Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser., 1861-12-19

A call of the House for the official documents
in relation to the Balls Bluff disaster has led t.,
the interpostion of General Mcclellan. who
states that it would be injurious to the service
to allow the documents to be made public at
this time.
THE MASON AND ss.IDELL AFFAIR.
/ The following summary Of late foreign news
in reference to the Mason-Slidel seizure, we
copy from the Maryland Me,cs Sheet, of last
Saturday:
The grave issues involved in the adjustment
of this question renders it a matter of the utmost
consequence that an accurate reflex of English
opinion with regard to the matter should be
had. All accounts thus far received concur in
stating that the excitement created by the arrest
of the Southern Commissioners on board the
Trent was intense in the extreme and that if
the law officers of the Crown pronounce the act
of Captain Wilkes to have been Illegal whatever
steps the English Government may think proper
to take to assert the dignity of the British flag,
will be heartily sustained by the people The
account that is given Of the Indignation meeting
which was held at Liverpool on the first recep-
ton of the by the La Plata, is of itself sig
nifcant enough of the course that popular opin-
ion would take when the whole Of tho facts con-
cerning the stoppage of the Trent became more
| perfectly known. The London Times, in an
article on the subject, which is cautiously wordcd,
carefully balanced, and was evidently written
for the purpose of calming down the popular
heat until such time as the Government had
decided upon the proper course to persue, makes
use of one expression which is t0B remarkable to
be permitted to pass without notice. Itspeaks
Of the Commissioners and their Secretaries as
having been ''kidnapped." That single oppro-
brious word stamps the nature Of the transaction
from the point of view taken by English Jour-
pasts generally but, when to what they es-
TEEN an act of kidnapping, is superadded the
ndignity perpetrated upon the Englisll4lag, it
is easy to conceive how strong must be the
popular indignation, and how necessary it be-
came for a journal of so much influence as the
Times to soothe, rather than to exasperate to a
still intenser degree the strong sentiment of in
dignation which had been developed by mere
knowledge of the simple fact, and before the
more damaging particulars were publicly known
The Times, however, after a dispassionate re-
view of the case, cannot yet believe-though
the evidence to the contrary is strong-that it
is the fixed determination of the Government of
the Northern States to force a quarrel with the
Powers of Europe. At the close of the article.
Mr.. Seward is admonished that, whatever NAV
be the ISSUE whether the act be declared legal
or illegal, "the voices of the Southern Commits
sioners sounding from their captivity are thou
sand times more eloquent in London and in
Paris, than they would have been if they had
been heard at St. James's and the Tuileries."
The money article Of the Times shows that
the effect Of the news con Change" was marked
by fall of one per cent. in Government securi-
ties; that the market subsequently, rallied some
what, although the precise details of the act.
which II to hot l>oo II,
were, it is alleged, 'calculated to increase, to an
intense point, the feelings with which it wiU be
regarded" 1t remarks that should the proceed
ing be found unquestionably illegal, there will
be no limit to the energy with which the coun-
TRY will respond to the demand for the requisite
Aeans for obtaining instant satisfaction. The
II tis.t fail esft
fof about one per cent. took place in the value
of the funds, that the Turkish bonds declined
nearly three par cent, and that railway shares
exhibited depreciation of from one to one and
a half per cent. Similar accounts are also given
by the Chronicle and the Times.
The structures of the London News, in regard
to the stoppage of the Trent, are particularly
severe. This is the more remarkable, from the
fact that the NeVs has heretofore warmly de-
Tended the measures of the Federal Government.
The News declares that, through the act of Cap
tain Wilkes, ''the United States Government
has struck its best friend in the face" and de-
mands that the act be disavowed and atoned
for. 1t styles the seizure of the Commissioners
more than gross outrage, and declares it to be
the duty of the British Government s'to insist
on ample complete and immediate satisfaction"
The Federal authorities ''must disavow the act,
restore Messrs. Mason and Slidell, and tender
the fullest apology. Nothing short of this re-
marathon can be accepted" Such is the language
of the organ of the English Liberals.
The London Chronicle asserts that "the blood
Of all England will be aroused by the latest in
telligence from America that the Federal au
thorities 'scould scarcely have acted with more
lawless violence had they been Mandarins of
China that the arrest of the two Commissioners
on British deck must not go unavenged, and
that if the English people are to submit to such
outrages they may as well set up universal
says the Chronicle, 'let us rest we'll assured is
but the prelude to storm of public indigna-
tion." In subsequent article, on the same
subject, the Chronicle says that the same spirit
of intense indignation which prevailed in Lon
don, on the reception of the news by the La
Plata, was exhibited in the provincial towns
In the midst of the excitement created by the
Mason-Slidell affair, public attention in London
was drawn to the fact that agents of the FEEDER
al Government had recently purchased, at extra
ordinary prices, all the saltpetre in the market
and to arrive in port, to the extent Of three
thousand tons. Such a sudden and imprudent
mode of buying ''seemed to denote" it was
alleged, "an intention of offering an outrage to
| England, such as might render it difficult to
obtain supplies hereafter" 1t was assumed
that, under the circumstances, the British Gov
ernment would summarily prohibit the clearance
of such sscontraband of war"
| Another serious cause of offence appears to
have occurred since the affair of the Trent, and
one which-if the account be true-is certainly
not calculated to allay the prevailing exaspera-
ton in England. The Halifax Reporter of the
9Th states, that the British gunboat Landrail
was stopped somewhere off Bermuda, by an
American corvette, who fired shot across her
bow, snd that the naval authorities at Bermuda
are indignant that the Landrail should have