The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-26 00:00:00

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A VOICE FROM 2111 E SOUTH.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
have been greatly surprised to learn since
my arrival in London that an effort has been made
through publications in the English press to create
the impression that there is much disaffection to-
wards the Confederate Government in all the
Southern States of America, but particularly
among the people of North Carolina, and that the
proceedings of what purports to have been a meet-
ing of influential and respectable citizens of the
county of Hyde, in that State, have been published
as authority for the numerous statements which
have been made upon the subject.

I am directly from the city of Raleigh, the capital
of the State of North Carolina, having come as a
passenger in the Confederate States war steamer
Nashville, which left Charleston, South Carolina,
on the 26 th of October, and cast anchor off the Itchin,
Southampton, on the 21st of this month, and have
been since August, with the exception of brief visits
to Virginia, constantly in the eastern portion of the
State, where this disaffection is said to exist and
the meeting to have taken place, and I need not
say how much gratified I am that an opportunity
is afforded me of pronouncing the entire story as
utterly devoid of truth in every particular; No such
disaffection exists in North Carolina, and no such
meeting has ever been held. The people of North Caro-
lina are united and enthusiastic in their support of
the Confederate Government, and are determined
under no circumstances to ground their arms till
the independency of the Confederacy is acknow-
ledged by our enemy. Before the State seceded
there was in North Carolina, as in every Southern
State, and as there will always be iu every popular
Government, a divided public sentiment as to the
wisest policy to be pursued for a redress of the
grievances suffered at the hands of the Government
of the United States, but the proclamation of Mr.
Lincoln, in contravention of all law and authority,
calling out 75,000 men ostensibly to ' hold, occupy,
and possess" a few forts and an armoury at liar-
per's Ferry,—a force so disproportioned to the ob-
ject announced that the whole people were aroused
to a sense of their danger, and the Act of Secession
was passed by a unanimous vote of the Legislature,
and was subsequently ratified by a State conven-
tion representing the sovereignty of the people.
This action occurred in the month of April last, and
since that time I have never heard in my extensive
association with the people a single expression of
opinion in opposition, but, en the contrary, a uni-
versal sentiment of concurrence in its propriety.
justice, and necessity.
Before Heft America Inc mate had sent to the seat
of war in Virginia, fully armed and equipped, 33,000
volunteer troops, infantry and riflemen, and a splen-
did regiment of cavalry, numbering 1,091. There
were 6,000 troops on the State coast, and camps
of instruction established at Raleigh, Ridgewav,
and Gareysburg, and the number of volunteers still
offering was so great that General Martin, Com-
mander-in-Chief of the State forces, under orders
of his Excellency the Governor, had issued a pro-
clamation informing the people that no further
troops were needed or could be received„
A simple statement of these facts is a sufficient
refutation of the idea which Mr. President Lincoln
so earnestly and persistently seeks to create abroad,
that there is a Union party in the Confederate
States. It may suit his purposes to create elide an
impression, as a justification of his course in waging
a wicked and atrocious war upon a gallant and
noble people, whom he is perfectly aware he can
only wound—never conquer, but he will find few
charitable enough to believe him actuated either by
truth or honour.
The farther statements of the papers of the
United States, which have been extensively repro-
duced in the British press, that large numbers—
multitudes, indeed, of the people of North Carolina,
had since the fall of Fort Hatteras gone in and
taken the oath of allegiance to the Government of
the United States are likewise devoid of truth. On
the isolated and barren strip of sand where Fort
Hatteras is situated there are several hundred
wreckers, who support themselves principally by
decoying vessels to their destruction by displaying
false lights, &c., and about a hundred of these
desperadoes, who live without the sense of any duty
they owe to God or man, and who did not wish to
be disturbed by their new neighbours, went in and
took the oath after the fort fell. If the Yankees
were dislodged to-morrow, they would take a se-
cond oath, with equal alacrity, to whoever might
next occupy the waste. If any meeting favourable
to Mr. Lincoln ever took place in North Carolina,
which I do not believe, it could only have been
composed of these wreckers, acting under the aus-
pices of their new-fledged friends, the Yankee in-
vaders, and the salutary restraints imposed by mar-
tial law and the guns of Fort Hatteras.
By giving this hurried note a place in your
columns, where the statements it is intended to cor-
rect have appeared, you will much oblige
Your most obedient servant,
London, Nov. 23. S. L. PENTON.
p.S.—The statements in the alleged proceedings
of the meeting in Hyde county, that the writ of
habeas corpus, the freedom of speech and of the
press, and the right of trial by had all been
jury,
suspended in North Carolina are utterly false.
S. L. P.
he

-WRECKERS ON THE EAST COAST.—In reference
to a paragraph published last week, in which it was stated
that a party of Royal Marines had been sent down the Norm
to protect a merchant vessel driven ashore on the Middle
Skin, which was being plundered by Essex wreckers, we
are requested to state that the parties removing the tallow
from the abandoned brig were smacksmen, who arc em-
powered by the Merchant Seamen's Act to do what they
were doing when this force was sent down to disperse
them. The property thus saved is reported too he collcertainec-
tor of wreckage, and the crews are entitled ta
amount of salvage on all the cargo thus rescued. cue There
have been, happily, no such persons as svk
upon the Essex coast for many years.
GARIBALDI.—The lif ovimento of Genoa publishes
the following letter from General Garibaldi, in reply to an
article in a Brussels journal, in which he is described as a
pirate who was many yea's ago attacked and vanquished by
a British vessel. The letter runs thus :—" Caprera, Nov. n,
189,1. In No. 44 of the journal Le Reformation I have
read an article entitled, `An Episode not generally knows
in the Life of Garibaldi.' Such calumnies would be quite
natural from a priest of Rome or an informer ; but that a
journal which heads its colunumn_tits...w:t.h.otte woiolrad
m' Truth'
etxh:
should soil them with such untruths T
trardivary,—Q, c'ARII34I,iIJI,"