lump Huh CnInutal.

FRANCE.—President Bonaparte has set out on a progress through the departments of the North-west, on a visit to the great port and arsenal of Cherbourg. At present, only accounts from Evreux have been received. Here, in the department of the Eure, the President received an immense majority of votes at his election ; it was to bo expected therefore that his reception would be enthusiastic : so it was, but the enthusiasm was less personal than the .Bonapartists would have had it. The ten thousand National Guards cried exclusively, "Viva le President!" and the enor- mous crowd of the general populace shouted as exclusively, "Vivo la Re- publique r

A great naval review was to take place at Cherbourg on the 6th and. 7111 instant ; in which seven line-of-battle ships, and a number of steam- fligates, would perform war evolutions. Our own Admiralty Lords have gone in their yacht the Black Eagle to the Channel Islands, and it is said tholswill go on to Cherbourg and be present at the review.

. ifention is directed to the proceedings of the Councils-General of the Departments,—bodies resembling the English county Grand Juries in intus, and to some extent resembling them in function. It has become a. practice of those bodies to submit to the Government legislative sug- gestions. Of the eighty-three Councils of France, about twenty have held their sittings: nearly all of them. advise a revision of the Constitu- ; but the majority of teem propose that the revision should be made ip the form and at the period prescribed by the Constitution itself. Among the various detailed suggestions is one that the period of Louis Napoleon's Presidency shell be prolonged from the period fixed by the Constitution, of four years, to one of ten years.

homes—The overland mail has brought news from Bombay to the 25th July. The political news consists rather of unpleasant reports and ni- mours than of serious facts.

The passes of Kohat are again shut by the Affroedees ; and it is thought that we shall have to make an expensive demonstration before we can open them and bring them under our control. The real reason of the hostility we encounter is said to be, not dissatisfaction on account of the altered salt-tariff, as we formerly explained, but a military jealousy of our having a practicable gun-road through regions hitherto impracticable for such messengers of peace and order.

The Sikh prisoners at Allahabad give the British authorities perpetual uneasiness : there are reports that further plots have been discovered for their liberation en masse, and some of our own Native noncommissioned officers are said to be implicated by the discoveries made. Of course, all is traced to the energetic influences of that arch intriguer the Ranee Chunda.

The Bengal Times of the 15th July describes another explosion of a commissariat fleet laden with gunpowder, at Dinsmore, on the 10th. The meagre account closes with these remarks- " At first we thought the Sikhs had something to do with it; sending a tried man as a mullah, who did the deed by means of a slow match. But when you are made acquainted with the fact, that while here about 200 Dinaporian boatmen were engaged, each having an advance of from five to eight rupees, coupled with the fact that all the boatmen made their escape ere the explosion occurred, suspicion cannot but rest upon them."

One of the most interesting points in the Indian news has a melan- choly personal interest. Colonel King, who commanded the Fourteenth Light Dragoons at ChiBeanwallah, committed suicide on the 6th of July, stung by the public reproach of misconduct or cowardice. It will be re- membered that at Chilleanwallah, Colonel King's corps, from some cause never to this day fully cleared up, got into a momentary confusion, and retreated through our own artillery with such disorderly rapidity as to ride over some of the gunners and cause the loss of two guns which the Sikhs made prize of The matter was smoothed over by ford Gough, and was at last nearly forgotten, when at a review some months since, Sir Charles Napier revived it by an expression which, perhaps uninten- tionally, seemed a taunt. Praising the men, he said, "The men of the Fourteenth would go anywhere if properly led." It is stated that Co- lonel King himself certainly did not regard the expression as aimed at himself : words of his, in reference to Sir Charles, used soon afterwards, are deemed to show this conclusively. But by other persons the unfor- tunate interpretation was put upon the _words ; and on this becoming matter of public remark and reaching Colonel King's earn, a deep and settled melancholy laid hold of him. In a %nubble at the theatre, some of the ar- tillersrmen of the battery who were overridden by the Fourteenth at Chil- leanWallah taunted the troopers with cowardine ; a serious riot ensued, and a private named M`Lean was taken before Colonel King: sentenced to punishment by the Colonel, the soldier in his irritation told Colonel King he was a coward, and. referred to the very matter which had brought him into trouble. He was tried by- court-martial, and sentenced to be whipped. Before the sentence was executed, he was allowed to get drunk in order to render him- more callous to the pain : after being whipped, he broke loose, staggered up to Colonel King, and publicly repeated his contume- lious accusations s adding a fatal paraphrase of Sir Charles Napier's words —"if the men a the Fourteenth had been properly led," Ste. M`Lean was immediately tried for this gross offence, and sentenced to seven yeare' transportation. Sir Charles Napier, however; revised the proceedings of the Court ; calling attention to some facts demanding serious notie.e.

" 1. The prisoner was allowed to get drunk in the guard-room of her Ma-

jesty's Fourteenth Light Dragoons when under sentence of a court-martiaL 2. The prisoner was brought drink to the parade. 3. Assistant-Surgeon Rumen, whose business it was closely to have examined the state of the prisoner who was about to suffer corporal punishment, did not examine him, and did not perceive that he was intoxicated, till drink and the pain of pun.- ishment had made him so furious, that the Assistant-Surgeon's own words. are, I thought he must be either mad or drunk.' 4. The Adjutant, Lieu- tenant Apthorp, equally unobserving with the Assistant-Surgeon, did not find out that the prisoner was drunk till after he had received punishment. 6. The consequence was, that the soldier was flogged when in a state of intoxi- cation ; and all this took place in presence of .Lieutenant-Colonel King, the commanding-officer of the regiment. 6. When freed from the triangles, the prisoner, infuriated by having drunk nearly two bottles of arraek and some beer in the guard-room, as proved before the Court, became outrageous and abusive, as might have been foreseen. 7. leek the Court, therefore, to con- sider and to mitigate its sentence ; for however disgraceful and insubordinate. the conduct of the culprit may have been, it was certainly as much produced by neglect of duty in others as by the drunkard himself. The sentence ap- pears to me to be severe beyond all proportion to the orime, in the peculiar circumstances above stated."

The Court-martial carefully considered these remarks, and begged respectfully to adhere to the sentence. 'Whereupon, Sir Charles Napier wrote- "Head-quarters. July 1, 1850. "I am sorry that the Court felt itself called upon to adhere to a sentence

which I have no power to commute, and cannot, in the extraordinary cir- cumstances of the case execute. I have therefore, no alternative but to pardon the prisoner ; not excused by his drunkenness, but by facts stated in my remarks to the Court on its proceedings being revised. I assure the' Court, that great severity, without a due consideration being given to cir- cumstances, is not justioe, nor conducive to discipline. "The prisoner is to return to his troop. "C. J. Naomi; General, Commander-in-chief, East Indies." Colonel Bing went home, arranged his affairs, and on the morning of

the 6th July committed suicide,, by firing a pistol overloaded with powder into his mouth.: the upper part of his head was carried off, and scattered about his room. Letters were found addressed by him to the officers of. the Fourteenth, to the Commander-in-chief, and to his family.

Ausraanus—By the overland mail we learn that Melbourne paper, to the 16th May had been received. in India. They gave intelligence. that the Reverend Dr. Lang, on his arrival out from this country, had originated a movement for the " independence " of the Australian Colonies, which was exciting much attention. He had delivered a lecture on the subject at Melbourne, breathing respect for the Queen and good-will to- wards England, but strongly and openly urging separation and inde- pendence; which he believes "Great Britain will concede "on a proper representation of the case." Ir. Lang recommended the formation of an "Australian League," to consist of all colonists who pay an entrance-fee of five shillings with a yearly subscription of not less than ten shillings. The executive powers of this body, he proposes, shall be intrusted to a President, Vice-President, one or more Secretaries, and a Couneil of fifteen; who will pursue the objects set forth in the four followingresoln- tiomi— " 1. To unite in one grand political league for mutual protection and de- fence, and for general advancement, the five Australian Colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen'a Land, South Australia, Port Phillip, and Cooks- land or the Moreton Bay country ; that the inhabitants of these se:denies may henceforth feel and know that they are no longer isolated and detached communities—to be governed and oppressed separately and independently by ukases.from Downing Street, with none to interfere for them front without— but one people, having common interests and common objects, the nucleus and. elements of one great Australian nation.

"2. To prevent the degradation of any one of these colonies into a mere receptacle for the convicted felons of Great Britain and Ireland; and to re- medy, as far as inay be practicable, the enormous evils that have already re- suited. from the prevalence and abuse of the transportation system ineertain of these colonies.

"3. To encourage and promote, by every legitimate means, the influx of an industrious, virtuous, and thoroughly British population into these colo- nies ; that their vast-ond inexhaustible resources may be duly and fully de- veloped; and that they may be fitted as speedily as possible for taking the high and influential place which they are evidently destined to hold in the Civilized world; as the great leading power of the Southern hemisphere.

"4. To achieve, by moral means exclusively, and with the full approba- tion and concurrence of Great Britain, the entire freedom and independence of these colonies, and their erection into sovereign and independent states ; to be incorporated into one great political federation, like the Swise Cantons of Europe, or the United States of America, under the style and title of 'The United Provinces of Australia.' "

Assuming that England will agree to the erection of the proposed re- public, Dr. Lang's scheme descends to the minor arrangements for its government; which he would commit to the hands of a President, with a salary of 30001. per annum. A General Legislature would assist and control the President; with functione it is designed to assimilate to .those of the American chief magistrate. On all matters of internal legislation, education, religion, police, public winks, and so forth, Dr. Lano recom- mends that the respective states of the federation should be left perfectly free. Dr. Lane entered into the details of the schemes at great length, and every wed was applauded to the echo.

After the delivery of his lecture, Dr. Lang appears to have been cast into prison, arbitrarily, for some matter of debt; to the great displeasure of the Melbourne pohlie, who were raising a subscription to procure his release.

Usrersn Srares.—The news from America, brought down to the 24th of August, is almost confined to a single point. Mr. Webster had succeeded in arranging the differences between his Government and that of Portu- gal on the claims made by the United States. Four of the claims have been admitted by Portugal ; and the fifth, the only important one—that of compensation for the destruction of the General Armstrong by the Bri- tish at Fayal—has been referred by the two powers to the " arbitration " of Sweden.

The Fugitive Slave Bill, another fragment of Mr. Clay's wrecked Compromise Bill, has passed the Senate, and is likely to pass the other House.

The journeymen tailors of New York dissatisfied with their wages, had combined for a general strike ; but the masters holding out resolutely, the German tailors, a body of some four thousand men, had endeavoured to carry out the physical force arguments with which they have latterly become familiar in their own country. Having been resisted in their efforts to coerce the workmen-of a particular master, they attempted to pull down the master's house : a small body of police marched to the spot; were attacked, and had to wage battle for some hours before they routed the horde of their assailants, two of whom were killed and some twenty wounded in the fray. At subsequent meetings, the professional complaints assumed a tone of political exacerbation ; the master work- men were branded as aristocrats, and ranked with the bloody Austrian Haynaus, Neapolitan Ferdinands, and Prussian Fredericks of tyrannical Europe. It is a remarkable feature of the movement in New York, that the Irish tailors, who amount to three thousand, are to a man "moral force" men, repudiating the hot courses of the Germans.

The Tribune states that Professor Webster has made "another and full confession," in which he admits the " premeditated " murder of Dr. Feldman.