The Express.
London, England, 1847-05-15 00:00:00

UNITED STATES AND MEXICO.

We yesterday published a brief account of the news
by the Cambria. The following is a summary of the
meat important intelligence.
The additional intelligence from the seat of war
relates to the operations of the Americans and
Mexicans from the Zith to the 14th of April. Ac-
cording to the latest accounts, Santa Anna was in
considerable force in the neighbourhood of Jalapa,
and the invading army rapidly advancing upon that
town. . _

C.ilonel Harvey's detachment took possession of
Antigua, with little resistance. The expedition
against Alvarado was productive of an incident
which appears rather to have shaken the equa-
nimity of Commodore Perry. The steamer Scourge
was sent on before to blockade the mouth of the
lagoon till the squadron under the commodore, and
the land army under General Quitman, should arrive
berme the place. When the Scourge reached Alva-
rado it was found that the Mexican troops had eva-
cuated it, after burning all the public vessels and
spiking or burying most of the guns. Upon receiving
this information, Capt. Hunter, of the Scourge, with
due solemnity summoned the place to surrender,
which was done apparently by the port-officer, for
want of any superior authority. The gallant captain
thereupon garrisoned the town and fort with a passed
midshipman and five sailors, and sailed up the river,
where he took possession of four private schooners,
burned one, left another as not worth carrying
off, and bad the other two towed down. He
next summoned the village Flacotalpam to surrender,
a summons with which the unarmed inhabitants of
coarse at once complied. The gallant victor, flushed
with these conquests, returned to report his proceed-
ings to the commodore, who had in the mean time
come up with a frigate, three steamers, and a whole
fleet of brigs and schooners. Captain Hunter's sum-
mons-s and orders, and the reports of his officers, are
all mum les relgles, and sufficiently voluminous to
have embraced a similar set of operations for the
Amazon, supposing that river to have been obsti-
nately defended. The ridicule of the affair was too
much for Commodore Perry, who forthwith ordered
Captain Hunter to be suspended from duty ; and the
newspapers have installed that officer a hero, and in-
dite yriumes on his heroic victories. Commodore
Perry was to sail on the 12th to attack Tuspan.
The main army was unable to commence its move-
ment from Vera Cruz upon the e Taal till the Bth of
Apil. General Scott had found great difficulty in
Minting a sufficient number of beasts of draught and
burden; and even as it was, the troops were but in-
differently provided in this respect. The second
iivision of regulars, under General Twigg, marched
from the camp, before Vera Cruz, on the morning of the
Bth ; they were followed twenty-four hours later by
two brigades of the division of volunteers, under
General Paterson. General Worth's brigade marched
on the 13th. It was found that the Mexicans had
fallen back from Puente Nacional, leaving that
strong post undefended. On the 12th, General
Twigg was informed by Capt. Hardy, who had been
ordered out with a party of dragoons OR a eeronnois-
sante, that the army were in force before him at
Encerro (Cerro Gorda, the Americans have christened
the place). An express was immediately despatched
to the rear, and had the effect of quickening the steps
of General Scott,who only left Vera Cruz on the 12th,
and accelerating the departure of General Worth, who,
on account of indisposition, had lagged behind his
brigade.
It was believed in the American army that Santa
Anna had collected 13,000 men about Encerro. He
had strengthened that steep and rugged part of the
ascent to the table land by a succession of breast-
works. General Scott was understood to have been
Dotty well satisfied, before he left Vera Cruz, that
Banta Anna was in the vicinity of Jalapa and pre-
Wing to give him battle before he reached that town.
A skirmish had taken place between the Mexicans
and General Twigg's advanced guard in front of the
breastworks at Encerro, and Capt. (or Col.), Johnson,
with mine other officers, had been severely wounded.
The Mexican guerillas had killed no less than 30 of
the Americans in three days. One of Gen. Twigg's
"Prows was cut off. fhe actvunte of the state

of health among the American troops are
difficult to reconcile. One report says that
though the weather was oppressively sultry, " there
was as yet but little sickness;" another, that " great
numbers were sick of diarrha,a ;" a third, that the
yellow fever had made its appearance. Almost all
the generals have had attacks of sickness. Encerro
is regarded as the upper limit of the mato prick
region ; and perhaps Santa Anna's object in making
a stand there is to keep the invaders as long as pos-
sible below it.

At Saltillo Gen. Taylor was making arrangements
for sending back to the coast the volunteers whose time
of service had nearly expired, and replacing them by
the new levies as they arrived. On the 31st March
he issued a proclamation to the effect that ho had
hitherto refrained front throwing the burden of the
war on the inhabitants in the hope that they would
remain neutral, but that finding his troops cat off and
the provision trains intercepted by irregular armed
bands he had arrived at the conclusion that his
leniency was not appreciated by the Mexicans. He
had, in consequence, resolved to demand indemnifica-
tion for the loss of the trains and their contents. "An
estimate will be made by the proper officers of the
entire loss, and this loss must be made good, either in
money or the products of the country, by the community
at large of the states of Tamaulipas, New Leon, and
Cohahuila, each district paying its just proportion."
A rumour had reached Austin in Texas, that General
Lamar, attemeting to join General Taylor with 80
or 100 men from Loredo. had been attacked in the
difficult passes beyond the ltio Grande, and after
losing half his men, compelled to yield himself a
prisoner.
The latest accounts from California are to the 25th
of January. They do not confirm the superseding of
Commodore Stockton by Commodore Shubrick, but
they plainly intimate that he ought to have been
superseded. The conduct of General Kearney is also
blamed.

A despatch from Col. Price, the officer in commann
at Santa Fe, (New Mexico) dated the 13th of Feb-
ruary, is published in the Washington journals. It
appears from this document,that Governor Bent, after
having, as he imagined, frustrated the projected rising
of the New Mexicans in December last, left Santa Fe
for Taos on the 14th January. On the 19th there
was a simultaneous rising against the Americans at
Taos, Honda, and the Rio Colorado, in consequence of
which fifteen of them (including the Governor)
were killed. Colonel Price, immediately on re-
ceiving this intelligence, gave orders for con-
centrating all the troops within his reach at Santa
Fe. On the 23rd of January he marched, leaving
a small garrison behind, with the bulk of his
troops and. four mountain howitzers. He fell in with
the enemy at the town of Canada, on the Rio Norte,
on the 24th, and beat them. On the 29th (having
then with him 479 men) he forced the pass of Embudo.
On the 2d of February he assaulted Taos. The enemy,
numbering according to his estimate, between 600
and 700 men, were entirely defeated. Of the six
principal leaders, " Tafoya was killed at Canada,
Chavis at Puebla, Montoya was hanged at Taos,
Tomas was shot by a prirate while in the guardroom
' there: and two are still at large."
It is pretty evident from these transactions, both in
the south and north, that whatever the governments
may decide to do, it is war to the knife" between
the two races.
The Washington government are evidently anxious
about the state of affairs is New Mexico. The
governor of Missouri was instructed, on the 25th
of March, to raise new lines of volunteers without loss
of time, and march them upon Santa Fe. In the
letter which gives these instructions, it is said—" It
is much to he regretted that Col. Doniphan was 'sent
down the Rio Grande to Chihuahua." The govern-
ment appears to be wincing under public criticism.
A semi-official statement in the Union attempts
to make out that General Scott would be able
to advance with twenty thousand men against
Mexico, and that in the course of April General Tay-
lor would have 10,000 under his command. General
Scott's own estimate was 11,000; and according to
General Taylor's return he had before the battle of
Buena Vista 4.073 of all arms, which after the affair
had sunk to 3,806, of whom 436 were wounded. His
most sanguine expectation is to bring 6,000 together
by the time mentioned.
President Polk has been put in nomination for a
second time by some of the adherents of government.
The whigs have set up General Taylor against him.
The Virginian elections to Congress have gone against
the government party, five whig members being
returned to one democrat. The legislature of Massa-
chuseets
had passed resolutions condemning the war
with Mexico.
The Governor of the state of New York issued a
proclamation ou the 26:h of April fur the apprehension
of the anti-rent ringleaders.
The main topics of conversation in the union when
the Cambria sailed were the projected ship-canal
across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the treaty of
commerce with Hanover, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg-
Schwerin, and the Hanse Towns. Breadstuffs were
flowing in upon New York and other shipping ports,
the canals and rivers being all open ; but vessels for
freight were in very insufficient numbers.