The French, as yet, are not unfortunate, though they are
not successful, in their colonial enterprises. They have Tunis, and the capitulations, the point on which Europe has a legal right to resist them, have this week been given up by all the great Powers. In Toriquin, though Bacninh has not been taken, and Admiral Courbet is ordered not to attack it without further orders, the Chinese have not declared war and the Anamese Emperor, despairing of assistance, has once more made professions of allegiance. And now the in- telligence from Madagascar, which comes down to December 24th, indicates that the Hovas are growing weary of the struggle. The new Queen has agreed to recognise the French protectorate over North Madagascar, down to a line drawn from Cape St. Andre to Cape Bellone, to allow the French to acquire real property in the island, and to pay an indemnity of 1,000,000. francs. These were the old terms, but M. Baudais, the French Commissioner, while receiving the negotiators at Tamatave, declared that the war had altered them, and that the Queen must now, in addition, recognise the French superiority over all Madagascar, and bind herself to seek no protectorate but that of France. This is, of course, a demand for complete submis- sion under smooth phrases, and the Envoys returned to seek further instructions from Antananarivo. The Hove Govern- ment refuses the terms,—which, indeed, the French Foreign Office demi-officially repudiates,—but the English in the island believe the Queen is alarmed, and that if China does not declare war, and no European Power interferes, she may ultimately submit. The language of letters is almost uniform, though the writers, some of whom are half-ruined, may take unduly de- pressed views.
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