time; but, at length without any ceremony, began to speak as to an acquaintance in a very easy familiar manner, about various things and different subjects, and at last begged to know the import of his present visit. The secretary began a formal complaint against the manner in which they had been treated. Their flag had been degraded; the embassy of a great king had been hooted; they had been promised an audience and were deceived; in short, they had been unhandsomely used, and were made laughingstocks for his black subjects. The king listened to him with profound attention, then with a smile rather of the sardonic order, made the following reply. I expected you sooner and remained waiting for you until dinner time. You came not, and I went to dine. You came while I was at table. Now, I must have spoiled my meal by listening to your palaver, or have kept you two or three hours in the sun. I thought it best to dine and to send you home to do so; and really meant no, offence; especially as there was no urgency in your business, and one day would do just as well as another. But now, since you are here, will you tell me candidly the purport of your coming. It shall be nothing to your disadvantage, and we may perhaps come to an understanding without any further trouble; for I hate parade and ceremony.

This was a lesson by which a sensible man would have benefited. He would have seen, at least, that mock pomp and useless ceremony were despised; that the king was either too wise or too ignorant to stoop to vain form and the tirade of unmeaning pageantry in short that he was above etiquette and studied propriety. This plain dealing completely confounded the learned missionary, who found his privilege of arguing or talking suddenly abridged, the honours of public entry cut off, and the whole state and consequence of the embassy annihilated, to his great mortification and disappointment. Nevertheless, though his pride was hurt, his property might yet be secured, and he began and gave in a statement of his demands, as follows::

1st. Permission to establish a factory for the purpose of trade, for the mutual benefit and accommodation of the Ashantees and the British nation, meaning their highnesses and excellencies the missionaries.

2nd. Permission to establish schools, build churches, and preach the soul-saving doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ.

3rd. Modestly requested, that his majesty would totally abolish that foul and most penicious traffic the slave trade, which was the disgrace of the world, a dishonour to God, the cause of much war, injustice, bloodshed, and misery.

These he most humbly presumed and ardently hoped would be granted, and that his majesty would be graciously pleased to countenance the present embassy and grant them an exclusive indulgence to trade with his subjects hoping thereby to teach.

them their duty to God and man and to raise them to the heights of eternal salvation.

The complacent monarch heard him with attention, then looking at him in doubt, as if considering whether he was more knave than fool, after some serious thinking, replied:

Our trade has been heretofore carried on very fairly without the incumbrance of factories, or the assistance of supercargoes, and there has been no complaint. They would be no advantage to either of us. Besides, I am not sure, that my people would suffer white people to dwell among them. We must consider that. As for establishing schools, that I have been thinking about; but there I must consult the disposition and consider the good of my people. But building churches and preaching would do us no good; for I see no kind of benefit arising from the palavering merchants sent to this country from yours. On the contrary, much harm. The people are engaged the best part of their time listening to old stories and nonsense, when they might be much better employed. It brings on bad habits, makes them lazy, fearful and indolent, and when they do work, the missionary preachers contrive to obtain all the profits of the poor black man's labour. As to the abolishing of the slave trade, that is impossible for man to perform; for what God wills must be done, and, indeed, you have done too much towards it already, but God's will be done. Your plea of humanity and of preventing war by the destruction of the slave trade is fallacious. We have ocular demonstration and experience which make fools wise, to set against your foolish and absurd theory. All the reports you make of us, as far as I can learn are absolutely false, and you either designedly or ignorantly utter untruths. Before the abolition of the slave trade, we had many intervals of quietness and harmony among us; but ever since that event, we have not enjoyed a moment's peace! And while your system lasts, we have nothing to expect but war, rapine and bloodshed! These are my sentiments, and that of all my people. You may return in safety, and I would not have you tarry long.

Reader, judge of the missionary's dread and astonishment. He departed with his head on, and the lesson and the embassy produced a book of travels through about ninety miles of the Interior of Africa, written by Mr. Hutton, embellished with coloured engravings, in which you will find what I have written and much more. However, remember, Mr. Hutton's book is a vile catchpenny performance, contains little matter in large bulk, and is a complete literary weed.

The king and the whole of the Ashantees, considered the whole set-out of pious pedlars as a most dangerous gang of spies and hypocrites, and it seems, that they had a narrow, or as they would say, a providential escape with their lives. It steals out in the narrative, that the king is an Arab by extraction, a sensible man

and a true mussulman, which accounts for their not being put to death. By their own account, they fled in the night, and the hardships, miseries, and disappointments which they suffered and met, seem to be a judgment on them and a providential punishment for their pride, duplicity and presumption, for the scheming plan of their monopoly, and the frauds they intended to perpetrate. The Ashantee war followed directly on the heels of this embassy, and whatever the rest of the world may do, I care not; but, I im- . pute all the evils attending it, to this dirty, designing missionary visit.

The missionaries now seem to assume the same aspect and character in the world that the Jesuits once did, and with more barefaced impudence, they openly avow their determination to establish an universal religion. With respect to their meetings, no body can do justice to them but themselves. The united powers of wit, humour and ridicule, could not so completely burlesque their sense, language, sentiments and manners, as a simple report of their proceedings. At a meeting lately held at a bedlam chapel, in Greenwich, to the honour of the subscribers the gang looked very well, had on good clothes, clean linen with brooches in their shirts, rings on their fingers, gold chains and bunches of seals.Some reported the labours they had done and the sufferings they had undergone. Others reported that they were going to perform and to suffer all begged for God's grace and mercy. At length, they hoisted up a young negro-boy on a stool, and bid him to address the company, which he did in the following pretty simple speech. Quoth Quako gazing round:-" O1 wis I had al dese pretty lady in my country, to see my peoples and gif dem money." Vast applause from the simpletons, the whole was an excellent farce.

SHEBAGO.

TO MR. RICHARD CARLILE, FLEET STREET, LONDON.

DEAR SIR,
Aberdeen, Dec. 4, 1825.
THE Friends of Free Discussion in Aberdeen, desire to congratulate you
on your liberation from the Dorchester Bastile. The cruelties and suf-
ferings which you have been made to undergo, they are convinced will not
be in vain. They are of opinion, that your steadiness and honesty as a
good man, and the courage and inflexibility, with which you have advo-
cated the principles, which are calculated to uproot superstition and to
ameliorate the condition of man, have not been without their influence,
even on those in power. We allude to the recent case of Mr. Christopher
and the Jew, and to the treatment of the application made against the
Christian Evidence Society, &c. In behalf of the Friends of Free Dis-
cussion here, I desire to subscribe myself,

Dear Sir, your sincere Friend and Admirer,
GEORGE WEIR.

REGULATION OF PRICES TO TOWN AND COUNTRY
AGENTS.

THERE having been, of late, a variance in our prices, brought about rather by the caprice of others than any of our own, we have resolved to announce, that, with the new year, we shall adopt, in all cases, what are called the regular trade prices. These prices are to allow to the trade a profit of 25 per cent, and give the twenty-fifth book, when that number is taken; so that, in all cases, with the next volume, the trade price of 25 of "The Republican" will be 9s., and we shall not fail to throw the gain into its improvement.

The intended mode of publishing for the Joint Stock Book Company makes this change somewhat imperative, and the greater number of publications which we shall publish in the ensuing year will compensate for the slight loss which some few individuals will meet by this change. Our business has been in a state of confusion, by being driven to two prices, ever since Mr. Cobbett took the wholesale department of publishing his Register into his own hands, and undertook to pay carriage out of the regular trade price. It was Mr. Cobbett, who first deviated from the regular trade price, for, with the exception of catch-penny publications, 25 per cent. was the general, the highest, allowance to the trade. We can do nothing fairly and regularly under the present state of things, and we perceive no fair alternative, but to come up to what is technically termed the Row (Paternoster-row) Prices.

We have now on sale Palmer's Principles of Nature, in large type, stitched, at 3s., and our present collection of his works, in boards, with a portrait, at 5s.

The sheets of "The Koran" are being rapidly printed, and we hope to have the volume completed by the 1st of January. A volume of Clarke's Letters will be also completed with the end of the year in twenty sheets.

Mr. Taylor has published his Oration at 6d. in refutation of Belsham's Evidences of the Christian Religion. A further notice will be taken of this oration, as soon as the editor has sufficient leisure to read it in retirement.

We have also published a table of such writers as have written against superstition, or of such whose names we could collect. The compiler of the table is preparing brief memoirs of such writers. The price of this table is on a fine drawing-paper, ninepence, on a common paper, six-pence. The profits, or rather the author's returns, are given to the moral blasphemers confined in Newgate.

Printed and P. ished by R. Carlile, 135, Fleet Street.

No. 26, VOL. 12.] LONDON, Friday, Dec. 30, 1825. [PRICE 6d.

TO MR. RICHARD CARLILE, LONDON.

I

SIR, Manchester, Nov. 24, 1825. THE following is a reply to some observations calling in question the real existence of Jesus Christ, contained in "The Republican," dated Friday, Oct. 14, 1825. I expect that you will either publish in "The Republican," or reject, the whole and every part of this reply. You have long been clamorous for opponents. have thought it my duty to expose the errors and falsehoods of which you have been guilty in the paper above alluded to. On this point, therefore, you have an opponent. But from opposing you on this subject I shall not hold myself bound to discuss with you whatever established truth you may choose to impugn. The reason is, I have not time; nor, indeed, can I permit myself at present to be led from this particular subject to the defence of the evidences of Christianity in general. They are before the public, and it is well for every one if he studies them before he renounces human nature's best solace and support. My aim is to destroy your conjectures. This once effected, the evidences of Christianity retain their former power. I am not to prove what is already certain, but to confute groundless suppositions or flimsy argumentation. In perusing this paper you will find yourself charged with error and falsehood. The first is in many cases venial. But whether or not the errors of which you are convicted are of this nature must be left to the decision of our readers. If I am to suppose you a man of learning, many of your errors are most reprehensible;-if not, still you cannot be free from blame, because in some instances the means of correct information were easily accessible. I most deeply regret, that I have been constrained to charge you with falsehood, but I believe that you are guilty; I must call things by their proper names, the claims of truth are paramount. I can scarcely flatter myself that my reply is free from error. It has been written in great haste. Yet I have endeavoured to make it correct, and given you and your readers the opportunity to verify my statements.* Greatly as I detest the principles which have iminured you in a dungeon, I still more deplore your unhappy state of mind," without God, without hope in the world." Wishing you, with all my heart, a By reference to standard authorities.

**

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 135, Fleet Street.