The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-10 00:00:00

AMERICA.
(REUTER'S '1 ELEGRA3IS.)

(Per City of Baltimore.)
NEW YORK, May 30 (Morning).
A prisoner at the Old Capitol Prison, Washing-
ton, has been shot dead while looking out of window
by the guard on duty. The prisoner was charged
with having furnished military appliances to the
Confederates at Richmond. He is said to have been
a British subject.
It is officially stated that the length of coast
blockaded by the Federal squadron, from Alexan-
dria, Virginia, to the Rio Grande, is 3,500 miles.
There are 189 openings in this line of coast.
General Grant's army attacking Vicksburg is said
to number 60,000 men.
Great dissatisfaction is expressed by the Southern
generals with Pemberton's military operations
against Grant, and the Richmond Whig says it is
rumoured that General Johnston has taken his
sword from Pemberton, and placed him under

arrest.
The Petersburg Express of the 23d considers the
situation at Vicksburg extremely critical, and says
the destruction of the bridge across the Big Black
River not only isolates Vicksburg from communica-
tion with all other parts of the Confederacy, but
opens to the enemy the rich and much desired
Yazoo country. The Express fears that Pemberton,
with scarcely any field artillery and his army greatly
reduced, cannot long hold out unless Johnston
speedily concentrates his forces and relieves the be-
leaguered city.
The _Richmond Examiner says that an attack on
Vicksburg can nowhere be made with a force equal
to the garrison. On no side can more than 8,000
men be deployed in line for an assault. The cha-
racter of the ground renders approaches difficult,
while heat and the country malaria during six
months of the year would make its siege at present
one of the most murderous on record. Only trea-
chery or cowardice could explain the capture of
Vicksburg by sudden assault, and its fall by any
other means seems daily less probable.
The _Richmond Sentinel says that Johnston, who
is outside Vicksburg, is preparing to fall on Grant's
flank or rear, and thus raise • the siege by a battle.
For this grand struggle both sides seem reinforcing.
The Sentinel looks hopefully on the situation.
Colonel Jones, with the Bth Pennsylvania Regi-
ment, has made an expedition from Newbern and
attacked the Confederates in their entrenchments at
Gum Swamp, capturing their artillery, 200 pri-
soners, and destroying their works. The Confede-
rates, however, rallied, and following up the Fede-
ral rear harrassed the Union troops considerably
until they gained their own lines. The Confederate
fire then became very severe, and Colonel Jones was
killed behind his bre'tstworks.
The schooner Sea Bird, of Philadelphia, whilst
aground at the mouth of Neuse River, North Caro-
lina, was captured and burnt by the Confederates.
They put off in small boats from the shore, and took

prisoners the captain and crew of the schooner.

It has been ascertained at Beaufort that nearly
a mi'lion dollars' worth of supplies have reached
the Confederates through the sutlars of the Federal
army, who opened wholesale houses at points where
the Federals had no military jurisdiction, and to
which the Confederates obtained free access.

The Federals have made an expedition from West
Point, Virginia, into the neighbouring counties,
sacking the grain warehouses and burning the mills,
and capturing horses, cattle, and sheep. They took
from the farmers everything that could ba of use to
the Federal army, and destroyed their agricultural
implements.

The Richmond Examiner thinks the present mo-
ment most propitious for the Southern army to gain
a victory, which shall signify something more than
repulsing the enemy, for defensive operations will
never secure the acknowledgment of their indepen-
dence or end the war. The Northerners will fight
40 years so long as war means dispatching men and
money to a digitalize, and as long as they fail to see
the columns of an invading army blackening their
fields, lit by the flames of their houses and towns.
From the first the only reasonable hope of the Con-

federacy has been the transfer of hostilities to the
enemy's country. If that cannot be done the pro-
gress of invasion, however slow, must after a time
overwhelm the South. No treaty of peace is pos-
sible unless signed on Northern soil; and if the
Southern armies can ever go there at all the time
is now at hand.

The .New York Herald thinks the treatment of
Generals Siegel and Francis Meagher, by the War
Department, in refusing to give them active com-
mands is shameful, and attributes Know-nothing
proclivities to the Secretary for War. It is stated
that General Meagher is about to visit Europe.
The Free South, a Northern journal, printed at
Port Royal, says that Gen. Paxton has ordered ra-
tions for negroes to be altogether discontinued, ex•
cept in cases where to do so would be inhuman.
The distribution of rations fostered the idea enter-
tained by the negroes that the Government was
bound to support them. The transition from slavery
to freedom appeared to them only a change of mas-
ters, the difference being that the new master was
more easily imposed upon than the old one. The
Free South hopes that when the negroes have had
an opportunity of raising their own subsistence,
and run short through laziness or neglect, they
will be taught by the pangs of hunger a lesson
that will not be lost. Their former condition as
slaves gives them no claim on the United States.
On the contrary, they owe the Northern Govern-
ment a debt of gratitude for favours conferred, and
the sooner the idea of philanthropists that it is the
duty of the Government to give them free support
is abandoned the better it will be for both whites
and blacks in the Southern depal tment.
The Commercial Advertiser says :—" All the
prisoners taken in the battles on the Rappahannock
have been exchanged, and it appears that the num-
ber captured by us is just half that captured by the
enemy. The South claims to present a list in excess
of 8,000, while ours is little more than 4,000. This
is understood to be the condition of the exchange
arranged between the Northern and Southern com-
missioners. The rebel papers boast of the fact, And
the rebel authorities intimate that they should now
dictate some terms regarding the exchange of pri-
soners in future, which would lead to bloody re-
taliation if not complied with."

The New York limes says that Governor Sey-
mour's letter to the Val landigham meeting is posted
in all parts of New York. After violently de-
nouncing the letter, the Times says :

" There are thousands ignorant or base enough
to be influenced by it, but if the patriotic feeling of
millions in New York State is raised, the New York
rebels will be swept like chaff before the wind. The
governor may do much mischief, but he must stop
very far short of the revolutionary violence he has
intimated in his letter, or he will confront a public
spirit it will be hardly safe to grapple with. The
human soul never had a more inflexible purpose
than that now held by the people of New York
State, to sustain the war until the rebellion is
crushed. Any man attempting to divert that de-
termination by pretext or device will be ground to
powder."
The Commercial Advertiser, noting the changes
of population caused by the invasion of the
Northern armies throughout the South, says that
similar changes are taking place in the Northern
States. Strangers are arriving in unprecedented
numbers. So many emigrants never landed at New
York in one day as on Monday last (the 25th), the
aggregate being over 3,500. During the season
probably 50,000 emigrant have sought the Ameri-
can shores, four-fifths of them having landed at
New York.

DISPATCH OF THE BRAZIL AND RIVER PLATE
MAILS.—Southampton, Tuesday.—The Royal Mail
Company's steamship Magdalena, Capt. Woolward, sailed
hence to-day, at three p.m., with the mails for Lisbon,
Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Monte Video, Buenos
Ayres, &o. She took out 73 passengers and on freight for
Rio £209,900, of which amount £200,000 in sovereigns is
for the Bank of Brazil, and £7,400 in bar silver for the
Minister of Finance; for Bahia, £4,000 in sovereigns; for
Monte Video, goad coin £226 ; for Buenos Ayres, gold coin
£1,600; and for Lisbon £9,893 in sovereigns, of which
amount £6,000 is consigned to the Union Bank. The
Magdalena also took out a very full cargo of French and
English merchandise.