[From the Britannia.]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 605, 31 January 1852, Page 3

[From the Britannia.]

The fate of General Lopez, the principal leader of the Cuban division, is still quite uncertain. The accounts from America on this interesting subject are full of the most perplexing contradictions. On the one hand, Lopez is stated to have been successful in every engagement, and General Enna, the Spanish commander-in-chief, together with many of his officers, and a large proportion of his men, arc reported to have fallen in an engagement with Lopez. On the other- hand, Lopez is said to be scarcely able to maintain himself and his forces are declared to be dwindling daily. The Creole population, also, by these accounts, are adverse to him, and it is affirmed that not one has joined his illegal expedition. The fate of Colonel Crittenden is equally involved in mystery, but whether he was of the number of the fifty captured by the Spanish steamer Habanaro, or whether be is one of the sixty-four of that ill-fated expedition who escaped immediate punishment, it is quite certain that the United States Government are using every means in their power to quell these buccaneering attempts. We expressed our conviction in a former number of the anxiety felt by the American Union to preserve the faith of existing treaties, and it is gratifying to learn through the accounts which reached Halifax from New York by electric telegraph, and which have been forwarded to us by the Canada, that our judgment was correct. The United States, even if the preservation of international law has little weight with her motley union, is bound by a solemn treaty to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with Spain, without exception of persons or places. This treaty is of thirty years' standing, and its fust article is in the following words: —"There shall be a firm and inviolable peace and sincere friendship between the United States and their citizens, and his Catholic Majesty, his successors and subjects, without exceptions of persons or places." Acting upon the faith of this treaty we hear by the Canada, which reached Liverpool on the 14th, that the Government of Washington had ordered an attachment to be issued against the steam-ship Alabama, on suspicion of the vessel being engaged in the Cuban movement. Extreme vigilance is nevertheless necessary on the part of the Government at Washington, for notwithstanding all the precautions it has taken, we learn that two thousand men were preparing to depart for Cuba from New Orleans. The Government had most wisely announced that their own officers in New Orleans would be held responsible if these men were permitted to embark.

The Pium \tc is the subject of a paper crusade. By one omnipotent "we" ho is held up as ft confessed heieiic, by another of the gieat unknowns and iiresponsibles he is declared to hold that the State confeis spiritual and clerical authoiity, by a third he is charged as the head and piirae mover of a conspiracy to reduce the Church of England to the level of the wildest sect of modern fanaticism. What has the Primate done ? He has written as an individual a private letter to an impostor, which private letter the fellow has hawked about, and in this letter has expressed, as an individual, opinions respecting the ordination of certain foreign Protestant -pasteurs, which displease a party in the Church, but which many of the ablest and most orthodox fathers of our Church have held before him. Let us recur to (he facts. On the 18th of June, a few days after the conference at Willis's Rooms between several Bishops of our Church and the foreign Protestant pasteurs then in London, the Primate received a letter from a pretended convert from dissent to the Established Church, at that time signing himself W. Francis, and dating from Holy well-street, Westminster. The letter, after referring to the Bishop of London's prohibition of the foreign pasteurs from preaching in the Chapels of the Established Church, went on soundly to abuse our Diocesan for his interference, and to assume that, like Mr. Richards of Puseyite fame, the Bishop refused under any circumstances to recognise their ordination, and regarded them as more laymen. Having thus prepared the way, this pretending convert from dissent indulged in fulsome praise of Dr, Cumming and the Chuicli of Scotland, and delusive abuse of the Papists and their Romanising friends in our own communion, at the same time requesting his Grace's views, as a friend, on the moot point. To this letter the Primate, believing the fellow to be what he represented himself, returned the following letter, which he marked " Piivate." 11 Sir, —You are far too severe in your censure of the Bishop of London, though I wish that hia Lordship bad expressed himself more fully. But in his original letter to Lord Cholmondeley he expressly stated that they could not by law minister in our Churches, but that every endeavour would be made to provide places where they might celebrate Divine worship according to their own Jorm. I hardly imagine 'iwat there are two Brsuors on the Blncii, on one Cleroyman in FIFTY THROUOHOUT OUIt CHURCH, WHO WOULD DENY THE VALIDITY Or THE ORDERS Or 'IHESE PASTORS SOLELY ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR WANTING 'IHE IMPOSITION OF EpiSCOpal hands; and lam sure that you have misunderstood the import of the letter which occasioned your addressing me, if you supposed that it implied any such sentiment in the writer's mind. ' " I lemam, Siv, " Your obedient and humble Servant, "J. B. Cantuah." This private letter thus obtained, the man who signed himself " Francis," when he played this part of the converted dissenter, in a few days, in his right name as tho Papist W. 11. P. Gawthorn, offered to show to the Rev. Cyril Pagp, the incumbent of Christ Church, Westminister. Well aware of Mr. Page's High Church views, he sought by these means to pervert him to Romanism by disgusting him with his Primate and his Diocesan. Mr. Pagp, whatever his views might be, was not to be trapped. He recognised the fellow at onco as a late perveit irom our Church, who only a year before had, in the chaiacter of a sincere Protestant, and under the then name of Rees, had done his best, happily without success, to set the Rector of St. Margaret's at variance with the Bishop of London, by writing to the Bishop a deliberate falsehood as to certain saint-day services at bis church. Foiled in this place the scoundrel took good care that the Primate's private letter,should be as widely known a3 grossly misrepresented, whilst to enhance the villainy and double edge the barb, he altered the address fiom W. Francis to W. R. F. Gawthorn, so that all might believe that the Primate had knowingly written in such a strain to a Papist pervert. When taxed with bis villainy by the Primate, the Jesuit admitted that he h.id signed a false name, lest Dr.. Sumner should discover th.it lie was a Romanist, and wiittun lie upon lie lest if the truth weie told he should not obtain the information he thus fraudulently sought.