The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

THE WEST INDIA MAIL

SOUTHAMPTON, FRIDAY NIGHT.
The Parana steamer, Captain Bevis, has arrived
with the West India, Pacific, and Mexican mails.
Her dates are—Vera Cruz, Sept. 4th ; Tampico,
Aug. 31st ; ilievannah, Sept. 10th ; Greytown,
2d ; Jamaica, 10th ; Demerara, 9th ; Trinidad,
9th; Barbadoes, 11th; St. Thomas's, 15th. She
brings 65 passengers, 856,414 doll. in specie ;
diamonds, &c., value £7,268; and full cargo of
cochineal, cigars, tobacco, and sundries.
Her Majesty's ships lnaum, Leopard, Basilisk,
Tartar, Cuba, Buzzard, and Devastation were at
Jamaica.

In lat. 43 19 N., long., 31 51 W. the Parana
spoke the. English brig Julia, and in lat. 46 22 N.,
long. 22 21 W., the American ship Daniel Webster,
from New York for London,

The islands were generally healthy. Full average
crops had been gathered. The weather throughout
the colonies had been unusually dry, and in some
places sei iously affected the growing crops. In
Demerara crop operations were being continued
with good prospects. Shipping abundant, and the
colony healthy. There is no political news.
The weather at Porto Rico had been of late very,
favourable, abundant rains having fallen through-
out the island. The coming sugar crop would not
reach an average, the southern districts having
suffered greatly from severe and protracted drought,
and the deficiency would be very large ; but on the
north side the prospects were the best known for
many years.
The coffee crop had commenced in some quarters,
and was expected to turn out well.
Exchanges were higher, and for tonnage no
demand existed. Money continued extraordinarily
scarce.

The Government had in no way relaxed the
stringency of its financial enactments, and the
country was suffering greatly under the pressure of
excessive taxation. .

The Fraser River gold diggings were reported
up to the 6th of September to be a hoax. Great
distress prevailed among the numerous emigrants,
and all that could were getting away.
General Tamar, American Minister to Nicaragua,
left that Republic in disgust, and proceeded to
Costa Rica. He ' purposed recommending his
Government to use force in their demands against
Nicaragua: The Cass-and Yri,sarri tieaty had noi'i

been ratified by the Nicaraguan Government. The
want of the usual rains at this season had been
severely felt throughout the continent.
The American Minister at Mexico had received
orders to demand his passports, and will leave on
the 15th of October, the yellow fever being too
bad to venture before. The British Minister had
received instructions to follow the course pursued by
his American colleague—viz., to protect against the
contributions levied. Tampico was taken on the
25th of Aug. by the Constitutionalists, or Liberals.
No part of the coast is now held by Zuluaga, who
is about abdicating unless Santa Anna returns,
which appeared utterly impossible. The Liberals
were gaining ground fast, and preparing to con-
centrate upon the capital. All communication with
Vera Cruz and other parts was cut off. Money was
plentiful in the capital, but could not leave it for
robbers. Robles, the Mexican Minister, had re-
turned to his country, recalled by Zuluaga, to take
his place in case of abdication, but he had yet to
get to the city, being on board a Spanish vessel of
war off Vera Cruz. Robles was passenger in the Clyde
from Havannah to Tampico, but was unable to
land there, the town having been taken by, the
Liberal party two days before the Clyde arrived.
He returned, therefore, to Vera Cruz, and was
taken on board the Spanish frigate Cortes, lying at
Sacrificio. Yellow fever was very virulent at Vera
Cruz.

From the Pacific the news is very unimportant.
Peace and order prevailed throughout Chili, and
the country was progressing favourably. A line of
mail steamers to run between Valparaiso, Monte-
video, and Buenos Ayres was talked of. The news
from the silver and copper mines was satisfactory.
Bolivia was progressing peacefully, and the army
had been reduced one-half.
The close of the elections in Peru had left the
country quiet. The Peruvian Government, it was
reported, was about to declare war against Ecuador
on account of the question between Senor Cavero,
the Peruvian Minister to Ecuador and the latter
Government.

Senor Carrion had been elected Vice-President of
the Republic of Ecuador, and the elections passed
off quietly.
Central American news is uninteresting. Cholera
was disappearing at Guatemala. The United States
Minister had returned from Honduias to that State.

ENCUMBERED ESTATES CO URT,
- IRELAND.

NINTH AND CONCLUDING ANNUAL REPORT.
Summary of proceedings of the Encumbered Es.
tates Court, from the filing of the first petition—
viz., Oct. 25, 1849, to Aug. 31, 1858, being the ter-
mination of the ninth and last session of the com-
mission. (On and after the Ist day of Nov., 1854,
to be entitled "The Landed Estates Court." 21st
and 22d of Vict., cap. 72.) Arranged in 14 tables.
1. Number of petitions presented, including
those for partition and exchange, as well as for
5a1e4,413
(Of the above, upwards of 800 were supplemental, with
drawn, and dismissed petitions.)
2. Number of absolute orders for sale
3. Number of matters in which owners pre-
sented petitions
•
(Of the first 100 petitions, six were presentad by owners.
Of the last 100 petitions, the owners of estates presented 47.)
4. Number of matters in which owners were
bankrupt or insolvent
(In very many other cases the owners of estates became
bankrupts or insolvents after the petitions were presented,
and the proceedings were subsequently carried on in the
name of their assignees).
5. Number of conveyances executed by the com-
missioners
6. Number of estates or.parts of estates sold by
provincial auction, subsequently confirmed by the
commissioners
By private proposal accepted by the commis-
sioners
The remainder of the premises comprised in the above
8,364 conveyances were all sold by public auction, in court,
before the commissioners.
7. Number of lots sold—viz., by public auction
in court, by provincial auction, and by private
contract, confirmed by the commissioners
When the same person became the purchaser of severs:
lots he generally had them included in the same convey.
ante.

3,54'

8,364

8. Number of boxes, containing upwards of
300,000 documents and muniments of title, depo-
sited in the Record-office
9. Number of cases which had been pending in
the Court of Chancery before being brought into
the Encumbered Estates Court
10. Number of Irish purchasers
11. Number of English, Scotch, and foreign
purchasers .. 324
12. Amount of purchase-money paid
by English, Scotch, and foreign pur-
chasers
13. Gross proceeds of sale to the 31st of August, 1858,
as lodged in the accountant's office :
By public auction in court, by provin-
cial auction, and by private contract £23,161,093 6 7
This amount includes a sum of about £500,000, being
inters t, at 5 per cent., charged to purchasers when lodging
their money after the limited time for payment thereof.
14. Accountant's Office.—Table showing the amount paid
on account of purchase-money and of property sold, and of
funds distributed, and of credit allowed to incumbrancers
who became purchasers, and funds at present in court, and
purchase money of recent sales not yet lodged :
Total amount of purchase money, as
above, from 25th of October, 1849, to 31st
of August, 1858, both days inclusive

3,170

1,298
8,258

Amount distributed by order of the
Commissioners, in cash
Ditto in stock 5,015,612 2 11
Amount of absolute credits to pur-
chasers on foot of incumbrances vested
in them7 and applied, with consent of
Commissioners, m payment of their
purchase money

Total amount of funds distributed .. £21,931,696 0 9
Funds on hand :
Cash in bank........ £413,368 6 11
New 3 per cent. Stock 711,432 19 0
New 3 per cent.Consols 104595 19 11

£1;226,397 5 10

£23,,03 6 7
Note.—The funds here returned as on hand 161are9 subject
to be still further reduced by—
First—The amount of sums already allocated to parties
and to trustees of settlements and the like, but where,
from the deaths of the parties, or some of them, entitled
thereto, or from some other causes, those sums cannot at
present be paid out of court.
Second—By amount set apart by the Commissioners'
fiats, on account of conflicting- claims (the subject of litiga-
tion in the Court of Chancery or elsewhere, and not yet
decided on) respecting the sum comprised in such fiats.
THOMAS SEED, Accountant.

There is a difference between the amount real-
zed by the sales (as taken from the Sales-book) and
;he amount lodged in the Accountant's-office.
This difference arises from—

First—Certain provisional credits having been
conditionally
.allowed to incumbrancers who be-
came purchasers, but which credits, not having
been yet made absolute, are not returned as pay-
ments, or as credits absolutely allowed in the books
of the accountant ; and
Secondly—From the non-lodgment in court of
the amount of certain of the sales recently had.

C. M. OJUISBY.
Statistics-office, Dublin, Oct. 1.

THE SCOTCH IRON TRADE.

(From the Quarterly Report of M. Thomas Thorburn.)
The iron trade continues to expand. The produc-
tion of pig iron in the quarter just closed is unpre-
cedented, having raached 249,000 tons. The ship-
ments and local consumption amount, in the same
period, to 215,000 tons. The stocks have thus, and
partly owing to the continuous cessation of the
greatest malleable work in this district, combined
with a falling-off in the exports, increased 34,000
tons, and are now 230,000 tons in makers' and ware-
house-keepers' stores, against 112,000 tons, on the
Ist of October, 1857.
Yet, in the face of an accumulating stock, exten-
sive purchases were made at from 535. to 555. 6d.
cash, and 545. 6d. to 575. three months open ; the
price averaging in July 535., in August 555., and in
September 545. 4d. per ton.
Although these quotations arc fully 15s. below
the average price of the last five years, and scarcely
remunerative to the ironmasters in general, still
they have supplied the market freely at the current
price of the day, and continue to send considerable
quantities into warehouse-keepers' stores.
Notwithstanding the great slackness still felt by
the iron shipbuilders on the Clyde, a growing im-
provement is to be noted among the local malleable
works and foundries, coincident with the decidedly
reviving trade of the country.
With upwards of nineteen millions of bullion in
the Bank of England-the prospects of a great
commercial future by the opening of entirely new
markets in the East and on the shores of the
Pacific-with Brazil, India, Algeria, Austria, and
Australia wanting railways-there cannot, fail
sooner or later, to be stimulated an increasing de-
mand for iron, which is the foundation of almost
every industrial enterprise.
The following are now the prices :-Bars, £7 ss.
to .£8 ; Rails, ss. to £7 lOs ; Railway Chairs,
£4 2s. 6d. to £4 7s. 6d ; Cast Iron Pipes, £4 17s.
6d. to £5 10s. No. 1 Gartsherrie, 60s. ; No. 1
Calder and Coltness, 555. 6d. ; No. 1 Glengarnock,
555. ; No. 1 G. M. 8., 535. 6d. to 545. 6d. ; No. 3,
525. 9d. to 535. sd. ; East Coast Brands, 535. 6d.
to 555. ; Ayrshire Brands, 535. to 553. for mixed
numbers.

MR. G. T. F. SMITH'S WEATHER PREDICTIONS
FOR OCTOBER, 1858.-3 d to sth dull, cool, and ungenial
weather, probably some showers. From sth to 9th rainy
with raw atmosphere. From 9th to 13th rainy in the inte-
rim, raw, cold, or squally at intervals. From 13th to 16th
alternately bright and gloomy, with some showers. From
16th to 23d rainy weather prevails. From 23d to 29th
generally fine, with a genial atmosphere, and but a few
showers at intervals. To October 31st similar weather
prevails. The warmest period of October will be from the
27th or 28th' to 'the 31st.-12, Gloucester=place,
tenham,

PRUSSIA AND HER KING.

Previous to the period of Frederick 11., generally,
and with more than ordinary justice called the
Great, Prussia was a fourth or even a fifth-rate
Power in Europe. It possessed little else but patches
of sandy territory, isolated from the remainder hy
the dominions and territories of other Princes. In
those days Eastern Prussia was separated from the
rest of the kingdom, or, as it was then more com-
monly called, the Electorate, by the Polish terri-
tory. The Prussian possessions in Franconia were,
surrounded by the territories of jealous neutral or
hostile Princes—a fact, the significancy of which
the young King was not very slow to see. Hard
did he labour by pen, by tongue, but, most of all,
by sword, to remove these political disadvantages ;
and though his measures were not always justifiable,-
or his acts, whether military or civil, defensible on
strictly moral or ethical grounds, yet it cannot be
denied that by his energy, his vigour, and his mili-,
tary and civil capacity, Frederick the Second(
raised his kingdom from a small Electorate to a
first-rate Power, and caused the name of Prussia
to be known and respected throughout the civilised
world. The more immediate successors of the great
man did not possess his talents or his energy. 11l
the revolutionary war the States of Prussia on the
west of the Rhine were seized or ceded, and at Jena
nearly all was lost. By a treaty subsequent to that
battle, Prussia lost more than half her populationj
and territory, and for six years was little more,
than a feudatory of France. Subsequently, indeed,'
Queen, King, and people were animated by at
patriotic and national spirit, and by the peace'
of Paris, in reward of her last efforts, Prussia!
gained what she had lost by the peace of Tilsit,
and had her frontiers additionally rounded by the
cessions of large parcels of Saxony. So long as
Frederick William 111., the father of the present
King, lived, the country which he governed main-
tained a great deal of 'the prestige of the old days
of 1741 and 1742 ; but since the accession of the
present King, Frederick William IV., in 1840,
Prussia has, from the indecision, vacillation, and
capricious character of the Monarch, lost much of
the influence and weight which so industrious, civi-
lised, and military a people enjoyed in the delibc-
_rations and councils of the great Powers of Europe.
The King, in many respects an amiable, and in all
respects an accomplished, man, was, in his best
days, little fitted to rule, and is now wholly unfit to
govern. His principal defect was a fatal weakness
and vacillation—a sort of dreaminess, mysticism,
and indecision, which never permitted him to do
more than halt between two opinions. This defect
of mind was apparent in the earlier days of the
Monarch's reign, and age, and feeble health, and
the vicissitudes of later years, have served but
to fortify a weakness which, according to one of
the greatest masters in knowledge of the human
heart, is, under the most favourable circum-
stances, incurable. "La faiblesse (says Rochefou-
cault, in speaking of men of undecided character),
" est le seul defaut qu'on ne saurait jamais corriger ;'',
and in looking to the career of the Prussian King,l
we find a verification of the remark. In 1840 and
1841 he halted between Lutheranism and Evan-1
gelism ; in 1842, between a Russian and an English
alliance ; in 1843 and 1844, between Absolutism
and Constitutionalism ; and, in 1848 and 1849 he
halted again as to whether he should lead or re-
press the movement in Germany. Opportunities,
glorious or inglorious, for good or for evil, were
thus on four occasions lost, and a majority of the
Prussians at length, in 1853, ceased to regard their
monarch in any other respect than as a king of
good intentions but of weak and feeble resolves. If
there were a few of his Majesty's subjects who en-
tertained different opinions, such persons ought to
have been, and we believe were, disenchanted by
the events of 1854. In that year Prussia had the
most glorious opportunity ever afforded to a nation
to embark in the cause in which England, France,
Turkey, and Sardinia had engaged. Though not
eager for war, the Prussian people would.. have
gladly seen their country allied with the civilised
Powers of the West against Russia. But the
King, as usual, vacillated and wavered, and
finally proved not merely inconstant, but
faithless to the interests of Germany, of
humanity, and of civilisation. Despite the ad-
jurations and warnings of some of the most dis-
tinguished of his subjects, the King, following his
own inclinations and the suggestions of a narrow
clique, remained in quasi neutrality, lending all the
while, however, efficient services to Russia. -From
that moment the influence of Prussia as a kingdom
and the health and intellect of the King have de-
clined part passe, and there needed but the recent
events of Neufchatel to convince the diplomacy of
Europe that the Monarch was suffering, not alone
from bodily disease, but from mental weakness.
For the last twelvemonth it is known indeed to all
the world that Frederick William has been com-
pletely prostrated both in mind and body. His
brother, the Prince of Prussia, has, during that
period, acted as Regent with limited powers; and
it is now sought by a camarilla to prolong this un-
certain state, with continuing restrictions, or with
the Queen as co-Regent. But the Prince of Prussia,
according to the latest advices from Berlin, declines
to be any longer hampered by restrictions and limi-
tations which impede his action, and give him dan-
gerous responsibility without free or full power.
The fact is, that the Queen, and a camarilla behind
her, cannot bear to think the King incapable to go-
vern, and look forward to the day when he is again
to reign. Such a contingency is doubtless possible ;
for his Majesty may, by the Divine mercy, again
recover both his bodily and mental strength. But
at the present moment, after a year's suffering, the
case of the Prussian King appears hopeless, and his
incapacity to govern is so marked and manifest,
that the next agnate, or male relative of a common
father, possesses the power, under the 56th article
of the constitution, to assume the Regency as a
right. This right, we learn from the Berliner Zeit,
the present Regent is prepared to exercise; and
probably, by the middle or end of the month, he
may, assuming his functions as the next agnate,
rule in virtue of the constitution and law of Prus-
sia, instead of by kingly delegation from his
brother. For now nearly twelve months the
Regent has exhibited a delicacy towards his brother
worthy of all commendation—a delicacy oftener
sought than found, even in the bosom of illustrious
families. But, in quite admitting the delicacy due
to a brother and a King, we cannot forget that
there are reciprocal and interchangeable obliga-
tions. The Prince also owes a duty to his country,
to Prussia Proper to Po3en, to Brandenburg, to
Pomerania, and Silesia. It is incumbent on the
next heir and ruler of a kingdom, heterogeneous,
and not very well knit together by feeling, in-
terest, or geographical situation, to gather up the
reins of authority, and not to prevent a people,
intelligent, industrious, and warlike, to suffer from
an interregnum or a camarilla, and to be without a
responsible constitutional ruler, accountable, if he
recovers, to Frederick William IV., and account-
able in any event to God, to his country, and to
Europe.—Morning Post.