30 AUGUST 1851, Page 4

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FRANCE.—The chief incident of the week in the French news is one of a character not in the first instance political, but judicial. Late tele- graphic information from Lyons states that the whole of the counsel who with M. Michel (de Bourges) defended Gent and the other prisoners on trial for political conspiracy, have thrown up their briefs, and addressed a joint letter to the President of the Court-martial, stating that they have taken this grave step with the unanimous consent of their clients, because "they arc convinced that the dignity and liberty of defence no longer ex- ist." The Court had appointed other counsel, but the prisoners refused to accept them. It was supposed that the case would conclude in two days. The date of this occurrence at Lyons does not appear : one does not, therefore, know whether the counsel acted from the impulse of some new decision of the court, or from a deeper sense of what they have been pro- testing against during all the progress of the trial. The remarkable rules which guide the French judges with reference to the admission and re- jection of evidence in political cases, have been a matter of political grievance on former occasions ; and now that these rules were administered in a court-martial, it was not likely that they would be applied less rigidly, or be less patiently borne. In this particular case the evidence of Police-agents has been admitted with a latitude that surprises the Eng- lish reader, and yet the attempt to impeach the credit of these agents of Government has been inexorably repressed. The defence of this course was, that a cross-examination in reference to the character of the Police- agents would be concerning matters "not relative to the case," and that "the Police always refuses to give up the names of its agents." When Gent, whose personal character had been mercilessly defamed, attempted to protest, " the President, rising hastily, declared the court adjourned."

A large number of the friends of the Orleans family left Paris for Eng- land on Monday, to be present in London at the celebration of a religious service in memory of King Louis Philippe. M. Guizot and M. Duchatel are named among the leading members of the party. It is noted as sig- nificant, that Count Mole was not one of the visitors. This is ascribed to his annoyance at the increasingly overt manner in which the candidat• arc of the Prince de Joinville for the Presidency is now pushed in France. The Prince is now said by some organs to be the only person who stands a chance in the competition with Louis Napoleon. The Councils of Arrondissement have dosed their sessions. Not half of them have called for a revision of the Constitution. The Revisionists hope for more encouragement to their cause from the Councils-General, whose sessions are now in progress.

PaussiA.—The King of Prussia, in the rest of his tour through West- phalia, delivered many short speeches to the Municipalities of a similar scolding tone to the Cologne oration mentioned in our last Postscript. Then, creasing Baden and Wurtemberg, he went on to the Hohenzollern and Sigmaringen districts, where the homage of lately-purchased sub- jects was to be received. The old castle of Hohenzollern was reached on the 22d, and next day the state ceremony was performed. When the homage of the three highest personages—Prince von Furstenburg, Prince Thurn and Taxis, and Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingfiirst—was tendered, the King said- " Approach, my dear friends ! When I have had to receive the homage of persons of any own station, I have always caused the ceremony to con- sist in their giving me the German handschlag. [Grasp of the hand.] The German people, whose fidelity has grown into a proverb, has no better symbol for the oath oefidelity than the German handschlag. I accept your homage with my whole heart and any whole soul. Give me your hand." He then kissed them fry aternally. Advocate Burke, of Sigmaringen, was spokesman for the Deputies : he assured the King, that his new sub- jects would vie with the old in obedience to their King. Before they did homage, the King made them a speech—

"I feel compelled, my dear Mends, to speak a few words with you before the solemn ceremony. I stand on this spot deeply moved and agitated. It is not merely the recollection that I stand at so solemn an hour in the birthplace of my race, but it is rather the view I take of the times which painfully agitates any soul. Consider and weigh well in your hearts, before you swear the oath of fidelity, what must be the nature of times which have induced your sovereigns, the best and most fatherly beneficial friends, to resign their lands, notwithstanding every opposition, to a branch which has been a stranger for a thousand years. Only after due consideration of this question may you take the oath ! Another consideration agitates my heart : it is that my eagles must fly in this land, and that I shall be so distant, and not able to lend you assistance as speedily as I should wish. I have been reproached in the public papers with unbounded ambition ; but I have given my pro- tection to neighbouring sovereigns only when it was asked, and then without any delay. (Continuing with a rained voice.) I declare here, and I have in- tentionally selected this spot, raising my hands to Heaven, that I have never stretched forth my hand to grasp the property of another, or countries which do not belong to me, and that I desire nothing which does not of right belong to my crown. This rock, this people, have retained their names for a long, a very long period ; may they remain so for ever ! God grant his blessing, that this castle remain the ornament of the country ; may He permit this Swabian race to preserve the same fidelity to me as my Prussians. (Pro- nounced very loudly.) Let that be the fruit of this serious time, of the pure will, and the fair hour." The assembled Deputies then swore the oath, in the name of the whole people ; pronouncing it with the right hand lifted to heaven. Shouts of "Long life to King Frederick William," the clangour of military music, and the firing of artillery, closed the ceremony.

INDIA AND CHINA.—Despatches from Marseilles, anticipating the over- land mail which left Bombay on the 26th July, were received in London on Wednesday.

The report by the last mail, that Gholab Singh and four British officers had been killed by the insurgent population of Cashmere, turns out to be " incorrect, though not wholly without foundation." It appears that some misunderstanding had arisen between Gholab Singh and his subjects, and that he had attempted to chastise them with an insufficient force, and been himself defeated. He was raising an army to reassert his authority : and " his success was considered certain." The English officers supposed to have been killed, whose names are still unmentioned, had been in cap- tivity, but they had returned to the Punjaub in safety. The rumour of Gholab Singh's death had " affected the price of securities at Calcutta." " There is little doubt," add the local accounts, " that the consequences of the chief's death would necessitate the annexation of his dominions."

Further information from the Nizam's territory makes it appear pro- bable that the seizure of any lands by our Government in payment of the debt due from the native state is postponed for the present. As was sur- mised in the accounts by the last mail, the Nizam has, at the eleventh hour, promised to pay on a day named the debt already due ; to be more punctual in paying the wages of the British contingent in future ; and to appoint a Minister who can act more in harmony with British policy. The new Minister had accordingly been found in Sooraj-ool-Moolk ; a man described as very able, comparatively honest, and possessing an en- lightened appreciation of the British power in India. A letter from Hyderabad, in the Indian journal the Telegraph and Cou- rier, describes an outrage perpetrated in the capital of the Deccan, which forcibly realizes to the English reader the state of paralysis into which the ordinary administration of justice has fallen there. "A Turk, a Munsubdar in the Nizam's service, and father-in-law to the famous Arab chieftain Abdoolla-bin-Ali, demanded of a native gentleman living in the city his daughter in marriage. For some reason the latter thought proper to refuse. In a few days his daughter disappeared ; and at the end of six days more her corpse was found at her father's door, naked, and covered with wounds. Suspicion was strongly directed to the Turk ; who, it was said, engaged the services of some infamous woman to seduce her from her home to that of the Turk. Violation ensued, and murder, to conceal the; former, prompted also by revenge for the refusal of her hand. There was no want of witnesses, it is said, to substantiate the facts. The Kutwa could not reach the culprit, protected as he was by his son-in-law the Arab chieftain. The Nizam was appealed to, and Abdoolla-bin-Ali cited to speak to these matters. Ile, by repeating the Mohammedan creed, deposed to the falsity of the accusation ; of which he could know nothing. A report prevailed that the Nizam had ordered that the Turk be trodden to death un- der an elephant's feet, but that Abdoolla-bin-Ali had redeemed his father- in-laws life by the payment of a penalty of 4000 rupees. This was not true. The witnesses to this crime are prevented from giving testimony by the threats held out by the Turk and his family. As a last measure for redress, the poor girl's father has petitioned the Resident, in this place the Bole source of mercy and justice ; and the Minister has been requested to inves- tigate and do justice in the matter."

At Bombay, there appears to be some wholesome movement towards improving the moral and social organization of the army.

"Some of the reforms in the present practices of the army, which were indicated as absolutely necessary by Sir Charles Napier, are being pressed forward by Sir William Gomm ; who has recently appointed a committee of five officers to draw up mess-regulations, which are to be introduced into every regiment on the Bengal establishment, so as to produce uniforniity of system, and thus prevent the acts of extravagance and luxurious indul- gence of which Sir Charles Napier complained. In the mean time, reports have been required from the commanding-officers of the Bengal regiments, of the regulations and rules of their regimental messes; from which docu- ments, it is hoped, a mess code can be constructed." The following local summary is given by the Times as "the latest from Hongkong" : it is without specific date. "The Tartar Prime Minister, Sai-Shang-ha, whose departure from the capital for the seat of war was mentioned in our last monthly summary, has halted on the borders of the Hunan province, (the one adjoining Kwang-si) ; whence he tells his lord and master that he 'finds himself surrounded by re- bels to sovereign authority, whom it is necessary to put down before pro- ceeding further. Of the other Commissioner we hear nothing. Wu-lan-tair, Lieutenant-General of Tartar troops at Canton, left his garrison about a fort- night ago, with the intention of coalescing with the Commissioners. 4' The pretended Emperor is reported to be at present stopping at Sin-chau, a departmental city of Kwang-si, having a water communication with Can- ton, whence it is distant about 200 miles. In a letter from one of his fol- lowers, we find it stated that Teen-teh is himself at the head of the rebel forces, whom he led to victory 'in the middle term of the third month of the present year,' (about two months ago,) ' when 10,000 of the Government troops were destroyed, being hemmed-in in a narrow pathway through a wood in a mountain-pass.' Having been duly proclaimed Emperor, Teen- teh dates the commencement of his reign from the month of September of last year • and has published an almanack, which his emissaries are busy distributing in various parts of the empire. In Kiang-si, the province be- tween Hunan and Fokien, we hear that great demonstrations are made in his favour."

CANADA.—The Toronto journals, extending to August 9, inform us that Lord Elgin had communicated to the Legislative Assembly a corre- spondence between the Canadian Government and the Imperial Govern- ment on the disallowance of the Currency Act recently passed, the ob- ject of which was the assimilation of the currency of Canada to that of the United States. The correspondence was conducted by Mr. 'Ducks, the Inspector-General of Canadian accounts, for the Colony, and by Sir Charles Trevelyan, for the Treasury. The concluding memorial of Mr. Hincka appears to be a very masterly document : it deals seriatim with the ob- jections of law, technical and constitutional, and of fact, advanced by Sir Charles Trevelyan, and apparently establishes firmly the legality and the commercial wisdom and advantage of the measure. It concludes with the following grave and forcible passages- " It seems to the undersigned, that if the Canadian Parliament, with the concurrence of her Majesty's representative, cannot be permitted to pass such an act as that under consideration, it is very questionable how far they are fit to enjoy representative government at all. The undersigned trusts that he will be excused for expressing himself perhaps too strongly on this subject. He does so from a sense of duty to his Sovereign, convinced as he is that much irritation will be caused by the disallowance of this act. Follow- ing out the liberal views of Colonial policy which have been for some years avowed by the Imperial Government and Parliament, deference has been paid to Parliamentary majorities in Canada in points of great public im- portance, whilst at the same time irritation is kept up by interference in matters of really trivial importance as far as Imperial interests are concerned, but regarding which the entire public opinion of Canada is united. These remarks may appear to be uncalled for, as the act has been disallowed. The undersigned, however, entertains no doubt that the Canadian Legisla- ture will not abandon the attempt to place their currency on a more satis- factory basis than that in which it has been placed by the act of 1841; and he is therefore anxious to impress, as far as in his power, on the mind of her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, that it will be most inexpedient to continue the present warfare between Canada and the Treasury department on a point on which the former is convinced she is right, but which is of no importance whatever to the interests of the empire."

UNITED Srerrs.—The latest news from New York is dated the 16th instant.

It is now stated that Mr. Webster is resolved conclusively to be a can- didate for the Presidency at the end of President Fillmore's term. The New York iferald says-

" It is stated upon authority which leaves.:no room for doubt, that Mr. Webster will nat return to this city as Secretary of State. He will remain away till about the assembling of Congress, when he will tender his resigna- tion. The position which his friends have placed him in renders it, in his opinion, indelicate that he should remain in the Cabinet."

The papers contain exulting accounts of the opening of the Nicaragua route between the Atlaxitic and Pacific Oceans. The following is one of a crowd of letters describing the first voyage homeward from California by the new road— "I left San Francisco on the 14th ultimo, at six o'clock p.m., in the beau- tiful steam-ship Pacific, with 425 passengers : we proceeded to Aciapulco, and remained there forty hours ; supplied ourselves with provisions and coals ; and arrived at San Juan del Sud, on the Pacific, the 29th, after a passage of four- teen days and sixteen hours. I took a mule, and rode a distance of eighteen miles to the city of Revoes, in three hours and a half ; stopped there three days and four hours ; left in the steamer Director, and passed through Lake Nicaragua to the Rapids, where we arrived in twenty-one hours; at which placed we stopped eighteen hours ; there took the beautiful iron ateamer Sir Henry L. Bulwer, and passed down the most romantic and beautiful river I have ever seen, in about ten hours, to the splendid steam-ship Prometheus, at San Juan of the Atlantic. The next morning at eleven o'clock a. m., we sailed from New York, with 360 passengers. Arrived in New York on the 12th, at eleven p. m. ; making the whole running time from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean thirty-four and a half hours; and in a few trips, when Commodore

i Vanderbilt gets his men well broke in, I can see no difficulty in his passing from ocean to ocean in twenty-four hours. What benefit this will be to the world I leave for others to judge, as I have merely given here the facts of the trip. We made the voyage from San Francisco in twenty-nine days and ' five hours. It is my opinion that a saving from this will be about as follows : the passage from San Francisco to San Juan del Sod will be regular in the steam-ship Pacific, twelve days; from ocean to ocean, one day; from San Juan to New York, eight days ; for loss in time and changing, one day, making in all twenty-two days through. This, I think, there is no doubt of. In pass- ing over this most beautiful and healthy country, there has not been one person of the whole party that has suffered from sickness or fatigue that can be imputed to the climate. I think this part of the Isthmus as healthy as any country I have ever travelled through."

Conc.—Trustworthy information as to the movements in Cuba is still wanting. The sympathizers at New York are evidently busy at invent- ing facts favourable to themselves ; but on the other hand, it is as plainly the interest of the Spanish Government to exaggerate any successes it may have gained. If the insurrection hold on and seem to promise well, American aid will pour forth with a force beyond the power of the United

States Government to control or that of Spain to resist : but if it appear to be disastrous at the outset, it will probably soon be suppressed alto- gether. In this point of view, it is of some moment to note, that several steam-ships laden with armed sympathizers are said to have slipped out of ports in the Eastern and Southern States, for some rendezvous on the Cuban shores : and one calculation makes the combined amount of armed men who have thus set forth, with sanguine hopes of success founded on accounts which they believe, amount to nearly 4000. The New York Spectator says that the letters of respectable merchants still discredit the accounts of insurgent success ; and they confirm the Spanish accounts of the surrender of the Aguero, whose name stood first among the three sig- natures to the proclamation by which the insurrection was inaugurated.