5 APRIL 1851, Page 2

Recent intelligence from Van Diemen's Land represents the state of

that colony as becoming daily more intolerable. The convicts, it is said, were fast accumulating on the hands of Government ; merchants' stores were hired to hold the surplus convicts ; and in the female factory at Hobart Town there were no fewer than seven hundred women-" so many she tigers," remarks a correspondent. let we are informed that a convict-ship is actually getting ready at Woolwich to sail for Van Diemen's Land with more convicts.

The last Indian mail brings news of an attack upon a party of British officers, and the murder of one of them, bythe Arabs in the vicinity of Aden. Since that place was occupied by the British, the hostilitities between them and the neighbouring tribes have been almost unintermitted. Much might be said in behalf of the occupation of stations like Aden for the protection and refreshment of our mercantile marine in remote seas among barbarous coun- tries ; but all past experience seems to show, that such stations, when made on the main land, can only be retained at the expense of constant wars and extensions of territory.