Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

August 5. The accounts from the continent, especially from France, teem with the most melancholy and disastrous intelligence of the numerous devastations, occasioned by the dreadful storms that have visited of late several provinces of that kingdom: the following private letter, which we select from the rest, contains, in our opinion, a very moving description of the distress brought upon the inhabitants of Colombey, a village in the province of Bassigny. It is written by the rector of that parish:

"By a south east wind a threatening cloud was driven towards my parish. It almost suddenly broke upon us in showers of hail of such prodigious size, that all the windows of my parsonage house were shivered almost to dust before I could think of preventing the accident. The corn fields, which promised a most plentiful crop, were so totally destroyed, that they will hardly yield the seed they had received, and most of them not even so much. If there still remains standing some few ears of corn, it is owing to the hail having fallen in those places in a more oblique direction, yet they never can come to anything. Meanwhile the storm extended itself gradually, even so as to envelope the whole village. The hemp scattered about by the violence of the wind, the largest trees in gardens and orchards were cut to pieces by the hail, desolation on every side. Such was the scene that exhibited to me and my unfortunate parishioners. You may form a faint idea of the havoc done by so severe and unexpected a scourge, when I tell you that the smallest hail stones were equal in size to a walnut, but the greatest part as big as a hen's egg. A neighbouring farmer, living at Dormont, has assured me that he had taken up several of the stones, each of them the bigness of his fist: as the oat fields were at a great distance, they have not been so considerably damaged. Those destructive clouds came upon each other in the most baneful and uninterrupted succession till five o'clock the next morning, and ever since the heaviest showers of rain have been succeeded by the most scorching sun, by which, what had escaped the effects of the hail storm, has been parched up to nothing.--I thought it my duty in person to survey the damages, and I say it in the bitterness of my heart, they far exceed what common report had at first estimated. The whole country presents now such a scene of desolation, as would awaken a feeling in the most obdurate heart. Alas, I am their father! what then must I experience, when I see my wretched parishioners driven to a misery, the more dreadful as it is not in my power to alleviate their misfortunes. Last year yielded neither provender for the cattle, nor any kind of garden stuff for winter stores; the corn being of a very bad quality, it could fetch no price at our neighbouring markets. Now that a promising crop seemed to bid the fairest hopes, providence in her unfathomable wisdom has thought it proper to visit us with bitterness and woe. This certainly is one of the poorest villages, though belonging to a very fertile province: it contains about 160 inhabitants now reduced to all the extremities of want and despair! You have heard--then think of their distress. You know me--judge of me."