The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

PERSIA.

Letters from Persia received at Paris state that
Dost Mahommed, the Khan Serdah of Caboul, has
taken possession of the province of Kandahar, and
that Persian troops were marching against him.
In a letter from St. Petersburg, of the 12th, we
read the following account of the state of Persia:—
Colonel Bartolomei, who was sent by General Mouravieff
to the Shah of Persia, in company with the Ambassador
charged to announce to the Persian Prince the accession
of the Emperor to the throne, has returned here from
Teheran, by Tiflis, where he stayed some time. Be has
been received by the Emperor.
According to this officer, Persia is in such a state of dis-
organisation that it cannot in any way be relied upon, and
there only remains to urge it to the promptest posbible
reconciliation with England.
AMERICA

By the arrival of the America we have intelligence
from New York to the 13th. The general feeling of
the commercial classes in New York evinced no ap-
prehension of a war with England.
In the Senate on the 10th inst. the bill appropri-
ating 3,000,000 dollars for increasing the armament
and munitions of war, and for the manufacture and
alteration of arms, in accordance with the recent
recommendation of the President, was ordered to be
engrossed for a third reading by a vote of 22 against
12. During the debate General Cass said England
had suffered so much in the war with Russia that it
was not at all unlikely she might try to retrieve her
reputation by a war on the Western hemisphere. He
did not see how the Central American controversy
could be referred to arbitration. It was not a ques
tion of boundary or indemnity, but a mere question
about the meaning of a word. No arbitrator, whether
understanding the English language or not, could tell
what the meaning of the word " occupy " meant
better than they knew already.
The Washington correspondent of the Norfolk
Journal states that Mr. Buchanan is writing to his
friends there complaining in very strong terms of the
injustice of Lord Clarendon and Lord Palmerston in
their endeavours to create prejudice against the
United States by the misrepresentation of certain
things which occurred in private intercourse between
him and Lord Clarendon. Mr. Buchanan alleges
that Lord Clarendon's statements with reference to
the American Government heving made several offers
of arbitration is a gross exaggeration of mere infor-
mal conversation between him and Lord Clarendon,
which was not considered of any consequence. He
also denies Lord Palmerston's statement that he
(Mr. Buchanan) had expressed himself entirely satis-
fied with Lord Clarendon's letter on the enlistment
question of the 16th July.
The Washington Union of the 6th of March con-
cludes a long editorial article, published doubtless by

authority of the
declaration :

295

with the following

But we cannot forbear to add one remark, which is that
Great Britain is thus threatening the United States with
war, not because we have infringed her laws or insulted
her sovereignty in any the least thing whatever, but only
because, after she had infringed our laws and insulted our
sovereignty, we courteously regnest her to relieve us from
the presence of her Minister, Mr. Crampton, for reasons
the most cogent and unanswerable. There is no other
cause or pretext of a rupture between the two countries.

Accounts from Venezuela to the 10th of February
report that fifteen days had elapsed since the day
fixed by the Constitution fot the meeting of Congress,
and still a sufficient number of members to form a
quorum had not arrived. The President bad sub-
mitted his Message to Congress. He recommended
a federal union with New Granada and Ecuador. It
was rumoured and believed in Caraccas that the Con-
gress would break through the Constitution and con-
stitute Monagas President for twelve years, with full
dictatorial powers.
A Dutch fleet had arrived at La Guayra—it is said
to demand indemnity from the Venezuelan Govern
ment for demands of Dutch merchants whose houses
were sacked and whose persons were maltreated last
year by the populace of the city of Coro.
Advises from Hayti of February 26 state that
Emperor Faustin returned to the capital on the 14th,
and immediately issued a proclamation to the effect
that he had been obliged to "retrace his steps for a
time."

By a despatch from Halifax on the 13th, we learn
that intelligence had been received, via. California, of
the total destruction of the city of Jeddo in Japan by
an earthquake on the 12th November. A hundred
thousand houses were destroyed, and upwards of
30,000 lives lost.