pox is the most loathsome and fatal disease that afflicts the human race, it might have been supposed that, when inoculation was first introduced into this country, it would have been adopted with general consent; but unfortunately it was but partially encouraged; in consequence of which, it increased the fatality of the small pax, by increasing infection; insomuch that, during the 42 years after the introduction of inoculation, the deaths in London by the small pox were upwards of 1700 more than in the 42 preceding years. At length, however, the discovery of the cow pock by Dr. Jenner has put it into our power completely to exterminate the small pox; and, from its safety and security, it was natural to conclude, that all parents would feel an ardour to save their children, by gratefully accepting a blessing, which would for ever protect them from the worst species of pestilence. "That this sentiment did very generally prevail, was obvious from the decrease of deaths in the metro. polis; for, from the average number of 2500, it gradually fell to 1200, to 1000, and in 1804 to little above 500 in the year by the small pox.

To the honour of the medical profession, this new discovery, which was calculated to annihilate their greatest pecuniary source of emolument, was very generally encouraged by them. Unfortunately, however, for these kingdoms, two professional gentlemen in this city, the only physicians I believe in the world, not only opposed vaccination, but widely circulated untounded assertions against it, and even advertised gratuitous inoculation for the small pox. These occurrences took place early in 1805; and the

deaths by the small pox hence rapidí increased, and a greater number of infants perished in 40 days, than during the whole preceding year, insomuch that for many successive months there died one infant by the small pox in every two hours, including both night and day. Lamentable is it to add, that the governors of the hospital for inoculation adopted the same practice; and in one year this infectious pestilence was communicated to 2500 persons, and in the vicinity of the most populous city in Europe; thus generating a pestilence, the extent and fatality of which cannot be ascertained; for this pestilence, whilst apparently dormant, retains its active malignancy for a series of years.

"At the moment of adopting this ban ful practice, the governors circulated the following resolution of a general court, That vaccination might, under divine Providence, have prevented the calamity of the increased fatality of the small pox.' After this avowal of a truth, they recommended the inoculation of the small pox, in consequence of the prejudices and ill founded objections against inoculation.' These are their own words and mode of reasoning; and every person would be indulgent to prejudices that do not militate against the safety and hap piness of the community. Like the amiable Fontenelle, I would say, if both my hands were filled with truths,' under such circumstances, I would open but one at a time.' But this does not apply to preju dices, the indulgence of which is productive of public injury; for, if reason were always subservient to prejudice, neither improvement nor reformation would ever have enlightencd the world. When Constantine

the great overcame the prejudices of paganism, and embraced christianity, the Romans pleaded their prejudices in favour of combats by gladiators; but the emperor immediately interdicted them, although they were infinitely less fatal than the small pox. It is indeed a strange climax in our policy, that, whilst we incur a considerable expence in maintaining the laws of quarantine against the infections of the plague and yellow fever, we are at a considerable expence in supporting a public institution for keeping up a pestilence more dangerous and fatal than the plague and yellow fever combined. What should we think of the Egyptians, should they publicly support a pest-house for generating the plague; or the Americans for disseminating the yellow fever? We may hope, however, that the governors of the hospital for inocu. lation, who are persons of the highest respectability, will ultimately discourage prejudices inimical to the community; for, as long as they continue to inoculate the small pox, and give a sanction to the practice, the extermination of this pestilence will never be effected: but, with their support, and our exertions, with those of other similar institutions, we may ultimately witness this happy consummation. This society alone has vaccinated 20.000 persons, and distributed upwards of 20,000 charges of the vaccine fluid, since the last report only. Thus, by its efforts, not only these kingdoms, but nearly all parts of the world, have been supplied with this salutiferous dew of heaven, the good effects of which will, I hope. be related by some person more competent to its history. We are thus be come the centre of communication;

and all nations look up to us for in struction. With these brilliant prospects before us, like a skilful general, who, in order to ensure success, increases his exertions the nearer he approaches to victory; so it becomes us to persevere in the glorious cause we have espoused. And although our expenditure has necessarily exceeded our income, the liberal support and donations we now hope for will enable us to triumph over the most insidious and malignant enemy of the human race."

He

The rev. Rowland Hill then addressed the company, with regard to the salutary effects of vaccination; and to offer a few striking facts that had taken place under his own immediate observation. then said, "I have myself inoculated upwards of 5000 subjects; and I have not failed in a single instance, I have also made every inquiry in all those parts of the country which I have occasionally visited, and I have uniformly received the most favourable and flattering accounts of the good effects resulting from it wherever it has been introduced. It is calculated that not less than 40,000 persons die yearly of that pestilential disease, the small pox; and I think it will well become the legislature to inquire how far men ought to be suffered to be thus the means of killing themselves. It is one of the primary blessings of this island that it is a land of liberty; but it is at the same time a great pity that we should thus have liberty to kill one another. I have felt this sentiment most sensibly; and, in addition to the number I have myself inoculated, I have so warmly recommended the practice in the chapel I possess on the other side of the water, that upwards of 4000 more Dd 4

have

have been inoculated, who have all done well; and thus I may say I have been the means of inoculating 10,000; so that, on the average of one in six dying. I have had the happiness to preserve the lives of about 1600 of his majesty's subjects. Strange to tell, there are persons, and those too men of breeding and education, which ought to have taught them better things; medical men, who, to raise themselves from oblivion, would wish to rise to fame on the ruins of this benevolent institution, and by the continuance of one of the greatest scourges with which human nature was ever afflicted. These men, I am sorry to say, circulate the grossest misrepresenta tions and falsehoods against vaccination, through the medium of low and illiberal pamphlets. One of these redoubtable authors has told us, in the effervescence of his wisdon, that vaccination may be performed as well by a fool as a philosopher.' The number of men who die annually of the small pox in this kingdom would man three ships of the line, form three regiments, or turn into the fields so many hundreds of stout labourers. What a consideration!"

The health of Dr. Jenner having been enthusiastically given; he thus addressed the company: "Gentle men, I beg leave to offer you my most sincere thanks for the honour you have done me in drinking my health, and for the very flattering manner in which that honour has been conferred. After the very ani. mated speech of his royal highness the duke of York, our illustrious chairman, on the subject of vaccination, and the very important information conveyed to us in the admirable oration of my worthy friend

Dr. Lettsom, but little remains for me to say on the subject. I can. not, however, sit down without informing you that I continue to receive from every quarter of the globe the most agreeable information respecting the progress of vac cination; and these accounts have been equally satisfactory from whatever quarter they have arrived. I can safely aver, it would be difficult to point out a spot, however remote, where its influence has not been felt. It has pervaded all parts of the civilized world, from the north to the south; from the Ganges to the Mississippi. But, gentlemen, while I exultingly communicate this intelli gence, equally flattering to your feelings as to mine, it is a matter of great regret to me, that here, in this metropolis, in the very centre of the British empire, vaccination proceeds with a comparatively languid and tardy step. To what cause, gentlemen, can this be ascribed? You will ascribe it to no other than the insidious effects of a few interested individuals, who, by distributing their delusive papers, have too well succeeded in contaminating the minds of the lower orders of society. I will not suffer myself to believe that these effects have been extended beyond this class; and to those who know something of the nature of the human mind, how poor must their triumph appear!-Hitherto I have avoided taking any public notice of the publications alluded to: I have no reason to regret it, as the task of refutation has been so ably performed by many enlightened and philanthropic individuals, both in and out. of the profession. But, gentlemen, a charge of a specific nature having been brought forth in one of these productions, wherein I

am named as having failed in a series of vaccinations in the West of England, I think it a duty incumbent on me now to`declare to you, that not a single individual there mentioned, and who is subsequently said to have had the small pox, was ever vaccinated my me. After this declaration, I leave you to make your own comments on the whole of this very extraordinary publication." This unaffected and interesting address was received with loud and reiterated plaudits.

Mr.Murray the secretary, according to the usual custom, read the report of the annual general court, which stated, that the number of persons inoculated at the central house, and other stations in the metropolis, since the last annual report, is 6,560, making the total, since the commencement of the institution in 1803, 19,471 persons; and that 19,182 charges of vaccine matter had been supplied, free of expence from the central house alone, since the period of the last report; which great supply of vaccine virus much exceeding that of former years, affords a strong presumption that the Jen erian inoculation has considerably increased.

The secretary also read a communication from T. Parry, esq. an East-India director, informing the society, that the practice of vaccine inoculation had been introduced at Macao and Canton in China, under the auspices of an English Mandarin, sir George Staunton, with such success, as to promise to save the lives of millions of people in that extensive empire.

Mr. Ring read an English translation of a Latin letter from Dr. John Reyss, of Mackow, in Poland, addressed to "Dr. Jenner, the il

lustrious exterminator of that pestilential disorder the small pox ;" in which he compliments the doctor highly for his discovery; wishes that joy and festivity may prevail on his birth-day; requests to be enrolled among the honorary members of the society; and "to be favoured with a portrait of Dr. Jenner, and a small slip of cloth of the colour he most delights in, that Dr. Reyss and his friends might be able to wear coats of that same colour on the 17th of May, the birth-day of Dr. Jenner."

The earl of Egremont, one of the earliest and most ardent supporters of vaccination, bore testimony to various misrepresentations and falsehoods circulated in his neighbourhood respecting the practice.

18th. WEYMOUTH.-Last night was landed at the Custom-house the last chest of dollars from the wreck of the Abergavenny, which completed the 62 chests recovered by Mr. Braithwaite, who, with much perseverance and ingenuity, has succeeded. The total of the 62 chests is about 70,0001. value. He is going to proceed immediately on the cargo.

This morning, about ten o'clock, a boy named Francis was drowned off Strand-lane. He was cleaning the top of the cabin of a barge, and fell over-board.

20th. A court of directors of the East-India company was held,at three o'clock, which continued to sit until nine in the evening, to deliberate on the propriety of recalling sir G. Barlow from the seat of government in India, and the appointment of lord Lauderdale in his stead; when a division took place, and there appeared, for the recal of sir G. Barlow and the appointment of

lord

21st. A few days ago, the dairymaid at Bayham Abbey, in Sussex, the seat of lord Camden, threw her. self into the moat, and was drowned. Verdict, lunacy.

The long coach, which conveys passengers from the mail coach of fice in Dublin, to the packets at the Pigeon-house, was stopped this night about ten o'clock, by ten men armed with swords and pistols, who robbed eight passengers, near to the canal bridge. The villains obliged the passengers to come out of the carriage one by one: amongst them were lord Cahir and Mr. George Latouche, whom they robbed of

near 5001.

PROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE.-As capt. Jones, of the royal Flintshire militia, quartered at Hythe, who had that morning accompanied the regiment to field-exercise, on the heights near Folkstone, was standing with several officers, near the edge of the cliffs, the earth suddenly gave way under him; in consequence of which he was instantly precipitated to the distance of 28 yards, in an oblique direction from the top; but was most providentially stopped in his fall, by a small abutment on the surface of the rock, against which his foot accidentally struck. In this dreadful situation he lay suspended near a quarter of an hour, without daring to move, before any effectual assistance could be rendered him. Scarcely, however, had this distressing circumstance occurred, when Thomas Roberts, a private in the regiment, alarmed at the truly perilous condition of his officer, endea. voured, at the obvious risk of his own life, to extricate him ; but, unfortunately, in the attempt, literally

this tremendous precipice, being a distance of 549 feet (of which 261 feet were quite perpendicular.) Providentially, the latter in his fall did not touch the captain, who, anxious to save him, had already extended his hand to him for that purpose. During this interval, a rope was expeditiously procured from the sig nal-house; and a noose being made at one end, it was lowered to the spot where captain J. lay; when he, with much difficulty, succeeded in fastening it round his body; and was thus gradually drawn up by the spectators, who still for some time doubted the possibility of rescuing him; however, at length he happily escaped without having sustained any material injury. The soldier, though terribly cut and bruised in the head and various parts of his body) was taken up alive, and without a single bone being fractured, on the beach, near a stone-quarry, and immediately conveyed to the regimental hospital at Hythe; where, to the utter astonishment of every one, he is now able to walk about, and is declared by the surgeon of the regiment out of all immediate danger. The height of the cliff, having since been accurately taken by an officer of the regiment, is found by actual admeasurement as follows: