beach, lined for more than a mile with bodies of men,
the boats dashed at the shore, and effected a landing
simultaneously at one spot; and then, leaving a sufficient
guard at the boats, about one hundred and sixty
officers and men fought their way into the town. They
were met, however, with most determined resistance
on the part of the natives; who disputed every inch of
ground until after having two officers killed and six
men wounded, Captain Forbes fired the houses in the
neighbourhood, and retreated in good order. The
Bloodhound was got afloat the same night, and the boats
returned to the squadron. The officers killed were
Mr. Dyer and Mr. Hall, mates of the Niger. In
addition to the deaths and serious wounds, there were
many hurts from spent balls.

The Niger took the wounded to Sierra Leone, and
proceeded in search of the Commodore; and it was
understood that Commodore Bruce had proceeded to
Lagos to organise such a force as would compel the
King of Lagos to submission; the Harlequin, in the
mean time, by her presence off the coast, preventing the
King of Lagos from forming any new expedition
against the missionary establishment at Badagry.

In consequence of this affair, the London Gazette has
announced the establishment of an effective blockade
by the British squadron under Commodore Bruce of
that part of the western coast of Africa in the Bight of
Benin, between the first and fourth degrees of longitude
east of Greenwich, Badagry excepted, and declared that
no merchant vessel would be permitted to hold any
communication whatever with the ports and places
interdicted.

The accounts from New York contain further details
of Kossuth's reception in the United States. From New
York he went to Philadelphia and Baltimore, where he
had public receptions, and banquets given in his honour.
On the 30th of December he arrived at Washington.
Many members of the Congress called on him and he
made a speech in reply to the respects paid to him by
the Jackson Democratic Association. But his arrival
created no excitement and drew forth no crowds. His
second day in Washington was marked by a strong
debate in the House of Representatives, as to the mode
of his reception by that body, which ended in adjournment
without a decision. On that day he had a private
interview with President Fillmore. In reply to a speech
by Kossuth, the President said—

"I am happy, Governor Kossuth, to welcome you to this land
of freedom, and it gives me pleasure to congratulate you upon
your release from a long confinement in Turkey and your late
arrival here. As an individual, I sympathised deeply with you
in your brave struggle for the independence and freedom of your
native land. The American people can never be indifferent to
such a contest; but our policy, as a nation, in this respect has
been uniform from the commencement of our Government; and
my own views, as the chief executive magistrate of this nation,
are fully and freely expressed in my recent message to Congress,
to which you have been pleased to allude. They are the same,
whether speaking to Congress here or to the nations of Europe.
Should your country be restored to independence and freedom, I
should then wish you, as the greatest blessing you could enjoy,
a restoration to your native land; but should that never happen,
I can only repeat my welcome to you and your companions
here, and pray that God's blessing may rest upon you wherever
your lot may he cast."

On the 5th instant, he was introduced to the senate by
Mr. Shields, Mr. Steward, and General Cass. The
Senate received him with silent respect; and adjourned,
that the members might be introduced to him
individually. The accounts state that Kossuth had
informed the Secretary of the Interior, that "the
opposition which he met from the Congress and the
Executive convinced him that his mission has failed;"
he was "deeply disappointed at the result of his mission
at Washington," which was "wholly unexpected."
The House of Representatives gave him a public reception,
at which he was received silently, but more
cordially than at that of the Senate. On the 7th instant,
a great "Congressional banquet" of three hundred
persons, chiefly members of Congress, was given to him
at the National Hotel. Kossuth made a speech; in
which he thus stated the object of his mission.

"I hoped, and now hope, that the noble-minded people of the
United States will feel induced to pronounce in time their vote
upon the question of international law violated in the case of
my country. I know, and Europe knows, the immense weight
of such a pronunciation from such a place. But never had I
the impious wish to try to entangle this great Republic into
difficulties inconsistent with its own welfare, its own security,
its own interest. I rather repeatedly and earnestly declared, that
a war on this account by your country is utterly impossible,
and a mere phantom. But I said and say, that such a declaring
of just principles would insure to the nations of Europe fair play
in their struggle for freedom and independence, because the
declaration of such a power as your Republic will be respected
even where it should not be liked; and Europe's oppressed
nations will feel cheered in resolution and doubled in strength,
to maintain the decision of their American brethren on their
own behalf with their own lives."

According to the last intelligence Kossuth had set out
on a tour to the other great cities of the Union—to
Annapolis, Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New
Orleans, Charleston, Albany, Buffalo. He was to
return to New York, and start for England from Boston.

A fire has taken place in the capitol of Washington,
which has burnt the Congressional library; upwards
of 35,000 volumes were destroyed, together with
manuscripts, paintings, and maps. The declaration of
independence was fortunately preserved.

The immigration into New York for the year 1851
was 289,600, of which 163,256 were from Ireland, 28,553
from England, and 69,883 from Germany.

The New York "National Police Gazette" contains
a mass of shocking details relative to the proceedings
of the Mormons at the Salt Lake. A correspondent of
that paper, writing from Utah, says: "The pluralist
wife system is in full vogue here. Governor Young is
said to have ninety wives. He drove along the streets
a few days ago with sixteen of them in a long carriage,
fourteen of them having each an infant at her bosom.
It is said Heber C. Kimball, one of the triune council,
and the second person in the Trinity, has almost an
equal number, and among them are a mother and her
two daughters. Each man may have as many wives as he
can maintain, that is, after the women have been
picked and culled by the head men. Whole pages might
be filled with the surprising disgusting details of the
state of affairs here." It is a lamentable fact that, at
the present time, numbers of people are leaving Great
Britain to join the Mormons, notwithstanding the
disclosures that are so constantly made.

A frightful catastrophe occurred at New York on the
12th inst., in a building owned by the Commissioners of
Emigration, for the reception of the newly-arrived
emigrants. The building is five stories high, and each
floor appropriated for the emigrants—the upper rooms
principally for the women, and the lower part for the
men. It seems that between nine and ten o'clock at
night the City-hall bell rung an alarm of fire, and some
of the women on the upper floors called out "Fire,"
which instantly created a panic of alarm on each floor
among them, and a general rush was made for the
stairway, which being very contracted, they fell one on
the top of each other, creating an awful state of
confusion. So terrified were some, that they broke out the
second and third story windows and sprang out, falling
with deadly violence in the yard below. The screams
and cries of the affrighted women and children soon
called the aid of the police, who rendered every assistance
in their power. Six dead bodies were conveyed to the
station-house, and eight persons were conveyed to the
city hospital with broken arms and bodily injuries, some
of whom were not expected to survive. Those killed
were all children, except one, a young woman about
twenty years of age. They were all suffocated by the
number of persons crowded on them. At the time the
alarm was given there were about 480 emigrants in the
building, the larger proportion women and children.

The dates from Mexico are to the 20th of December.
Congress had adjourned on the 14th. President Arista
delivered an address upon the occasion, in which he
referred to the financial difficulties of the country, and
stated that they were still more urgent and menacing
than ever, and could only be surmounted by acts of
patriotic abnegation. The defeat of the attempted
revolution in the neighbourhood of the United States'
frontier furnished a strong topic of congratulation, and
the speech ended by an appeal to the spirit of the
people to preserve the independence of their country.