The Express.
London, England, 1852-01-12 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, JANUARY 12.

Witxx we first directed attention to the attack
made on en American merchant steamer, by an
English m:.a-of-war, in the waters of San Juan de
Nicaragua, we abstained from any remarks that
might prej,idge the case of the officer in command.
Each re:.cr% is co necessarv. A full and dis-
passionate .mount of the whole akir has been pub-
lished. an.i no person, in the slightegt degree ac-
tiainted v....1t the maxims of international law, can
doubt that the English captain has committed a
serious breach of them.

The mortification neces:arily excited in the minds
of Engiislimen, by the reelection that a countryman
should hese to for committed himself, is reliev.ed by
the conviction that nu interruption of the hurmoni-
ous re existing between the two countries arms
likely to arise from this untoward event. The tone
and temper in which the affair is spoken of in Down•
ing.street—the confident expectation there expressed
that it sill be amicably arranged—aelmitsonly of one
interpretation : that her Majesty's government will
express to the Cabiact at Washington, in frank and
manly tersr.3, their regret at what has occurred, and
testily in a marked manner their disapprobation of
the aggres•or's conduct.
If we are right in this inference, little more will
be heard of the firing upon the Prometheus. It is
to be hoped, hevreeer, that the incident will not be
allowed to pass altogether into forgetfulness, without
it beiug teed to point the moral of the very enema-
ubsard, and dangerous fashion, in which the
government of this country has allowed itself to be
entangkd in the miserable polities of the so-called
kingdom et Mosquitia.
Into the menu of the controversy between his
eopeer-celoured majesty of M,rsgaitia and the re-
public of Nicaragua, it is nut at present necessary to
enter. The Mosquito coast may be, for aught that
concerns our present object, a part of the Nicaraguan
territory, or it may be the property of independent,
nneenriiirred Indians. Bo it the one, or be it the
other, the position assumed there by the agents of
the English government is equally untenable.
If the English government were to say that the
blosquito coast is a dependency, or colony, of this
country, the 'assertion. whether well or ilf-founded,
would'oe at least intelligible. If the English govern-
ment were to disclaim all right to, or interest in, the
territory, that too would be intelligible. But it does
neither the one nor the other. It says that the
Mosquito couutry is a kingdom forming no part of
the British dominions, but under the protection of
Great Britain. In the lonian Islands we have an
example of a state forming no part of the British
dominion., but under the protection of the British
erasers. In the lonian Islands, however, the chief
magistrate is appointed by the English government,
and thus the power which represents the lonian
Islands in their foreign relations—which is charged
with their defence from foreign aggression, and re-
sponsible for any offences they may commit against
foreigners—keeps in its own hands the control of
their conduct towards foreigners. No such authority
is claimed be the English government on the Mos-
quito coast. .The protecting power undertakes to keep
the protected scatheless, but retains no control over
its actions. The relations said to subsist between
Great Britain and Mosquitia are entirely unprece-
dented and anomalous.
Bat the worst remains to be told. What is the
government of NI-equities? We will not insult the
understanding of those who affect to consider it an
independent government, by assuming that they
attribute the least shadow of power or real authority
to the half-savage, juvenile tippler who is called
King of Mosquitia. The real government is coin-
posed of small number of squatters, of European
decent,
ent, who are called his Majesty's ministers and
council. Everything is done—or, more correctly
speaking attempted to be done—by them in the
name of his Majesty. Now, the greater part, if not
the whole of this self-appointed cabinet and council
is composed of Englishmen, who would be very
loath to be considered naturalised subjects of Mos-
qudtia. And this administration is, in fact, almost
as powet less as its nominal master—the Trinctibot
and Ste Banos of Mosquitia have little more real
power than their l'ulibale. San Juan de Nicaragua
—or Greytown, as they have attempted to re-
baptise it—is the only part of the coast where a
revenue from customs can be levied. And the Mos-
quitian ministry were utterly incapable of levying
duties there until tlicy farmed them to a couple of
foreign merchants, who by the aid of British inert of-
war bullied traders into paying them.
The picture of the anomalous government of Mos-
quitia is not yet complete. A few years ago the
English government appointed a consul for Mos-
quitia, with tau or three protectors of trade under
him. The consul appears to nave acted on various
occasions as a member of the municipal government
of Greytown. Negro policemen have been sent from
Jamaica to preserve the peace of the settlement, and
have acted under his directions. British men-of-war
have been stationed off the port, and have on one oc-
casion at lest actually carried on hostilities against
the republic of Nicaragua on behalf of the Mos-
quitian authorities. The British government has
concluded a treaty with the United States, by which
Greytown is declared a free port, without asking the I
leave of his Mosquitian majesty.
It is obvious from these facts that, from first to
bet, the only thing resembling a government in
Mosquitia has been a clique or coterie of European
squatters, principally Englishmen; that this clique
or (-aerie has been upheld by accredited agents of
the English government and English men-of-war ;
and that latterly the English authorities have made
war. and entered into negotiations, and concluded
treaties in the name, or in behalf of that nonentity,
the 'royal government of Mosquitia. The British
government, while ostentatiously disclaiming all
right or title to the Mosquito coast, has acted as if
that territory were an English dependency or colony,
and a part of the British dominions. This is a dis-
honest subterfuge most damaging to the national
character.

.Ind it damages our country in more ways than in
its reputation. To the nation at large Mosquitia is,
and ever has been, utterly valueless. The greater
pert of it is a pestilential swamp. We have else-
where in the Caribean sea more land than we can,—
or a' least than we do,—turn to good account. The
only Englishmen who have derived any advantage
from our connexion with Mosquitia are a few jobbers
in governmtnt appointments, like the late Mr.
Wateret,—an ingenious gentleman, who had spent
his patrimony in attempting to purchase a scat in
parliament,--and some half.a-doxen adventurers, who
consider the Mosquito coast an eligible basis for
smling operations against Nicaragua and (Spa-
nish) Honduras. Hut although the English people
have gained, and can gain, nothing by our connexion
with Mosquitia, they have paid dearly fur it, and
may have to pay still more dearly.
fn the tied place, the consuls and protectons of
trade have been paid out of the English exchequer.
In the second place, the men-of-war permanently re-
quired on that station, on account of, and being mixed
up in, the miserable local intrigues and squabbles,
have been paid out of tho national exchequer. In
the third place, there has been great mortality from
fever among the crews of the ships stationed there,
and the soldiers occasionally sent there. We have
paid fur our useless and discreditable connexion with
Mosquitia large sums in hard cash, and have squan-
dered (Mar the lives of many gallant seamen and
withers, and destroyed the health of many more.
And in additim to this permanent ascertained loss,
it is evident from the awkward affair of the
Prometheus that our entanglement in Mosquitian
politics hourly. exposes us to ruptures with states
with which it is our interest to remain on good terms.
Here is an opportunity for the new FOREIGN Be-
erteraliv to do good service to his country, and esta-
blish a fair reputation for himself at the same time.
Our actual relations with Mosquitia are at once dan-
gerous, and derogatory to the national dignity. Let
our relations with that country be put iii hirmony

with the views of international policy prafeassitsf
late years by the British govennuent.
The Mosquito coast is part of the territory
known as Central Americ► Uader the Spa-
niards it was part of the govern meat of Guate-
mala. Since the era of in&peadence it is part of
what was meant to be the federal republic of Central
America. That republic has never been organised
except on paper, but the various states of which it
was to bo composed have had their independence
recognised. Great Britain has no concern in,
no right to interfere with, their internal er-'
rangements and mutual relations. Great Bri.
twin has never preen& d to interfere in the I
squabbles fur ascendancy, or about boundaries,
between Guatemala and San Salvador, or between
Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Why. should Great Britain
take upon her to interfere in similar broils between
Nicaragua and Mosquitia ?
The only tangible interest that Great Britain has
in these regions it has in common with the United
States. It is to keep open, for the traffic of all
nations, the great highway from the Caribbean Sea
to the Pacific, b}• the river San Juan and the Lake
of Nicaragua, and to protect its subjects who may
trade to those countnes or found mercantile esta-
blishments there. These ends can best be attained
by placing our diplomatic intercourse with Mosquitia
and the adjoining territories on the same footing as our
intercourse with other countries, and abstaining from
everything that can excite suspicions in the minds of
Americans that we entertain designs of territorial
aggrandisement in that quarter, or seek to obtain,
undue advantages for British traders and settlers.

TILE SECRETIRT OF STATE has sent down a
respite for the woman S ‘r. tit ANN Hitt, now lying
under sentence of death for the murder of her illegi-
timate child. In taking this step, Sir GEORGE GREY
has merely acted in accordance with the feelings of
the great Lady of the public. If, howaver, this is
not followed -bya commutation of the sentence, we
cannot but anticipate a very general condemnation
both of our criminal law itself and of the manner
in which it is put into execution. If this woman
suffers the extreme penalty of the law,
there will be nothing more wanted to confirm
the growing conviction that punishment for crime in
England is dependent upon the operation of a kind
of sanguinary lottery, in which chance alone decides
the nature of the sentence. A perusal of recent
trials for capital offences must, we are cer-
tain, convince every one that the punishment for
these crimes depends upon no certain rule. The
consequence of this upon the minds of those who are
disposed to violate the ordinary bonds of society is
most pernicious. Any uncertainty or vacillation in
the method of putting the laws into execution takes
away one of thegreat hindmnces to crime. The criminal
speculates as much upon the chance of not being
punished, as of not being detected. The murder he
meditates may either never bo brought home to him,
—or he may get scot free, upon trial, by a quibble,—
or a jury may soften his crime down to manslaughter.
Let us take only three examples from reports of I
trials published during the last month, and see how
they bear upon the question of the uncertainty of the
execution of the law.

tin Thursday last, at the Central Criminal Court,
THOMAS BARE was tried for the murder of his
wife. It appeared in evidence that they had been
separated for a short time, and that he had
sought her professedly with a view to recover
some property, which ho accused her of having
stolen from him. Having traced her to her
lodging, he gave the trunks which he asserted con-
tained his property to a boy to be carried away, and
then turning to his wife murdered her by wounding
her in sixteen places with a triangular file, which
he had sharpened apparently for the purpose of
making it fit for stabbing. It was proved that he
had very lately purchased a flat file, and afterwards
changed it for a triangular one. The only attempt at
a defence consisted in nn endeavour to show that
the act was unpremeditated. The only plausible
ground for this hypothesis was found in the fact that
the prisoner had taken a boy with him, who would,
of course, be a witness of the deed. This ground,
however, is completely cut away by the facts of pri-
soner's repeated assertion that ho would have re-
vengo and the deliberate preparation of the murder-
ous instrument. In the teeth of this evidence the
jury convicted the man of manslaughter.
The second ease which we shall cite is that of a
woman, Mined FRANCES CooKE, who was tried at the
winter assizes of the Northern Circuit for the murder
of herchild She had left the worehouse of Kirkheaton,
three miles from Huddersfield, with her two children,
one two years old, the other about four weeks. A boy
accompanied her some distance on the road to
Huddersfield, and when he parted with her the two
children were with her. A. short time after he left
she was met, coming from a lonely canal path, by
her sister. She was then without the baby, and in
reply to an inquiry from the sister, said that the
child was dead, and buried in Kirkheaton church-
yard. On the neat day, however, she applied at
the workhouse for relief for herself and two children.
Exactly one week after this, tub body of a male infant
child was found in a mill-dam leading from the
canal, in a state of advanced decomposition. This
body was dressed in the workhouse clothes of
Kirkhenton Workhouse. A blue gown upon it was
identified as the one which had been worn by the
prisoner's eldest boy, and a bandage and shirt upon
it were also identified as belonging to the workhouse.
She was apprehended upon suspicion, and was after-
winds heard to exclaim, "I am a guilty woman."
One of her neighbours asked her, " Was it asleep
when you did it ?" and she answered, " No, it was
sucking : and I thought of throwing myself in and
the boy after it, but was spell-bound and could not."
The main point relied on for the defence was, that a
surgeon bad declared the drowned child—in a state
of great decomposition, be it remembered—to be
about six weeks old, whereas that belonging to the
woman was four weeks old. Tho jury found the
prisoner Not guilty.
Lastly comes the case of SARAH ANN HILL. This
woman Lad for some time past been suspected of be-
ing pregnant, but had constantly denied the fact. A
surgeon indeed had charged her with it, but it does
not appear that he was examined on oath. She had
been residing up to the 19th of October with a family
named GILL, with whom she generally stayed when
she was out of place. She signified to them, on the
e__ver22• g to a situation she had obtained at Dews-
...of the day in question, her intention of
ru;',7); the early train the next morning. At
about five o'clock she stopped at the Glue door,
bidding them good bye, and requesting them to send
her things after her. It was found afterwards that
she had missed the train, that she arrived, however,
at her situation at Dewsbury on that day, had pro-
ceeded about her work as usual, and continued in the
performance of her duties until the 2nd of November,
when she was arrested on suspicion of child murder.
The grounds of suspicion were tho following :—At
about half-past 5 on the morning of the 20th, a
woman had applied at the Wakefield station for a
ticket for Dewsbury; the train, however, had
started a few minutes before. After she
had gone, a man who was extinguishing the
lights in the office found a hat-box, upon
opening ho saw contained the dead bar at a child.
A neighbour of the GILLS had seea Cie phone
at about ono o'clock in the modem mem Ouzli•
yard, coming in the direction Ikea a plies where
afterwards some clothes were Mad stained with
blood. This is positively the whaled the circum-
stantial evidence against the women. If the force of
this is supposed to be strengthened b 7 some declara-
tions made by her after steisidttile—and which
seemed dictated by despair' ad Y umettiod state of
mind,—it appears to us tent the cast:odic-
tory nature of these amedefte wee salkdeat
to remove them out of the sphere of the oeselisa-
tion of the jury. It is to be noted that it visional
that the hat-box did not barn ee the weses--that
young GILL, who left the home abed the ease
time as the accused, did not see her envying a hat-
box—that the clothes could not be idimaillisti se be-
longing to her. In addition to this, there is the
evident improbability of a woman, after sabring the
pangs of delivery, being able to walk six miles,—to
undergo the hard labour required of a servant,—and
to continue at work for a fortnight. Yet this girl
Hitt is found Guilty, ordered to be hanged, and
having—only the day before her execution—been
respited for a week, will yet be publie'y strangled
unless the authorities can bo induced to spare her life.
It is not our business here to quarrel with the doci-
mien of the jury in either of the three cases we have
quoted. Whatever may be o ur opinion as to the strength
of the evidence against the former of the women, or

the want of evidence against the latter, we mot re-
member that no two minds take exactly the tame
view of the same statement of foots. AU that we
wish to point out at the present momeat is the
utter impossibility of laying down any rule
to enable as to infer a eon/tent con-
nexion between the evidence laid before
juries and the verdict they return. It appears
to us mist certain that the jury which acquitted
Fitaxer.s Coma, after a short consultation, ought to
have acquitted SARAII ANN HILL without any con-
sultation at all. At the same time, we are surprised
to find that, while a jury can be found which pro-
nounces the latter guilty of murder, another should
be found affixing the verdict of manslaughter to deeds
like those of Tiwitts BARE. The sole use we wish
to make of this argument is this, and we wish it to
be applied to the benefit of the prisoner
Hitt, that this diversity of judgment visible
in verdicts throws a more solemn responsibility upon
those who have to act upon them. No ono will ven-
ture to say, after a perusal of the three above cases,
that it is right that those in whom the supremo
execution of the laws is vested shouldhorn themselves
immoveably bound to apply the execution of the law
according to the strict tenor of the letter of a verdict.
Surely there never was a case in which this gene-
ral principle was more applicable than to that of the
girl Hitt. In the mean, time, allowing the cor-
rectness: of the verdict, these can be little doubt
that the grounds for an appeal to the mercy of the
crown, aro far stronger than in most instances of
this nature. The convicted woman is herself an ille-
gitimate child. Her earliest protectors were there-
fore these who had violated the laws of God and men.
From these she received her first instruction. From
the world she received scorn. It is almost too much
to expect from such persons that rigid deference to
morality which we require from those better
circumstanced. Probably the very first words
of kindness such a woman hears, are these
of illicit love. She yields,—and when the fruit of her
sin is about to see the light, she feels, for the first
time, that her worldly prospects aro all on the verge
of destruction. A prey to the terrible dread of
shame and poverty, she is attacked by the fiercest
bodily suffering that the human frame is fated
to endure. Under the influence of the most fear-
ful mental and physical tortures, she suddenly
puts an end to tho being who has caused them.
We are not advocating the crime; we only ask
if there arc not thousands of deeper dye. Nay, this
is not all. The greatest of modern writers on in-
sanity believes it possible that an access of delirium
may take place during the pangs of delivery.
"It is not," says ESQUIROL, false shame alone,
or trouble, or fear, or misery, or crime, which acts
upon infanticides; delirium disturbing the reason of
women just delivered sometimes directs their sacri-
legious hands."
On these grounds, then, the probability, almost
amounting to a certainty, that another jury
might have returned a totally different verdict—the
injustice of meting out the severest penalty of the
law as a punishment for a crime which, groat as it
is, is far inferior in atrocity to others which arc fol-
lowed by much lighter inflictions—the overpowering
influences (delirium amongst the number) which pro-
bably acted upon the mind of the prisoner, we would
urge upon Sir GEORGE GREY a recommendation to
her MAir-sry to commute the sentence of &man
ANN HILL. In all cases mercy is one of the loftiest
attributes of humanity, but its exercise is Lever more
praiseworthy,—never more needful,—than when the
grounds upon which Justice is called upon to act are
shifting, or uncertain, or false.

IF the Sunday medium of government gossip be
correctly instructed,—Sir HARRY SMITH has been
superseded in the government of the Cape of
I Good Hope by Major-General GEORGE CATHCART.
That the time had come fur the withdrawal of Sir
HARRY SMITH from the Cape, no ono can doubt. He
had in the beginning of his administration hastily
patched np one Kaffir war without having gained
any security against the recurrence of another ; he
had been deluded into the belief that this his ill-
arranged truce was in reality a permanent peace.
Whilst his old enemies wore but recruiting, he
was giving them fresh grievances to revenge. By
his indiscreet attempt to degrade the principal Kaf-
fir chiefs, he was precipitating those hos-
tilities of which ho was assuring the im-
perial government he had no apprehension.
And in the conduct of the war he has suffered a suc-
cession of reverses at the hands of savages he rashly
threatened to exterminate by • blow. Nor, whilst
thus unfortunate in the external relations, has ho
been more successful in the internal administration

of the colony. For in the interval of peace
and tranquillity vouchsafed to his government ho
arrested the formation of a constitution, by foolishly'
pressing unnecessary ordinances of very minor
importance in the Legislative Council,—the
elective members of which had been chosen for the
one special object of filling in the details of the con-
stituuon, of which Earl OBEY had sent but the out-
line. The time, it will therefore be admitted by
everyone, had fully come for the Colonial-office to
withdraw from the colony the gallant old soldier
I whom, during a spirit of national enthusiasm, it had
sent thither to gun a momentary round of popular
applause.
Major-General OEORCIE CATHCART is Sir Haant's
successor. To this appointment in a military point
of view there is probably no objection. Though not
a young man, General CATHCART is a juvenile major
general, and this is something 'gained when the
commands of the Bombay and Madras armies have
been confided by the whir to aged invalids.
Though a member of an aristocratic family,
which has been unusually well-rewarded for
its public services General CATHCART is one
of the few English officers who in time of
peace have studied the art and science of war. And,
though as yet he has only served in subordinate
capacities, ho has seen " the great war that makes
ambition virtue," under captains and circumstances
that have not—as his writings show—been thrown
away upon him. There are, therefore, no objections to
Mar-General GEORGE CATHCART as Commander-
in-Chief of the Queen's Forces at the Cape. It
is a selection in which there is hope, ability,
theoretical experience and comparative maturity
to justify it • and if the t officer's com-
mission be confined strictly to which his profes-
sional merits entitled him, we should recognise
in the choice a better spirit than those which sent
Sir Jonx OBEY, in his arm chair, to Bombay, or Sir
lttceAßn Alnurrama to Madras. But it is not—(if
the Observer is correct—to be so limited. The civil
government of the Cape, as well as the command of
the army there, has, it is announced, been conferred I
on General CATHCART. Now, there is nothing in the
gallant officer's past career to justify the confiding
of the civil administration of the Cape to him;
and there is in the present state of politics
in that colony every reason for plating at
its head a person of largo experience
of civil government,—of well known liberal Views,—
and of extensive knowledge of colonial society. In-
stead of such a man, Lord GREY intends to send out an
aide-de-camp of the Commander in Chief to inaugurate
parliamentary government in the Cape. By such a
choice ho confirms the supremacy in civil affairs,
which the present Secretary of the Government, Mr.
JOHN MONTAGUE, has acquired at the Cape; and to
which supremacy the colonists ascribe their present
plight. For as General CATHCART'S immediate mis-
sion will be on the frontiers,--there to conduct:a
harassing war,—the whole weight of civil affairs must
remain on the shoulders which now bear it.

What the Cape required under this state of things
was a division of the civil and military authority—
a governor competent successfully to introduce a par-
liamentary system, and a general with abilities to
triumph over a race of savages. In their stead, Lord
GREY in choosing General CATHCART, has risked the
constitution without acquiring the certainty of mili-
tary moms.

PORT OF PLTKOUTIL—We, the undersigned Lords
Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, do hereby, under
the authority of an act passed in the session of parliament
holden ea the 9th and 10th yean of the reign of her present
Queen Vietoria, entitled " act to amend the
laws_ esraating to the Customs," appoint the following place,
within the port of Plymouth, to be a legal quay for the
lading and nnlading of goods, and we do hereby declare
the extent of such quay to bee as follows—that is to say, all
that open place, quay, or wharf, at Plymouth, in the county
of Devon, situate on the north side of Button-harbour, and
called North-quay, extending in length eastwardly from
Button-wharf 470 feet, and averaging in breadth 50 feet or
thereabouts, including what has been heretofore known as
Page's Quay. H. Meg, C. WoOn.—Whitehall, Treasury
Chambers, Jan. 3, Dia.—London