The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-21 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE 21, 1864.

as he walks along the streets is sufficient to confirm,
are even more "rebellious" than their fathers,
brothers, husbands, or lovers, as ladies are wont to
be in all parts of the world where the passions are
excited by political strife. They have a habit in
their pleasant climate of sitting after nightfall upon
their "stoops," or marble door step, in preference
to their drawing rooms, in the full, or it may
the scanty, elegance of their evening costume, to
gossip, or sing, or knit, by the light of the moon.
And while, as now, a battle is supposed to be
raging in their not very remote vicinity—a battle
or series of battles which may decide the fate of
North and South, and point the way that Maryland
must ultimately go--and when, with a favourable
wind, it may even be possible, in the silence of
the night, to hear from afar the faint echoes
of the artillery of the contending hosts, they
gather in this primitive fashion, with more than
the usual excitement of expectation, to keep up
the rebellious spirit by the interchange of sentiment
and the outpouring of their hopes and fears. Now
and then may be heard, in defiance of the lazy, but
perhaps the not altogether unsympathizing, police-
man who saunters along his beat through the
fashionable quarters of the town, the melancholy
chant of " Maryland, my Maryland," sung to the
air of a German Burschenlied ; the livelier strain of
the " Bonnie Blue Flag," or to English ears the
nobler melody of " God save the South." Like
the ladies of Scotland, commemorated in the ancient
ballad, who sat with their " gold combs in their
hair" and their fans in their hands, waiting for the
return of Sir Patrick Spens, they sit upon their
doorsteps waiting for General Lee, or any other
Southern hero who will be good enough to take
their city in his victorious march to Washington,
and liberate them, once and for ever, from the dull,
leaden, obdurate, relentless tyranny which General
Butler inaugurated, General Schenck continued,
and General Wallace perpetuates, These three
attorneys, having nothing of the soldier about
them but the uniform and the shoulder-straps, have
severally and collectively managed to concentrate
upon their heads an amount of feminine hate from
Baltimore and all Maryland which, in default of
historical record, will be sufficient to send down
their names to a late posterity with as much odium
as that which attaches to " old Bogy" in all the
nurseries of Europe.
It is in a city with a character like this that the
friends of Mr. Lincoln determined to hold the Con•
vention to nominate him for a second term of
office, and to this city I have come from New York
to be present at the first process of the quadrennial
manufacture, the ultimate result of which is a Pre-
sident of the United States. It is nos to be sup-
posed that in this respect Mr. Lincoln's friends
run any risk of the expression of hostile opinions,
or still less of an adverse decision on the part o,
the people among whom they thrust the preten-
sions of their candidate. A convention is like a
Parliament. No one has a right to speak, ex
cept a member duly elected,: If the public be
admitted to the deliberations, it is a matter of ex-
pediency and favour—not of right; and any objector
or disturber may be summarily expelled. In Balti-
more, however, there is scarcely the risk of so much
as a dissentient hiss or an ironical cheer. The native
residents will not attend, even out of curiosity, and
there is a sufficiently large population of placemen,
contractors, officials, and persons who directly or
indirectly are making money out of the war, as well
as of Federal soldiers quartered in the neighbouting
forts, to make it certain that the Convention will
not lack an appreeietive audienee. Mr Lincoln's
friends intended to forestall opposition in the Pre-
sidential contest by being first in the field, but they
bad no sooner announced their time and place than
the supporters of Gen. Fremont took what the Lin-
colnites call u " mean advantage," and summoned a
Convention at Cleveland, in Ohio. Here they built
their platform, called themselves by the new name
of the" Radical Democracy," and unanimous nomi-
nated their candidate a full week before Mr Lincoln's
friends could be brought together. The main planks
of the platform do not, it is true, dovetail very
squarely ; for a vigorous prosecution of the war and
a vigorous preservation of the liberties of the people
nre more incompatible than Americans understand,
or care to acknowledge ; they may serve, however,
to elect a candidate upon,and, if so7they will abswer
their purpose. But the Cleveland Convention, dis-
agreeable es it has proved to Mr Lincoln, is not the
only affliction of the kind he will have to endure.
The supporters of a an opposition candidate—but
whether it be Gen. Fremont, or Mr Chase, or a
greater or less than either whose name is yet to be
divulged—resolved to forestall him even in Balti-
more, and several days ago engaged the large hall
of the Maryland Institute for this evening (the
6th), paying the price demanded in advance. So
quietly was the matter managed that when on
Friday last Mr. Lincoln's " wire pullers" made ap-
plication for the hall, expecting no difficulty, they
found to their chagrin that it was pre-engaged, and
that the Lincoln Convention ran the risk of being
houseless and homeless. In this emergency they
made application for the Front-street Theatre,
which is capable of accommodating from 3,000 to
4,000 persons, and succeeded in obtaining it. At the
time at which I write no one seems able to pene-
trate the mystery of to-night's Convention, and as
this letter must be posted before the proceedings
commence, the mystery must, as far as I am con-
cerned, remain unsolved until my next. The con-
sequence of this unusual state of affairs is that Bal-
timore swarms, not alone with delegates to the two
Conventions, hut with " wire pullers," "log rollers,"
" axe grinders," and other trading and professional
politicians, who have a purpose to serve by the suc-
cess of one or other of the candidates. Hotel or
boarding house accommodation is difficult to be ob-
tained, except by those who took the precaution to
bespeak beds a week ago, and the price of board
and lodging has been raised about 500 per cent. by
the hotel keepers, by whom a Convention is consi-
dered their harvest and opportunity ; during the
existence of which such a thing as a conscience is
not thought of, however suggestively it may prick,
and when such a word as extortion is banished alike
from memory and the dictionary.

Baltimore, however, is much too near the seat of
war to be wholly engrossed with the contest for the
Presidency, and feeds itself upon rumours, true and
false, from the armies of Grant and Lee. Every
hour produces a new story, which the next hour
neither confirms nor disproves—stories tinged, if
not wholly invented by the wishes of the story-
tellers, and which much oftener speak of disasters
than of victories to the Federal cause. Froin
General Grant's despatches to Mr. Stanton—of
which the War Secretary only publishes such por-
tions as are favourable to the Federal army, or
serve to keep up the spirits of the Northern people—
it is evident that no general action had taken place
up to Saturday, the 4th, and equally evident that
such action was imminent from hour to hour, And
, at a time like this, when every man is of value, it
seems strange and unpatriotic—at least to an Eng-
lishman's eyes—that whole regiments of hardy
veterans should leave the front to return to their
homes, and wash their hands of the war and of all
that belongs to it. Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon,
while the bells were ringing for afternoon service,
the sound of the drum and fife, followed by the air
of the' Star Spangled Banner," played by a full
military band, was heard in the street. Opening the
window and looking out upon Monument-square, I
find the place full of soldiers. Thinking it was a
reinforcement .for General Grant, I descended into
the square and mixed with the crowd of spectators.
I soon learnt that these hardy, sun-browned, and
dirty-looking
veterans were the Pennsylvania re-
serves, who were not rushing to the battlefield to
crush the retellion,but rushing from it, because their
time had expired. Their numbers were said to be
upwards of 4,000, though it afterwards appeared
that they were less than 2,000 ; that they formed
the sole remnants of 12 regiments, originally of the
aAmytnavven
M'Clellan,
Pope,
full complement of 1,200 men each, or 14,400 in all;
that they had enlisted for three years in the first
flush of the excitement that followed the Confede-
rate
all attachthe
battleso
Burnside, and Hooker; that they had crossed the
Rapidan with General Graut,fought under his orders
nFor
oft S er
At the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court-house,
marched with him in his long and dangerous circuit
from Spottyslvania to tbe Chickgbominy, and that

!their time having expired some days previously, they
had left his army on the Ist of June and marched
two days from the front to the White-house, whence
they were conveyed in steam transports to Wash-
ington, and thence again by rail to this city, on
their way home. Their battered banners, as well
as their tattered clothes, bore witness to the work
they had performed, and the hard service they had
undergone, and as they Marched through the
crowded streets it Was impassible not to admit that
20,000 new recruits, even if not composed of Irish
and German mercenaries, could not make amends
to General Grant for the loss of 2,000 such fine
fellows as these, seasoned to war, inured to hard-
ships, and who had, moreover, the additional merit
of having enlisted for pure love of the cause, at a
time when bounty money was not considered a
No cheers greeted them
aprovocativee oe
df , hfeoreotiesomr
e.
and weary, along the dusty
way; and not even the members of the Lincoln de-
legation who crowded the balconies and doorsteps
of Barnum's Hotel to witness the spectacle so much
as clapped a hand or waved a handkerchief to wel-
come the returning braves. Was it because they
stuck too closely to their bargain to merit the appro-
' bation of the true patriots and able wire..pullers
who desire Mr. Lincoln's re-election ? Not so; for
there was one portion of these 2,000 men—amount•
gwho brought up the rear of
he toe n aboutg, thin 50 0 e
1 Who no sooner came within
it nre
m6O e :
sight of the Barnum balconies than the suppressed
cheers of the Lincoln delegation broke forth, and
the hands clapped and the handkerchiefs waved in
ay also be asked if these 50
determinedearst6oormhoefddelight I . t play
to return to the battlefield
which their comrades had abandoned ? They had
not. They were on their way home like the
rest, and were about to turn their swords
into ploughshares, their spears into pruning-
hooks, and to study war no more. Then,
of course, their names were familiar to Mr.
Lincoln's friends and supporters for their deeds of
heroism.? Wrong again. They were merely negro
teamsters, waggon-drivers, and trench-diggers, who
had borne some of the shock and all the hardships
of the campaign, and who received a greeting denied
to their white comrades, solely because their skins
were black. No one, not hardened by inveterate
prejudice, would deny the negro any merit, in peace
or war, that was justly his due; but to honour him,
independently of his merit, and solely on account of
his colour, is quite as much a prejudice as that which
formerly held, and in most parts of the country sti)
holds, him as a social pariah for the same reason,

General Fremont and the Presidency,

General Fremont has addressed the following
reply to the committee of the Cleveland Conven-
tion accepting the nomination for President :
" Gentlemen—In answer to the letter which I have had
the honour to receive from you on the part of the represen-
tatives of the people assembled at Cleveland on the 31st of
May, I desire to express my thanks for the confidence which
led them to offer me the honourable and difficult position of
their candidate in the approaching Presidential contest.
Very honourable, because in offering it to me you act in the
name of a great number of citizens who seek above all things
the good of their country, and who have no sort of selfish
interest in view. Very difficult, because in accepting the
candidacy you propose to me I am exposed to the reproach
of creating a schism in the party with which I have been
identified. Had Mr Lincoln remained faithful to the prin-
ciples he was elected to defend, no schism could have been
created ; and no contest could have been possible. This is
not an ordinary election; it is a contest for the right even to
have candidates, and not merely, as usual, for the choice
among them. Now, for the first time since '76, the question
of constitutional liberty has been brought directly before'
the people for their serious consideration and vote. The or-
dinary rights secured under the Constitution and the laws
of the country have been violated, and extraordinary
powers have been usurped by the Executive. is directly
before the people now to say whether or not the principles
established by the Revolution are worth maintaining. If,
as we have bees taught to believe, those guarantees of
liberty which made the distinctive value and glory of our
country are, in truth, inviolably sacred, then there must
be a protest against the arbitrary violation, which had
not even the excuse of necessity. The schism is made by
those who force the choice between a shameful silence or
a protest against wrong. In such considerations origi-
nated the Cleveland Convention. It was among its ob-
jects to arouse the attention of the people to such facts,
and to bring them to realise that while we are saturat-
ing Southern soil with the best blood of the country,
in name of Liberty, we have really parted with it at home.
To-day we have in the country the abures of a military
dictation without its unity of action and vigour of execution;
an administration marked at home by disregard of consti-
tutional rights, by its violation of personal liberty and the
liberty of the press, and as a crowning shame, by its aban-
donment of the right of asylum—a right especially dear to
all free nations. Abroad its course has been characterised by
A feebleness and want of principle which have misled Euro-
pean powers, and driven them to a belief that only commer-
cial interests and personal aims are concerned, and that no
great principles are involved in the issue. The admirable
conduct of the people, their readiness to make every sacri-
fice demanded of them, their forbearance and silence under
the suspension of everything diet could be suspended, their
many acts of heroism and sacrifices, were all rendered fruit-
less by the incapacity, or to speak more exactly by the per-
sonal ends for which the war was managed. This incapacity
and selfishness naturally produced such results as led the
European Powers, and logically enough, to the conviction
that the North, with its greatly superior population, its im-
mense resources, and its credit, will never bo able to recover
tha South. Sympathies which should have been with us from
the outset of the war were turned against us,and in this way
the Administration has done the country a double wrong
abroad. It created hostility, or at best, indifference among
those who would have been its friends if the real intentions
of the peeple could have been better known; while at the
same time h neglected no occasion for making the most
humiliating concessions. Against this disastrous condition

of affairs the Cleveland Convention was a protest. The prin-
ciples which form the basis of its platform have my unqua-
lified and cordial approbation, but I cannot so heartily con-
cur in all the measures which you propose. I do not believe
that confiscation extended to the property of all rebels is
practicable, and if it were so I don't think it a measure of

s nind policy. It is a question belonging to the people
themselves to decide, and it is a proper occasion for the
exercise of their original and sovereign authority. As
a war measure, in the beginning of a revolt, which
might be quelled by prompt severity, I understand
the policy of confiscation—but not as a final measure of re-
construction after the suppression of an insurrection. In the
adjustments which are to follow peace no considerations of
vengeance can consistently be admitted. The object of the
war is to make permanently
secure the peace and happiness
of the whole country, and there was but a single element
in the way of its attainment. This element of slavery may
be considered practically destzoyed in the country, and it
needs only your proposed amendment of the Constitution to
make its extinction complete, With this extinction of slavery
the party divisions created by it have also disappeared ; and if
in the history of the country there has ever been a time when
the American people, without regard to one or another of the
political divisions, were called upon to give solemnly their
voice in a matter which involved the safety of the United
States, it is assuredly the present time. If the Convention
at Baltimore will nominate any man whose past life justifies
a well-grounded confidence in his fidelity to our cardinal
principles, there is no reason why there should be any divi-
sion among the really patriotic men of the country. To an 3
such I shall be most happy to give a cordial and active sup..
port. My own decided preference is to aid in this way, and
not to be myself a candidate. But if Mr Lincoln should be
renominated, as I believe it would be fatal to the country
to endorse a policy and renew a power which has cost us the
lives of thousands of men, and needlessly put the country
on the road to bankruptcy, there will remain no alternative
but to organize against him every element of conscientious
opposition with the view to prevent the misfortune of his
re-election. In this contingency I accept the nomination
at Cleveland, and, as a preliminary step, I have resigned
my commission in the army. This was a sacrifice it gave
me pain to make. But I had for a long time fruitlessly

- -
endeavoured to obtain service. I wake this sacrifice only

to regain liberty of speech, and to leave nothing in the
way of discharging to my rtrnost ability the tusk you have
set for me. With my earnest and sincere thanks for your
expressions of confidence and regard, and for the many

honourable terms with which you acquaint me with the

actions of tha committee,—l am, gentlemen, very respect-

.'ally and truly yours,
"New York, June 4,"

" J, C. FREMONT.

Persons in debt may obtain instant protection against
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gate-street, Bank—Avg-T.

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discharge first to grow thick, then to cease, when the swell-
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RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE,

RAILWAY BILLS.
Yesterday the committee on the East London Railway
Bill visited the London Docke, and tcek a ^ it Bey of the site
and route of the irkmcied I:aiway, so as to form, in con-
juuctcr.,,t With the evidence adduced, an opinion on the
question. Mr Bendel, the engineer of the London Dock
Company, was examined at great length by Mr Phinn,
Q.C., and Mr. Karalake, on the engineering objections to
the line, and as to the advantages of another proposed line
to be subetitnted. Mr Ilawkshaw, the engineer, was sub-
soluehtly examined, and expressed an opinion adverse to
the safety of the Thames Tunnel for railway purposes.
Apart from its danger as an experiment, he was of opinion
that the price the company would have to pay for the ap-
propriation of the tunnel would be sufficient to ronatract a
new one,

Mr Reda4ll, stated the case of the Cannock Chase
and Wolverhampton Railway of ten miles between those
places, to make arrangements with the Great Western,
raise £lOO,OOO, and £34,000 by loan. Mr Merewether and
Mr H. Lloyd opposed for the London and North-Western.
The committee of which Mr Hassard is chairman con-
sidered the Bill for the Tewkesbury and Malvern Railway,
to take additional lands and raise a further sum of S, WU 000.
Mr Round having been heatd for landowners in opposition,
the committee throw that the Bill.

Ferther evidence as to the traffic case connected with the
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Company's pro-
posed establishment of steamboat communication with the
Continent occupied Sir F. Goldsmid's committee all day,
The clauses of the Glocester and Ledbury, and Worcester,
Dean Forest, and Monmouth Railway Bills were settled.
In the tords, the Bill of the London and South-Western
for additional works was passed.

GREAT EASTERN.
The directors of this company have issued a statement to
I the shareholders respecting recent proceedings before a
committee of the Rouse of Commons on the Great Eastern
Northern Junction Bill. The proposed line was intended
to start from the Great Eastern line near Cambridge in a
northern direction, passing near Peterborough, Bourn, Slea-
ford, Lincoln, Gainsborough, and Doncaster to Askern,
where it would form junctions with the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway, the North-Eastern system, with the
South Yorkshire coalfields, and with the new line from Don-
`caster to Hull. It would also Join the Midland Railway at
Peterborough, and the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln
system at Lincoln, thus forming the most direct access to
the Eastern Counties, as well as a large and populous dis-
trict in the eastern part of the metropolis. The proposed
main line and branches were 134 miles in length, and the
total cost was estimated at £1,500,000, or less than £12,000
per mile. The gradients throughout were only lin 400,
being so favourable as to enable an engine to draw nearly
double the load that could be carried over the existing Great
Northern Railway between Doncaster and London-400
tons and upwards against 240 tons. It was proposed that
the new line should carry the 400 tons at a fart wing per ton
per mile, while the rate on the Great Northern for a load of
240 tons was a farthing and a halt per ton per mile. The
proposed line would therefore earn 10d per mile at the re-
duced rate, or £6 Ils 8d per train on a distance of 176 miles,
more than would be earned by carrying only 240 tons in a
train at three-eighths of a penny per ton per mile. This
proposal would have reduced the cost of carriage upon coal
by is 4d per ton between Doncaster and the eastern part of
London, which was a wholly distinct district of the metro-
pelis:from that which was reached by the Great Northern
at King's-cross, so that there could be no competition for
this traffic, as it would cost 2s per ton to bring the coal from
the Great Eastern district to that served by the Great
Northern, and vice versa. Trio advant,ige of cheap fuel
would therefore be entirely confined to the large district
served by the Great Eastern, effecting a reduction in the
price of coals to the consumer of 3a 44 per ton as com-
pared with the cost of being compelled to receive their coals
from King's-cross, The population of the eastern dis-
trict was estimated at 600,000 persons, and the probable
annual supply of coal by the Great Eastern at 1,000,000 tons.
The saving on this commodity alone would have been
£166,6'30 as compared with the same amount of coal carried
to the same district by the Great Northern route. The
statement also referred to the great advantages that would
be derived from the proposed direct communication between
the Great Eastern agricultural district, served by 600 miles
of railway, and the great railways in the manufacturing and
mining districts,

The scheme of the Great Northern consisted of a connec-
tion between their loop line at Gainsberough with Doncas-
!er, so as to establish the route from Doncaster to Peter•
borough by the circuitous line via Lincoln, Boston, and
Spalding.; and, secondly, by a system of single disjointed
loop lines, ostensibly destined for local accommodation, but
really devised in order to block up the district and prevent
the establishment of a superior direct through route. Taking
Cambridge as the common point of concentration to and
front the Great Eastern district, the distance to Doncaster
by the Great Northern loop line was 17 miles greater than
by the proposed line.

It was urged that the new line would tend greatly to in-
crease the profit on the capital of £20,000,000 already ex-
pended upon the Great Eastern system. It appeared that
the committee did not consider it fair towards the Great
Northern for the proposed line to a have a maximum fare of
one farthing per ton per mile, while the Great Northern
required a farthing and a half per ton per mile to pay them.
It the Great Northern had the same gradients, well and
good ; but as they had not got them and could not got them,
except at a very large expehse, the committee thought it
right to reject the Great Eastern Northern Junction Bill.
But, at the same time, the committee inserted facility clauses
in the Great Northern Bills with a view a view to enable
Great Eastern Company to run over the lines of the
Great Northern Railway to Doncaster, if they thought pro-
per to do so. The directors state that no amount of facilities
could ever give to the Eastern Counties district the advan-
tages of a line 17 miles shorter, with flat gradients, neither
could any amount of facilities give to Central Lincolnshire
the advantage of having their district served by a grea
through line of railway. They also state that every one con-
versant with the working of railway traffic was well aware
that those facility clauses under such circumstances were
neither more nor less than "a mockery, a delusion, and a
snare." Tha directors could nat believe that Parliament
would finally refuse to sanction a scheme which offered to
the public the advantage of the best and cheapest trunk line
which had yet been devised between the North of England
on the one hand and the Eastern Counties and eastern dis-
tricts of the metropolis on the other.