The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-04 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS. It Is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive Their insertion is often delayed owing to a press of matter, and when omitted, it is frequently from reasons quite inde pendent of the meritsof the connunnieation. We cannot undertake to return cominuuicationsof which we do not avail ourselves. Communicationsshould always bel egibly written, and on one side ofthe paper only. If long it increases the difficulty of finding space for them. Whateverisintentledforinsertion must be authenticatedby the name and address of the writer, not nec aaaaa ilyfor publica- tion, but as a guarantee of his good faith. Advertisements sent from the country must be accompanied by a remittance or a reference for payment in town. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION IOR gbe vrezz: (STAMPED.) Per Annum • d .d Half-Yearly ... • • Quarterly ... • . Payable in advance. ' a £1 _6 0 6 Subscribers are requested to send their Orders through their ewe Agent; if direct to the Office, accompanied by a remit ance. Advertisements also must have a reference or remittance, Money Orders to be made payable to Mr. ALFRED 11/E, 110. Strand London. Vtx Vroxi. LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1656. POSTSCRIPT. The following telegraphic despatch has arrived from Naples : Naples, Sept. 29. The arrival of the allied squadrons is expected daily. The English fleet has arrived at Ajac pointed rendezvous. The Russian circular is generally known here. This deolaration, however, has produced rather a moral than a material agitation. The preparation of the batteries and defences goes on ; the King, at Gaeta, busying himself in superintending the armament of the works. _ The Minister has offered a pardon to Pocrio And Set tembrini, if they will solicit at his hands. They have re fused to do so. King Ferdinand has proposed a Customs Union with Austria, but difficulties as to the superintendence have stopped the project. The Times Paris correspondent (second edition) writes:— A telegraphic despatch from Ajacoio, of the 30th of September, announces the arrival of two English ships of war from Malta, and another despatch, dated yesterday, from Toulon, informs us that the French fleet was still there. Moreover, Admiral Trehouart has been called up to Paris, no doubt to meet the Emperor before any deci• sive step is taken. M. de Kisseleff is expected soon in Paris with a letter from the Czar to the Emperor. The same correspondent adds : In my letter of yesterday I stated that it was on Monday Baron de Brunow read the circular despatch of Prince Gortschakoff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This is an error ; I am now informed that the communication was made ten days ago. The paper, we are told, has acquired its chief, if not its only, importance from the fact of its publication, which it appears was owing to indiscretion on the part of somebody. Such " indiscretions," however, are not unfamiliar to the Russian Government, and rather please it then otherwise. But it was not through the circular-despatch that the Russian Government first expressed its feelings on the ques tions of which it treats. It is rumoured that a letter from the Czar himself, now some weeks ago, entered fully into the same subject. The private communication was, perhaps, couched in more modi fied terms, was more friendly in form, and in all probability more flattering. The writer is said to have dwelt on the difficulties which lay in the way of peace, the great efforts made to obtain it, the confi dent hopes to which it gave rise of the duration of the tranquillity, and prosperity, and intermeddling with the internal affairs of independent Governments, and the difficulty of maintaining public tranquillity, if such a system were followed. The letter is said to terminate with assurances of tho greatest confidence in the prudence and moderation of the Emperor of the French. The Emperor and Empress of the French arrived in Paris on Thursday evening, and left at once for St. Cloud. A telegraphic despatch from Southampton, Friday morning, announces the arrival of the steamship Fulton, with dates from New Yorkto the 20th ult. THE PRESS. The Asia arrived out on the 18th ult. There is little political news by this arrival, either in reference to the affairs in Kansas or the Presiden tial election. Private a lvices from Mexico, via Havannah and Philadelphia, mentioned reports of a serious difficulty between the Mexican Government and the British Minister, and the latter had demanded his passports. Orders, it was said, bad been transmitted to Ha• vannah for the British squadron there to proceed to Vera Cruz, to enforce the demands of England. The commander of the British steamer Tartar, at Ha vannali, was collecting a naval force, and would sail immediately. The usual West India mail brought no news of any importance. Baron Dierckinck Holinfiald, Danish Minister at Hamburg has been named Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Paris, in the room of C )unt Moltke. THE FRENCH ALLIANCE AND THE ENGLISH PRESS. AN article in the Rev►ie Contemporuine of yester day, of which the subjoined is a translation, is, we are assured by trustworthy correspon dents, considered to proceed from " high authority." Wo see nothing in the article itself of special importance, but we print it as likely to become a subject of general remark : For the last fortnight the journals have been filled with recitals respecting the fetes of which Moscow, the capital of Old Russia, has been the theatre, on the occasion of the coronation of his Majesty the Czar, Alexander 11. There have been seen, defiling in columns, the splendid corteges and innumerable squadrons of Europe and Northern Asia—picturesque costumes, glittering arms, civilisation seasoned with a little barbarism, the nineteenth century mingled with the middle ages—all peoples represented, all races confounded together—the North, the South, the East, and the West—the present and the Fast marching with steady tread towards the future. One spectacle, doubtless, must have been very fine, to see the representatives of great nations who only yesterday were at war, to-day united by one common thought, that of rendering homage to the supreme dignity, and consecrating by their presence and their respects the authority of the new Emperor. Who would have said, some eight years since, when we were writhing, crushed, and bleeding in parliamen tary convulsions, or torn by anxiety for the menacing future, while pens too hasty in taking their wishes for realities wrote every morning, "the Kings are flying,"—who could then have told us that at a day so near we should see all the Sovereigns of Europe seated more firmly on their thrones than they have been for the past sixty years, sending their ambas sadors to the coronation of an Emperor of All the Russias ? Who would have said that the prestige of power could be raised again, so soon and so high ? If one examines oneself in good faith—if one scru tinises one's conscience thoroughly and sincerely—if one inquires without arriere perish, and with no foregone conclusion, to whom are due such grand and glorious prodigies, there is no man of sense who will not name him at once. The heir to the throne of Peter the Great has not misapprehended the cause while presenting the effect. The predilection which he testifies towards our ambassador, and the attention of which every Frenchman present at the coronation has been the object on bis part, afford a proof of this. That proof might be strengthened, were it necessary, by the excellent relations which have been knit since the treaty of Paris, between the French Govern ment and the Russian Cabinet—relations which even the discordances that have arisen respecting the interpretation of that treaty cannot disturb, and, indeed, on the contrary, seem to have con firmed. It has not been necessary for us to exert ourselves in puerile demonstrations in order to obtain recognition for the rights of each, or of all; and the energy which we displayed in the war saves us to-day from consuming our coals in inoffensive promenades upon the Euxine. Our allies of Great Britain, it . is said, have not been able to see this intimacy arise and extend between the two Cabinets without anxiety and even discontent. This is, no doubt, a mistake. Why should the English Go vernment view with an evil eye the growth of rely Lions which afford a better guarantee of peace—that peace so dear to England, as her hesitations in the war of the East, and her longanimity before the insults of the American Government, sufficiently demonstrate? Her evangelical virtues must be praised ; bu t, at the same time, one should see some better security than those for the entente cordiale so often extolled, and now in these last days so solidly realised. The English nation knows as well as its Government that France will always be SATURDAY, t1:13 ally of its policy, so long as that policy shall be one of justice and good faith. The new relations which attach us to Russia can• not moreover receive any shock from the Circular of the Russian Cabinet to its diplomatic agents, and Which has been published by the Gazette de Cologne, and subsequently by Le Nord and other journals. One might, to a certain point, call in ques tion, if not the substance, at all events the form of this document. The mode of its original publication gave even some probability to this hypothesis. But, adopting it as it stands, we can see in it nothing but the natural discontent of a Power who no longer plays a leading part in the affairs of Europe. At bottom the circular is only a declaration of neu trality, and if it sets forth a divergence of opinion between the Cabinet of St. Petersburg and the Western Powers, it declares also on the part of the Russian Government the desire to lake no active role in the conflicts which the obstinacy of the Neapolitan Cabinet or of the Court of Athens may occasion, and to concentrate all their efforts upon the amelioration of the internal condition of the country, and the de velopment of its civilisation. We do not then attach to this Circular an importance which it could not bear, even in the eyes of those who dictated it. The English journals vainly seek in it the occasion for new diatribes. At ler•gth we have become familiar with these attacks. ' The English papers waste their ink in trying from time to time to exercise upon their readers an in. fluence against us. The daily press in England has, by the very excess of liberty which it enjoys, lost all authority over public opinion: it exists, on the con trary, only by throwing itself upon the tide, and in following, as the Times does so well, all its fluctua tions. This journal, beyond the Straits, is nothing but a magazine of information, whence each man takes what he wants, and, far from submitting to its influences, wishes merely to find the image of his own thoughts. Nevertheless, it is not the same on this side of the Channel ; and we who have assigned to the daily press a certain power upon the public mind, because we have interdicted it from extreme license—we who feel all the susceptibilities of a point of honour when aggression comes to us from a great and powerful nation like England —we do not suffer willingly that people should accuse us un justly, and so soon forget the services we have ren dered. The noble and wise reply which M. Amedee Renee, the director of the Constitutionnel, has made to the fanfaronades of the English journals, has ex cited amongst us the liveliest sympathy from men of all classes and shades of opinion, at the same time that it appears to have caused regret at their im prudence even to those who have provoked it. The English journals appear astonished that they have been taken here au serieux, and hasten to protest their confidence in the French Government, and even their loyal admiration for the Chef de l'Etat. This article of the Constitutionnel produced - apon us only that pleasant influence which one ought to feel in thanking the author; but it will have, as we believe, a much higher effect. Republished by the journals, it will remind Great Britain, that if opinion in France is today in favour of the English alliance, it has only become so through the prudent firmness and wise skill of our Government. England, who knows so well how to preserve the outside of her in stitutions, while modifying them bit by bit to the fashion of ours, has learnt much from contact with us upon the field of battle ; and if all the glory has not been hers, she has at all events learnt some thing in the way of management for which she ought to be grateful. It is only M. de Montalembert who says, that everything is for the best in Great Britain and Ireland. The English themselves are not of this opinion; but know:very well, while accepting the academic eulogium, to credit whatever the academi cian blames among us, and to despoil him of what ever they praise among themselves. Singular and presumptive refutation of a book which flutters them without convincing, and which they accept without believing in its sincerity ! THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH NAPIER, M.P.; gave a lecture on Friday evening last, in the new Lecture hall, Keswick, for the benefit of the Keswick Mechanics' Institution. The subject of the lecture was " Labour and Knowledge in connection with the Conditicn of the Working Class." The lecture was well attended, but chiefly by the higher classes of Lake society. The Berlin correspondent of the Frankfort Journal states that a second peremptory note has been ad. dressed to Russia on the subject of the Isle of Ser pents by Great Britain. " The Mediterranean squadron, under the com mand of Admiral Trehouart," says the Toulonnais of the Ist, "is still in our roadstead. The crews had been forbidden for some days to leave their vessels, which circumstance gave birth to the rumour that they only waited a telegraphic notice to sail for Naples. That interdiction has now been taken off, and nothing leads to the supposition that any speedy departure is in contemplation." 950