The Press. — London, England, 1856-01-26 00:00:00

JANUARY 26, 1856. E \V AR. The telegraphic intelligence that Russia has ordered all hostilities to cease upon her part in the Crimea, will, if true, check the few matters of interest now gleaned from the camp, for the letters received dining this week do little but anticipate attacks from the Russians upon various points. At Kinburn, it was reported that some 10,000 men, with twenty guns, were being collected at Otchakoff and on the coast of the isthmus, so as to attack the fort simul taneously on front and flank, by crossing the ice, and advancing up the spit. The French general of artillery, Le Bceuf, had, on the sth, mi• nutely inspected the fortress, and pronounced it in an efficient state for a successful defence. The coast had been reconnoitred, and no large body of troops observed. The garrison and flotilla were, however, on the qui rive. At Kertch, on the other extremity of the coast, similar reports prevailed. General Wrangel was believed to be en route, with 50,000 men, to attack the tow❑ and fortifications. From our own camp the news is unimportant. The weather was intensely cold, but fine ; men and officers were well cared for, and the health of the army excellent. From Asia Minor, we learn that Mouravieff, at one time reported to be at the gates of Erzeroum, had blown up the advanced works of Kars, and fallen back on Gu►nri for the winter, leaving a strong force in Kars. Omer Pacha was still at Redout Kaleh. A portion of his army was to winter at Uzurgatu, while the remainder would he transferred to Trebi zond. General Kmety and Colonel Colman are said to have accepted commands at Erzeroum. THE WAR IN ASIA. Letters from Constantinople of January 10th state that : General Mouravieff, after having destroyed the advanced w irks of Kars, has left a force in that place, and directed hir march upon Gumri with the main body of his army. There were at Trebizond 13,000 Turks and Egyptians, the greater part of whom are on their way to the succour o' Erzerourn. These troops endure all sorts of privations, a el suffer extremely from the bad state of the roads, which a:e encumbered with snow. The Incalide Russe of the 15th publishes various extracts from Prince Goitschakoll's journals. Oil tie 31st December, the blowing up of the docks is simply noted as " a loud explosion on the south side, followed by two others in the dry docks." On the same day, a foray seems to have been made by the French from Eupatoria, of which we have not yet received any official intelligence : From Eupatoria, under date of the 10th (31st) of Dec. (writes Prince Gortschakoff), it is reported that sixteen squadrons of French cavalry, with two pieces of horse artillery and a division of infantry, had left the town and taken the direction of the village of Saki, preceded by an advanced guard of two squadrons. Major Ditnitrieff, oI the dragoons of his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Nicolaieyitch, who commands this portion of our advanced posts, having apprised the advanced guard of the advance of the enemy in superior force, he commenced retreat;ng Saki and Tchebotar, pursued by the French, who threatened his right flank.. _ _ Major-tienertif de Slitton, in command of the advanced guard, informed of this movement, placed his Cossacks in the plain between Lake Saki and Tchebotar, and sent two trAnias of the rsith Regiment to the village orrouzla, in the rear of the enemy's squadrons, which had detached themselves and had meantime been joined by two other Iluadrons; the enemy, received by the fire of the Cossacks placed in the ravine, threatened with being turned by the detachment from the village of Tonila, and seeing two regiments of dragoons and a battery of horse artillery appear on the Tchebotar heights, hastily rejoined the main body, near Sak , and half an hour afterwards returns d to Eupatoria. During the pursuit of the retreating squad inns by the Cossacks, the French Captain Fouques, of the .aff, was made prisoner. CAMP OCCURRENCES. The amusement of snow bulling, and construction of amatuer redoubts and fancy batteries, upon the capture or defence of which the energies of rival regiments ware devoted, form almost the staple subject -matter of present letters from the camp. Some little excitement, however, had been caused in Balaklava by the Provost Marshal having Hogged the mate of one of the transport steamers, and threatened a couple of transport captains with the same. The correspondent of the Daily News, writing on the 7th, gives the following account of THE PROVOST MARSHAL AND THE MATE. There has been considerable excitement during the past w iek among the masters and officers of transports in Bala xlava harbour on account of the second officer of the star of the .South, a large steam transport of I,moo tons, having been flogged by the l'rovost Marshal. It appears that he was taken to the guard-house on Sunday night lust by a policeman, who charged him with being drunk. He had resisted capture, and his clothes were torn and soiled in the struggle. The next morning Captain Frayne, of the Slar of the South, and Captain Champion, of her Majesty's THE PRESS. steam transport Melbourne, went to the guard-house to in tercede for him, and to request that he might have a hear ing, as he denied having been drank, and said he could produce witnesses to prove his sobriety when taken up. Their efforts, however, were in vain, and he received eighteen lashes; and one of the two transport captains having been overheard by a soldier to remark to his com panion that this was brutal treatment, he was threatened with the like if he did not go on board his ship. A. com plaint was made to Admiral Fremantle. and some corre spondence has taken place on the subject between the nasal and military authorities and Captains Champion and Frayne, who, as highly respectable men, holding very re sponsible situations, and well known to, and esteemed by, many officers out here, naturally feel aggrieved by the menace of a disgraceful punishment. The second mate's friends deny that he wits drunk. It appears that he stutters, which may have contributed to a mistake as to his state. DESTRUCTION OF THE CENTRE DOCK. The demolition of the docks continue. Four out of the five docks have now been destroyed, and the remaining one probably by this time : On Wednesday evening the English engineers blew up the bottom of the centre dock, which is at top 236 feet long and 95 feet 4 inches wide, and at bottom 191 feet long and 40 feet wide. There were 13 charges in all-11 of 1601bs. each, and two of 3001bs. each—total, 2,36tilbs. of powder. The hour named was half past four; but all was not ready for Mr. Deen to operate upon with his ten voltaic batteries and electric wires till an hour and a half after, when the demolition was pronounced complete as far as it went. Two cables were again used, to which the small wires lead ing to each charge were attached. In addition to a large number of engineer officers, there were present, although it was dark, the commander-in-chief, with two aides de camp, Brigadier-General Straubenzee, with his aide-de camp, and two officers of the 11th Hussars—viz., Captain Dallas Yorke and Cornet Wilkin, besides the garrison of Sebastopol and the officers on guard, the whole being under the superintendence of Brevet-Major Nicholson, R.E. The enemy took no notice of the explosion, nor have they been firing much lately from the north side, al though it is reported that on New Year's-day the French and Russian pickets were nselebsly firing at each other.— Daily News, Jan. 7th. Letters from Kertch deny the statements lately published of the continued destruction of the town by the soldiery. General Vivian had completety put a stop to all such proceedings, and the conduct of the contingent force is spoken of as being highly satisfactory. Rumours were rife of the advance of a strong Russian force for AN ATTACK UPON KERTCH. We are hourly in expectation of an attack being made on this place ; the vanguard of a Russian army have driven in our outposts tu-day, and are encamped only ten miles ontside the town—we can see them plainly from the hills. What leads na to suspect that en attack is intended is, that last evening General Vivian captured a spy, who asserted that an army of 1.3,001) men were in motion towards this place, from Arabat ; and this morning the general has re ceived a despatch from General Sir William Codrington, stating that about 13010 Russians were advancing on us from Sebastopol ; but also adds that a French army is in the rear. We suppose the men we see—about 5,001) are the advanced guard of the army frum Sebas topol, and, as you may imagine, we are in a state of great excitement. —Private Letter, Dec. 31. We are fairly locked in here now. A herd of elephants could promenade on the ice iu the bay, and the strongest parts of the current in the straits are now covered. But here it forms and breaks up. A longer continuance of frost will envble us to cross. Report has it that General Wrangel has been reinforced to a considerable extent at Arabat ; but whether with the intention of coming on here or crossing the bay is not known. The Tartars have it that he comes on here with 50,0 I) 0 men, and his brother awaits the formation of the ice to cross with 20,000 more. They will both get a warm reception when they do come. Powerful batteries have been placed on the commanding heights and on the seaboard, and the Turkish soldier has proved that he will not yield without a severe struggle. A deep fosse has been dug, and a parapet twelve feet high has been raised all round the town of Km tch and the de tencea of St. Paill'a and Yenikale, within which the troops are all comfortably hutted. Except in the article of fuel there is a good stock of everything, and were the ice to break up at St. Paul's to enable ships to approach, the force would want for nothing.--Ibid., Dec. 211. Sir W. Codrington has published a general after order, calling the attention of the army to the heroic exertions of Miss Nightingale, and asking for the voluntary contribution of one day's pay from men and officers, as a contribution to the fund proposed to be raised by the central committee in London : Last year (says General Codtington, in his order of the day ), instead of the Christmas we have now passed in abundance, in health, and in strength, we bad difficulties, we had sickness, we had sad mortality. It was during these days of trial that our wounded h and our suffering comrades were helped by the exertions and the devoted earnestness of Miss Nightingale and the ladies who ac companied her. All must have heard, many of this army must have then seen, have known, have benefited by, their kindness and care in our hospitals; for they flinched not from their high duty in the midst of sufferings difficult to be relieved, and of pain impossible to prevent. It is to do honour to such disinterested good that we are asked to assist ; and the money will be devoted to the con tinuance of these benefits to others, by which we ourselves have well profited. 77 COUNT BUOL'S "INSTRUCTIONS." As a precis of this important despatch, addressed by Count Buol to Count Esterhazy upon his departure for St. Petersburg, was all we had space for last week, we now print the document in full, feeling con • tident that its State importance at the present stage of the negotiations will be held as sufficient excuse : Vienna, Dec. 16, NM. The words which your Excellency has had the honour to hear from the mouth of the Emperor himself, our august master, must have convinced you anew of the intentions which have invariably guided the policy of his Majesty in the different phases of the struggle which weighs so heavily upon Europe. Always faithful to those same principles, the Emperor would have deemed it a deficiency on his part towards his own people and towards Europe to let the pre sent moment pass, when a superior power bide a truce to the combatants, without attempting a supreme effort to open uew paths to a peace, which presents itself as the most urgent want of Europe. Convinced, on the one hand, of the so•often reiterated declarations of the Emperor Alexander of his readiness to lend his hand to any peace that would not infringe upon his dignity or upon the honour of his country, his Imperial Majesty felt himself called upon to employ his best efforts to assure himself of the degree of reciprocity that those dispositions might meet with at the Courts of France and Great Britain. His Majesty therefore deigned to charge me to sound the Cabinets of Paris and London on the subject. Although we found them imbued with the firm resolution not to lend them selves to the initiative of any overtures for peace, never theless, to our great satisfaction, we found such disposi tions in those Cabinets as to lead us to hope that they would not refuse to examine and accept conditions of a nature to oiler all the guarantees of a permanent peace, and to come to a clear solution of the question which gave rise to the war. Nay, more; we think ourselves authorised to express the hope that those powers, while maintaining in full force the right of presenting such conditions of peace as they might deem suitable, would not the less be disposed to-day not to deviate from the principle established at the com mencement of the struggle not to seek any advantage to themselves, and to limit their pretensions to the sacrifices necessary to reassure Europe against the return of so de plorable a complication. Encouraged by these indications, the Imperial Cabinet did not shrink from the task of making itself conscien tiously acquainted with the situation of the moment, and to formulate a basis upon which, in its opinion, the edifice of a solid peace might rest. The four points already accepted by Russia appeared to us still to be the best ground to go upon. To assure the work of peace, however, and to avoid especially the reefs upon which the last conferences were shipwrecked, we deemed it indis pensable to develop the four points (prisicipes) in such guise as to make them conformable to the general interests of Europe, and to facilitate the lival arrangement by a more precise definition. The fruit of that labour is in the annexed document,* which, when accepted by the belligerent powers, will ac quire the value of preliminaries of peace. The signing of these preliminaries would be immediately followed by a general armistice and by final negotiations. This labour having been honoured by the approbation of his Majesty the Emperor, you are charged, M. le Comte, to present it for acceptance to the Court of Russia, and to urge it most pressingly to consider its contents, and to let us know its determination, to which we attach the highest importance, as soon as possible. If, as we hope, our pro positions should be favorably received, we shall lose no time in warmly recommending their acceptance to the Courts of Paris and London, expressing the confidence which animates us that they will not exercise the right of presenting eventually to the negotiations special condi tions, except in a European interest, and in such measure as not to offer serious obstacles to the re-establishment of peace. We entreat the Court of Russia to examine calmly the propositions which we submit to it. We will not dwell upon the grave consequences which would ensue from a refusal to enter into the paths which we open a second time to effect an honourable reconciliation, a refusal which would entail upon itself the weight of an immense responsibility. We prefer leaving it to its wisdom to estimate all the chances. We think that we are in this instance the interpreter of the wishes and of the real wants of Europe. It remains for us to make au appeal to the elevated sentiments of the Emperor Aelxander, whose supreme determination will de tide the fate of so many thousands of existences. His Imperial Majesty will take, we entertain the confi dent hope, that th..-cishn which appears to us alone of a nature to respond to the real interests of his people and to the wants of humanity.-1 am, &c., COUNT BUOL. • The Propositions. GENERAL KMETY is about to leave Constantinople in order to assume an important command at E ze roum, with General Colman as his chief of the staff at the same place. General Guyon is also to have a command in the army of Asia. rmwarsm,rfx=l -