Aliscellaneous.

Sir C. Napier, notwithstanding the threatened opposition to his elec- tion as a member of the United Service Club, has been elected by 195 to 13 black balls, one in ten excluding. Many officers rarely seen at the club attended to support him ; among them the founder of the club, Lord Lynedoch, Sir Nesbit Willoughby, and other time-honoured veterans. The majority of the gallant Commodore's opponents are said to have been the friends of Sir R. Stopford and the Honourable Captain Grey.—Globe.

The mournful accounts- f Dr. Southey's state of health have pre- pared the literary world for the announcement of his death; which took place, at Keswick, on Tuesday the 21st instant. For three years he had been unable to recognize his friends. It is well known that Robert Southey began life with extreme Liberal opinions, but became a Tory at a comparatively early age. His most popular poems, Thalaba and the Curse of Kehanat, are known to all ; his other poems are better known by name than perusal. His prose style is much admired ; some of his histories are standard works ; and he was a principal con- tributor to the Quarterly Review. He bad held the post of Poet Laureate since 1812. He was married in early life ; and again, a few years ago, to Miss Caroline Bowles, who survives him.

The daily papers publish a correspondence of Lord Brougham with Mr. Hamer Stansfield, supplemental to that with Mr. Bright ; the earliest date being February 15th, the latest February 23d. Many of the letters relate generally to the dispute; Lord Brougham remarking on the impo- Hey of the conduct pursued by persons connected with the League, on Mr. Bright's laxity of memory, and so on ; and Mr. Stansfield censuring Lord Brougham's hostile tone in speaking of the League, and of the "fall" of Mr. Cobden, when attacked by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons. One part of the correspondence, however, is material : in his first letter, speaking of the misrepresentation, that at the interview with the Anti-Corn-law deputies he forced his.services upon them, Lord Brougham says- " You know that I at first positively refused, from believin., it useless, and that I said if you got some other Peer to present the petition would support -him. You know how much the deputation pressed me to reconsider this resolution, and that all that I at first would agree to was to reconsider the matter. My subsequent interviews were in consequence of consenting, most reluctantly, to bring a motion forward. I only at first would agree to present the motion."

Mr. Stansfield replies thus- " Readiugley, I6th February 1843.

"My Lord—The post has just brought me your Lordship's letter of yester- day, and at the same time the Anti .Bread- Tax Circular, containing the article referred to. "I had not seen or heard of it before, neither had I seen so your Lordship's speech to which it alludes; and I must confess tb of both of them has given me extreme pain. These are not the tiIlatEela the friends of a cause on which the salvation of the nation depends should accuse each other, and especially without foundation. " The article in the Circular is a complete perversion of the facts; and the circumstances which occurred were precisely as your Lordship states them. The deputation sought an interview with you at the House of Lords, and pressed you to introduce the subject there in the way most likely to be beneficial. Your Lordship thought the attempt would be useless, and all but declined your- self, suggesting that some other Peer should be applied to ; but, upon the depu- tation urging the matter further, you agreed to reconsider the-subject, and they were to see you again, and did so, respecting it ; and the subsequent interviews which Mr. Bright and myself had with you, and the hospitality and civility we received, were gratefully felt and considered by us as opportunities for furnish- ing your Lordship with the necessary details for the motion. " I can only account for, but cannot excuse, the animus of the writer of that article, by supposing him goaded to madness by your Lordship being the person first to connect the diabolical assassinaton of Mr. Drummond with the League. " My Lord, when an honest and industrious people are reduced to be and destitution, and know the cause thereof to be the unjust legislation of a class, they can ill brook to be ranked by one sitting among that class with essaasins. Believe me, my Lord, we are approaching awful times ,• that we are eorro ded with materials of too combustible a nature to admit of inflammatory langu

i being used with impunity ; and that the House of Lords itself is in greater danger from its own misdoing. than ever it was from any gunpowder plot. "I hope your Lordship will excuse the freedom with which I have expressed myself, and believe me your Lordship's sincere and humble servant, " HAMER STANMELD."

Another explanatory correspondence has been published between Sir John Easthope, as proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, and Sir Thomas Wilde, about the " fabrication " of an attack on Lord Denman by the learned Sergeant; which Lord Brougham imputed to the Chronicle. The question at issue will be made clearer by putting the different ver- sions of the disputed passages together. In the trial of Stockdale versus Hansard, Lord Denman had said- " The defamatory matter has no bearing on any question in Parliament, or that could arise there. Whether the book found in the possession of a pri- soner in Newgate were obscene or decent, could have no influence in determin- ing how prisons can be best regulated ; still less could the irrelevant issue whether it was published by the plaintiff." The Morning Chronicle made Sergeant Wilde say, in his speech on the question last week-

" Look at some of Lord Denman's opinions : remember that which he ex- pressed, that it mattered little whether or not licentious books might be read by the inmates of a prison, old and young persons, placed there with a view to their reformation and amendment. What in the world, he asked, had that to do with the case?'

In an amended version of the passage, supplied to Lord Brougham, Sir Thomas Wilde makes himself to say- " The onlypassage which I believe refers to Lord Denman relates to that part of his judgment in which he held the publication of the Commissioners' Report on the state of prisons to be libellous, because the statement that Stock- dale's licentious book was in the hands of the prisoners was unnecessary, and i irrelevant to the question of prison-discipline; in relation to which statement, I believe I said, in substance, that I was surprised that such an opinion as to irrelevancy could be entertained."

The variation here, even if Sir Thomas has not softened his phrase, is perhaps, not too great to be attributed to misconception in the haste of reporting. Lord Brougham, however, having the Sergeant's amended version in his hand, accuses the Chronicle of fabrication ; and in- mates that Sir John Easthope ought to take some steps in consequence, in the way of disclaimer. Sir John writes to Sir Thomas Wilde, saying- " If the statement of Lord Brougham had in it the colour or shadow of truth, then it would be my duty to discharge from the Morning Chronicle any man or men so base as to be party to so gross and mischievous a proceeding; but if Lord Brougham's statement has not the slighest colour or shadow of truth in it, then it becomes my duty to protect honourable men engaged in my ser- vice against defamation so gross and grievous, come from what quarter it may, and to obtain for them a full and entire acquittal from such unfounded impu- tations."

To that end he calls on Sir Thomas to declare, whether, in his de- liberate judgment, Lord Brougham correctly represented the Morning Chronicle to have been guilty of the fabrication imputed ; Lord Broug- ham having stated that he had in his hand "a distinct disclaimer, an articulate disavowal, a positive and deliberate denial," from Sir Thomas Wilde, of the Chronicle's report of his speech.

Sir Thomas Wilde evades this interrogatory, or at least does not answer it in direct terms : the sum of his reply is, that he received a note from Lord Denman, announcing his intention to submit the report to the House of Lords ; that he hastily read the passage in the Chronicle, hastily penned his amended statement, hastily sent it to Lord Broug- ham by a "Mr. H.," and that Lord Brougham hastily received it : that, he says, coupled with his own explanation in the House of Com- mons, is all he has done in the matter.

The French Chamber of Peers have been occcupied with the secret- service-money bill ; which was carried on Monday, by 135 to 37. The debate was a mere repetition of that in the other chamber. M. Guizot deprecated the renewal of irritating expressions towards Eng- land ; and, repeating his assurances that he would do nothing hostile, he announced the growth of a better feeling in France- " It is evident to everybody that the passions which had been so vehemently excited among us are now fast subsiding; that a better and more equitable feeling towards England is beginning to prevail ; and that, thanks to the per- severance and moderation of the policy of the Government, as also to the per- severing moderation of the British Cabinet, there is every reason to hope that the good relations between the two countries will soon be solidly restored." With regard to Spain, after praising the good feeling with which the Government of that kingdom had conducted itself in the affair of the French Consul at Barcelona, M. Gaizot said- " I am inclined to hope, that we shall soon be able to proceed in a manner which will simplify not only our relations with Spain, but also our relations in Spain with respect to England. Everybody knows that the treaty of com- merce, ever projected and hitherto never concluded between England and Spain, is one of the difficulties of our situation in Spain, as it is one for Spain herself. I trust, however, that the course in which we are about soon to en- gage will tend to remove those indirect difficulties, as well as the direct difficul- ties existing between the two countries."

The Chamber of Deputies me ton Wednesday, to hear the develop- The Archduke Francis Charles of Austria, the Emperor's brother and heir-presumptive, has for some time been ill with a violent fever, which has begun to cause the greatest uneasiness to his family ; but intelligence has just been received of a favourable turn in the malady.

The newly-assembled States of Posen have presented an address to the King of Prussia, stating that they have been promised the main- tenance of their nationality and the use of their language in public acts ; that the labours of the States will never acquire their full im- portance " until the country is in possession of the institutions pro- mised by the edict of May 1815 "; and that " they cannot dissemble the dolorous impressions produced on them by the last edict of censorship ; nor can they avoid expressing the desire that this edict, and the instruc- tions which it contains, be annulled." This address is dated 8th March. The Bing replied on the 12th, by saying-

" We should have returned this address without replying to it, its demands and griefs being irregularly presented; but we wished our subjects of Posen to know how highly we disapproved of the sentiments and proposals contained therein. The wish to deny the point of union between Posen and Prussia comes only from a party blind to the paternal solicitude which prompted us to leave them every thing pertaining to nationality. If the opinion of such a party, which seeks to separate the Grand Duchy from Prussia, should pre- Tail, we shall be under the necessity of withdrawing from the Provincial States of Posen the promise that they should be convoked at stated intervals. We will enter into no explanation relative to the indecorous allusion to the royal or- donnance of May 1815, (promising a constitution); such ordonnance being not obligatory upon us; his Majesty our late august father having recognized that the dispositions which it contained were incompatible with the good of his people, and therefore replaced by the law of June 1823."

The royal reply concludes by refusing to make any alteration in the late law of censorship. It is signed by all the Ministers.

The Tay, mail-steamer, which left Bermuda on the 4th instant, brings little additional intelligence respecting the earthquake in the West Indies, on the 8th February ; but we are now assured of the safety of several colonies. In Jamaica it was not felt at all.

The concussion was perceived in British Guiana, a few minutes past eleven o'clock ; and it was severe. The movement of the earthquake reached Trinidad in a slight shock—a slow, unbroken, tremulous oscilla- tion, of about a minute's duration. The shock lasted two minutes in Barbados, and created much alarm ; but did no damage. In St. Lucia the disturbance of the ground lasted for three minutes or more ; the longest duration of an earthquake remembered in the island. Dominica also sustained a prolonged shock, and one of much violence- " As far as the agitated mind of every one in town can at this moment calculate, the vibration rocked from the North-east to the South-west, pro- ducing a rushing noise like a hurricane; and afterwards the pound seemed to heave perpendicularly, shaking the Louses with a cracking noise similar to that heard when a roof is being anshingled. At the same moment, the large build- ings clearly appeared to be rolling to and frit*, and columns of smoke were seen issuing from several of the mountains in sight of town. During the morning, as for several days past, the sky had been extremely clear and serene. We think the shock lasted two minutes and a half; but one gentleman assures us that, by a watch he had in his hand, it occupied three minutes and a half. In about half a minute from the commencement, almost every house was vacated ; leaving the streets covered with the inhabitants of every class, sex, and age. Several stone buildings have been cracked, and some old walls and chimnies

anent of the motion of M. Duvergier de Hattranne; who proposed that the vote of the House should hereafter be taken by open division in- stead of ballot, as a means of checking corruption.

The Moniteur officially confirms the report that Admiral Dupetit Thouars had taken possession of Otaheite and the surrounding group of islands, in the name of the French King. The Admiral had come before Otaheite on the 8th of September, and demanded 10,000 dollars, as indemnity for certain grievances alleged against the Otaheitans. The Admiral gave it to be understood, at the same time, that he would accept the sovereignty of the islands for the King of irance in lieu of the money, if the Queen so wished. The Queen refused, but four chiefs consented. The Admiral then sailed for the Marquesas ; and on his return, the Queen Pomaree had been induced to change her mind, and submit to the sovereignty of France. The Paris Gazette des Tribunaus gives the following account of the matter ; beginning with an extract received by one of the writers in the paper from the Admiral himself- " The letter is dated Valparaiso, the 1st November, on board the Seine Blanche frigate. This extract will remove all doubts as to the occurrence itself, and the nature of the rights which may result from it to France. " 'In consequence of the grievances and of the remonstrances of our country- men (nationaus) at Otaheite, M. Dupetit Thouars, having thought proper to require of Queen Pomaree, and of the principal chiefs conducting the Govern- ment of the island and archipelago, an indemnity of 10,000 piastres—an easy reparation, considering the abundance of specie in that country—the commu- nications immediately established on the subject were soon followed by the official demand of the protection of the King of the French, with the offer of the external sovereignty of Queen Pomaree's states, and of the direction of the affairs of the Whites at Otaheite.'

"This proposal, so honourable to France, and the consequences of which, above all, may be so advantageous to our settlement in the Marquesas Islands, had mitigated the rigorous dispositions caused by the Otaheitan Government's proceedings towards our countrymen, and induced the Admiral to accept, reserving the ratification of his Government, the protectorship and external sovereignty of Queen Pomaree's states. "Moreover, and to avoid any retractation, as well as to make sure of nothing being attempted against Otaheite before the French Government should have time to decide on this affair, the Admiral had, in concert with the Queen, established a Provisional Government for the direction of the affairs of the Whites, and united the flag of France, sous forme de yacht, to that of the Society Islands. Lastly, he had deemed it proper to adopt, in the interest of France, measures calculated to facilitate the adjunction of that Queen of Poly- nesia to France, and to secure rights the more lawful as it is of her full accord and spontaneously that she has offered herself to us."

We may possibly soon hear of the Sandwich Islands having also acknowledged the supremacy of France, for the Quotidienne mentions the arrival at Paris of an Envoy from them, of the name of Thomas Haalilio. This personage is stated to have come on the subject of reparations required of his royal master, by the commander of the French ship of war L'Embuscade ; also for sundry injuries done to French Missionaries, and other offences against a treaty entered into erg 'with France in 1839.—.Morning Post. thrown down. The Gaol, Police-office, and Roman Catholic Church are in- cluded in the report ' Since writing the above, we have learned with regret, that the windward quarter of the island has sustained material injury by the awful calamity ; and that among other losses the sugar-works and other stone buildings of the Melville Pall and Londonderry estates have been destroyed."—Dominicasi, Feb. 8.

Montserrat was not so terribly visited as was at first apprehended-

" The Soufriere was quiet, and not more than usually affected ; bat the fall of earth in various parts had been tremendous, causing those clouds which were seen to overhang the island for a long time. Two churches are down. Nearly every building in the town of Plymouth more or less injured; but, for- tunately, only four or five lives lost, so far as had been ascertained. Very many mills and works totally overthrown, and nearly all the others injured. — West Indian.

It is stated that the Soufriere at Guadeloupe emitted clouds of vapour.

The Barbados House of Assembly had voted a grant of 15,000 dollars, to be applied for the relief of the sufferers in such manner as the Go- vernor and Council might see fit. And the Guiana Court of-Policy had voted 1,0001. sterling for Antigua and 5001. for Guadeloupe.

Captain the Honourable Charles Gilbert John Brydone Elliot, of the Spartan, had been tried before a court-martial at Port Royal, for cruel and unbecoming conduct in causing Mr. De Lacy M. Gleig, a midship- man, to be flogged, on the 17th August 1842, off Newfoundland. The defence consisted of testimonials as to character, and representations that Captain Elliot was justified under the circumstances, and in the position in which he stood towards the midshipman, a boy fourteen years of age. The Court acquitted Captain Elliot on the counts which put the charge in the strongest terms and described his offence as " scandalous"; but found him guilty of the assault, and of disobeying the regulations for the government of the naval forces by sea. The record of the judgment proceeds-

" The Court, however, in consideration of the very high testimonials as to character and conduct adduced by the prisoner, the extraordinary and parental anxiety manifested on all occasions for the well-doing and general iustruction of all the young gentlemen on board his ship, and particularly of Mr. De Lacy M. Gleig himself, and also looking at the nature of the punishment complained of. the circumstances under which it was inflicted, the feeling which dictated it and which animated the prisoner towards all under his command, as appearing in evidence before the Court, are of opinion that the authority and the rules and regulations of her Majesty's service, and the dignity of the law as applicable to an infringement of them, will be fully vindicated and upheld by merely ad- judging that the prisoner be severely reprimanded : and he is hereby reprimanded accordingly."

It has been discovered that " an enormous comet," as Sir John Herschel calls it, in a letter to the Times, dated Collingwood, March 19th, is at present passing through our system, and is not far from its perihelion- " Its tail," says Sir John, " for such I cannot doubt it to be, was conspi- cuously visible, both last night and the night before, as a vivid luminous streak, commencing close beneath the stars Kappa and Lambda Leporis, and thence stretching obliquely westwards and downwards, between Gamma mid Delta Eridani, till lost in the vapours of the horizon. The direction of it, prolonged on a celestial globe, passes precisely through the place of the Sun in the Ecliptic at the present time; a circumstance which appears conclusive as to its cometic nature.

" As the portion of the tail actually visible on Friday evening was fully 30 degrees in length, and the head must have been beneath the horizon, which would add at least 25 degrees to the length, it is evident that, if really a comet, it is one of Srst-rate magnitude; and if it be not one, it is some phaenomenon beyond the Earth's atmosphere of a nature even yet more remarkable.

" Eight p. m. 19th March.—The tail of the comet, for such it must now assuredly be, is again visible, though much obscured by haze, and holding very nearly the same position."

The Paris Univers of Friday reports the comet as seen on the previ- ous evening ; its tail, which proceeded from the constellation Orion, extending over a space of 60 degrees. M. Arago has substantially confirmed this account ; but he estimates the length of the comet at 414- to 43 degrees. In his communication to the Academy of Sciences, M. Arago gave a curious comparative account of other long-tailed comets- " The comet of 1811 had a tail of an apparent length of 23 degrees. That of 1744, observed by Cheseaux at Lausanne, was remarkable for its multiple tail, composed of six divergent branches, embracing an extent of 44 degrees in width, and some of which had an absolute length of 13,000,000 of leagues. That of 1789 presented a tail of an apparent length of 68 degrees, whose in- flected form, according to the historians of the time, resembled that of a Turkish scimitar, a similarity observable at the extremity of the present comet, but in a far inferior degree. The tail of the comet of 1780 had an apparent extent of 90 degrees and an absolute extent of 41,000,000 of leagues. Finally, the comet of 1818 made its appearance with an appendage so out of all pro- portion that it covered a space of not less than 104 degrees. Its head was still under the horizon, when the extremity of the tail had already reached the height of the zenith."

Another lunatic, on the way to London to have some peremptory conference with the Premier, has been stopped at starting. One M'Coleman applied at the Glasgow Sheriff Clerk's office, on Tuesday, for two clerks to accompany him to London, to see Sir Robert Peel on important business ; announcing himself to be the father of M'Naughten, and threatening to make skeletons of those who hindered him. An order for his detention was obtained from the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, and he was lodged in the Lunatic Asylum. He is a shoemaker ; but he was once in the army, and a wound in the head unsettled his faculties.

The last number of the Colonial Gazette has a paper showing the only way in which the United States can provide for the principal and interest of the State debts, and by this means alone restore their credit, without resorting to new taxation or other unpopular measures. The case is thus made out- " It has been recently suggested that the Public Lands of the United States constitute a property sufficient to cover the whole of the State debts; and that this source of revenue should be, as it were, specially mortgaged la:y. the United States for payment of interest and principal of those obligations. This would be a modified " assumption " of State debts by the United States —a special assumption not distasteful to any class, because involving no new taxation. From the temper in which this proposal has been discussed is Congress, and still more from its present agitation throughout the Union with many indications of popular approval, we augur that, so far as opinion or

feeling goes, there is no serious obstacle to its adoption at the next meeting of Congress. Supposing our view on this point to be correct, the only question that remains is the value of the security.

"Until about forty-seven years ago, the United States pursued in the disposal of their waste lands the old practice of the British Government, which was that of free grants. In 1796 they began to dispose of new land by sale. In the cosine of the forty-seven years, the sale of Public Lands has produced in cash about 25,000,000/. The average annual receipt of the last twenty years is about 900,0001. a year; of the last ten years, 1,600,000/. ayear. And these great results have been obtainedin spite of several important defects in the system. While sel- ling was adopted as the rule, large exceptional free grants were made ; with a tendency, of course, to diminish the amount of sales. In one case, many mil- lions of acres were granted to disbanded soldiers; who disposed of their land at a price below that required by the Government, and in the following year the Government sold scarcely any land. The mode of sale is by auction at the low upset price of 5s. nth per acre ; and as the quantity put up at auction has always exceeded the demand that competition which the plan of auction was intended to promote has not taken place, but nearly the whole of the lands have been sold at the upset price. And, lastly, Congress not many years ago passed a law in favour of squatters, who have since bad preemptive right of purchase at the upset price. If a fixed uniform price of not less than 2/. per acre had been adopted at the same time as the plan of selling., and all exceptional grants bad been avoided, there can be little doubt that the whole sum received by the United States might have been twice or thrice as much as the actual receipt—that is, 50,000,000/. or 75,000,000/. instead of 25,000,0001. For it should be observed, to those who may object that greater means of paying for land would not have been supplied by requiring a higher price, that at the low price of 5s. 7id. per acre the facility of obtaining land has been such as to lead to a mischievous dispersion of the people and cutting up of labour into separate pairs of hands; and that the wealth of the people would have been greater if a higher price for new land had kept them more together, and thus conduced to more com- bination of labour and division of employments. In fact, the lowness of the price led to such an excess of land in proportion to people, that in every part of the United States it has been found necessary to put a tax upon wild laud which had become private property, and which, being wild, mischievously separated the settlers, and was justly regarded by them as a nuisance. The amount of this nuisance-abating tax, which has been very large, has been in the nature of a sub- sequent addition to the original price, and might obviously have been received by the Government in the form of a higher original price. But it is not merely on such improvements of the system as the adoption of a uniform and much higher price that the United States may rely for continually increasing receipts: the ac- tual receipts have continually increased during the forty-seven years, excepting just after large exceptional free grants, and during the present monetary embar- rassments. Allowing for these exceptions, the receipts have increased in due pro- portion to the increase of population. Nothing else could have been expected. With a present population of 17,000,000, and a prospect of continual and rapid increase from births and immigration, it appears certain that, even without any improvement of the system, the public lands must soon again produce enough to pay the interest on the whole of the State debts. Supposing the improve- ments adopted, the increase of receipts must be considerably larger. The quantity of fertile land for which a demand is perfectly sure to arise amounts to hundreds of millions of acres. The material security is therefore ample. In order that it should have a moral validity which Europe would soom appre- ciate, nothing more is required than that the United States, besides adopting the proposed improvements of their public lands to the restoration of the na- tional honour, by charging them specially and exclusively with the principal and interest of the State debts. Such a law would restore the credit of Ame- rica, because it would show both the way and the will to pay."