13 MAY 1854, Page 12

M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs,

is con- fined to his bed with a cold and sore throat.

The Meniteur of yesterday notices a difference in the Russian declara- tion on the subject of neutral rights as compared with the declarations of France and England : Russia seems disposed to treat with greater rigour

neutral ships having on board articles contraband of war ; and omits any disclaimer of employing privateers. The British Government has accepted an offer of the French Govern- ment to convey by the French Levant packets the correspondence of the British soldiers and seamen in the East, upon the same favourable terms as those which apply to the correspondence of the French forces. On the part of the British Government, advantages of a like nature will be made available to the French seamen serving in the allied Baltic fleet, as often as the communications with that fleet furnish the opportunity of doing so.

The Moniteur of this morning contains an Imperial decree abrogating entirely the ordinances of the 8th February 1826, which prohibited the importation into France of Asiatic, African, or American products loaded from English bonded ports, and which also prohibited the importation under an English flag of European products loaded from any other ports than those of the -United Kingdom or its possessions in Europe.