The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-12 00:00:00

articles years ago

It is perhaps scarcely fair to attribute to Lord Palmerston
or to government the impediment which has been thrown in
the way of the settlement of affairs in the Mediterranean.
But in the case of the failure, so far, of the Chinese expedi-
tion, it is impossible to lay the blame upon any other shoulders
than those of the authorities at home, and of the officers who
have had its chief direction abroad—upon Lords Palmerston
and Minto, and the Elliotts. The whole Chinese affair ought
to have been, and might have been, settled within a week of
the arrival of the British force off Pekin, in June or July last ;
and yet, so late as the date of the last arrivals, December,
the negociations had not advanced one step, and the whole of
the work (?) of six months was to be commenced anew. In
the meantime, the troops on board the fleet, and those located
in Chusan, have been decimated by the miserable unhealthi-
ness of the climate ; and we arc informed, from the letter of
an officer on the spot, that of a force at Chusan numbering
originally 3,420 men, " only about 500 or 600 men could now
be collected for service !" " The 26th regiment," says the
same authority, " exists but in name. They muster only 100
men for duty, and 500 are still in the hospital ; the cases of
many, too many, are quite hopeless."
Another authority (a military officer) writes of the regi-
ment to which he is attached--" We brought 900 men on
shore, and never were men in better condition ; all we have
now remaining, taking off the non-comtnisioned officers, band,
and servants, is about 100 mess for duty, and many of these
more or leis ill. Graves are for ever open, and those who
assist in paying the last duties to their ill-fated Companions
seem as if they would soon follow." May not her Majesty
with justice echo the language of the Roman Emperor, and
exclaim to Lord Minto and his imbeciles=" Vare redde
mild Legiones ?" The British flag floated proudly enough,
I dare say—to use what was the language of the admirers of
whip-radicalism a few months ago—from the walls of a city

of the imperial empire; but it waves now only over the
mouldering ashes of the dead, or the sickly and ghastly forms
of miserable ague-stricken men who have scarcely strength
left to defend it against the onset of a battalion of women.
Will the country contemplate such a calamitous state of
things, without requiring a strict and a severe reckoning with
those by whom it has been brought about ? Surely not !
It will scarcely be wondered at that the feeling which has
been excited to-day in all circles by the general tenor of the
advices. is one of gloom mingled with the deepest indigna-
tion. Only two days ago the British people were insulted

by the publication of one of the most malignant and men-
dacious documents ever put forward by the government of
any civilized country. The democracy of America dared
openly to vindicate their right to commit, under the forms of
law, the cold-blooded and deliberate murder of a subject of
her Majesty ; and the only source of hope in which we could
indulge, for the preservation of peace between the two coun-
tries, was the expectation that by the speedy settlement of
affairs in Syria and China, we should be placed in possession
of such an imposing force, by the withdrawal of our fleets
from the Mediterranean and from the Chinese seas, as would
effectually deter attack, even from a country which no other
consideration except prudence could restrain from letting
loose upon us the envenomed feelings of the people towards
the very name of Great Britain. Can we indulge in such a
hope now ? Dare we venture to withdraw one ship from the
Mediterranean or from China, to beat back the assault which
threatens us from the other side of the Atlantic? Assuredly
not. Hedged round as we are with enemies on every side,
we have nothing on earth to look to for support but the
spirit and idomitable resolution of the people of England and
Scotland—would that I could add of Ireland too !—and that
spirit, it is to be feared will not be put forth, until some
nobler hearts are found to direct its energies than those mean
and mercenary ones which beat beneath the breasts of her
Majesty's present advisers !

MURDER.—A driver, of the name of Billane, seized some
potatoes for rent, belonging to a man named Magrath ; an
altercation immediately ensued, when Magrath, who held a
mallet in his hand (with which he had been breukine clods)
struck'Billane in the temple, and he never spoke after. David
Duff. S.M., and the chief-constable, shortly after attended
to take Billane's depositions, but he could not speak ; be
lingered for five days, and died. Magrath was taken the
same and will be tried at the assizes of Nenagh, which
day,commence the 15th of this month. The occurrence took
place at Redwood Castle, the property of Major Bloomfield-
-Dublin Evening Mail.

A REASON.—At our assizes, a woman from the " far
west," somewhere about Stainmoor, on being asked how
long she lived in Barnard Castle, replied that she really could
not tell because " she was no scholar."—Durham Advertiser.
EXTRAORDINARY FACT.—On Friday last, a fine cow,
belonging to Cornelius Riordan, of Johnstown, near Mac-
room (a tenant and driver to Sir Richard Cox, Bart.), when
about to calve, became so very unwell, that her owner was
obliged to send for a " cow-doctor," who resided in the
neighbourhood. This man drew from her, on Friday even-
ing,
,bur calves, and a fifth on the following evening !! The
poor cow died very soon after, and was buried in a pit along
with the five calves on Monday morning.—Kilkenny Mode-

Should the £5 qualification clause in Lord Morpeth's re-
gistration bill for Ireland become the law of the land, it is
understood to be an instruction apolitical unions, to petition
parliament immediately for an extension of the franchise to
all the parliamentary boroughs of Great Britoin.—sterford-
shire Gazette.