The overland mail brings the sequel of the stirring intelligence
last sent to us from India and China. The Celestial Emperor has ratified the Nankin treaty ; but refused to sign before Queen Vrc- TORIA, on some ground of etiquette. People do not seem willing to ascribe the backwardness of the illustrious. Tartar whom we have caught to excess of courtesy because a lady is in the case; and certainly the amazing ingenuity of the Central Flowery nation in devising delays suggests the idea, that the avoidance of the pen may be merely to gain another eight months. If so, the manceuvre will no doubt be overridden by the energy and pertinacity of our
leaders. Moreover, some earnest of bona fides is given in the pay- ment of the indemnity, which proceeds without hindrance. If we know the Chinese to be quibbling, we also know them to be cere- monious; and there may be some exquisite reason why the bro- ther of the Sun and Moon canna take precedence of an outside potentate.
From India we learn, that all the surviving prisoners have been recovered, without exception ; and at the same time we learn, that the apprehension lest they should be hurried away beyond the reach of our advancing army was by no means groundless : they were carried away, to be scattered in slavery among distant and strange tribes. Some indignation was once expressed at the idea of purchasing back our brave fellow-countrymen : they have been purchased, with a large bribe to their keeper. It was, they say, a matter of life and death. Perhaps some stern politicians will main- tain that FLORENTINE SALE and ELDRED POTTINGER and their captive friends ought to have gone into hopeless bondage, for the " national honour," rather than have been bought in ?
The recovery of the prisoners facilitates the countermarch of the troops; and no obstacle has yet shown itself. By this time, the army has most likely returned to the East of the Indus ; and the Afghans are perhaps busy in their rough election of a Sovereign. Many candidates will probably go to the poll, and many to the block.
