The Express.
London, England, 1858-11-09 00:00:00

SPORTING INTIRLLIOLNCE.

SPECIAL EDITION of the N EXPRESS,"
eoataiania the remelts of the day's Roos, is pot).
tailed every evening during the Sporting Season, at
six o'clock_

VIE Emperor of the Paulen has manifested his
habitual mgacity in abandoning the disguised African
Slays Trade, the prosecution of which his already
led him into some serious embarrammente, and was
manifestly destined to lead him into more. The
letter to Prince NAPOLEON, of which a translation
appeared in our impression of yesterday, is expressed
with the precision and felicity which are not on.
common in the Slats papers of the Empire.
The peremptory demand roads on Portugal for the
restoration of the CAsrise-(.ergs is ascribed solely
to a firm resolution of maintaining intact the honour
of the national flag, and an assurance is given that
nothing but • profound conviction of right could
have led to risking a breach of amicable relations
with the Sovereign of Portugal. With regard to
the so-called African immigration, the Imperial
mind is not, we are told, at all made up. The
EMPLROR has no wish to countenanee enter-
prises opposed to progress, humanity, and civilisa-
tion. If the new Immigration wham) is really
nothing better than the Slave Trade in disguise,
NAPOLBOIII ru. will not hare it at any price. The
Primo therefore is directed to inquire into the facie,
and meanwhile, as the best mode of obviating future
ocessions of strife, to resume those negotiations for
the employment of Indian Coolies instead of African
Negroes, which were some time back commenced
with the British Government.

Such is the substance of this very important com-

manication. To those indeed who are aware of the
horrors that have hitherto attended on Coolie immi-
gration it may almost appear that then is something
like a dexterous stroke of irony in substituting a
negotiation for the transport of Coolies in lien of the
transport of Africans. We who protest so vehe-
mently against the one practice make no protest against
the other ; and yet it may fairly be made a question
whether the Coolies who have been carried acmes
the ocean sa indentured immigrants have tared
mach better, either on their passage, or after
their art i val, than the Africans who, in
the alleged exercise of free will, but with
the proved encumbrance of manacles, have
been shipped for the French West Indies by M. Hems
and his fellow adventurers. This may be so ; but it
does not alter the political value or the diplomatic
importance of the EMPEROR... 4 letter. The Coolie
trade is had but it is not fur us to denounce its
exercise, however we may be bound (and by
every consideration we are most solemnly bound)
to mitigate its horrors, and punish its
excesses. Bat the fact that the Emperor
of the FEENCII is willing to exchange his transport
of African Negroes for a transport of Asiatic Coolies,
on the express ground that it is desirable to avoid
all that is likely to offend the enthusiastic
opponents of Negro Slavery—this is valuable
an an additional evidence that NAPOLEON 111.
is sincerely anxious to maintain in all its
existing integrity the English Alliance. Ho
cannot be ignorant that considerable feeling has
naturally been excited in this country by the high-
handed mode in which he has just dealt with our
old ally, whose offence has been too rigorous an en-
forcement of those very treaties which the honour of
England hes long been supposed more especially con-
cerned to maintain. To have persevered in the mo-
dified Slave Trade, which had already led to one
such embarrassment, and was certain ere long to
eventuate in difficulties still more formidable—this

would undoubtedly htvo been tan amount to a de-
claration that France held as a slight thing the
imminent risk of thwarting the policy and risking
the hostility of England.
It is therefore not ande.erving of remark that
the termination of the affair with Portugal is
eagerly nixed on by the EMPEROR as the ooca-
sion for making known to the world the proximate
abandonment of a traffic by the maintenance
of which it had become abundantly clear that
the cordiality of hi. alliance with England must, in
the long run, be seriously imperilled. The well-
weighed expressions of the note bring this sequence
of cause and effect into careful prominence. The
note explains the Portuguese difficulty thus :
Regard to the honour of France rendered it abso-
lutely impossible to admit that the African Immi-
gration scheme was the Slave Trade revived—made
it absolutely necessary to repel that inference
promptly, vehemently, even harshly. But now
that that protest has been made—now that the
national honour has bren satisfied, the Buratto& is
free to pursue a aifferent course. Ile finds that this
traffic is likely to lenel to ernharranung results. lie
seizes the first occasion of abandoning it. He ex-
change, it for a traffic which, however
similar in some respects, is sot only not opposed
to the feeling., but is actually sanctioned by
the practice of England. He abandons the trans-
port of Africans. It. exchanges it for the transport
of Asiatics. This, at all events, is a declaration,
in the face of Eurove, that the high-handed men•
sumenorntly resorted !o in Portugal were not, u
some good-natured friends in Vienna were quick to
insinuate, measures promptel by a desire to insult
England, but measures prompted by a desire to