In the review of all these diverse fields of diplomatic conflict, one fact comes out strongly-that M. Guizot is sacrificing national interests and dig-ent, and future, of the kingdoms of the old world. nity, and his own reputation as a critical statesman, to the official objects of his ministry and the family intrigues of King Louis Philippe. Of Lord Palmerston nothing so positive can be predicated: it might be inferred from his devious and zig-zag course, that he is not seriously bent on vindicating The British steam-packets from Vera Cruz bring any one principle-that he does not feel a grave to England atrocious stories and malignant caluminterest in the material welfare of any nation; but nies against the American occupants of Mexico; that he is at his old game of verbal antagonism—yet we may suppose that they experience all facilwriting for victory over M. Guizot.-Spectator, ities-the most liberal treatment-for which they 22 Jan.

change is necessary for their proper strength and independence. Although the Swiss radicals may not be republicans in the American and true sense, still their purpose of shaking off the middle ages, discarding what remains of the Gothic régime, and knitting the cantons closely together by the same institutions and spirit, is manifestly just, salutary, laudable.

tactical essays to prove the inevitableness of that | If the Swiss remain united and firm-remodelling result. The Americans have their Spain, in their system, and carrying out the welfare of the Mexico, quoth the Constitutionnel; the Union, confederation according to their judgment and consaith the London Times, has an Ireland in Mexico: science-they will ultimately triumph over all this, if it were barely possible, or if there existed external combinations. The very resistance of the least parity of reasoning, might, indeed, prove the great powers to their project of a national and a huge consolation for American exploits, consid- | federal polity akin to our Union, is proof that the ering what the Times represents Ireland to be for Great Britain. You will remark, in the number of the 22d inst., a long article on the creation of a nobility for Canada, in order to render it a country fit for a gentleman to inhabit, and to counteract the influences of American democracy. The official reports of the British committee on the state of education in Wales, of which abstracts are furnished in the Times and the Chronicle, demonstrate that the general condition and morals of the Welsh are worse than can be those of any body of the American negro-slaves. We might, with confidence, submit the point to any intelligent British exploration in our slave-holding states, if an impartial, honest comparison and report could be expected.

The Paris National, of the day before yesterday, comes forth with, "Great news-Good news! Insurrection triumphant in Sicily;-the Austrian Ferdinand, like he of Naples, has decided and declared by proclamation against the claims of his Italian subjects;-let Venice and Milan follow the example of Messina and Palermo." The Sicilians have no distinct idea of political reforms or constitutions, but they hate the Neapolitans and their rule the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom has not been ill-governed, but the Austrian, or rather the foreign rule is detested. At Naples, the royal palace and the dwellings of the ministers were under the protection of artillery; the Swiss regiments in the king's employ signified that they would not fight against the people. The opinion prevailed with the monarchies that republicanism, or radicalism, could not be organized formidably in any part of Europe; the Swiss case shakes their confidence and perplexes their machiavelism.

It

M. Alexis de Tocqueville (author of the work on American Democracy) has submitted to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, a copious and instructive report, in a book entitled Democracy in Switzerland, from the pen of Cherbuliez, the able professor of public law in the Academy of Geneva. The reporter says, "What passes in Switzerland is not an isolated fact. is a particular movement in the midst of that general movement which impels to ruin the whole ancient edifice of the institutions of Europe." He denies that anything of real republicanism has ever existed in Switzerland. His historical survey renders this opinion extremely plausible :—revolution, or revolt from the old order of government and society, aristocratic, theocratic, oligarchical, military. Swiss liberty is new and inexperienced, and therefore subject to disorders and anomalies. Universal law and common rights have never been duly organized and secured. The judicial power

in democracies the barrier and the safeguard at the same time of the people that impartial and free power which interposes between all interests and all other powers to recall them all to respect and obedience to the law-has always been dependent on the suffrage of the mass, on the legislature, or on the executive. On the whole, there was nowhere a real sovereignty of the people. buliez argues that this principle can yield no better institutions and results than the imperfect ones in Switzerland. M. de Tocqueville proceeds to maintain that, elsewhere, it has been applied and consti

Cher

The distinguished family of the Viscount d'Absac, descendants and heirs of Major General Baron de Kalb, who perished, gloriously, in our revolution, have placed in the hands of the United States consul at Paris a fine portrait of their brave ances-tuted with more experience, skill and wisdom, with tor, to be presented to congress.

The kings of Wurtemberg and Bavaria chime with Austria against Swiss radicalism. His majesty of Wurtemberg announces, in his speech to his chambers, that "storms are to be expected, for which he will be prepared," and signalizes the propagandism of the German refugee radicals in Switzerland. It is proof of the influence of American history in Europe that the people of Lombardy who desisted from and proscribed the consumption of tobacco, as a source of revenue to the Austrian government, did so expressly in imitation of the tea case. The pope has recalled the nuncio who abetted the Sonderbund and the Jesuits, and addressed to the Swiss diet a sort of vindication and protest, to which that body would make no reply.

very different and far better effects, and he exhibits as an example the state of New York, whose population is as large as all Switzerland. He then favorably expounds the political and judicial system of the empire state, but does not appear to be acquainted with the new constitution. He thinks that the Swiss compact, which the pentarchy would perpetuate, is already changed in its essence and action, by the democratic advances and ascendancy; that it may, however, prove a difficult and prolonged task for the patriots to nationalize the cantons, but that the federal or general government will be materially strengthened and grow into an active, diffusive, energetic authority for all Helvetia.

See Galignani's Messenger of the 26th inst., for an abstract of the highly important debate in

the chamber of deputies, the day before, on the The French government has ordered one cf its condition and prospects of the public finances of powerful steamers to repair instantly to the port France. M. Thiers enchained the attention of the of Naples, to receive the royal family, if they whole body, for two hours, by a wonderfully dex- should be too hard pressed by popular insurrection. terous exposition of the inordinacy of the budget British ships of war are stationed for the same and debts, and the nature and amount of the purpose. Royalty is to be sure of personal safety, deficits, threatening national bankruptcy; new whatever may be its follies or excesses. Thus taxes impossible-reduction of the old, alike; both French and British public vessels always retrenchment out of the view, perhaps beyond the hovered on the coasts of Spain, during the civil faculty, of the ministers; the country without any wars, to take off the vanquished of the parties regular financial resources for a serious and sudden supported by French or British favor or means. emergency.

For the five years past, the French Academy of Ledru-Rollin, lately the leader of the republican Moral and Political Science has offered as a prizeparty, or extreme gauche, in the chamber of depu- question, The State of Pauperism in France, and ties, proposes a congress, to be held in Switzerland, the Means of remedying the Evil. Five dissertaof delegates from radicalism wherever it exists in tions or brochures have been presented. An able Europe. A Berlin article of the 21st, mentions committee has just been appointed to decide on the return of Baron Alexander von Humboldt to their merits. The details will equally astonish that capital, and his presence at a grand court and afflict those who suppose that the laboring ceremonial. He set out from Paris in the severest classes are in a prosperous condition. In several weather; he was every day at the library of the of the provincial cities favorably situated, the deaths Institute before nine o'clock, A. M., and remained for some years past have exceeded the births. In until late in the afternoon, busy with scientific and all of them large groups of aged paupers, and literary research; he partook of grand dinners, mendicants of both sexes and every age, are conappeared in the evening at court or in the minis- stantly to be seen, and when they "turn out" for terial or the fashionable salons, and sometimes in a customary general distribution of alms, or the the theatres, to enjoy a new comedy or opera ;- funeral of a benefactor, the array is sufficient to all this with fourscore winters on his back; the appal an American traveller. This winter the physical man is a phenomenon, like the intellect-mortality in London is stated at five hundred and ual. He related to an American gentleman a fifty beyond the weekly average of the five years conversation between him and Mr. Jefferson, some previous; the deaths outnumbered the births. fifty or more years ago, in which the American philosopher predicted the extension of the American republican system over all North Americato the shores of the Pacific, and to the Isthmus of Panama. Mr. Jefferson thought that a union might still be maintained with three or four congresses, (one in Mexico,) and an amphictyonic council or tribunal for the whole. The baron noticed the phrase, the halls of Montezuma, in some of the American letters, with the remark that Montezuma never inhabited the palace to which the Americans referred.

On the 10th inst., in the Paris Academy of Sciences, there was a curious report from a committee consisting of Majendiè, Dumas and Andral, (great names,) on a memoir respecting the normal presence of metals in human blood-silex, manganese, lead and copper. The committee observe that lead and copper, belong, like iron, to human organization and life; legal medicine is concerned in the presence of the two metallic poisons in the blood of man, and their enormous variations in the midst even of life: so is therapeutics, because it is to be inferred that, from their deficiency or excess, The London Standard, true to its stipend from maladies result. The ether committee reported on the French government says: "We have heard Sedillot's experiments with chloroform and ether, that of the thirty-four millions of French, not one and had come, with him, to the conclusion that perished from want during the period of scarcity.""the use of the former requires great care, and Utterly untrue. Hundreds, or rather thousands, the observation of strict rules—that it is preferable perished in that way. The Paris papers of the in many respects to ether, but is infinitely more 25th, record seven deaths from starvation and dangerous in unskilful hands." cold; men, women and children's corpses found in lodgings scarcely fit for wild beasts. It is stated that the number of persons in Paris in the last degree of misery and destitution, is not less than one hundred and ten thousand. The king, in his replies to official addresses, boasts of the patience and order of the French people in the midst of their sufferings from the scarcity. It is certain, however, that corn-riots occurred in every department -that many hundreds of rioters were arrested, imprisoned and sentenced that much blood was shed in the conflicts with the soldiery-that the government was obliged to resort to extraordinary measures of every kind.

The thermometer has ranged in Paris, 27 Jan., during the week, from 19 to 24 of Fahrenheit. All the ponds of the realm are thoroughly frozen, and the large rivers (our Seine included) are covered with heavy floating-ice. At the end of the month, however, all severities and even appearances of winter will, probably, have disappeared. It is in such weather as the present that dissipation is most active and general; balls, public and private masquerades, dinners, concerts, &c. Those who would perambulate the boulevards at night, are driven by the cold into the theatres. On the morning of the 26th, at 8 o'clock, a murderer was guillotined in the Faubourg St. Jacques. A host of

spectators, chiefly women, were in eager waiting. to be critically circumstanced, for the purpose of The frost delayed the action of the guillotine. propping them from his exchequer. A deputy Every one could see that the wretch, a small man read extracts from a pamphlet issued from the of about 46, was dead before it fell; fear, or the finance-department, wherein it is argued that it icy north wind, had done the work of the execu- would be best, if it could be managed, to give the tioner. government the monopoly of the sale of breadstuffs; and, indeed, of all kinds of food! "You wish," continued the orator, "to increase your army of public functionaries; you want inspectors and retailers of salt, like those of tobacco." The Left cried, Yes, and controllers." Another quarter, "Yes, and supernumeraries." These are a host.

66

Yesterday afternoon, 26th, the sitting of the chamber of deputies lasted some five hours-a continuation of the exciting and alarming debate on the finances. Thiers dwelt anew on the fictions, deceptions, and enormities of the budget. The minister of finance defended the monster as well as he could; he is a ready, plausible and ingenious advocate: but he made some admissions On the 24th inst., Berryer, the eminent orator, as pregnant as the figures of the opposition. asked M. Guizot to submit to the chambers the Speaking of the reduction of the duty on salt, he documents of the British and French negotiation observed, "I do not believe it possible to find a with Rosas. The minister declined, on the ground minister rash enough to consent to expunge, at that the business which had been intermitted, owing this moment, fifty millions of francs from the re-to the dissent of the two European envoys, was to ceipts of the treasury." The regular receipts are be resumed by fresh concert between their governfourteen hundred millions. Last year, sixty mil-ments, and with every hope of success. It is suplions of capital were withdrawn from the chests of posed that M. Guizot has yielded to the British the savings funds throughout the kingdom. Be- plan, and that the French blockade will be raised fore, they yielded fifty millions to the treasury immediately on the arrival of the new negotiator. depot. The government has converted two hun- The chambers ought to have been enabled to judge dred millions into 3 per cent. stock, so that in case of the wisdom of the previous proceedings and of bankruptcy, the poorer classes would be robbed views of the cabinet. Lord Palmerston and M. of their deposits. Characteristic incidents enliv- Guizot can agree to act together on American ened the sitting. An indefinite congé was asked affairs, but not on European. Lord Palmerston for the late minister of finance, Lacave-Laplagne, must notice and resent, in some way or other, the who was eliminated from the cabinet as rather contumelies and charges heaped upon him in the squeamish. A fit of the gout was the plea for his chamber of peers, by the Count de Montalembert, request. In the course of the debate, M. Thiers with the clamorous approval of that usually staid observed that if M. Laplagne was present, he and discreet assembly. Never was one governwould confirm certain statements of the opposition; ment so outraged in the person of a leading minisbut, unfortunately, he was absent. Several mem-ter, by another, as the British by the French in bers cried, "He has the gout." Several others this instance. M. Guizot betrayed the utmost exclaimed, "The fit has come on very apropos." satisfaction; Count Molé cried, excellent! and nearly It was understood that the ex-minister did not wish to annoy his old colleagues by honest admissions. The new head of the treasury proposes to render the sale of salt a government monopoly, like that of tobacco, mainly an engine of electoral corruption. |tion. A deputy, Muret de Bozt, denouncing this virtual restoration of the famous gabelle, said, "Whence did you derive the elements of this singular bill? I find that it was from Germany. Formerly, we We learn this day, (27th,) that the reading of the were rather too British; now we are a little too notes of Austria, Prussia, and France, to the diet German, without ceasing, however, to be good produced little sensation. A committee of nine is Englishmen. I will read you a passage from to answer them, and refute the imputations cast on English history. In 1784, a minister, Walpole, the cause and conduct of the Swiss radicals in the or Walpoule-I do not know how to pronounce French chamber of peers. The note of Sir this name in French.'" A loud voice was instantly Stratford Canning, Lord Palmerston's organ, conheard, "In French, it is pronounced Guizot." tains no positive threat, and is all honey and balm ; This witticism shook the sides of all the parties, yet, as the Journal des Débats has elaborately and relaxed even the muscles of the premier, so shown, it amounts to the same interference, looks often accused in the journals of having adopted the to the same end, as the others. Were I a Swiss Walpole policy. A speaker of authority men-patriot, I should be more suspicious of the counsels tioned that if the Emperor of Russia had not taken and blandishments of Lord Palmerston, than afraid the stock offered to him by the Bank of France, of the menaces and pretensions of the continental this institution must have been reduced to the last meddlers. There is no instance in history, of any extremity. You will see that the emperor caused real aid and protection afforded by the British govan inquiry to be made into the situation of some ernment to the struggles of freedom. What have large mercantile houses of St. Petersburg, believed | Spain and Portugal become under its tutelary aus

all the peers, not excepting the members of the cabinet, and the Duke de Nemours, the future regent, crowded about Lord Palmerston's vehement accuser, to express their assent and admiraM. Guizot pursued the game by reading to the chamber his lordship's despatch of 1832, on Swiss engagements and obligations, for the purpose of convicting him of extreme inconsistency.

pices. We may hope that the Swiss diet will can missionary, Mr. Lowrie, who was assassinated understand Sir S. Canning, and Italy my Lord in the environs of Chapou, that is beyond the Minto, the soft adviser or monitor of the reforming limits prescribed to foreigners by the treaties. governments and persevering liberals of the penin- The whole of the official correspondence indicates sula. The army of the king of Sardinia is aug- that the Celestials are sincere in the assurances mented to fifty thousand; the Austrian force, to of their wish and resolve to maintain friendly one hundred thousand. Italy has more enlightened, and courteous relations with the Christian barbarireflecting men, ready to carry out her proper aims ans. The emperor was troubled with two rebelthan any other area of the continent with the same lions in distant provinces; so much disquietude numbers, (twenty-two millions.) Mr. Cobden bore and commotion was occasioned by rumors of emphatic testimony to this fortunate circumstance his death that his ministers compelled him in a in one of his first speeches, on his return to Eng-manner to appear in public, to hold levees in his land from his grand tour. Our intelligence from palace, and so forth. Our Louis Philippe and his Sicily, by the way of Marseilles, is that, though cabinet are in the same predicament. The recepthe garrison of Palermo had been carried to thir- tions at the Tuileries have begun anew; no trace, teen thousand troops, the insurrection made pro- except the sable costume, is perceived of the death gress. The impetus of the Sicilians is hatred of of the royal sister, Madame Adelaide; all the the Neapolitan rule. strangers of quality in the capital, and the Americans not the least, are anxious for the period of presentation and court balls.

All of a sudden, the English have been seized with a panic about French invasion; the journals of every description teem with warnings, calcula- Punic faith seems to have crossed the Meditions, horrors; the French editors exult, and are terranean. Ab-el-Kader is confined in a dreary sarcastic: "You ridiculed and pitied us for being fortress, and it remains doubtful whether the so earnest and prodigal in fortifying our capital, stipulations of the Duke d'Aumale and the French twice occupied by invaders since 1813; now, though commander, to whom he surrendered on condition less exposed than we are, you are impatient-in of being transported without delay to St. Jean the utmost trepidation-for expensive defences d'Acre, or to Alexandria, will be regarded by this along all your coasts-reörganization and multi-government. The duke affirms, in his bulletin, plication of your forces-every possible expedient that the emir might have escaped into the desert. of alarm and danger." It is suggested that the British government has no apprehension of a contest with France-no dread of invasion as even possible-but foments or favors the panic as a pretext or occasion for additional military and naval preparation, in reference to a probable general convulsion in Europe. Cordier, a deputy and a learned engineer of much experience and repute, has published in the Gazette de France, of the 18th inst., an article of nearly four columns, in which he labors to demonstrate the practicability of a French descent on England, and in particular on Ireland, whose western coasts are defenceless, and whose inhabitants were so disaffected and desperate as they are now and must remain. He counts on the purchase of a fleet of steamers in the United States to be navigated into French ports by Americans. He draws a splendid outline of the faculties, energies and tendencies of our Union.

It is contended by some of the oracles of the press that the son of the king ought instantly to resign his post of governor-general, if his royal pledge should be violated. On the other hand, the reason of state, the peril of exposing the French rule in Algeria to the return of the emir, is pronounced above all considerations of delicacy and ordinary observance of engagements by governors and commanders. We hear of a deportation to Senegal. This would be worse than the martyrdom of Napoleon at St. Helena. Abd-elKader is a genuine hero, and deserves as much sympathy and admiration as any champion of the independence and integrity of a race that ancient or modern annals recommend to those emotions. We shall be much disappointed in case he do not appear in Paris.

The Compte Rendu of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences for last month contains a meAn officer of the French African squadron, just moir, by Bonoiston de Chateauneuf, of sixty-five returned from the coast, relates a dreadful mor- curious and impressive pages, on the condition of tality in the thirty vessels; he mentions that all women and young girls, confined in the prisons, or the officers have paid the tribute of the fever; he enlarged after undergoing their terms. Between considers the treaty made by the Duke de Broglie 1826 and 1846, nearly four millions of persons as a bad one for France-worse, indeed, than the were brought before the courts of justice; of the old conventions. A ship has brought home three condemned, the sentences of more than one half hundred sick. To judge from the language of the did not exceed small fines and a few days' imprisLondon editors and their correspondents, the Brit-onment. Seven volumes of Historical and Miliish and French are both sick of the cruising plan for the abolition of the slave trade.

We have information from China down to the 28th Nov. last. The English and Chinese were settling their little quarrels by mutual concessions. It is mentioned that the authorities of the province of Che-Kiang had, after three months' indefatigable pursuit, arrested the murderers of an Ameri

itary Memoirs by the late Marshal Massena, are in the press; so, an extensive work on present Spain, by Duflot de Mofras. The author of the Reign of Louis XV. is the Count de Tocqueville, father of M. Alexis de Tocqueville. The excellent book is ascribed, in the British and American reviews, to the distinguished son.