The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-30 00:00:00

The planters have agreed among themselves to
hold over one half of their cotton crop for their
own purposes and for the culture of their fields, and
to sell the other to the Government. For each
bale of cotton, as I hear, a bond will be issued on
the fair average price of cotton in the market, and
this bond must be taken at par as a circulating
medium within the limits of the Slave States. This
forced circulation will be secured by the Act of the
Legislature. The bonds will bear interest at 10 per
cent., and they will be issued on the faith and se-
curity of the proceeds of the duty of Ith of a cent.
on every pound of cotton exported. All vessels
loading with cotton will be obliged to enter into
bonds or give security that they will not carry their
cargoes to Northern ports, or let it reach Northern
markets to their knowledge. The Government will
sell the cotton for cash to the foreign buyers, and
will thus raise funds amply sufficient, they con-
tend, for all purposes. I make these bare state-
ments, and I leave to political economists the dis-
cussion of the question which may and will arise
out of the acts of the Government of the Confede-
rated States. The Southerners argue that by
breaking from their unnatural alliance with the
North they will save upwards of 47,000,000 dols.,
or nearly £10,000,000 sterling, annually. The
estimated value of the annual cotton crop is
200,000,000 dole. On this the North formerly made
at least 10,000,000 dole. by advances, interest, and
exchanges, which in all came to fully 5 per cent.
on the, whole of the crop. Again, the tariff to raise
revenues sufficient for the maintenance of the Go-
vernment of the Southern Confederacy is far less
than that which is required by the Government of
the United States-. The Confederate States propose
to have a tariff which will be about 12 per cent.
on imports, which will yield 25,000,000 dols. The
Northern tariff is 30 per cent., and, as the South
took from the North 70,000,000 dole. worth of ma-
nufactured goods and produce, they contributed,
they assert, to the maintenance of the North to the
extent of the difference between the tax sufficient
for the support of their Government and that which
is required for the support of the Federal Govern-
ment. Now they will save the difference between
30 per cent, and 121 per cent. (171 per cent.), which
amounts to 37,000,000 dols., which, added to the
saving on commissions, exchanges, advances, &c.,
makes up the good round sum which I have put
down higher up. The Southerners are firmly con-
vinced that they have "kept the North going" by
the prices they have paid for the protected articles
of their manufacture, and they hold out to Sheffield,
to Manchester, to Leeds, to Wolverhampton, to
Dudley, to Paris, to Lyons, to Bordeaux, to all the
centries of English manufacturing life, as of French
taste and luxury, the tampting baits of new and
eager and hungry markets. If their faits and sta-

tistics are accurate there can be no doubt of the jus-
tice of their deductions on many points ; but they
can scarcely be correct in assuming that they will
bring the United States to destruction by cutting off
from Lowell the 600,000 bales of cotton which she
usually consumes. One great fact, however, is un-
questionable—the
Government has in its hands the
souls, the wealth, and the hearts of the people.
They will give anything—money, labour, life itself i
--to carry out their theories. " Sir," said an ex-
Governor of this State to me to-day, " sooner than
submit to the North we will all become subject to
Great Britain again." The same gentleman is one
of many who have given to the Government a large
portion of their cotton crop every year as a free-
will offering. In his instance his gift is one of 500
bales of cotton, or £5,001 per annum, and the papers
teem with accounts of similar " patriotism" and de-
votion. The ladies are all making sandbags, cart-
ridges, and uniforms, and, if possible, they are more •
fierce than the men. The time for mediation is past,
if it ever were at hand or present at all, and it is
scarcely possible now to prevent the processes of
phlebotomisation which are supposed to secure peace
and repose.
There was no intelligence of much interest on Sun-
day, but there is a general belief that Arkansas and
Missouri will send in their adhesion to the Confede-
racy this week, and the commissioners from Virgi-
nia are hourly expected. The attitude of that State,
however, gives rise to apprehensions lest there may
be a division of her strength ; and any aggression
on her territories by the Federal Government, such
as that contemplated in taking possession of Alex-
andria, would be hailed by the Montgomery Go-
vernment with sincere joy, as it would, they think,
move the State to more rapid action and decision.
Montgomery is on an undulating plain, and covers
ground large enough for a city of 200,000 inhabi-
tants, but its population is only 12,000. Indeed,
the politicians here affect to dislike large cities,
but the city designers certainly prepare to take
them if they come. The lines of the streets run at
right angles over this plain, and the houses are
sparsely sown at the margins of the broad avenues,
most of them with a little garden or enclosure, and
trees around and in front of it, so that the city looks
like a vast aggregate meeting of small country par-
sonages. The houses are of wood, painted white,
or of red brick, many only one story in height. The
churches are numerous, small, and rather eccentric
in the character of the architecture. There is a
large negro population and a considerable number
of a colour which forces me to doubt the evidence
of my senses rather than the statements made to me
by some of my friends that the planters affect the
character of parent in their moral relations merely
with the negro race. A waiter at the hotel, a tall,
handsome young fellow, with the least tinge of
colour in his cheek, not as dark as the majority of
Spaniards or Italians, astonished me in my igno-
rance to-day when, in reply to a question asked by
one of our party, in consequence of a discussion on
the point, he informed me he "was a slave." The
man, as he said so, looked confused ; his manner
altered. He had been talking familiarly to us, but
the moment he replied " I am a slave, sir," his
loquacity disappeared, and he walked hurriedly and
in silence out of the room. The river Alabama, on
which the city rests, is a wide, deep stream, now a
quarter of a mile in breadth, with a current of four
miles an hour. It is navigable to Mobile, upwards
of 400 miles, and steamers ascend its waters for
many miles beyond this into the interior. The
country around is well wooded, and is richly culti-
vated in broad fields of cotton and Indian corn, but

the neighbourhood is not healthy, and deadly fevers
are said to prevail at certain seasons of the year.
There is not much animation in the streets, except
when " there is a difficulty among the citizens," or
in the eternal noise of the hotel steps and bars. I
was told this morning by the hotelkeeper that I was
probably the only person in the house, or about it,
who had not loaded revolvers in his pockets, and
one is aware occasionally of an unnatural rigidity
scarcely attributable to the osseous structure in the
persons of those who pass one in the crowded pas
sages.

MONDAY, MAY 6.

To-day I visited the Capitol where the Provi-
sional Congress is sitting. On leaving the hotel,
which is like a small Willard's, so far as the crowd in
the hall is concerned, my attention was attracted
to a group of people to whom a man was holding
forth in energetic sentences. The day was hot, but
I pushed near to the spot, for I like to hear a
stump speech, or to pick up a stray morsel of
divinity in the via sacra of strange cities, and it
appeared as though the speaker was delivering an
oration or a sermon. The crowd was small. Three
or four idle men in rough, homespun, makeshift
uniforms leant against the iron rails enclosing a
small pond of foul, green-looking water, surrounded
by brickwork which decorates the space in front
of the Exchange Hotel. The speaker stood on an
empty deal packing-case. A man in a cart was
listening with a lack lustre eye to the address.
Some three or four others, in a sort of vehicle which
might either be a hearse or a piano van, had also
drawn up for the benefit of the address. Five or six
men in long black coats and high hats, some whit-
ling sticks, and chewing tobacco, and discharging
streams of discoloured saliva, completed the group.
" N-i-ne h-hun—nerd and fifty dollars ! Only
nine h-hun-nerd and fifty dollars offered for him,"
exclaimed the man in the tone of injured dignity,
remonstrance, and surprise which can be insinuated
by all true auctioneers into the dryest numerical
statements. " Will no one make any advance on
nine hunnerd and fifty dollars ?" A man near me
opened his mouth, spat, and said, " Twenty-five."
" Only nine hunnerd and seventy-five dollars
offered for him. Why at's radaklous—only nine
hunnerd and seventy-five dollars ! Will no one,"
&c. Beside the orator auctioneer stood a stout
young man of five-and-twenty years of age, with a
bundle in his hand. He was a muscular fellow,
broad-shouldered, narrow-flanked, but rather small
in stature ; he had on a broad, greasy, old wide-
awake, a blue jacket, a coarse cotton shirt, loose
and rather ragged trowers, and broken shoes. The
expression of his face was heavy and sad, but it was
by no means disagreeable, in spite of his thick lir,