2d. That Prussia will not enter into the discussion of commercial questions with Austria. The treaties for the renewal of the Zollverein shall be completed.

Prussia demands an immediate and unconditional answer from all the States of the Zollverein, whether or not they agree to the proposition, in order that Prussia may immediately establish Custom Houses on the frontiers of such as dissent. The friendly relations, on other topics, with Prussia and Austria, will not, however, be disturbed.

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.-Sir Harry Smith has returned to England, and General Cathcart has assumed his position as Governor General.

The London Times gives the subjoined summary of the news:

"The only military movement since our last advices, is one by Colonel slichel, on the 17th of April, near Fort Cox, when a subdivision of the Light Company of the 6th Regiment killed eight Caffres with the bayonet; and a company of Rifles in ambush drove a body headlong down some cliffs, killing twenty, and wounding a great number.

"The last dates from King William's Town are to the 27th of April. General Cathcart had recovered from the effects of a severe fall, and was to proceed, on the 27th, to Fort Beaufort, preparatory to an attack, upon an extensive scale, on Friday the 30th of April, upon the Waterkloof, where Macomo had again removed with a large party of Caffres from the Amatolas, and had been joined by a great many rebel Hottentots. It was understood that the General would direct this movement in person.

"General Cathcart's determination to hang the councillors of Seyolo and Stock, who have been captured while endeavoring to excite Pato and other friendly Caffres to join the enemy, has inspired great confidence, and the erection of the gallows at King William's Town, for that purpose, has struck much terror into the Caffres. The General's policy of destroying the enemy's cattle is most important, as is also his refusal to have personal communications with any of the chiefs among the Caffres. His energy and decision of character are much admired, and a prospect seems now open of really subduing and punishing the Caffres, so as to produce a permanent and substantial peace in the course of three or four

months."

HANOVER.-The Hanoverian Chambers were adjourned on 28th May to 4th June. The Diet of Oldenburg have decided to accede on certain conditions to the treaty of September between Hanover and Prussia. It is stated in a Berlin journal that the recent settlement between the King of Denmark and the Duke of Augustenberg will be repudiated by the Germanic Diet.

The Weser Gazette states that numerous arrests took place on the 24th at Bremen, in consequence of the discovery of the statutes and rules of an association called the League of Death, together

with poniards, pistols, and other weapons. The prisoners had been taken to the Hotel de Ville, and great excitement prevailed in the city.

CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY.

THAT body of men whom we have sent to represent us in the national council, to deliberate over the best methods of supplying our national wants, and of advancing us in national prosperity, seem to have forgotten the object of their assembling at Washington. The amount of work which they have accomplished during the session of 1852, eight months in duration, and not yet finished, is fearfully disproportionate to the time that has been consumed in doing it. Scarcely one measure of importance has been consummated, scarcely one evil repressed, scarcely one new political idea evolved. Nor for this unprofitable delay and lack of effort is there any excuse. The Democratic party have a large majority in both houses. The field of Congressional debate, lately cleared of great obstacles, presents no difficulties to legislation in comparison with the difficulties of former years. And yet, with a full docket, with easy majorities, and with an anxious constituency, Congress has so far done nothing, and gives us small ground to hope for better things in future.

Where is the Homestead Bill, whose utility the sober sense of the people ratifies, and which was so triumphantly passed by the House of Rrepresentatives? Where is the Deficiency Bill, with its unforeseen and necessary items, which a Locofoco Opposition, straining at gnats and swallowing camels, profess to find so burdensome upon the Treasury, but which were not to be avoided, and cannot in any case be repudiated? Are we to witness no appropriations to Rivers and Harbors } Shail no change be effected in our present ruinous and absurd Tariff? Or, if Congress will refuse to act upon these separate measures, what will it do, and why has it not made at least a beginning!

This lack of any positive effort may be natural, and may be readily accounted for by the fact that it is much easier to make speeches, and be published in the papers, than to undergo the labor of drawing up bills, examining and setting forth their claims, and producing well-grounded and solid arguments for their passage; much easier than to sit patiently in committee over the details of Congressional business; and to many men, much easier than simply to retain their chairs, and vote when called upon to give their opinion. The time of Congress is therefore consumed by speeches from every class of men, often on irrelevant subjects, and in most cases little calculated to help forward any measure proposed, if indeed they do not operate against it.

In the House of Representatives, June 26th, Mr. Bennett's Land Bill, of which the following is an abstract, was passed by a vote of ninety-six to eighty-seven:

The bill appropriates to Missouri three millions of acres; to Alabama, two million five hundred thousand acres; to Iowa, three millions of acres; to Michigan, two million five hundred thousand acres; to Wisconsin, two million five hundred thousand acres; to Louisiana, two million five

hundred thousand acres; to Mississippi, two million acres; to Florida, two million acres; to Arkansas, three million acres; to California, three million acres; to Illinois, one million acres; to In diana, all the public land not sold, located, or reserved, lying within her limits, and one million acres in addition thereto; to Ohio, all the public land not sold, located or reserved, lying within her limits, and two million acres in addition thereto; and to each of the States Maine, New-Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, at the rate of one hundred and fifty-six thousand acres for each Senator and Representative in the Thirtysecond Congress from said States respectively; and to each of the organized Territories and the District of Columbia, one hundred and fifty thousand acres. The eleven States first named are to apply their shares in the construction of railroads, and the remainder of the States, and the Territories, and the District of Columbia, are to expend theirs for the support of schools, or for other useful purposes.

The bill providing for the establishment of a Branch Mint in California, of which we spoke in our last issue, having been returned by the House to the Senate with several amendments, these amendments were passed, and the bill has now become a law. The advantages of such a Mint in California are great, and we regard its passage as one of the most important acts of the session.

In the Senate, June 28th, Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, chairman of the Census Committee, made a report. The Committee having taken the census returns of Maryland as an index of the correctness of the census returns of the entire United States, decide that the expense of such a census is not warranted by the truth of the information arrived at. The Committee pronounce the historical sketches of States, Cities, and Towns, the Geological Histories, the calculations upon the returns of Deaf and Dumb, Blind and Idiotic persons, the tables giving the places of nativity and occupations of persons, and the medical statistics, as contained in the sample before them, as incomplete, inaccurate, false, useless, and unnecessary, and recommend that they be all omitted in the published returns. They say that if their recom mendation be adopted, the size of the Census returns will be reduced more than four fifths of what they have been swelled to by the Census Superintendent. Mr. Bayard's report is sustained by a full enumeration of errors and absurdities. In the matters especially of health and disease, and of manufactories, the blunders of the Maryland Census are palpable to the most careless reader.

The Bill for the relief of the Collins steamers, which passed the Senate some weeks since, and has been pending before the House during the mean time, was passed by the latter body on Tuesday, July 13th, by a vote of 89 to 87.

The bill provides "for additional compensation for increasing the transportation of the United States mail between New-York and Liverpool in

the Collins line of steamers to twenty-six trips per annum, at such times as shall be directed by the Postmaster-General, and in conformity to his last annual report to Congress, and his letter of the fifteenth of November last to the Secretary of the Navy, commencing said increased service on the first of January, eighteen hundred and fifty-two, at the rate of thirty-three thousand dollars per trip, in lieu of the present allowance, the sum of two hundred and thirty-six thousand five hundred dollars: Provided, That it shall be in the power of Congress, at any time after the thirty first day of December, eighteen hundred and fifty-four, to terminate the arrangement for the additional allowance herein provided for, upon giving six months' notice."

In the course of the debate on this measure, in the Senate, Mr. James, of Rhode Island, made the following statement:

"The Cunard line has seven ships, the aggre gate tonnage of which is 12,252 tons. These ships cross the Atlantic eighty-five times per year, or rather what is equivalent to eighty-five trips for one ship. This makes the total tonnage worked across the Atlantic, in the eighty-five trips, 148,750 tons. For this service they receive from the British Government, in round numbers, $856,820-making $5 75 per ton. The Collins line has four ships, of an aggregate of 13,702 tons, which cross the Atlantic fifty-two times per annum, or perform a service equal to fifty-two trips for one vessel. The amount to be paid by this amendment, and what is now paid, is $858,000, or $4 82 per ton, and a fraction less than twenty per cent. below what is paid by the British Govvernment to the Cunard line.

The Cunard line receives, it will be seen, for 1852......

While it received for 1851..

Making an increase of........ Equal to......

6

£171,364

145,000

£26,364

$131,820

The amount now received by the Cunard line is $856,820-being within less than $2,000 of what is asked for by Mr. Collins."

The new Postage Bill, which has been recently concurred in, provides as follows:

1. All newspapers, pamphlets, &c., weighing two ounces, shall be charged one cent postage within three thousand miles, and one cent for each additional ounce; over three thousand miles, double these rates.

2. Books shall be deemed mailable matter. Newspapers shall be mailed free to subscribers within the county in which they are published, as heretofore.

3. All papers and periodicals must be sent with open wrappers; free from all other writing except the address; and not inclosing any slips or communications. If these conditions are not complied with, the matter will be charged with letter postage.

4. Papers lying dead in the office shall be sold to pay their postage.

The above summary presents the leading features of the Bill.

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE.

THE WHIG NATIONAL CONVENTION.-The Convention having been organized on the 16th of June, fifty-three ballotings were had for a Presidential candidate. We give the final ballot: Scott, 158; Fillmore, 112; Webster, 21.

The following are the resolutions adopted by the Convention:

"The Whigs of the United States, in Convention assembled, adhering to the great con servative principles by which they are controlled and governed, and now as ever relying upon the intelligence of the American people, with an abiding confidence in their capacity for self-government, and their devotion to the Constitution and the Union, do proclaim the following as the political sentiments and determination for the establishment and maintenance of which their national organization as a party was effected:

"First. The Government of the United States is of a limited character, and it is confined to the exercise of powers expressly granted by the Conetitution, and such as may be necessary and proper for carry the granted powers into full execution, and that all powers not granted or necessarily implied are expressly reserved to the States respectively and to the people.

"Second. The State Governments should be held secure in their reserved rights, and the General Government sustained in its constitutional powers, and that the Union should be revered and watched over as the palladium of our liberties.

“Third. That while struggling freedom every where enlists the warmest sympathy of the Whig party, we still adhere to the doctrines of the Father of his Country, as announced in his Farewell Address, of keeping ourselves free from all entangling alliances with foreign countries, and of never quitting our own to stand upon foreign ground; that our mission as a Republic is not to propagate our opinions, or impose on other countries our form of government, by artifice or force, but to teach by example, and show by our success, moderation, and justice, the blessings of self-government, and the advantages of free institutions.

"Fourth. That, as the people make and control the Government, they should obey its Constitution, Laws, and Treaties, as they would retain their selfrespect, and the respect which they claim and will enforce from foreign powers.

"Fifth. Revenue sufficient for the expenses of an economical administration of the Government, in time of peace, ought to be derived from a duty on imports, and not from direct taxation; and in lay ing such duties, sound policy requires a just discrimination, whereby suitable encouragement may be afforded to American industry, equally to all classes, and to all parts of the country.

"Sixth. The Constitution vests in Congress the power to open and repair harbors, and remove obstructions from navigable rivers, whenever such improvements are necessary for the common defense, and for the protection and facility of commerce with foreign nations, or among the States, said improvements being, in every instance, national and general in their character.

"Seventh. The Federal and State Governments

are parts of one system, alike necessary for the common prosperity, peace, and security, and ought to be regarded alike with a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment. Respect for the authority of each, and acquiescence in the just constitutional measures of each, are duties required by the plainest considerations of national, state, and individual welfare.

"Eighth. That the series of acts of the Thirtyfirst Congress-the Act known as the Fugitive Slave Law included-are received and acquiesced in by the Whig party of the United States, as a settlement in principle and substance of the dangerous and exciting question which they embrace; and so far as they are concerned, we will maintain them and insist upon their strict enforcement until time and experience shall demonstrate the necessity of further legislation, to guard against the evasion of the law on the one hand, and the abuse of their powers on the other, not impairing their present efficiency; and we deprecate all further agitation of the question thus settled, as dangerous to our peace, and will discountenance all efforts to continue or renew such agitation, whenever, wherever, or however the attempt may be made; and we will maintain the system as essential to the nationality of the Whig party of the Union."

DEATH OF HENRY CLAY.-Henry Clay died at Washington, Tuesday, June 29th, aged seventyfive years.

The proceedings of both branches of Congress, upon the day subsequent to his death, were of the most interesting and impressive nature. Men of all parties and shades of party forgot their differ ences of opinion in their zeal to do honor to the memory of the great statesman, and joined together in eulogies whose signal charm consisted in their truth, and in the sincerity with which they were uttered.

In the Senate, addresses were made by Messrs. Cass Clemens, Hunter, Underwood, Cooper, Jones, Brooke, and Seward. We quote a few sentences from the remarks of the latter, in which is embodied an epitome of Mr. Clay's career:

Colonization, Revolution, and Organizationthree great acts in the drama of our National Progress-had already passed when the Western Patriot appeared on the public stage. He entered in that next division of the majestic scenes which was marked by an inevitable reaction of political forces, a wild strife of factions, and ruinous embarrassments in our foreign relations. This transition stage is always more perilous than any other in the career of nations, and especially in the career of Republics. It proved fatal to the Commonwealth in England. Scarcely any of the Spanish American States have yet emerged from it; and it has more than once been sadly signalized by the ruin of the Republican cause in France.

"The continuous Administration of Washington and John Adams had closed under a cloud which had thrown a broad, dark shadow over the future; the nation was deeply indebted at home and abroad, and its credit was prostrate. The Revolutionary tactions had given place to two inveterate parties, divided by a gulf which had been worn by the conflict in which the Constitution was

adopted, and made broader and deeper by a war of prejudices concerning the merits of the bellige rents in the great European struggle that then convalsed the civilized world. Our extraordinary political system was little more than an ingenious theory, not yet practically established. The union of the States was as yet only one of compact; for the political, social, and commercial necessities to which it was so marvellously adapted, and which, clustering thickly upon it, now render it indis soluble, had not then been broadly disclosed, nor had the habits of acquiescence and the sentiments of loyalty, always slow of growth, fully ripened. The bark that had gone to sea, thus unfurnished and untried, seemed quite certain to founder by reason of its own inherent frailty, even if it should escape unharmed in the great conflict of nations, which acknowledged no claims of justice, and tolerated no pretensions of neutrality. Moreover, the territory possessed by the nation was inade quate to commercial exigencies and indispensable social expansion; and yet no provision had been made for enlargement, nor for extending the political system over distant regions, inhabited or otherwise, which must inevitably be acquired. Nor could any such acquisition be made without disturbing the carefully-adjusted balance of powers among the members of the Confederacy.

"These difficulties, Mr. President, although they grew less with time and by slow degrees, continued throughout the whole life of the statesman whose obsequies we are celebrating. Be it known, then, and I am sure that history will confirm the instruction, that Conservatism was the interest of the nation, and the responsibility of its rulers, during the period in which he flourished. He was ardent, bold, generous, and even ambitious; and yet, with a profound conviction of the true exigencies of the country, like Alexander Hamilton, he disciplined himself, and trained a restless nation, that knew only self control, to the rigorous practice of that often humiliating conservatism which its welfare and security in that peculiar crisis so imperiously demanded.

his

son, Monroe, and Jefferson rise up before usstatesmen whose living and local fame has ripened already into historical and world-wide renown.

"Among geniuses so lofty as these, HENRY CLAY bore a part in regulating the constitutional ireedom of political debate; establishing that longcontested and most important line which divides the sovereignty of the several States from that of the States confederated; asserting the right of Neutrality, and vindicating it by a war against Great Britain, when that just but extreme measure became necessary; adjusting the terms on which that perilous yet honorable contest was brought to a peaceful close; perfecting the army, and the navy, and national fortifications; settling the fiscal and financial policy of the Government in more than one crisis of apparently threatened revolution; asserting and calling into exercise the powers of the Government for making and improving internal communication between the States; arousing and encouraging the Spanish American Colonies on this Continent to throw off the foreign yoke, and to organize Governments on principles congenial to our own, and thus creating external bulwarks for our own national defense; establishing equal and impartial peace and amity with all existing maritime powers; and extending the constitutional organization of Government over all the vast regions secured in his life-time by purchase or by conquest, whereby the pillars of the Republic have been removed from the banks of the St. Mary's to the borders of the Rio Grande, and from the margin of the Mississippi to the Pacific coast. We may not yet discuss the wisdom of the several measures which have thus passed in review before us, nor of the positions which the deceased statesman assumed in regard to them, but we may without offense dwell upon the comprehensive results of them all.

"The Union exists in absolute integrity, and the Republic in complete and triumphant develop ment. Without having relinquished any part of their individuality, the States have more than doubled already, and are increasing in numbers and growing in political strength and expansion more rapidly than ever before. Without having absorbed any State, or having even encroached on any State, the Confederation has opened itself so as to embrace all the new members who have come, and now, with capacity for further and indefinite enlargement, has become fixed, enduring, and perpetual. Although it was doubted, only half a century ago, whether our political system could be maintained at all, and whether, if maintained, it could guarantee the peace and happiness of society, it stands now confessed by the world the form of government, not only most adapted to Empire, but also most congenial with the constitution of Human Nature."