The Express.
London, England, 1863-12-22 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE

NEW YORK, Dsc. 11. EvErnrc.

Money tight. Gold opened this morning at 52,
but has since declined, and closed at 501. under the
influence of Secretary Chase's message. Exchange
on London, 165 ; ou Paris, 3.35. Stocks heavy.
New York Centrals, 134. Illinois Central, 1171 ;
Erie, 105&. Six per Cent. United States Bonds,
1041 ex dividend.
Cotton quiet. Middling Upland, 78 to 79c. Flour
and corn quiet. Wheat advancing. Provisions
dull. Coffee quiet. Sugar dull. Molasses heavy.
Petroleum quiet and unchanged ; crude, 32 to 331;
refined, 46 to 48.

NEW YORE, Dac. 12, MORNING.
Federal despatches confirm the report that Long-
street is at Morristown, East Tennessee.
The monitor Weehawken, lying at the entrance
of Charleston harbour, stink suddenly at her an-
chorage during a gale. She went down very rapidly.
Four engineers and twenty-six of her crew were
drowned. She is lying in five fathoms of water,
and will be raised, when the cause of her sinking
will be ascertained.

A fuller summary of President Davis's message
has been received. H 7 sari : " Whatever obeti-

[TWOPENCE

nacy may be displayed by the enemy in his despe-
rate sacrifices of money, life, and liberty, in the
hope of enslaving us, experience of mankind has
too conclusively shown the superior endurance of
those fighting for horn; liberty, and independence,
to permit any doubt of the result." He bitterly
criticises Earl Russell's policy in regard to the
blockade ; and referring to Earl Russell's speech
that Englishmen would have been for ever infa-
mous if, for the sake of their interests, they had
violated the law of nations and made war with
the slaveholding States against the Federal States,
says :—" Earl Russell would probably have
omitted his remark regarding the slaveholding
States if he had remembered that those States were
when colonies made slaveholding by the direct exer-
cise of England's power, whose interests in the
slave trade were then supposed to require that her
colonies should be slaveholding." President Davis
says there are only two measures applicable to the
present condition of foreign relations. One is to
imitate the wrong under which the Confederate
States suffer, namely, to retaliate by declaring a
paper blockade of the Federal coasts, and capturing
all neutral vessela trading to Northern porta.
" This course I do not recommend, although it
would only be following the precedents of France
and England in the Berlin and Milan decrees. "

-
The other measure is not so objectionable. The
Paris declaration provides that a neutral Sag
coven an enemy's goods, except contraband of war.
The South acceded to this declaration by the treaty
of August, 1861, but the consideration tendered for •
that concession has been withheld, and she is there-
fore not bound by the compact. As, however, the
South approves of the principle of the Paris decla-
ration, she will uphold it, and hope for redress
from the returning sense of justice of the great
people, who will awake to the consciousness that the
war in which the South is engaged ought rather to
be a reason for forbearance of an advantage than
the occasion for unfriendly conduct.