The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-03 00:00:00

Zile esgprocis.

MAILS.

The maib for Mash North America, Bermuda, and the Unito I
atatcv, will be made up on the evening of the 3rd November.
the made for the beanie, the i4„-Cr Plate, Monte Tolle, Pernam.
ouzo, Bahia, Madeira. and Burma Ayres, will be made ap on the
, 'ening of the 4th November.
The overland Closed made, en. Marseilles, to the Mediterranean
rigypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, lions Kong, ate., will be reads up on the
evening of the Bth Nov.
The malls for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Gibraltar
will be made un on the mom= of the Bth November.

gavanna.
The West !nit MaLI& ne.21114 rsztmuda,
Honduras, Now Orleans, Vera Cruz, Tampico, and Porto klieg ;Mt
including thaw for Jamul, Csrthagena, Santa Martha, Chaffres,
Panama, West Coast of South America, and St. Juan.de-Nicaragua,
will be made up on the morning of the 17th Inst.
II! overland mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Omar, the lonian Wand.
-ervpt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Hong-Kong, and Chine, via Southampton
will be made upon the morning of the 20th November.
the mails for New South Wales, Van themens Land. and No.,
qatend will be made up on the evening of the 30th November.

TO CORRESPONOINTS.
..• 14oerilsemebta Medal fee TM aspens Wad. eTeetag paver. men be
al :M Osee. IQ lesorleatnec be Two o'clock ea OH ay of pabllenoo.

61011 WATER AT LONDON.ERIDOE.
Tun Dav—Weral/4,49 W. A.* In , IRMA.* .21 all. put
Twit —/AssmiAg, os nba. w u , Aftenboos, on AAA. pea W.

LONDON, WEDNESDA Y, NO 3.
Tice recent brief and inglorious campaign at
Wanganui, with the atrocities preceding it, has
brought back public attention to New Zealand.
Along with the public, we had hoped that grave dif-
ferences and catastrophes might cease to be the perio-
dical news of that colony. The settlers, to be 'lure,
had still their rights and grievances to urge against
the company. But these, we were told, were is way
of adjustment; and that, whatever claims for redress
to private losses might be evoked from the past, the
future at least gave promise of harmony, prosperity,
and peace.
Such at least must have been the conviction of the
gentlemen of this company, in announcing the forma-
tion of a " free-church settlement" at Otago, in the
southern island. Their prospectus, besides the usual
worldly-minded inducements held out to emigrants,
was couched in the language of piety, which not
only spoke well for their own state of mind, bat
was eminently calculated to secure its object. It
was addressed to the fervid enthusiasm and the
most concentrated local prejudices of the people of
Scotland. The staff of an emigration had been
provided at the expense of the company ; and it
is not impossible that a small number of persons,
of peculiarly strong faith, might have become
bona fide adventurers in the scheme, had it not
been for one of those untoward events which the
company, repeating the language they have used in
the recent publication referred to, will, no doubt,
ascribe to "the perplexities of an adverse providence."
Unfortunately, however, at the very time when these
pamphlet prospectuses were circulating in Scotland—
when the pulpit, the press, and even the General
Assembly of the Free Church, were engaged in the
recruiting service of the New Zealand Company—the
news arrived of a fresh and sanguinary outbreak of
the aborigines ; and we learn from facts which can-
not be disguised, that nothing less appears to await
the settlers than a war of extermination against the
barbarians who surround them.

Our limits preclude us from giving all the particu-
lars of these recent disasters • but we shall state sum-
marily what we have collected from private letters,
and it is, in the main, confirmatory of the reports pub-
lished last week. The scene of the conflict was a
place called Wanganui, a little agricultural settlement,
at the mouth of a river of the same name, at about 120
miles to the northward of Wellington, in Cook's Strait.
This village never contained more than two or three
hundred European inhabitants, who have been left
almost unprotected, and exposed to the capricious treat-
ment of the native tribes; all of which, however, origi-
nated in disputes respecting the validity of Colonel
WAKEFIELD'S purchases of land. The first overt act
of the last outbreak was the murder of the wife and
three children of a most respectable Scotch farmer
named GILFILLAN ; a settler of that class whom the
New Zealand Company are now inviting to join
the emigration to a more remote and unpro-
tected part of the colony. We are sorry, how-
ever, to add, that this was not the commencement

of Mrs. GIIAILLAN'S sufferings. It is generally
known in the colony that that most excellent woman
had, so long as two years ago, in a former raid of the
same ruthless savages, undergone the last indignity
that could be offered, and that under the most fright-
ful circumstances. It is time for the public to in-
quire, when other unsuspecting rustics are recom-
mended to follow with their wives and daughters,
what security there is against their subjection
to similar outrages •, whether noble lords and
gentlemen, who traffic in the waste lands of
this territory, are accurately informed of the
real state of the case; and if they have been
misled by the interested and coloured reports of
agents in the colony, why they do not take the evi-
dence of impartial witnesses, and ,endeavour to set
themselves right with the justice and humanity of
the country.
To return to the narrative : as soon as the mas-
sacre of Mr. GILFILLAN'd family was reported at
Auckland, the seat of government, distant from
Wanganui by sea at least 700 or 800 miles, the
governor, Capt. GREY, called upon Col. M'CLEVERTY,
the " commander of the forces," and the Hon. W. C.
YELVERTON, in command of the artillery and gun-
boats, to accompany him to the scene of action, in
her Majesty's steamer Inflexible, with all the force
they could muster, amounting to about 700 men.
They found the natives about equal in number to
themselves, posted in one of their own formidable
stockades, on the upper part of the river. A regular
siege was commenced. An incessant fire of musketry
was maintained on both sides for several days. Native
scouts and friendly chieftains lent their assistance
Ito the British. Congreve rockets, light artillery, gun-
boats—every means was used in order to shell them out
lof their stockade; bat in vain. The impracticable
nature of' the ground, and the desperate valour of these
semi-barbarians, set the whole European force at
defiance; and the governor thought it prudent to re-
tire, having gained no other advantage than the death
of the chieftain Malan', and about thirty or forty of
his adherents. Such was the state of the colony at
the date of the last intelligence.
Our limits preclude us to-day from giving utter-
ance to such reflections as naturally suggest them-
selves, on reading the foregoing particulars. They
may, perhaps, be too obvious to require any expression
of ours. We think it right, however, to state,
for the information of those who have friends in the
older and larger settlements, such as Wellington,
Nelson, and Auckland, that no apprehension of
danger was felt in those places. The impression I
was that the natives had sullenly acquiesced in
the maintenance of the existing locations, but
were determined to prevent the extension of
the colony, and were proceeding systematically
to cut off the outposts, in order to drive the
Europeans within the pale of the settled terri-
tory. Within those limits we believe that the colo-
nists will be as safe, and much more prosperous, than
in any part of the United Kingdom : but beyond
them they must live in constant preparation for these
murderous attacks, unless some better security can be
provided than heretofore for the quiet prosecution of
agricultural pursuits.
_

There are two questions we will venture to conclude
with. Is it possible that, after the rcooipt of this
intelligence, the New Zealand Company can—we had
almost said can be allowed to—go on advertising the
sale of land in some other far off corner of the wilder-
ness, in the very jaws of the Anthropophagi • so far
from the nearest residence of white men ihat the
cannibal feast of the victorious savages may have been
consummated, and the very bones of the settlers may
have been picked, before the first rumour of the inva-
sion shall have reached their neighbours? And the
second is : in what manner, and at what time, do the
New Zealand Company propose to indemnify those
unfortunate persons who, confiding in their represen-
tations and their honour, have thus ventured, and
have lost, their all ?

Tilt registrar-general's returns (which will be found
in another column), like all other authentic sanitary
records, acquire additional interest from the threat-
ened approach of cholera. It is well that these
documents should be studied carefully. What we
have to desire is their admission into parochial and
municipal apprehensions. The local legislation of
the country has the public health upon its shoulders.
Right or wrong, the fact is se. If beards of guardians
and town councils will not act, there is nobody to
force theta into action, or supply their place. With
this duty they should feel the responsibility that ac-
companies it. They have protested against a general
sanitary board. They have now an opportunity of
showing that such a board is unne?mary. Thyscisi:
CO probation. The next Kam mast