The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-12-10
Is 1t a Plot


their Washington dispatches of Saturday
and Sunday, furnish exclusive" but con-
Trajectory information as to the future
movements of our distinguished fellow
citizen, General Ulysses S. Grant. Ac-
cording to the earlier report the admins
tration has rendered to General Grant the
courtesy of passage on the Richmond,
the flagship of Rear Admiral Patterson,
which is to sail during the present month for
Singapore, and the General has accepted the
invitation by cable despatch received Fri
day afternoon. According to the later re-
port the expedition under command of
Commodore Shufeldt, which sailed in
on Saturday, under orders for the west
coast Of Africa, is to pick up General
Grant lat the mouth Of the Congo River"
and convey him to the Indian Ocean, Siam,
China, Japan and Corea. He is to act as
adviser to Commodore Shufeldt, who has
received an extraordinary diplomatic row.
ing commission empowering him "to con-
clude commercial conventions with numer-
Gus petty governments during his cruise. :"
Assuming the correctness Of the latter Of
these statements suspicious are at once
aroused that plot has been concerted
which, in its astounding proportions, will.
dwarf the larceny OF the Stewart remains.
There is a very large Ethiopian concealed
in the ligneous accumulations ''at the mouth
of the Congo River" 1t is nothing less
than Plutonian conspiracy to defraud the
republican party Of the United States
of its most prominent chieftain for
the campaign of 1880. With . nefarious
cunning, which would do credit to Machia.
velli, the naval authorities Of the United
States propose to cruise along the coasts Of
nearly every barbarous and cannibal tribe,
holding out to them the tempting
bait Of an ex-President, all glittering
in purple and gold, whom they will
be secretly invited to carry off to grace
their royal cannibal banquets, either as
compulsory guest or-horrible to contem-
plate-as O sacrifcial victim. Even should
this portion Of the plot be defeated by un-
usual vigilance on the part Of General
Grant, who can reflect without shudder
upon the unlimited possibilities of that
cruise along the coasts Of Borneo, Ma
lacca, Siam, China and Corea? The
American navy can always be relied
upon to involve us in hostilities at
moments notice with some remote barbar-
Gus tribe, and when the martial afdor of our
marines is stimulated by the presence of
the greatest captain Of the age how can
they be expected to resist the temptation
to place him in the forefront of the hottest
battle? Death would be sweet to our i'm
petuous marines If only it be shared with
such leader. And when the hero Of
vicksburg and Appomattox shall have
been made general-in-chief of the ANA
ION army of Dahomey, eaten by the
Congo tribes, inundated by the Dyaks
of Borneo, tattooed and crowned by the
Malay Islanders, shut up as divinity in
the temples OF Formosa, or buried in the
trenches before the Corean capital, who can
conceive the exuItation Of the patriots Of
both parties ut home whose only hope Of Sc
curing civil service reform in 1880 consists
in eliminating from the contest the man on
horseback whose dark colossal spectre looms
luridly over the Oriental seas? Can it be
possible that our contemporaries have I'M
Willingly become coparceners Of this horri-
BILE conspiracy? We have done our duty in
sounding the note ofalarm to our esteemed
contemporaries we leave the responsibility
of averting the impending crisis OF the
East