15 APRIL 1843, Page 8

_Miscellaneous.

The Crown Prince of Wurtemberg has been suffering from cold, which manifested itself after he left the Dutchess of Gloucester's on Wednesday night last week ; but he was much better by the middle of this week. On Sunday he took a drive to Hampstead, and visited the Zoological Gardens. His Royal Highness has been visited by the Datchess of Gloucester, the Princess Sophia of Wurtemberg, the Prince of Tour and Taxis, and several other distinguished persons.

At the East India House, on Wednesday, six Directors were elected in the room of Sir Robert Campbell, Mr. James Weir Hogg, M.P., the Honourable Hugh Lindsay, Major-General Archibald Robertson, Lieu- tenant-Colonel William Henry Sykes, and 8ir Henry Willcock, K.L.S., who go out by rotation. The ballot terminated in the election of Mr. Henry Alexander, Major-General Sir Jeremiah Bryant, C.B., Mr. William Stanley Clarke, Mr. John Shepherd, Mr. Francis Warden, and Sir William Young.

The Morning Post says, it is probable that Viscount Allen will be elected to the vacant Mastership of Dulwich College ; an office which mast be filled by a person bearing the name of the founder, Edward Alleyne the player.

Some little misunderstanding between Colonel Gurwood and Mr. Maxwell gave occasion to a story in the Globe, that an "affair of honour" between them had been amicably setted. The merit of the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo is claimed on behalf of two officers, the leaders of the forlorn hopes of the Light and the Third Division— Colonel Garwood and the late Major Mackie. Mr. Maxwell, in his Life of Wellington, assigned the honour to the Major, in a manner that gave umbrage ta the Colonel ; and the Globe said, on the authority of a correspondent, that a hostile message had been sent, through Mr. Ousely Higgins, and accepted. Mr. Higgins, however, in a letter to the papers, says that no hostile message was sent, and that from the first he anticipated nothing but an amicable settlement of the trifling misunderstanding.

The Wakefield Journal announces Mrs. Wood's departure from the convent to which she had removed-

" We are authorized to state, that on Tuesday evening last, she arrived at her husband's residence, at Woolley Moor; the pain and anxiety of being absent from husband and child being greater than her religious enthusiasm. May we hope that her experience in this instance may prove a useful lesson to many others, by showing that the natural feelings and duties of wife and mother are far superior to the gloomy and unnatural requirements of the Popish religion."

The new postage-treaty with France was concluded last week, accord- ing to Go5gnant's Messenger on Monday. The postage of letters not exceeding half:aa ounce in weight is to be the uniform charge of 10d., payable either in France or England. The treaty also regulates the correspondence between France and our colonies, and affords further facilities for the transmission of letters through France : it will no longer be necessary to prepay letters for certain parts of Germany, for Pied- mont, Tuscany, or the Neapolitan States ; and the French postage on letters for those countries, and on letters passing through France for British India, will be much reduced. The Morning Post expresses a belief that important treaties on the subject are in progress with other Euro- pean Governments.

Last week, the Bureaux of the French Chamber of Deputies rejected a project of law proposed by M. Odillon Barrot, for repealing the laws

of September. In his speech in the Secret Committee, M. Barrot etdle to recollection the history of the question, The first guarantee exacted by Lafayette and the Provisional Government, when the Crown was adjudged to Louis Philippe, was that political offences and those of the press should be tried by jury alone. The sixty-ninth article of the Charter of 1830 gave the guarantee thus demanded. Subsequently occurred the affair of Fieschi : certain offences were newly baptized by the name of at tentats, and sent to be tried by the Court of Peers ; and by that subterfuge the Charter was overthrown. It had even become a question whether meetings to promote worship or religion might not be deemed illegal association ! By the law, functionaries, if they de- famed, libelled, or committed injury, could not be prosecuted but with the permission, first obtained, of the Council of State ; whilst if they were libelled, they could bring their action, not in the Assize Court before a jury, but before the judge, judging alone. M. Barrot's bill proposed that all crimes contemplated by the September laws should be tried by the Court of Assizes, and consequently by a jury, except when incitement to insurrection or treason should have been followed by actual results. The jurisdiction in cases of political libel, infractions of the law of association, misdemeanours of the press such as the pub- lication of documents forbidden by law, he proposed to transfer front the Court of Peers to a jury. This proposal is too far in advance of public opinion in France, at least as represented by the Deputies.

Count Ribbing Leven, one of the conspirators against the life of Gus- tavus the Third of Sweden, died at Paris on the 10th, at a house in Rue Louis le Grand ; and the correspondent of the Times relates some incidents of his life. Gustavus was assassinated at a masked ball, held on the 16th March 1792, in the Operahouse which he caused to be built at Stockholm. Before the ball, he received a note in a feigned hand, warning him of the intended assassination : but having, as he said, received twenty-three such warnings in the course of his life, he disregarded it A man shot him in the back, and was lost in the crowd. A pistol was found on the floor near him, another more distant, and a poniard in an ante-room : the pistols, after some time, were recognized as belonging to Ankerstroem, rendered famous by his crime- " The manner of the assassination is not generally known. I shall give it in the words of a person present at the trial of Ankerstroem, from whom I had it fifteen years since. Ankerstroem placed his back to that of the King, with a pistol in his right hand, which he concealed under his left arm. The pressure of the crowd enabled him, without alarming his victim, to feel with the point of the pistol for the middle of the King's back. When sure of the spot, he fired.' "

The seal of the letter was recognized by a servant of Lilienhorn, a Minister, as belonging to her master. Gustavus, dying, desired his brother, afterwards Charles the Thirteenth, to let none but the actual murderer be executed ; and the detected conspirators, Horn, Lilien- horn, and Ribbing, were banished for life-

" Count Ribbing [who inherited the name of Leven from his mother] ar- rived in Paris from Sweden at the most violent period of the Revolution, and became, in consequence of his crime, highly popular. He was tall, well-made, and good-looking '; advantages:which procured for him from Madame de Steel (as you know) the title of her bean regicide.' His income was limited; but as it arrived to him in gold, at a moment when twenty francs in that metal were worth twenty thousand francs in paper, (assignats,) he employed his little means with so much judgment, that he purchased very considerable property with it : in fact, I believe he was at one time the owner of the superb domain of Rainey. lie married an ex-nun, (chanoinesse,) of noble family ; by whom he had a son, who survives them. By occurrences not necessary to my narra- tion, he fell into pecuniary embarrassments, and became, and was for many years, a translator of German in the office of the Courrier Francais. He pro- fessed Republican opinions to his death ; but was often beard to lament, if not his crime, the exaltation that led him into it, and consequently into suffering and poverty."

The Regent, in the presence of Queen Isabella the Second, opened the Spanish Cortes on the 3rd instant. Espartero rode in the same carriage with the Queen, the Countess Mina her governess, and the Countess of Altamira lady of honour; the Infanta, the Queen's sister, riding in one of the four carriages that went before. In the speech, the Regent stated that no notable change had occurred in the relations with foreign Governments. He promised laws to reform the Legisla- ture and the administration of justice ; and several economical measures of chit and military improvement. The army was complimented foe its discipline, loyalty, and valour during the late insurrection ; and the National Guard for its cordial cooperation in checking revolution. The concluding paragraph exhorted the Cortes to smooth, by good measures, the near approach of that time when Isabella the Second would assume the reins of Government.

S. Calatrava, the Finance Minister, has issued a decree, the chief ob- ject of which is to revive the credit of Spain, by providing for the punc- tual payment of the interest on the New Three per Cent Stock. The decree devotes to the purpose, first, the whole proceeds of the quick- silver of the mines of Almaden and Almaduegos ; secondly, twenty millions of reals on the Treasury of the island of Cuba ; and thirdI31 four millions of reels on the department of the Cruzada. A fourth article declares that the Government will augment their appropriations, if the Cortes shall approve of the capitalization of the interest on the Four and Five per Cents, as is proposed to them.

A recent trial at Rome has convicted the Count Mariano Alberti of wholesale forgery of works which he had professed to discover and pub- lish as Tessa's. Some small portion of these works, which is considered to be genuine, he had interlarded with the rest, to leaven the mass and give it the greater air of authenticity. In his lodging were found an immense collection of writing-tools, inks of different kinds and tints, old copybooks, blank paper torn out of old books, and innumerable ex- ercises in imitation of the handwriting of more than fifty eminent indi- viduals of Tasso's time. The Count's sentence was not known on the 10th March, The Augsburg Gazette of the 7th instant states that Russia had, in the most peremptory manner, sent an ultimatum to the Porte, requiring the removal of the new Prince of Servia ; but the Francfort Journal pablishes a letter from Semlin, of the 24th March, which puts the mat- ter in a more amicable light ; stating that "Russia has made a conces- sion to the Porte by consenting to a new election in Servia. The choice will fall upon Prince Michael. Austria is said to have suggested this expedient."

Advices frnm Rio de Janeiro, to the 21st February, seem to put it beyond a doubt that Mr. Ellis was about to return to England; but without making it certain what had been done in the way of negotia- tions. Some construe his departure into a final breaking-off; others are of opinion that he has prepared the way for some future concession by the Brazilian Government, though not precisely on the terms pro- posed by this country.

The Dutch provincial papers mention some smart shocks of earth- quake which were very generally felt in the beginning of the present month, chiefly on the 6th.

An earthquake was felt at Patrick's Plains, at Paterson, and on the river M‘Leary, in New South Wales, on the 28th October last. As in England, some ascribed it to ludicrous causes: one thought that his bed was shaken under him for fun ; a woman imagined that her hus- band was rousing her, and refused to get up.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer acknowledges the receipt of 100/. con- science-money, from an East India merchant, in a note dated Liverpool. Downing Street, 11th April 1843.