The Express.
London, England, 1859-11-02 00:00:00

TRE EXPRESS, WEiJNESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 2, 1.869.

BI2I.BON'S WATORBIL
V= ..................

SSOUND•HAND PIANOFORTBrIL—CitAIaIt,
eismi

whenever they can be let out ow Lin. Fugitives
from the South come trooping through, on their
way into Pennsylvania; and it is well known all
along the road that they are going to join the
twenty thousand free negroes in Canada who have
travelled by the same " underground railroad."
Every negro in the little State of Maryland is sur-
rounded by excitements. There is Wuhington
close by—standing on soil yielded by Maryland and
Virginia; and for months of every year slavery is
quarrelled about there by the first men in the Re-
public. There is Baltimore—prone to slave traffic—
known to send out vessels every year to trade be..
tween the African coasts and Cuba. There is Anna-
polis, where the Legislature holds its sittings, and
where stringent restraints on the free blacks are
proposed with more vehemence from session to see-
sion, till we even hear of proposals to sell into
slavery every free negro who is found in the State
after a certain date. There is Pennsylvania close at
hand from the rural districts, with its thriving class
of fres blacks, who own ships and rows of houses in
Philadelphia, and are known by their good
deeds in aiding wanderers from the South.
There is the broad Potomac, with its abun-
dant shipping, and its snug berths for many
more fugitives than the cruel ♦tgilanoe of crave-
rated slaveholders en track. There is Virginia all
along the southern frontier, and not a little of it is
Western Virginia, where slavery has long been con-
demned and abhorred. Nowhere is slavery more
unpopular than on the table lands of Virginia,
where the farmers were talking of abolishing it
before the abolitionists entered upon their enter-,
prise. There is probably not a man of any colour in
Virginia who does not know that the great question
of State politics is how soon Virginia shall join the
free States, when she must choose between North
and South : and such news is not kept in by frontier
►ines. In this way all ieflaences have for some time
combined to inform the negroes of Maryland that
the maintenance of slavery has become a difficult
task to their masters; that it is a tottering institu-
tion ; that the great quarrel of the American people
is about allowing it to exist; that thousands
of slaves escape every year; that tree la-
bourers come in in yet greater numbers; and
that their masters are growing too angry to be en-
dured. It may be some time before we can know
with certainty the origin and course of the insurrec-
tion at Harper's Ferry; but, whether it is the work
of free blacks or slaves, whether a conspiracy or
an outbreak of sudden rage, there can be nothing
wonderful in it, however regretfully it may be re-
garded by the best friends of humanity, white and
black.

Harper's Ferry is particularly well and very
daringly chosen, if chosen at all, as the seat of an
insurrection. On the frontier between Virginia and
Maryland, at the confluence of great rivers, and the
junction of State railways, and the centre of a net
of telegraphic wires, it would have been a post of
great importance even if there had not been an
arsenal from which a great negro population might
be armed. If the recent moods of the masters and
the State politicians had been less fierce, and their
language and acts lees oppressive, we might have
hoped that the parties might come to fair terms
before much mischief is done. As it is, we cannot but
dread the reflection of the tyrannical temper
of the masters in the vindictive conduct of the slaver.
The Negroes have shown wonderful patience, and,
on occasion, • very remarkable generosity ; but the
Maryland slave•traders and free negro haters have
not appealed to the best but to the worst parts of
human nature in their recent dealings with their
precarious human property, and there may well
be apprehension of the result. We mean

only as to what may have been done in
the first outbreak. No doubt the rising would
be immediately put down by the Federal
and State forces. This is to be hoped on every ac-
count, for the doom of slavery in the Republic, espe-
cially in the frontier States, and, above all, in Mary-
land, is so clear and so closely impending, that every
breach of order is likely to be a mere mischief—an
impediment, and no furtherance. If the masters
were wise they would know how to turn the occa-
sion to advantage for getting rid of their burden and
curse; but Maryland slaveholders, who cannot bear
the presence of the free negro on any foot of soil in
the State, are not wise; and they will doubtless
make the worst of their own case.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

FRANCE.
PARIS, WEDNESDAY.
The Moniteur of this morning contains the follow-
ing:—The Duke of Padua retires from the post of
Minister of the Interior on account of ill-health, and
the Emperor has named M. Billaut u his suocessor.
Their Imperial Majesties arrived last evening at
Compiegne, and were received with mach cheering
by the people.

THE CONGRESS.
DRESDEN, Nov. 1.

The Dresden Journal asserts that England will
send a representative to the approaching Congress,
without making any condition.
The same journal says the Congress will, in all
probability, meet at Paris.

SPALN AND MOROCCO.
MADRID, Tr. asonv.

The staff of General O'Donnell will leave here
about the 3rd or sth inst. Preparations are being
actively made in every branch of the war depart-
ment for the expedition against Morocco.

THE BRAZIL MAILS.
LISBON, Oct 31.

The royal mail steamer Avon, with the Brazilian
mail, which arrived here from Rio to-day, leaves
again this evening for Southampton. No political
news of importance.

_
Th. wine duties have been fixed for the future at
320 rein per medida.
Exchange on London, 251.
The Avon brings drafts on London to the amount
of 670,0001.

Coffee declined from 200 rein to 300 refs after the
arrival of the Avon from Europe. The exports in
coffee since the departure of the last mail amount
to-104,310 bags for the United States; 67,746 for
the Channel; 9,126 for Havre; 16,717 for Mar-
seilles; and 12,172 for the Mediterranean. Prices
of coffee 6,700 rtis to 6,900 eels, flat. Stock,l2o,ooo
bags.

TIIE PENINSULAR MAIL.
SOUTHAMPTON, WZDNESDAY MORNING.
The Peninsular mail steamer Sultan hu just ar-
rived in the river.

FRANCE.

Our mn►l Paris letter had not arrived when we
went to press.