The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-11-10
Thn Rndisco Abduction.

Our Northern brethren must yield the palm TO us
in the contests of fancy and imagination. The
BOdisco Abduction cannot be compared to the Rey
affair As high as the heavens are above the
earth, as wide as is the distance between success
and failure, far were the Southern inventors of
the Rey Abduction ahead of their contemporaries
who attempted the Bodisco outrage.
When the news of the Bodisco affair first arrived
we were frightened. The matter was started so
ambitously that we could not conceive of an in
glorious failure. The story was that the Russian
Minister-the representative of the mightiest EN-
peror on the face of the earth-had been spirited
away from our shores. The abducted was no COM
mon man-no ex-jalor of a provincial prison-no
craven outcast from society and civilization; but
a man standing on the sunny slope of liie-a basker
in the beams of fortune, power and fashion Nor
was the dignity of the abductor merely Consular
or even equivalent TO that of Colonial Governor.
A parsonage no less than the Autocrat of all the
Russias was charged with the crime of violating
the soil of friendly nation. Neither was the
charge against the illustrious criminal made by a
journal fond of popular excitement, or dependent
for its support on a subservience TO popular pas
sion The complaint in the Bodisco case was
made by correspondent of no less paper than
the New York Courier and Enquirer. All the re-
spectacle papers of the North began TO mutter
terrible thunder" at the great Russian bear.
Even the official organ, the hasty and excitable
Republic started off at tangent, and init
mated that the illustrious offender, Gar Nicholas
would receive no favors at the hands of the Admin
istration.
The plot, it must be admitted, started we'll
There was also, as in the Rey affair, condition
of international matters which might assist the
potters. The demand of the Russians for the
Hungarian refugees, and the reported raising of a
New York battalion to be placed at the disposal Of
the Sultan, were as good for the Bodisco abduc-
tionists as the secret expedition and Round Island
gathering were for the mighty promoters of the
great Garcia excitement. Then there are the Rus
sian possessions to the north of Oregon and these
are necessary for our entire control Of the Arctic
Ocean and Behring's Straits. If we could once
| get hold of Russian America, the strip of the
British possessions running up to $40 40-and
/ once claimed es ours-would soon become the
| property of the United States An advantage in
such an acquisition is that there would arise nc
dispute about the Wilmot Proviso. All these con-
siderations led 10 expect an immense run of the
Bodisco farce-espeeially in the Northern States
| The telegraphic dispatch which informed us Of
the letter in the Courier and Enquirer, produced q
| paDg of jealousy we in vain endeavored to over
come We were afraid the laurels of the South
were about to wither under the influence of North.
ern achievements. We feared that the inventive
genius of New Orleans was about to shrink and
| cover before the towering offspring Of New York
| imaginations. As a Tooke- Pantheon contemporary
would say, we trembled lest the elegant divnties
| of the South-the Jupiters, the Neptunes and the
Plutos, creations of sunny cline and sparkling
sea-should fall before the huge and ms-shapsT
| gods of the stormy North--the ThOrs and Wodens
the sons of dark pine forests granite glacier noun
tains and tempsstuous ice.island seas But ou
fears were premature; our anXieties were not war
ranted by the event. The Northern fabrication
failed. The "vauting ambition" of the Northern
plotters o'erleaped ITSELF" and the very magnif
Genre of their designs prevented successful execu
ton.
Let the Rey men, then, be easy to theil
! laurels. A single sentence-and that from wo
man-suficed to expose the BOdisco humbug
But the creation of the Rey men was not the being
ofa day or an hour; theirs was
-" no sapling chance.sown by the fountain,
| Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade"
, They waited not for Atlantic steamers to call fo
the delivery of their hero. They waited not to Sc
: whether Rey would return to the United States
not. They said he must be brought back whetht
he was abducted or not And Rey did come bac
: and the abductionists sang p@ans over his retun
It remains to be heard what note they will PHI
when Rey is placed on the witness stand at II
q | ,rt1,.