the Sultan that if his assistance was required for
resisting the menaces of the French, it was entirely at
the service of the Sultan! In a word, the Emperor
went on to observe—'As I before told you, all I want
is a good understanding with England, and this not as
to what shall but as to what shall not be done: this
point arrived at, the English government and I, I and
the English government, having entire confidence in
one another's views, I care nothing about the rest.'
The Emperor went on to say, that in the event of the
dissolution of the Ottoman empire, he thought it might
be less difficult to arrive at a satisfactory territorial
arrangement than was commonly believed. 'The
principalities are,' he said, 'in fact, an independent
state under my protection; this might so continue.
Servia might receive the same form of government. So
again with Bulgaria. There seems to be no reason why
this province should not form an independent state.
As to Egypt, I quite understand the importance to
England of that territory. I can then only say, that
if, in the event of a distribution of the Ottoman
succession upon the fall of the empire, you should take
possession of Egypt, I shall have no objections to offer.
I would say the same thing of Candia: that island
might suit you, and I do not know why it should not
become an English possession.' As I did not wish that
the Emperor should imagine that an English public
servant was caught by this sort of overture I simply
answered, that I had always understood that the
English views upon Egypt did not go beyond the
point of securing a safe and ready communication
between British India and the mother-country."
The views entertained by the British ambassador and
by his government, may be distinctly understood from
two brief extracts. Sir Hamilton Seymour, after
reporting one of his conversations with the Czar, writes to
Lord John Russell: "It is hardly necessary that I
should observe to your Lordship that this short
conversation, briefly but correctly reported, offers matter for
most anxious reflection. It can hardly be otherwise but
that the Sovereign who insists with such pertinacity
upon the impending fall of a neighbouring state, must
have settled in his own mind that the hour, if not of its
dissolution, at all events for its dissolution must be at
hand. Then, as now, I reflected that this assumption
would hardly be ventured upon unless some, perhaps
general, but at all events intimate understanding,
existed between Russia and Austria. Supposing my
suspicion to be well founded, the Emperor's object is to
engage her Majesty's government, in conjunction with
his own cabinet and that of Vienna, in some scheme for
the ultimate partition of Turkey, and for the exclusion
of France from the arrangement." Lord Clarendon, in
a letter to Sir H. Seymour, on the 23rd of March, writes
thus:—"The main object of her Majesty's government
—that to which their efforts have been and always will
be directed—is the preservation of peace; and they
desire to uphold the Turkish empire, from their conviction
that no great question can be agitated in the East
without becoming a source of discord in the West, and
that every great question in the West will assume a
revolutionary character, and embrace a revision of the
entire social system, for which the Continental governments
are certainly in no state of preparation. The
Emperor is fully cognisant of the materials that are in
constant fermentation beneath the surface of society,
and their readiness to burst forth even in times of peace,
and his Imperial Majesty will probably, therefore, not
dissent from the opinion that the first cannon-shot may
be the signal for a state of things more disastrous even
than those calamities which war inevitably brings in its
train. But such a war would be the result of the dissolution
and dismemberment of the Turkish empire; and
hence the anxiety of her Majesty's government to avert
the catastrophe. Nor can they admit that the signs of
Turkish decay are now either more evident or more
rapid than of late years. There is still great energy and
great wealth in Turkey; a disposition to improve the
system of government is not wanting; corruption, though
unfortunately great, is still not of a character, nor carried
to an extent, that threatens the existence of the state;
the treatment of Christians is not harsh, and the toleration
exhibited by the Porte towards this portion of its
subjects might serve as an example to some governments
who look with contempt upon Turkey as a
barbarous power. Her Majesty's government believe
that Turkey only requires forbearance on the part of its
allies, and a determination not to press their claims in a
manner humiliating to the dignity and independence of
the Sultan—that friendly support, in short, that with
states, as with individuals, the weak are entitled to
expect from the strong—in order not only to prolong its
existence, but to remove all cause of alarm respecting its
dissolution."

The parliamentary committee appointed to investigate
the Charges of Corruption against Irish Representatives
have held their sittings almost daily during the month,
and taken a great quantity of evidence. Their
proceedings seem likely to continue for some time.

The Report of the Select Committee on the Sligo
Election has been presented to the House of Commons
and printed. The committee report that the main
allegations of Mr. Somer's petition against Mr. Sadleir's
return are proved; that Mr. Gethin, solicitor, of Sligo,
being instructed by Mr. Sadleir's agent to make inquiries
as to the solvency of the sureties to the petition against
Mr. Sadleir's return, employed for this purpose James
Simpson, a farmer, and Henry Simpson, relieving officer
of the Sligo Union; and that at a meeting at Gethin's
office, at which the three were present, Gethin and
James Simpson offered the father of one of the sureties
£50 to induce him to procure his son's signature to an
affidavit giving a false statement as to his property; and
that the Simpsons made a similar offer in the case of
the other surety, with a view to get sworn an affidavit
(in Gethin's handwriting) containing false statements
respecting the surety's property, with a view to showing
that he was not worth the requisite amount. The
committee report "that the conduct of these three
persons is deserving of the serious attention and
animadversion of the house;" but they state "that Mr.
Sadleir does not appear from the evidence to have been
personally implicated in or cognisant of these proceedings."

NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME.

At the Central Criminal Court, on the 1st. inst.,
William Anderson, formerly a merchant, was convicted
of Forging and Uttering Bills of Exchange, amounting
in all to £7,888, with intent to defraud Messrs. Overend,
Gurney, & Co., and sentenced to eight years' penal
servitude. The prisoner, upon hearing his sentence
pronounced, suddenly drew himself up to his full height
and opened his eyes to a fearful extent, his jaw dropped,
his colour fled, and he became a livid blue, and making
one or two convulsive efforts to hold the dock, he fell
quite stiff into the arms of the gaoler. The Chief
Baron added, that if there was any ground for mitigation
it might be taken elsewhere. Hearing this, he tried to
raise his hands over his head, and indistinctly ejaculating
"There is, there is," fell quite senseless across the
gaoler, and was carried out of the dock.

At the Central Criminal Court on the 2nd inst., Mr.
Jeremiah Smith, the present Mayor of Rye, was tried
for Wilful and Corrupt Perjury before a Committee of
the House of Commons. Smith has been for a long time
the manager of election matters at Rye. In 1852 Mr.
Alexander Mackinnon was returned for the borough;
he was petitioned against; Smith was a witness; he
was examined about a certain dinner to the electors; he
said he had paid for the dinner, not Mr. Mackinnon,
and that he looked to Mr. Curteis, the retiring member,
to reimburse him; the dinner cost £226. The counsel
for the sitting member admitted that the election was
void. Subsequently the House of Commons ordered an
inquiry into the state of the borough. Smith was again
examined; when his former evidence was read to him
he admitted that what he had said about the dinner was
false; he was sorry for it; he really had received the
money from Mr. Mackinnon to pay for the dinner. The
first statement was the perjury now prosecuted. Officers
of the House of Commons, and a short-hand writer,
were called to prove the evidence given by the prisoner.
It came out that the cause of the sitting member had
been abandoned before Smith gave his false testimony;