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

The following extract from a letter, dated Graham's- ;
town, Aug. 31, will be read with interest :
Sir Henry Pottinger's proclamation of Sandilli, the (hike
Kaffir chief, as a rebel, is dated the 27th of August, and the
attack on his stronghold in the Amatola will take place
about the 20th or 21st of September, in three columns of
about 700 each, under Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell (91st
Regiment), from Fort Hare, the rendezvous being
Fort White; the irregulars, or Boers and Hottentots, co-
operating as auxiliaries from the north of the Antidote,
near Shiloh, under Captain Hogg (7th Dragoon Guards),
Major Sutton (Cape Corps), and Captain-Commandant Mel-
ville, a colonist. Major Burnley, (6th Poet) eemmands the
reserve on the Buffalo line ; Lieutenant-Colonel Johnstone,
of the 27th, and Lieutenant-Colonel Lindsay, of the 91st,
remain in Graham's-town, the former as Commandant.
The High Commissioner and the Lieutenant-Governor
are hers at present. General Sir George Berkeley
proceeds next week to the front, K lug William's Town,
thence to Fort White; his staff, Mackinnon, Storks, Sey-
mour, and his son, are all of the right sort, and I believe the
work will be well done. Ilacomo and Umballa, Kaffir
chiefs, remain faithful, and with other friendly Kalfirs will
seclude themselves in the valley of the Choutie during our
operations against Sandilli, and if the Tambookies
continue neuter, and if Pato and Creili do not give the slip
to the military on the Buffalo, the colony will remain free
from a retaliatory invasion. Everything will, however, de-
pend on our success against Sandilli; failure would raise
host of savage foes; but, be they few or many, it is impos-
sible that we can longer submit to hold our safety and peace
on the tolerance and forbearance of capricious savages.
Until they are humbled and feel our power, we can do
nothing for their good or our own.

THE WEST INDIES.
We have been favoured with a copy of the follow-
leg important dispatch, which was communicated last even.
tug to the West Indian Association:
TO GOVERNOR SIR C. GRET,
Downing-street, Oct. 30.—Sir, I transmit to you herewith
a copy of a memorial from proprietors, merchants, and other*,
connected with the island of Jamaica, in which they repre-
sent the difficulties under which they labour, and apply for
assistance to be enabled to surmount them.
The topics brought before her majesty's government in
this memorial are, as you will perceive, the same which have
been for some time past under their constant consideration ;
but the progress of events gives them every day an increasing
interest and importance.
Long before the enactment of the act for the ultimate re,
' peal of the discriminating duties on foreign sugar, it had
become manifest that in the existing state of opinion in this
country, founded as it was in reason and on facts, if the cul-
tivation of sugar by free labour could not be sustained
on principles of free trade, it could not be sustained
at all. Se long as these principles were not brought into
operation it was obvious that the basis on which this com-
merce and cultivation rested was hollow and unsound, and
that all calculations connected with it must proceed upon
very doubtful and precarious data. It was essential, there-
fore, to the welfare of all parties to commence without delay
the experiment of bringing the principles of free trade by
progressive steps into 1%111 activity, and maintaining the cul-
tivation of sugar with a reduction and early extinction of
the discriminating duties. This experiment being indis-
pensably necessary was to be undertaken in a spirit of hope
and confidence, and in that spirit I trust it will still be car.
vied on. But, at the same time, there is no application of the
principles of free trade which was entitled to more anxious
attention on the part of her majesty's government with a
view to promote its success; because, of all merely com-
mercial measures it is that which involves the most momen-
tous consequences, moral and political, as well as commercial. I
With the maintenance of the colonial agriculture and =
is bound up the moral and industriahmell-being, the
tion, enlightenment, and good government of the negro Imo
in the British colonies; and, along with that, the abatemimat
and ultimate extermination of the slave-trade and of slavery I
throughout the world.
It was with a full sense of the importance of the interests
depending. and of the critical nature of the experiment, that
I applied myself to the subject when I assumed the seals of
this office ; and then, as now, the want of an adequate supply
of labour was the difficulty most dwelt upon by the planters
and merchants ; and this was the evil which it wan obsiously
most essential to obviate.
For the early, though not certainly the immediate, mitL
gation of this evil, I -looked to the education and industrial
training of the negroes, and I have pressed this subject re- I
peatedly and most anxiously on the attention of the Assem-
blies. For a more direct alleviation I place great reliance
upon the introduction of improved methods and implements
of agriculture and processes of manufacture ; and I have
rejoiced to receive, from time to time, reports of improve-
ments of this nature being in successful progress. But the
supply of labour by immigration was the resource for which it
was conceived that the assistance of her majesty's government
might be chiefly made available; and I lost no time
considering by what means this assistance might best be
given. The expense of the transport of Coolies from British
India was such as to excite doubts on the part of the Ja-
maica assembly as to the expediency of carrying that immi-
gration forward, and I saw much reason to apprehend that
thew doubts were well founded, and that this immigration
could not be conducted on any terms which would render it
adequately remunerative. It remained to establish, ifr=
Bible, an extended emigration front the parts of Africa l
slavery does not prevail, and whence an intelligent awl Ser-
viceable class of emigrants might be procured. After
every practicable inquiry had been made in this country
as to the prospect of succeeding in such an attempt, her
Majesty's steam-ship Growler was despatched to the Kroo
coast for emigrants, and, although she has been for the
moment diverted from the prosecution of that particular
service by the occurrence of an opportunity of conveying
a large number of liberated Africans to the West Indies,
the Intelligence which has been received by no means
abates the hopes which have been entertained, and she has
gone back to Africa with the additional advantage of con-
veying thither, as delegates from British Guiana and Tri.
nidad, between 100 and 200 Kroomen and other Africans.
These persona have been exceedingly prosperous in British
Guiana, and they return to their country, according to a
despatch from Governor Light, of which a copy is annexed,
with large sums of money, the earnings of their labour in the
West Indies; 29 of them having deposited in the hands
of the the captain of the Growler no less a sum than
KM 151. 101 lam not, therefore, without hope that the
succeeding operations of the Growler may realise the pros-
pect of emigrants being obtained from the Kroo coast in
large numbers, and her Majesty's government are prepared
to take prompt measures for conveying them to the West
Indies with the least outlay which may be found to be com-
patible with the proper conduct of the service. It is indis.
pensable that that outlay should be defrayed by the colonies
to which the emigrants are taken ; nor is it possible for me,
especially in the present state of the resources of this
country, and having regard also to the extraordinary de-
mands made upon them from the various exigencies of the
time, to hold out any expectation that her Majesty's go-
vernment can recommend to parliament that either a grant
of money or a loan should be made by this country to the
%Vest India colonies for the advancement of these objects;
but any number of merchant vends will be em-
ployed which it is found possible to employ with ad-
vantage,
and the expenses of which the colonies may be
prepared to provide for. The manner of conducting the
service must afford an absolute and indisputable security
against my immigrants being taken without their free con-
sent,
obtained by fair and well-founded statements. Her
Majesty's government cannot for a moment admit the va-
lidity of the arguments in favour of Africans being rescued
from slavery by purchase, in order that they may be re-
moved to a state of freedom. Such a proceeding would he
sure to make more slaves than it redeemed, and to make
them in the worst way, by furnishing, like the slave trade
itself, a provocative to the system of barbarous outrage and
warfare by which that traffic is fed. It is indispensable, in
miler to guard against abuses of this nature, that the service
should be conducted under the regulations of the govern-
ment, and on those parts only of the African coast where
slavery and the slave trade are found not to prevail. At
present, however, there is nothing to show that the employ-
ment of ship of war will be necessary, or that any cost of
superintendence need be incurred beyond that of a govern-
ment agency on board the vessel and on the coast. Such a
superintendence is, in fact, as necessary to the success of the
undertaking as it is essential to the character of this country;
for any occurrence of abuses would inevitably put an end to
the operations.
With regard to the means by which the colonies might be I
enabled to meet the cost,—when I first came to the consi-
deration of this subject, the wisdom of the Assembly of '
Jamaica had already furnished, in the clause of their Immi-
gration Act imposing stamp duties on engagements for
immigrant labour, an example of legislation which I did not
fail to adopt and recommend to other colonies. I added, as
you are aware, and I still recommend to the attention of the
legislature of Jamaica, a suggestion for the imposition of a
monthly tax on immigrants introduced at the public ex-
pense and not under • stamped engagement to labour.
This may not be required in the case of the Coolie immi-
grants, whose habits and comparative isolation in the com-