The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 28, 1861.

UNITED UNIVERSITY CLUB. The
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the Members
of the-United University Club will be held at the CluO
House, on THURSDAY, the 30th May. The Chair will ba
tslicen at Three o'clock precisely.

- .
By order of the Committee.
CAMILLUS FAWSSETT, Secretary.

ROYAL EXCHANGE ASSURANCE OFFICE,
Royal Exchange, London,
22d May, 1861.
The Court of Directors of the Corporation of the Royal
Exchange Assurance do Hereby give Notice, that their
Transfer-Books will be shut from TUESDAY, the 11th of
June next, to THURSDAY, the 4th of July following ; and
that a General Court of the said Corporation will be holden
at their Office at the Royl Exchange, on WEDNESDAY, the
19th of June, at Twelvea o'clock at noon, to consider of a
Dividend.

ROBERT P. STEELE, Secretary,

ME CIVIL WAR IN _AMERICA.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
APRIL 30.
Nothing I could say can be worth one fact which
has forced itself upon my mind in reference to the
sentiments which prevail among the gentlemen of
this State. - I have, been among them for several
days. I have visited their plantations, I have con-
versed with them freely and fully, and I have en-
joyed that frank, courteous, and graceful inter-
course which constitutes an irresistible charm of
their society. From all quarters has come to my
ears the echoes of the same voice ; it may be feigned,
but there ,is no discord in the note, and it sounds
in wonderful strength and monotony all over the
Shades of George 111., of North, of John-
son, of all who COllteutlud against the great rebel-

lion which tore these colonies from England, can
you hear the chorus which rings through the State
of Marion, Sumter, and Pinckney, and not clap
your ghostly hands in triumph ? That voice says,
"If we could only get one of the Royal race of
England to rule over us we should be content."
Let there be no misconception on this point. That
sentiment, varied in a hundred ways, has been
repeated to me over and over again. There is a
general admission that the means to such an end
are wanting, and that the desire cannot be gratified.
But the admiration for monarchical institutions on

the English model, for privileged classes, and for a
landed aristocracy and gentry, is undisguised and
apparently genuine. With the pride of having
achieved their independence is mingled in the
South Carolinians' hearts a strange regret at the
result and consequences, and many are they who
" would go back to-morrow if we could." An intense
affection for the British connexion, a love of British
habits and customs, a respect for British sentiment,
law, authority, order, civilization, and literature pre-
eminently distinguish the inhabitants of this State,
who, glorying in their descent from ancient fami-
lies on the three islands, whose fortunes they still

follow, and with whose members they maintain not
unfrequently familiar relations, regard with an
aversion of which it is impossible to give an idea to
one who has not seen its manifestations the people
of New England and the populations of the Northern
States, whom they regard as tainted beyond cure by
the venom of " Puritanism." Whatever may be the
cause, this is the fact and the effect, "The State of
South Carolina was," I am told, " founded by gen-
tlemen." It was not established by witch-burning
Puritans, by crael persecuting fanatics, who im-
planted in the north the standard of Torquemada,
and breathed into the nostrils of their newly-born
colonies all the ferocity, bloodthirstiness, and rabid
intolerance of the Inquisition. It is absolutely
astounding to a stranger who aims at the preserva-
tion of a decent neutrality to mark the violence of
these opinions. "If that confounded ship had sunk
with those Pilgrim Fathers on board," says one„
" we never should have been driven to these extre
mities !" "We could have got on with the fanatics
if they had bean either Christians or gentlemen,"
says another ; " for in the first case they ould
have acted with common charity, and in the second
they would have fought when they insulted us ;
but there are neither Christians nor gentlemen
among them !" " Anything on the earth !''
exclaims a third, " any form of Govern-
ment, any tyranny or despotism you will ;
but"—and here is an appeal more terrible than
the adjuration of all the Gods—" nothing
on earth shall ever induce us to submit to any
union with the brutal, bigotted blackguards of the
New England States, who neither comprehend nor
regard the feelings of gentlemen ! Alan, woman,
and child, we'll die first." Imagine these and an
infinite variety of similar sentiments uttered by
courtly, well-educated men, who get great store on
a nice observance of the usages of society, and who
are only moved to extreme bitterness and anger
when they speak of the North, and you will fail to
conceive the intensity of the dislike of the South
Carolinians for the Free States. There are national
antipathies on our side of the Atlantic which are
tolerably strong and have been unfortunately per-
tinacious and long-lived. The hatred of the Italian
for the Tedesco, of the Greek for the Turk, of the
Turk for the Russ, is warm and fierce enough to
satisfy the Prince of Darkness, not to speak of a few
little pet aversions among allied Powers arid the
atoms of composite empires ; but they are all mere
indifference and neutrality of feeling compared to
the animosity evinced by the " gentry" of South
Carolina for the rabble of the North."
The contests of Cavalier and Roundhead, of Ven-
dean and Republican, even of Orangeman and
Croppy, have been elegant joustings, regulated by
the finest rules of chivalry, compared with those
which North and South will carry on if their deeds
support their words. " Immortal hate, the study of
revenge" will actuate every blow, and never in the
history of the world, perhaps, will go forth such a
dreadful vos victis as that which may be heard before
the fight has begun. There is nothing in all the dark
caves of human passion so cruel and deadly as the
hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees.
That hatred has been swelling for years till it is the
very life blood of the State. It has set South Caro-
lina to work steadily to organise her resources for
the struggle which she intended to provoke if it did'
not come in the course of time. " Incompatibility
of temper" would have been sufficient ground for
the divorce, and I am satisfied that there has been
a deep-rooted design, conceived in some men's minds
30 years ago, and extended gradually year after
year to others', to break away from the Union at the
very first opportunity. The North is to South Caro-
lina a. corrupt and evil thing, to which for long
years she has been bound by burning chains, while
monopolists and manufacturers fed on her tender
limbs. She has been bound in a Maxentian union to
the object she loathes. Now England is to her the
incarnation of moral and political wickedness and
social corruption. It is the source of everything
which South Carolina hates, and of the torrents of
free thought and taxed manufactures, of Abolition-
ism and of Filibustering, which have flooded the
land. Believe a Southern man as he believes him-
self,
and you must regard New England and
the kindred States as the birthplace of im-
purity of mind among men and of unchastity in
women—the
ofAbolitionism,e of
Free
Love,f false of
teachingsFourierism,
inof
infidelity,
political economy and in social
e ; a land satu-
rated with the drippings of rotten philosophy, with
the poisonous infectious of a fanatic press ; without
honour or modesty : whose d wis om is paltry cun-
ning, whose valour and manhood
have been swal-
lowed up in a corrupt, howling demagogy, and in
the marts of a dishonest commerce. It is the mer-
chants of New York who fit out ships for the slave
trade, and carry it on in Yankee ships. It is the capi-
tal of the North which supports, and it is Northern
men who concoct and execute, the Filibustering
expeditions which have brought discredit on the
Slave-holding States. In the large cities people
are corrupted by itinerant and ignorant lecturers—
in the towns and in the country by an unprincipled
press. The populations, indeed, know how to read
and write, but they don't know how to think, and
they are the easy victims of the wretched impostors

on all the 'ologies and 'isms who swarm over the
region, and subsist by lecturing on subjects which
the innate vices of mankind induce them to accept
with eagerness, while they assume the garb of phi-
losophical abstractions to cover their nastiness in
deference to a contemptible and universal hypo-
crisy.

" Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies ?"
Assuredly the New England demon who has
been persecuting the South till its intolerable
cruelty and insolence forced her, in a spasm of
agony, to rend her chains asunder. The New Eng-
lander mast have something to persecute, and as he
has hunted down all his Indians, burnt all his
witches, and persecuted all his opponents to the
death, he invented Abolitionism as the sole resource
left to him for the gratification of his favourite pas-
sion. Next to this motive principle is his desire to
make money dishonestly, trickily, meanly, and
shabbily. He has acted on it in all his relations
with the South, and has cheated and plundered her
in all his dealings by villanous tariffs. If one ob-
jects that the South must have been a party to this,
because her boast is that her statesmen have ruled
the Government of the country, you are told that
the South yielded out of pure good-nature. Now,
however, she will have free trade, and will open the
coasting trade to foreign nations, and shut out from
it the }sated Yankees, who so long monopolised and
made their fortunes by it. Under all the varied
burdens and miseries to which-.e was subjected,
the South held fast to her sheet anchor. South
Carolina was the mooring ground in which it found
the surest hold. The doctrine of State Rights was
her salvation, and the fiercer the storm raged
against her—the more stoutly demagogy, immigrant
preponderance, and the blasts of universal suffrage
bore down on her, threatening to sweep away the
vested interests of the South in her right to govern
the States—the greater was her confidence and the
more resolutely she held on her cable. The North
attracted " hordes of ignorant Germans and Irish,"
and the scum of Europe, while the South repelled
them. The industry, the capital of the North in-
creased with enormous rapidity, under the influence
of cheap labour and manufacturing ingenuity and
enterprise, in the villages which swelled into towns,
and the towns which became cities, under the unen-
vious eye of the South. She, on the contrary, toiled
on slowly, clearing forests and draining swamps to
find new cotton-grounds and rice-fields for the em-
ployment of her only industry and for the develop-
ment of her only capital—" involuntary labour."
The tide of immigration waxed stronger, and
by degrees she saw the districts into which she
claimed the right to introduce that capi-
tal closed against her, and occupied by
free labour. The doctrine of squatter " sove-
reignty," and the force of hostile tariffs, which placed
a heavy duty on the very articles which the South
most required, completed the measure of injuries to
which she was subjected, and the spirit of discon-
tent found vent in fiery debate, in personal insults,
and in acrimonious speaking and writing, which
increased in intensity in proportion as the Abolition
movement, and the contest between the Federal
principle and State Rights, became more vehement.
I am desirous of showing in a few words, for the

information of English readers, how it is that the
Confederacy which Europe knew simply as a
political entity has succeeded in dividing itself.
The Slave States held the doctrine, or say they did,
that each State was independent as France or as
England, but that for certain purposes they chose
a common agent to deal with foreign nations, and
to impose taxes for the purpose of paying the ex-
penses.of the agency. We, it appears, talked of
American citizens when there were no such beings
at all. There were, indeed, citizens of the sove-
reign State of South Carolina, or Georgia or
Florida, who permitted themselves to pass under
that designation, but it was merely as a matter of
personal convenience. It will be difficult for Euro
peans to understand this doctrine, as nothing like it
has been heard before, and no such Confederation of
sovereign States has ever existed in any country in
the world. The Northern men deny that it existed
here, and claim for the Federal Government powers
not compatible with such assumptions. they have
lived for the Union, they served it, they laboured
for and made money by it. A man as a New York
man was nothing—as an American citizen he was a
great deal. A South Carolinian objected to lose his
identity in any description which included him and
a " Yankee clockmaker" in the same category. The
Union was against him ; he remembered that he
came from a race of English gentlemen who had
been persecuted by the representatives—for he will
not call them the ancestors—of the Puritans of
New England, and ho thought that they were
animated by the same hostility to himself. He
was proud of old names, and he felt pleasure
in tracing his connexion with old families in the
old country. His plantations were held by old
charters, or had been in the hands of his fathers
for several generations ; and he delighted to remem-
ber that, when the Stuarts were banished from their
throne and their country, the burgesses of South
Carolina had solemnly elected the wandering
Charles King of their State, and had offered him
an asylum and a kingdom. The philosophical his-
torian may exercise his ingenuity in conjecturing
lot
what would have been the result if the fugitive had
carried his fortunes to Charleston.
South Carolina contains 34,000 square miles and
a population of 720,000 inhabitants, of whom
385,000 are black slaves. In the old rebellion it was
distracted between revolutionary principles and the
loyalist predilections, and at least one-half of the
planters were faithful to George 111., nor did they
yield till Washington sent an army to support their
antagonists and drove them from the colony.
In my next letter I shall give a brief account of a
visit to some of the planters, as far as it can be made
consistent with the obligations which the rites and
rights of hospitality impose on the guest as well as
upon the host. These gentlemen are well-bred,
courteous, and hospitable. A genuine aristocracy,
they have time to cultivate their minds, to apply
themselves to politics and the guidance of public
affairs. They travel and read, love field sports,
racing,
horsemen, and good shots. But, after all, their State
is
e a
r mi,
shooting,daenrdh
n sipt a
Sparta
hunting,
nothing and fishing, are bold
an
aristocracy resting on a
h
else to rest upon. Al-
though they profess (and I believe, indeed, sincerely)
to hold opinions in opposition to the opening of the
slave trade, it is nevertheless true that the cause in
the constitution of the Confederate States which pro-
hibited the importation of negroes was especially and
energetically resisted by them, be.cause, as they say,
that slavery was in
iittsseelefmanedevitloahned aanwraednugli-ssliolneir whole system rests
on slavery, and as such they defend it. They en-
tertain very exaggerated ideas of the military
strength of their little community, although one
may do full justice to its military spirit. Out of
their
whole population they cannot reckon more
than 60,000h01e adult men h
-y any arithmetic, and
as there are nearly 30,000 plantations which must
be, according to law, superintended by white men,
a considerable number of these adults cannot be
spared from the State for service in the open field.
The planters boast that they can raise their crops
without any inconvenience by the labour of their
negroes, and they seem confident that the negroes
will work without superintendence. But the expe-
riment is rather dangerous, and it will only be tried
in the last extremity.
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, MAY 1.
It is said that " fools build houses for wise men
to live in." Be that true or not, it is certain that
" Uncle Sam" has built strong places for his enemies
to occupy. To-day I visited Fort Pulaski, which
defends the mouth of the Savannah river and the
approaches to the city. It
was left to the care of
itself, and the Georgians quietly stepped into it, and
have been busied in completing its defences, so that
it is now capable of stopping a fleet very effectuql ly.

Pulaski was a Pole who fell in the defence of
Savannah against the British, and whose memory is
perpetuated in the name of the fort, which is now
under the Confederate flag and garrisoned by bitter
foes of the United States. Among our party were
Commodore Tatnall, whose name will be familiar
to English ears in connexion with the attack on

the Peiho Ports, where the gallant American
showed the world that " blood was thicker than
water ;" Brigadier-General Lawton, in command
of the forces of Georgia, and a number of naval
and military officers, of whom many had be-
longed to the United States' regular services. It
was strange to look at such a man as the Com-
modore, who for 49 long years had served under the
Stars and Stripes, quietly preparing to meet his old
comrades and friends, if needs be, in the battle-
field—his allegiance to the country and to the flag
renounced, his long service flung away, his Old ties
and connexions severed—and all this in defence of
the sacred right of rebellion on the part of " his
State." He is not now, nor has he been for years, a
slaveowner ; all his family and familiar associations
connect him with the North. There are no naval
stations on the Southern coasts except one at
Pensacola, and he knows almost no one in the
South. He has no fortune whatever, his fleet con-
sists of two small river or coasting steamers, with-
out guns, and as he said, in talking over the re-
sources of the South, " My bones will be bleached
many a long year before the Confederate Stattsca.n-
hope to have a navy." " State Rights !" To us the
question is simply inexplicable or absurd. And yet
thousands of Americans sacrifice all for it. The
river at Savannah is broad as the Thames at Graves-
end, and resembles that stream very much in the
colour of its waters and the level nature of its
shores. Ricefields bound it on either side, as far
Sown as the influence of the fresh water extends,
and the eye wanders over a flat expanse of mud and
water and green osiers and rushes, till its search is
arrested on the horizon by the unfailing line of

forest. In the fields here and there are the white
washed square wooden huts in which the slaves
dwell, looking very like the beginnings of the camp
in the Crimea. At one point a small fort, covering
a creek, by which gunboats could get up behind
Savannah, displayed its " garrison" on the walls, and
lowered its flag to salute the small blue ensign at the
fore which proclaimed the presence of the Commo-
dore of the Naval Forces of Georgia on board our
steamer. The guns on the parapet were mostly
fieldpieces, mounted on frameworks of wood instead
of regular carriages. There is no mistake about the
spirit of these people. They seize upon every spot
of vantage ground and prepare it for defence. There
were very few ships in the river ; the yacht Camilla,
better known as the America, the property of Capt.
Deasy, and several others of those few sailing under
British colours, for most of the cotton ships are
gone. Atter steaming down the river about 12 miles
the sea opened out to the sight, and on a long marshy
narrow island near the bar, which was marked by
the yellowish surf, Fort Pulaski threw out the Con-
fedetate flag to the air of the Georgian Ist of May.
The water was too shallow to permit the steamer to
go up to the jetty, and the party landed at the
wharf in boats. A guard was on duty at the landing
—tall, stout young fellows, in various uniforms, or in
rude mufti, in which the Garibaldian red shirt and
felt slouched hats predominated. They were armed
with smooth-bore muskets (date 1851), quite
new, and their bayonets, barrels, and locks were
bright and clean. The officer on duty was dressed
in the blue frockcoat dear to the British Linesman
in days gone by, with brass buttons, emblazoned
with the arms of the State, a red silk sash, and
glazed kepi, and straw-coloured gauntlets. Several
wooden huts, with flower gardens in front, were
occupied by the officers of the garrison ; others were
used as hospitals, and were full of men suffering
from measles of a mild type. A few minutes' walk
led us to the fort, which is an irregular pentagon,
with the base line or curtain face inlands, and the
other faces casemated and bearing on the approaches.
The curtain, which is simply crenellated, is covered
by a Redan surrounded by a deep ditch, inside The
parapet of which are granite platforms ready for
the reception of guns. The parapet is thick, and
the scarp and counter-scarp are faced with solid
masonry. A drawbridge affords access to the inte-
rior of the Redan, whence the gate of the fort is
approached across a deep and broad moat, which is
crossed by another drawbridge. As the Commodore
entered the Redan the guns of the fort broke out
into a long salute, and the band at the gate struck
up almost as noisy a welcome. Inside, the parade
presented a scene of life and animation very unlike
the silence of the city we had left. Men were busy
clearing out the casemates, rolling away stores and
casks of ammunition and provisions, others were at
work at the gin and shears, others building sand-
bag traverses to guard the magazine doors, as
though expecting an immediate attack. Many
officers were strolling under the shade of the open
gallery at the side of the curtain which contained
their quarters in the lofty bomb proof casemates.
Some of them had seen service in Mexican or border
warfare; some had travelled over Italian and Cri
mean battle fields; others were West Point graduates
of the regular army; others young planters, clerks,
or civilians who had rushed with ardour into the First
Georgian Regiment. The garrison of the fort is 650
men, and fully that number were in and about the
work, their tents being pitched inside the Redan or on
the terreplein of the parapets. The walls are exceed-
ingly solid and well built of hard gray brick, strong
as iron, upwards of six feet in thickness, the case-
mates and bombproofs being lofty, airy, and capa-
cious as any I have ever seen, though there is not
quite depth enough between the walls at the salient
and the gun-carriages. The work is intended for 128
gnus, of which about one-fourth are mounted on the
casemates. They are long 32's with a few 42's and
columbiads. The armaments will be exceedingly
heavy when all the guns are mounted, and they are
fast getting the 10-inch columbiads into position
en barbette. Everything which could be required,
except mortars, was in abundance—the platforms
and gun-carriages are solid and well made, the em-
brasures of the casemates are admirably constructed,
and the:ventilation of the bombproof carefully pro-
vided for. There are three furnaces for
_heating red-
hot shot. Nor is discipline neglected, and the offi-
cers
sharpw
in with h
tone wh o
amn
dI
mwaennnt e
rr o
tuon dt
htehi
re
mw
en
nr k sa
sw evroel u ans.
teers well could be, though the latter often are en-
listed for only three years by the State of Georgia.
An excellent lunch was spread in the casemated
bombproof which served es the colonel's quarter,
and before sunset the party were steaming towards
Savannah through a tideway full of leaping stur-
geon and porpoises, leaving the garrison intent on
the approach of a large ship, which had her sails
aback off the bar and hoisted the Stars and Stripes,
but which turned out to be nothing more formidable
than a Liverpool cotton ship. It will take some
hard blows before Georgia is driven to let go her
grip of Fort Pulaski. The channel is very narrow
and passes close to the guns of the fort. The means
of completing the armament have been furnished by
the stores of Norfolk Navy-yard, where between
700 and 800 guns have fallen into the hands of the
Confederates; and, if there are no columbiads
among them, the Merrimac and other ships, which
have been raised, as we hear, with guns uninjured,
will yield up their Dahlgrens to turn their muzzles
against their old masters.

MAY 2.

May-day was so well kept yesterday that the
exhausted editors cannot "bring out" their papers,
and consequently there is no news; but there is
nevertheless much to be said concerning Our
President's" Message, and there is a suddenness of
admiration for pacific tendencies which can with
difficulty be accounted for, unless the news from
the North these last few days has something to do
with it. Not a word now about an instant march
on Washington, no wore threats to seize on Fauna-