The Express.
London, England, 1864-02-10 00:00:00

'TOW COLD IT HAS BEEN.-NF.GREITI
and ZAMBIA/ asieteated THILMOMITESB ow-
mit, Mister She lowed tesperstese. his Se. ed. —I, Ratko-
poke
weakd.: 14), Cerahal llesietreet sad 121, Itegenhetrest.
Avg@

WHERE CAN WE MEET AFTER THE
PANTOMIMES I
My Asir Mow I PANTOMIMES
asp M EVANS'S, Covest•gardes.

gitt Orimeoo.

TO. O.O2ZII!IPOWDZWIS.

uharti2m.sala U
lb _lldari tar liiTsixpres" Lasko Bombs
fv*Za She calek 1q llouverbobireit, by Two

00YR/4T-41/ADM.

To-Kowtow Inane, eHI irroor4l,6 CONQL'Eft. Mews.
W. H. Weis, H. Oacsi, G. Perrin, and W. Mullion . Mimes L.
Ana and A 11110a,Condootor, Mr. A Mellon—And the opening
at ST. 010101 AND Till DRAOON.—Commence at 7.

HAYMARKET.
To-scritiow OUR AILIMICAN COUSIN. Hamm
&there, Bucksione, Hordes. Rogow, and Clark
Mesdames &mei in nnownen.—Ann ARTHUR.
Mr. Compton llssdamss L Kooky, Wright, Liadlsy, LRomme.

MANCINI.
Um Nrmroni, DONNA DLANA.—And HARLEQUIN
'ATTU TON TUCIII. Mama Boylan, Cathcart, A. aM C.
Lecterns Hußoe and Inn, =also, Naylor, and Cbapino ;
Mesdames Barnett. Adams, and Howard.

LYCIML.

TO-MORROM UNIDO% TEI UHT CHILD. Mr. Wlddleamb and
Mies P. Leclereq —AIL DIMONIO, a Lon Story. Ile sere.
Fem.. Brouilyps, awry, Marin, and Jordan ; Mina
Kate Terry, 'avenue, and Ilivroellip, and EEL Dee

BILITAIINLA.

To-I'mow ITKuluei. DICKOHY, DOCK. Mn.
S. Lane and dist,rata Pantomlaute..—TM Yam& a Peru.
...Tin GREAT GHOST urzer.-Arthur sad Bertrand.
—The Fairy Fouotaln....kod MY LORD WELOOIIII.

HIGH WAT AT LONDON RAMON
TM/ MT Maralow, •Afhproosa. sh. 71
Taateimoir 411. th• TTOL

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10.

NOT a single speaker in the long and careful
debate in the House of Commons on Mr. BUXTON'S
Resolution, last evening, was found to justify the
burning of the town of Kagosima. Everyone at
least regretted it, and though on all sides there
was a natural and not inexcusable reluctance to
cast the blame on the Admiral, or even to
suspect him personally of committing afore.
thought and with deliberate design, in re-
taliation of a fire from hostile batteries, a
havoc so enormous and destructive of inno-
cent human lives, so horrible as the conflagra-
tion of a town containing two millions of inhabi-
tants, and the devastation of a million's worth of
property, the act itself, which the mover of the
Resolution attributed to misconception, and the
mover and seconder of an amendment to the loose-
ness of instructions from the Government at
home, was bitterly, and we believe unanimously
lamented and denounced as a calamity and an
outrage. Thus much it is satisfactory to record
on behalf of the reputation of England, which
has nothing to gain in glory by the bombard-
ment of cities of lath and bamboo, but much
to lose in honour by an exploit, which afflicts
the conscience of the whole Christian
world. That the conduct of a naval officer in
command upon a distant station, and called upon
to strike a sudden blow in a strange emergency,
under circumstances of which he really knows
little or nothing, ucder the pressure of his
own countrymen on the spot, and of responsible
representatives of his government, deserves to be
judged with scrupulous tenderness by public
opinion at home, is a consideration to which, for
our own part, we have neverbeen indifferent. But
there is something far more desirable even than
feat the action of our commanders should not be
hampered or paralysed by the fear of hasty dis-
avowal or party denunciation at home, and that is
that our ships and guns should not be employed
inthe service of unscrupulous adventurers to inflict
barbarous punishment on unoffendieg populations
because some ruler oe other has declined our acquaint-
ance, or because our traders find the laws and
manners and customs of an independent and un-
familiar nation troublesome and distasteful. Mr.
LAYARD, who, with his accustomed confidence and
courage, took every bull in his path by the horns,
repelled at all points Mr. BUXTON'S Resolution and
MT. LONGFI ELLS amendment, which, instead of sacri-
ficing the Admiral to the Foreign-office, proposed
to sacrifice the Foreign-office to the Admiral. To
impute " misconception " to Admiral KUPER was
to accept the censure which the supporters of the
amendment threw upon the Foreign-office, since it
would imply a want of preciseness in the instruc-
tions from that department. So the Vepea-
SECREIARY Very :;deXtrtUlily glided by
those pus in the Parliamentary Papers
upon which Mr. BUXTON had founded the
substance of his close and pressing state-
ment. He passed over the declaration of
Admiral KUPER to the Japanese Envoy, on board
his flag ship, the day before the bombardment of
the city : " Kagosima is at my mercy ; ho :lilies
" once commenced, your town will be destroyed,'
and the despatch of Colonel Nora (whose mo-
deration and discretion were so highly ext)lled by
Mr. LAVABO) to Earl Rue.sem, in which that agent,
who had been on board the Admieal's flag ship
during the bombardment, writes : " I have the
" satisfaction to report to your lordship that the
" instructions with which I hare been charged hare
" been carried (Ad in letter and in spirit. In re-
" spect to the Prince of SATSUNA, his capital is
" in ashes, his foundries destroyed, and his steamers
" burnt." In the face of these quotations it would
doubtless have been difficult even for so uncompro-
mising an advocate as Mr. LAYARD to have accepted
Mr. Berrox's doctrine of " miaisonception," or
Sir JOHN HAY'S doctrine of direct Foteign-office re-
sponsibility, which an amendment, suppressing all'
mention of " misconception," might seem to imply.
The two gallant naval officers who spoke to the
amendment, while absolving an absent brother
officer from a responsibility which they fixed upon
the government at home and upon Colonel NEALE"
denounced the burning of Kagosinia, the one as a
" barbarity, "the other as "a damnable outrage.' Mr.
LAYARD, on behalf of the Government, concurred in
the general " regret," which he reminded the
House bad been embodied in the Qu=eues Speech
and in the Address, but in the characteristic deter-
mination to cover the whole controversy with the
broad shield of official impeccability, he contended,
amongst other things,with an ingenuity that some-
times proved too much, that, according to his own
experience of Eastern cities, the innocent popula-
tion of Kagosima must have treated the conflagra-
tion as a common occurrence, and have got away
to the open country with their goods and families
with incorsiderable loss of Pre ; while as to the
fifteen hundred retainers of the Prime Samna,
who had worked the batteries and resisted the fleet,
why, if in the execution of their duty, they had suf-
fered the fortune of war, their fate was no matter
of regret. Mr. LEVEED, however, admitted that
the original instructions from the Government at
home were framed on an imperfect knowledge of
Japanese topegraphy. The latest instructions would
have saved Kagosima.

The Foreign-office, it appears, was very imper-
fectly acquainted with the site of the Prince SAT-
sumA's residence ; but apparently under the impres-
sion that it could be got at by our guns without
doing damage to a populouscity, Colocel Nr.sta was 1