311isullnurnm

Sir Erskine Perry has been appointed a member of the Council of India. This creates a vacancy at Devonport. Mr. James Wilson has been selected for the important post of financial member of the Calcutta Council. He will be the Chancellor of the Exchequer of India, and set that department in order.

At a meeting of the Council of India on Thursday, Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, K.C.B.' was appointed an ordinary member of the Council' of the Governor-General of India.

Mr. Labouchere, who is about to be elevated to the House of Peers, , has addressed a farewell letter to his constituents at Taunton whom he 'hasre

as represented for thirty years. He takes his leave with the strongest feelings of gratitude and attachment, and will always feel a warm in- terest in all that concerns the good name and prosperity of Taunton. The Queen, on the advice of the Committee of Council on Education, has appointed the Reverend Joseph Woolley, late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, to be an Inspector of Schools, and to order that his appointment bear date April 1, 1858.

Lord Eversley has been appointed a member of the Ecclesiastical Commission.

Don Kul Corsini, better known as the Marquis of Laiatico, has just arrived in this country as the representative of the Tuscan Government and people at the present most critical period of Italian affairs. He has been occupied in Paris as special envoy to the Emperor.

A foolish statement, put in circulation by a morning contemporary, that the United States Government have agreed to give up the right of privateering, is totally untrue. The United States Government has ac- cepted three of the declarations on maritime law at the Paris Congress of 1866, but they have not adopted the declaration touching privateering. Who, but a gobemouche, could believe they had or would ?

A letter from Florence states, that the energetic and well-directed efforts of Mr. Stockton, the American Minister at Rome, have obtained for Mr. E. W. Perkins from that Government the sum of 3425 Roman ecudi, as compensation for losses at Perugia.

A despatch from Lord John Russell to Lord Bloomfield, in answer to the mediatorial suggestions of the Prussian Government conveyed to Lord John at the end of June by Baron Bernstorff, has been, published. It bears date July 7, and is somewhat out of date since it refers to a period antecedent to the peace ; but a part of it contains general state- ments of the views of the British Government in reference to the future, and is therefore still a-propos. After putting Lord Bloomfield in posses- sion of the nature of the Prussian suggestions, and commenting on the then state of things in a manner showing that the English Government did not anticipate the sudden peace—the despatch is dated the very day of the armistice—Lord John Russell thus sets forth the views of the Cabinet :- " It might, perhaps, be premature to discuss whether the King of Sar- dinia should reign over Lombardy, Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, or whether several independent States in Northern Italy should be maintamed or created. Be their divisions and boundaries arranged as they may, it is the firm persuasion of her Majesty's Government that an Italy in which the people should be 'free citizens of a great country' would strengthen and confirm the balance of power. The independence of States is never so secure as when the sovereign authority is supported by the attachment of the people. A sovereign maintained wholly by the force of arms over a disaffected people is a perpetual object of attack to her ambitious neigh - boors; and a balance of power founded on such discordant elements gives

only an unstable equilibrium.- If Italy could be ruled over by sovereigns possessed of the affections of their people, that country, with its 25,000,000 of inhabitants, its natural wealth, and its ancient civilization, would, in the opinion of her Majesty's Government, be a valuable member of the Euro- pean family.

"I must not omit to state that any settlement of Italy would, in the eyes of her Majesty's Government, be incomplete, which did not effect a per- manent reform in the administration of the States of the Church. Every one knoci-s that Rome and the Legations have been much worse governed by the Pope's Ministers than Lombardy by Austrian Archdukes, and that would be a partial and unsatisfactory arrangement which struck down the rule of the latter, and left the former in all its deformity. Our views upon this subject have not been withheld from the Government of the Emperor of the French.

"Such being the opinions of her Majesty's Government on the present state of affairs, they are averse to any interposition which might either prove fruitless in the first instance, or which might lead to a partial and in- secure settlement. Her Majesty used her utmost efforts, consistent with peace to maintain the faith of treaties. At the last moment Austria, by an act of supreme imprudence, began the war and invaded Piedmont. From that time everything has been changed. Austria overstepped the frontier laid down in the treaties of 1815. It could no longer be expected that those treaties would be regarded as binding by France and Sardinia. Italy has been roused to war, and is taking her part in the struggle. In these cir- cumstances her Majesty's Government are bound to take a larger view of the whole field of contest. They will be glad to consult Prussia on every occasion where either Power is of opinion that a step towards peace can be made with good effect. It gives them pleasure to find that the Cabinet of Berlin does not partake of the violent excitement which has lately arisen in some parts of Germany, and that in directing the efforts of the German Confederation she is animated by an enlightened care for the best interests of European civilization."

The King of Saxony has been to Toplitz to visit the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and the Princess Amelia of Saxony, who are taking the waters there.

A letter from Vienna of the 27th July states that the King of the Belgians is expected at Toplitz in the course of the present week. It is said he will have an interview with the Emperor of Austria and the Prince Regent of Prussia, and receive a visit from his daughter, the Princess Charlotte, and her husband, the Archduke Maximilian.

The Ministerial Whitebait dinner will take place next Wednesday, the 10th instant, at the Trafalgar' Greenwich, and it is anticipated that the business of the session will be brought to a close on the following Saturday, the 13th.—Globe.

The Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, accompanied by the Princesses Marie and Eugenie, and the Princes Sergius and George of Russia, arrived at Dover from Ostend on Sunday. They have gone to Torquay, Mr. Bruce, our Ambassador to Pekin, left Hongkong for Shanghai on the 2d of June ; and on the same day the French Ambassador also sailed for the same destination. It is stated that Mr. Ward, the American Minister, was delayed because the Powhattan had got ashore at Woosung. It was hoped she would soon be got off.

Ajudgeship in the Court of Bankruptcy in Ireland has become vacant by the death of the Honourable Patrick Plunket, one of the numerous sons Of the Late Lord Plunket, who expired on Monday at Kingstown, in the sixtieth year of his age. He succeeded his colleague, Mr. Macan, but a few weeks, and wanted but a year of service to entitle him to his full retiring Pension.

Mr. Robert John Biron has been appointed to the Recordership of Hythe, vacant by the decease of Mr. Henry Plumptre Gipps, who had held the dice thirteen years.

A telegram sent from Ems on the evening of the 2d August announces that the Prince Regent of Prussia had just arrived there with a numerous suite.

The Vienna Gazctte announces that the Grand Duke of Tuscany left Prague the 29th July for Dresden.

Ali-Khan, ambassador from Persia to Paris and London, has arrived in Paris with twenty-five young men, who are come to France to be educated.

At Ostend, on Sunday, the first stone of a now dock was laid by the King of the Belgians with considerable pomp, the Duke of Brabant and the Count de Flandre being present at the ceremony.

The Corriere Mercantile of Genoa states that Marshall Valliant would not allow the French officers to accept a banquet offered to them by the population of Genoa.

The Duchess de Alba, sister of the Empress, was expected at Bayonne on Saturday night on her way from Madrid to Paris.

The improbable story was lately set about that Prince Napoleon was going all the way to Vienna to bring home the remains of the Duke of Reichstadt (Napoleon II.). The Pattie now says there is no sort of foundation for the rumour.

The anniversary of the death of King Charles Albert was celebrated for the first time at Florence on the 28th in the church of Santa Croce.

A public meeting was held at Southampton on Wednesday evening, for the purpose of adopting measures to raise a monument to the memory of the late Alderman Richard Andrews, of that town.

The French Minister of State has just officially appointed Mademoiselle Taglioni to be inspectress of all the dancing classes at the opera, and to per- fect such pupils as she may consider likely to become first-rate performers.

Gilbert Elliott, second Earl of Minto, died on Sunday at his house in Eaton Square, after a protracted illness. He was born in 1782. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1832, he was Minister to the Court of Berlin in 1834, and Lord Privy Seal in 1847. At this period he went on that mission to Italy which created such a stir then and since. He remained a Cabinet Minister until 1852. He is succeeded by his eldest son, Lord Melgund, who was born in 1814. Among the other surviving children of the late Earl are Lady Dumfermline, Lady John Russell, and Lady Elizabeth Hominy.

Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Cornwall Legh, of the 97th Regiment, who distinguished himself in the Crimea, being one of the few who escape4 from the slaughter in the Redan, and who has led his regiment in many of the smart encounters in Oude, including the siege of Lucknow, died at Bands, in Bundelcund, on the 3d of June, in the 36th year of his age. The ser- vice thus lost a very promising dicer, and his comrades and men a good friend. Dr. Vaughan, a Roman catholic bishop, died at Nenagh on Friday evening last. He was in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and the tenth of his episcopacy. Mr. Edward Hughes, head master of the lower school of Greenwich Hospital, expired on Saturday last, at his residence in Greenwich. By the parliamentary return moved for by Mr. Lindsay in March last the salary and allowances amount to 4001. a year, with an official residence. The appointment, it appears, is the patronage of the Admiralty.

We have the best authority for saying that the paragraph which is going the round of the papers, copied from a High Church journal, that the Bishop of Exeter is about to resign his see, and that he is to be succeeded by Dr. Eden, Bishop of Moray and Ross, is without foundation.

At the recent half-yearly general meeting of the members of the Mutual Life Assurance Society held in the board-room of their new building, 39, King Street, Cheapsicle ; Mr. George Batteock in the chair, the Chairman called on the Actuary to read the account of the receipts and disbursements for the half-year. He stated that the little he had to say was of a gratifying kind. The new premiums for the half-year ending 30th of June last were (as the meeting learned from the account just read) upwards of 27001., which is 10001. beyond the average of the same half-year in the last four years, and more than double the average of the same periods in the previous four years, and that the accumulated fund was steadily on the increase, as after paying all claims and expenses for the six months just passed, the society had saved half its income. Five directors and one auditor going out by rotation, were then reelected, and thanks being voted to the Chairman and the Directors, the meeting separated.