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From the N. Y. Times, 23 Apr. | ridiculed as an army of parade-the Prussian finances as being on the verge of bankruptcy. In a war, Prussia was the Nazareth of nations out of which no good thing could come. Two years have passed, and out of the obnoxious realm has come a prince whose alliance with a daughter of England may at no distant day secure the salvation of English influence upon the Continent of Europe, and balance the scale of power in Europe against the hereditary and inevitable foes of English institutions, English prosperity and English freedom.

ENGLAND AND PRUSSIA IN NEW-YORK. We are not of the number of those who read the fate of nations in a Minister's eyebrow, or infer the course of coming history from the interpocular harangues of amiable gentlemen, well-dressed, well-dined, and, therefore, well-disposed towards the whole human race in general, and their hosts of the moment in particular. On the contrary, we cannot but think that an exaggerated importance is still conferred even by the blasé goodnature of the Press, upon the movements and the utterances of individuals, who, like the halcyons of antiquity, ride the surface of society only during fair weather, and truly prognosticate the future only when a hasty summons home shuts their pleasant door and scatters the cheerful circle, which they can so readily draw around them in whatever land they are appointed for a time to honor with their presence.

Prussia, controlling within her own dominions, and by means of her close connections with the German Zollverein, the immense resources of nearly 40,000,000 of the most industrious and energetic people in the world; Prussia, disposing of an army nearly equal in numerical force, and in discipline fully upon a level with the actual army of France; Prussia, in the temper of the nation, and in the general tendency of her Government, essentially liberal and progressive, is at this moment more truly than ever in her history what the great Frederick designed her to be

the balance-wheel of the European system. While Austria, divided against herself, and staggering still in spite of the recent and enormous increase of her resources, under the weight of a vast public debt, recklessly contracted, and long most absurdly administered, trembles at every mysterious thrill that can be perceived within the flanks of her Empire, and watches with all the morbid jealousy of fear the movements of Russia upon the East, and of France upon the West; Prussia relies tranquilly upon the internal strength of her administration, and upon the liberal loyalty of her people. She has not forgotten that in 1848 she alone, of the great Continental States, proved herself able to deal with the revolution by her own arms and her own force. She has since that time fostered in every possible way the ties which unite the lesser German States to her policy and her fortunes. The triple net-work of railways which, in two directions, traverses the mighty German Empire, binding the Rhine with the Vistula, the Danube and the Alps with the Northern Ocean and the Baltic, is so dis

But there are junctures in the affairs of nations at which ambassadorial civilities or incivilities, given or received, really assume a momentary significance and deserve the serious attention of the journalist. And when we consider the present aspect of affairs in Europe, with all the complications that are so rapidly multiplying in the mutual relations of the various European Governments, we cannot think the projected presence of the Envoys of Great Britain and Prussia, at the dinner of the St. George's Society, in this City, to-night, as altogether an unworthy opportunity for commenting upon the changes which have already supervened in Central Europe upon the position of things as established by the war in the Crimea. In the summer of 1856 the Governments of England and France were, to all appearance, perfectly united in their supremacy of influence over the rest of Europe. Russia had assumed, with seeming cordiality, the attitude of an enemy gracefully yielding rather to her own convictions of the superiority of her foes than to their demonstration of that superiority. Austria was more than anxious to strengthen her bonds of alliance with the West, that she might feel herself guaranteed against the possible vengeance of her deserted protector-tributed that Prussia, in the last resort, the Muscovite Czar. Prussia alone, of the Great Powers, occupied a position of isolated independence which she had kept at the price of the good will of all her peers. By England particularly the Prussian diplomacy was execrated and the policy of Prussia during the war was condemned by the English Press in language which is rarely addressed by man to his fellow man outside of the precincts of the jail or the fishmarket. The King of Prussia was the weekly sport of Punch and the daily target of the Times. The Prussian army was

profits most largely by its great and growing fruits of enlightenment and of industry. Wherever the interests of England and of Prussia meet, those interests are identical; and from the question of the refugees to the question of the Isle of Perim and the Red Sea, there is not one of the matters which now occupy the diplomacy and agitate the quid nuncs of Europe upon which a sensible English statesman and a sensible Prussian need have a moment's serious difference of opinion. By the natural current of events,

therefore, the friendly relations of the two Governments must very soon have been established. The marriage of the British Princess Royal with the heir presumptive of the Prussian crown, however, accelerated this resumption of bonds that should never have been broken, and joined them together with a peculiar grace which has sufficed to wipe out the remembrance of many foolish insults on the one side, and of much natural indignation on the other. And the greetings which the representatives of the two Powers will to-night exchange over the board spread for them by hospitable Englishmen in an American city will have more than the ordinary significance of such pleasing and Pickwickian ceremonies.

To us as Americans the interest of such an occasion must consist of course mainly in the opportunity which it affords us for watching the currents of foreign opinion and sentiment. Mr. Jefferson's prayer for an ocean of fire to roll between the old world and the new is less likely now than ever to be answered. Indeed a tongue of fire, we may fairly hope, will soon be speaking from the shores of England to those of the United States, and by making the communications as close as now our interests are, do more to make hostility or mischief between us impossible than any separation ever could. And as every month that passes now makes it more plain that the hopes of human liberty and right are intrenching themselves within the limits of the two great Anglo-Saxon empires, we can well afford to look with perfect composure and good will upon any alliance which really strengthens the power of England in Europe. While our noble war-ship Susquehanna lies at her anchorage in New-York Bay, a floating witness of the gallantry and sympathy of English seamen, displayed in the face of the most fearful of plagues towards their American brethren in arms, it would ill become us to wish other than well to that reconciliation of Protestant and constitutional England with Protestant and constitutional Prussia, of which our City is to-night to afford another pledge and symbol.

From The New York Tribune. ORSINI IN NEW YORK.

THE public demonstrations and processions of last evening, by the European refugees, in honor of the memory of Orsini, which are reported in our columns to-day, are of too singular and striking a character not to deserve notice. This is the first time in the history of our Republic, that assassination has received public honors of the kind; and we deem it due to the American people to state that it is an exotic allowed by the freedom of our laws, but not countenanced by

the sentiment of the nation. While speaking thus, we wish to be understood that we hold to the doctrine that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, and that an oppressed people has a right to rid itself of oppression at whatever cost. But we do not defend the mode, in the case of Orsini, any more than we do the homicides of Louis Napoleon, himself a prime assassin. Given the supposition that a tyrant must be got rid of, that does not carry with it the right to sacrifice innocent bystanders wholesale. But in order that our readers may judge fairly of the immense wrongs which fester in the souls of those who took part in the demonstration of last evening, we will recite briefly the crimes of the present Emperor of the French.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was in 1848, through the generosity of the Republican leaders, admitted back to France, from which, up to that time, along with other members of the Napoleonic family, he had been excluded. By this means he became a member of the National Assembly, and a candidate for President. On his nomination to the latter office, he made the following declaration to the electors:

"If I should be elected President, I shall devote myself, without mental reservation, to consolidating a republic, wise in its laws, honest in its intentions, great and powerful in its acts. I pledge my honor to leave, at the end of four years, power consolidated, liberty untouched, and real progress accomplished."

Believing these pledges, the people elected him, and he then renewed them in his inaugural oath, December, 1848. Raising his right hand, he then said: "In the presence of God, and before the French people, represented by the National Assembly, I swear fidelity to the Democratic Republic, one and indivisible, and to fulfill all the duties imposed on me by the Constitution." Instead of keeping his pledges and oath, and fulfilling his duties, he devoted himself to planning a coup d'êtat, which was essayed in 1850, but defeated, and on the second attempt in 1851, was successfully achieved. How this was accomplished may be understood by reviewing the state of parties in France at that period. Beside the Legitimists, Orleanists, and Imperialists, there were two classes who viewed with disfavor the establishment of a French Republic, and wished for its overthrow on any terms. These were the clergy and the majority of the leading army officers, because the Republicans wished to dissociate Church and State as much as possible, and reduce the numbers, expenses, and overshadowing influence of the army, which amounted in time of peace to half a million men.

In con

nection with the clergy and military, accord- | arms, and even to shoot down all unarmed ingly, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte secretly citizens who ventured in the streets, Seven laid his plans, and, upon the 2d of December, brigades simultaneously attacked seven sets 1851, France being at peace, and having of barricades with cannon, and carried them largely recovered from the disasters incident to the Revolution of 1848, he accomplished his purpose of overthrowing the Republic. He had then been President for three years, and was bound by his oath to retire peaceably at the end of the following year. There was no cause in threatened danger to the State for such a seizure of power. The Republic, of which he was the head, was regularly established, and but for his criminal ambition would have endured in spite of some bad laws, passed by a coalition of Legitimists, Orleanists and Bonapartists, in opposition to the real Republican members of the National Assembly.

Before dawn, on December 2, 1851, the plans of the conspirators being complete, the Prefect of Police, De Maupas, with bands of his men, broke into the houses, in Paris, of nearly one hundred leading opponents of Louis Bonaparte's ambitious designs, seized them, and threw them into prison. The city was then invested by 120,000 troops, whose officers were conspirators; the National Assembly was dispersed at the point of the bayonet, and 300 of its members imprisoned. The first Napoleon had similarly violated the Constitution by expelling the members of the Legislature from their hall, by force of arms, on the 18th Brumaire. The Constitution of 1848, in view of the possibility of another such attempted crime by the Chief Magistrate, contained the following as its 68th

article:

"Any measure by which the President of the Republic dissolves the National Assembly, prorogues it, or interposes any obstacle to the exercise of its mandates, is a crime of high treason. By such act the President is stripped of his functions, the people are required to refuse him obedience, and the executive power passes with full force into the hands of the Assembly."

Louis Napoleon having, "in the presence of God and the French people," sworn fidelity to this Constitution, committed perjury and high treason in thus forcibly dissolving the Assembly, and thereby ceased to be President of the Republic. The Government from that moment, according to the Constitution, was vested in the National Assembly. The few Republican members of the Assembly, who had escaped arrest and imprisonment at his hands, accordingly incited the people to resistance. Barricades were raised on the 4th of December, 1851. The fight began. Orders were issued by Louis Napoleon to the troops to show no quarter to all found with

at the point of the bayonet. At the same time the Boulevards were occupied by 60,000 troops. Groups of unarmed citizens, men, women, and children, were fired on, as well as ridden down by the cavalry. Artillery was brought to bear on dwelling-houses, and their inhabitants were put to the sword. The number of Republicans who fell defending the Constitution at the barricades, and of peaceable and unarmed citizens murdered in the streets of Paris by the usurper's troops, was 2,650. Simultaneous uprisings of the people in defence of the Constitution occurred throughout France, and the same terrible vengeance overtook them at the hands of the army, thoroughly in league with the usurper. A Reign of Terror was established. The cry of "Long live the Republic!" was called seditious, and doomed its utterer to instant death or imprisonment. Louis Bonaparte issued a decree as follows, published on the 9th of December, 1851.

"All persons proved to be members of secret societies shall be transported to the penal settlements of Cayenne or Algiers."

This decree had particular reference to the members of the Republican Clubs, Other decrees by De Morny, Minister of the Interior, and De Maupas, Prefect of Police, ordered the Prefects of the eighty-six Departments "to make everywhere arrests on a grand scale, to strike terror." These orders were fulfilled literally, and the number of the prisons overflowed, and other buildRepublicans arrested was so immense that ings had to be used for incarcerating the pa1,500 Republicans were cast into prison; in triots. In the Department of Lot-et-Garonne, the two Departments of Allier and Cher, 6,000 were imprisoned; in the Department of Herault, there were 2,166, of whom 1,574 were transported to Algiers; in Nièvre, 6,000 were imprisoned, of whom 1,000 were transported to Cayenne and Algiers; in the Department of the Seine, 30,000 were imprisoned; in the Department of Var, the number imprisoned was, 2,281, and of these, 748 were transported to Algiers; in the Department of Basses-Alpes, 1,994 were imprisoned, of whom 41 were transported to Cayenne and 953 to Algiers. Imprisonments and transportations were made on the same scale throughout France, and according to the best authorities, in the eighty-six Departments. 200,000 were imprisoned, of whom 40,000 were transported like felons to the penal settlements, or simply exiled. The number transported to Algiers was 11,000. Some

Departments were almost decimated, and sonal liberty and that of the press, rendered some towns more than decimated; for exam- the army the supreme and permanent instruple, in the little town of Bonny, Department ment of his power, and covered France with of Loiret, of only 2,000 inhabitants, 400 spies and policemen, and finding his usurpawere cast into prison for sustaining the Con- tion complete, ordered sham elections by stitution which Louis Napoleon Bonaparte which he was made Emperor, and under had sworn to uphold. Numbers of women- which title he still holds supreme power. ladies were among the transported; and Whether the people of France willingly subeven boys, the council of war over which mit to the military reign of terror which has General Bertrand presided having sent to prevailed since the coup d'état, cannot be Cayenne thirteen lads, the eldest of whom known. Within the past year, however, was only fifteen years of age. Martial law thousands of arrests have taken place, and was declared in many Departments, and the secret societies called the "Marianne,” drum-head courts were the supreme legal the "Militante," and so forth, are supposed tribunals. at this moment to embody a vast Red-ReFrench history shows nothing equal in un- publican force. The census in France is provoked atrocity to Louis Napoleon's coup taken every five years, and if increase of popd'état since the massacre of the Huguenotsulation is in the ratio of national prosperity, the Reign of Terror of 1793 hardly excepted; the period since the coup d'état must have for be it remembered, the total number of been the most disastrous of the present cenvictims of the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal tury. For it appears the increase from 1851 of Robespierre, in the fifteen months of its to 1856 was only 256,194 in a population of existence, was 1,862. The only crime of over 35,000,000. The increase has never been these 200,000 victims of Louis Bonaparte's so small in any quinquennial period since the Reign of Terror was devotion to the Repub-year 1800. Erom 1801 to 1806 it was lic and opposition to his usurpation. Many greater, and from 1841 to 1846 nearly five were exiled for life for simply crying "Long times as great. In 54 of the 86 departments live the Republic!" The Republican prison- the population since the coup d'état has acers and exiles included men of the greatest tually decreased. distinction, talents, wealth, worth, and political moderation, though the usurper's confederates stigmatized them as enemies of property, religion, and order. They were crowded in prison from ten to a hundred in a single cell, in the dead of winter, without fire, without beds, without change of clothing, without medical attendance for sickness and wounds, and without sufficient food. Pestilential diseases raged among them, and their sufferings in prisons, in the hulks, and in Cayenne and Algiers concentrated the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, the middle passage, and the Bastile. To show the class of men so persecuted, we give the names of the occupants of one horrible little cell at Moulins: Champgobert, journalist, imprisoned for publishing the 68th article of the Constitution above quoted, and subsequently transported to Algiers for the same crime; Bruel, a rich iron merchant; Desetiveaux, principal lawyer of the town; Dumet, his clerk; Marceaux, tailor; Mousset, physician; Desages, editor; Gueston, a rich land-owner; and the two brothers Paillard, merchants. In spite of the destruction of the liberty of the press in France, and the concealment of the extent of the massacres and persecutions, the Republican exiles in England and elsewhere have obtained and published the names of many thousand victims like those above men

tioned.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte having thus accomplished the coup d'état, destroyed per

Such are the facts and the results in France of the usurpation of Louis Napoleon. We are aware that in vulgar estimation political success hallows any crime, but we are not of that opinion, and sympathize with those that are in bonds, wherever found. We believe that these facts just presented, and never before so fully condensed, will enable our readers to judge of the ghastly wrongs inflicted by the great assassin and perjurer on the poor exiles in question and on their fellowsufferers and martyrs.

From The N. Y. Evening Post, 19 April.
THE ISLAND OF PERIM.

THE part which this little island is destined to play in the diplomacy, the commerce and the international relations of the European states, is by no means unimportant. It is situated at the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, completely commanding the entrance to the Red Sea, and therefore the Isthmus of Suez. It is the key to the southern channel of trade with India, China, and Japan. It belongs to Turkey. England occupies it, and does not cease to occupy it, for it neutralizes the dangers from France if the Suez canal were executed. Turkey will not sell it, and denies through the Constantinople press, that she is in treaty with England for its sale. It is confidently asserted by late French papers, as set forth in another column, that France and Russia have protested by a joint note against the English occupation, and Turkey

refuses to grant a firman for the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez so long as England continues to hold Perim. French diplomacy is urging Turkey to make a formal demand of England's evacuation of the island.

There is every indication that the continental nations are waking up to the immense strategetical and commercial importance of this apparently insignificant island, and it is even said that France would look upon England's continued possession as a casus belli. It is one of the smallest but by far the most valuable bit of land this side of the Arabian Gulf, standing as it does, at the mouth of the Red Sea, whose coasts are uniformly mountainous, and even precipitous, from Mount Sinia to Bab-el-Mandeb. The south-western corner of the peninsular Arabia and the promontories of Egyptian Abyssinia almost meet at the mouth of the Red Sea. The Island of Perim is the link that unites them, and whoever possesses that, possesses the key to the channel through which, in fifty years, will flow the commerce of the old East and the stalwart West.

again. We look upon the Suez Canal as we do upon the Pacific Railroad-it is a gigantic undertaking, but it is certain to be achieved. The conception and the attempt are the ample guarantees of ultimate success. Hoary Nature may heap up mountains, pour out seas, and with all her subtle forces strive against the power that has already wrested so much from her grasp, but the conquering march of Science is over, or under, or through them all.

It is this inevitable result which England has learned to apprehend. With a silent and cautious providence she has for fifteen years opposed the piercing of Suez, which would shorten the distance from Europe to India by more than 7,000 miles; and now, foreseeing that further open opposition to the canal will be useless, she has planted herself upon the rock which, on one side, looks to the sea where Pharaoh's chariots went down, and on the other to the Orient, whose commerce will give the wealth and the power that are to perpetuate a dynasty more opulent and enduring than any of the Egyptian kings. Her object is the same in either case, to impede the access of other nations to her Indian possessions and trade. Her оссираtion of Perim is a bold and master stroke. It keeps Turkey from granting the firman for piercing the Isthmus; and secures the command of the Red Sea, and therefore of the Isthmus, whenever the canal is made. The continental nations, as we have said, begin to see the value of the prize which England had almost clutched, and are uniting in protest against an occupation which she certainly has no right to exercise, and in apology for which there is only the magnitude of the prize and the right of might.

Leaving, the long, tedious and expensive journey around the Cape of Good Hope out of the question, there are but two routes worthy of mention as likely hereafter to confine within their limits the trade with the East. The route through Persia, Central Asia, and Beloochistan, though possible, is, for innumerable reasons, now wholly out of the question. The great routes are that across the Isthmus of Suez, and that through the north of Syria and the valley (incorrectly so called) of the Euphrates and the Tigris. The practicability of the latter route was demonstrated in the sixteenth century, for it was the great route of the merchants of that day; but its practicability then, proves noth- There is no need to say that the integrity ing now. Time, in this age of steam and of the Ottoman empire, for which the allielectricity, is an element which cannot be left ance fought with Russia the bloody Crimean out of the account. Then it was of the least war, was the last object that England had in value; now it is all important. An over-view in protecting the "sick man land route will never be the great route, es- northern usurpation. The treaty of Paris pecially where two or three reshipments must has not protected the same sick man from necessarily be made. The practicability of usurpation at the South. What the result the former route is beyond dispute. It is al- will be we can only conjecture, for issues are ready traversed, as to its land portions, by not yet clearly defined; nor is action in the railways, and no one can doubt the feasibility matter, and protest against the wrong, so of the canal (which will save all reshipment, public as it soon will be. France and Russia and make the communication between the are only beginning to be aroused, and Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Pacific against such an alliance England will not continuous by water,) after the expositions of hasten to make war while India and China M. de Lesseps, even if the strenuous opposi- are still demanding the putting forth of all tion of Lord Palmerston for fifteen years had her powers to secure her conquests in the not already made it clear. one, and advance her commerce with the other. There is no item in English and French complications so likely to provoke hostilities as England's continued occupation of the Isle of Perim.

If the Euphrates Valley route were ever to prove the quickest for passengers, it can never be the best for freight, from the circumstance of the forced transfer of freight from vessels to cars and from cars to vessels

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