The Press.
London, England, 1854-04-08 00:00:00

NORTH AMERICA.

The Nebraska Bill has met with a check in the
House of Representatives, by being referred to a
committee of the whole. Of the 110 votes in favour
of the motion, all but nine were given by represen
tatives from the non slave-holding States.
A slight earthquake had been experienced in
Georgia. At Newhaven a serious riot had occurred
between the students of Yale Callege and a party
of drunken Irishmen, during which pistols were dis-
charged and dirks used freely. A man named
O'Neil was killed, and several others received severe
wounds. New Orleans had been ravaged by a tire
which broke out on the 16th ult., and consumed
property valued at upwards of 300,000 doll. In
endeavouring to suppress the conflagration two fire-
men were killed. It is stated that the loss of life
caused by the sinking of the steamer J. Avery
amounted to not less than sixty or seventy persons.
She struck a snag, and went down two minutes
afterwards.
It was understood at Washington that the nego-
tiations respecting the seizure of the Black Warrior
would be left in the hands of Mr. Soule, United
States Minister at Madrid. In the meantime the
subject contiued to create excitement.
Encounters had taken place in Texas between the
whites and Indians, in which some lives were lost
on both sides.
It is just twenty years since the province of Canada
first borrowed money of this country. The loan was
for twenty years, and the time being up on Saturday
last, the Ist of April, 1854, the whole sum due was
paid in full out of the surplus revenues of the pro-
vince.
HAITI.

The Emperor Fanstin I. has addressed a proclama-
tion to the people and the army, dated the 10th ult.,
announcing that the differences between his Govern-
ment and that of France had been satisfactorily ar-
ranged. France, it seems, had demanded a pecuniary
indemnity, which the Haitian Government refused to
pay; whereupon she sent a frigate and two small
vessels to enforce payment ; but no sooner did his
Haitian Majesty hear of their arrival than he pre
sented the money.

RANGOON.
(From a Correspondent.)
January 19, 1854.
THE visit lately paid by Lord Dalhousie to this port
has had the effect of stirring all classes of the com-
munity. Land along the river face is now selling at
Is. Bd. per square foot, or upwards of 4,0001. per
acre. The purchasers are for the most part members
of the mercantile community, who appear to see in
Rangoon a vast field for their speculations.
The excitement caused by the murder of Captain
Latter has subsided, the authorities being unani-
mously of opinion that political motives exercised no
influence on his fate. Strange as it may appear, it
is nevertheless a fact that the great body of the
I'eguers and Burmese stand aloof from our rule, and
endeavour to evade our sovereignty. We hold
military possession of three towns on the Irrawadi,
and we keep their population in subjection; they
perhaps even sympathise with their conquerors; but
the mass of the people, the cultivators of the soil,
treat the offers of the politicals with indifference, and
their persons with no respect. To such an extent
has this been evinced in the northern division of our
new possessions that no political has hitherto ven-
tured more than ten miles from the head-quarters of
the military. Thus, whilst we actually possess only
three towns on the river, the remainder of the coun-
try is either indifferent or hostile. The fact is, that
the system so much in vogue at the present day of
ruling the country by means of boy-politicals is
essentially and fundamentally wrong. Compare the
administration of l'egu, and its effects after a pos-
session of nearly two years, with the vigorous rule of
Sir Charles Napier in Scinde. There, in a very few
months, not only was order established, a code of
laws efficiently administered, and a police appointed,
but the Dacoits were at once driven away. Here
we are almost without a police, and we constantly
hear of bands of robbers devastating the districts
and pillaging the rural population. A Napier would
long ago have remedied these things. But it re-
quires a clear brain and a strong hand,and,above all,
the faculty of moving troops to the proper point at
the proper time—a faculty rarer than is commonly
supposed. Rangoon itself is secure, and will shortly
become a flourishing town ; already vessels of all
sizes are pouring into the port.
In my next I hope to give you information on
other matters connected with the country and its
future destiny.

LETTERS FOR OFFICERS, SEAMEN, AND MARINES,
ger% ing in the undermentioned ships, will be forwarded
by her Majesty's ship Phernix, if sent to the Admiralty
on or before the 12th inst :—Her Majesty's ships
Enterprise, Investigator, Assistance, Resolute, Pio-
neer, Intrepid, and North Star.

319

ST. PETERSBURG.
THE strategetical position of the island of St. Pe-
tersburg is thus described in a recent number of the
Austrian Lloyd :
" The island of St. Petersburg, subdivided as it were
into the additional islands of the Apothecary, the Petrayskoi,
and a cluster of smaller ones by the branches of the Neva,
is the one which offers most interest, on account of a fort
that faces it, built on a small island, distinctly visible in
its entire surface from the tower of the Admiralty. The
fort forms an oblong square, with large outworks on St.
Peter's Island and two others. They are so arranged that
ships by sailing up the canals that flow between the islands
can take shelter under the guns of the fort. lt is rather
fortunate for the citizens that they busy themselves about
other things, otherwise perhaps they might well shudder if
they did but reflect on the state reasons that led to the erec-
tion of this fort in the very heat of their beautiful capital.
Seeing that the houses of the chief nobility are built all
around it, the canon on its walls would make sad suicidal
havoc, if they should at any time be required to play. The
fort rests on a low island, commanding nothing but the
city, incapable of defending it, and which therefore could
only have been built With hostile intent against the capital
itself. Of course it still exists to serve as a last place of
refuge for the Emperor amid his principal chiefs, with their
costliest valuables, in case the city should fall into the
hands of an enemy on the one side, or should rise in in-
surrection on the other. This fort is exactly opposite the
Winter Palace, keeps up a constant communication with
it, and thus clearly enough reveals its true purport. The
arms of the Neva, where they are in immediate contact
with its mouth, are totally defenceless. If Cronstadt,
which really serves as the lock and bolt to these islands,
should turn out to be useless, the helpless city may find in
this fort a dagger planted against its own breast, the blow
of which it cannot parry. The events about to occur here
are not so very difficult to predict. Should the Russian fleet
I be vanquished, the conquering fleet will run up the Neva,
and the defenders of the city will throw themselves into
the fort. The bombardment would reduce a part at least
of the city to ashes. On the restoration of peace, the Rus-
sian sovereign executive, grieving over the destroyed city
of the Neva, would carry out an idea long since enter
tained, by withdrawing into the interior of the empire
once more, and reoccupying the Kreml of Moscow, the
primitive seat, still deemed sacred, of the Czars. A man
gazing from the Admiralty tower on all these gay palaces,
and pondering on their not improbable sad destiny, might
be excused if he wept as Xerxes did when gazing on his
host near the Hellespont."