The Express.
London, England, 1853-10-25 00:00:00

OVERLAND MAIL.

INDIA--CHINA-AUSTRALIA.

(DT 6LIYMEIII MID lIMOPEAX TELICIRAPIL)
TRIESTE, Om 24.
_ _

The steamer Bombay arrived at 11 o'clock, a.m.,
is 120 hours from Alexandria. The Indian mail has
arrived at Alexandria, with dates from Calcutta,
Sept. 20; Bombay, Sept. 28; Hong• Kong, Sept. 9
Sydney, July 28 ; Adelaide, August 8.
Our Burmese acquisitions are in a state of war,
being overrun by large bodies of armed men, said to
exceed 14,000, who occupy fortified p -bitions, whence
they attack our posts with occasional success. They
arc said to be instigated by the King of Ave.
Resumption of formal hostilities is considered inevi-
table.

Colonel Mackison has been assassivatcd by an
Affghan at Peshawar.
Captain Parker and Ensign Bosworth hare been
killed in an affair with Arabs in the Nizam country.
Trade in Calcutta was good ; exchange on Lon-
don, 2s. ld.

The revolution in China still continues. At Amoy
the Imperialists have had some success ; but the
patriot army has invested Kai Fang Fu, the capital
of Hunan, on the Yellow River. The whole country
is in a state of anarchy, and trade at a standstill. At
Hong-Kong Spanish dollars Cs. Gd.
The Constitutional Committee of the Legislative
Council of New South Wales has recommenced the
establishment of the Upper Chamber on the nominee
system, and negatived the proposal to make it execu-
tive. Large quantities of gold continue to be
found.

Abbas Pacha limits the exportation of grain from
Egypt to 230,000 quarters.

LATEST FROM THE CONTINENT.

RUSSIA AND TURKEY.
BELGRADE, Our. 16.

Letters from Serajewo of the 10th state that the
Turks have concentrated in Bosnia a force of 13,000
men, chiefly redifs.

BUCHAREST, Ocr. 11.

Omer Paella has addressed a proclamation to the
inhabitants of Moldo-Wallachia, informing them
that in case the Ottoman army should enter the
Principalities, they would have to apprehend no
harm.

BERLIN, Ocr. 23.

According to letters from St. Petersburg, the
carps (Fannie detached to serve on the Asiatic fron-
tier of Turkey has a strength of 70,000 men. The
regular force consists of 65 battalions, 10 squadrons,
and 180 guns: an irregular force of rschernomorian
Cossacks and Georgians, in number about 10,000,
completes the army.
Important advices have been received from St.
Petersburg. The Minister of Finance there had
sent for four of the principal English merchants,
and intimated that the Czar having under-
stood that the commercial letters received from
their correspondents in England were couched in terms
calculated to produce an uneasy feeling, and to hinder
business, the Emperor was desirous of disabusing
their minds of any idea that, in the " improbable
event" of a war taking place, their persons and pro-
perty would not be held sacred. After receiving
this assurance the merchants requested to know
if British shipping would also be secure ; but
on this point the Minister professed himself as un-
authorised to make any positive statement. Subse-
quently, however, the same parties were again
called together, and the Minister informed them that
the course to be pursued by the Emperor of Russia
on this point would depend on the policy adopted in
the same case by the government of Great Britain.

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, Ocr. 23.

The tendency of this Bourse is still very unfa-
vourable; the funds are flat, and the Exchange
on London rises. Closing prices of yesterday's Five
per Cent. Metalliques, 911. Exchange on London,
11.8; Bank Shares, 1,290.
The Press,' states absolutely that Prince Menchikoff
had left St. Petersburg to take the command of the
fleet in the Black Sea. Prince Paskiewitch was to
inspect the troops in Caucasus and Bessarabia.

FRANCE.

PARIS, MONDAY EVININO.

It is said by the Patric that the fleets have entered
the Dardanelles, and have anchored off the Isle of
Marmora, in the sea of that name, " the anchorage
at Besika being no longer practicable." This step,
the same journal is careful to add, in no respect
changes the situation or weakens the chance of an
amicable arrangement.
It is evident that the government journals have
received a snot d'ordre to represent the approaching
war in the East as a mere harmless affair of honour,
in which England and France are to play the part
of seconds, and to arrange the quarrel after the first
shot fired. The Patric, Pays, and Constitutionnel,
which, when left to themselves, have often advocated
diametrically opposite views on this question, now
harp complacently upon a single string. They use,
with scarcely a verbal variation, the same argument.
The affair is now, they say, in such a state that
nothing can prevent a hostile meeting between
Russia and Turkey. They must "go out,' but once
upon the ground, the wisdom, power, and loyalty of
the Western Powers will forthwith arrange their
differences, and make this local, temporary, innocuous,
and in no degree alarming warfare, the foundation
for an honourable and lasting peace. The doubtful
attitude of Austria and Prussia forms no difficulty in
the eyes of these reasoners. These powers we are
told are united with France and England in a "soli-
darity of interests and unity of views." If they
do not, like the two latter governments, think the
cause of peace likely to be advanced by joining them
in a demonstration of physical force, they heartily
wish them well, and are equally opposed to the pre-
tensions &Russia. Differing about the means only,
they propose the same end, and therefore—the conclu-
sion is as rash as the premises are doubtful—Russia is
isolated in Europe, and her projects must necessarily
'nitrated. This argument confuses two things
essentially different. There can be little doubt that
not only the Four, but the Five Powers desire peace.
Apart from certain fluctuations of the money market
and perturbations of commerce, which nations
that would remain great must be prepared
to suffer when necessary, the three despotic
monarchs have much more to fear from war than
France or England. Russia, though prepared to fight,
would be glad to gain her ends without fighting, and
Prussia and Austria would much rather see Russia
arrange the present difficulty by diplomacy than be
constrained to assist her by arms. In so far as the ques-
don is merely one of peace or war, it is true that Prussia
and Austria have the same object in view as France
and England. They desire pure, because war would
be fraught with unfathomable perils for their sys-
tem of government. But if, as in all like-
lihood he will, the Czar, urged on by his own
ambition and the fanatical spirit which he has raised
among his subjects, should persevere in his aggression
upon larkey, then there are no grounds for saying
that the Four Powers have the same object in view.
On the contrary, if war were inevitable, there
is too much reason to believe—in the case
of Austria more especially—that they would
be forward to sacrifice Turkey rather than
offend their autocratic neighbour. It is said, and with
too much appearance of truth to be agreeable to

English earn, that the professions of neutra-
lity hitherto made by Austria are conditional
upon the maintenance of an observant and passive
attitude by the combined fleets. Now it is an
anxious question whether the statesmen in whose
bands not only the honour, but, in the most vulgar
sense of the word, the interests of the civil-
ised portion of Europe arc at this moment
intrusted, are following the right course.
It may even be asked without presumption whether
there is reason to think they have any defined plan
of action at all? Unless diplomacy has precious
secrets in store, which after the confessed " blunder-
ing" of the Vienna conference we must be sanguine
indeed to anticipate, the position now assumed by the
French government journals—and the policy of France
and England, it has been repeatedly asserted, is
one and the same—looks like that of timid waiters
upon Providence, who, feeling unequal to the diffi-
culties of their position, hope against hope
that " something may turn up." No reason-
able ground is suggested for the extraordi-
nary proposi;ion that the Eastern question
win be more clay of settlement after a battle than
now. The bare assertion is put forward without so
much as the ghost of an argument to support it. It
seems to me, I confess, that in any event the difficul-
ties will be enormously increased. Suppose in the
first conflict Russia gains an advantage, will it be
more easy, without making disgraceful concessions,
Ito negotiate her out of the provinces than at this mo-
ment, when she is not flushed with victory ? If, on
the other hand, Turkey should gain a battle it is not i
clear that the Czar would pour n more troops to re-
trieve a first disaster, and would refuse all nego-
tiation till his military prestige was re-established.
I f, indeed, it %%ere allowable to suppose that the Turkish
army unassisted should rout the Russians com-
pletely, and drive them across the Pruth, then per-
haps France and England might openly declare for
the Sultan, and intimidate Russia without any ne-
cessity for fighting themselves. But such a result
is, according to all military opinions, highly im-
probable, and is certainly not contemplated.
Take the only remaining alternative, that the Rus-
sians gain a decisive victory over the Turks, then
France and England might step in and say we have
nothing to do with maintaining the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire, if that lallsby its own weakness it
is no affair of ours, hut we intend for our
own security to prevent the Czar front advancing to
Constantinople. That would then happen ? Whyl
the annexation of the provinces to Russia would be a
" fait accompli ;" Nicholas, with his vaunted " magna-
nimity," would, at the solicitation of the Western
Powers, conclude with Turkey a treaty of peace
disgraceful to her, and satisfied with having gained 1
his point for the present, would postpone his march
upon Constantinople to another opportunity. If this
is the calculation, and the people of England do not
defeat it "the peace of the world" will be purchased
upon terms which, not posterity alone, but the pre-
sent generation will dearly rue.
There has been an important rise at the Bonnie.
The Threes improved 75e. to 72fr. 65c., and many of
the railways rose 10, 12, and even 15fr. The rise,
in the face of the increase of interest in treasury
bills, was attributed to the language of the govern-
ment journals.

The Putrie contradicts the statement that a
Russian officer had been killed by a cannon shot
from the Turkish side of the Danube.
Marshal Jerome Bonaparte continues to be in a
critical state. lie has had a relapse since he was
last said to be better. The last bulletin says he is
again going on well.

The Morning Post formally announced yesterday
that :—" The Emperor of the French having com-
missioned three officers to proceed to Naples to be
present at the grand reviews to be held there—and
to represent the French army, as Count Montebello
represented it here, and General Guyon at Olmutz—
King Ferdinand, apparently for no other reason,
than that one of the officers had, a few years ago,
written some political memoirs of a liberal tendency,
determined on not receiving these officers : and on
their arrival at Naples the police ordered the
packet which bore them to go into quarantine,
on pretence that there were English goods
on board, and that, therefore, it would be
necessary to subject passengers and cargo to qua-
rantine, in order to avoid the cholera. This was a
mere pretext for hindering the officers front being
' present at tho reviews. The gentlemen who repre-
sented the French army naturally felt grossly in-
' suited at the proposition to lock them up in a
lazaretto, and returned at once to France. The
French government thereupon made the strongest
remonstrances, and it now appears that its action was
not merely confined to this, but that the Emperor
Napoleon has recalled his ambassador at the court of
Naples. The step is perfectly justified, and nothing
will prove more beneficial to the general state of
European society than the correction of the insolence
of these small Italian states."