TRADE AND COMMERCE.-The reports from the manufacturing districts are very cheering. In most of these seats of industry there is full employment for the labourers, and in some the demand for labour exceeds the supply. The orders are large, both for home consumption and exportation; and as these have grown progressively, from a state of most appalling inactivity, there is every reason to hope that the effects of that tremendous shock which about two years since seemed to threaten destruction to our commerce and manufactures, have passed away; and that the national prosperity will soon be restored and generally felt.

The importation of foreign wool has exceeded that of any preceding year of peace, and as very little of this is exported again in a raw state, it proves the flourishing situation of this manufacture. The quantity imported from New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land continues to increase, and attest the great improvement of those colo

nies.

AGRICULTURE. The mild state of the weather during the winter has been particularly favourable to the preservation and application of green food; and the general state both of herd and the flock is exceedingly good; the fall of lambs large and with very

little loss; and the ewes in a state to afford them a full supply of nourishment. The operations of the spring quarter have been carried on with great success, and warm weather is alone wanting to give the most promising appearance to every kind of vegetation. The wheat in particular exhibits the unfavourable effects of cold winds and frosty nights. In a tour of several hundred miles, which we have just finished, we remarked this every where; yet the plant is neither thin nor feeble, but it wants warmth, the beams of the sun and a genial atmosphere.

FRANCE. The Government of this country continues to augment her warlike preparations. The force now collected at Toulon is large, including a fleet of ships of war, a large convoy of transports and store-ships and land forces, in number more than twenty thousand of all arms. The destination is avowedly Algiers, where the Dey appears by no means intimidated. His corsairs are sent out in every direction, and with the most annoying intentions to the subjects of France.

The revenue is reported to exceed the estimates of the past year, but the demands for the public service of the ensuing year are such as to induce the Government to invite proposals for a

new loan of four millions of rentes, i. e. a loan whose interest shall amount to that sum.

SPAIN. The King has not returned to Madrid. The disorders and tumults which have so long disturbed this fine country still continue. Discontent, violence, and oppression prevail every where, but without any regular impulse, or powerful effect, to raise one party to such influence as might crush the other, and secure one system of rule. Yet, amidst all this weakness and misrule, attempts are making to set Don Carlos, the brother of Ferdinand, on the throne of Mexico:-A fleet is preparing at Cadiz, and transports are taking up at Bourdeaux, to transport the forces which have been long collecting in Cuba, avowedly for this purpose.

The

PORTUGAL.-The first violent measures having been carried, delays which might have been anticipated, have arisen; nor is the future administration likely to be one of ease. constitutional party, though suppressed, is not weak, either in Lisbon or Oporto, and means are found to hinder what cannot be prevented. The absolute party, weak in talents, and men habituated to business, have not been able to fill the necessary offices; and constitutionalists have been compelled to remain in their functions in spite of their inclinations. The government is distressed for money, and finds its efforts paralyzed for want of it. The constitutional hymn is prohibited, and the Chamber of Deputies dissolved. The energy of the British minister has calmed the apprehensions of our fellow subjects there.

TURKEY AND HER CONNEXIONS.— These continue to be deeply interesting, but involved in great obscurity. That the ultimate views of Britain, France, and Russia, for the liberation and protection of Greece, remain unchanged, we have no doubt; some alteration in the means by which that is to be received is required; and some other nations have manifested an evident intention of interference. Austria is moving her troops towards Servia, and in considerable numbers, but without any alarm to the Sultan. Prussia has reinforced her army, with a new levy of sixty-five thousand men,

and appears in close connexion with her last-mentioned neighbour.

The Sultan has conceded an armistice to the Greeks, who under their President the Count Capo d'Istria, are exerting themselves to suppress piracy, (a crime no less injurious to their existence than to the commerce of the States of civilized Europe,) and to regulate their internal state.

The permanency or final benefit of this armistice may be doubted, especially whilst Ibrahim Pacha, with his Arabs, remain in the country. From thence he contrives, as he can find opportunity, to convey his wretched captives as slaves to Egypt; nor have the commanders on that station been able to prevent the one by force, or obtain the restoration of the other by treaty.

In the mean time, the ferocious character of the Sultan is not in the least altered. The Christians in Constantinople have been required to submit themselves to the Greek and American patriarchs there, of the Sultan's appointment or approbation; and their refusal has been followed with banishment. Many thousands, whose religious creed differed from these standards, have been driven in the most complete state of destitution and misery, into the interior of Asia Minor.

The centre of all the Turkish preparations for war is Adrianople; no body of forces has been pushed beyond the Danube; the banks of that river seemed destined to be the theatre of hostilities, and thither the troops, lately acting against the Greeks, can with great facility direct their march. The extent of Turkish territory north of the Danube must instantly fall under the dominion of the Czar, who has appointed the Governor of Odessa to the government of these provinces a very wise measure, whether they are occupied for a longer or shorter period.

The embarrassments of the Turkish government from the want of money is extreme. The farther depreciation of the circulating medium has been resorted to, and a new coinage, 15 per cent. less in value, has been issued. The Turkish zequin now current is of exactly half the value of that circu lated thirty years ago.

UNITED STATES.-The official report of the state of the finances is very promising, and asserts that the whole of the public debt now in existence

will be paid off by the year 1835, by the continuance of the grant of ten millions of dollars, annually appro priated for that purpose.

A very misrepresented statement of the Bishop of Durham's speech upon the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts having appeared in most of the papers, we deem it right to present our readers with the more accurate transcript, put forth in the Mirror of Parliament.

"MY LORDS, on a question of such a kind, and of such importance to the great interests of Church and State, as that which is now before us, your Lordships will probably not be surprised that more than one of the episcopal bench should be desirous of offering their opinions; and although much of what I might have been disposed to say has been anticipated by the Most Reverend Prelate who spoke earlier in the debate, and by the Right Reverend Prelate who has just sat down, yet, considering not only the magnitude of the question itself, but the manner in which it has been treated, both in and out of Parliament, by its advocates on the one hand, and its opponents on the other, I cannot but feel anxious briefly to state to your Lordships the grounds and reasons of the vote I intend to give.

"My Lords, I have laboured with great earnestness and sincerity to satisfy myself that the measure now proposed may be acceded to, with safety and with credit to the Established Church. And I should have had less difficulty in bringing myself to that persuasion (as at length I have done), had not some of the advocates of the Dissenters, and the Dissenters themselves, in their petitions to Parliament, and other accredited documents, grounded their pretensions upon certain abstract rights, to which I cannot possibly accede. It has been assumed, that it is a natural, inherent, and inalienable right, belonging to every member of the community, to be

deemed eligible to offices of trust and power in the state, without regard to his religious opinions; and even if his opinions be diametrically opposite to those which the state has adopted as its own. Such a principle as this can only be admissible in some state of society wholly different from that in which we are placed; in some imaginary state, some Utopian commonwealth, or, rather, in some state antecedent to the formation of any regular government whatsoever. In a state like ours, where, for ages, there has subsisted an established mode of government, founded upon principles altogether opposite to these notions, I conceive that all such reasoning on them is misplaced and irrelevant; nor can it be necessary on this occasion to attempt to refute them. In themselves, I hold them to be altogether fallacious and visionary; and if they were ever to be advanced in this House as fit topics of discussion, I should be ready to encounter them. But, at present, they need not be even taken into consideration; nor shall I waste either your Lordships' time or my own, with any further notice of them. Any trouble of this kind is indeed spared (and I am glad that it is so) by the very Bill itself now brought before us; the preamble to which distinctly and unequivocally recognises the true and only sound principle on which the whole discussion should rest. The preamble sets forth, that the Protestant Episcopal Church of England is established permanently and inviolably. This is the principle which I mean, therefore, to assume in the present inquiry. I ask no more, and I can be content with nothing less.

"It is impossible, however, my Lords, to separate this question from historical evidence. But my Right Reverend Friend has gone so fully into this part

of the subject, that I need not do more than take a very general and cursory view of it. It will be sufficient to remind your Lordships (and it is the one main point on which I would insist), that the history of our country clearly shows the connexion between religion and government, the inseparable alliance between Church and State, to have been the fundamental basis of our political constitution from its earliest periods-certainly, ever since we have been a Christian community. Your Lordships well know what was the state of the case from the sixth to the sixteenth century, during the domination of Papal power. I need not enumerate the statutes against heresy during that period, nor the various coercive measures adopted, to prevent any one from moving even his little finger against the authority of the Church of Rome-measures and enactments somewhat more oppressive than mere exclusion from offices of trust and power. Thank God, those times are past; but we may be thankful also, that those who liberated this country from such tyranny and oppression, did not, in so doing, discard religion from its place, nor separate it from its union with the State. It was the glory of the Protestant Reformation in this country, or rather, I should say, it was its peculiar felicity, providentially so, that it was enabled to preserve the Church entire, and to maintain its connexion with the State, by uniting both under one supreme head-the Sovereign of the realm. In this respect, few, if any, of the foreign churches that embraced the Reformation experienced the same advantages. These advantages, my Lords, might have been continued, by the exclusion of Papists only from office, had not dissatisfied and turbulent spirits arisen between that period and the Restoration, by whom the church and the monarchy were overthrown. On the Restoration, it was found necessary to exclude these also. Thence arose the Test laws, which, whether or not they were, in the first instance, directed chiefly against the Papists, were certainly, afterwards, by the Toleration Act, applied to the exclusion of Protestant Dissenters also. At the Revolution, the great statesmen who placed

King William on the throne, found it necessary to renew and re-establish the connexion between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the State, and to determine that such connexion should be permanent and inviolable: not only to ward off present and immediate dangers, but effectually to guard against the recurrence of such evils as has been, for so long a time, experienced.

"It appears, then, my Lords, that these Acts, now so much spoken against, originated really in statenecessity, using that term in its proper and most favourable acceptation. They were, in truth, measures of self-defence

defence, that is, of the constitution itself, and, consequently, of the best interests of the whole community. And thus matters have continued to the present day. The Established Church is still an integral part of the constitution, and under this system our country has attained to the highest degree of national prosperity. Nor is it difficult to discern why our Protestant Episcopal Establisment has obtained this preference and ascendancy; experience having amply proved, that it is, of all others, the best adapted to the political form of Government with which it is united, and best harmonizes with all its civil institutions.

"Upon this principle, my Lords, it is evident that the Test laws were founded. From the evils that had been experienced, both before and after the Reformation, it was deemed necessary to confine offices of power and trust to members of the Established Church. And this being determined upon, the sacramental test was resorted to, simply as the most direct and unequivocal evidence of church-membership. There was, evidently, no intention to compel any man to take the sacrament against his conscience: but it was conceived, that every person in communion with the Church, must be in the habit of performing that duty, and could have no difficulty or scruple in complying with it. And when viewed simply in this light, I own I cannot regard it as deserving of all that obloquy and vituperation that have been cast upon it. I have no great partiality, my Lords, for this particular test; but I cannot help saying thus much, to rescue from

measure.

unmerited and unmeasured reproach, some of the greatest and best men who have vindicated this, now so obnoxious, My Lords, when I find such men as Bishop Sherlock, with a host of others, only lesser luminaries than himself, coming forward in its defence, I am inclined to pause before I join in ascribing to it all the profanation and impiety which have been charged upon it. And whoever reads the masterly tract of Bishop Sherlock upon the subject, will find that, in his defence of it, not a trace can be discovered of irreverence towards that solemn and sacred ordinance. Yet, my Lords, as I have just said, I am not disposed to uphold the use of this ordinance for such purposes. Were it only used by persons in communion with our Church, or by persons accustomed to use it, independently of any secular object, no profanation, perhaps, could fairly be charged upon it; and I should be at a loss to perceive the harm of merely producing a certificate that it had been so performed. But this is, evidently, no longer the case. It is no longer a decisive proof of church-membership, nor, indeed, was it ever entirely so, since there were many conscientious Dissenters, in former times, who did not object to receiving this sacrament in our church. We know also, that it is continually taken (if at all), merely as a qualification for office, and not unfrequently, it is to be feared, under circumstances that indicate even an intentional desecration of it. Its continuance, therefore, certainly may give occasion to scandal and offence; and I believe a great majority of our own clergy feel this so strongly, as to be far from disinclined to abandon it, and to provide some less exceptionable substitute in its stead.

"The substitute, my Lords, proposed in this Bill, is a political, instead of a religious test-not proving churchmembership, but disclaiming hostility to the Church. Its primary object, however, is the same that of giving security against injury or molestation to the established religion of the State; which is to be done by a prescribed form of words, instead of a religious rite. How far the declaration, as it now stands, may be deemed sufficient for that purpose, or what other pro

visions or amendments in the Bill may be desirable for carrying it more completely into effect, may be points for consideration when the Bill goes into a Committee. At present, my Lords, I confess, the greatest security I look to, in the Bill, is that which is contained in its preamble. So distinct and positive an affirmation, by the two Houses of Parliament, and, eventually, by the Sovereign himself, (should this Bill pass into a law), that our Protestant Episcopal Church is established permanently and inviolably, cannot, I should hope, but have its due weight upon the public mind. It will show that, in the view and intention of the legislature, this union of the Church with the State, as an integral part of the constitution of the realm, is not to be disturbed. I conceive, also, that the declaration itself, to be taken by the parties concerned, ought, in fair construction, to be understood, in connexion with the preamble, as pledging the individual to an acquiescence in that acknowledgment.

"My Lords, I have made these observations, from the anxious desire of not being considered, by my concurrence in this measure, as compromising this great and fundamental principle. And I am the more anxious in this respect, from a firm conviction that, under Providence, the Church of England is, at this moment, and has been, ever since the Reformation, one of the strongest bulwarks of pure Christianity, not only in this country, but throughout the Christian world. But, in claiming thus much for our national Church, I do not mean to disparage or depreciate the pretensions of those who separate from us. I cannot forget what obligations we owe to them in literature, in arts and sciences, in religion, in biblical criticism, and even in government itself. No one can more willingly recognise these services than I do. Many such there have been among them, and many such, I trust, there still are. Yet, I persuade myself, that such men, when not under the influence of agitators unlike themselves, will be most ready to allow the necessity of upholding that fabric of civil and ecclesiastical polity which has so long subsisted among us, even for their own sakes. They cannot be so