French Protestants.

This important circumstance cannot fail to make a powerful impression on the minds of all, who feel the value of knowledge and religion:-it speaks in accents not to be mistaken, and it calls upon every Protestant in Britain to look with the tenderest anxiety towards the Protestants of France. Protestant Dissenters surely will be the first to support, and the last to abandon their principles and their brethren!-The Committee respectfully request all their friends to imitate that liberality by which so many are already distinguished.

Collections and Donations received since the last Publication.

Red Cross Street.

2 00

Contributions will be received by the Rev. T. Morgan, Williams's Library,

R. WILLIAMS, Printer, Clerkenwell.

FRENCH PROTESTANTS.

THE period is not yet arrived when the COMMITTEE of the DISSENTING MINISTERS can relax in their exertions, or recommend to the Public indiffer euce and inaction, without sacrificing the Protestants of France and the general interests of Freedom and Religion,

Convinced that they should have betrayed the cause of truth, by confiding in the false or partial representations of an enslaved press, and by waiting till it should be the pleasure of persecutors to give publicity to their own system of crimes and oppression, the Committee bave persevered in their endeavours to obtain information on the real character of past events, and on the present condition of the objects of their solicitude. In these endeavours they have succeeded beyond their expectation; and have received abundant and perfect conviction of the dreadful calamities to which Protestants, as such, have been exposed, and of the wily and cruel machinations which are still cmployed to suppress their complaints, to pervert the truth, and to maintain a persecuting domination over their spiritual and temporal interests. From the most respectable sources of correspondence, and the testimony of eye witnesses, with some of whom (fugitives from the horrors which still possess their imaginations, and which have reduced them from comfort aud independence to servitude and poverty) they have had the melancholy gratification of personal intercourse, every evidence that eveu Prejudice itself would demand, has been furnished to the minds of the Committee.

They are morally certain, from the evidence of facts, that it is religious animosity which has enkindled that desolating fire; the progress of which they have been anxious to arrest, and the ravages of which they are labouring to repair. They know that the first victims of massacre and pillage were warm and acknowledged royalists, that peaceable and unoffending persons have been murdered, distinctly, because they were Protestants, on no other ground, and without any other charge: that upwards of an hundred persons (of whom they have already had information) have abjured the Protestant faith, as the price of liberty and life: that the letters sent to this country, professedly to deprecate" foreign interference," have expressed the very reverse of the real feelings and wishes of the sufferers, and have been obtained by the arts and power of the French authorities: that similar papers have been, in some instances refused, and in others the sanetion of a Consistory has been given in the public papers to instruments signed only by one individual, contrary to the declared sentiments of the Ministers of the Consistory and the members of the Church.

Alarmed by the spirit which this country has displayed, and checked by the light which has been thrown on their conduct by the Committee, the persecutors have betaken themselves to methods more wary and insidious, but most dangerous to the prosperity and existence of the Reformed communion; and it is to the continued and undiminished exertions of British Christians that they turn for consolation and relief.

The Committee, therefore intreat those who may not have contributed to the fund, from which they are taking safe and effectual methods to administer support to the Protestants of France, no longer to resign themselves to the influence of ignorant, prejudiced, or designing parties, but to aid the Committee in the sacred cause, in which, unawed by clamour, and unmoved by defection, they feel themselves compelled to persevere.

From a large mass of Communications, the Committee can only insert the following extracts, which will prove how far the exertions of Britons are appreciated in France.

From the letter of an eminent minister in the South.

27th January, 1816. — “I have been waiting an opportunity of sending by sea, as one dare not put letters in the post. If letters contain some particulars which may be useful to you, you will understand that in making use of them, you must suppress the names of the parties who transmit them. The greater part of the pastors, terrified by what they have seen in the public papers, dare not boldly declare themselves, especially after some individuals, through fear or ambition, had commu. nicated your Circulars to the civil administrators, who have dictuted the answer to be made, and have inserted it in the public papers.

'The open persecutions have ceased, for the present, in Languedoc, but dark

1

French Protestants.

secret machinations continue against the Protestants. Of this you have a proof in the change of their religion by many poor families of Nismes. The principal manufacturers, Protestants, have fled from the scene of carnage; the poor workpeople, who have not the means of quitting the country, are obliged to seek work of the Catholic manufacturers, and many of these have refused it to those who would not embrace the Catholic religion, or have severely menaced them. Such is the cause of this public abandonment of the truth!

"In many places the temples are still shut up.

"Many Protestants, in the unfortunate country round Nismes, suffer the extreme of misery.

"If you have succours to communicate to them, there must be great precautions taken by the persons who devote themselves to execute the act of charity, that they may not be molested by the agents of government, or the fanatics.

"At Montauban, the Protestants have often been menaced; but to this moment, owing to their prudence and moderation, they have not been able to find an occasion to provoke them to quarrel.

"The schools experience difficulties-the Catholic clergy are stirring themselves to embarass them; but if the school at Paris can maintain itself for some time, the number of masters which it will form, will, in the end, distribute themselves in every part of France.

"We are perfectly convinced that the efforts of our brethren, and the interference of their government with ours, have been very advantageous to the cause of the Protestants, and that their continuance must be very useful; though, by the reply made to the Duke of Wellington, he was led into an error, which is the cause that, in his letter of 28th of November, he has affirmed some things which are entirely false, and denied others, the truth of which is well known to the Protestants of the South. May God Almighty support your Christian zeal, and give it a happy issue for the advancement of his glory, and the protection of our brethren in Jesus Christ!" A Correspondent, whose authority is of the highest importance, writes as follows:February 6, 1816.

"The Protestants are now tolerably tranquil, externally; but every cause of uneasiness remains. I will answer on my head that political 'differences of opinion have only been the excuse, - the religion and respectability of the Protestants being the real cause of their sufferings. The assassins of peaceable citizens walk abroad with unparalleled assurance, and recount their deeds of blood with diabolical pride! Not one of the murderers has been condemned; and the arrest of Trestallion has cost the generous La Garde his life.

"If political opinion were the real cause, why has the storm fallen on the Protestants alone? Why, when they could have revenged themselves on the murderers of their brethren, did they remain tranquil, although daily exposed to the same dangers and the same fate? We are told that tranquillity is restored, and that all has been hushed; but, in most places, the Protestants have been disarmed, and the weapons placed in the hands of their Popish neighbours. The authorities, who shut their eyes to all the atrocities committed, and who suffered the pillage and massacre of the Reformed, without one repressive measure, are yet the same. Now and then indeed, a weak and perfidious proclamation, exhorting to order, but at the same time lavish in praise to the national guard (perpetrators of the crimes) for their fidelity and royalism; but too much excites the fears of those who have escaped the sword of the assassin and the spoliation of a banditti. Those who have been imprisoned, some hundreds, solicit in vain a public trial; and when they ask to be released, are given to understand, that money or apostacy is the only price at which they can obtain their liberty.

-

"Everywhere the same cruelties are not practised as in the Gard; but where are not the Reformed despised, shut out from all places of profit and trust, and denied in fact all the advantages promised them by their constitutional charter? Protestant Mayors of towns or villages have been displaced, no one dares confide to the post his sentiments, ministers dare not correspond, and at their peril refuse to write as they are ordered, The sufferers are afraid of their own voice when they speak of their woes, No one dares write, no one dares speak →no one dares complain! The storm has fallen on the property of the rich and

the lives of the poor, several thousand families are without work and without bread, trade and manufacture, almost wholly in the hands of Protestants, in the city of Nismes, are annihilated, — all the rich who have fled, dare not return; and for the most part establish themselves elsewhere. Push, push on the business, -if you cease to make exertions they are undone !

"Above 600 persons have been victims to murderous bigotry, — some of the principal houses in Nismes have been burnt to the ground, — above 50 pillaged, and others nearly demolished!

"Olivier, sinking under the weight of years, and Juillerat remain; but the other pastors have not hazarded to return. Not a public print in France dares stand forth the champion of the oppressed, and not one legislator dares raise his voice in their defence. I have every reason to believe, that a Protestant, a Frenchman, especially if a sufferer, would be denied a passport for England!

"The Post-Office is under a strict iuquisition, and every liberal-minded individual under the inspection of the Police. From this you may judge of the state of tranquillity here for your afflicted brethren, and at the same time you may account for the want of information on the subject in England. I learn that a certain Society has abandoned all interference in the business. They have done us more harm than good, La rue croix rouge is a terrible name here, and the champions of religious liberty will be finally rewarded. Adieu.”

A pious Minister has expressed his feelings in a letter, for which there is only room for the following extract:

January, 1816.

"The sentiment of gratitude is the only one which I shall, and perhaps which I ought, to express to you. Yes, honorable and beloved brethren, I thank you with all my soul for your charity, and the fruits which it has produced for the support of religious liberty, and the temporal consolation of many thousands of Christians. Enlightened by the word and Spirit of the Lord, you do not regard as strangers these Christians in their trials; but you consider them and treat them as the servants of God, and brethren in Jesus Christ. Your conduct in this is that of citizens of Heaven, you are angels of mercy, who come to arrest and to repair the ravages of mortals, who have shewn themselves by their works to be true demons."

The Committee have published, during the present Month, a pamphlet, entitled "NOTES, intended as Materials for a Memoir on the Affairs of the Protestants of the Department Du Gard," containing most important iuformatton; aud which may be had of all the booksellers.

Many Contributions have been received too late for insertion.

WILLIAMS and BIRTLES, Printers, Clerkenwell.