The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-18 00:00:00

Secretary Seward's instructions to Mr. Campbell
direct him to proceed to the seat of the govern-
ment of Juarez, and to furnish the State Depart-
ment at Washington with information relative to
the condition of affairs in Mexico, but to enter into
no stipulations with Maximilian or the French
which would be likely to embarrass the administra-
I tion of Juarez. Mr. Seward declares that the
'United States desire neither to conquer nor
to purchase Mexican territory, but only to see
the country relieved from foreign military inter-
vention. - . .

General Sedgwick has been ordered to Washing-
ton to undergo court-martial for violation of
orders in occupying Matamoros.
Washington despatches, published in the New
York papers, assert that Mr. Bigelow has tele-
graphed that he is convinced of the Emperor Napo-
leon's good faith, and that the latter will withdraw
from Mexico and co-operate with the United States
to restore the republican form of government. He
adds that the Emperor Napoleon favours the un-
controlled election of a President by the Mexicans.
,A bill has been introduced in the House of Re-
presentatives to provide Territorial governments for
the Southern States, and extend the franchise to
all persona who remained loyal during the re-
bellion.
The Judiciary Committee of the Senate has re-
ported favourably on a bill for repealing the par-
doning power of the President.
The Alabama Legislature have rejected the con-
stitutional amendment.
The Fenians in Canada sentenced to be hung
have been respited until the 13th of March.

(nox ens smut commaroirmerr.)
NEW YORE, Dec. 4.
The republican members of Congress have met
at Washington in high spirits, and held their first
" caucus," in which the plan of operations during
the coming session was clearly indicated. Nothing
was said about impeachment, an omission which
warrants the belief that nothing of the kind is
seriously thought of by the main body of the
party. The resolutions and speeches were mainly
directed to the imposition of restraints on the ap-
pointing power, and it is clear that this will form
at the opening of the session the main point of
attack. One proposition is, to request the Senate
not to confirm any appointments made during the
recess to fill vacancies created arbitrarily. Thaddeus
Stevens gave notice of his intention to introduce a
bill regulating the tenure of office, and making all
persons once rejected by the Senate, ineligible for
three years thereafter ; confining the power of re-
moval to cases of malfeasance in office or disa-
bility, and making it incumbent on the President
to report within twenty days after making such
removal, the reason therefor. A committee was
also appointed to report what measures may be
necessary during the coming session. From the
composition of the committee, it is fair to presume
that the measures it will pronounce necessary will
be very radical. The utmost confidence and good
humour seems to pervade the party. It is evident
that they apprehend no trouble with the Presi-
dent, or that if they do they think they will be
able to deal with it 'wtthont much difficulty.
Horace Greeley's plan of impartial suffrage in
return for universal amnesty has certainly taken
no hold as yet of the congressional mind, and finds,
I think, just as little favour with the country.
Those members of both houses, such as Messrs.
Stevens, Boutwell, and Sumner, who are strongest
in their advocacy of universal suffrage, would also
be strongest in their hostility to universal am-
nesty, so that as long as the two things are linked
together as essential parts of the same proposition,
there is not much likelihood of their being carried.
One thing, I think, is tolerably certain : the South
will not be long suffered to maintain its present
attitude of passive resistance. The amendment
has generally been rejected by the Southern legis-
latures, and they offer nothing in its place. They
deny the right of Congress to impose conditions on
them, deny even its right to legislate for them,
and wrap themselves up in their dignity. But here
they will not very long be suffered to remain.
Active measures will be taken to put an end to the
present unsettled state of things. Whether the
South will be re-admitted into the Union or not I
do not know, but if it has to stay out its position
will be strictly defined, and rigid and exact rules laid
down for its government, so that everybody may
know what its future is to be. The uncertainty
which has prevailed as to its status ever since the
war ended, has had a most prejudicial effect on its
industry of all kinds. A large class of the popula-
tion, and that perhaps the most enterprising and
energetic, lies under the ban, and has little
chance of pardon until the President has in some
way or other settled his difficulties with Congress.
Then the uncertainty about the future status of
the negroes naturally inspires more or less caution
about all enterprises of which the results are
likely to be remote. The admission of the negroes
to the franchise, whether it come by the voluntary
acts of the States, or by constitutional amend-
ment, is pretty sure to work some important changes
both in the social and political condition of the
community ;what these changes will be, prudent men
are naturally waiting to see, before investing their
capital or providing themselves with a pursuit.
Not many Southerners, it is true, have much
capital to invest, but Southerners are, neverthe-
less, apparently the only persons who will invest
capital in the South. The Northerners are
very chary about linking themselves to Southern
fortunes any further than may be necessary
to secure the custom of Southern dealers,
to whom, as a general rule, credits of three
months are still given. But even the limited
amount of confidence which sprang up after the
close of the war has been rudely shaken. It was
expected that the dearth of everything which pre-
vailed throughout the South, when peace was re-
stored, would create an enormous demand for goods
of all kinds. How they were to be paid for nobody
well knew, but there was a vague impression that
cotton and tobacco would, as in old times, buy
everything the growers needed. The earlier anti-
cipations as to the amount of last year's crop did
not rate it higher than a million and a half of bales ;
but people supposed that in spite of the Indian and
Egyptian supply, the price would, as in old times,
rile in the inverse ratio of the amount of the crop,
and the planter be no worse off when he raised
one bale to the acre than when he raised two.
Most planters, too, who had not been directly

in the track of the invading snake had saved ,menta in calm and moderate language. It has ex-
tsrerehuniousested
statesof the Cobeesmnfedeerseyiepitoy
owntithdhich, ofoneoirseuxes, aaanantryd
are.deterzidnedThe radicals
peeatantheenothinimmeg
through,"majoity
some; large quantities had accumulated in the (dad interairt or attention throughout the
harrender ; but ordinarily the inhabitant, did not as the phrase is now, without much attention to
very rigidly respect this rule of ißtemational law, Mr. Johnson's feelings or opinions. A bill has
and the news of the fall of Richmond was in most been introduced, and has passed the house, de-
eases a signal for a general descent upon the goods Priving him of the power of Pardoning before con-
and chattels of the defunct government. At all viction, which was conferred on him by an act f
events, whoever got the cotton, it was well known 16863_ and another is
preparation regulating alb
that there was a great deal of it intim cotintry, and I Xhrlimaaes
agalZoitti4r_wer, so ea to pr The
event
it was inferred that if goods were sent to the South rapidity with which thPam measures lastsummar'
hurried
it would be forthcoming in exchange for them. through shows what the temper of Congress is.
Goods were sent accordingly In • great quantities,
and the market became speedily glutted, and
glutted it remains. The political uneertainty.has
led to commercial stagnation. The Northern dealere
are not receiving the returns they looked for, in
spite of the fact that last year's crop of cot-
ton exceeded the earlier estimates by a mil-
lion of bales, and even the later and shrewder ones
by half a million. The result has been that
there has been a tremendous fall in the prices
of " dry goods " here within the last fear weeks,
and although there have been no great failures,
the losses have been enormous.
In the South, on the other hand, while the rich,
or " twenty thousand dollar men," as it is the
fashion to call them, alluding to the line drawn by
Mr. Johnson in his amnesty proclamation, are
sitting with folded arms and waiting for the
triumph of the " President's policy," the poor,
or rather the middling men, are emigrating in large
numbers to the north-west. Thousands are leaving
North and South Carolina and Virginia every
week to seek homes in Illinois and Minnesota and
other western States. There they get rid of the
negro, of the constitutional amendment, of all disa-
bilities whatever, and find themselves members of
the rising and happy communities, with a thousand
avenues open to comfort and independence. Great
number! of the young men of the better classes are
coming to the Northern cities in search of employ-
ment as clerks and ahopmen, and are making com-
petition in these fields, which in the seaboard
cities are always crowded, more crowded
than ever. Some have connexions in trade
here who are able to help them ; others find
employers whose Southern sympathies make
Southern birth a passport to their favour ; but the
great majority find it hard work, I think, to get
even a crust of bread and shelter. There are some
as hard cases of distress to be met with in New
York to-day amongst persons of "genteel exterior"
as are to be found anywhere. In fact, it may be
said in general terms, that a young man might as
well, or better, go to Paris or London in search of
employment as to Now York, unless he is an artisan
or an able-bodied labourer.
Some decisive move is, therefore, universally felt
to be necessary. It has been proved abundantly
that the North can do without the South ; but the
commercial North will not do without it, alid as
long as it calculates on the South, be it never so
remotely, as a market for its goods, the condition
of the South must be a matter of serious moment
to Northern business men. Since the South refuses
to " reconstruct" itself on the Congressional
basis, I think an effort will be made this
winter to provide either for its immediate return
to the Union under rules fixed by Congress, or for
its indefinite staying out of the Union, under a go-
vernment provided by Congress. I am not sure that
one would not be as good for it as the other. Ido
not attach very much importance to the return of
the Southern members to Congress, as far as the
South is concerned. What it wants, is not repre-
sentation, but order and quiet. The very best
government it could have at this moment would be
a government which would provide a good police,
and enable every man, woman, and child in it, of
whatever race or colour, to eat and sleep, and
labour, in quiet and security. Until the South
gets used to law, and learns to tolerate dissent, it
will make little difference to it what footing it holds
in Congress.
John Surratt, one of the suspected assassins of
Mr. Lincoln, and whose mother was hanged for it,
has beencaptured in Egypt, after making his escape
from custody in Rome, where he was recognised
while serving in the Pope's guard. It is generally
believed, and has been believed from the beginning,
that this man knew more of the plot and had more
to do with originating it than any of those who
were tried and convicted. It was believed, too,
that had he chosen to come forward and surrender
himself, he might have thrown such light on his
mother's connexion with the plot as to exonerate
her from all knowing complicity in it ; but he
chose to let her meet her fate. What gives him
moat interest in the eyes of the public is the belief,
which,whether ill or well founded, is widely spread,
that he is the link through whom the conspirators
were connected with the Richmond government.
It does, no doubt, on general grounds, seem
rather absurd to suppose that Jefferson Davis was
privy to Mr. Lincoln's assassination. One would
think him far too shrewd a man, to say the least,
to give any countenance to such an enterprise, or
to suppose that he or his cause could be bene-
fited, directly or indirectly, by the violent
death of the Northern President. But there
Boaresatuismtfiweeneduo,f
thatsotanf dpitaann:::idhutwasuttsca,tioanwn
hhoereare, suchperaifieethirly.
accomplice in
Mr. Lincoln's murder, and that this government
knows he was, but withholds the proofs, to avoid
having to go to extremities with Davis. Of course
of the soundness or unsoundness of this view I can
form no opinion. But I can say with certainty
that the popular suspicion of Davis has a basis
which, whether sufficient or not, cannot be treated
lightly. The Confederate archives have been in
the possession of the Federal government ever
since Lee's surrender. They are stored in Ford's
old theatre in Washington, and have been placed
in charge of Dr. Lieber, the Professor of Political
Ethics in Columbia College—a man known all over
Europe as one of the ablest publicists of our time,
land whose standing here, not as a politician, but as
scholar and a gentleman, is of the very highest.
He has been for over a year engaged in the exami-
nation of these Confederate documents, and has
discovered, and holds, not one, or two, or three,
but several papers, addressed to Mr. Davis, by
persons in various parts of the Confederacy, Dim. 12.
soldiers as well as citizens, offering to assassinate Yesterday, at eight a.m. the French flag, which ,
Mr. Lincoln and other Northern officials, in some has floated for 17 years over the entrance of the
cease one at a time, in others wholesale. These Castle of St. Angelo, was publicly lowered, and the
papers, instead of being thrown into the fire, were fortress handed over to the Zouavea, who are now
endorsed in Mr. Davis's handwriting, and actually •in possession. While the French flag was never,
referred for consideration to one of the secretaries. I believe, allowed so giddy a flight, the Papal
The president's message has been sent in, and ensign was immediately hoisted to the very summit,
with it the reports of the various departments. where it is now conspicuous by the side of the
The message is simply an iteration of the old argu- Archangel

ITALY.

OWN 0911 anew.

ROUE, Doc. 11.
That Rome should be unusually empty at the
present moment is only just what was to be ex-
pected under the circumstances, and is a fact which
seems to be sufficiently evidenced by the unwonted
number of lodgings still to be let everywhere in the
habitable parts of the city, and the almost univer-
sal complaints of hotel, shop, livery-stable keepers,
and others, dependent on foreigners for their
living, that they are all going to be ruined together.
Yet, if Rome really be u empty as it is asserted to
be, whence that gay and fashionable crowd, that
endless string of well-appointed equipages' which
thronged the Pincio on Sunday afternoon last Z So
positively brimming over was the hill with car-
riages, that I really doubt whether it could have
held another without overflowing. At any rate, it
is a fact that when one carriage stopped all had to
stop likewise, and that, except at the risk of
creating inextricable confusion, and under pain of
incurring the severe displeasure of a Papal dragoon,
stationed policeman-like to prevent the manceuvre,
no coachman dared draw out of the line, even for
the purpose of descending the hill, without com-
pleting the orthodox circuit. The only inference
to be drawn from those apparently conflicting phe-
nomena the emptiness of Rome and the
fulness of the Pincio—seems to be, that, in the ab-
sence of the usual influx of foreigners at this time
of year, the Romans themselves are having a very
pleasant time of it, before they are quite ruined.
This view of the case was so far confirmed by the

spectacle, which I witnessed on Sunday, of the
landlord of my own hotel—a very extensive build-
ing, which would hold 200, and actually contains 12
guests—seated in an elegant barouche, quietly
smoking a cigar.
Gradually during the last ton days the French
troops have been evacuating the city, and one poet
after another has been handed over by them to the
" Papalini," whom it has been thought expedient
to rig out, is la Frangaise, with brand-new red
breeches, which give them an appearance not un-
suggestive of the ass in the lion's skin in the
fable. Somewhat perplexed to make out the
nationality of the band which was playing
on the Pincio on Sunday, the friend with
whom I was driving inquired of his coachman—
an ex-Garibaldino, by the way—whether the players
were French or Italian 1 "They are Papalini,"
was the reply, "neither French, nor Italian, as
yet."
At 5 a.m. yesterday morning, while-the Romans
were still wrapt in their slumbers, and before even
the pifferani, those Advent birds of the Roman
States, hadcommenced their earliest pipings to the
Madonna, a few wakeful strangers beheld a dark
moving column, and heard from their bedroom
windows the measured tread of the lest of tie
French regiments of occupation marching through
the Piazza d'Espagna on its way to the railway
station, now no longer far away beyond Trastevere,
but established provisionally in front of the Baths
of Diocletian. At 3 p.m. the celebrated regiment
of Papal Zouaves, which has latterly been quar-
tered at Velletri, marched into the Eternal City
by the Lateran gate, General Zappi—commandant
de Place do Rome—who with his staff had
gone out to meet them, riding in at their head, by
the side of Colonel Allotz, a veteran Swiss. In
order to witness its reception by the Romans, I
accompanied the regiment on its march through
the city, which it completely traversed from the
Lateran to St. rete!'": Ae A wound, snake-like;
round the huge curve of the Coliseum, advancing
in column four abreast, the spectacle presented by
the regiment was most picturesque, and I was
anticipating the further gratification of seeing it
defile through the Arch of Titus, and advance
along the Via Sacra to the Capitol, when, to my
disappointment, it turned off into the back streets
which skirt the Forum to the eastward. Making
for the Corso by way of the Forum of Traits,
the regiment was debouching from the network of
narrow streets which ho at the back of the Capitol
into the open apace of the Piazza di Vinezia, when
word was flashed along the line that the Pope
was coming. A few seconds later, the Holy Father,
who happened to be passing that way, made his
appearance upon the scene, seated in his red
coach, and escorted by a body of the guardia nobile.
On the instant, the whole regiment, with one
accord, dropped upon its knees, prepared then and
there to receive the Papal benediction, of which,
however, it was for the moment disappointed, for
the Pope, apparently as startled as if lie had come
upon the vanguard of an army obeying the orders
of Victor Emmanuel, instead of upon the head of
a column of his own faithful Zouaves, suddenly
' turned off at a right angle, and rapidly drove out
of sight, having, in fact, stumbled upon the regi-
ment unawares, and being bent on getting back to
the Vatican as quickly as he could, in order to ra-
j ceive his soldiers with greater solemnity in the
Piazza in front of St. Peter's.
As the &mares, who, strange to say, are most
of them Dutchmen, marched down the Corso,
where the usual crowd of afternoon loungers were
assembled, their appearance seemed to create no
more and no less excitement than a battalion of
Coldstream, would have done marching down Ox-
ford-street. In fact, there was nothing observable
whatsoever about the attitude of the Roman
I people, which at the present moment seems sawn-
' lady apathetic, and is, to all appearance, quite
unaware that the eyes of the world are upon it. If
we are on the eve of anything like a revolution, it
is quite impossible for the uninitiated to read any
indication of it on the surface.