The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-06-26 00:00:00

ROME.

On the 12th inst. the French General issued the fol-
lowing proclamation :
"Villa Pamfiti, June 12th, three p.m.
" Inhabitants of Rome,—We come not to bring you war, we
come to consolidate order and liberty amongst you. The
intentions of our Government have been misunderstood. The
siege works have brought us before your ramparts. Until the
prp.Pnt moment we have replied but at rare intervals to the
fire of your batteries. We are arriving at the hibt moment,
when the necessities of war produce dreadful calamities.
Spare them to a city filled with so many glorious monuments.
If you persist in repelling us, to you alone will belong the re-
sponsibility of irreparable disasters.
6` OUDINOT DE REGGIO.' "

This was accompanied by a letter to the President of
the French Republic, stating that if, in twelve hours, an
answer was not returned " conformable to the intentions
and honour of France" the city would be assaulted. To
this insolent appeal the Triumvirate returned the follow-
ing noble reply :
" General ! We have the honour to transmit to you the
answer of the Assembly, extraordinarily convoked, to your
communication, dated the 12th inst. We never betray our
engagements. In the execution of the orders of the Assembly
and of the Roman people, we have undertaken the engage-
ment of defending the standard of the Republic, the honour of
the country, and the sanctity of the capital of the Christian
world. We will do so.
" Receive, General, the assurance of our consideration.
(Signed) "MAZZINI,
"ARMELLINI,}TriUMVirs."
"SAFFI,
The Moniteur publishes a despatch from General Oudi-
net, dated Villa Santucci, the 15th inst., giving a detailed
account of the operations of the army under his command.
Tho General estimates his loss during the 13th and 14th
inst. at six killed and 32 wounded, of whom two officers
were slightly wounded. Captain Castanet, of the 53d
Regiment of the Line, was killed.
Private accounts from General Oudinot's camp, dated
the 16th, conveyed to Toulon .by the steam-boat Chris-
tophe Colomb, state that the French batteries had demo-
lished 480 feet of masnnry. The General had received a
reinforcement from Toulon of heavy artillery, and bad 90
pieces employed against the city, comprising 36 heavy
guns, 6 mortars, and 48 field pieces. it was said that a
conspiracy, planned at Rome, was preparing at Civita
Vecchia to surprise the French garrison in the fort. The
plot had been discovered, and some of the parties were
arrested. If the plan had succeeded, the French General
would have been compelled to raise the seige of Rome,
and return to Civita Vecchia.
Letters from Toulon of the 20th inst. state that the
steamer Caton had sailed that day for Port Vendres to
embark artillery for the French army in Italy. The
Cerbere had sailed for Civita Vecchia with a company of
engineers ; the 50th Regiment of tile Line had likewise
embarked for Civita Vecchia.

It is confidently said that a split has taken place among
the College of Cardinals at Gaeta. Several of them are of
opinion that the Pope might accept the proposals made by
the Roman Republic, viz., to acknowledge the Pope as
sovereign, but to have a complete separation of the tem-
poral and spiritual authority. Other members of the eol-

3a t

lege are averse to this, and have secretly sent a messenger
to Paris to urge on the French government the impor-
tance of entering Rome.
The " Villa Pamphili," near Rome, now in the hands
of a mass of French soldiers, is the property of a da`Agh-
ter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. No part of the !souse has
been injured, but the furniture is smashed to piecesy fix;
pictures cut out of their frames, and much of the orna-
mental garden sculpture is broken up. The ptincipal
mischief has been done in the grounds and gardens ; there
mutilated statues and crumbling balustrades show the
wanton love of mischief, and several of the finest trees.
cut away for no apparent use, prove that all this violence
had no other object than the destruction of property.
THE FRENCH AND THE ROMANS.—Supposing a prac-
ticable breach to be made in Rome within a few days by
the French army of 30,000 men, with all the appliances
and instruments of war at hand—supposing--and it is
no strong or improbable suspicion—the walls to be scaled
and the gates to be entered, there remains the street
fighting ; and if a tithe of what we hear be true, each
house in Rome is a fort, each niche and corner a redoubt,
and every 50 or 100 yards of ground throughout the city
a barricade. These are not flimsy barricades of omni-
busses, cabriolets, carriages, sitting-chairs, prie-dieus,
cabourets, and milliners' and clerks' stools, as were seen
in Paris, in the Rues St. Denis and Montmartre, but so-
lid barricades of stone, of brick, of old pieces of marble,
of rubbish knit together for more than a thousand years
by Roman cement, of terracotta, of cippolino, and the
thousand-and-one hard and impermeable substances which
a city rich in Pagan and Christian ruins so abundantly
supplies. The genius of the people of Rome for architec-
ture still survives, and Michael-Angelos and Palladios of
the street will be found in abundance, not to rear temples
or to build palaces—but to construct barricades. Behind
these barricades the Romans will fight as well as any peo-
ple in the world. There is not a braver race under the
sun than the Trastevcrini, if well led and well officered ;
but even the most timid Romans will fight coolly and
well, like the most timid Spaniards, under the cover of a
wall or barricade of any kind. Supposing, therefore,
General Oudinot to have made practicable breaches, his
entrance into any part of the city must be at a prodigious
loss of French life. Every yard of ground will be con-
tested, and we do not in the least exaggerate when we as-
sert that 20 Frenchmen must fall for one Roman. Thus
will the French army be harassed and worried, and ulti-
mately the commander, desperate, discouraged, and des-
pairing, will have to bombard the glorious old city. itself.
—Morning Herald.

THE LIVERPOOL STAri;ARD,

""a'ITGE o A ROBBER IN A BURIAL VAULT.—The
Cork Cos-vtitution contains the following :—" The parish
church of Carrigrohan was broken into last week, through
the Vestry-room, and a window-sash, some brass and iron
EO'ticles, and the hangings of the pulpit, were carried off.
On the following day the sextoness was walking through
the graveyard, wken her attention was suddenly arrested
by two hands, which she perceived thrust through a hole
in a large vault, and drawing towards them a piece of a
coffin-board, to stop the aperture. Being much alarmed,
she went for the police, who returned with her to the spot,
and on looking into the vault they discovered a living te-
nant, comfortably stretched on some grass and straw,
strewed over coffin-boards and human bones, with a skull
so placed as to answer for a pillow. They instantly sum-
moned the strange tenant of the tomb to come and ap-
pear,' which.he seemed very loath to do; and it was not
until they threatened to fire at him that he came out and
surrendered. He was a most forbidding looking villain."
RENTS OT LAND.—Reductions of rent, varying from
"20 to 50 per cent,'have been made by many of the landed
proprietors, in a few instances permanently, but generally
the reduction is temporary, on account of the failure of
crops, the low prices of produce, and the high rates caused
by the extent of destitution. The Duke of Devonshire,
Lord Stradbroke, and Lord Lorton are among the pro-
prietors who have made large temporary reductions : and
the provincial journals almost daily contain announce-
ments that other landlords are adopting the same system.
It is, however, upon the limited class of tenants holding
upon lease, and sustaining themselves out of the remnant
of their capital, that the pressure is at present most
severe, because landlords in many instances are endeavour-
ing to held them to their contracts. A week or two since,
the tenantry of this class, occupying farms in the electo-
ral division of Swords, county of Dublin, published an
address to their landlords, urging a temporary reduction
of their rents to the amount of 20 per cent, on the ground
of the failure of the potatoes for three successive years,
the failure of the wheat crop last year, the enormous in-
crease of poor-rate and other local taxes, and the dimi-
nished prices of corn and cattle. On Tuesday some of
the landlords of the Swords division met at the Imperial
Hotel, in Dublin, to consider the proposition of the
tenantry. The result was a unanimou; determination to
reject the claim ; and it was arranged that an intimation
should be conveyed to the tenantry. to the effect that they
should have individually applied, instead of having had
recourse to a public form of address, and that such of them
as considered themselves overburdened with rent could
have their leases cancelled on surrendering their holdings
to their landlords.

EXTRAORDINARY COMBAT.—Captain Rochfort, of the
screw vessel Rose, arrived on Monday morning from Lon-
don, and reported having on his passage fallen in with a
whale of huge dimensions, on Sunday morning, seven
miles S.W. of the Lizard. This monster of the deep
was suffering severely at the time in an encounter with
two well-known enemies of his tribe—a sword fish and .A
thresher. These formidable creatures go together through
the waters, and are reputed to be joined in a league of
unrelenting enmity against the cetaccous tribe. Capt.
Rochfort and his crew saw the combat for. about three-
quarters of an hour; but, being obliged to continue their
voyage homewards, they had to forego the pleasure of
witnessing the struggle to its close, and of taking in tow
to Dublin the body of the vanquished whale, for of his
being eventually worsted in the affray they was no doubt.
The sword fish was seen once driving his tremendous
weapon into the belly of his victim, as he turned on his
side in agony. The thresher fastened on his back, and
gave him terrific blows, which were heard at a distance
with great distinctness. The latter not having any power
to strike it in the water, it was the instinctive policy of the
sword fish to make the attack from below ; this causing
the whale to rise above the surface, which he did at times
to a remarkable height ; the 'other assailant, which was
about twenty feet long, then dealt out his blows unspa-
ringly, with all the force of his lengthy frame—between
them their victim must have suffered extremely ; he
spouted blood to an immense height, and crimsoned the
sea all round to a considerable distance. Being within
two hundred yards of the ship, towards which the whale
appeared to make for protection, the conflict was distinctly
visible to all on board. It is unusual for marine monsters
such as were engaged in the struggle now narrated, to be
seen in such a latitude.—Dublin paper.