The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-12-17

OE these 1ll-6tarred adventurerS, the
latest failure recorded is that Of the
colony in Honduras. It went there
on the faith OF Governor Austin D.
promises of land and other privi-
leges. The Governor was ae good as
his word, but the Home Government
at London "disapproved," and the
.Southerners are all in trouble again.
"Many of them," says the account,
s'are about to return TO the United
States. LIT is the same old story,
told of q new place. Wherever
settlement has been effected, the re-
suit has been disappointing. Only
moderate fortune; has attended the
detachment that strayed down almost
to Patagonia, and that has been the
most promising of all. Cordova was
not only o prompt failure, but the
whole enterprise has long since been
abandoned, the stock and property
sold out, and the last of the adven-
turers returned. The same is true,
in brief, of all the. Mexican projects;
the same is rapidly becoming true of
all Brazilian experiments. For ex-
ample, the chief colony on the Ri
beira, near Iguape-a settlement
founded by one Dunn, q furiously
secessionist clergyman, who declares
he wants mainly to ''keep away from
Northerners," is anything but pros
porous. Here and there an, enter
prising man has met with success;
but this was true also before the war.
What we mean to say, is that the
Southern colonies, as colonies, are
dead failures. a recent traveller very
we'll says that most of the emigrants
cannot work to advantage, and are
"too proud to beg-for anything but
a passage home" .. >Et.
The other day. we had news from
one of the West Indies that South
ern colony was to be organized to
proceed thither; and subjoined was
an account Of a couple of hurricanes
which had swept through the length
and breadth of the island, succeeded
by brace Of earthquakes, which
laid waste what the tornadoes had
failed to desolate. Never in history.
perhaps, did 80 many simultaneous
attempts at colonization, proceeding
from one source to 80 many quarters,
meet failure so uniform. Some of
the Huguenot exiles from France
persisted in distress, but others
founded fourishing colonies in Eng
land, Switzerland, America. Some
of the American colonies from Eng
land were hapless, but great success
followed others. A fatalistic failure,
one would almost say, attends, on
the other hand, the Southern schemes
of emigration. In some places, as
in Mexico, the protecting Govern
ment goes down, and the colony dies
out with the coming in of tive new
and hostile rule. In others, as in
Honduras, there is "Home Govern
ment" in Europe failing to make
good the local promises. In others,
as in Brazil, there is the suspicion
and hostility of the native people,
lack of energy and enterprise, want
of mechanical improvements for
working plantations, difficulty in
procuring labor. In South America,
in general, war and taxes, even worse
than in the Confederacy, oppress the
adventurers. And if nought else can
wreck the experiment, nature comes
in with her devouring earthquakes
and whirlwinds.
We are glad that SO few, compara-
lively, of the Southern people essay
ed expatriation. Those few rushing
off in haste repent at leisure, and re-
turn without reluctance, content to
remain. Their experience is useful
to their neighbors. There will be no
depopulation of the South. Let us
take a sort of representative example
of the issue Of these efforts. Ex- Gov.
Harris, Of Tennessee, in whose arms
Syndey johnson died on the field of
Shiloh, and whose intensity of hate
to the Union led him nt the close of
the war to Cordova, where he was
made President of the Confederate
colony, now returns at last to pay his
respects to the man whom he and his
associates probably regarded as the
personi6cation of all that was most
detestable-Parson Brownlow. "Gov.
Harris said, ;" the account informs us,
"that he had come to give himself
up, and expressed much gratitude for
the kind ntion which the Governor
had mode Of his family in his mes
sage" His successor has paroled
him till next spring. These schemes.