I Find Mr. Alien Sent Out By The Admiralty A Very Agreeable Companion.

(Signed,) Richard Lander.

From the account of the seaman who was the bearer of it from Richard Lander to his brother in Liverpool, some further information was obtained, that all the vessels of the expedition had reached the Eboe country previously to the sailors leaving the Nun river. The seaman stated that the steamers stemmed the current bravely, and ascended the Niger with apparent ease.

The following extract of a letter from Sierra Leone, dated May 23, contains some interesting intelligence respecting the expedition:

The boats of his majesty's ship Curlew had boarded the Columbine about the 20th April, the master of which vessel had died a few weeks previously. The doctor on board the Columbine had received letters from Mr. Lander dated from king Obie's palace at Eboe, about three weeks after they had sailed from the entrance of the river Nun. King Obie had treated them with much kindness, and had made Lander a present of some canoes, with people to pilot them up the river. A few days before their arrival at Eboe, the steamers sent their boats ashore to cut wood. They were fired upon by the inhabitants of a village, and obliged to return. The next morning a large number of men were sent armed, these were immediately fired upon by the natives. The Quorra then sent a signal rocket into the town, and continued firing her long gun at intervals for an hour and a half. The natives still continuing to fire, the crews of both the steamers landed and drove them out of the town or village, and then burned it to the ground. Three of the natives were found killed, and one was dying, one or two of the English were slightly wounded. The news of this engagement reached Eboe before the steamer, and Mr. Lander is of opinion, it will have a salutary effect on the natives up the river, and be the means of preventing any further resistance. Nine men are said to have died before they left the Nun, and two or three afterwards. There was also an American merchant brig, the Agenoria, lying in the Nun. She had been fitted out by a company of merchants of New Providence to explore the Niger. She had with her two small schooners, which were to proceed up the river, while she remained at the entrance. Nearly all the white men belonging to these vessels had died, and the remainder appeared in the most wretched state, and they had abandoned all intention of attempting to proceed up the river with the schooners, it being considered impossible to do so with any sailing vessel. The brig intended to procure a cargo of palm oil, and proceed to the United States. The Agenoria was fitted out secretly by the company, and had cleared out for a whaling voyage.

No doubt whatever exists, and the sequel fully confirms the opinion, that the conduct observed by the crews of the steamers in attacking and destroying the town of the natives was highly impolitic and uncalled for. It is true the natives had commenced the attack, and we have only to refer to the accounts transmitted to us, of various travellers on penetrating into the country of a savage people, and especially a people of the depraved nature of the Africans, with whom Lander had to deal, that they are generally the first to resort to force, not so much with the hope of victory, as with the desire of plunder. In the generality of cases, however, it is to be found that the hostility on the part of the natives was more easy to be quelled by a show of forbearance and an inclination to enter into terms of amity with them, than by an open desire to meet force by force. Lander was by no means ignorant of the African character, he came not amongst them as a perfect stranger, and in all his former transactions with the natives, he had invariably found that he ultimately obtained their good will by a show of forbearance and lenity, more than by a determined spirit of resistance and reprisal. In no instance was this principle more completely verified than in the travels of Major Denham, in which in several instances, had he not maintained a complete control over his temper, on the insults and affronts offered to him by the natives, the consequences, would doubtless have been fatal to him, and although the natives were, in the case of Lander, undoubtedly the aggressors, yet had a temper of conciliation been manifested towards them, that spirit of hatred and of vengeance would not have been awakened in their breasts, which led to a most fatal catastrophe, and to the death of one of the most enterprising travellers, who ever attempted to explore the interior of Africa.

For some reason not properly explained, Richard Lander, returned to Fernando Po on the 1st May from the Quorra steam boat, which he had left afloat in deep water, near the River Tchadda. From her he descended the Niger in a native canoe, and arrived on board the brig Columbine, which was lying in the Nun River, having been 13 days on his passage. During this period he stopped to sleep every night at a native village on the banks of the Niger.

At Fernando Po, Mr. Lander was evidently very ill, though he was rapidly recovering from an attack of the dysentery, with which he had been afflicted for some months. His object in returning alone to Fernando Po, was to procure medicines, as well as tea and other condiments, for the use of the invalids on board the steam boats. The reports of the grievous mortality which had prevailed on board the steamers were confirmed by the arrival of Lander; the number of deaths on board the vessels had indeed been frightfully great; no fewer than twenty-five had perished before Mr. Lander undertook his journey to the coast, including most of the officers and engineers.

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