The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-11-13 00:00:00

closely invested by the Murree tribes, a strong detach-
ment under Major Clibborn had been repulsed with
the loss of four officers and 200 men. In consequence
of this reverse about 10,000 troops were ordered to
march into the disturbed districts. It was stated that
the Governor-General had announced in council that
Herat must be taken from Yar Mohammed, and be
annexed to the kingdom of Caubul. An army of ob-
servation was forming on the frontiers of Nepaul.

The dates, from Alexandria are to the 28th of
October, and from the coast of Syria to the 15th.
Ibrahim Pasha was at Damascus, and the whole coast
of Syria, with the exception of Acre, was in the hands
of the allies. It was expected that the garrison of Acre
would evacuate, being subject to the shell-firing of the
Gorgon and Stromboli steamers, which they had no

means of returning.

It was _rumoured at Alexandria, that if Mehemet Ali
would content himself with the succession of Egypt,
and abandon his pretensions to Syria, every thing
might yet be amicably arranged. The Indian mail,
and the passengers from Suez, had experienced no in-
terruption in passing through Egypt. The same may
he said of the passengers who went out in the Great
Liverpool. The blockade of Alexandria was postponed
until the 20th of November, for the purpose of per-
mitting vessels in ballast to enter, and allowing the
merchants of neutral nations to export their goods and
merchandise.

We have been favoured with the perusal of a private
letter from Spain, dated the 28th ultimo, containing a
detail of facts which cannot but prove interesting and

important at the present crisis in the affairs of that
country. The writer, after alluding to the steady re-
fusal of the Queen Regent to sanction the proposals of
the ministers, respecting the dissolution of the Cortes,
and to the menaces by which she was finally induced
to abdicate the government, proceeds to give some de-
tails of the proceedings of Espartero and his allies.
During the negotiations with the Queen, the corp Or-
ation of Madrid, acting in perfect concert with Espar-

tero, rebelled against the government. The corpora.

tion was supported by a small portion of the militia,
and it succeeded, by bribery, in corrupting a portion
of the troops. When the captain-general tried, too
late, to put down the insurrection, he failed, because a
part of the troops passed over to the rebels. He was
obliged to evacuate the city; and the junta immedi-
ately displaced every high functionary. Several of the

generals tendered their services in aid of the move-
ment. Among these were Rodil, Lorenzo, Ferraz, and
Lopez. They called in the militia of the neighbouring
villages ; bribed some troops of the line who were at
Guadalaxara ; organised some depots of cavalry which

were in the neighbourhood; and on the 4th of Sep-
tember they were already able to pass a grand review
on the Prado, under General Rodil and Ferrer, the

president of the revolutionary junta, by whose side
rode the British Ambassador ! Behind General Rodil
was Colonel Wilde, just arrived from Barcelona, who
had been the bearer of the insignia of the order of the
Bath to Espartero. It was currently stated at Madrid
that the British embassy had received very large extra

remittances, during the month of September, in order,
as was supposed, to meet the calls of the revolution.
Toledo and Burgos were among the first places that
followed the example of Madrid. Their inhabitants

also deposed every public functionary. When the
Queen Regent, on her arrival at Valencia from Barce-
lona, was apprized of the insurrection of Madrid, she
wrote to Espartero, in her own hand, that he had an
opportunity of regaining her confidence, by going in
person, or sending some general officer with trusty
troops to quell the rebellion. To this he sent a most
insolent answer, saying that " he was not aware of
having done anything by which he might have for-
feited her confidence, as he had required the dismissal

of the former ministers because they were traitors and
cowards, and that he could not go or send any general

officer to quell the insurrection at Madrid, because the
troops chose to fraternise with the junta." He caused
this letter to be printed and published before it had
reached the hands of the Queen. The immediate
effect was that two regiments belonging to General
O'Donnell's army, who had been sent to support the
dismissed Captain-General of Madrid, went over to the
junta with flying colours ; and in every town and vil-

lage in Spain the corporation assumed the supreme au
thority, and dismissed. every public functionary. The
revolutionists have not rested satisfied with invading
the functions of the executive : they have also invaded
the judicial and ecclesiastical functions also. Not only
have they deprived the judges of office, but in many
places they have set at liberty those who were suffering
the penalty of the law. In Cordova and Malaga they
have released the military who were tried for sedition;
and at Valencia and other places they have declared
null and void all awards given by the judges in favour
of the grandees and against the corporation, who had
set up claims to the estates of the former, as having
been unlawfully obtained by them some 300 or 400
years ago. Every where the juntas have forcibly taken
possession of all public monies; and wherever they did
not think themselves sufficiently strong against the
majority of the inhabitants, they have taken bodies of
volunteers into their pay. They have sent to Gibraltar
and elsewhere to buy muskets to arm the mob. Wher-
ever the grandees had estates they have taken posses-
sion of them, and parcelled them out. They have ba-
nished several bishops and curates from their sees and
parishes. Even the bell-ringers, sextons, and night-
watchers have not escaped unobserved. In several
towns they have even changed the nurses of the
foundlings.
Several changes have also taken place with regard to
the revenue. Some corporations have modified the
town duties and the customs, whilst others have not.
In Cadiz tobacco has been sold by order of the junta,
at half the price which it obtained a short time since.
They keep there the four per cent. upon all agricultural
produce, which the Cortes had left, instead of the
tithes, for the support of the clergy ; while at Cor-
dova, Xerez, and elsewhere, they have suppressed this
impost, causing the restitution of what had been col-
lected, and leaving the clergy dependent upon alms.
Some juntas have admitted the principle of a totally
free trade, as that of Huesca, in Arragon, and Gerona.
Some authorities have levied heavy contributions upon
the disaffected, meaning thereby the moderados or
conservatives, and not the Carlists.
Many of the juntas are already disputing the supre-
macy with each other. Vigo has come to blows with
Pontevedra, and the latter, after some bloodshed, has
been taken. Carthagena and Murcia, Xerez and Ca-
diz, Salamanca and Cuidad Rodrigo, and other places,
are in open hostilities against each other. The army is
in a state of mutiny, and all notions of right and wrong
seem to be entirely confounded in every part of the
kingdom. In some places the troops have taken pos-
session of the public monies !
In the mean time, the license of ,the press knows no
bounds. The character of Queen Christina has been,
in every place, dragged through the mire. With her
departure from. the 'country has disappeared the only
ment of government and order that was in it.
Through the infamous and seditious conduct of Es-
partero the army is a mass of corruption unfit for any-
thing. The regency will not have the means to pay it
even scantily, because all the branches of the revenue
for the next three years have been spent by anticipa-
tion. The finances of the kingdom are literally " con-
fusion worse confounded ;" and among the "patriots"
who administer them there is not a single honest man.
The intelligent correspondent from whose letter we
have gleaned the foregoing particulars asks, " Of what
use can Spain be to England in case of a war ? A
French army of 50,000 men would walk from the Py-
rennes to Cadiz. There is not, of Espartero's party,
a general officer who knows how to move 10,000 men
in the field with cavalry and artillery. The soldiers
are good bush-rangers. The French would find as
allies a despoiled and starving clergy, a spoliated nobi-
lity, hundreds of thousands of destitute employe's, and
an impoverished and insulted gentry.
Such is the deplorable state of Spain at the present
moment; and to this crisis has it been reduced chiefly
by the instrumentality of British interference. But
We shall have much more to say upon this subject in
•
future numbers.

Our new Unitarian mayor has commenced his ca-
reer in a manner which fully confirms the view which
we took in our last. We understand that the church-
wardens have waited upon him, according to custom,
to ascertain whether he would attend the parish church,
in his civic capacity, on the first Sunday after his ap-