than 25 per cent. Thomas Baring stated that the cost of making sugar in St. Kitts had increased from 4s 5d the cost during the last four years of slavery to 21s 7d, the average cost during the last four years of freedom. It was further stated, on behalf of the West India interest, that out of 653 sugar estates under cultivation in Jamaica, 140 have been abandoned since the emancipation act, and that 465 coffee plantations have been abandoned in the same period-that upon cer ITALY. tain estates in the same island, in the year 1832, | who have been engaged in writing and treating there were employed, say 42,000 labourers upon every question of social importance. You that on the same estates there were now em- have in every town in Italy men who are not ployed about 14,000-the remainder, 28,000, only taking a deep interest in schools, but in having become independent settlers; a fact which prison discipline, and in every question relating affords a gratifying evidence that the condition to the moral condition of the people. As reof the negro has been greatly improved, what-gards political economy, I was amazed at the ever may be the effect upon the whites. It is number of people I found in Italy who sympaalso affirmed that sugar cannot be produced in thized with our practical efforts and controverJamaica under 27 shillings per cwt., while in sies upon the subject of political economy. Cuba 12 shillings is a remunerating price. The Every lawyer, every councillor in Italy, studies motion for a committee to inquire into the con- political economy as part of his education; and dition and prospects of the sugar interests in the hence arises the great interest that was taken West Indies and Mauritius was adopted, and upon that subject, upon which we have been so the committee consists of eleven advocates of long and so arduously engaged in England. It free trade and four protectionists, which fact, has not been from violent outbreaks in Italy together with the explicit declaration of the that the present state of things is coming round. Chancellor of the Exchequer, seem to forbid the Violence and revolution retarded the present expectation that any discriminating duty in fa- progress; but I trace to institutions kindred to vour of free sugar will be laid. The effect of this, though not the same as this-I trace to this admission of slave-grown sugar into Great those institutions all the progress that has been Britain upon the slave trade which that govern- made in Italy; and I join with the worthy ment has so long been endeavouring to suppress, chairman in saying, that it is by the progress of is not alluded to in the summary of the debate the human mind alone that governments can from which this notice is taken. make progress, or that good governments can be maintained at all. I join with him in saying, that at this time public opinion will control governments. I go further, and I say, from my experience in Europe, that there is no such thing as despotism existing, in the old sense of the word; public opinion rules more or less everywhere, the better of course, in proportion as it is the wiser; but give me the compound ratio of the intelligence and the morality of any people, and I will give you the character of their government, no matter what its formation, If you ask me, after my long tour on the continent, what it is that recurs to my memory with the greatest pleasure, I am bound to say it is Italy and the Italians. It is not merely their monumental remains; it is not merely that we have there the proofs that they have twice given civilization to Europe and to mankind; but it is the character of the minds of their most distinguished men of this day. I like intercourse with living minds, and I will pass by the aqueducts, the columns and the ruins, and I say that, amongst the Italians, at the present time, you will find, not in the mass of the people-I would not pretend to say so-but you will find in the Italians some of the most amiable, accomplished and interesting men that are to be found in Europe; and it is those men, and the intercourse I had with them whilst in Italy, which, to tell you frankly, comes back upon my memory with greater pleasure than anything I expe rienced abroad. I argue that, in the present effort which is being made in Italy, you will see it progress just as the people become more and more enlightened. You have there, as you always had, a first-rate quality in the race; and if they are but left to themselves, if they have that privilege which we claim for ourselves, if Richard Cobden, whose name is familiar to many of our readers as the ardent advocate for free trade, has recently returned from a tour on the continent, and has used the occasion of a meeting of a Literary Society in Manchester, to state the result of his observations upon society in some of the countries through which he passed. We take from Chambers' Journal the following remarks in regard to Italy, exhibiting a more favourable view of its social condition than we had been accustomed to take. In Italy, Mr. Cobden went on to say, he had found a new life springing up. "And when I inquired how it was that Italy began to make itself heard and felt in the rest of Europe, I came to the conclusion, from all I could observe, that it arose from the quiet progress of thought and of intelligence arising out of the education of the people. There have been in Italy great efforts made for the education of the people. I found, to my astonishment, in almost every town, several Infant Schools, supported by voluntary contributions, superintended by Italian nobles; and I saw a school at Turin, which a marquis attends daily, and rides upon a hobby-horse with the children, and joins with them in their play. It is an honour to him, and I will mention his name, for I am sure he would not be ashamed to be known to you all: his name is Dazalio, and he is the brother of that Dazalio whose writings you have lately seen upon the present state of Italy. Then you have in Italy now, as you have always had, leading minds, great and powerful individualities in every town; men Italians are left to work out their own regenera- | tyrants, and even of honest men who hold sception, I do not doubt that the people who have tres timorously. But what is gained now will twice given civilization to the world, have the be kept, we trust, until the broad equality of power within themselves again to work out their men is universally acknowledged, and the goown redemption." vernment of God through the people every where It may be proper to keep strictly in view that acknowledged. The position of England in all Mr. Cobden chiefly saw men of rank and edu- these discussions is very grand. Great as is the cation in Italy, and that his remarks apply strict-power of hierarchy in her government, her ly to that class. A friend of his and ours, who has seen much in Italy, deplores that the mass of the people are of very different character. How far Mr. Cobden may have overlooked the state of the masses in forming the agreeable prospects here presented to view, we are unable to say; but we feel only too sure that, till the bulk of the people are improved, all efforts at political regeneration must be greatly liable to disappointment. LIBERTY IN TURKEY. The Sultan of Turkey and his prime minister appear to be great and good men. When the Sultan came to the throne, he issued a declaration which would have done honour to any Christian statesman; and ever since, he has been labouring with his whole soul in accordance with that declaration. None but a great man in heart and head, would have reigned as he has. His treatment of those Armenians who, under the instructions of American Missionaries, have turned away from a Christianity of forms to a Christianity of spiritual life, has been most remarkable. An indolent man, or a fearful man, or even a conservative man, would have thought it wise to know nothing about the matter, but to let the Armenian Patriarch and his church, and the American Missionaries siding with the people or with the Patriarch, settle the affair as they might. But the Sultan has taken the trouble to understand the matter, and the responsibility of delivering his faithful subjects, charged with no crime but heresy, from the hands of their powerful and bigoted oppressors. The scene is one of great interest, and the eyes of the world will be turned upon it. Bible Missionaries from the land of the free, with their earnest pupils around them, on one side; the official representative of an old hierarchy, sustained and urged on by another ecclesiastic, also from the land of the free, persecuting the students of the Bible; and the great Turk taking the side of the few and feeble Bible men, merely because theirs is the side of righteousness! Tyranny must surely be in a poor way when the Sultan and the Pope abjure it: and freedom may lift her persecuted head when they take her hand. The whole world is earnestly engaged in studying the great questions of individual rights and duties, and freedom is recovering back the rights which the violence of usurpation and long ages of superstition have wrested away. Liberty is slowly recovering from the grasp of Cannings and Cowleys, and her representatives generally, take the side of freedom in religious opinion. —Mercury. PHYSIC FOR ILL-HUMOR. A sensible woman of the Doctor's acquaintance (the mother of a young family) entered so far into his views on this subject, that she taught her children, from their earliest childhood, to consider ill-humor as a disorder to be cured by physic. Accordingly, she had always small doses ready; and the little patients, whenever it was thought needful, took rhubarb for the crossness. No punishment was required. Peevishness or ill-temper and rhubarb were associated in their minds always as cause and effects.-The Doctor. DAVID'S OFFERING. rock to David, into the cave of Adullam; and the host In the darkly frowning shadow Bethlehem was strongly guarded, It was noon: the hot winds blowing Oft the monarch's eye had wandered, Thoughts of other days came o'er him, He remembered one pure fountain, "Oh" he said that one would give me Straightway, of his followers faithful, Boldly through the armed hosts breaking, Oft had stooped to drink. Paused they not, those loyal captains, Nor the crystal waters quaffed, But in haste brought back to David Childhood's healing draught. Steadily the monarch eyed it, Pleasant looked the cup to him, "God forbid that I should drink it— "Though athirst and faint, Out upon the parching sod, pour it Thus, what most I loved and longed for, Offering to God." Unto us that deed descendeth Through the ages it hath shone By the shepherd king's uprightness Simple was it, yet how noble, If, amid red scenes of slaughter, Could forego the draught delicious, Shall we, with the countless blessings Do the thing he deemed unholy? Shall we walk in glistering raiment, Through untold oppression gained, When by blood and tears and sorrow, Every thread is stained? Does the glorious gospel message Nothing holier impart, With its words of love and mercy Written on the heart? CONGRESS. In the Senate, Resolutions of the Legislatures of Illinois and New Jersey, in favour of Whitney's Railroad to the Pacific, have been presented; also, resolutions of the New Jersey Legislature, in favour of the improvement of rivers and harbours by the General Government. On the 8th, a petition was presented from inhabitants of Virginia, praying that the proceeds of the sales of public lands might be set apart for the eventual abolition of slavery, by using the sum so obtained for the purchase and manumission of female infant slaves. It was disposed of in the usual manner, by laying the question of reception on the table. The Treaty was under consideration in long Executive sessions of about eight hours average duration, up to the 10th inst., when, after undergoing several important amendments, it was finally.ratified, as is understood, by a vote of 38 to 14. lt will be necessary to transmit it to Mexico, for the ratification of that Government. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.-A bill to relieve the Judges of the Supreme Court from attendance on Circuit duties, during one year, was passed. The object of the bill is to allow the Judges to give their whole attention to the appeal calendar, on which cases have greatly accumulated. The bill to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for the current fiscal year, was passed, 137 to 15. The Government has negotiated a loan of $5,000,000. PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE.-A petition, from sundry inhabitants of Chester and Lancaster counties, was presented to the Legislature, asking for certain changes in the law respecting the Sabbath, proposing that all persons should be left at liberty to observe such days as to them may seem best. This petition being referred to a committee, a report was presented to the House of Representatives, in which the religious obligation of the Sabbath is argued at considerable length, and the following resolution proposed: Resolved, That it is inexpedient and would be wrong to grant the request of the petitioners; and that the committee be discharged from the further consideration of the subject. This resolution being twice read, was adopted by the house. The Magnetic Telegraph from New Orleans to Mobile has commenced operations. YUCATAN. An extensive rising of the Indian population, having for its object the destruction of the white race, has taken place in this Peninsula. It is reported that they have overrun nearly onethird of the territory of the state, slaughtering the inhabitants, destroying the houses, and completely laying waste the country. The greatest excitement and alarm prevailed among the white inhabitants, who were procuring arms and ammunition from Cuba, and making great exertions to defend themselves. |