Owing to the great amount of illness prevailing amongst Fellows and their friends last summer, it was found advisable to relinquish the scheme of holding a Conversazione in June ; but this year the Council hope that nothing will prevent the successful carrying out of the proposed Conference at Colchester, the programme of which is submitted to the Meeting this evening. For the very attractive and excellent arrangements suggested in it, the Society is indebted to the special local Committee, and more especially to the Mayor of Colchester, Mr. Wilson Marriage, Fellow of the Society.

The Members of Council retiring at this evening's Meeting are Mr. Merceron and Mr. Rousselet, to whom their colleagues take this opportunity of returning hearty thanks for their constant attendance and ready help during their term of office.

The Report of the Council having been approved by the Meeting, Mr. W. J. C. Moens, Vice-President, delivered the following Address, the President, the Right Hon. Sir Henry Layard, G.C.B., being unavoidably absent from England.

Address to the Eighth Annual General Meeting of the Huguenot Society of London. By W. J. C. MOENS, F.S.A., Vice-President.

IT will be regretted by all that our President, Sir Henry Layard, is not able, on account of his absence abroad, to give us his usual able and interesting Annual Address. I have been requested to fill the vacancy and to bring to your notice the various Huguenot topics of the past year.

With regard to our own Society, it has made good progress, not perhaps with the leaps and bounds of some of the preceding years, yet so as to give assurance of steady advancement both in numbers and in work.

You have heard by the Report of the Council of the lamentable loss the Society has suffered by the death of five Fellows and one Honorary Fellow. Amongst these we specially deplore General F. P. Layard and Mr. H. Marett Godfray. The memoir of the former in our Proceedings will be read with deep interest by us all. He was one of the original founders of the Society, in the welfare of which he ever took the keenest interest, and always showed the most devoted attention to all matters, historical and genealogical, relating to the Huguenots. With regard to Mr. Godfray, I may say that no more able genealogist ever lived. He accompanied me seven years ago in a visit of research amongst the

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Archives of the Netherlands. We worked somewhat hard and, thinking that so young a man (he was then about 20 years of age) would prefer amusement to work prolonged frequently to a late hour of the night, I suggested at times that we should go to see various objects of interest. His reply always was, "I like the Archives better than anything else.' With a perfect knowledge of Medieval Latin and Norman French, he read the oldest MSS. with the utmost facility. At the age of seventeen he had gone through the Jersey records; he spent most of his time, when in London, at the Public Record Office, and had amassed the best existing collection for the history of that island. From his early youth his ambition was to write its history from original sources which he was never tired of investigating. On being nominated to the important office of Greffier and Clerk to the States of Jersey, he devoted himself assiduously to his public duties, and did perhaps more than any of his predecessors to put matters in perfect order, and to uphold the privileges and dignity of the States. These duties prevented him from completing for the Society the History of the Walloon Church of Southampton to accompany the Registers of that Church which he transcribed and edited as one of our publications. At the very time of his almost sudden death (he had only been ill one week), I was expecting him on a visit for the purpose of completing the perusal of the Southampton Town Archives (which he had already commenced on a previous visit), so that he might be able to carry out his promise to us. The death of so ardent a student of history is a heavy loss not only to our Society, but to the Channel Islands and the country at large. We can ill spare such men.

In the death of M. Jules Bonnet, Honorary Fellow of our Society, we have to sympathize with the Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, of which he was for so many years the Secretary. The loss of so indefatigable a worker is a severe blow to all Huguenot Societies, and an almost irreparable one to our French brethren.

The losses by resignation, however few, are always much to be deplored, but in spite of our numbers having been reduced by this latter cause as well as by death, it is satisfactory to find that the gain of new Fellows more than counterbalances this reduction, and raises our total number to 369, besides 17 Honorary Fellows.

The value of our Publications and Proceedings is amply testified to by the accession to our list of Fellows of the many national and public libraries named in the Report of your Council. The balance-sheet is satisfactory and will give con

fidence that the Council, whilst always desirous of undertaking as many publications as possible, have a due regard to prudence in their finance. An increase of Fellows would soon allow of greater progress in the important work waiting ready for us, viz: the printing of the numerous Registers of the French Churches of London, especially those of the former Threadneedle Street Church, the transcription of which is making progress. It cannot be too often urged on all to lose no opportunity of inducing their friends of Huguenot descent and others interested in our work, to become Fellows of the Society. Our warm thanks are due, and I am sure I may express them on your behalf, to our President, the Right Hon. Sir Henry Layard, G.C.B., our Vice-President, Mr. Robert Hovenden, Dr. Digges La Touche, Mr. Minet, Mr. Waller and Mr. Page, for the most valuable work they have been, and are, doing for the Huguenot cause in their respective publications of the Despatches of the Venetian Ambassadors to France in the 16th century, the Registers of the Walloon Church of Canterbury, of the French Conformist Churches in Dublin, and of the Protestant Church at Guisnes, and the Naturalizations and Denizations in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth. Some of these volumes are already in your hands, and the others are in active progress. That containing the Roll of Naturalizations and Denizations, under the able editorship of Mr. Page, will be a specially valuable addition to the sources of Huguenot and other genealogies, as it will furnish the names of the leading refugees of the reigns comprised in it, together with many particulars of their families and places of origin.

A work somewhat akin to this has been edited during the past year by Mr. J. H. Hessels, M.A., and printed at the cost of the Consistory of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars. It gives the Attestations from other foreign Churches in this country and the Netherlands, necessary for the refugees and other immigrants to enable them to be received as members into the Dutch Church of London. During his investigations of the archives of this Church, Mr. Hessels discovered a large collection of letters from the other foreign Churches to the London Consistory, which will be of the greatest importance as a source of knowledge hitherto concealed from students of the history of the foreign Churches in England. These we shall hope to see published through the munificence and much-to-beapplauded spirit of our Fellow the Rev. Adama van Scheltema and the members of his Consistory, as it will form a necessary and fitting accompaniment to the Letters of the Ortelius collection, a copy of which magnificent work is in our library.

The prevailing illness and numerous deaths last summer rendered it advisable to give up the Conference arranged to be held in London, but it is trusted that this will only cause a greater interest to be taken in the coming gathering of Fellows and their friends at Colchester. No city is more identified with the Huguenot cause than Colchester; and the fact that no less than 85 members of the Dutch congregation there compounded for their estates and paid fines on the taking of the town by the Parliamentary army in 1648 (Mr. George Tayspill, Sr., and Mr. Charles Tayspill, Sr., heading the list with £500 and £485 respectively), shows the importance of the foreign colony there at that time. It is satisfactory to know that the original Register of Baptisms, from 1645 to 1728, is still in existence, although the other Registers are missing, and I would take this opportunity of expressing a hope that it will be printed by the Society as one of the results of our approaching visit to Colchester. Very many names of interest are to be found in its pages, and a transcript of it made by me is at the Society's service.

You will, I feel sure, all join heartily with the Council in expressing thanks to our indefatigable and devoted Honorary Secretary, Mr. Faber, who never spares himself in doing all that is possible for our interests; and also to our Treasurer Mr. Roumieu, who so closely and ably looks after our financial position, and who renders us so good an account of this in the Report of the Council. We have also to thank our assiduous Assistant-Secretary, Mr. Overend, and to congratulate him on his improved state of health which will enable him to again give that attention to the Society's welfare which has always been so noticeable.

In the number of our Proceedings' which is almost ready for issue will be found the very able and interesting paper by M. Belleroche on the Siege of Ostend, which we heard read by him at two of our Meetings. The importance to this country of this memorable siege was very great, as is shown by the almost daily reports of it made to Cecil and the Privy Council. Though the town eventually fell into the hands of the Infanta, daughter of Philip III., which event consolidated and confirmed her father's power over his remaining possessions in the southern Netherlands, the strength of the Spaniards was finally crushed as regarded their power to injure this country. At the same time all hopes of the Reformed Church in the Netherland territories of the House of Austria were finally blasted. Mr. Belleroche's paper is a valuable addition to the history of those stirring times, so interesting to our Society.