"Comp nuh Calnutal.
Fnaxer..—The Government has been endeavouring to gain popularity with the masses by a contest with the majority of the Assembly in favour of the principle of universal suffrage. The law of the 31st May, re- stricting the suffrage, was intended to govern the elections of the National -Guard as well as the general elections of 1852 and future years; but as the elections of the National Guard would regularly take place on the 251h, and as the restrictive law will not have been organized by that -date, the majority in the Assembly have urged the Government to bring in a bill postponing the elections of the National Guard till the -general elections. The Government has resisted this suggestion, on the ostensible ground that the elections can be postponed by the local executive authorities. • But the Committee of the Assembly, fearing a trap, insisted on the proposal of a measure, and threatened to propose a measure itself if the Government persisted in declining. After divers in- terviews and warm discussions, M. Waisse, the Minister of the Interior, yielded, and promised a measure. The political breach between the elder and younger branches of the Bourbon family is now said to be definitively and formally renewed ; and the impossibility of the fusion is said to be a question now finally set at rest. M. Thiers is said to be the imprac- ticable person who has wrought this result in behalf of the Duchess of Orleans and the Orleans princes.
GEEMANY.—German unity still remains "afar off." Last week pro- duced a letter to the Austrian Premier, Prince Schwarzenberg, by Wil- helm King of Wurtemberg, in which that versatile prince expressed his latest political opinions in terms surprisingly constitutional and liberal. Declaring that "in the present day mere physical force alone will not suffice to maintain a general form of government," he claims a revision of the act of confederation " in a manner suitable to the spirit of the age and the moral necessities of the people,"—a revision which shall "apply the hitherto existing representation of the people to the federal body as a whole, and unite the barren and confused power of the several Chambers into one compact national Parliament." This week gives publicity to a circular note by Prince Schwarzenberg to the diplo- matic agents of Austria "at the minor courts of Germany," containing his significant reply to the King of Wurtemberg. Referring to the ap- proaching plenary sitting of the "ministerial conferences at Dresden "- no longer the "free conferences "—he declares that Austria has at last succeeded in overcoming differences of opinion so far that " not only the two Federal. Powers whirls as European powers will have to represent the work .of revision abroad," but all the powers next in rank both in the North and South, have united on the most pressing questions. Under such circumstances, it would be " an occurrence of very serious import- ance" if agreement could be negatived "by the opposition of votes which collectively hardly represent more than a tenth part of the population of the Confederation." At present the Governments of Germany have more than ever the power of altering according to their common views the treaty of 1815; but the continued dissensions in Germany may induce a condition of affairs rendering the "intervention of foreigners" indispen- sable.
The Berlin papers report, that in a Cabinet Council held on the 11th instant, a memorandum of the contested points between Prussia and Austria was drawn up, which stated that Prussia neither directly nor in- directly supported at the Dresden Conferences the demand of Austria for the admission to the Confederation of all her provinces; and that Prussia would not herself enter the Bund with her own non-German provinces.
The temporary building in which the Upper Chamber of the.Prusaian. Parliament assembled was destroyed by fire on the night of the 10th : the archives were preserved.
THE CADE OF GOOD HOPE.—The Bosphorus steam-ship, pioneer of the new line of mail steam-ships to the Cape of Good Hope, has made her first homeward voyage. She arrived at Plymouth on Wednesday, in thirty-eight days from Table Bay, with advises from Cape Town to the. 2d February, which extend the information from the seat of the Caffre war nearly a month later than last week's. The incidents of the nar- rative, however, are less important than interesting.
We stated how Sir Harry Smith had regained KingWilliam's Town from Fort Cox, at the head of a flying escort ; and how he was directing all his energies towards concentrating from Cape Town, Graham's Town, and Natal, a sufficient body of regular troops, and British and Native volun- teers, to relieve the invested forts and subdue the Caffres. The substance of the additional news is, that the Governor had continued those preps= rations so far that he was just about ready to start forward when the latest advises were despatched to this country ; and that in the meanwhile several minor engagements had been fought by the garrisons of the in- vested forts with their besiegers —all to our advantage. These events may be briefly noted in their chronological order. On the 3d of January, a force of Caffres attacked Fort White, which is the fort nearest to King William's Town—about twenty miles from it. Two of Sandilli's brothers commanded. The small garrison under Cap- tain Mansergh reserved their fire till the Caffiss were on the breastworks, and then poured in a charge that killed twenty Caffres on the spot, and caused a retreat.
On the 7th of January, the Caffre chief Hermanus, who received from our Government a large grant of territory on the lilinkwater, in the district of Albany to the North of Fort Beaufort, gathered all his dependents, Caffre and Hottentot, and attacked Fort Beau- fort. But friendly warning of the attack had been received, and the defence was most successfully waged. The attacking force was defeated, and totally dispersed. Hermanus himself was slain ; and his body was carried into the fort and placed in the middle of the square with the British flag over it, an example to all Hottentot beholders. Sir Harry Smith followed up this success of one of his outposts, with a proclamation declaring that the Crown lands granted to Hermanus had become forfeited by his treachery ; that "the successors of Bemoans, and all their rebellious people, are for ever expelled from the limits of the colony " ; and that all men of this "wicked location," seen within the colony, are to be regarded as enemies and dealt with accordingly. On the 21st of January, the most severe action that had oc- curred was fought between six thousand Caffre besiegers of Fort Hare, with its adjacent Fingo village of Alice, and the garrison of that outpost—about as many hundreds—under Major Somerset. Fort Hare lies beyond Fort White, from King William's Town. This attack was most determined : the Caffres came on in regular divisions of columns, and steadily braved a fire from two twenty-four pounders in the embmzures of the fort. It was indeed the fire of these formidable pieces of ordnance that broke and disorganised the attack. Profiting by the havoc and confusion they caused, the garrison sallied with concentration and bravery, and, after a stubborn hand-to-hand conflict, compelled the Caffres to draw off. Upwards of a hundred Caffres were left dead on the ground. The Fingoes, a native race, formerly held in bondage by the Caffres, from which they were delivered in the war of 1836 and brought within the colony, and who have ever since been friendly to the British against the aggressive Caffre,s, behaved with remarkable courage, and greatly contributed to the success. An affair occurred to the West of King William's Town, on the 24th of January, in which a small party of Fingoes, under British command, defeated a much larger body of Seyolo's Caffres. Sir Harry Smith issued a general order praising the valour of this body of " intrepid Fin- goes " for the mode in which they drove off the party of "bullying Caffres."
Pato continued stanch ; and by his means the communication between King William's Town and East London, at the mouth of the Buffalo River, was kept open. The accounts are not clear as to the number of troops yet arrived at King William's Town. Their number appears to be at least 1600; and two pieces of field artillery have arrived. The Burgher volunteers and Native allies would seem to raise the whole force at Sir Harry Smith's command to about 6000 men. It was understood that he purposed to march on Fort White, and into the heart of Sandilli's territory, about the end of January ; in hopes that Sandilli would "make a stand"—accept a general defeat.
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