Mr. Webster has written a letter to G. A. Travenner, Esq., of Virginia, in reply to inquiries as to the proceedings in Congress on the resolution of Mr. Jackson, noticed under our Congressional summary. Mr. Webster reiterates his own entire approbation of the Compromise measures, as necessary and expedient, and of the Fugitive Slave Law, as "entirely constitutional, highly proper, and absolutely essential to the peace of the country." He thinks that the public mind, both North and South, will eventually come right upon this subject, and does not believe that further agitation can make any considerable progress in the North. He had noticed with regret the proceedings in Congress referred to, and in regard to them, he had only to say, "that gentlemen may not think it necessary or proper that they should be called upon to affirm by resolution that which is already the existing law of the land." He did not believe that any positive movement, to repeal or alter any or all the Compromise measures, would meet with any general encouragement or support. At all events, he adds, "my own sentiments remain, and are likely to remain, quite unchanged. I am in favor of upholding the Constitution in the general, and all its particulars. I am in favor of respecting its authority and obeying its injunctions; and to the end of life shall do all in my power to fulfill, honestly and faithfully, all its provisions. I look upon the Compromise measures as a proper, fair, and final adjustment of the questions to which they relate, and no re-agitation of those questions, no new opening of them, will ever receive from me the least countenance or support, concurrence or approval, at any time, or under any circumstances."
A meeting of the Whig members of the New York Legislature was held at the capital on the 7th, at which resolutions were passed expressing a preference for General Scott as Whig candidate for the Presidency, by a vote of 50 yeas and 1 nay. —— The birthday of Henry Clay was celebrated by a public dinner at New York. Senator Jones of Tennessee was present, and made the principal speech. —— The Whigs of North Carolina met in State Convention on the 19th of April, and adopted resolutions expressing a decided preference for Mr. Fillmore as candidate for the Presidency, but avowing their willingness to support any nominee of the National Convention who was "beyond doubt in favor of sustaining the Compromise measures." They also opposed the doctrine of intervention, and disapproved the action of Congress by which so large a portion of the public lands is given to new States, or to railroad companies.
Very heavy floods have been experienced in various parts of the country. At Pittsburgh, on the 19th of April, the water in the Ohio began to rise, and on the 21st it had risen thirty feet—submerging a large portion of the lower parts of the city and adjoining villages. Seven lives were reported to have been lost, and property to the amount of very nearly half a million of dollars had been destroyed. Great damage was also done to the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. In Western Virginia and Maryland, in parts of Ohio, and in Central Massachusetts, there have been very extensive and destructive freshets. —— The month has been marked by numerous and disastrous steam-boat explosions and casualties at sea. The steamer Saluda, bound for Council Bluffs, burst her boilers at Lexington, Mo., on the 9th of April, and nearly one hundred lives were lost. All her officers, except the first clerk and mate, were killed; many of her passengers were Mormon emigrants, on their way to the Great Salt Lake.—The Glencoe burst two of her boilers on the 2d, while attempting to effect a landing at St. Louis, and being driven into the stream by the force of the explosion, immediately took fire. The number of persons killed and missing was sixty-five, and thirty-five more were severely wounded. She had just arrived from New Orleans, and had about a hundred and fifty passengers on board.—On the 3d, the steamer Redstone, from Madison, Indiana, for Cincinnati, burst her boilers while backing out from a landing near Carrollton. Ten or twelve persons were killed.—The steamer Independence, from New Orleans, was wrecked on the bar of Matagorda Bay on the 26th of March, with a loss of seven lives.—The steamer Prairie State, at Pekin, Ill., on the 25th of March, collapsed her flues while leaving the wharf, scalding and wounding some twenty persons, mostly of the crew or deck passengers.—An English bark, the Josepha, from Bristol, went ashore on the 19th of April, off Provincetown, Mass., thirteen of her crew, with two persons who attempted to go from the shore to their rescue, perished.—The schooner Trumlett, of Nova Scotia, went ashore on Squam Beach, N. J., on the 28th, three persons being drowned; and the schooner San Luis was wrecked on the same beach on the 21st, with the loss of all on board.—This is a fearful list of disasters for a single month. —— A letter from Mr. Clay has been published, stating that he had given Governor Kossuth no cause of offense by his remarks at their interview in Washington, and denying that the meeting could properly be considered private or confidential.
Governor Kossuth has returned from his Southern tour, and, having visited New Haven, Hartford, and Springfield, was at Boston at the date of our Record. He had a public reception from the Legislature, and on the 31st was honored by a Legislative banquet in Faneuil Hall. His speeches have been devoted to an exposition of the duty of nations to aid each other in their struggles for freedom, and to urging the claims of Hungary upon the people of the United States.
John Young, ex-Governor of the State of New-York, died in this City on the 30th of April, in his fiftieth year. He was born in Vermont in 1802, and removed to Livingston County, New York, while very young. He was admitted to the bar in 1829, and was elected a Member of Assembly in 1830. In 1849 he was elected Member of Congress, and in 1844 went again to the Assembly, where he took a prominent part in promoting the call of a Convention to revise the State Constitution. In 1846 he was elected Governor, and was appointed to the office which he held at the date of his death by President Taylor in 1849. He was a man of great energy of character, of good intellectual faculties, and of amiable disposition and manners. Hon. Luther Bradish has been appointed to succeed him.
Professor B. B. Edwards, distinguished as a scholar and a divine, died on the 26th of April at Athens, Georgia, whither he had gone for his health. He was a native of Northampton, Mass., a graduate of Amherst College and Andover Theological Seminary, and first became known as Editor of the Quarterly Register and Biblical Repository. He subsequently became Professor of Biblical Interpretation and Literature at Andover, and conducted the Bibliotheca Sacra. He has also written several works of marked merit upon religious topics, as well as classical books intended for the use of students. He was a scholar of large acquirements, a most estimable man and a devoted Christian.
Gen. Solomon Van Rensselaer, of New York, distinguished in the last war with England, died at his residence near Albany on the 23d of April, at the age of 78.—Hon. James A. Meriwether, of Georgia, died at his residence in that State on the 19th April. Although in the prime of life, he had been a prominent man in the State, and had filled many distinguished stations with credit to himself and honor to the State. He had filled the several offices of State Legislator, Representative in Congress, Judge of the Superior Court, and Speaker of the House of Representatives of Georgia, in all of which he evinced a high order of talent, and a zeal and energy of character which pre-eminently distinguished him among his associates.—Rev. Dr. Elijah Hedding, the senior Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, died at Poughkeepsie, after a long and painful illness. He has been distinguished for over half a century for extensive learning, for great purity and simplicity of character, and the fervent admiration which he inspired in all who came within his influence.
From California we have intelligence to the 5th of April. The aggregate shipments of gold at San Francisco, from the 1st of January to the 1st of April, amounted to $7,710,932; and two or three millions more were sent out in steamers of the 2d and 5th of April. The Legislature was still in session. The bill allowing long contracts to be made for Coolie labor from China, and for calling a Convention to revise the State Constitution, were still pending. The prevalent floods had entirely subsided, and spring had fully opened. Great activity prevailed at the mines, and their returns continued to be large. New discoveries were constantly made, and every thing promised a season of remarkable success. It would be useless to attempt to give here any detailed notice of the several locations at which rich deposits have been recently found; but from the Nevada placers, the Southern mines, on the Yuba and Feather rivers and their branches, and in the Sonora region, the reports are all in the highest degree encouraging.—At San Francisco matters were quiet, the threatened action of the Vigilance Committee having thoroughly alarmed the rogues. At Mokelumne Hill a Mexican named Eslava was executed for robbery, under sentence of the Vigilance Committee. It is stated that great numbers of Chinese are on their way to California, and that over three thousand were already located in the country. They are industrious, peaceable, and generally successful. The projected establishment of a line of steamers between San Francisco and the coast of China can not fail to exert a most important influence on the affairs of Eastern Asia. The gentlemen attached to the Boundary Commission had left San Francisco for San Diego, preparatory to starting across the plains by the way of the Gila and the Rio Grande, with a view to the completion of their work. The winter in California has been very severe, and business of all kinds in the country districts has been obstructed by heavy falls of snow. Further Indian difficulties have occurred on the Klamath river. An Indian was shot at Happy Camp for stealing a knife, and, in revenge, a miner who was supposed to have killed him, was shot by the Indians. The whites soon after collected a large company, and on the 12th surrounded all the Indian lodges at the Indian ferry, and shot all the men, with several squaws, and destroyed the rancho. A similar scene occurred two miles above. About thirty or forty Indians were killed.
SANDWICH ISLANDS.
We have news from Honolulu to the 13th of March. An act has been passed by the Hawaiian Parliament admitting all flour, fish, coal, lumber, staves and heading from the United States, into the Islands free of all duty, provided the government of the United States will admit the sugar, syrup, molasses, and coffee of the Hawaiian Kingdom into all United States ports on the same terms. The volcano of Mauna Loa is in a state of renewed activity. The eruption is described as one of the finest ever witnessed. A jet of molten lava, a hundred feet in diameter, is hurled five hundred feet into the air, and on falling, sweeps its fiery course toward the sea. The stream has filled up ravines, and swept away forests. The altitude of the present eruption is about ten thousand feet above the level of the sea.