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

THE ARMY.

Yesterday Ensign Hume, 54th Regiment, with a
party of men belonging to the 9th Depot Battalion,
left Colchester camp and proceeded to Hythe for
the customary course of training in the School of
Musketry.
Col. the Hon. A. Gordon, C. 8., commandant of
Colchester camp, has.leave of absence until the end
of the present month, and the command of the
troops at that station has devolved upon Col. Dixon,
C. 8., of the 9th Depot Battalion. Col. Grey, 6th
Fusiliers, is expected to enter upon his duties as
commandant early in the ensuing month, when Col.
the Hon. A. Gordon will also enter upon his new
appointment at the Curragh camp.
Col. Hadden, commanding the Royal Engineers
of the eastern district, having been appointed to the
command of the Royal Engineers in Ceylon, his
Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief has or-
dered Capt. Clarke, R.E., to assume the temporary
command of that department in the Eastern District
until a senior officer for the corps has been selected.
Since the removal of the headquarters from Har-
wich to Colchester, Capt. Clarke has been second in

command.
The new works of defence at E istney, near Ports-
mouth, just commenced by Messrs. Smith, the con-
tractors, will consist of two 12-gun batteries, some
distance apart, connected by a curtain, with a wet
ditch in front, the old fort at.Eastney being nearly
the centre of the position. At the outer angle of
each battery will be a cavalier bastion, mounting
one of the heaviest of the Armstrong guns, domi-
nating over the entire front and flanks of the works.
In the rear will be constructed a military road,
forming a junction with the highway, which runs
at present from Lumps Fort to Eastney-lane, and
will be carried on to the road on the western glacis
of Cumberland Fort. The new barracks for the
Royal Marine Artillery will be erected in the gorge
of the work. It being part of the plan to enclose
theta with ditch and parapet from the eastern and
western batteries they will, as it were, form an in-
tegral part of the new defensive lines. The proxi-
mity of the new works to high watermark will neces-
sitate the continuation of the groins now in course of
construction in front of Lump Fort, along the re-,
maining portion of sea-beach past Eastney to Fort
Cumberland. With Eastney works completed, the
line of beach between the entrances to Portsmouth
and Langton harbours will be studded with fortifi-
cations which, with the shoal water of some parts,
will render it unapproachable from the sea.
The wrought iron Horsfall gun which was removed
a short time since from its position near Southsea
Castle, has been placed on bulks of timber above
high water mark, under the Old Fort at Eastney in
readiness for practice. It is intended to treble-shot
the gun, and charge it with 10Ib. of powder each
time it is loaded.

_ Eight additional 12-pounder Armstrong lieldguns
have been received at Portsmouth from Woolwich,
for practice and drill service at Fort Cumberland.
The 12-pounder mounted Armstrong battery, un-
der the Command of Lieut.-Col. Turner, stationed at
Hilsea, have
commenced their course of target prat-
tics from
smiths
-oommon, firing seawards. The
has been
practice madehsupverb.
The following officersservice pensions at the e been awarded the good
disposal of his Royal High-
ness the Commander-in-Chief for distinguished and b
meritorious service performed them in the army:
--Major-Gen. L. A. Hall, Royal.
Engineers
;
; Capt.
J. Brannan, late Quartermaster, 60tRifles
S. Goddard, late Quartermaster, 14th Capt.
23 dßegiment ;
and Capt. C. Grant, late Quartermaster, Royal
Welsh Fusiliers. The three last mentioned officers
were engaged at Waterloo.
Some further trials were made at St.Mary'sCreek,
Chatham, yesterday and on the previous day, for
purpose of testing the floating powers of the pon-
toons recently invented by Capt. F. Fowke, Royal
Engineers. The experiments, which were watched
with great interest, weraundertaken in the presence
of Col. Harness, C. 8., director of the Royal Engi-
neer Establishment, and other officers of the Royal
and Indian Engineers. They were carried out un-
der the direction of Major Lovell, C. 8., chief instruc-
tor of fieldworks at Chatham, the object being to

ascertain the maximum weight that could be sus-
tained by (len. Pasley's, Gen. Blanshard's, and
Capt.. Fowke's pontoons when tried separatety. The
pontoons known as Blanshard's, which are those
generally used throughout the service, are cylindri-
cally s 1 aped, and can he made of either zinc or tin.
Althouwhtheir floating powers are very considerable,

their unwieldy size and the difficulty experienced
in trans; uorting them from one point to another—
which svith an army in the field would of course,
be immensely increased—will always prove a
serious d ra,wback to their use, while, being air and
water-tigAt, a shot penetrating the metal would
render the sn almost, if not altogether, useless. Ono
of' these pontoons during these experiments on
Thu"(-I,ly bore a. weight of rather more than
12,3801
b., tti.`lich was the utmost strainait was coh-
tentedfe
placo upon it. The pontoons in-
b sa y
the .date Gen. Sir C. Pasley are made of
copper, and siloPe,l somewhat like a boat, which in
appearance they very
much resemble. An improve-
ment has lately
laCell effected in the mode of arrang-
ing
the framing
of , such pontoon, on which the
„ chessea," or staging
forming the'pontoon-bridge,
are placed, 'with th i best results, the floating
powers .being renderec l somewhat greater, while
there is now less fear of these kinds of pontoons
suddenly turning overt. San formerly their want of
Y Pontoons being re-
jectedone of the steadiness. when in the rater being
s which led to the Pasle
use the service. The trials
for general .
made at Chatham, how -ever, proved that, app
oned, one of Paeley's pon.,
from the drawback mien Ii

toons is capable of sustaining a greater load than
Blanshard's cylinder pontoons, without sinking, the
total weight borne by the Pasley pontoon being
12,5001 b., or nearly 2cwt. more than Blanshard's.
The result of the experiments, however, again esta-
blished in a marked degree the superiority of Capt.
Fowke's invention over any other pontoon yet tried
against it. This pontoon floats easily, and is ex-
ceedingly light, while it can be quickly removed
when in the water, and is easily handled. The
weight placed upon it in the course of the trial was
was 14,2821 b., or 1,8981 b. more than that borne by
Blanshard's and 1,7681 b. more than Pasley's. Apart
from its superiority in this respect, the material of
which it is formed, a kind of canvas, enables it
when taken out of the water to be folded together
and transported with the greatest ease and facility,
an advantage not to be obtained in either of the other
description of pontoons. From the favourable opinion
expressed with regard to this pontoon by the Duke
of Cambridge when inspecting it at Chatham a few
days since, as well as the satisfactory results of the
trials made yesterday and the previous day, there
is little doubt that Capt. Fowke's invention will
ultimately supersede those now in use in the ser-
vice, and be generally adopted.

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
coin, but they are afraid of the results of the want
of salt ; without it chickens will be scarce about
negro cottages next spring. No meat is readily
eaten 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 11 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
I 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, these who are de-
prived of work by the cessation of their usual
engagements, the foreign elenv nts--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. On 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. If some small sums of
theym would,oney I am satisfied,
were collectedandsenealy add to theirtltdothosegentlemen
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
and he was sent to the hospital.
Mobile. While there the wound bßruotkevoleuth
oa
sf rpei ha
1,
Magee had furnished the sailor with the m
after a time was closed for want of funds, aneadn:Nstorf.
getting over to New Orleans, and with a letter to
Mare,
askinghimTh
to
man
was get
shipped
'If:J.II%I 1e bearer.
rived at New Orleans with his chest. No sooner
The
. passage
off, o Canada
and
_ar
had be 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 be was nut 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, Tnere 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 deserving 'British 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 off, and they are left broadcast
all over the States in the South, without money, or
means, or hope. I trust the appeal I venture tomake
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 he
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
inarticulateps 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 I am told. But I hear, too, that they are very
fond of idleness. The conclusion is not difficult.
Compared with the bonzas 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 col' mine, which
is 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 tinse
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 separate plantation adjoining the
property, and recently porchased 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 tae 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 llingsugar, 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 at Houmas, 900
souls (or bodiE,s)
belong to of which not less than GOO
labourers, might well deter onr hypothe-
tical country
men from running the hazard of those
little complications which sometimes arise between
the employer and the employed. It is true the com-
bination could
wages, or for not exist for the purpose of raising
any e- thin but an increased ration with-
out destroying the institution itself, but the same
disposition of
labour which prevents any annoyance
or apprehension from such sources may be effectual
in destroying any power of combination, or any com-
MOll action in more 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
in; , 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 i 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 ha wknosed 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 o' cotton out of ill-tilled and inferior land.
The ereoles 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 in ivate 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 slaveowner educates his 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 Milers, 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 avaw 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 band 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 t 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 Louisiina.

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 personal
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 Greley, 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
bayonets of the 100,000 Northerners who manifestthe

_- .._a ~ -

by the somewhat tardy ardour with which they are
identifying themselves with the partisans and prin-
ciples of a sombre, if honest, fanaticism, computic-
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 P
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 petrifactions.
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 iuge'•
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 not be difficult to discriminate between
the innocent European and the inimical Northern
holder of securities so readily transferable P
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-
meats 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, after inviting 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 Neiv 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 Britisi,
ironmaster, or some of the contractors on which
may have p4er maturing in favour of Northern
agents. General Pillow's proclamation debars even
the debtor who is willing and able to pay from the
fllfilment 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 or more 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—ot 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
things, 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 we.l 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.