About eight years ago the calamities, occasioned by the war in different
provinces of Germany, gave rise to a Subscription and the formation of a
Committee in London, to relieve the distresses on the Continent. By the
generosity of the British Public, and with the aid of several
respectable Foreigners resident in this country, the sum of nearly
50,000_l._ was remitted to the Continent, which rescued multitudes of
individuals and families from the extremity of distress, and the very
brink of ruin. The Committee received, both from Germany and Sweden, the
most satisfactory documents, testifying that the various sums
transmitted had been received and conscientiously distributed; but at no
period since the existence of this Committee has the mass of every kind
of misery been so great, in the country to which their attention was
first directed. Never has the cry of the distressed Germans for help
been so urgent, their appeal to British benevolence so pressing, as at
the present moment. Who could read the reports of the dreadful conflicts
which have taken place in Germany, during the last eventful year; of the
many sanguinary battles fought in Silesia, Lusatia, Bohemia, Saxony,
Brandenburg, and other parts; and peruse the melancholy details of
sufferings, almost unexampled in the annals of history, without the most
lively emotions? Who could hear of so many thousands of families
barbarously driven from Hamburg, in the midst of a severe winter; of so
many villages burnt, cities pillaged, whole principalities desolated,
and not glow with ardent desire to assist in relieving distress so
multifarious and extensive? _To the alleviation of sufferings so
dreadful; to the rescue of our fellow-men, who are literally ready to
perish: the views of the Committee are exclusively directed._ Many
well-authenticated afflicting details of the present distress having
been, on the 14th Jan. 1814, laid before the Committee, it was
immediately resolved, in reliance on the liberality of the British
public, to remit, by that post, the sum of _Three Thousand Five Hundred
Pounds_, to respectable Persons, with directions to form Committees of
Distribution at the several places following:--
1. To Leipsic and its vicinity, L500
2. To Dresden and its vicinity, 500
3. To Bautzen and its vicinity, 500
4. To Silesia; on the borders of which, seventy-two
villages were almost entirely destroyed, 500
5. To Lauenburg, Luneburg, and the vicinity of Harburg
in Hanover, 500
6. To the many thousands who have been forced from their
habitations in Hamburg, 1000