commencement of the performance, and the entrance of the Lord-Lieutenant gave the signal for the first burst of hisses. As the play proceeded, the disturbance became more outrageous, until at length a bottle, and a fragment of a watchman's rattle, were flung from one of the galleries, in the direction of the vice-regal box. Some gentlemen in the suite of the Lord-Lieutenant immediately flew to the gallery for the purpose of securing the ruffians who had dared publicly to insult the representative of his Majesty; and the peace officers having (tardily) interfered, the most active rioters (including those who threw the above-mentioned missiles) were taken into custody.

23. CHARGE OF CONSPIRACY TO TAKE AWAY THE LIFE OF THE LORDLIEUTENANT.-During the whole of the week preceding this date, the Privy Council have been engaged in investigating all the particulars connected with the attack on the Marquis Wellesley. The investigation was carried on under the direction of the Attorney and Solicitor General. Whilst these examinations were pending, applications were made to admit the persons in custody to bail; but this was refused, and others were subsequently taken into custody. The following persons were fully committed:-Henry Hadwick, George Graham and James Forbes, for having, with divers other persons, feloniously conspired, confederated, and agreed, to kill and murder his Excellency Richard Marquis Wellesley, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Mathew Handwick, William Graham, and William Brownlow, for conspiring to cause a riot, and for having with others actually caused one in the night in question.

The Grand Jury afterwards ignored the bills preferred against Handwick, Graham, and Forbes.

24. LIBEL ON CONSTANT AND THREE OTHER DEPUTIES.---The Court

of Cassation, Section of Requests, has dismissed the complaint of MM. Lafitte, Constant, Keratry, and General Foy against M. Mangin, ProcureurGeneral of the Royal Court of Poitiers, on the following grounds: That the act of accusation contained nothing which could authorise a complaint of calumny; that if the passages complained of in the pleading of the 5th of September were not sufficiently guarded, still they had no character of bad faith or intention to injure, without which there could be no calumny; that the passages relative to those who "secret the treasures of the usurper to bribe insurrections," in which the Sieur Lafitte appeared to be aimed at, was general, and could not be applied to him, since, instead of concealing the funds intrusted to him, he had declared them, and placed them at the disposal of the law. 28. EARTHQUAKES IN SYRIA.

"Near the Ruins of Antioch,

Sept. 13. 1822.

"It has fallen to my lot to relate the particulars of an event that has thrown most of the families of this part of Syria into sorrow and mourning, and all into the greatest difficulties and distress.

"On the 13th August, at half-past nine in the evening, Aleppo, Antioch, Idlib, Riha, Gissa Shohr, Darcoush, Armenas, every village, and every detached cottage in this Pashalic, and some towns in the adjoining ones, were in ten or twelve seconds entirely ruined by an earthquake, and are become heaps of stones and rubbish; in which, on the lowest computation, 20,000 human beings, about a tenth of the population, were destroyed, and an equal number maimed or wounded. The extreme points, where this terrible phenomenon was violent enough to destroy the edifices, seem to be Diarbekir and Merkab, (twelve leagues south of Latuchin), Aleppo, and Scanderoon, Killis and Kahn Shekoon. All within

these points have suffered so nearly equal, except Orfa and Latachia, which have not suffered much, that it is impossible to fix on a central point. The shock was sensibly felt at Damascus, Adeno, and Cyprus.

"To the east of Diarbekir, and north of Killis, I am not well informed how far the effect extended in those radii of the circle. The shock was felt at sea so violently within two leagues of Cyprus, that it was thought the ship had grounded. Flashes of fire were perceived at various times throughout the night, resembling the light of the full moon; but at no place to my knowledge has it left a chasm of any extent, although in the low grounds slight crevices are every where to be seen, and out of many of them water issued, but soon after subsided,

"There was nothing remarkable in the weather or state of the atmosphere. Edifices on the summit of the highest mountains were not safer than buildings situated on the banks of rivers, or on the beach of the sea.

"It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the scenes of horror that were simultaneously passing on the dreadful night of the 13th of August. The awful darkness, the continuance of the most violent shocks at short intervals, the crash of falling walls, the shrieks, the groans, the accents of agony and despair of that long night, cannot be described. When at length the morning dawned, and the return of light permitted the people to quit the spot on which they had been providentially saved, a most affecting scene ensued. You might have seen many, unaccustomed to pray, some prostrate, some on their knees, adoring their Maker. Others were running into one another's arms, rejoicing in their existence. An air of cheerfulness and brotherly love animated every countenance.

"In a public calamity in which the Turk, the Jew, the Christian, the Idolater, were indiscriminate victims, or objects of the care of an impartial Pro

vidence, every one forgot for a time his religious animosities; and what was a still more universal feeling in that joyful moment, every one looked upon the heaviest losses with the greatest indifference. But as the sun's rays increased, they were gradually reminded of the natural wants of shelter and of food, and became at length alive to the full extent of the dreary prospect before them; for a greater mass of human misery has not been often produced by any of the awful convulsions of nature. A month has now elapsed, and the shocks continue to be felt, and strike terror into every breast, night and day. The fear that they may not cease before the rainy season commences, has induced those whose business cannot allow of their quitting the ruins of their towns, instead of rebuilding their houses, to construct temporary hovels of wood without the walls; and many families who thought themselves, before this calamity, straitly lodged in a dozen of apartments, now exult in the prospect of passing the winter in a single room twenty feet square. When it is consider. ed, that two-thirds of the families in Aleppo have neither the means of ma king a long journey to remove to a town, out of the effect of the earthquake, nor of building a shade to keep off the rain, it is impossible to conceive all the misery to which they are doomed the ensuing winter, or ever to find more deserving objects of the compassion and charity of the opulent, whom it has pleased God to place in happier regions of the globe.

"Near the Ruins of Antioch,

Oct. 18. 1822. "Till the 9th inst. slight shocks of earthquakes continued to be felt: since that day they have entirely ceased, but confidence in a continuance of safety from that dreadful calamity is not restored, and although the rains and cold weather render our temporary sheds very inconvenient habitations, nobody is yet inclined to sleep under a roof supported by walls."