The Express.
London, England, 1851-08-06 00:00:00

the erprelni.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
"nod Minn " The Elyria'," grid • same vening's
Culotte," IA puldiihed every Tu,:rdny and y Bight, io time
fur lard.
advert ifementa Intended for " The Ezprera," Landon Err fling paper,
loin be at the !!dice, to, Boureric.rtteet, by Two Veuck oa the
day of publieution.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tilts DAT —Motstlng, sh. sh.n. Afternoon, 9%. 33M.
To.rozzow—Moramg, 10h. 12m. An:rms. 10a. 49m.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6.

THE SULTAN, we understand, has given a solemn
promise for the liberation of liossurn upon a fixed
day, now not many weeks off. The SULTAN'S own
feelings of honour and humanity chiefly weighed in
the case. lie had consented to retain this man for a
time, but could not consent to be his gaoler indefi-
nitely, in order to please Austrian susceptibilities,
with European eyes fixed on him moreover, and in-
clined to judge of his independence by his treatment
of KOSSUTH.
Austria, no doubt, had specious reasons to urge. She
had made not the smallest perceptible progress in the
iv-organisation or settlement of Hungary. It was
conquered, and garrisoned, and kept quiet by mili-
tary occupation. Hut neither civil nor administra-
tive life had resumed their functions. The collection
of taxes, the dispensation of justice, the resumption
of anything like industry or interchange, even the
cultivation of the soil, had not been resumed. The
attempt of SCIIWARZENBERG to Frenchify and cen-
tralise the administration, re-divide the territory,
and subject it to the bureaucracy from Vienna, had
utterly failed, as much for want of aptness in the
instruments employed, as of docility in the people.
Hut if Turkey were to imprison all Austrian liberals
and reformers until such time as the Austrian minis-
ter had succeeded is reducing Hungary and Croatia
to his notions of French departments, there had
better have been no stipulation as to term or time.
There is, moreover, an utter want of sympathy be-
tween the Turkish and the Austrian governments,
not for any mysterious reasons of European policy or
alliance, but simply because whilst the Austrian mi-
nister finds his toes obstinate amongst even the mo-
derate liberals of every province and every class, the
Turkish government encounters the serious enmity
of the retrogrades and the rcactionists of the empire,
and of them alone. Europe is too apt to make
light of the edict of Gulhani., and of the efforts of
ItEsrmin Paella to establish the modern rule of
law and of humanity, and of the separation of civil
and military authority. Much of the system has,
however, been rendered operative, quite sufficient to
enrage the class of the high priesthood and the old
functionaries. And these, having under their hands
the ready support of the fanaticism of the masses,
cease not to do, what liberals are accused of doing
under the despotic governments of the present day—
they conspire. Thus, whilst the German sovereign
dreads the pistol of the democrat or the dagger of
the communist, the Turkish potentate only dreads
the old tories of his dominions and his court, men
who are just as skilled at getting up an ,Intents as
any Parisian committee of socialists. It is the
Putr.r•oTrst:s and the Wl:crams/As of Turkey that
demand all the Seurts'svigilance and precaution.

Hence it is no marvel if lie have less- horror of
KllS`irl'lt than is entertained in the military circles
of Vienna and of Warsaw. .

There is in fact in Turkey, as elsewhere, a party
of progress and a party of reaction. There arc
ruseyites in Turkey, who are most anxious to restore
the pure Mohammedanism of the days of SoList.tsr
the MAGNIFICENT—who would restore the feudal
aristocracy of Asia Minor; whilst their political
brethren would re-establish the obsolete rule and
rapacity of the pachas, to be tempered not by pre-
ventive law, but by vindictive strangulation. Turkey,
however, has no aristocracy. Its court, like that of
Russia, has no class of landed proprietors to con-
sult or to fear. The only class that it has either to
conciliate, or get the better of, is the priesthood.
And no doubt the great crisis for Turkey—the great
event that will decide whether anything can be
made of, or regenerated in, that country—will be the
struggle, whenever it takes place, between the old
immoveable Moslem church and the reforming pro
Fres.sive government. The Turkish church is wealthy ;
it is not oppressive. It troubles no man's family or
conscience. And the Koran asks nothing that may
nut be done without an effort. Its prohibitions are
sanitary—its injunctions the gratification, not the
denial, of human passions. No wonder it is popular.
In tact, it is not to be imagined how the fevlings or
the voice of the people could be raised against it, as
has been done against the Roman Catholic church in
Italy and in Spain. It is, indeed, one of those things
that make men despair of any reform in lurkey—
the impossibility of modifying the religion and the
habits which constitute the whole mind of a most
unintellcetual people.
Another century, or indeed half century,. cannot,
however, pass away without seeing sonic immense
change in the south-east of Europe. Whether it will
he the Turkish monarch or the Russian, whether it
will be the Greek or the Slave that will take advan-
tage of, and rise in the ascendant, remains yet a
mystery. For such revolution to be effective and
beneficial, the race itself and the people should take
part in it. A conquest made by a Russian or an
Austrian army would fuse or would found nothing.
Such revolution must proceed, not from the policy of
cabinets, but from the national movements and deve-
lopments of peoples.
Nothing is more remarkable than the bold and
often successful attempts of the races of the south-
east to work out their independence and autonomy.
The Greeks, the Albanians, the Servians, have strug-
gled, and have not all failed. The last, the noblest,
and most memorable attempt was that of the Hun-
garians under KOSSUTiI. It was crushed by that
great despotic, military power which now covers and
directs three great European empires. But, as we
have a hundred times repeated, an army can found
nothing, especially in these days. It is in itself but
the prolonging of a provisional system, to endure
I only so long as the peculiar force and finance which
supports it have not reached its inevitable point of
self-exhaustion. Something might have been hoped
for Hungary and the Danubian world from Kos-
-BUTII : nothing from ten hundred PASKIEWITSCIIES
and HAVNAUS.
Hence, we must look to the people themselves—
their movements, developments, and tendencies; and
to these as displayed in their popular leaders. The
Turkish government is as liberal as it can be—the
most liberal of all the governments of the east of
Europe. No sovereign has a truer sense of the
necessities and tendencies of the epoch than the Sul-
tan; and no one is disposed to do so much for tho
people and popular interests. He has given proof of
these in his avowed resolution to speedily liberate
Kossum.

A PARAGRAPH is going what is called the round of
the papers, informing the public that at last, in the
year 1851, the Directors of the East India Company
have awarded Mr. SILK BUCKINGHAM a solatinm of
4(K)!. a veer during the remainder of his life fur the
violent injustice which was inflicted on hint nearly
thirty years ago by their Governor-General in Coun-
cil. We have no information on the subject of '
hig!er authority than this ordinary contribu-
tion to the news of the day; but it recall§
'to rcelqection so grievous an act of oppression
as deeply requires even now, when they who
were its most active perpetrators have long
since gone to their final account, such a
submission as this to the verdict of popular opinion,
and all the reparation that time has left it possible
for the Indian government to make.

The expression of an earnest hope, therefore, that I
i the information so conveyed may be well founded Is
quite compatible with an unfavourable opinion of
many subsequent passages in Mr. BCCMIMt:IIAN s
checqucred career, and with no very high estimate ,
lof his intellectual powers, of his taste, or of some of 1
his moral characteristics. Great wrong was done
him by the government of India when he was con-
ferring important services on India ; fur that wrong
he has for more than a quarter of a century
claimed redress. During all that period the East
India Co:npany have obstinately, it might almost be
added vindictively, repulsed his claims, though sanc-
tioned by some of the most eminent of their own ser-
vants, and supported by almost every public man of
importance at home; yet so powerful is the voice of
truth and reason that at last it triumphs, when
success seems most chimerical, over bureaucratic
perverseness and official insolence.
Mr. BUCKINGHAM can look back with moral
satisfaction, at least on his residence in Cal-
cutta; for it was the really useful portion
of his life; one, however, in which his ser-
vices to the community, to the public good, and
to cultivation of higher and better tastes amongst
the European residents of that city, were rewarded
by the enmity of a relentless clique, which, failing to
delude the calm wisdom or to excite the generous feel-
ings of Lord HASTINGS against the object of their
dislike, meanly and savagely took advantage of the
interregnum between that worthy peer's departure
and Lord AMHERST'S arrival to ruin Mr. BUCKING-
HAM, and drive him out of India. Let us cast back a
glimpse at the occurrence; even the hasty remi-
niscence that we eau now afford to take will have
its uses.
It was in or about 1818 that Mr. BUCKINGHAM
first appeared in Calcutta, with no better friends, we
believe, than a fine person, a moderately cultivated
and enterprising mind, and an agreeable wifit. In
search of fortune, he established, what was much
needed, a really good newspaper; and in its conduct
he associated around hint nearly all the youthful
ability and talent of the capital ; us much, however,
for literary as even for political objects and purposes.
The discussion of politics in India was then narrowly
circumscribed by a censorship ; and even Lord lIAST-
INGS, in relaxing that fetter which Lord WEL-
LESLEY had placed on the free use of the press,
continued restrictions on observations tending to
reflect on the measures of the Indian or Imperial
govenonents. But Lo.- llssrimis was a man of a
great and a noble nature; worthy to direct the fate
of au empire: he knew and practised the difference
between a repressive law, intended for great emer-
gencies, and a resort to it on every petty occasion,
when temperate discussion had wounded the vanity
or diminished the self-importance of lesser people.
So, when his councillors and secretaries urged him to
repress the free tendencies of Mr. BUCKINGHAM'S
journal, his good sense restrained and corrected their
animosities, and, kindly and generously wa ' g Mr.
liuctitNutt.tm not to exceed the bounds of discretion,
Lord llssustcs encouraged, instead of destroying
his publication.
At lust, however, Lord HASTINGS left a country
where his memory still survives : and the govern-
ment, pending Lord AttnEnsr's arrival, fell into the
hands of Mr. Jolts ADAM, as senior member of the
Supreme Council. To all the usually great abilities
'of his able and successful family, Mr. Joie Amyx
added every prijudiee of the civil service of India ;
and it, above all things, then disliked the freedom
of the press. But Mr. Beemsaatsx's offences as the
director of the then best journal in Calcutta were nut
the sum of his sins in the eyes of the civil servants
of government in the capital of India ; for he and
his wife had rendered their house and their reunions
more attractive to its general society than the
formal dinner parties and the heavy evening assem-
blies of those who considered themselves entitled to

lead the fashion of Calcutta. And we should fail in
attempting to give even a faint notion of the dislike
entertained on both grounds by Mr. JOHN ADAM
and his circle towards Mr. BeeximiliAst. They
feared the influence of his journal ; they envied
him his social success; and, a week atter Lord
HASTINGS Wilts& his ruin was resolved on.
It was speedily executed. Amongst Mr. JOHN
ADAM'S friends was a Rev. Dr. BRYCE, senior Com-
pany's chaplain of the Church of Scotland ; he had
been connected with a dull paper intended to write
down Mr. BUCKINGHAM ; and, on its failure, Mr.
ADAM made this Scotch minister superintendent of
the Government Stationery-office, with a large
salary. The temptation to notice such an appoint-
ment was, of course, irresistible to Mr. Beextxhit.tm ;
fur noticing it in a fair and proper I,anner, Mr.
BUCKINGHAM MILS ordered to be deported from
India, his press and types were broken up, and on a
few hours' notice lie was hurried away front Calcutta,
where he was earning honestly and honourably many
thousands a vear—as much, it is said, as 14,0001.—
and consigne,;lto a life of poverty in England. Such
was India only thirty years ago.
This was the wrong for which Mr. BUCKINGHAM
sought redress. It occurred, if we recollect aright,
in 11422. Whilst the tories were in power, Mr. Bees:-
I INGHAM, of course, reclaimed in vain; prospects
brightened, however, a little, as whiggery rose
in the ascendant. But w•higgety deluded him
too. It gave him lip assistance —no more ;
well repaid by votes in the !loose of Com-
mons. Lord JOHN RUSSELL, indeed, supported a
bill for a minimisation of 20,004)1. ; but Sir JOHN
llonnousE threw it out ; and at last, as Mr. BUCK-
INGHAM could not live on his wrongs, he ceased for
a while to prosecute his claims. After years of
silence, he, this session, revived them in a bill to
give him half the compensation he had formerly
asked; and, according to the statement referred to,
the Court of Directors have compromised the matter
for an annuity of 4001., an arrangement which, it is
to be hoped, the Court of Proprietors will sanction;
and so end one of the least creditable incidents in
the annals of their rule of India.
The press is now free in India—thanks first to
Lord Ilssrtmis,secondarily to Lord METCALFE; and
all the predictions, the fears, the apprehensions, and
the evil anticipations of its freedom, have proved vain
and illusory ; the mere troubles of prejudiced func-
tionaries at the thought of change. But, great as
that change is, there is not much improvement in the
spirit with which the rulers of India regard its
press. The spirit is much the same ; the im-
provement is only in the manner in which
the spirit is manifested. The Indian press,
they tell us still, is turbulent, factious,
vindictive, and mischievous. Believe it not. It has
its faults, as what press has not ; but they are the
faults of society around it, not exceptional or Oecial
errors of its own. The press is the only check India
has on irresponsible rule; and, if it be more violent
in language, more audacious in tone occasionally
than our journals at home, it is because the Indian
administration is more impervious to a sense of reason
and to the expression of public opinion than is the
imperial government. The fault is not iu the press,
but in the rulers of India.

DENMARK AND THE DUCHIES.

It has been stated that several members of the
royal family of Hesse, forming the branch of imme-
diate successors to the throne of Denmark, had
signed a renunciation of their claims to that throne
in favour of the young scion of the collateral branch
of Glucksburg.' It seems that this act of renunciation
has only been signed by a small portion of the Hesse
family, namely, the princes and princesses of Hesse.
The other agnates in the female line—the Quern'.
widow of Christian VIII. ; the Princess Caroline
Ainclie, daughter of Frederick the Sixth's sister;
and the Princess Caroline, wife of the hereditary
prince and eldest daughter of Frederic VI., have re-
i fused to sign the document.
Russia, it seems, will only consent to adopt the
Glucksburg line in ease of complete unanimity of
renunciation on the part of the other heirs. Then it
is evident that the endeavour to drop the succession
on the young Prince of Glucksburg is at present as
I far as ever from success.