Webster in the Department of State, transmitted to the
respective Ministers of France and England the views
of the President; who respectfully declined to enter
into the proposed tripartite arrangement. A long and
comprehensive statement of the President's reasons for
declining is given. "It is, in the first place, in his
judgment, clear, as far as the respect due from the
Executive to a coordinate branch of the Government
will permit him to anticipate its decision, that no such
convention would be viewed with favour by the Senate.
Its certain rejection by that body would leave the
question of Cuba a more unsettled question than it is
now. This objection would not require the President
to withhold his concurrence from the convention if no
other objection existed, and if a strong sense of the
utility of the measure rendered it his duty, as far as the
Executive action is concerned, to give his consent to the
arrangement. Such, however, is not the case. The
convention would be of no value unless it were lasting.
Accordingly, its terms express a perpetuity of purpose
and obligation. Now, it may well be doubted whether
the constitution of the United States would allow the
treaty-making power to impose a permanent disability
on the American Government for all coming time, and
prevent it, under any future change of circumstances,
from doing what lias been so often done in times past."
He refers to the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, and
Florida in 1819. Another reason is the aversion to
European alliances prevalent in America. He states
the views of the President with respect to Cuba. "The
island of Cuba lies at our doors; it commands the
approach of the Gulf of Mexico, which washes the shores
of five of our States; it bars the entrance to that great
river which drains half the North American continent,
and with its tributaries forms the largest system of
internal water communication in the world; it keeps
watch at the door-way of our intercourse with California
by the Isthmus route. If an island like Cuba, belonging
to the Spanish Crown, guarded the entrance to the
Thames or the Seine, and the United States should
propose a convention like this to France and England,
those Powers would assuredly feel that the disability
assumed by ourselves was far less serious than that which
asked them to assume. The opinions of American
statesmen, at different times and under varying
circumstances, have differed as to the desirableness of the
acquisition of Cuba by the United States. Territorially
and commercially, it would, in our hands, be an
extremely valuable possession; under certain
contingencies, it might be almost essential to our safety: still,
for domestic reasons, on which in a communication of
this kind it might not be proper to dwell, the President
thinks that the incorporation of the island into the
Union at the present time, although effected with the
consent of Spain, would be a hazardous measure; and
he would consider its acquisition by force, except in a
just war with Spain, should an event so greatly to be
deprecated take place, as a disgrace to the civilisation of
the age." "That a convention," he continues, "such
as is proposed, would be a transitory arrangement, sure
to be swept away by the irresistible tide of affairs in a
new country, is, to the apprehension of the President,
too obvious to require a laboured argument. The
project rests upon principles applicable, if at all, to
Europe, where international relations are in their basis
of great antiquity, slowly modified for the most part, in
the progress of time and events, and not applicable to
America, which, but lately a waste, is filling up with
intense rapidity, and adjusting on natural principles
those territorial relations which on the first discovery of
the continent were in a good degree fortuitous." He
illustrates his position by a rapid sketch of the comparative
history of Europe and America since 1752; showing
the enormous progressive territorial development of the
United States, at the expense of France and Spain;
until the only possessions left to Spain are Cuba and
Porto Rico. "Respectful sympathy with the fortunes
of an ancient ally and gallant people, with whom the
United States have ever maintained the most friendly
relations, would, if no other reason existed, make it our
duty to leave her in the undisturbed possession of this
little remnant of her mighty Transatlantic empire.
The President desires to do so. No word or deed of his
will ever question her title or shake her possession: but
can it be expected to last very long? Can it resist this
mighty current in the fortunes of the world? Is it
desirable that it should do so? Can it be for the
interest of Spain to cling to a possession that can only
be maintained by a garrison of 25,000 or 30,000 troops,
a powerful naval force, and an annual
expenditure for both arms of the service of at least
12,000,000 dollars? Cuba at this moment costs
more to Spain than the entire naval and
military establishments of the United States cost the
Federal Government." There is no hope of a complete
cessation of the slave-trade while Cuba remains a Spanish
colony. "In the judgement of the President, it would
be as easy to throw a dam from Cape Florida to Cuba,
in the hope of stopping the flow of the Gulf stream, as
to attempt by a compact like this to fix the fortunes of
Cuba now and for hereafter." Instead of putting a stop
to lawless expeditions, Mr. Everett believes it would
give a new and powerful impulse to them, and would
strike a death-blow at the conservative policy of the
United States in relation to Cuba.—In the Senate, on
the 4th, Mr. Cass introduced tbe following resolution;
which was ordered to be printed—"Be it resolved, that
the United States do hereby declare, that the American
continents, by the free and independent condition which
they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not
to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by
any European power; and, while existing rights should
be respected, and will be, by the United States, they
owe it to their own safety and interests to announce, as
they now do, that no future European colony or
dominion shall, with their consent, be planted or
established on any part of the American continent; and
should the attempt be made, they thus deliberately
declare that it will be viewed as an act originating in
motives regardless of their interests and their safety, and
which will leave them free to adopt such measures as an
independent nation may justly adopt in defence of its
rights and its power. And be it further resolved, that
while the United States disclaim any designs upon the
island of Cuba, inconsistent with the laws of nations and
with their duties to Spain, they consider it due to the
vast importance of the subject to make known in this
solemn manner, that they should view all efforts on the
part of any other power to procure possession, whether
peaceably or forcibly, of that island—which, as a naval
or military position, must, under circumstances easily to
be foreseen, become dangerous to their Southern coast,
to the Gulf of Mexico, and to the mouth of the Mississippi
—as unfriendly acts directed against them, and to
be resisted by all the means in their power."

General Franklin Pierce, the President-elect, has lost
his only son, in a railway accident on the line between
Boston and Concord. The details of this deplorable
occurrence are taken from a New York paper:—"The ,
train consisted only of one 72 passenger-car, a baggage-
car, and the engine. It left Boston at a quarter–past
12 o'clock on the 6th instant, for Concord, N.H., and
reached Andover soon after one. The catastrophe
happened about two miles beyond the depot; and was
occasioned by the breaking of the flange of one of the
rear wheels, and also the axletree. The train was
running at the time at a high rate of speed, say 40 miles
an hour. The passenger-car at once became detached,
and after proceeding some ten rods, ran off the track,
and then went over the embankment. The precipice
was some 12 or 15 feet in depth, and at the bottom
was a pile of stones. The car turned completely over;
and the passengers, some 60 in number, were thrown
into a state of the greatest confusion. When the car
fell, the stove, containing burning coal, was thrown
upon several of the passengers, burning them and
destroying their clothes. The wife and daughter of
Charles Marsh, apothecary of Roxbury, had their
clothes destroyed; themselves slightly burned. General
Pierce occupied a forward seat. His wife sat beside
him, and his son sat in front, on the side-seat behind
the door. As the car approached the precipice, he
put his arm round his wife, and bent forward to catch
his son. At this moment the car went over, and
glided down the bank on its side. It is believed that
a rock penetrated the window behind young Pierce