POSTSCRIPT.
SATUR DAY.
The morning papers fill several columns with intelligence from China and India, brought by the overland mail from Bombay. Before stating the substance of these accounts, we must mention a most extraordinary proceeding of the French authorities at Boulogne, as given in a letter from Mr. Waghorn in the Post of this morning. Mr. Waghorn's ex- press reached Boulogne between six and seven o'clock on Thursday morning ; having been brought by Frenchmen on horseback from Mar- seilles " in a most extraordinary short space of time." A messenger from Mr. Waghorn was waiting for it ; but the French authorities of the place seized the express, broke the seals, and refused to deliver it. The messenger returned to London ; and Mr. Waghorn immediately went to the Foreign Office, and procured a letter to M. Guizot, the Ambassador from France ; who as promptly sent instructions to the Prefect of Bou- logne to deliver the express to Mr. Waghorn's order. No reason is assigned for the strange conduct of the authorities at Boulogne. Poor Mr. Waghorn declares that he had never made such extraordinary efforts to procure the earliest Dews ; and the disappointment is particularly annoying at the present time, when his " resources are crippled by serious losses, occasioned by the plague in Egypt, by which his esta- blishments there arc working at a great sacrifice." The Times, by an extraordinary express, managed to procure the news and to publish it in late editions yesterday.
The death of the Empress of China is announced in the Pchin Ga- zette, but the day is not mentioned. The Empress had been married eight or nine years to the old• Emperor, and had borne him three.chil- dren. During the years 1835 and 1836, she exercised great influence over her husband, and procured appointments fir many of her " ma- tures" to the highest offices in the provinces. Latterly her importance had diminished, and a party which she was supposed to lead had been entirely excluded from all offices at court. l'he whole station was to go into mourning for a month, and the Mandarins were ordered not to shave for a hundred days.
Great uneasiness prevailed at Pekin ; and the opinion was general that the death of the Emperor would be followed by a revolution. Slight and accidental disturbances caused much alarm. At the per- formance of sacrifices in honour of the deceased Empress, a rafter of the temple caught fire, but was soon extinguished. The Emperor was very indignant, and it was expected that the attendants would lose their heads.
A. " high civilian" had been accused of smoking opium, tortured into a confession of the crime, and sentenced to transportation to Ele. Several military officers and common soldiers had been punished for the same offence.
An edict had been issued authorizing the reopening of the Portu- guese trade at Macao. on the ground that the Portuguese authorities had expelled the English, who are very well known to be there, and unmolested all the time. It was supposed that the Chinese authorities -would take possession of Macao. The Americans were expected soon to leave Canton. One of their firms had issued a circular declining to receive any more consignments of English goods.
The Chinese were preparing fire-rafts to act against the English fleet, and drilling a body of soldiere, who use two swords, one in each hand ; and by the clashing of these weapons terror was to he struck into the foe ! The Druid had arrived off Canton, but no other ship of war up to the Ritil of March—the date of the latest accounts from Canton.
At Singapore, opium was selling at front 500 to 650 dollars a chest.
From Bombay the intelligence reaches to the 23d of May. It is said that Sir Alexander Burnes had written to several persons, describing the proceedings of the Russians as calculated to excite apprehension. On the approach of the Russians to Chive, the Khan's troops ran away on the first fire ; and it would seem that they entered the place without experiencing serious opposition. They were exercising absolute power at Chive, and were in communication with the Khan of Bokhara. Sir Alexander Burnes does not believe that the Russians would have de- spatched so considerable a force to Chive-30,000 men with 72 pieces
of cannon—merely to liberete a few slaves. Activity in the military and naval departments at Bombay prevailed, and an impression existed that the movements of Russia occasioned it. A writer in the Calcutta Englishman says that Captain Abbott, who had been sent from the army of Afghanistan to Chive to watch the Russians, had been thrown into prison by the Khan of Chive.
A terrific hurricane had devastated the town of Poolee and the sur- rounding district in Orissa.
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