bond fade news from the United States is almost nil.
It is clear that the battle of Wilson's Creek, in Missouri was, in physical though not in moral effect, a defeat.. Major-General Fremont has no little difficulty in holding his ground in Missouri at all.—It is
i said that the Wheeling Convention in Western Virginia have passed an ordinance for the division of Virginia, and the establishment of a new state, strangely christened Tanawlia. The Confederates have forbidden the overland exportation of sugar, rice, &c. It is said that the Federal Government intend to force Kentucky to take her part. There are rumours of dissension among the generals in the Confede- rate camp at Richmond. The Federal panic concerning an expected attack on Washington had passed away. At Washington the inhabi- tants are not very loyal. The Mayor is said to have refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. It is becoming more evident every day that if the contest is to go on with any ardour, the issue must turn on slavery.
A private letter from New England expresses what we be- lieve to be the universal feeling there when it says : "Yes, we have taken up our burden with the consciousness that God has set us to a terrible work, whose duration we cannot foresee, though we know that it will be accomplished. But you may be sure that it is not such a heart-sickening load as that which seemed to eat into us as we groaned under it for years, the load of disgrace and sin which our nation bore because it persisted in trying to shirk the issue, and strike a bargain with sin. Like hundreds of thousands— yes, millions—here, Ihave asked, ever since I began to think about public affairs, only for some sign that our policy was directed towards the final extinction of slavery. In speedy emancipation as a benefit to the slave we could not, with our best light, believe ; :and nobody had a satisfactory and sufficient plan to offer. But if we could have seen the current set in the right direction, to a policy based on a re- cognition of the Divine law that slavery must cease at last, we could have been patient under our hereditary burden."
If this feeling spreads fast, with a leader like General M'Clellan to organize it, the North may yet retrieve its reverses and win a glorious victory.
Previous page
