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, £500 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 At subsequent Meetings the following sums were voted:--