The Sun.
London, England, 1852-01-07 00:00:00

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GERMANY.

The Berlin Ministerial journal of the 4th inst.
publishes the provisions of the Treaty of Commerce
and Navigation between Prussia and Holland, the
conclusion of which was some time since announced.
The chief points gained by Prussia are a reduction of
the tolls levied on the Lower Rhine and its navigable
tributaries. The droit fixe on the Lower Rhine, and
all the duties on the Mass and Yssel, are abolished.
The pilot dues in Holland are reduced one•half ; for
the transit through Holland and to Belgium the
reduced rate of tolls, after the abolition of the
droit fixe, will alone be levied. Prussia assures
to Holland a continuance of the advantages it had
obtained by former treaties. Traffic will be facilitated
by the loss of time in unloading and weighing goods
being no longer necessary. The transit cargoes will
be sealed and accompanied by a Custom-house official.
Holland and the Zollverein accord each other, for
their respective produce, the advantages allowed, or
that may be allowed, by them to the most favoured
nations with whom they have commercial' treaties.
Thus the wines of the Zollverein will be admitted
into Holland on the same terms as those of France.
A variety of articles of German manufacture are al-
lowed to be exported to the Dutch East Indian pos-
sessions on the most favourable terms of the colonial
tariff, or at about half the general rates; among them
are woods, drugs, soap, Nuremberg toys, electro-
plated goods, watches from the Black Forest, leather,
fancy goods, velvets, and mineral waters.

FATAL AFFAIR WITH THE NEGROES

AT LAGOS.

At the moment that the --Screw Company's Cape
Mail packet Harbinger was leaving Sierra Leone for
England, on the 17th December, her Majesty's screw-
ship Niger, 14, Commander Heath, arrived from
Lagos, and boarded her, with dispatches from Com-
modore Bruce for England.
These dispatches, it was understood, contain official
information to the Admiralty of a desperate and fatal
fight with the negroes at Lagos by the Niger ship's
company ; in which affair Messrs. Dyer and Hall,
mates of the Niger, were killed, and nine men were
also killed and wounded.

It appears that for some time there has been a dis-
play of some very ill feeling between those on the
coast who are desirous of suppressing slavery, and a
party whose " occupation has gone" by the activity
of the cruisers in putting down the slave trade. The
former party have been zealous in their endeavours to
prevent the latter from bringing slaves from the in-
terior to the coast market ; and the slavers, on the
other hand, have attempted by every means to coerce
our friends, until at length they have come to blows.
The Niger, cruising on the coast, determined on a
demonstration against the blacks, landed her boats to
protect our allies and to drive off their enemies, when
a bloody encounter ensued, and the seamen and
marines of the Niger, being overpowered by numbers,
were obliged to retreat, fighting their way to their
boats, with the disastrous casualties above reported.
The commander-in-chief, Commodore Bruce, in the
Penelope, 16, steam-frigate ; Captain Lyster, with
the Seulark, 8, and one or two other men-of-war, ar-
rived off Lagos, from Ascension, after the fight, and
remaining there, dispatched the Niger to Sierra
Leone, to complete provisions, and to take down a
detachment of the West India regiment, when it
was expected the commodore would commence active
operations against the slave-dealing wretches, and,
it is hoped, will inflict upon them such a chas-
tisement as shall avenge the -deaths of the gallant
officers and seamen of the Niger, and shall finally put
a finishing stroke to slave dealing in that quarter of
the coast.

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN'S EXPEDI-
TION AND LIEUTENANT I'IM.
TO THE EDITOR OF TIME TIMES,
Sir!—Although I have during the last fortnight re-
ceived letters from Lieutenant Pim, dated St. Peters-
burgh, informing me that ho had been most kindly re-
ceived by all the Russian authorities to whom he had
been addressed, and that be had been most zealously
aided by her Majesty's Minister, Sir Hamilton Sey-
mour, I desisted from alluding to a subject in which
decisiveman of
syteepUrhraedadbeerese aretak
taken
deeply
eisnpteeerte interested dt h
e untilbeld sem
pro-
posal of the young British officer. His object was to
traverse Siberia to its north-eastern extremity, and
thence to endeavour to reach the mountainous lands far
to the north of Bebring's Strait, beyond which it was
conjectured that Franklin and his companions might be
frozen up. Lieutenant Pim had already informed me
that the Russian geographers, and particularly the
explorers of Northern Siberia, with whom he had
been put into communication, were opposed to
a plan which, from their experience and acquaintance
with the condition of the regions to be travel-
led over, they looked upon as impracticable
but that he still hoped to overcome all objections, and
to have it in his power to risk his life in the good cause.
I have now, however, received distinct information
through his Excellency Baron de Brunnow, that the
Imperial Government, after having taken the most lively
interest in this as in every former effort to rescue the
missing expedition, had satisfied itself, on the unanimous
report of the persons who had Most studied the subject,
that the execution of the plan which the noble and
courageous devotion of Lieutenant Pim had led him to
conceive,
was opposed by insurmountable obstacles.
these circumstancEs, the Emperor could not con-
sent Under
to allow the life of a British officer to be perilled in
placedav
na id ;
mbo.uut
r Middendorft
ch oaut
nsttrilyl,ra beingain
the
desirous of doing everything
which might be possible, the Imperial Government had
Zembla, the other of Northernineeee atcommunicationnhde
E explorer
a Eastern
r wn i with
Siberia—ine M.
NBeavear
the hope that by some other plan additional chances
might be obtained of procuring the desired tidings. It
iuslewegellfakeniloitwantedthba3t. Governmenttheevelrympeerxiearltieeini
ts po power our
efforts to obtain such tidings, whether in its Asiatic
or American Arctic possessions; and all the British
officers who have served in Behring's Strait can testify
to the friendly co-operitioh of the Russian authorities
in those desolate regions. However much then, we
may regret that the plan of reaching the unknown