The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-08-22 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

WEST INDIA AND MEXICAN MAILS

The royal mail steam-ship Great Western, Captain
Chapman, arrived at Southampton, on Sunday, with the
usual West Indian and other mails. She had fair weather
on the passage, and arrived two days before she was due.
The intelligence from the British, West India colonies
is of unusual importance, because we learn the effect pro-
duced there by Lord John Russell's proposition for West
Indian relief. The measures are evidently looked upon as
unsatisfactory in their nature, and totally inadequate to
relieve the extent of distress existing. The Jamaica
Dispatch strongly condemns the project, which it charac-
terizes as "an insult to the colonies, and an outrage on
the honesty and humanity of the nation," and thus con-
cludes,—" We tell ministers plainly that they will have no
supply from Jamaica. They may levy, if they will, their
taxes by orders in Council. Their unconstitutional
tyranny is quite equal to the effort, but taxes will not be
paid. The tax-gatherer may seize, but distresses cannot
be sold without a bidder." De Cordova's Intelligencer
says that the government measure " has inspired the in-
habitants of Jamaica with disgust and contempt." The
same paper then continues,—" Speculation is almost un-
known in Kingston. A great proportion of the stores in
the principal business streets is closed—hundreds of per-
sons born in the middle classes of society, and who were
formerly accustomed to support themselves respectably by
business occupations, are now walking about the streets
in the vain and fruitless endeavour to find work which
will enable them to gain their daily bread. With a defi-
cient population in as beautiful and fertile an island as
there is on the face of the globe, there is no employment
for any industrious man. Sorry are we to have to chro-
nicle this fact, and those who knew Jamaica in her better
days will scarcely believe it, but it is nevertheless too
true. Who then can wonder if dissatisfaction and dislike
should displace affection for England in the hearts of those
who have never yielded to any subjects of the empire in
loyalty ? The business of the past fortnight has, as
usual, been limited only to purchases for immediate con-
sumption. In the foreign trade there has not been any-
thing doing, no buyers having arrived."
Several emigrants had arrived at Trinidad from Marti-
nique, not thinking their lives.secure during the present
unsettled condition of the French West India colonies.
We have advices from Port-au-Prince and Jacmel,
Hayti. From Jacmel we learn that many respectable
persons had been arrested and cast into prison, some of
them having been confined in irons. The General com-
manding the arrondissement, who had recently acted so
praiseworthy a part in staying the pillage with which Jac-
mel was threatened, had been removed by the President
Soulonque for performing his duty. At Port-au-Prince
everything was tranquil, but the prisons were filled with
political offenders, many of whom it was thought would
be shot on the return of the President from his tour
through the southern part of the republic.
From Cuba we learn that the island was perfectly tran-
quil when the Great Western left, on the 27th ultimo. A
slight disturbance had occurred at one of the outports,
but it had been repressed by the energetic measures of the
Governor-General. The chief of the town, who was im-
plicated in the revolt, had fled. This is doubtless the oc-
currence that has been magnified by the American papers
into a revolution in Havannali, and which originated the
news in the New York papers of the sth of August.
brought by the United States steamer to Cowes on Friday
evening. The Captain-General of Cuba' had seized a
slaver entering one of the ports with 150 negroes on
board. She had been brought round to Havannah. The
blacks would be brought round and apprenticed for seven
years, and would then be entitled to freedom and per-
mitted to leave the island, in virtue of the convention to
that effect between the British and Spanish Crowns.
Our Mexican advices represent political affairs as ex-
tremely unsettled. The Indians were about in large num-
bers, causing travellinc, to the interior to be very unsafe.
Some of the cities had called out the inhabitants to patrol
during the night, to prevent surprises from the band of
Indians prowling about for plunder. The Americans had
given up all the ports to the Mexican authorities, and the
national flag was once more hoisted in all the ports. The
Customs' duties were collected according to the old tariff.
The United States' army had nearly all embarked, and it
would very soon he entirely out of the Mexican territo
rips, the approach of the sickly season on the coast
causing them to lose no opportunities offering for their
embarkation.

In Demerara the planters were all busy with their crops,
the weather being very fine, but labour still scarce.
In the Danish islands of St. Thomas's and St. Croix
order amongst the emancipated blacks had been restored,
and the negroes had returned to their work.