Indiana Republican, Volume 2, Number 83, Madison, Jefferson County, 11 July 1818 — Page 2

its inscription was seen on board by Dr. Gregory. It would seem indeed that the northern part of the east coast of Greenland has been approached at various times by different nations Dutch, Danes and English Hudson in 1607, saw the coast nearly in the same latitude, as that where Driscole is supposed to have landed; and actually sent a boat on shore in 80 deg. 9 min. It is from Hudson's 'Hold with Hope,' in about .70 deg. to cape Farewell that the ice fixed itselt to the land from which it has recently been detached. That this is the case we can 3tate from the best authority : intelligence was received at Copenhagen, from Iceland in September last, of the ice having broken foose from the opposite - coast of Greenland, and floated away to the southward, after surrounding the shores and filling all the bays and creeks of that island: and this afflicting visitation was repeated in the same year, a circumstance hitherto unknown. It would be a waste of words to enter into any discussion of the diminution of temperature which must necessarily be occasioned by the proximity of great mountains and islands of ice. The authentic annals of Iceland describe that island as having once been covered with impervious woods; and numerous places still bear the name of " Forest'' which produce only a few miserable stunted birches of five or six feet high, and in which all attempts to raise' a tree of any kind have for ages proved unavailing. The most intelligent travellers, who in our time, have visited this island bear testimony to the fact of large logs of wood being dug out of the bogs, and found between the rocks and the valleys. It is also said that good culinary vegetables were once procured on it ; but the cabages seen there by Mr. Hooker, in the month of August, were so diminitive that a half crown piece would have covered the plant. Nothing but a deter, ioration cf climate could have wrought those changes ; and this can only be explained by a vast increase of floating ice, which says Hooker not only fills all the bays but covers the sea to that extent from the shore, that the . eye cannot trace its boundary from the summit of the highest mountains.' Sometimes it connects the island in one continued mass with Greenland, when the white bears come over in such ali:iiiing numbers that the inhabitants 'assemble and wage a national war against them. These masses of ice drive about with such rapidity, and rush against one another with so much violence that, the wood brought along with them is said sometimes to take fire by the friction. Durthis conflict, the weather is unsettled and stormy ; but when the ice becomes once fixed to the land, the air " thickens, and dense fogs accompanied by a dense moist and penetrating cold, destioy all vegetation, and the catth peiish. If such be the facts, and they cannot well be questioned with regard to these countries, it is o

ouallv clear that our own climate,

though in a less degree, must have been affected by this vast accumulation of ice on the cast coast of Greenland. The distance between the centre of Iceland, and Edinburg, is not more than twice, and that from Iceland to London, not above three times, the distance between Iceland and the east coast of Greenland. That our climate has been mhre particularly affected, in the course of the last three years, by the descent of the ice into the Atlantic, & more especially in the summers of the years 1816 and 1J17, is a matter of record ; for on comparing, by the meteorological regis-' ter of the royal society, the four summer months, May, June, July, and August, of 1805, .1806, and 1807, with the four corresponding months of the last three years, it will be seen that a verv consid4 erable diminution of temperature has taken place in the latter periods. The invention of the thermometer and the registry of the temperature are of too recent a date to enable us to compare the state of the, atmosphere, before and after the accumulation of ice on the coast of Greenland; and there are reasons 'for believing, that previously to the fifteenth century, England enjoyed a War

mer summer than since that period. It is sufficiently apparent that, at one time, vineyards were very common in England; and that wine, in very considerable quantity, was made from them. Tacitus states, that vineyards were planted by the Romans in Britain; and Holinshed quotes the permission given by Probus to the natives to cultivate the vine, and make wine from it. The testimony of Bede, the old notices of the tithe on wine, which were common in Kent, Surrey, and other southern countries the records of suits in the ecclesiastical courts the inclosed patches of ground attached to numerous abbeys, which still bear the name of vineyards the plot of ground called East Smithtield, which was converted into a vineyard, and held by four successive constables of the tower, in the reigns of Rufus, Henry and Stephen, to their great emolument and profit,' seem to remove all doubt on this ' question. The Isle of Ely was named, in the early times of the JMornians, ' He dc Vignes,' the the bishop of which received three or four tons of wine, yearly, ' for his tenth. So late as the reign of Richard II. the little park at Windsor was appropriated as a vineyard, for the use of the castle ; and William of Malmesbury asserts, that the vale of Gloucester produced in the twelfth centuryas good wine as many of the provinces of France. To us a prospect far more gloomy than the mere loss of wine had begun to present itself by the increasing chilliness of our summer months. It is too well known that there was not suflicient warmth in the summer of 18 16 to ripen the grain ; and it' is generally thought that if the ten or twelve days of hut weather at the end of June last had not occurred,

most of the corn must have perished. From these melancholy prospects, however, we feel ourSelves considerably relieved. We think it is not unreasonable to presume that our summer climate (and winter too when the wind blows from the western quarter)

may henceforward improve; tor though we are aware that the changes of temperature depend on a variety of causes, yet the single effect of an atmosphere chilled and condensed over a surface of at least 50,000 square miles of ice, rushing directly upon the British islands from the westward, may have equalled all the rest in its diminishing power.

MADISON,

July 11, 181ft.

Pensacola Tat en. Nashville, June 16. A gentleman immediately from the army states that general Jackson having obtained full proof that the Spanish authorities at Pensacola, had been active in fomenting the Seminole war, had issued ammunition and rations to the hostile Indians, and had made that post a kind of rallying point for them, whilst vessels bearing the American flag, loaded with provisions for his suffering troops were forbid to pass up the Escambia, he determined to prevent the renewal of the scenes of carnage and savage barbarity heretofore witnessed on the frontier (which were to be expected as soon as the army was disbanded) by first removing the Spaniards from the country. With a part of the army he proceeded to effect this object, he was fired on by the garrison and two of his men killed, he immediately invested the fort, which after a tremendous cannonade surrendered. The general obtained an immense number of field pieces, small arms and ammunition, he garrisoned the fort, and sent the Spanish governor &c. to Cuba. The arrival of the American troops at Pensacola was hailed with joy by the inhabitants real property rose in three days three hundred per cent. The time consumed in repairing the works at Pensacola, and arranging the government, &c. will delay the return of our fellow citizens to their homes a few days. General Jackson is with the volunteers, and will be in Columbia about the 25th inst. where he means to discharge and pay them off. On the 3d inst. he was at fort Montgomery. We rejoice that the war has been so happily terminated. In three weeks from collecting his supplies, the general has overrun West Florida, and cut up the. hones of the Seminole Indians.

He returned to St. Marks, , sen -forward tr P . ' r

took DOSSCSSlon nf W i '

vi me wuiicti orates, 'ihe is important, not onlv ,e J

quisition to the country

"""uyiiig a rallying poiIltvll our enemies, savage and dvifiz have enjoyed to our ,w,

We trust our government J

neve pan witn it.

vvuiu, Jiujumni general s Barrancas, May 2 18 if

Fellow Soldiers

You were called into the

to punisn savages and neg:

who Jiau in a sanguinary marJ

usea trie tomanawk and scalp knife, upon our helpless citil

on tne frontier. You have 1 sued them to Mickasub : Marks, Sewaney, and lastly this place, through an unci: ed wilderness; encountering

mense difficulties and privati:

which you met with the spin;

American soldiers, without murmur. Your general anticipated a c of the campaign on hisretan T-' -.J. J OA. -i. 1.1 t

r 1 . oausucii , nauea tnenour if

feelings of gratitude to hea at the prospect of relieving:

from your labors, by d

ing you in quarters, orrctura you to your homes : but ij

great was the disappoints

when he hcird of the icccnttj

ders committed on th

by a party of the enemy- tj

Pensacola, where they vert nislied with provisions and

munition by a friendly .pc

of thing!

Under this

were marched here under cH

ties which you alone can prop

appreciate, meeting on the

the protest cf the governed

West Florida, threatening to

ploy force if we did not inirf

;telv evacuate the country.

new md unexpected enemy

been taught to feel the imp of his threats. You entered

sacola without resistance, arJ

strong fortress of the B3rrj

could hold out butocediya,. your determined courage.

general cannot help admiring

spirit and military zeai v

you manifested, when it w

nilied that it would ocncf to carry the place by sum;; would do injustice to h:s if

k- nctic

U1U lit. livu. judgment displayed by c' 'Gadsden of the engineer

the selection of the P

fnr the hattCriCS ; arKl

re,,iUnt- r-.f Jil; second

ramn cant. Call, and capt. 1

of the topographical cngj

in aiding him to erecr w. under the Arc of heavy hundred p1-

1 111.411 ww .Jf well as the skill and gaiJ

captain Peters, licuts. Spencer, and licuts. Scaldcn, charged with aprcment of the

Cant. M'Knecvcr or -

merits, as he ha:i on 1

sinns, rny waring ,

Ins zealous co-opci.u-; vitv in landing two and gallantly offering to vmisels before the watu

in the event of storms

J