8 OCTOBER 1842, Page 2

The Indian mail has come with important news. The imperfect

telegraphic despatch betrayed Viscount Chronicle, with his rabid hostility to the Government that ousted his own, into a ludicrous tissue of disparaging assumptions about Lord EL LENBOROUGH'S plans ; assumptions to stand good for full ten hours ! The troops at Jellalabad and Candahar were ordered to move on Cabul, and the Viscount was in an ecstacy of contempt at the new instance of vacillation. Fuller accounts, however, make it clear that we do not even know what Lord ELLENBOROUGH'S plans are, and that his censor in London misinterpreted them before. The very extensive preparations for an advance could hardly have been adopted on a sudden change of purpose, as a manufacturer might change his pattern on a countermand by return of post. It is asserted by all—by his enemies in the way of reproach—that Lord ELLENBOROUGH has pursued a system of baffling secrecy : how can we see through it here, if the prying civilians and intriguing military politicians of India cannot penetrate it ? It was before said that Lord ELLENBOROUGH had ordered a retreat in October; and apologists were disposed to think that he was about " reculer pour mieux sauter" : suppose that the troops were still to move homewards in October, the advance being preliminary to a better retreat ? At this distance, with such palpable rebukes to hasty assumption, it would be wonderful that a practised politician should risk his reputation to more than hypothetical speculations, were it not for the obvious desire of a desperate man to risk any chance of damaging an opponent even for ten hours, and by raising a noise and a pother about the present and the future—a turmoil of attack and defence—to withdraw attention from the past. So easy, however, is good John Bull, that he would be almost too sure to forget all about PALM ERSTON and his misdeeds, if PALMER-• STON only could believe it and be quiet. We do not hear any thing of the abdication of the Emperor of China : that, perhaps, is part of the important intelligence which was still said to be " expected " ; coming, as the schoolboy says— row. It seems, however, that we are teaching the Chinese some_iptions of strategy ; so far at least that they have succeeded ini4eceiving a party of British troops, and inflicting an unusually 41rplow, especially among the officers.