The American intelligence of the week is decidedly favourable. The
Federal Government has reduced two forts which protected Hatteras Inlet, and closed that gate of the internal navigation of the South, taking at the same time six hundred prisoners. Mr. Russell reports that the army at Washington is rapidly improving; that General McClellan has re-established discipline, and that the com- missariat and carriage departments are both in excellent order. On the Western side, General Fremont has assumed the offensive, declared Missouri under martial law, emancipated the slaves of all hostile slave- owners in the State, and prepared a flotilla to descend the Mississippi At the same time, with the exception of a report that the army now threatening Washington numbers 125,000 men, we are totally with- out information from the South. A rumour that the Confederates. have prohibited the export of cotton is not confirmed, and is probably, an exaggeration of some new edict against selling cotton to Northern, men.
