The accounts from China by the overland Indian mail tell
of no more marked event than some of the preliminary proceedings of the new Plenipotentiary, Sir HENRY PorrisGER. If it is safe to judge from such brief experiences, a decided change had taken place in the conduct of affairs, and therefore in the course of events. Sir HENRY POTTINGER had reversed two of Captain ELLIOT'S most fatal rules of policy : he had announced that no consideration for mercantile interests should hinder him in the pro- secution of the "war "—a plainspoken word, unknown to the Eixtor diplomacy—in order to its termination in an bonoumble and lasting peace ; and he had given the Chinese to understand that the tide of his activity would wait for no man : he would see no subordinates at Canton ; he had sent a letter to the Emperor ; and in the mean time, proceeding Northward with a hostile expe- dition, he had directed that an answer should meet him at some place far in his progress. It is said that the Chinese showed manifest dismay at such altered bearing on the part of the British authorities, and had much abated their assuming behaviour.
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