The Express. — 1863-01-13 (London, England)

PRESIDENT DAVIS'S RETALIATORY PROCLAMATION. —Mr. Davis ought also to remember that, though England and France have conceded to the Southern States the position of belligerents, it behoves them to exercise their belligerent rights with the utmost forbearance and moderation. We have not scrupled to express our sympathy with the South in their gallant struggle for national independence, and so stroog has been that sympathy that it has overpowered the repulsion inspired by the institution of slavery. But the South should remember that they were the first to draw the sword in this quarrel, that they rose against an established government in the exercise of its legal Guoa tions, that they obtained by the agency of traitors in that government a considerable supply of arms and money, and that that union which they seek to dissolve is, as events have proved, the dearest wish of every American heart. These things are provocations of no ordinary magnitude. and in some degree extenuate, though they can in no degree justify, the outrages which have followed the solitary Northeru success, the capture of New Orleans. Better to bear a little longer even such iniquities as those of which they complain then to aggravate the horrors of a contest already sufficiently dreadful by licensing a system of murder from which neither party can reap any possible advantage, sod which can only teed to envelope the American name in everlasting ignominy. No doubt it may be suggested as an excuse fur the South that they have the fate of St. Domingo before their eyes, and have the most dreadful apprehensions of the lot which may overtake their homes, their wives, and their children in cave of a oegro insurrection. But this iv one of the chances of war which they must have well weighed and considered before they raised the flag of insurrection. Their own valour and success have created the danger by driving the North to despair, and they ought to meet it with the calmness of men resolved sod prepared, not with the fury of surprise and panic. If the North, which we will not yet believe, should carry out ita dreadful threat, the evil will not be averted by killing the officers who may be detached on a service which is not in itself contrary to the usages of war. They will not be deterred from undertaking it, and, should they be slain, their death will be bloodily avenged. lastly, Mr. Davis ought to consider whether it is worth his while, in order to gratify the justly-incensed feelings of the South, to cut off from himself that European sympathy which he now possesses, and to appear before the civilised world as the first to convert an honourable contest Into a war of extermination. We earnestly hope to find that this plan of retaliation has remained ursexecutel, and that the horror of mrutaacres in cold blood may not be added to the miseries of a contest between men of the game language, the same lineage, and the same country.—Tieses. J EPPERSON BILIcK. —Thu unyielding and undemoostrative courage of Major Pelham, his composure under the deadliest fire, have long made him conspicuous, but were his noble qualities the subject of more glowing eulogy than upon this occasion. General Lee exclaimed. ; I "It is inspiriting tow such glorious courage in one soyousg" : (Major Pelham is not more than 22) ; General Jackie° ' remarked, "With a Pelham upon either dank I could vanquish the world."—Special Correspoode at of the Tina with the Southern Army. On the Bth of November Inat there were twenty, eight steamers and 178 sailing ships lying at the port of Shanghai in China.