The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-24 00:00:00

[litamped, ld. Additional.]

AMERICA.

(nom ma SPZCIAL CORILLIPONDMIT.)
NEW YORK, D=c. 10.

If anything would put to shame the crowd of
"Southern gentlemen" by whom London and
Paris and New York have been infested for the
last three years, it would be the opinion of them
and their doings entertained by their own country-
men and government. I of course r4sr to that
portion of them who have cast off theii allegiance
to the United States, and who desire the success of
the revolution. There is a small number who have
been forced to abandon their homes in consequence
of their attachment to the old order of things ; but
the vast majority are persons who, while pro-
fessing the greatest devotion to the Confederacy,
have quitted it merely because they are un-
willing to share the sufferings and sacrifices
necessary for its defence. These people are
found in great numbers in all the hotels,
boarding-houses, and lodging-houses both here
and in the European capitals. A very large pro-
portion of them are persons like Mr. Slidell, of
Northern and very humble origin, and yet parade
themselves in English and French drawing-rooms era
representatives of the " Southern aristocracy,"
"descendants of the cavaliers," tkc., and make a
prodigious show of devotion to the Confederate
cause by diligently abusing Lincoln and the
Yankees, and sending "heartrending" and lying
letters to the Times and Morninj Herald. But
this is the only kind of service the Confederacy has
ever been able toget out of them. Those of them who
are able to scrape any money together devote them-
selves to speculation in cotton and Confederate
bonds, and to blockade running, and endeavour to
console themselves for the misfortunes which have
overtaken their beloved country by making as much
money out of them as possible. Those of them who,
while detesting the "Lincoln despotism," have
not the smallest hesitation about living under it,
occupy themselves as spies, Confederate mail
agents, hatchery of plots, and in writing virulent
abuse of the government for that portion of the
"gagged press" of the North which is devoted to
Confederate interests. In the begiuuing of the
war the absence of these worthies from the land
of their love was not only not of much consequence,
but was productive of some benefit to it. They
are generally glibe, facile, and plausible, like most
shirkers of danger and responsibility, and were con-
sequently useful iu humbugging and hoodwinking
Europeans, who previously knew nothing whatever
of American affairs, about the causes and tendencies
of the struggle. But the period of their usefulness
in this way has passed, and the Confederacy is
just now in sore need not of their tongues, but of
their arms. The great want of the South at present
is not of adventurers to give specimens of its "de-
portment " abroad, but of able-bodied men to fill
the ranks of its armies at home. Governor Brown,
of Georgia, has just liberated the convicts in the
gaol at Macon, and put anus into their bawls. I
should think that when the " cultivated gentlemen"
of the South, who are now entertaining Londoners
with stories of Confederate wrongs, hear of
this, they would, "all business and excuses being
laid aside," at once go home. How little grati-
tude is felt by their countrymen for the services
they are rendering their cause abroad, may be in-
ferred from the following passage about them
from the liteltmonci Examiner of Dec. 6 :
We cannot account for the large numbers of Southern
people who are stated to be flocking into Gomm! Dix's
headquarters in New York for " registry." They must
be • very paltry set of poor devils, who have abandoned
their own country to avoid military dirty, or to spend oar
money, which they have stoles in Confederate service, or
to invent in Northern stocks and greenbacks the profits of
their blockade rosining trade. Whether any of these be
the sneaking felons who tried to set fire to the hotels we
are not ; the question is indifferent to us, yet email as our
interest may be in that abeeetes population, it is right to
say that no man in the world will believe the inceradiarism
was • rebel plot by reamer of &alibiing that any
Yankee can say or swear. The reward of fifty thousand
dollars will no doubt produce a cloud of witnesses pre.
pared not only to bring home the crime to Southern
slavebolders, but also to forge toil to prove the express
commission to burn New York, under the hand of the
Coefederate Secretary of State. Farther, if it should
have happened that some Southern seas who has seen
his own house burned by Yankee invaders, and his own
children turned naked out of doom, did repair to New York,
and then and there did lay the whole city in ashes, nobody
need wonder nor affect horror. In Richmond, dace this
war began, there have been at least twenty incendiary fires,
many of them evidently prepared in combination—not to
count, of course, the one arranged for us by Turpentine
Dahlgren. The destructive fire in Charleston, also, which
destroyed ore-third of the city, was almost beyond a doubt
the work of Yankee incendiaries—to say nothing of Gil-
more's "Greek fire." About seven towns have beau burned
in Georgia within the past month ; and as this was
done in the course of an unjust invasion, Gemmel Sher.
man, in burning each and every the of theme places,
was • viler criminal and baser felon than the man with
the black valise. Although, therefore, we wholly deny
that there was any "rebel plot" to destroy New York,
and that these States or this confederacy had any complicity
whatsoever with that tinny/action, yet if New York were
burned down, together with Boston and Philadelphia, by
vengeful and desperate men who have been burnt out of
house and home themselves, the incident would be sooth-
ing to every well regulated mind. In the meantime let
General Dix be strict in "registering" and keeping under
surveillance all the skulking Southerners he finds loafing in
New York. It will be well to know bow many of them are
there, and who they are. If we could also get from the
police books of Paris and Loudon • record of the numerous
Southern ladies and geothunen who are striving in those
cities to make the time pass pleasantly until this cruel
war is over—leaving the risk and privation to as at
home—together with the date of their appearance in those
capitals, and the length of time they stay them, it might
he useful for future reference. From private letters we learn
that in Paris especially are lugs numbers of Southerners,
many of them purporting to be Confederate officers, and
noouionally sporting the Confederate uniform, dawdling
is the cal& sod on the boulevards. They are beautiful to
look at; their uniforms are cut by Parisian tailors, and
their Lim and buttons dazzle the Champs Elysi'es. When
the Emperor reviews the troops the. gentlemen some-
times hire a hone, and are semi at the Champ de Man ;
for the gallant fellows take • great interest in military
matters-far from home. Several of them "were at the
battle of Jitheasaa "—they do not exactly specify
which—sod have even ornamental wounds. Of these
creatures some, we know, have been emit to Europe on
various frivolous pretexts, at their own request, but at
our espenee, by the State Dope:Went ; but the majority
have crept out of their country by various underhand and
nadergrocod ways, simply to avoid the service they owe
their country. They not only desert the Confederacy, but
libel it also, by presenting themselves as specimens of its
°Biases. They are worse then the man with the "black
valise ;" foe they will never set on fire even so moth as the
river Selma Faithful citizens, who take their stand with
their ormatry for weal or woe, will applaud the bill now
before Oorigrees for confiscating the property—if laity they
hath—of those who have quitted the Coefederacy during
the war without permission and without neconsity, and fat
dealing with them all se alien enemies. Those of them who
are of fighting age and not disabled are simply deserters,
sad the death of a dereeter would be too good for them.

[TWOPENCE

It is well to know that General Dix is keeping a sharp
look out upon that class of persona in New York. We
shall have an eye upon them at this side.

I may mention here, in reference to the allusion
in the above to the orders said to have been found
in Colonel Dahlgren's pocket by the "bush-
whackers " who killed and stripped his body, direct-
ing the burning of Richmond, and killing of the
Confederate leaders who might be caught in it,
that Admiral Dahlgren, Lis father, publicly pro-
nounced them three months ago to be a base and
malignant forgery. Photographs of them were
said to have beeu taken at Richmond, but it was
a long time before a copy could be procured, and
when at last one was furnished, the Admiral at
once pronounced the handwriting to be neither his
son's nor anything resembling hie son's.
The President's message only reached New York
an hour before the last mail closed, and I had con-
sequently notime to say anything either of it, or
of the manner in which it had been received by the
public. By the time this reaches you, you will
have had it before you for some days, and will
have formed your own judgment about it. His
failure to express any opinion as to the legality or
morality of the seizure of the Florida has naturally
disappointed and chagrined that portion of the
public here who are anxious that the United States
should cut a good figure in the matter in the eyes
of foreign nations. The language both of the mes-
sage and of the report of the Secretary of the Navy
is taken to indicate that the government will await
the Brazilian demands before deciding on its own
course ; but I ant told that there does not exist in
soy quarter the smallest disposition to avoid doing
substantial justice. Reparation will, I think, be
made ; but an effort will be made to diminish its
amount by urging on the consideration of the Bra-
zilian government such points as the essentially
English character of the Florida, both as regards
her origin, her crew and armament ; the abnormal
character given to her career by the fact that the
Confederacy has no ports, and that her base of
operations has always been on neutral soil ; sad
her having, as is alleged, ou various occasions
violated the rules laid down by Brazil for the pro-
tection of her neutrality ; and her having, as well
as the Alabama, by pushing Lord Stowell's rule to
its extreme limits, and burning every ship that fell
into her hands, aggravated the ordinary barbarity
of warfare. It will be maintained, I think, that
while none of these things can for a moment jus-
tify such an outrage as that committed by Captain
Collins, they may fairly be urged in mitigation of
damages ; and the correspondence of Mr. Pitt
with the British Minister at the Court of Portugal
in reference to the satisfaction to be given fur the
pursuit and destruction of some French ships on
Portuguese territory, has been cited in support of
this view of the subject. In that case no compen-
sation was ever made, but any apology was offered
that would not in its terms involve a censure on the
distinguished admiral who committed the outrage.
In fact, somebody, and it is said to be Mr.
Sumner, has taken the trouble to hunt up seven-
teen cases of violation of neutral jurisdiction
by British naval officers in which no reparation
was ever made. It is not pretended that these are
precedents which the United States would be justi-
fied in following ; and if not, you will probably ask
why cite them at all, especially in a controversy to
which England is not a party.
The answer is, that as usual the high moral tone
taken by the English press as soon as the news
reached England, and the sermons which it at
once set about delivering to the Yankees on the
atrocity of their behaviour, before one word was
known as to the light in which the Federal govern-
went would view the affair, produced the greatest
exasperation. When the news was received here,
the act of Captain Collins was universally con-
demned by the respectable portion of the press,
and as far as I was ever able to learn the public
acquiesced in their view of it. But the very next
mail brought the usual declaration from the
London press upon Yankee "bullying," " engem-
pulousueas, " " contempt for law," coupled,
as in the Trent affair, with the assumption
that the act was authorised by the government, and
that it would support it ; and there were some
hints, too, that the maritime powers would have to
interfere, I suppose to bring the " New York
mob" to its Pauses. You know very well by this
time what the effect of this always is on the Ame-
rican public. From the moment that it seemed
possible that England might meddle in it, a
feeling in favour of giving no satisfaction at
all to anybody began to show itself, and at this
moment I think the government would find more
support in refusing to do justice than it would
have found three weeks ago. The Anglophobists
went to work, and soon showed—for, as everybody
knows, nothing is easier—that when Great Britain
was really mistress of the seas she was not very
particular as to where she caught her enemies, and
seventeen cases of high-banded violation of neutral
jurisdiction by the English navy were, as I have
said, speedily discovered. The most that these
prove of course, in this matter of the Florida, is
that preaching ou this subject comes with a bad
grace from English pulpits, but it also tries the
Americans in their weakest point, and by throwing
them into a rage, tempts them to take up positions
that io their calm moments they would never think
of defending.
The report of the Secretary of the Treasury cer-
tainly dues not sustain the popular estimate of his
abilities, and of the conservative tone of his mind.
There is at least in it onepassage from which it is not
difficult for a hostile critic to extract indications of a
disposition to resort to further issues of greenbacks,
though this is something on which I am satisfied,
unless the feeling of Congress and of the public on
this point greatly changes, he would not think of
venturing under any circumstances. He makes
use also of several expressions calculated to raise
the suspicion that in certain contingencies he would
not hesitate to pay the interest in paper currency
which is now paid in gold, and indulges iu some.
thing very like a suggestion or approval of penal
legislation against the "gold speculators." What
is most curious is, however, that he dwells on the
diminution of the customs receipts almost with
satisfaction, as he thinks that as far as revenue is
concerned the government is more than compen-
sated by the increased returns front the taxes on the
native industry promoted by the high duties. On
the whole the report is au extremely disappointing
one, and gold has been rising somewhat ever since
its appearance, though it owed its first leap up-
wards to another absurd bill introduced by Mr.
Stevens, of Pennsylvania, prohibiting all dealings
in gold, and even its exportation. It was thrown
out, but not till its effect on the market had re-
reeled its folly.

I

(PRIZE YILDAL AWAIL!ID.,

LIFEBOAT SERVICES.—During the storms
of the past year, the boste of the National Lifeboat Insti-
tution esved tl7 persons from different wrecks on our Coast.,
The Institution has also expended L 111,814 3a id. In the same
period on its Lifeboat establishments, In addition to granting
41,161 6s. as rewards for saving 716 altipwrecked pers•ns by Ite
lifeboats and other means. The Committee of the Institution
earnestly APPLAL to the pubilc for ASSISTANCE., to enable
them to meet the continued heavy demands ou the Institution's
liti lifeboat establishments.

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