The Sun. — 1838-12-08 (London, England)

MEXICO.  The following is an extract from the letter of a gentleman, whose social position is the best guarantee of the correctness of his statement. The letter arrived by the last packet, addressed to an English Nobleman : " The French fleet will in a few days commence its operations—they will be murderous in a way they little expect. If you wish rapidly to judge of the prospects of the expedition, a few words will enable you to do so. The difficulties are two-fold—physical and moral. Men change, above all, the Mexicans ; therefore, let us speak of the physical difficulties. This is the healthy season at Vera Cruz—that is to say, that men do not die, as at other seasons, in three days, but they contract fevers, which. in fourteen days generally extinguish the last spark of life. A heaviness and singular oppression drops from the clouds on those not so fatally attacked. To speak of minor evils, hardly has a shower fallen on the rich alluvium that forms the soil, than all its particles decome instinct with life, and myriads of horrible millioneth animalcula3 are brought to life. Amidst these may be mentioned the nigua, one of many, a small circular animalcule which enters the feet and legs, and there increasing, destroys the flesh. Thus do we see the inhabitants of the sea-shore constantly deprived of their toes, amputated to get rid of this small destructive burr-like enemy. Even from the trees torments drop upon you, like the pica-pica—a dust which produces such irritation of the skin that for a moment you cannot refrain from scratching the part. Such are a few of those endemic evils, of which the proof is, that even the native troops are kept away from Vera Cruz as much as possible ; of the whole Mexican army scarce 2,500 men are left in the town even at the time when an attack is immediately imminent, the rest being established from etape to etape, extending to the first hill that soars above the deadly lowland plague at Xalapa. Let me add that Vera Cruz consists principally of the magazines of foreigners—English, American, and French—scarce four or five are Mexican, therefore, when the bombardment begins, the natives, or the allies of France, will be the principal sufferers. If the French wish to rise up to the Hesperian regions, the blessed table land of Mexico, they will die on the journey if they bring not from Havannah mules in large numbers, a difficult and most expensive resource, one which the Spaniards, in their last invasions, were obliged to resort to. The conveyance of heavy artillery is impossible. Witness the portions of steam and hydraulic engines from England which still strew the roads since the South American mining bubbles of 1825. As to moral obstacles, when once the French cannon has been discharged, and Mexicans killed, all the parties in the country for once will unite against the French. No Ministry could exist for a fortnight with other opinions (and these will run the risk of being hung and quartered) who will consent to concession to the French. Santa Anna, now playing Cincinnatus at his country house, and Pedraza, the most active and warmest of the ultra-liberals, and at the same time the most influential man in opposition in the country, are both of them as full of demonstrations oratorical against the French as Bustamente himself, the head of the Legislature. A temporary revolution is the only hope left to the French to obtain conditions satisfactory to the amour propre of their nation, and on visionary promises to leave the fatal shores to which full surely they will never return. How extravagant are the pretensions of the French merchants here, you will easily see, when I tell you that they have deposited an inventory of their goods, and their value, with the President Bustamente, to be returned in case of pillage ; their estimate is 50,000,000 of piastres. The merchants aforesaid are mostly dealers in noveautes, wigs, pomatum, and other such valuable commodities."—Mortiing Post.  From the New York Journal of commerce, Nov. 23.)