The Portland daily press., 1863-01-19

Facts-the most stubborn of all things when
dealt with by mere theorists-are beginning
to show that "the Pope's bull against the
comet" as the proslavery press is disposed to
style President Lincon's proclamation,s caus-
ing no small disturbance in the orbit and
movements of the slavery comet, and that the
negroes are not so stupid as not to know the
difference between being men, and their own
masters, and being mere cattle, to be yoked
and driven and sold, and even slaughtered, at
the will of another. Gen. Clusseret has writ
ten to one OF the L. S. Senators, from Win
chester, Va, Jal. I, saying:
We have received, Gen. Milroy and myself
the Presidents Proclamation of Freedom la
consequence, we yesterday posted ON all the
walls of Winchester, and scattered throughout
the country, from farm to farm, an order from
Ger. Alilroy notifying all slaves that they are Free
beginning from the LIST of January, and have the
right to claim wages from their masters, or TO
quit them, and that in this case the troops will
protect their rights precisely as they will those
of all other citizens.
A correspondent of the New York Tribune
also writes of the effect of the proclamation
has already produced:
The Northern neck of Virginia, the heart of
uflstOCfHtlC anu Wealthy slavery, Is awe with
the vast hegira of bondmen and bondwomen,
travelling under President Lncoln's pass. The
proclamation is depopulating the whole region
between the Rappabannock and the Potomac.
In farm wagons, in coaches, on horseback, afoot
and in buggies with valuable property, in every
case, this second movement from Egypt 70 the
promised land fills the highways and the woods
The freed slaves come straight to our lines. On
the other side, rebel raids daily snatch valuable
slaves and hurry them southwark and westward
to the mountain Businesses for security II was
so that masters hid away their perillous proper
ty in the mountains of San Domingo. In Balti-
more, the proclamation daily strikes the letters
off the large number of slaves sent for safety to
that city from the Shenandoah Valley They
claim their freedom, and, for reasons that colo
nizatonsts understand, their masters and mis-
tresses make no resistance TO the claim.
The following paragraph from New Or
leans letter is also interesting, and shows that
the emancipated slaves are not necessarily to
be a burden; that they are not the idle, mis-
cradle, loafng, lazy creatures that proslavery
politicians represent them to be, but that they
are creatures of motives, upon whom the slim
illus OF freedom and compensated labor will
operate:
have just met an old friend, whom | not on-
ly find loyal man but actively engaged in aid
ing the government His father owns the estate
on the river below the city, known as the "Mag-
nolia estate''-the large brick building looking,
with the sugar mills. like village on the banks
of the river we came up. lie says he is hiring
the negroes by the month, and they work day
and night in the cane in this the most driving
of plantation work. They need no urging; they
work too much. He says the large hospital he
has for the sick negroes, which was always sure
TO be filled at this season, is now without ten
ant, and all were over-anxious to work and need
no urging.