The morale of the Confederates appears to improve. The Con-
federate General Pickett, commanding in North Carolina, writes to Federal General Peck, at Newbern, that he intends to execute every negro he catches who is proved to have killed a Confederate ; and that, should retaliation be adopted, he will hang ten Yankees for every Confederate executed. A year ago the Confederates proposed to sell the negroes into slavery ; now, if they can only kill their man, they are to be hanged—a far better fate. The order, however, if it means anything earnest, looks like a pledge that an infinite series of whites shall suffer for every negro—the series, namely, 1+10+10+100+100+&c.—and this, even if the Yankees keep to the more modest plan of only hanging one Confederate for every Yankee hanged by the enemy. After all, however, it is very probable that General Pickett's words mean about as much as Mr. Roebuck's.
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