Maumee City Express

LATER FROM ENGLAND.

Arrival of the Steam Ship British Queen.

The Steam Ship British Queen reached the city at about two o'clock on Friday afternoon. She sailed from Portsmouth on the 4th, and brings us London papers to the 2d instant.

Correspondence of the N. Y. Courier and Enquirer.

London, August 21st, 1839.

As the British Queen leaves the Thames in the course of to-morrow, and there is very little probability that the letters of Monday morning will arrive in time at Portsmouth on Monday, I send you, under these circumstances, the intelligence from London to the latest time this afternoon.

Since the departure of the Great Western steam ship, affairs have generally remained in a dull and very unimproving state. The weather has been not unfavorable for the harvest, and some portion of the crops has been secured in the Southern counties; but on the average of the Kingdom, the reports would lead to the conclusion that only a September of very extraordinary heat could repair the effects of a summer of so much cold and rain--and, therefore, that the real chances now are, that the whole produce of this year will be not more than equal to that of 1838--which exhibited a deficiency of about 20 per cent. on all descriptions of grain. There are however, very wide differences in the estimates and conjectures from various parts of the three Kingdoms--some describing the appearance of the crops as abundant and excellent in quality, and others as backward and deficient in fullness of weight --the true probability being, that as the summer has been so similar to that of last year, the final result of the harvest will be about the same. On this supposition there is nothing very cheering in the prospects of the Kingdom at the present time--for the deficiency of the harvest of the recent year having been the grand cause of all the monetary mercantile and political embarrassment, it is too probable that the same high prices of the necessaries of life and dullness of all mercantile affairs may be expected to continue to prevail for a long period to come. The prospects of the country may be perhaps estimated by nothing more correctly than the state of the London corn market, which has been without any decline during the last two market days, although the average price of the Kingdom given at the high rate of 70s 10d per quarter in the Gazette of Friday last, and the duty on foreign wheat within one penny of the amount at which the duty would have been reduced 4s per quarter on foreign wheat. These prices are so much too high for the prosperity of the commerce and manufactures of the country, that every thing being fairly taken into consideration, it is too probable that though if severe misery be escaped, at least very little prosperity or activity can be anticipated for the commerce of the ensuing year. In London the weather has to day been rainy and warm, but the rains have recently been observed to be so partial, that perhaps this may not have been the state of the weather in the country at large.

The money market, which was commencing to exhibit symptoms of improvement at the time of the sailing of the Great Western, has again relapsed into a condition of pressure and distrust. The publication of the monthly official return of the assets and liabilities of the Bank of England appear in the Gazette of the night of Friday last, and to the surprise of the monetary world, exhibited another large diminution of the bullion, to the amount of no less than £520,000 within the preceding month. For all parties appeared immediately before this publication to feel assured that a large increase in the gold was to be announced--and even the Directors themselves must have been under some misapprehension of the state of their affairs, for in lieu of lowering the rate of interest of money and extending their circulation, of which some of their body were assuredly speaking immediately before, they have since been largely contracting their discounts, and money consequently has become exceedingly difficult to be obtained, and the rates of interest higher than at any former time. Indeed, the appearance of the corn market is such that the importations of foreign wheat are expected to be continued for some time to come, and thence the demand for gold may almost immediately exhaust the comparatively trifling amount remaining at the Bank. The present prospect is, therefore that the pressure for money will not be diminished, unless upon the slender chance of the harvest being yet so full and abundant as to bring down the value of corn to a rate which would occasion the closing of the ports against a trade in foreign corn.

In American securities there is absolutely a perfect stagnation, and the slight improvement which it was so agreeable to notice at the time of the sailing of the Great Western, has since entirely disappeared. Excepting in the shares of the Bank of the United States there is nothing whatever salable to any amount, and even these have declined 10s since the arrival of the unfavorable monetary intelligence by the Independence packet ship of the 7th of the recent month.

Some of the bankers here have been proposing petitions to the various State Governments, for the establishment of sinking funds for the diminution and redemption of the various European loans. It is thought that the adoption of this principle would give a higher character to the various stocks.

The cotton market at Liverpool, which was very animated at the time of your last accounts by the Great Western, has again become depressed, and according to the accounts received this morning, the business was very dull during yesterday, and the sales only 5000 bales at a reduction of 1-8 per lb. The entire importation of the week has been 37,802 bales, and the sales 33,840, of which 24,890 were American of various kinds. The stock therefore is increased by several thousand bales, and the demand being daily decreased at the same time, would lead to a supposition of further decline in the price, in the course of the ensuing week.

In London no American cottons have been sold and the sales of East India has been only to the trifling extent of 600 bales of Surat at 5d a 6d, and 300 Madras at 5d per pound.

The other markets are all in a state of stagnation, with the exception of the iron trade, which remains prosperous in Wales -the price of bar iron having not yet been lower than the high price of £9 per ton.

The Parliament was prorogued by the Queen on Wednesday last, and will not again meet until February next. Before the close of the session, a very powerful speech was made by Lord Lyndhurst in the House of Lords, condemning and ridiculing the administration as consisting of a useless body of men, as proved by a review of the whole progress of the session, in which nothing of the slightest importance had been effected, with the exception of the Penny Postage Bill. The session certainly has been a very unproductive one, and the Whig administration is viewed with indifference and contempt by the nation at large.

7 P. M. Saturday.--The markets have all closed very dull this afternoon. Exchequer Bills only 6s pr., and Consols 3/8 per ct. lower than the opening price. The interest of money has been 6 and 7 per cent on the best security. The rain continues to the present hour.

The following paragraph is from the London Times of the 16th:

'In a letter from our Paris correspondent, published in the Times of the 1st instant, it was stated that a negociation was in progress between the French Government and General Henderson for a treaty of amity and commerce with the republic of Texas; and that Mr. Hughes, the Charge d'Affairs from the United States at Stockholm has acting as Mediator. We now learn from authority, that a negociation for such a treaty has been opened in Paris, but not, as our correspondent had been informed, through the medium of Mr. Hughes, but of Mr. Pontois, the French Minister to the United States, now in Paris, and of General Cass, the American Minister to the French Government.'