THE Twenty-sixth Annual Meeting of this excellent Institution, established for the purpose of relieving, by food, clothes, and money, shipwrecked sailors of all nations cast upon the coasts of the United Kingdom, was held last summer at the United Service Institution, London.

Admiral the EARL of SHREWSBURY AND TALBOT, f.jf., took the Chair, in the unavoidable absence of His Grace the DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, President of the Society.

We observed among the company present:— Admirals Sir WILLIAM BOWLES, G.C.B., V.P., and C. H. M. BUCKLE, C.B.; Captains Royal Navy, Hon. FRANCIS. MAUDE, and G. A. BEDFORD, of the Board of Trade; EDMUND PEPTS, Esq.; Lieut-Colonel MILES, REV. E. J. SPECK, Rev. Dr. CUMMIMO, Rev. THOMAS RAT, Rev.

GEORGE WILKINS, and many others.

The Chairman, in a few appropriate remarks, pnt before the Meeting the objects of the Society, and dwelt on the great benefit it continued to confer on our fishermen. Bailor*, and the widows and orphans of those of them who unhappily perished at sea. F. LEAN, Esq., R.N.,the Secretary, then read the Report of the Committee, wherein it was stated that, during the past year, the Society had relieved 4,472 shipwrecked persons, natives and foreigners, of the following nations, viz., America, Austria, France, Hanover, Prussia, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and 3,882 widows and orphans of fishermen and mariners, making a total since the formation of the Society in 1839 of 139,564! that 48,245 mariners voluntarily subscribed 3s. each per annum; that the income had been 16,5941.4s. I Of/., in connection with which certain large donors were mentioned, w ., Messrs. COOTTS & Co., 25f., the very Rev. Viscount MIDDLETON, Dean of Exeter, per Hon. Capt. FRANCIS MAUDE, R.N., 25i. -.Miss Wwr, a5/.: Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts, 3rd contribution, 300/.: EDMUND CLOWES, Esq., in lieu of legacy, 100/.; the Misses DORSET, of Reading, SOI.; Miss CAROLINE TURNER, 6W.; the Hon.

RUSTOMJEE JAMSETJEE JHEEBHOT, per R. W. CRAWFORD, Esq., M.P., SOW.) Mrs. HENRY KEMBLE, 25Z.; the Misses FREND, 312. 10s.; Capt. MARK HUISH, 501.; FREDERICK SHEPPARD, Esq., 50/.

In fulfilment of one of its objects, the encouraging of gallant efforts to save life on the high seas and on the coasts of our colonies, the Committee had awarded during the past year seven gold and silver medals for saving the lives of shipwrecked persons. One of the gold medals was given to EDWARD CLEARY for swimming with a rope to the Gooindpore during the height of the cyclone at Calcutta in October last, by means of which the whole of the crew were saved.

The Report also stated that a large and influential public meeting had been held at the Mansion House in April last, the Lord Mayor in the Chair, with the view of promoting the establishment of the " Belvedere Institution for Wornout and Disabled Merchant Seamen," who have no relative ties, and to whom a pension would not suffice in the hands of hirelings. To the Directors appointed to conduct the Institution the Committee had had much pleasure in handing over the tables for a pension fund for worn-out merchant seamen, called, "The Mariners' National Pension Fund," with an Annuity fund for mariners' widows accompanying it, together with the benevolent supplemental fund, by the means of which it is hoped the Directors will be able to preserve our worn-out and aged seamen from the workhouse, other by pensioning them put, or by taking them within the walls of the Institution as circumstances direct.

The Report concluded with an earnest appeal to the nobility, gentry, and public at large, for help to carry out the great objects of the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, which has 792 honorary agents acting as its representatives round the entire coasts of the United Kingdom, with its central office at Hibernia Chambers, London Bridge, S.E., and expressed much confidence that the institution was eminently calculated to bind our seamen and fishermen to their country, of which they are its outer and principal wall of defence.

The Report was unanimonsly adopted, and the claims of the institution very eloquently advocated by several of the above-named gentlemen.