The Express.
London, England, 1849-02-23 00:00:00

1..,!,E1it Symms.

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MOH WATZS AT LONDON SUDO&
Tor DreW. Te NIP pot I; Ariortea, ti or. pre &
TONAAArt—Nonr,t, f air prt is Atterowt, sel.. pao &

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEB. 23.

WE are at length able to congratulate ourselves on
a decisive event in the campaign of the Punjaub.
Reinforced by the 8,000 or 10,000 men, under General
Auclimvry, and already commanding an army of
regular and irregular troops to the extent of more
than 20,000 men, General WHISH bas contrived to
produce an irapreeston upon tits fortress of Mooltan.
The concluding operations of the siege will be for
ever remarkable in the mutate of the Indian army for
the complete and enormous appliances wielded by the
besiegers, and for the pereeverusg and chivalrous
courage of the beleaguered party. We suppose that
at the very utmost the numerical strength of the
garrison upon which Moonier could depend
wee below 10,000 men. With thee, be had
to 'maintain an extensive circuit of ramparts,
and keep in check the impatient daring
of one of the finest armies that ever followed the
British standard in the east. Prom the batteries
established by General WHIM, oaths 27th December,
within the circuit of the Duarte, there was an in-
cessant volley of shut and shells, sad rockets, and
every other specks of missile invented by the gentas
of scientific warfare, until the morning of the 2nd of
January—and bearing in mind that the range of these
batteries was gradually diminished from five hundred
yards on the 27th, to eighty yards on the 29th De-
-1 °ember, and that they contained as many as 160
!pieces of cannon, a larger proportion of which were
of the heaviest calibre, it is certainly a matter of
astonishment that the garrison were able to
keep their assailants at arms' length, even
for the short space of two or three days. 'The
Ilaceount of an officer who took part in the whole of
these operations describes the exertions of the garri-
sonl as almost beyond belief. One man weaned to do
the work of a dozen, and in spite of the extensive
gaps incessantly made by the teary allot of the
British gins in the walls of the fort, there was fur
some time apparently no abatement in the ardour of
the defenders.

The despatches so far received bring no detailed
account of the casualties sustained in the as.ault of
the 2nd January. The loss arising out of the occupa-
tion of the suburbs on the 27th December is exceed-
ingly trifling, and certainly appears to corrobo-
rate the allegations of most defective manage-
ment in the attack on precisely the same
points in the early stages of the siege.
The strength of these defences has been increased
rather than diminished during the interval, and tt is
nevertheless found a comparatively tasy task to
occupy them, with the loss of a third as many men
as were in the first instance sacrificed in an unsuccess-

ful enterprise.
We cannot doubt that if the urgency of the regular
earviee bad permitted the authentic' at Bombay to
detain the steamer for twenty-four hours longer we
should have been informed of the final capture of the
citadel LB well as the town of Meehan.

Emulating the Sultan of Mvsoaz, it is probable
that MOOLHAJ will relieve the British column which
is first to effect an entrance lute his stronghold from
the necessity of making him prisoner. When
General Batas inquired for tho terscat of Tirroo
SULTAN, he was referred to the pile of 'Ain beneath
a sally port ; and the resolution of our present
antagonist is every way calculated to suggest a repe-
tition of the same result with himself. Should a less
cruel fortune deliver him as a prisoner of war into
the power of General Whim, we cannot permit our-
selves to doubt that while effectual precaution■ are
taken against his future machinations, some method will
be within our reach of combining magnanimity with
the supremacy of conquest in the case of an antagonist
so eminently distir guiahed by his skill and valour.
Leaving Mooltan either dismantltd or in the safe
custody of a British garrison, the effect of these
successful operations upon the lower Chenaub will be
toeicee up one outlet of the insurrection, and to con-
centrate the fortunes of the war upon a single point.
Presuming no impediment to occur in Scinde, re-
quiring the presence of an imposing force, the whole
of the Mooltan division will be at liberty to move
northward, and take part in the tactics of the grand
army; and if the concerted movements are executed
with precision and vigour, there is everything in
favour of terminating the operations in the field
before the occurrence of the motsoon.

A host of contingencise, however, intervene be-
tween our present success and so desirable a consum-
mation. It is reported, with more or less of
positive assertion, that a body of 12,000 At
ghans, with some 10 or 12 pieces of cannon,
had actually set out upon an expedition directed
against Shikarpur, in Upper Scinde, and an important
military post in that part of the country. Any diver-
sion of the tribes occupying the west of the Indus
would lead to very serious consequences; and while
we fully recognise the possibility of events of this
ague in the present unsettled state of the whole
region of the Indus, we are not disposed to accept
imele a statement except upon very precise evidence.
The incursion of Doer MOHAMED into Peshawar
is entirely another question. It was scarcely
likely that the Cahoot rulers would permit so
favourable an opportunity as the present to par
away without attempting some diversion in
behalf of a scheme to which they are very
warmly attached. The repossession of Peshawar is
a project of some standing and of considerable popu-
larity among the Affghans, and it is pretty certain
that, in venturing so far out of his dominions as to
invade that province, Doer MOHAMED cares little for
the fortunes of Caurroa 81zon, and would be ex-
ceedingly glad to enter into negotiations with any
party, Sikh or British, able to bold out any tangible
tope of guaranteeing to hint a legitimate hold uppoon
Piehavror. It is already affirmed in reepeetable
Lilian circles, that the Governoe-Omseral is not in-
=to regard a restoration of Peshawar to the
and a cession of the ragged country west
et the Jhelum to some of the native chiefs,
se the bases of a settlement in that quarter of the
country. The policy of such a measure would be
altogether determined by the extent and character
of the interference undertaken by the Affghans in the
present struggle.
In the meantime the grand army under Lord
Govan remain encamped within a few miles of the '
enemy, and it is said are restrained from any active
measures by the positive orders of Lord Deutousta,
who ie unwilling to receive any more of Lord
Gouoa's formal despatches until he has under him an
army which cannot be beaten.
The Best India Company will not hear of these
pretended proceedings without some twinges of dis-
miy. Their revenues are already in deficit, and at
a very moderate computation, the war in the Punjaub
sub them 6,0001. a day.

THE question of factory legislation seems intermix-
able, and it is so chiefly because it was commenced and
oondected in a hostile spirit, and dealt with on princi-
ples which are unsound. The session of 1847 saw the
triumph of Lord ASHLEY over the sensible portion of
the Hones of Commons, over the mill-owners, and in
teak it may be said, over the freedom of our manu-
facturing industry. The Ten Hours Bill became
law through the weelame of the government,
and the vindictive feelings excited in the minds
of the country gentlemen in parliament by the
samosa of the Anti-corn Law League. But
friends and foes of the resume bad the satisfac-
tan of believing that for a time our northern mean-
Ilesturers might go on in peaca and that lords and
iodise at the west-end would content themselves in
the swam they had achieved. This, however, is far
from Wing the ass. The question is again What ;
the Haas of Cornmeal is to magas the whole ques-
tion; end *patio is epee MON the role in the mom