The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-17 00:00:00

NORTHERN STA2ES O 1 AMERICA.

(From Me correspondent of the lima)
NEW YORK, APRIL 1.
Tl.ongh the Federal Government has established
a censorship over the electric telegraph, it does not
thereby guarantee the authenticity of the news that
it allows to flash along the wires. Last week, after
the announcement of the capture of Newbern, every
one credited the intelligence transmitted almost im-
mediately afterwards, that Beaufort and Fort Macon
had been evacuated by the Confederates, and that
the notorious steamer Nashville had been burnt by
her commander, to prevent her falling into the
hands of her foes. These events were so highly
probable that disbelief was out of the question. But
of the three facts thus communicated to the public,
with the sanction of the Government, only one
turned out to be true. Newborn had fallen, but the
Confederates held Beaufort and Fort Macon; and
the captain of the Nashville, a man who seems to be
as fortunate as he is desperate, had run the blockade
established against him by two small vessels,
of which only one was a steamer, and reached the
open sea in safety, with a parting shot from the foe,
which proved as harmless as a salute. Perhaps by
1 his time more is known in England of his doings
than is known here. The merchants of New York
are annoyed and indignant at his escape, for he sent
up the rate of insurance on every trading vessel
carrying the Federal flag over the Atlantic, and if
he do not fall in with another Harvey Birch or two
on his way to British waters, and burn, sink, or
destroy them, it will not be for the want of will,
but from the absence of opportunity. Mr. Gideon
Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, is evidently too
slow. It was known that the Nashville had lain for
weeks under the shelter of the guns of Fort Macon,
and that there were three channels to the sea, by
either of which she could make a run, Yet, though
he deemed it necessary to set a watch over her
movements, he seems to have thought that an old
and next to useless steamer, and an old sailing
boat, were quite sufficient to guard the three chan-
nels against the exit of one of the fastest steamers
afloat, commanded by one of the most dare-devil
and adventurous seamen that ever trod a deck. As
regards the official and other telegrams from the
various points of war, the only safe course is to dis-
believe them till they are confirmed by the surer
information conveyed t4trough the post-office. So
puzzling and unreliable are they that one journal
yet persists, on the faith of them, in asserting that
the story of the escape of the Nashville is as fabu-
lous as that of her burning, and that she dill lies at
anchor under the walls of Fort Macon,
ISLAND NO. TEN.

Commodore Foote has not yet succeeded in crack-
ing that very hard nut in the Mississippi, Island
No, 10. It is now 17 days since the siege began,
and, although the Commodore has his nut-crackers
in his hand, the nut resists the pressure as it were
iron to the core, and had nothing like a yielding
kernel inside. The operations were suspended for
some days by floods in the river, but, if the tele-
graph tells truth, they were recommenced on Fri-
day, but as yet without result. While the Federal
forces are thus impeded in their efforts to force a
way down the Mississippi, public expectation is
roused by the announcement of a still more import-
ant effort to force a passage upwards to New
Orleans, The plans of the Federal commanders
are of course not known or divulged, but the geo-
graphieal position of the Crescent City seems to
justify the anticipation that it will be attacked
simultaneously from the river and from Lake Pont-
chartrain. If the scraps and odds and ends of in-
formation that reach us at intervals from the South
are not utterly unreliable there will be harder fight-
ing here than there has been anywhere since the
days of Bull Run. The Confederates are perfectly
aware of the strategical as well as the commercial
and political value of New Orleans, and they have
had nearly 12 months to organise its defences by
land and water. Public rumour asserts that no re-
sources of nature or art have been neglected to
render it as impregnable as modern science can make
it. The river is said to be fuller of engines of de-
struction than fish, and the land defences between
Pontchartrain and the city, a distance of six miles
of swamp and jungle, through which the famous
Shell Road is pierced in almost a straight line, are
described as being far more formidable than any-
thing ever yet constructed on this continent. At
the date of the last advices (always presupposing
that the telegraphic wires convey the truth) an in-
vading fleet of 200 vessels, including a mortar flo-
tilla under the command of Captain Porter, had I
crossed the bar of the Lower Mississippi, and was
cautiously making its way up the river. New
Orleans will not fall without a desperate struggle,
and is more likely to be the Sebastopol of the war
than Richmond or Corinth, or any other of the
places where the Confederate generals are reported
to bo making a stand against the advancing hosts
of M'Clellan and his victorious lieutenants.