be 24ebn from Irtbia.

By the overland mail, intelligence has been received from Bombay to the 1st February, and from China to the middle of December.

The accounts from India are as uncertain as they are alarming. We first of all give a summary of the intelligence in as connected a shape as possible, and then subjoin extracts which present the several rumours in the distinctest light.

At the date of the insurrection in Cabul, the 2d November, the British forces in the city, consisting of 5,400 men, were disposed one half in the Bala-hissar or citadel, the other in an intrenched camp about six miles distant. After the murder of Sir Alexander Barnes, they were besieged by a force which is variously estimated: one circum- stantial account reckons it at 15,000 to 20,000 strong. So little precau- tion had been taken, that no provision had been made to keep up the communication between the two divisions ; the Commissariat stores were seized at the first attack ; and the men were left with insufficient clothing, and horse flesh for food--that even beginning to fail at the last—at a time when the ground was covered with snow. A fruitless attempt was made, on the 19th November, to send ammunition from the camp to the citadel ; and several British officers were killed and wounded. On the 22d, the enemy showed themselves on the heights, and a demonstration was made against them : and conflicts, with some severe fighting, occurred on the 29th, and on the 1st, 4th, 13th, and 23d December.

The insurgents were joined on the 25th November by Mahommed Akhbar Khan, the son of Dost Mahommed; and he was made their King, in place of Shah Zeman's son. His presence gave greater unanimity to the councils of the natives. There were various attempts at negotiation, to which Mahommed Akhbar seemed favourably in- clined; and at length, on Christmas-day, he invited Sir William Hay MNaghten, the British Envoy, to a conference near a bridge. Sir William went, with four officers and a small escort. The purport of the conversation is variously reported; but high words arose, and Mahommed Akhbar, using violent language, suddenly drew a pistol and shot the Envoy. Captain Trevor, who rushed forward to rescue his chief, was cut down ; and the other officers were seized by an ambuscade which had been placed near the spot. Sir William's head was cut off, the green spectacles which he wore to protect weak eyes were set in their place, a portion of his mutilated body was placed in the mouth, and so it was paraded about the town. The command of the forces was assumed by Major Eldred Pottinger, known for the defence of Herat. Subsequent events, as it may be seen from the reports detailed below, are uncertain. According to some ac- counts, Major Pottinger had a months' provisions, and was in his posi- tion on the 28th December; others represent him as having made peace with Mahommed Akhbar, and others again as having left the place to fight his way. Among the deaths which had taken place, are those of General Elphinstone—it is said of an attack of gout, caused by fatigue ; Colonel Mackerell, Forty-fourth Regiment ; Colonel Oliver, Fifth Bengal Native Infantry ; Captains Mackintosh, Laing, and Walker, of the same regiment ; and Captain Westmacott, Thirty- seventh Bengal Native Infantry.

Exertions had been made to send reinforcements to the scene. Sir Robert Sale maintained up to the last advices, dated January 1st, the strong position which he had established at Jellalabad, ninety miles from Cabul ; and two brigades, under General Wild and General Pol- lock, were proceeding from Peshawur.

Candahar was in possession of a large body of British troops, under General Nott. Ghuznee was well garrisoned; and Scinde was said to be tranquil. Nepaul was inactive. In Burmah, Tharawaddie was busy in pulling down Rangoon, and building a new city, which be called Voh-a-lah-ban. The local news in the several Presidencies is unim- portant. An itinerant diplomatic agent was said to be travelling in the East on behalf of the French Government ; his name is Colonel Dubois De Jansigny. On arriving lately at Macao in the frigate Erigone, he called himself Envoy to the Court of Pekin ; but the real nature of his employment was understood to be that of an observer merely.

We subjoin extracts from several papers, setting forth reports which it is impossible to test or reconcile with each other. The Morning Post avers that the despatches received by Government are of a more dis- astrous complexion than the published accounts.

[From the Bombay Correspondence of the Morning Post.]

Cabul has fallen ; the whole British force there, amounting to about six thousand men, annihilated; one entire British Regiment, the Forty-fourth, erased at one fell swoop from the Army-list, and five Native regiments cut to pieces. The ladies of the Envoy and the officers, sixteen in number, have been carried into captivity by the ruthless Afghans. Sir William M•Naghten, our Envoy at Cabal, had been treacherously assassinated by the son of Dost Ma- liononed, his head cut off, paraded through the streets on a pole, and stuck in derision on the walls of Cabul by the infuriated insurgents." Our troops, as well as the enemy, were at length reduced to such extremities that overtures for terms of accommodation were at length mutually agreed to be discussed; and on the 25th December, Sir W. M‘Naghten, with several officers, were invited to a conference with Mahommed Akhbar Khan, the son of Dost Mahommed, and other chiefs, at which dishonourable terms were proposed by the latter,—via. that we should surrender our arms, and evacuate the country

altogether; that the married officers and their wives should be retained as host- ages, and returned to us only vffien we got beyond Peshawur and Dust Ma- hommed was returned to them. The following extract from the General Order issued by the Bombay Government [directing mourning and a military funeral ceremonies in honour of Sir William, Governor-Elect of the Presidency] re- cords the answer of the Envoy t this dishonourable proposal-

- • This atrocious crime was perp,trated at Cabot on the 25th December last, during a conference to which his Excellency had been invited by the leaders of the insurrec • tion at that place, under the pretence of arranging terms of accommodation with his Majesty Shah Soojah-Ool-Moolk. Higher authority will pronounce the eulogium so justly due to the eminent talents and distinguished services of this lamented public functionary. But whilst 'this Government abstains front trespassing on this ground. it cannot refrain, amidst the most unfeigned grief, from recording almost the last public act of Sir William Hay M•Nagliten's life. When terms dishonourable to the British arms were proposed by the leaders of the insurrection at Cabul, his Excellency hero- ically replied, that '• death was preferable to dishonour ; that we put our trust in the God of battles, and in his name we defy our enemies." ' "You will remember that the accounts of the first outbreak in Cabul, and the death of Sir A. Barnes, transmitted to you two months ago by the mail of the 1st December, were not at first believed here. Eight days afterwards, however, they were fully confirmed. The death of Sir \V. M•Naghten was reported here among the natives six days before accounts were received ; and so on in numerous other instances, the whole of which have ultimately turned out in the main to be correct. This morning, however, accounts have been re- ceived from Jellalabad to the 7th January, two days later than the previous advices. At that time a Dr. Bryan, or some such name had reached Jella- labad, having had a miraculous escape, and one of the few survivors of the whole Cabul army. A hurried despatch seems to have been sent off imme- diately.on his arrival, from which it appears that the force must have marched out of Cabul about the 29th December. They had three hard days' fighting in the fatal Khoord Cabul Pass, seventeen miles English from Cabal, on the road to Jellalabad ; and Dr. Bryan reports having witnessed seven officers butchered. The ladies, sixteen in number, were taken back to Cabul by the Afghans. A fate worse than death awaits them ! It is reported that Major Eldred Pottinger, and two or three other officers, have also escaped.

"We can have no further particulars for some days. It is not stated how Dr. Bryan effected his escape ; nor is there a whisper of the fate of Shah- Soojah." [From the Alexandrian Correspondence of Me Morning C'hronicle.] " By a despatch received on the day of the steamer's leaving Bombay, the army in Cabul was destroyed, and only one officer escaped, an Assistant-Sur- geon, name not reported. They made a capitulation to retire from Cabul, leaving all the sick, wounded, and ladies in Cabal; and were not molested for two daj s, when they were assailed by an immense force, and, after all fighting most gallantly, the Native regiments gave way. The last seen of the gallant Forty-fourth and Queen's was reduced to about 150, still in a body, struggling through the snow, and being picked off like snipes. Lady M'Naghten and the other ladies were set to grind corn : they intend to keep them as an exchange for Dust Mahommed. This news is not in any of the papers; but you may rely upon it, as it was given me by —."

[From the Bombay Times, February 1.]

"Sir Robert Sale's brigade had left Cabul in the beginning of October, and reached Jellalabad on the 12th November ; and there they remained cooped up, and unable to move at peril of their existence. The beleaguered host could receive aid from no one; they were surrounded by an enemy from 15,000 to 20,000 strong. Their Commissariat having almost at the first outbreak been destroyed, they were, at the date at which the present narrative commences, ill oft for clothing, and sorely pinched for food. The force besides was divided: it con- sisted of nearly 6,000 men, one-half in the Balla Hisser or citadel within the town, the other half in a fortified camp six miles off—a deep mountain-stream which they were never able to force intervened. By the 20th, much annoy- ance and some apprehension began to be entertained of the effluvia of the heaps of unburied dead everywhere strewed around : about ten thousand corpses lay festering about the city or near the camp of General Elphinstone ; threatening to add the horrors of pestilence to those of famine and the sword so soon as a relaxing temperature should stimulate putrefaction. An attempt was at this time made to submerge the camp, by diverting a torrent from its course, and directing its waters against the iutrenchnieuts : fortunately it was prevented—a canal guided the stream harmlessly away. In the camp, provisions had become extremely scarce ; ammunition was plentiful. In the citadel, both food and powder were nearly expended."

"Although the most intense anxiety has been manifested on the subject, we have not been able during the month to obtain any minute particulars of the fate of the late Sir Alexander Burnes and his brother ; no communications containing details of any sort having, so far as we can ascertain, reached India from our ill-fated countrymen at CabuL The melancholy fact, however, is confirmed by a manifesto in the Persian language, an extract of which we have seen, and which had been addressed by the Mums of Cabul to some of the subordinate chiefs. In this document they proclaim, that, early in the morning of the third Tuesday of the blessed mouth Ramazan (corresponding with the 2d November last,) they, with other brave heroes, • striving like lions,' carried by storm the house of Sikunder Burnes, rushing from an ambush right and left, and put him to the sword, together with some other Feringhees of con- sideration, and nearly 500 battalion men."

"Dust Mahommed Khan is at present at Saharuupoor. He is strictly watched and guarded, but otherwise under no particular restraint. He is, on the whole, cheerful, and coosh (an lndo-Anglicized word for comfortable—in good spirits) enough. So far from having been detected in correspoudence with his former subjects, or suspected of exciting them against us, he seems to be severely and deeply annoyed at the conduct of his M."

[From the Times of yesterday.] • "The worst can no longer be doubted of the unhappy troops at Cabul. Ac- counts have been received in town which can be implicitly relied upon, and from which the following is an extract—' On the 18th January, Dr. Brydon staggered into Jellalabad, wounded and confused from suffering and fatigue. He relates that our people quitted Cabul, under the convention agreed upon by Major Pottinger, on the 5th instant. The cantonment was immediately oc- cupied by the Afghans, and the English were almost instantly attacked. The march became and continued a constant fight. At the Khoord Cabul Pass, about ten miles from Cabal, the ladies were sent back, under an escort of some of Ukbar Khan's people, who promised to protect thew. At Tenet), General Elphinstone and Colonel Shelton were made prisoners. The Native troops became disorganized and scattered. At Jagdaluk, four hundred of her Majesty's Forty- fourth, who had before kept well together, became disorganized also, broke and scattered. Beyond this the Doctor knows nothing, having with the greatest difficulty preserved his own life. Ile gives the names of seven officers whom lie knows to have fallen. Brigadier Anguettil, Major Ewart, and Lieutenant Sturt arc among them. Some stragglers may have escaped, but there is little hope that the main body have been any thing but annihilated. We gave up six hostages before leaving the cantonment— Webb, Walsh, Connolly, and three others—chosen, I suppose, by lot. There is more hope, perhaps, for the women than for any one else.' General Elphinstoue (the report of whose death must have been erroneous) and Colonel Shelton were taken prisoners. Something like a treaty, not very reputable to us, preceded the march of the troops."

[From the Bombay Correspondence of the Morning Chronicle.]

"It would seem that some time previous to the outbreak in Cabul, Sir

Alexander Burnes was warned of an intended rise of the Afghans against our power. A letter has been published by Captain Gray, of her Majesty's Forty- fourth Regiment, detailing the events of a journey from Cabul to Kurnaul, in the course of which he obtained information respecting the enemy's designs' of a nature so important, and from a source so trustworthy, that he deemed it expedient at once to communicate it to the authorities at _Abu'. The country be passed through was in a most disturbed state, and the march was one of extreme difficulty, his escort having in many pieces to fight their way. On the 7th October, the chief of their party, Mahomed Linen Khan, who hs4 been characterized by Sir A. Burnes as a very respectable and trustworth, man,' and by whose advice he had been requested by that officer to be alto- gether guided, took him aside, and told him that 'he was very much alarmed for thew safety ; in fact, that the whole of Afghanistan were determined to make one cause of it, and to drive out and murder every Feringhee in the country ; and that there was not the least reliance to be placed on the escort; and Cabul itself was ready to break out.' Captain Gray immediately wrote an official letter to Sir A. Barnes, apprising him of the state of affairs ; and the packet was taken and duly delivered, the bearer bringing back to Mahomed Uzeen Khan an acknowledgment of its receipt. He then proceeded on his way ; and after some adventures, in which much occurred to strengthen his conviction of the truth of the information he had received, arrived safely at Kurnaul, which station he reached on the 3d December.

"Whether or no this information was communicated by Sir A. Burnes to the Envoy, does not appear; but it is evident, if such was the case, it was despised and disregarded. Unless we can believe that the letter rectivedty the Chief of Captain Gray's escort, acknowledging the receipt of the official packet was forged, we are forced to the conclusion that Sir Alexander safely obtained the letter. The neglect of the warning it contained, whether attributable to him or to the Envoy, was an error of immense importance, as the consequences have too clearly proved ; but, however we might be disposed to censure that error under other circumstances, we must now pass it over in regretful silence."

"News from Candahar of a most important nature has also come to hand. It extends to the 6th January. The tribes have at length risen ; and an army of 1,500 men, under Ala Mahomed, is assembled around the city. Prince Sufter Jung, the youngest son of Shah Soojah, is reported to have fled from Cabul, and joined the enemy's force at Candahar ; but this appears exceedingly improbable. The chief, Ackhbar Khan, is said to be approaching ; and the rebel army is increasing fast, the people flocking in eagerly to swell its ranks : but our troops, nevertheless, are in high spirits, and fearless of danger ; and the Candahar people have every confidence in the efficiency of their protection, and exhibit no symptom of alarm. This intelligence is such as we have long expected to receive. For the safety of Candahar there need be no apprehen- sion ; for, with a force of 10,000 men, General Nott may defy the strongest efforts of the enemy ; but, alas for Ghuznee, with its single regiment of Sepoys! its loss surely is inevitable!"

At Asseer Guch, a Bombay station occupied by Madras troops, the men had mutinied on account of a reduction in wen; pay. In a despatch dated Jellalabad, 18th November, General Sale says-

., It illustrates in a painful manner the excitement of the mind of the people against us at this period, to relate, that my decamping from Gundamuck on the 11th was the signal for the commencement of a scene of shameful defection among the irregular troops, and a general insurrection of the surrounding Kheils, which had before remained quiescent."

Intelligence had been received from China at Calcutta, to the 13th December. Up to the 23d November, the latest date from Chum, the Plenipotentiary and the Admiral were both at Tinghae, and no move- ment had been made on Hang-choo-foo. The arrival of Sir Henry Pottinger at Macao was looked for every day. It was said that he was dissatisfied with the Chinese fulfilment of the convention entered into with Captain Elliot relative to the river of Canton ; and that he was about to attack their forts in the middle of December. It was, however, very generally stated in Bombay, that intelligence to the 19th Decem- ber had reached Calcutta, and tint Canton had been attacked tiy the British forces.

Government have taken up seventeen ships at Calcutta and Madras, for the conveyance of troops to China. Among the forces was a troop of Horse Artillery. The troop were only to take thirty horses, but were provided with spare harness for what cattle they could catch. The whole was to sail about the first week in March.

Trade was proceeding as usual in Canton on the 4th December, although upon unfavourable terms. By forcing sales of manufactures upon an unwilling market, their prices are even lower now than before, and cotton also shows a tendency to decline. Teas are about the same as last week, but it is observed that this year's crop is generally of an inferior quality. Large quantities of green teas are now being pre- pared in Macao for the American market ; a considerable portion of these sorts of teas, as indeed of many others, being now shipped from here instead of from Canton. The scarcity of the circulating medium daily increases ; and sycee silver is at par, whilst Mexican dollars are of extremely difficult sale at 4 to 5 per cent discount.— Times.