The Express.
London, England, 1866-09-27 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 27, 1866.

THE SIMLA COURT-MARTIAL.
(By direct Overland Telegraph.)
SIMLA, Bar. 22.
The finding of the court-martial in the case of
Captain Jervis declares him innocent on the first
and second counts, and guilty on all the others.
He was sentenced to dismissal from the service, but
recommended to mercy. Sir William Mansfield
has refused the recommendation to mercy, and
confirmed the sentence.

AMERICA.

(now on snail. ooineromm.)

NEW YORE, Sur. 14.

The Maine election—the second of the series—
has given an enormous majority for Congress and
the radicals, namely, 30,000 ; that is, more than
5,000 more than it has ever given before, even
in the most exciting times. Vermont and Maine
have now spoken. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana,
lowa, and Minnesota come next. They all hold
their elections on the 9th of October—about four
weeks hence, and I am satisfied that there is not
one of them in which the same result may not be
looked for. As I have already told you, I think
there is only one Northern State in which the
result is in the least doubtful—and that is, New
Jersey. If the Connecticut election were to take
place now, there would be no question, too, as to
how it would end ; but it does not come
off till spring ; and so many things
may occur before that time, that there
is no use in speculating about it. In fact, if the
elections were all to occur now, this week, the state
of the public mind is such that the administration
would be beaten through the entire North by a
majority greater than any ever seen in the politi_
cal history of the country, greater even than that
which was given for Mr. Lincoln in 1864. The
indignation created by the speeches of the
President and Mr. Seward grows deeper and more
' intense every day, and, strange as it may seem,
they appear to travel on, and spout on in blissful
unconsciousness of the impression they are creating,
and growing worse and worse as they go. The
j display at St. Louis, the westernmost point on their
journey, was perhaps the most vulgar, indecent,
, and violent of all. The President there treated
somewhat at length, though in an exceedingly
muddled manner, of the New Orleans riot,
but without uttering one word of reprobation
of it, charging it again and again on the radical
j party in Congress, and in fact almost justifying
Mayor Monroe, and his " thugs," as General
Sheridan called his police. What most afflicts the
public, however, is not, after all, that Mr. Johnson
should so disgrace himself. They console them-
selves with the reflection that he is, after all, a
I Tennessean, of limited education, no knowledge of
the world, and bred in slavery, and they did not
I elect him to the presidency. The crowning humi-
liation is that Mr. Seward, who was for so many
years loved and honoured at the North, and who,
if ho was famed for anything, was famed for his
moderation, his good taste, his good sense, his
philosophic dislike of the ruder weapons of party
strife, and for the elevation of tone and sentiment
with which he discussed all the great questions of
the day, should be present at all these mortifying
scenes, and not only be present, but countenance
and encourage them, and should himself even play
all but the most ignoble part in them. I hear nothing
from men of all partiesbut expresaiona of sorrow and
astonishment over this most inglorious fall. Sonic
ascribe it to Mr. Seward's desire to be avenged on
the party, which failed in 1864 to give him the re-
ward which he felt he had earned by his long years
of service, and which put in the place to which lie
felt himself entitled an unknown and much
younger man. But then, were he animated by
any such feeling, it would certainly have been
stronger in the first days of his disappointment than
now or at any other time since. And yet ho went
to work for the republican party immediately
after Mr. Lincoln's nomination, with a zeal and
energy and ability such as he has never dis-
played either since or before, and delivered a
series of speeches in support of Mr. Lincoln's elec-
tion, which were considered amongst his very best
efforts. Others again ascribe his defection to his
expectation of securing the nomination of the
united Southern and Northern democracy in 1868,
but this is as improbable a hypothesis as the former
one. He is now very old, and though not feeble,
can hardly expect to be able to figure much longer
in public life, much less to bear the tremendous
fatigues of a campaign which is still two years
distant. Another theory—the more charitable,
and, as I believe, the more correct one—is, that he
is not the man fur a stormy crisis like this, that the
derangement of the political machinery caused by
the war has bewildered and confused him, which,
added to the shock given to his nervous system by
' the attempt on his life, has made him anything
but his former self, and given his speeches an in-
coherence, coarseness, and often a foolishness,
j which are astounding to those who knew and ad_
mired him in his prime.
IThere is, however, no chance now that Mr.
Johnson will have his own way. The Radicals will
sweep the whole country during the autumn.
• Even in this State the defection of such prominent
men as Thurlow Weed and Henry J. Raymond
has produced scarcelyany impression on the Repub-
lican ranks, and all the present indications are that
the next Congress will be far more radical than the
present one ; and that if the settlement of the
difficulty is to be left to it, the South will have no
alternative but to submit, and ratify the constitu-
! tional amendments.

Whether the decision will be left to Congress is,
however, still a doubtful point. I have warned
you in several letters that the language of Mr.
Johnson and his adherents seemed every day to
indicate more clearly that the idea of resorting to
force to carry out " his policy" was not unfamiliar
to them. They have been all along greatly puzzled
how to meet the argument, that as the President's
functions are strictly executive, his bueiness ia to put
in force acts of Congress, and judgments of the su-
preme courts, and not to devise policies. But
within a day or two they have fished up the follow-
ing act of Congress, passed in 1862, when the war
was still supposed to be far from its close, and
when nobody was dreaming of the circumstances
_ _

in which we now find ourselves :
Chap. XECVI.—An sot fixing the number of the Howe
of Representatives from and after the 3rd of March, 1863.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assem-
bled—That from and after the 3rd day of March, 1863, the
number of members of the House of Representatives of
the Congress of the United States shall he two bandied
and fortrons ; and the eight additional members shall be

assigned one in each to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentusky, 11li-
nais, lowa, Minnesota, Vermont, and Rhode Island.
Approved March 4, 1862. _ _

The Times, which may be considered the Presi-
dent's organ, announces in pretty plain terms that
by this law will he be guided, and that he will re-
cognize no Congress which does not contain 241
members.