The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-11-14

Boston Merchants and our Claim,
against England.
The Boston Journal, of Novembe,
3, says:
By the following petition, which
~:.s q circulation CT S:..a stree. zee.
terday, and was signed by several OF
our largest ship owners id other
merchants, it will be seen that there
are some who do not wish Mr.. Seward
to press our demands against England d
very vigorously. The document will
be forwarded to Washington in day
or two:
BosToN, Nov. 1, 1865.
To the Hon. Nm. H. Seuard, Seer.
tary Of State: The undersigned; mer-
chants, mechanics, and other citizens.
havlng-read the diplomatic corres-
pondence recently published, beg
leave respectfully to protest against
further action by our Government in
their demands upon the British Co.
vernment for compensation for the
depredations committed upon our
commerce by the Alabama and other
British cruisers.
They respectfully represent that it
would be great injury to this coun-
try to weaken, for the sake of the few
millions of dollars involved in the
claims OF our citizens, the prospective
value of the precedents thus set by
the British Government.
They beg you to remember that,
Judging of the future by the past, the
time cannot be far distant when the
British Government will be belliee-
rent, and that whether against Rus
sla, France or Brazil, or against its
Indian subjects, the heroic Sepoys,
or Its oppressed Irish provinces, its
next war, when we are ut peace, will
give us the same opportunity in prin-
clple, and hundred times greater in
degree, which her merchants, me-
chanics and ship-builders have had to
profit by our nisfortunes.
While her commerce equals ours in
tonnage, the value of her merchandise
a1oat is always infinitely greater than
ours-many Of our ships being usually
loaded by the help of British capital
Where she can build one Alabama
or blockade runner, we can build a
hundred, provided her precedents are
allowed to remain. While she has by
destruction and alarm driven about
one-tenth of our commerce from the
ocean, we can 1T the next opportunity,
following in her footsteps, utterly
drive The British merchant flag from
the ocean, except when conveyed by
a steam frigate. They have made the
most Of their opportup;+v +bo;r
machine-shops and ship-yarda have
enjoyed a prosperity never before
equalled. Their ship owners and
merchants have fattened upon our
distresses. They can we'll afford to
pay out of their profits the petty
losses which are claimed, and still have
millions of wealth wrung from us re-
naming.
Our harvest will soon come, but we
shall better their instruction a hun
dred-fold, until not q vestige of
British merchant navigation will re-
main upon the ocean In rivalry with
ours.
We pray you, therefore, to retain
the vantage she has given us by
making no further demands in com
pensation for our claims, but rather
to use your influence with our own
Government to obtain payment from
them for the losses thus incurred by
our own citizens, and to retain in full
force the precedent set by Great
Britain rs infinitely more valuable
than those claims.
---'------v~
In conversation which Secretary
McCulloch lately had with an old
schoolmaster, he said in reference to
the negro:
That so far as the pretended euunli-