opening of the five ports, have more than doubled in value.

"The British interest in the indirect trade is also worthy of notice. In
addition to the large balance against us on the direct trade, we have to
provide for that created by the excess of value in exports to Australia,
America, &c, all of which are paid for by bills drawn on London. We may
except a small portion remitted direct by Australia in gold. India forms
the only exception. Her exports amount to over nine millions, while the
imports are under one million. In this way we settle, indirectly, the
balance of trade."

The commerce with Japan was too imperfectly organized at the period
when this History closes to afford reliable statistics. It was, however,
considerable, especially in mineral productions. Gold, silver, copper,
and iron abounded; and as the Portuguese and Dutch in former days
enriched themselves by importing the precious metals from Japan, so it
promised, in 1859, to be the Ophir of the Eastern seas, if not of the
world. The war with China, and the opening of commercial relations with
Japan, were not the only matters of interest in the relations of England
to these countries. Russia opened a negotiation with the Japanese
emperor, for the cession of a position upon a small island, which there
was no doubt in England was intended as a _point d'appui_ for Russian
aggression. In China the same power made prodigious inroads, and it was
believed in Great Britain and in India, that Russian agents and Russian
material of war contributed to the defeat of Admiral Hope and his French
allies in the Peiho.

The following communication from St. Petersburg contains interesting
details relative to the extension of the Russian dominions in Asia:--"I
have received an interesting letter from the harbour of Weg-Chaz-Weg, in
the Yellow Sea, dated the 13th of July, 1858. It announces that
Count Mouravieff Amoorski arrived there that day on board the steamer
_America_, coming from Japan and Corea, to visit the coast of China. The
port is in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Pechelee. Colonel Boudgoski,
chief of the commission for fixing the boundaries between the Russian
possessions in Mantchouria and the celestial empire, is going to Pekin
to obtain the approbation and definitive confirmation of the new limits
of Russia in Asia. According to the new line, the entire coast of
Mantchouria, on the Yellow Sea, and all that part of the country
not hitherto claimed by a