EUROPE.—Russia rejects the propositions of the four powers, retires behind the Pruth and there awaits the course of events. New proposals are hatching in the Germanic Confederation, which, it is hoped, may produce peace. Part of the Crimea expedition is embarked, and has proceeded to the rendezvous at Baltshik. Gen Guyon is put in command of the army of Asia. From the Baltic and the Principalities there is nothing new.
THE WAR.—Accounts from Rustchuk, Sept. 3d, state that all the vessels with troops left Varna on the 2d for Baltshik. From the 1st inst. provisions for the army are to be sent to the Crimea. Marshal St. Arnaud has issued an order stating that Sevastopol will be taken and held as a guarantee of peace. Supposing the seige begun by the middle of September, it is hoped the place will be taken by the end of November.
The Russian Embassy at Vienna has received notice that the greater part of the Russian army will have quitted Moldavia by the 20th of September, and the remainder by the beginning of October, unless hostile operations shall render a new concentration necessary. The Austrians entered the Principalities at four points, namely: Rothenthurm, Prediala, and Botza for Wallachia, and Bistritz for Moldavia. Omer Pasha continues to concentrate his main army along the bank of the River Kamasu, below Buseo, whence he menaced Brailew and Galatz.
The bashi-bozouks, including those in the pay of the allies, have been disbanded by a general order from Omer Pasha, the rascals being quite incorrigible.
Two Paixhan guns, taken from the Tiger frigate, were tried at Odessa the other day in presence of Gov. Annenkoff. At the fourth shot one of the guns burst, killing one artilleryman and wounding several others.
Kurschid Pasha (Gen. Guyon) is at length appointed, on the representations of lord Stratford de Redcliffe, to the chief command in Asia, in room of Mustapha Pasha. Guyon would long ere this have been appointed to command, but he refused, and still refuses, to apostatize from the Christian form of religion. Ismael Pasha, a Turkish officer who greatly distinguished himself in the defense of Kalafat, is also appointed to a high command in the army of Asia. The British Government has sent as Commissioners Col. Williams of the Royal Engineers, and France will accredit an officer in a similar capacity. Col. Williams spent three years under canvas in making a topographical survey of these provinces, as British Commissioner charged to run the boundary line between Turkey and Persia.
Active secret negotiations have been going on for some time between Nicholas and the Pope. It now transpires that the Czar holds a prospect of a change toward the Roman Catholics in Poland, and of concessions to the Latins at Jerusalem. He is thus intriguing against the French. According to the Corriere Italiano the Czar has the intention to declare his third son, Nicholas, King of Poland, and as he is a member of the Greek Church, it was considered necessary to give the Pope some tranquilizing assurances respecting the Polish Catholics.
SPAIN.—The moneyed classes, the so-called men of order, family, religion and society, who worship mammon and peculation, and who emigrate when “Morality and the Constitution” become the watchword of the people, have got the upper hand in Madrid. Espartero promised everything to the people, and to their spokesmen, Orense, (the Marquis of Albaide,) as long as the power was with the people, and the heroes of the Exchange, the Generals of the Three Per Cents, and Admirals of the Public Debt, were panic stricken. But as soon as O'Donnell's troops were in Madrid, some national guards were instigated to invade the printing-office of a republican paper, to destroy the presses, in the name of order and property, to protect Queen Christina in her retreat from the Capital. The Juntas were dissolved, the people disarmed, a few barricades were erected, but taken by the soldiers, and Orense, seeing that he had nothing more to do at Madrid, and the old government was to be re-instated again, went to Valencia. Whether the provinces will follow the example of Madrid, or whether they will rise again in order to complete the revolution, remains to be seen. The probability is, that the Spanish revolution will settle down quietly, and that Spain will return to the same scandalous mismanagement to which it has been subject these last twenty years. The revolution of 1854 began, succeeded and fell in the same way as the revolution of 1848, in France. The people rose with patriotic enthusiasm, and were betrayed by their leaders, the narrow-minded, selfish politicians.
In Denmark the agitation against the ministry, on account of the retrograde orders in Council, which modified the Constitution so far as to make it altogether a sham, increases day after day; still, no disturbances are to be anticipated.
Counter-revolution is now triumphant all over Europe.—We have gained only one point, viz., that there is no king now on the continent of Europe, except the King of Sardinia, who can find it worth his while to feign liberalism and respect for the rights of the people. This is indeed the era of the Cæsars, when might supercedes right, and all power proceeds from the army.
The influence of Austria in the Danubian Principalities begins to be felt. The refugees in Turkey, even those who were in active Turkish service, are claimed by the Austrian Government, to be handed over to the Austrian authorities.
The position of Austria begins to become unsafe. The Czar has rejected the four guarantees proposed by Drouyn de L'huys; and Austria, though still on good terms with Russia, has committed herself sufficiently to incur either the wrath of the Czar, if she persists in her quasi alliance with the western powers, or the revenge of England and France, should she turn round at the last moment and join Russia. Prussia is arming her fortresses and re-enforcing her garrisons on the Rhine. It seems that the King has some knowledge of the plans of the Czar for 1855. A Prussian statesman wrote at the beginning of last month, to a friend in London, that the Russians were sure to be in Germany within the next month.