The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-22 00:00:00

Mountains lynch law has been established or tole-
rated in districts where society was not yet legally
organised ; in California it is allowed to survive the
legal organisation of the community, and to hold, as
MILTON said Satan aspired to do, equal power " or
more " with the legitimate authorities.
Governor M•Doen.eit may indeed say with Mac-
beth, that the state has placed "a barren sceptre"
In his grasp. The sovereign people have conferred
upon him the nominal distinction of governor, but
they uphold a rival power, the Vigilance Com-
mittee, in the exercise of real power. Almost simul-
taneously at San Francisco and at Sacramento, the
governor in name has beCn made to feel that he
stands alone and impotent. He may issue commands,
but no man heeds him. At San Francisco his offi-
cers incarcerate two culprits; the Vigilance Com.
mittec, with the sympathy and applause of the uni-
versal population of the city, tear them from the
gaol, and execute them without trial by a summary
and extempore process. At Sacramento he re-
prieves a condemned criminal ; the very guards
enrolled to support the executive, carry the
respited wretch to the place of execution
and deliver him to the hangman. And the felon,
just before he is turned off, addresses a long
s hto the assembled multitude, in which he
c
races
almost every holder of office and prominent
member of society with complicity in the crimes of
himself and his associates.
In Europe such shocking irregularities are not un-
precedented. In the first French revolution the
reign of terror was initiated by the Parisian munici-
pality's usurpation of the functions attributed by a
parchment constitution to higher functionaries.
Other European communities in a state of revolu-
tion—or more properly of insurrection—have dis-
played a similar impaticcee and inability to
submit to the constitution they had themselves
voted and the magistrates they had them-
selves elected. And such proceedings have always
been attributed to the incapacity of a people trained
up under despots to assume at once the character of
freemen, have uniformly led to anarchy, and through
anarchy to re-established despotism. But the well-
foundell boast of the older states of the American
Union has been that in throwing off old rulers, they
continued to act by laws, and to respect and obey their
self-imposed institutions and magistrates. On the
head-waters of the Mississippi and on the prairies, even
lynch law was in most cases a regular and orderly
system IA government in all but name—an impro-
vised interim constitution. In California it is a per-
manent organised insurrection against the law and
legal government.
the change is of bad augury, and the more so
that it is coincident with other changes in the
popular creed of at least no inconsiderable portion
of American citizens. The men of Faneuil Hall,
when they entrenched Boston against the Bri-
tish troops, arrayed themselves under the ban-
ner of law as opposed to despotic self will. The
FIiANKLINS and JEFIEFS4oNS of that day denounced
the practice of foreign aggressive wars and conquests.
Slusito, the last president of their school, dis-
claimed the principle of territorial extension. But
within the last few years we have seen a predomi-
nant party. in the hutted States wriggling towards
the acquisition of 'texas through all the dark and
dirty bye-ways of intrigue—have seen the same
party organise a war of conquest against Mexico—
seen a man promoted to the Presidency solely on
the ground of his achievements in an aggressive war
which tenuinated in extending the territory of the
republic. The era of lawlessness which has com-
menced in California is also the era of the growth
of a party throughout the Union ambitious of
foreign conquest and military domination.
These are reflections which more nearly concern'
the citizens of the republic than foreigners. The
progress of the opinions and sentiments adverted to
if nut checked will assuredly prove incompatible with
the permanency of their existing. institutions. An
executive so weak as that of America can be efficient
for good only in a nation where the great mass et
the citizens are animated by the principle of resolute
submission to the laws and magistrates themselves
have crested. A turbulent and insubordinate people

FRANCE.

PARIS. TVISDAY ETIMINO.
To-day there is a dead quiet, which has extended
to the Bourse, where the motes have cloaca at the

same.quotations recilely as yesterday.
I have little news to give respecting the minis-
terial crisis. It was admitted last night on all hands
that M. Billault had failed to form a cabinet. I
give you the reports of the papers on this subject.
M:Emilie de Girardin says that it appears certain
that M. Billault has not been able to form a cabinet ;
and adds, that such result was natural, for that M.
Billault sought to form a parliamentary ministry,
while the only possible ministry after the dismissal of
MM. Faucher arid Baroche was an extra-parliamen-
tary one, after the American fashion. The same
writer says, in another column of the Presse, that
the Sleek and the Natimull ought to rub their ;lands,
for M. Leon Faucher keeps his friends about him,
I and assures them that, after all, he was not mistaken
iiisaving that the President would reflect and yield.
De7Uats says that, notwithstanding the reports
circulated yesterday of M. Billault having defini-
tively failed in the formation of a cabinet, he was
yesterday still continuing his efforts, and had not
given up all hopes of success ; but that last night
there was no longer any question about M. Billault,
who was said even to have set out for Nantes. In
the meantime the following list was circulated:—
M. de Bourjolly, Foreign Affairs; General St. Ar-
nand, War; M. Giraud (of Angers), Interior; M.
Macau, Finances; M. Dino% Marine; and M. Hip-
pulyto Fortoul, Public Instruction. These rumours
are given with reserve, nothing having been yet
decided, or being likely to be decided before the
, President has finished his message.

The Ordre bays:
It wu announced yesterday that the ministerial combina-
tion formed with the co-operation of N. Itillault was de-
cidedly broken up. The tidlowing incisions led, if we are
rightly informed, to this cenclusion: M. llault is said to
have answered to the l'resident, that ho had always
formed part of the liberal opposition, that his past
acts did not in any. way prevent him from presenting
and supporting the revision, but that hi, principles im-
pmed upon him the obligation of adhering strictly to lega-
lity. At ten last night negotiation appeared to have failed.
But at half past elesin M. Bataille visited N. Billault, and
remained several hours with him. Of this conference
nothing has transpired.

The AssemtVe Nationale says :
To-day it k stated that M. Billault has given up the mis-
sion of farming a cabinet. M. Bourjnlly, at first designated
for the war department, would undertake the foreign. tar
the rest these are merely rumours which we give. Nothing
it to be officially decided hefore the delivery of the Presi-
dent's mcsvage to the president of the Assembly.
_ - - - - - - - - - -

The Pivsident is said to be occupied with the for-
mation of a provisional ministry, M. Leon Faucher
and his colleagues testifying much impatience to be
relieved from a position in which there is at present

more work dial' honour. Nevertheless, Fould,
Magne, and ltouher are expected to reappear in a
definitive combination.

It was stated in the diplomatic circles, yesterday
evening, that although the ministers of the great
continuant powers accredited to the President of the
Republic have received instructions to abstain from
any step which could be regarded as an interference
in the domestic affairs of France, they have felt
themselves authorised to apply fur information as to
the chief points of the present ministerial crisis, and
have convinced themselves that the President of the
Republic remains and will remain faithful to the
pledges which he has so frequently given for the
maintenance of order.
Lord Normanby had yesterday a long conference
with the minister of foreign affairs.
1 he President is expected to leave St. Cloud fur
the Elyse° on the 29th or 30th of October.
It is not necessary to analyse a series of conjectural
disagreements between Louis Napoleon and the able
advocate whom he had summoned from Nantes to
undertake the formation of a cabinet, in order to ac-
count for the definitive refusal of the latter to under-
take this difficult task. It must have been imme-
diately evident to the mind of M. Billault, a man
well versed in parliamentary traditions, and a distin-
guished member of the old Chamber of Deputies and
the Constituent of 181$, that, without some consider-
able basis of support in the Assembly, it was imprac-
ticable for him to conduct the government. Now,
whoever has taken the trouble to examine the tone

_
—a people blindly worshipping warlike prowessand
proud of foreign conquest, can only be controlled by
an executive able to carry out its views with a
higher hand; a semi-military authority is tolerated
and insensibly becomes the depository of executive
power. This concerns the Americans, and them
alone : it is a matter of internal organizat• . But
the state of affairs in California will also deeply_ in-
fluence the future fortunes of communities entirely
alien to the republic.
We have more than once directed attention to the
sew era that has dawned upon the Pacific. New
communities of the European civilization have there
sprung into existence, and European commerce is
snaking rapid strides. California itself is a state
which already makes its existence felt in the tran-
sactions of the whole world; the Australian colonies
and New Zealand, of a less ephemeral growth, give
symptoms already of what they are one day to be ;
the Sandwich islands enjoy a regular, and, all things
considered, well-administered government; the !nib=
Sea is studded with European settlements, and the ear-
ryino trade of the Chinese waters is passing into the
hands of Europeans. To the north the Russian colo-
nies are growing into importance, and on the south-
west arc the states of Spanish origin. The conduct
,and example of California must be pregnant with
weal or wee for this new world. They must in a
great measure decide whether the future nations of
the Pacific are -to fight their way to settled order
and trite civilisation through a period of buccaneer-
ing atrocities, or whether they are to advance after
the more satisfactory fashion of the New England
states.
We frankly confess that in our endeavours to
pierce the dimness that wraps the future, few symp-
toms give us more uneasiness titan the tone of the
Californian press. The style in which the cold-blooded
illegal murders at San Francisco and Sacramento
are detailed is an exaggeration of the most repulsive
features of what is in this country allied penny-a-
lining. The gold of C ilifornia has drawn thither,
along with many well-disposed people, a numerous
assemblage of the veriest mural outcasts of Europe
and America. The uncontrolled indulgence of
fierce passions in the interior is not so shocking as
the reckless treachery of speculation and gambling
of San Francisco. Sensual indulgence, pride in low
cunning, and defiance of law and morality, are there
the order of the day. And a vulgar literature,
pandering to these propensities. detailing the ex-
ploits of desperadoes and swindlers, in a tone of
'mingled levity and sympathy, cannot fail to aggra-
vate the moral debtisement of society. It is true
that the tasteless vapouring of the scribblers in the
Californian journals warrants a belief that the atro-
cities at San Francisco and Sacramento have been
exaggerated ; but one or two transitory outbursts of
ferocity would indicate less depravity than the per-
manent encouragement of such writings by the public.
One part of the lesson read by the latest intelli-
gence from California addresses itself more espe-
cially to this country. Of the three ruffians, who,
had they suffered by the regular process of law,
would apparently have met with no more than their
deserts, too were expiree convicts from Great Bri-
tain. 'this proves, what we have often sought to
impress upon the minds of our readers, the extent to
which the felon population with which we have over-
stocked Australia carries its influence and example
over the whole Pacific. It justifies the complaint of
the settlers of Victoria and Adelaide, that the excess
of convict transportation to Tasmania overflows into
the neighbouring_ provinces—that these are only no-
minally detained from the operation of the system,
and made to receive the felonry of England by an
indirect process.

of the various organs of the Assembly, will have per-
ceived that such a basis was entirely wanting. That
portion of the press from which the policy of abro-
gating the law of May 31 might naturally. have ex-
pected the strongest support, in proportion to the
violent resistance evinced in the same quarter to the
establishment of restricted suffrage, has, singular to
say, received with the utmost apathy the announce-
ment of the irrevocable resolution of the executive
power to demand the complete restoration of univer-
sal suffrage. For sixteen months the Siede and
National have been daily dinning into the public ear
that to maintain the restrictions of the law of May
would lead inevitably to civil war in 1852. The
strongest pledge which can possibly be given for the
repeal of the law is publicly undertaken by the Pre-
sident, and the men of the Natisiett and S.ccle not

I)EsPATCHES TOR TnE CAPE PT THE SILINGITAT.—
Immediately on the intelligence reaching London of the
arrival of her 3lnjesty's steam•vessel Birkenhead, with
important news from the Cape, the Peninsular and Oriental
Company sent telegraphic orders to Southampton to detain
their screw-ship the Shanghai from procaeding en route to
Calcutta and China, until they had commui. steal with the
government. Having proffered the use of that ship for the
conveyance of any orders to the Cape, the Colonial-office at
once accepted the offer, and last night despatches were sent
off to Southampton, with which the Shanghai was to leave
this morning for her destination. But for the arrival of the
Birkenhead, the Shanghai would not have gone out of her
route to touch at the Cape.
SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.—About. a quarter to
1 o'clock this morning a fire broke out at Bermondsey, fa
the tan-yard of Mr. N illiam Warrick, Willow-walk, owing
to the overheatin; of a rick of tan. It was immediately
discovered by some of the workmen a h te, r • employed all
night. The engines of the West of Eagland and Louden
Eire Brigade were promptly on the spot, and the firs was
prevented from extending. The rick, containing about
fifty loads of tap, was completely destroyed.

only sullenly refuse the least acknowledgment of the
most puissant co-operation which they can receive,
but absolutely render it impossible for a parliament-
ary cabinet to be formed for their professed darling
object to be carried into effect. Certainly, if the
system of mutilated suffrage be maintained, and a
collision ensue between the troops and the disfran-
chised electors, it is difficult to conceive a more
direct case of responsibility for such a result than
will attach to the parties represented by the organs
in question. Their refusal of support to a ministry
formed for abrogating the law of May is, according
to their own showing, an adoption of the standard of
'civil war. But however revolutionary may be the
intentions of the Ntiona, no one can suppose the
Sic(le, the journal of the liberal bouryeoiste, to be
really animated by any motives so incompatible with
the interests it represents. The truth is, that the
party of General Cavaignac does not sincerely wish
for the re-establishment of universal suffrage, because
its chief has a stronger party in the Assembly than
la the country-,and its organ, the Sier'e, seems guided
is its course by an undeviating hostility to Louis
Napoleon. The darling scheme of the .Nati.nia/ is
that thrice-sifted assembly of delegates chosen by
indirected suffrage, which is termed the Democratic
Conclave, and is destined to exercise the most des-
potic sway over the whole of the republican party.
The success of this winnowed aggregate of socialists
would be entirely compromised by a return to un-
restricted suffrage ; for then it would be abso-
lutely impossible to • control the majority of
democratic electors from voting freely and directly
for the President most in accordance with their
tastes, the principle of the Conclave being admitted
generally only for the case in which restrained suf-
frage is maintained. But, whatever motives actuate
the Siccle, the Notiouat, the Revolution, and other
organs of the like parties in their opposition to the
new policy of the President, it is certain that no
sooner was this result observed by the conservative
majority, than the latter, then prostrate in utter dis-
couragement, suddenly took heart, and from an ab-
ject acknowledgment of their own impotence to
make the law respected, and the consequent neces-
sity of yielding, passed suddenly to a tone of brag-
gart defiance and menace, and declared that they
would oppose the abrogation with all their might.
Such was the first result of the coldness, apathy, and
disunion prevailing in the camp of the republicans.
The Censtitationa/ alone on one side, and the Prose
and Pays on the other, supported the Ely4e.
But what could be done in the Assem-
bly with no more allies than the pure
Bonapartists and the handful of republicans
at the beck of Lamartine and Girardin. M. Bil-
Inuit is far too practical a man not to have seen,
under such circumstances the total impossibility of
stemming the opposition of the Assembly. Where
such a preponderant motive existed for washing his
, hands of the mission assigned to him, there would
be little fruit in speculating what portions of the
possible propositions of Louis Napoleon. the advocate
' of Nantes was prepared to admit, and what to re-
: ' ject, or whether he was finally deterred by seeing
! that the crisis must at last come to an inevitable
;'rupture of legality, and the creation of a dictatorship
on one side, or a convention on the other. For the
rest the announcement of M. Billaules departure
, from Paris seems to be premature ; for, quite unex-
pectedly, the ex-representative of the Constituent
found on returning to his lodging on Saturday night,
L ' that his eife and family had come up from
I, Nantes, perhaps thinking to find the head of the ;
familymialrenisadteyrsinstled as minister 4 the
whaolhaverciignedt
naturauinter;orru. b

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 22, 1851.

thtir hands over these negative results, and hold to
the ma of M. Faucher that the President " re, lechira
et Pehira." Certainly at the present moment it is
difficult to see any other course open to the President
but deflection from the policy proclaimed on the 14th
Oct., unless he be prepared to call in an extra-parli-
amentary ministry. He is strongly encouraged to
adopt this course, both by Girardin and Lamartine,
as well as the Constitution nel ; so that there appears
some probability of a repetition of the ministerial
machinery resorted to on the fall of the Baroche
cabinet ; and a set of administrative men foreign to
the Assembly will in all likelihood present the new
message. On the other hand, it is said that the As-
sembly is prepared to act with temper and delibera-
tion. A committee would be appointed to examine
the proposition for abrogating the law of 31st May,
andwould whilerecommendiagtherejection of thepurel
and simpleabrogation, recommend modifications of the
law, which might form a basis of transaction between
the powers. If the former ministers, who, as I in-
formed you, admitted, at St. Cloud, on the 14th,
important modifications of the electoral law, should
I return to office, the result would be, for all practical
• purposes, pretty much the same in the end, unless the
I President be really bent on pushing matters reso-
lutely to a complete rupture, a conclusion which no
careful weigher of his past administration will readily

adopt.
The correspondence of the Indfipendance Belye has
been obliged to contradict its story about a dinner at
Rothschild'a country-house, at Ferrieres, where an
alliance between Changnrnier and earlier was said
to have been sealed, in the presence of Leon Faucher
and other of the resigned ministers. The part of
Hamlet was left out. Changarnier was not present
at the dinner in question.
The rumoured successor of earlier at the Prefec-
ture of Police, M. de Maupas, prefect of the Haute-
Garrone, curiously enough was summoned from Tou-
louse to Paris to receive a wigging from M. Leon
Faucher, relative to some disputes between the pre-
fect and the military authority. On the eve of the
ministeral crisis, M. de Maupas was ordered by the
minister of the interior to return to Toulouse, but
showed in reply a note from the President, request-
ing hint to stay. Perhaps the prefect of Toulouse
will have to thank M. Leon Faucher for putting him
all innocently in the road to the prefecture of police
at Paris.

The tone of the conservative papers is much
quieter to-day. They limit themselves in general to
adducing arguments to prove the untruth of M. Gm-
nier de Cassagnac's assertion thatthere is no majority.
Cassagnac says that when the President con-
sented to pass the law of the 31st May, he declared
to a deputation of the Committee of Seventeen, who
waited on him at the lilysee, that if the country de-
sired to maintain him at his post he would never
consent to be there except by universal suffrage.
This remark has attracted much notice, and its truth
is challenged by the Assembh'e, who asks why the
President did not call a second deliberation, or pro-
pose the application of a separate law to his own
election. The Ordre quotes the same assertion as an
answer to the Patric, which affirms that Louis Napo-
leon's determination to propose the abrogation of the
law of the 31st May, rose entirely from the conviction
that it was favourable to the drleanist interest, but
to no other.

The Minister of War has signed some decrees for
the conveyance of troops by railroads.
Mazzini has addressed a manifesto to the Rero-
fution.

The linniteur contains a statement of the imports,
exports, and navigation of France for the month of
September. The customs duties levied on the mer-
chandise imported amount to 10,869,000 fr. The
corresponding amount for tho year 1830 was
11,619,0001 r. ; and f0r18.10,.10,876,000fr. The total

amount of custom duties levied upon imports during
the first nine months of 11451 is 87,273,000 fr. The
corresponding amount fur 1830 was 92,818,000 fr.;
and for 1849, 93,133,0001 i.

ITALY.

SARDINIA.

The Progresso of Turin, of the 17th, says that the
Marquis d'Azeglio, on the preceding day, submitted
to the King of Sardinia the decree miming Dr.
Parini to the portfolio of Public Instruction. The
Opiuionc of Turin, of the IHth, states that Marquis
Spinola, the Sardinian Minister at Rome, is to be re-
placed by Count Berton Sambuy, who is said to be a
noted partisan of the clerical party.