The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-03 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA'

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH.
(No. I.)
There is no use in prefixing a date or a direction
to letters written at intervals from time to time, as
I find occasion and opportunity in the course of my
wanderings through the South to halt at various
stations and to put together the result of my ob-
servations and reflections on what I have seen, and
I therefore shall forward this communication as
soon as I can get within the reach of any postal
system, just as it has been composed, uncertain
when it may arrive in England or where it may be
finished. As I write I am in the State of Missis-
sippi, and on my way to Virginia and thence to
Washington. The time is the middle of June. As
to all knowledge of the world outside the Confede-
rate States, I am in perfect ignorance. The posts
are stopped, the telegraphs are mythical, the
" news" not truthful or even novel, for a skirmish
is made to do good duty as a battle, a victory, a
glorious achievement, a brilliant success—in fact,
as everything but a skirmish, for at least a week
or ten days. Of the Northern States as little is
known here as there is of Europe, and all one
can learn of England or of France is contained
in some dubious extracts from Northern papers
in reference to the policy to be adopted or the
opinions which have been expressed regarding
the Confederate States whenever the general tone
and temper of the remarks are favourable. This
much by way of preface and explanation. With
all their vehement hate of each other, and the wild
exaggeration of their words, the Northern and the
Southern armies are at present paralysed by want
of an efficient transport in the presence of each
other's outposts and on their own soil. There may
be bloody conflicts, there may be considerable
slaughter in undecisive fights, but no battle can be
lost or gained of such a character as to produce any
great influence on the course of the campaign till
General Scott, on the one hand, and Mr. Davis, on
the other, shall have succeeded in organizing an
efficient force of cavalry, artillery, and, above all,
a proper commissariat and transport. Mere infan-
try combats, unless in siege operations between
covering and investing armies, rarely determine the
issue of any war, no matter how sanguinary they
may be. It is impossible for me to express any
opinion as to the condition of the Northern army
till I see it, but, so far as I have had means of exa-
mining the state of the Southern troops, I incline to
think they are not at present capable of any very
great aggressive effort ; and I am disposed to the
belief that nothing but the instinct of self-preserva-
tion will prove strong enough to hold them toge-
ther, even in a defensive attitude, for any consi-
derably protracted war. In cavalry and field artil-
lery they are miserably deficient, and mere talk
about " cold steel" will not win victories or main-
tain successful campaigning. I doubt if Mr. Davis
could for his supreme struggle just now put 3,000
horse and 50 pieces of light artillery in the field.
If General Scott is not much better off, he has,
at all events, the nuclei of both arms in the United
States' cavalry and artillery which remain to
him; and it will not have been unobserved by
Europe that, while the officers of the United States'
army have to an extraordinary extent proved Un-
faithful to their flag, or, at least, have gone over to
the Confederate States, the troopers and common
soldiers have, almost to a man, stood by their colours
and refused to take service under any persuasion
with the Secessionists. As to commissariat supplies,
so long as the armies are scattered in various pro-
vinces or States resting on rivers, railroads, and
towns, in the midst of corn-growing, beef and mutton
making communities, there may be no very great
difficulties felt by either, but when the armies are
massed together or moved away in rapid marches
their deficient organisation on vital points will be
speedily apparent and cruelly felt, and as the war
goes on the North, having the sea open and supplies
of food and other matters accessible, must have the
advantage in the long run, if there be one. Even
at this moment the Southern troops seize on carts,
horses, and stores, for which the commissariat offi-
cers give receipts that at some time or other will
entitle the owners to payment in Confederate States
money. A:l this will soon be severely manifest in
the States subject to these operations when regular
campaigning ;comes on, and unless a proper trans-
port and commissariat be organised, the country in
which these armies move will assuredly be obliged
to submit to pillage, plunder, unforeseen contribu-
tions, and much of the calamities of war, which will
be intensified just in proportion to the want of iden-
tity of sentiment between the inhabitants and the
troops moving through their villages.
No one can say in such a conflict, or, indeed, in
any warlike operations, what a day may bring forth,
but it is evident as yet that the South has lost
ground, and that the North has gained it since the
fever of excitement which broke into flames at
Sumpter ran through the Union, and devoured it
with the consuming eagerness of the fire in stubble.
A blockade has been enforced, which, despite all
assertions and pretences to the contrary, has pro-
duced already, to my certain knowledge, much in-
convenience, and will, I believe, cause serious mis-
chief in the South. At present the Southerners are
cheered by the hope, almost
aped, as strong as a conviction,
that England
blockade to be eneoreeFdraanscseoo dn aarse t
hneo
ct 0 pt
teornmi t
crop the i s
ready, and that they will find means to raise, resist,
or force it, even by a
impossibility of enforcing a
ftoaoll, othfetihrecoast,
war with the United States.
and of the thousands of
miles of coast which they possess,
as a
bTlho ec
yk
ade talk,o
proof that all
the navies of the world could not do that which the
United States navy is called on to perform. Similar
been used in England andelsewhere.
But has
But it is not necessary to blockade all these many
miles of coast ; nature—the coral reef, the sand-
bank,m shallow water, clan,erous seas, have done that
work most effectually.
From
to Galveston,
Virginia,Chesapeake Bay, on
the north-west frontier of
or Indianola, there is no port which a vessel of
large tonnage would care to enter which is not at
this moment nearly as efficiently blockaded as is
usual in war. The Fortress Monroe commands
Norfolk, the best harbour and port on the Southern
coast. Broad River, Port Royal, and Wilmington
are of little consequence, mad can be closed at any
moment. Savannah, Charleston, Pensacola, M -
bile, and New Orleans are at present under watch
and ward. Cast your eyes over the chart of shallow,
tumultuous, eddying waters, fanged with rocks and
reefs, and breaking on outlying sandbars, which
chafe the shores of the Southern States, and you
will see abundant reason for the conclusion that
foreign shipowners will not be anxious to run
in for cargoes on these dangerous coasts. As soon
as the stock of merchandise, provisions, wines,
clothing, boots, tea, coffee, and such articles, now in
the South is exhausted a powerful test will be ap-
plied to the statement that the South can supply
itself, and can produce all that it wants. Already,
for example, there is an outcry against the scarcity
of salt_ When the salting season comes what will
become of the meat? And without salt pork what

will become of the negroes ? They are contented,
it is said, at present. But hunger would be with
them, as with the white race, a most effective
motive of ill-feeling and dissatisfaction. The people
at the South feel this ; they are "raising" plenty of
corn, but they are afraid of the results of the want
of salt; without it chickens will be scarce about
negvo cottages next spring. No meat is readily
eatEla by the negroes except pork. They do not
consider beef or mutton as meat at all in our sense
of the term. Of almost equal importance with
pork to them for many months of the year is ice to
the negroes' masters. Of course they can do with-
out it, but the absence of the familiar and valued
articles from their tables and glasses will prove a
minor misery of life to the habituated, which can
only be understood by those who are living among
the American people. The inland blockade is not
very stringently enforced. The other day, for
instance, a quantity of machinery was received
from a Northern manufactory down the Missis-
sippi at the house of a planter near New Orleans,
who would not have been able to get in his sugar
crop this year without it. Texas supplies cattle
in abundance by the inland rivers and overland
routes, but the poor whites, who are poor enough
already, will be reduced to the greatest dis-
tress by the high prices of meat and food, and all
' who cannot find work must enter the ranks of
the army for a subsistence. All things are dear,
except the raw material of food, at present. For
'an ordinary black silk hat I was charged at
New Orleans £1 6s. 6d., a linen slop coat cost
nearly £1 ; for making flannel shirts I paid 9s. 6d.
a-piece, and the flannel alone was as dear as the
-best shirt in London. Common cotton socks are sold
at 3s. 6d. a pair; other articles are dear in propor-
tion. Butter and wheat flour will be things of the
past on many city tables. As to the sugar planters,
ruin seems certain if they can find no market for
their produce. They say they would not sell it to
the North and West even if they could, and the
South cannot consume it all, and if the South does,
it cannot pay the producers except in a coin or
currency which may not' be readily convertible at
the end of the year. If the design attributed to
the military authorities of the United States to
move down the Mississippi be ever carried oat
there is no amount of misery which may not be in-
flicted on the seceding States ; but the attempt
would be most difficult of execution, and it could
only be made as a part of a grand combined opera-
tion for marching victoriously from Virginia to
Louisiana. That such an operation may not be
contemplated it is impossible to assert. Its conse-
quences would be terrible on both sides, and in the
interests of humanity, of civilisation, of liberty, and
of Christianity it might be well for the great Powers
of Europe to consider whether they should not offer
or even press a mediation to which the most furious
fanatics would be obliged to listen after they have
satiated their taste for blood.

Turning from the sea and river to the land, every
step of an offensive character which has been taken
as yet has been made and maintained by the Northern
troops. The " sacred soil" of Virginia has been
polluted by " Lincoln's mercenaries," acre by acre.
But in all this, say the Southerners, there is design.
General Jefferson Davis has inspired them with
universal confidence. A bloody and disastrous re-
verse awaits the invaders, and at the very moment
that the Northerners are cautiously—at least, not
very boldly advancing, there are thousands down
here waiting for the news that Washington has
been captured. No doubt there -must be an accumu-
lation of the Confederates somewhere in Virginia,
and Mr. Davis may be contemplating some very
daring movement. Appearances, always deceitful,
are very dangerous in war. Who does not remem-
ber the divine calm which preceded Inkerman ? But
appearances indicate greater apprehension for Rich-
mond than for Washington, Pensacola no longer
occupies men's thoughts. The most ardent believers
in Brigadier-General Bragg's readiness for attack
cease to expect that it will be of use just now. Some
thousands of the troops employed there in watching
the fortress and the fleet have been withdrawn and
sent to Virginia. Others have returned to Jackson,
in Mississippi State. Oddly enough, it has been
found out that "Pickens is of no account." The
United States' standard may be permitted to flout
the skies over the sacred soil—for in this land every
foot of the ground is holy—of the State without
damage done, until climate and insects destroy its
defenders. Instead of taking fortress Monroe the
troops originally in defence of that place are making
an onward movement, and Virginia is slowly seced-
ing into United States' territory. Still, these move-
ments all tend to produce a consternation of the
Confederate forces, and the evacuation of Harper's
Ferry might be a masterly movement if any one could
now tell why it ever was occupied, unless with the
object of an aggressive action, which the steps taken
by Gen. Scott have defeated and rendered abortive.
The design of that General would appear to be, for
the present, to get his own troops well in hand, to
drill them, to accustom them to act together—to
form officers out of clerks and merchants, lawyers,
editors, and reporters—and to cover his front
all the while so effectually as to permit the
enemy to gain nothing by his inactivity. The
South, I know, are making the most of their time
in a similar manner ; but from what I can see, there
is an impression produced on every mind that the
Southern material is more homogeneous and easily
adapted to war than the peaceful populations of
the North, and, if Kentucky and Tenessee throw all
their available populations into the scale, the North,
despite its numerical superiority, will be taxed
severely to defeat the bold, hardy race, accustomed
to arms, which inhabit those vast States. The in-
digent people in all the States, those who are de-
prived of work by the cessation of their usual
engagements, the foreign elements—all who might
become dangerous if left behind in the rear of the
combatants—are subject to coercive influences to in-
duce them to enlist. Oa this point I would make an
appeal to the benevolent and patriotic at home who
have the means and the inclination to aid their un-
fortunate countrymen. The misery and distress
which have come to many British subjects in the
States owing to this war can scarcely be exagge-
rated. Only those who can hear the appeals or see
the letters addressed to our Consuls can form any
idea of the great suffering to which they are ex-
posed in consequence of the closing of works, the
stoppage of navigation, the paralysis of trade, the
insolvency of employers, the operation of " stay-
laws," and the hundred evils which follow civil war
in a country like America, particularly where there
is such a largely developed system of fictitious
credits and unsound banking. Our Consuls are
besieged with applications for help. The appli-
cants generally desire to be sent to Canada ; but
there is no means of sending them by sea, and the
land voyage is expensive. Too often the relief
comes out of the pockets of the ill-paid Consuls
themselves ; sometimes it is refused with pain and
reluctance. I am sure that Mr. Bunch, at Charles-
ton, Mr. Magee, at Mobile, and Mr. Mure, at New
Orleans, could testify the truth of what I say, and
afford many distressing examples to show how much
needed a little aid from the British public, or gene-
rous action on the part of the Government, is at the
present moment. There is no Poor Law to relieve
the distressed. Many of the cases are such as a
Consul cannot relieve with any hope of compensa-
tion from official
sources.
and
sent t If
someo those smallgenstulmems
gentlemen
money were collectedthey would, I am satisfied, gladly add to their
labours by a judicious disbursement of the fund.
Let me
just give an example of what might be done.
The morning I left New Orleans a British sailor ap-
peared at the Consul's door in great distress. He
had received a severe wound in the arm in our ser-
vice in the last war, and at the close of it shipped
on board a merchantman, which was blockaded in
Mobile. While there the wound broke out afresh,
and he was sent to the hospital. But the hospital
after a time was closed for want of funds, and Mr.
•lor with the means of
Magee had furnished the sai
d with a letter to
getting over to New Orleans, ,„n
arie to Canada
Mr. Mure, asking him to get a pass a
for the bearer. The man was shipped off, and ar-
rived at New Orleans with his chest. No sooner
had he set foot on the shore than the police were
upon him and sought to take him into custody.
Why ? Because he was a man of colour, and there-
fore was a criminal and an offender against the laws
of the State, inasmuch as he was not owned by any-

body ! Under the promise of going straight to the
Consul he was permitted to get his chest on a cart,
for which the driver asked all the money he had
left, and when he came to the door a policeman was
following him to see he did not halt or diverge on
his journey. His chest contained only some old
clothes and such nautical waifs and stays as Jack
generally crams into his box. He had no money—
Mr. Mure could not by any means get him a pas-
sage to Canada, There was no place for him to go
to in the city. If at large he would he sent to
prison, and so Mr. Mure had to send him to some
hospital, •of which he is a governor or subscriber,
and will, no doubt, be put to trouble and expense
on his account which it is not fair to impose on a
consular officer. If a few gentlemen will only
begin the movement they will do immense good.
There are hundreds of deservineßritish subjects
desirous of getting to Canada at this moment.
Every year a number of industrious, hard-working
men come from British America for the purpose of
earning money in the South, and they get up north-
wards by degrees, as labour is required. Their re-
treat is now cut,
Jeff, and they are left broadcast
all over.the States in the South, without money, or
means, or hope. I trust the appeal I venture to make
on their behalf will not be without its fruits.
Supposing that there are no apprehensions of dis-
turbance from the negro population, the war can be
carried on by the South with less derangement of
their social system than will be the case in the
North. The Southerners are fond of calling them-
selves an agricultural people. Their slaves raise
agricultural produce, but, except in parts of Ten-
nessee and Kentucky, there is, I suspect, very little
agriculture for which white hands are directly em-
ployed. The lower orders of whites are mechanical;
the upper sort superintend their labourers occa-
sionally, but are generally engaged in the pursuit
of a rude aristocracy, or in the more elegant dissi-
pation of continental cities or Northern watering-
places and hotels. If the overseers can do their
work as usual all the white lords and their white
dependents can go to the wars, and corn, rice, sugar,
and cotton will be cultivated and raised as usual.
Unless the North can spare a larger surplus than
one would suppose from the populations engaged in
its busy industry, the derangement of its trade and
internal commerce will be greater than that which
the war will cause in the South. If the negroes
occasion any trouble there is no saying how far
the difficulties of the Slave States may not go; but
at present they are possessed with a confidence,
which may be blind or far-seeing, that their slaves
will remain quiet if not faithful, and the absence
of any white element from the population of whole
districts is very remarkable. The spectacle of an
uprising of 4,000,000 of negroes in the plantations,
burning, plundering, and destroying the whites is
one which I confess I am not humanitarian or
Abolitionist enough to be prepared to desire or to
enjoy. It would be an evil as tremendous in its
consequences to the North as to the South, and it,
would lead to an irrepressible conflict between the
Federal troops and their new allies. There are some
few people who talk about re-settling the South by
negro proprietors, now slaves ; these are blatant
lunatics or very wicked idiots. Others there are
who desire, very kindly, to make an arrangement
with England by which our colonies could be sup-
plied with labour, and who wish to make a bargain
with us for the receipt of a population of 4,000,000
of black people. When they are in a condition to
do so perhaps it may be time to characterise ihe
transaction as it would deserve. No one that I ever
heard of proposes to receive the negroes into the
Northern States, though, perhaps, they might be
allowed to go further and fare worse in Canada.
Victorious, the North will have to encounter, on
the very threshold of the Temple of Peace, a foe
more terrible than war. Is there in all the wise
heads of the world one who can solve the knot with-
out the use of the sword. And when the sword has
done its work, what next? There is the eternal
negro tripping up the foot of Alexander as he
returns his blade to the sheath. Can any one
devise a scheme for the deportation of 4,000,000
souls? Why such an emigration was never heard
of ! The hordes of Huns and Goths and Vandals—
the swarming floods of Scythian races, which rolled
their tides over Europe, presented no such masses
and no such scenes as would be witnessed in the
execution of any scheme of the kind; and, except
by the spontaneous action of the States, there is
little hope of any gradual extinction or absorption
of the race, and if it be not done gradually it can
scarce be done at all. It is hard to ascertain what
are the feelings of these people—their utterance is
imperfect, not merely morally but physically. They
are treated to a few words from the great dish of
the English tongue, which mostly refer to labour
or to their wants, and their speech is as nearly
inarticulate as may be, although the fine ear of the
people and the accent of educated individuals prove
they could speak it as well as their masters if they
had a chance of learning how to do so. There are
various notions in reference to their treatment. As
a general statement, I think it may be asserted they
are not ill-used in the districts where they are
dear, and where their produce is valuable. Where
the masters are rich, the estates large, the incomes
certain, and all struggles with the forest and with
adversity are over, liberty to them seems idleness.
So lam told. But I hear, too, that they are very
fond of idleness. The conclusion is not difficult.
Compared with the honzas in Cuba, where the ave-
rage of life in labour is reduced by incessant and
cruel task-work to 10 or 11 years, the negroes on
plantations in America are pampered aristocrats ;
but I cannot admit any comparison between them
and the denizens of an English coal mine, which
s often drawn by the planters down here.

On the cotton estates in the South the negroes
dread the " picking seasons," notwithstanding the
assurance of the Captain of the Southern Republic
that the task was but the " culling of roses." On
sugar plantations, although the mill is " run"
night and day, and the toil is incessant while it
lasts, the " rolling season" is a period of cheerful-
ness which never flags until frost interrupts the
harvest. The negro, like the elephant, is fond of
cane, and, like the Indian bear, of its juices, which,
despite the increase in the length and fervor of his
labours, makes an alderman of him for the time
being, and puts fat on his ribs.
The English agriculturist transported to Houmas
or some such large plantation on Prince Hassan's
carpet, would be charmed by the magnificence of
its culture and the noiseless system by which such
perfection is achieved. He would find well fed,
well clothed, and well lodged labourers, born upon
the soil, and even limiting their labours to that
section of the plantation on which they have been
reared. Thus, in the two upper" settlements" of
the estate abovementioned, I found men and women
who had not only never been off the estate in
their lives, but who had not even visited Orange
Grove, which is a separateplantation adjoining the
property, and recently purchased by the same pro-
prietor, though it is only divided from it by a fence.
The English agriculturist, while confessing sugar-
planting to be a remunerative recreation, instead of
a care and a toil, upon lands which, like those of
Houmas, have been tilled for half a century with-
out manure or repose, will envy the planter far less
the possession of the soil than the faculty which
" the institution" gives him of having ever at his
command the docile sinews of a race kept stu-
diously aloof from towns and their civilisation, and
to whose simple perceptions the words " strike"
and " combination" are unknown. The seasons
For planting, for ploughing, for laying by, and fur
rolling sugar, are so definitively marked in the
cultivator's calendar that the delay of a week, or
even less, in any process might not be recovered.
This, to be sure, is still more the case in our
island of rare sunshine, but the colossal scale of
a culture which requires, as
belong to
pliaibcoautireeerss,vvmh
souls (or bodies) of
tical countrymen• at lloumas, 900
from
running w hi h notthe h lessaza r thand er t
those
Oe
the employeriigehh t
sometimesw ell detero
arise
itsehhyept
woteheen-
bination could
wages, or for andno thet ex
iesmt p
forl o yt ehdo.
plot r ips tsrou
oe
ft hr ea
ictsoi
nmg-
any thin but an increased ration with-
the institution itself, but the same
g
g
odo
rui
stapprehension from such sources may be effectual
roinot
as tortoioyninignmore any ra
power of combination, or any co-
abstruse political matters. It is

said, however, that, as in India, these dark people
have a telegraph of their own which works inscrut-
ably, in silence and in darkness, and acquaints them
with events and movements of which it might be
desirable to keep them in ignorance, as speedily—it
might be as truly—as the wires carries news to
their masters. If the chattel character of the slave
were removed, if he could be made as the Saxon
churl or the recent Russian serf—adscriptus glebe
—much of the odious character attached to Ameri.
can slavery would be removed, although there would
remain the abstract wrong and the concrete—the
danger of an extension or impetus to the slave trade
at every increase of territory or augmentation of
profits. The feudal system, as is here called, is,
perhaps, not worse in America to-day than it was
in the days of the Conqueror in England, and if the
Americans are content with the comparison of their
Republic to-day with the kingdom of England in
that time, one has not much to say on that point.
Indeed, the plea of physical inferiority and differ-
ence of race—as well as that of the status quo ante
" we became planters"—might be as well urged by
the hawknosed beetle-browed saturnine Norman,
as good reason why he should hold in bondage the
fair-haired, blond, broad•faced Saxon, as the wool,
skin, and heat-enduring nature of the African are
considered strong grounds by the diverse-coloured
people of the South for buying, selling, and
holding in bondage that particular type of Adam.
There can be no yeomanry where slavery pre-
vails. The inevitable tendency of the system is
to create great capitalists, who buy up slaves and
lands, and extinguish the smaller white proprie-
tors, and it must be admitted there is so far good
for the slave in this feature of the system that, if
held completely as a beast of burden and a labour
machine by the large proprietor, he is better treated
by him, although on a far lower footing, than by
the poor white who is struggling to make a few
bales ot* cotton out of ill-tilled and inferior land.
The creoles who hold on to their little patches of
land by the Mississippi are regarded by their
wealthier neighbours as very bigoted and unreason-
able because they will not sell their land, and yet,
acre after acre, it is slipping away from them. As a
curious fact, I may mention that among the lowest
order of these settlers, some of whom indeed are
considered as squatters by the sugarcaneocrats, I
met one Unionist, a doctor, who exercised such in-
fluence, or said he did, in several. parishes in Loui-
siana that he could poll two to one for Union as
against Secession, but Dr. Cottman was nevertheless
quite ready to take the field against the Federal
forces. In no place does greater objection to univer-
sal suffrage—unpopular as it is, in private conver-
sation at least, over most of the States—exist than
in the South.

The satraps can bear no rival near the throne.
With all their individual charms of manner, easy
demeanour, hospitality, and good breeding, there is
at the bottom of the whole system, as there is at
the base of Secession, a gross materialism. It may
be that the North is equally under the same influ-
ence—it may be that all the world is regulated by
it—that interest is the sole motive power in poli-
tics and in the actions of men. But in the South
alone, in spite of refinement and chivalry, is the
doctrine preached to the exclusion of any other
dogma. Nowhere else have I heard so much of the
potency of the dollar expressed in acreage, in bales
of cotton, and hogsheads of sugar. Every white
man who is among them takes, or may take, some-
thing from them. Their number is minimised to
meet the strictest requirements of trading in the
towns,and of mechanical arts in the country through
all the extreme South. It is a delusion to imagine
that the possession of slaves, ipso facto, makes
a gentleman. The slave,owner educates bis children
afar—generally in the North, sometimes in France
or in England. He affords them every means of
luxurious enjoyment, while the Northern youth is
toiling in the office of the counting-house. They
travel like Russians or Milors, go into good society,
are acceptable for their pleasant manners and phy-
sique, and if they can afford they avoid the planta-
tions, and fly to them only under pressure. They
soon become masters accustomed to the obedience of
slaves. If they meet with opposition they can scarce
control their passions, and argument is often treated
as an insult. But whatever the causes may be there
is much of that which is called" being a gentleman"
' among the planters ; not, however, in any degree
the result of slaveholding. It is only on their farms
and at home that the material view of all things is
so fully expressed—often, indeed, in no unpleasant
expositions. These gentlemen have power of chas-
tisement with little limit but death, and then, I
suspect, the penalties are not excessive. Each is his
own provost-marshal. The gang system produces
not only uniformity and steadiness of labour, but
submissiveness and obedience. They work as soldiers
drill, in companies. The overseers are the captains ;
the master is the general, who gives orders and ex-
pects the thing to be done. The planters are held
together by common interests. Each man knows,
not only his neighbour, but the planters of his
State more or less intimately. There is no mob to
control them. Thus, they are all powerful for con-
certed political action. But, as interests in States
are generally identical, it so happens that the inte-
rests of one State clash with those of another. There
is no danger, even here, to the Confederacy, should
it ever be established on the basis of slavery, solid
as it seems. Already South Carolina provokes
ridicule by pretensions she is quite ready to main-
tain, and anger by assertions she is not averse to
prove. The State of Virginia is abused on account
of the slowness of her march, and the valour of the
Virginians is called in question by several jour-
nals in which I have seen severe and biting sar-
casms on the bravery of her troops. There will, no
doubt, be many State jealousies to settle in time to
come; and I have heard what are called prominent
citizens in each avow their only sympathies with
their neighbours to be those of a common defence,
and their only bond of union the bondage of the
slave. As yet those sympathies have done their
work, and the bond has united the desperate poli,
ticians and spirited and earnest populations of the
South for determined action. The seals of the Fede-
ral compact have been broken, and the descendants
of British races, representing a population as nume-
rous as that of the United Kingdom, split into two
great parties, political and geographical, have re-
solved to decide the legality of their acts by an ap-
peal to the last tribunal of kings and nations. The
principles of 1776, and the glories of 1789 are al-
ready as remote and obsolete as those of the Assy-
rian or the Egyptian. But in the present instance
there is no faint-heartedness in the challenged party
(although its reluctance has been misrepresented as
cowardice), and the balance of civilisation is in its
favour. The contest has been variously character.
ised, but its material issues lie between commerce
and manufactures on the one hand, and agriculture
on the other; and in this region, where commerce is
despised, it is regarded by many as a struggle be-
tween overshot wheels and human labour as sub-
missive as the spindles they drive. For, with all
deference to Mr. Seward, his speeches and their
plausible generalisation, and to Mr. Lincoln and the
Chicago platform, it is a fallacy to style this a strife
between free and slave labour. Wherever the former
can thrive, it is as sure of finding its way as water
its level. There are still millions of acres open to
the white agriculturist who too often decries, from
dog-in-the-manger motives, the tillage of cotton
and sugar in the pestilential swamps of Carolina
and Louisiana.

Thus much as to the tangible interests involved
in this unhappy controversy, to which the passions
it has aroused may impart an unparalleled acerbity.
If one may concede to the South just cause for dis-
satisfaction with Northern tariffs and persona/
liberty bills, it is equally true that the North has
grounds to complain of the taunts of the South,
which she has long endured, as the landlord submits
to the carpings of his tenant, or the moneylender
to the uncomplimentary epithets of the prodigal he
holds in his clutches. Nay, she has suffered with
calmness, not only contumely as a people, but the
actual castigation of Mr. Horace Greeley, a member
of Congress, and of Mr. Charles Sumner, a member
of the United States Senate. Yet, who shall now
say that the canes showered upon Mr. Brooks by
his fellow-citizens for the last-mentioned assault did
not reproduce themselves in the pikes of John
Brown, or deny that they bristle to-day in the
bayonets of the 100,000 Northerners who manifest

by the somewhat tardy ardour with which they are
identifying themselves with the partisans and prin-
ciples of a sombre, if honest, fanaticism, compunc-
tion, and even indignation at the crapulous interests
and self-seeking motives which have been for 10
years or more their consolations under the tenets of
Boethian philosophy ?
This military outburst, like the bloom of the cen-
tury aloes, takes by surprise even those who had
faith in its ultimate upshooting from within leaves
which, during three generations, seemed inert as
wax and immutable as petrifaclions.
The smoke of cannon and conflagration had
scarcely curled away from the ramparts of Fort
Sumpter before the people of the South, upon the
principle that it is better to play hammer than
anvil, proclaimed that bloodless victory to be the
incipient meet of a general hunt, in which its yeo-
manry were invited to participate after the Northern
fox. On the same evening Mr. Walker, the War
Secretary of the Confederate States, announced
from the balcony of the Exchange Hotel at Mont-
gomery, that in a few weeks their flag should wave
over the Capitol at Washington. Attempts have been
since made to question the authenticity of this post.
prandial indiscretion, but I quote from the Charles-
ton Mercury which, however widely it may at times
secede from reason, has never yet been charged with
seceding from what it believes to be the truth.
With these echoes of a no very remote past, now
mingle utterances with which I could wish that my
worldly fortunes gave me reason to be still more
dissatisfied. While defence to the swamp instead of
war to the knife, seems the present war cry of the
Southern patriots, there are symptoms of an ag-
gression not unlikely to prove equally fatal to friends
and foes, and this is repudiation. Notwithstanding
the changes rung upon this topic since the origin of
communities, one cannot deny that American inge
nuity—more particularly in Mississippi, has disco-
vered new and unsuspected variations. This may be
all very well between belligerents ; and, while out-
siders may question the ethics of " stay laws," they
have no right to find fault with them. But in the
case of State bonds, railroad debentures, et id genus
omne, will it notbe difficult to discriminate between
the innocent European and the inimical Northern
holder of securities so.readily transferable ?
Thus the Montgomery Congress enacted a prohi-
bition of all payments to the enemy. The Attorney
General of Louisiana has pronounced the transfer of
bank or other stocks standing in Northern names
illegal. Gen. Pillow has reminded the people of
Tennessee, in a recent proclamation, that all pay-
ments due to Northern creditors must be made to the
State in support of the war, and that remittances
in contravention of this rule will render its trans-
gressors liable to penal consequences. And the State
of Virginia, afterinviting the Northern bondholders
to come to Richmond and collect their coupons in
Virginia currency, is debating measures to withhold
any such payments where known to be due to the
North.
I need not say that many Southern railroad, canal,
and State bonds are held in Europe, and that the
capitalists of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort,
&c., usually transact their business through Northt rn
agents. Take, for example, a Liverpool holder of
Louisiana shares, who has been wont to receive his
dividends through Messrs. Brown Brothers. His
stock may even, for convenience, be registered in
their name. The sign of those gentlemen having
been recently taken down by the New Orleans Vi-
gilance Committee, and their office closed by their
agent in that city, their English client may whistle
for his dividends until the war is over.
Again, Tennessee has a fair length of railroads,
some of which may still owe a balance to the British
ironmaster, or some of the contractors on which
may have paper maturing in favour of Northern
agents. General Pillow's proclamation debars even
the debtor who is willing and able to pay from the
falfilment of his obligations. I am .not familiar
enough with finance to decide the question which
occurs to me, viz.—may there not be parties glad to
take advantage of this prohibition and to consider
the debt cancelled ?
The British capitalist, therefore, who has laboured
under the delusion—not dispelled by the financial
ethics of Mississippi—that States bonds carried with
them the family guarantee of the entity of the United
States Government, may now discover that, like the
butcher of Eastern fable, he has trusted a magician,
and that the Southern department of his strong box
contains but withered leaves. The proprietary and
creditors of Southern railways must for some time
to come suffer a similar disenchantment. I was
assured by an intelligent Northern railway presi-
dent that England and the Northern States had
built all the Southern railways, and that for the
past ten years ormore the planters whose prosperity
they had advanced had invested all their profits in
fresh land and negroes, as a more lucrative outlay
than any " internal improvements."
A question of interest may occur to the heirs—if
any—of the discontented scion of the house of Percy
who bequeathed £150,000 to the United States to
found at Washington an institution for the diffusion
of knowledge among men. The legacy was collected
by a Democratic Administration, and the bulk of it
lent to the now seceded State of Arkansas, under the
guarantee of the United States. The bonds of that
State could not have been sold at that time in the
market for 70 per cent. It would be expecting blood
from a stone.to hope that a dollar of the principal or
interest will now be paid to the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, and the debt may consequently be added to
the long list of unfulfilled obligations towards man-
kind which weigh on the memory of the great Re-
public. If Arkansas respects the district of Co-
lumbia there may be no danger, but the temptation
is great. And now I bring this letter to a close,
with the assurance that, if I have extenuated many
thingi, I have set down naught in malice. In my
next I shall have a few words to say as to the ques-
tion of administration of the laws, and the morality
wh ch prevails in some parts of the recent United
States—the which may have more to do with the
questions to arise hereafter than we may think, or be
ready to perceive at first blush ; and then, before I
leave the South, by the aid of faithful authorities I
trust to give some information respecting a matter
of much interest to England—the cotton supply.
If cotton be king, we may as weal admit the sway at
once; but, for one, I would sooner live under the
worst form of government possible, even the dis-
rupted rule of the American public, than the sway
of such a soulless, senseless, flocculent potentate.