FOREIGN NEWS.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 183, 1 March 1848, Page 2

FOREIGN NEWS.

Advices from Italy announce the important news that the city of Ferrara was evacuated by the Austrian* on the 25th September, and that the guardhouses are now occupied by the national guard. This step no doubt is an immense concetsion to the popular cause, but it is said to be the result not of any conviction of the justice of the Pope's remonstrance, but of the fear inspired by the threat of thosejspiritual terrors which the Church had in reserve. From Naples, despite the contradictory character of the different accounts, enough has reached us to shew that the imurgents are daily gaining strength. The royalist forces have been defeated with loss in one or two engagements, and the troops have began to shew sympathy with the movement. The imurgents, in the midst of their successes, proposed to suspend hostilities if the King will grant an unconditional amnesty, and dismiss his presunt ministers, as the first step of couise, to the. attainment of constitutional reform. The Pope also has recommended the King to make concessions, and Lord Palmerston, has reminded his Mnjesty of the convention concluded with this country in 18 16, by wliichthe liberties of the Sicilian parliament were guaranteed. The King has replied to these remonstrances by measures of increased severity towards his subjects, and so great is the excitement; in the city of Naples, that it is said to be kept in check solely by detachments of soldiery, and by this agents of the police. In Spain, another change of ministry, and tl?e accession of Narvaez to power as the head of a cabinet composed of men notoriously devoted to Franco, are significant events. They will not however, cause much surprise to any one who has watched attentively the policy towards the French government for the kit two months, and observed the incapacity of the Salamanca ministry to give effect to their own measures. The real designs of France, however skilfully they have hitherto been concealed by the artful policy of making Queen Isabella the instrument of her own destruction, will be very soon revealed, i.nd if there be any truth in the statement that the French government have decided on attempting to place the Duke de Montpensier on the throne of Spain, we may be assure.l that General Narvaez will lore no time in preparing matters for the crisis. The return of Espartero, which was always regarded as problematical, is now rendered impossible by the accession of his great rival to power ; and the more important question of the divorce which was so confidently promised as one of the first acts of the new cortes, may now be considered as finally set at rest with other liberal measures of the late ministry. The telegrapiic despatch by which we have received this important news gives no particulars of the circumstances which led to M. Salamanca's leaignation, but the undisguised efforts which France has long been making to regain her ascendancy at Madrid must have prepared all parties for the change. It is at least certaiu that the plot is fast thickening in Spain, and that still greater events than any which have yet occurreJ, may be expected to take place shortly in that unhappy country. The Con titutionnel statei that the Austrian government, menaced in Italy, is at present most gracious to Hungarians, from whence it is probably about to demand a new levy of men and new taxes. Transylvania has consented to furnish 11,OUO recruits, and the passage of Australian troops through Pesth, for the f ontiers of Switzsrland and Italy, is incessant. In Russia the cholera was advancing by nearly the same route as in 1831. It had reached thej environs of Toulu, distant forty miles from Moscow. The victims were almost the poorer classes, above all those addicted to the use of spirituous liquors, but it also attacked parsons in every circumstance. The Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, foronetly an aspirant to the hand of Queen Victoria, was attacked by an alarming pthisis which placed his life in danger. The Bayonne conespondent for the Times writes, on the 2nd October, that Viscount Canning had arrived there on hid way to Madrid, with despatches for the British legation. Sir Charles Napier has formally resigned the government of Seinde, and much speculation was afloat as to his probable successor, though it is confidently expected in many quarters that the province will shortly be incorporated with the Bombay presidency. — Launceslon Examiner, February 2.