LONDON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 788, 27 June 1864, Page 6

LONDON.

(from a correspondent.} 26th April. That Garibaldi's hasty departure should have occurred jast before the assembling of the Conference of Powers to deliberate on the Danish question, has necessarily given a color to the reports, so industriously circulated, that his presence at this juncture would—it was thought in official quarters—prove inconvenient, and therefore he had been induced to leave. I confess I am not quite convinced myself, that there has been no other motive in operation than anxiety for his health; but I must leave all speculations upon this subject and the pleasant hero-worship that has absorbed all parties lately, to turn to the sad and difficult problem which the Conference must debate. The English Cabinet, in order to induce all the Powers to accept the invitation which it issued, announced no other basis for. the Conference but the desire to find means to restore peace in Northern Europe. Whether all the Powers now represented in London sincerely desire peace, must now soon be proved. The selfish, blood-thirsty policy Austria and Prussia have been pm suing, and the insane, dogged obstructiveness of the German Diet have hitherto made peace impossible. The Danes have been at the mercy of their overpowering foes, and as no bravery or gallantry can successfully resist overwhelming odds, their defence has only delayed for a time the result which was inevitable. Diippel has fallen. For two months all the resources of the Prussians were turned against this Danish stronghold. Every new military invention, every device of military service, was brought to bear upon the Danish position, and >et the Danes held out, and refused to surrender even while they despaired. And I Prussia has won the " glory" she sought— the renown of having mercilessly butchered a brave band of devoted patriots, who fought to maintain for their country a place among the nations of Europe, instead of allowing her to sink into a mere vassal of Prussia. For a long time the siege advanced so slowly that hope was entertained that Borne arrangement would be arrived at by the Conference without the Danes having been driven from their position. But the honor of Prussia was at stake. She had as yet gained no advantages in this bootless war. It was important that Denmark should be humbled, and driven to the attitude of a suppliant before any concessions should be demanded from the Court of Berlin. So troops were hurried forward, fresh batteries were opened, everything betokened activity on the part of the besiegers, aad meanwhile the Conference was dexterously postponed from the 12th to the 20th of April. While the fire of the Prussians was moderate and intermittent, the activity of the Danes enabled them to repair by night all the damage the Prussian guns had effected by day. The siege might have been prolonged indefinitely had no more active measures been taken on the part of the besiegers. But the approaching Conference furnished just the spur that was needed. The Prussians seem first to have entertained the idea of crossing the Alsen Sound, and possessing themselves of the Island, when of course Duppel must have been surrendered. On the night between the 2nd and 3rd of this month they collected a large force at Ballegaard, a point on the Sundewitt coast, four miles south of the northern extremity of the Alsen Sound. They had prepared 160 pontoon boats in which the passage of the Sound was to be made b.y the troops, while 52 rifled guns were placed in batteries on the shore to cover the force that was to cross. Meanwhile the Brogerland batteries began without warning ;to pour shells into Sonderburg, to absorb the attention of the Danes while the passage was being effected. The attempt to cross the Sound proved a miserable failure. The attempt was made at 3 a.m., but a strong N.W. wind rendered the project impracticable. The first boat launched, filled and capsized, and in twenty minutes all the elaborate preparations were acknowledged to have been made in vain. The other ; part of the plan seems, however, to have succeeded so well, that it was found impossible to resist the temptation of bombarding Sonderburg, and its poor helpless women and children, even ■when the need for the diversion no longer existed. For forty-eight hours the murderous cannonade was kept up against the defenceless city, and eighty of the townspeople were killed. The barbarity of bombarding an open town, without giving any notice to non-combatanfs to quit, has done more to tarnish the military honor of Prussia than all her successes can do to raise her fame. The centre of the town being most exposed, was almost entirely demolished by the first cannonade, and at uncertain intervals the bombardment has been renewed, to prevent the Danish army occupying the place again. The unfortunate inhabitants driven ruthlessly from their homes, and many of them helplessly ruined, have had to spread themselves over the Island of Alsen, and many of them to wander to Funen in search of shelter and subsistence. The excuses put forward in Prussian papers for the bombardment of Sonderburg without a warning of any kind being given, such as has been afforded of late in the most barbarous of wars, are not likely to change the public opinion of Europe, as to the useless I cruelty of the act. The town having, j they say, been employed by the Danes as a fortified place—it has been treated accordingly. A place converted into a camp, and filled with troops and military stores, could not be accorded the benefits ordinarily granted to open towns. A story i raked up about the Danes having fired upon a hospital which the Prussians had established at Duppel village, and killed several wounded men ; for which act, the bombardment of the Danish town is looked upon as a retribution; but if the Prussians chose to lay their wounded within reach of the enemy's guns, they, and not the Danes, were guilty of their death, else a row of hospitals in front of an army would be an effectual shelter from all harm.

From the time of the destruction of Sonderburg the position of the Danish army has been deplorable. The head quarters had to be removed to Nikibol, a mile distant, and the troops being divided and scattered, lost the inspiration of companionship and numbers, and began to brood dispiritedly over their helpless condition. One can hardly imagine a position more trying to the patience and endurance of troops. From time to time they had to relieve each other at the batteries, and along the various camps and posts on the eastern slope of Duppel Hill. The relieving companies had to march from their country quarters through the deserted town of Sonderburg, across the open bridges, and up the exposed hill-side. Yrg/m the moment they crossed the sum ■

mitofSonderbure: Hill, they were under fire. This "Via Dolorosa" as it may may well have been called, extended for two long miles, up and down steep slopes and over broken groin d. When at last, the soldiers reached t! eir .lestination, they had to seek the shelter of some mound or hillock, then for long hours of day and night to lie on damp straw, or the frostbitten earth, hearing the shells whizzing over their head?, or exploding round them, with no change to their monotony except the sight of a killed or wounded comrade borne past them from the front. Wearied with cold, fatigue and watching, they had to wait out their appointed time, and then to retrace their anxious journey. To say that the men were patient under such circumstances, is to say that they fulfilled all that could possibly be expected from the most heroic soldiers. They had nothing to do but to wait and endure, and to die when their turn came, and bravely, nobly, day by day, they have accomplished their sad task. The ceaseless cannonade kept up by the Prussians after they commenced their more vigorous measures, soon overtasked the energies of the small Danish army. They could return nothing against their enemies' fire. It was no longer a battle-^it was a slaughter. A hundred men a day was the average loss to the Danes—one that" their small numbers could ill withstand. Such were the accounts that reached us daily while the Conference still lingered, at the bidding of the powers who wrought the cruel work. At last the end came. On the morning of the 18th the assault on 'ihe Duppel works was made. Several of the forts were found to be deserted, having become utterly untenable. Most of the Danish guns had been either disabled or dismounted. The defenders had nothing to meet their enemies with but a fire of musketry and the bayonet. They fought hard, but in ten minutes the Prussian flag was flying from the Danish bastions, and the Danes were soon in full retreat. The Prussians lost no time in bringing up their guns, and planting them on the Duppel heights, mowed down the retreating columns with their murderous fire. The hill side and the bridges were strewn I with the dead and wounded. The troops | occupying the tete de pont made an effort to cover the retreat of the army with their guns. They held out valiantly, and delayed the advance of the enemy until there was time to destroy the bridges, when they themselves were earned over in boati, after spiking their guns. The Danes fought bravely, but the ba tie was lost from the first. They knew they were fighting a losing game for the maintenance ot Danish honor, but they never flinched from their terrible duty. " The Danish army," says a correspondent who has observed it for the past two months, " was sent here to be slaughtered for the honor of the country; and to slaughter it went, not with a cheerful, but certainly with a nobly resigned and undaunted mien." Who would "not earnestly pray, " Give peace in our time, O Lord," who thinks of the woe and desolation this wanton war must produce. In killed, wounded, and prisoners, the Danish loss is calculated to exceed 5000 ; a terrible overwhelming sacrifice for a small nation to be called upon to make, that numbers but a million and a half of souls. And nothing is decided by it, yet. With true northern courage they are preparing to defend themselves in the Island of Alsen. Fredericia is as yet in their hands. The Allies have determined to overrun the whole of Jutland, and are now carrying that resolution into effect. Whether they will attempt to possess themselves of Alsen before the other Powers hav t e interposed to bring about an armistice remains to be seen. Their plenipotentiaries, after exhausting all excuses for delaying the meeting of the Conference, have now set themselves to the business of hindering its deliberations. When the ministers met yesterday, and as was expected, England and France jointly proposed an armistice, the representatives of Austria and Prussia at once declared that on this point they were without instructions from their governments. " The course adopted," says the "Telegraph," " would seetn to indicate a foregone conclusion—a fixed determination to obstruct the pacific prospects they know will be made. In no other light can the attitude assumed by the great German states be regarded. How long a time may elapse before the instructions so strangely held back may be received from Vienna and | Berlin, it is not for us to assume; but if the future negotiations are to be conducted in this spirit, months may elapse before a protocol can be signed. Meanwhile, it is as well to place broadly upon record the fact, not without its lessons, that Austria and Prussia stops the way. Whom the Gods wish to ruin, we are told, they first madden; and assuredly no European lunacy commissioners could return any other verdict that that of utter insanity, against Austria and Prussia, if they persevere in a policy of deliberate obstructiveness of bloodthirsty delay." Those members of the House of Com- j mons whose political business it is to decry any achievement of the ministers, are not slow to prophesy the utter failure of the Conference. It is said it will be a mere " political pic-nic"—"mainly useful —if useful at all, as a means of enabling Her Majesty's government to retreat from their position." The simple fact of its assembling, however, is meanwhile a great support to the Government. This is something achieved, and while the representatives of the European Powers are discussing the Danish difficulty, members of the British Parliament are to a certain extent i reduced to silence. Thus again time is gained. The session is advancing and the Tories have yet not shown that the game is in their hands. Their miserable attempt to rise to power over the ruins of Mr Stansfeld's reputation won for them the contempt even of members of their own party. They succeeded, however, in depriving the Government of the assistance of a man of proved ability and integrity, for when Parliament reassembled after the Easter recess Mr Stansfeld sat no longer on the Treasury benches. He told the House that he had become convinced, from what he had seen, and heard, and read, that he would be a source of difficulty and cause of embarrassment to the Government while he continued a member of it so, after the renewed attack upon him, he preferred to meet it not under the regis of Lord Palmerston. _ He then proceeded to give an explanation of his connection with Mazzini, which entirely silenced the hue and cry of his traducers. Some other Ministerial changes have taken place during the month. The Duke of Newcastle has been compelled by longcontinued ill-health to resign the post of Secretary to the Colonies. He has been succeeded by Mr Cardwell, who entered the present Ministry as Secretary for Ireland, which post he afterwards exchanged for the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster. Lord Clarendon has accepted the vacant Chancellorship. Mr Lowe, Vice-President of the Educational Board,

has also resigned in consequence of a charge brought against him by Lord R. Cecil, of mutilating the reports ot the inspectors of schools. Mr Lowe, following the steps of Mr Stansfield, reserved his explanation till he was no longer a member of the Government. The "Times" speaks of this as "an unfortunate affair," "one of those occasions, not so very uncommon, in which the best intentions, the greatest abilities, and the highest integrity, are all rendered ineffectual by the want of a grain of salt." A little candour in the place of virtuous indignation would have maintained both Air. Lowe's credit and his position. A curious case of breach of privilege was brought home to the Government the other evening by Mr. Disraeli. The advauce of Mr. Bruce, Under-Secretary of the Home Department, to fill Mr. Lowe's place, opened the eyes of the members of Opposition to the fact that five Undersecretaries had been sitting and voting in the House of Commons, whereas the law expressly allowed but four. It is acurious fact that by the one illegal vote the question of whether the Yeomanry should be called out this year, or L 45.000 should be saved to the country by their remaining quietly at home, was decided. The Government had but a majority of one on this question—this one now proves to have been unconstitutional. The matter has been set right by Mr. Geo. Baring, UnderSecretary for India, taking Mr. Bruce's vacated place, and the Under-Secretaryship for India being committed to Lord Wodehouse, a Peer. Mr Gladstone has again given proof of his wonderful ability as a financier. In spite of a large reduction of taxes made last year, he has still a surplus of L 2,500,000 to dispose of. Again he proposes to reduce the Income Tax a penny, to lessen the duty on sugar, and to lighten some other smaller burdens. There is little doubt that the Budget will be passed without any modification, notwithstanding the agitation in favor of the repeal ©f the Malt Tax. "The Conservatives," says the 'Standard,' "cannot quarrel with a Budget which in all its important features is their own. Mr Gladstone only executes this year, as the last, the programme the, Opposition had prescribed for him. The surplus has been applied in such a way as to relieve all classes of taxpayers, and although some interests may feel that their claims have been unfairly postponed, the general coutentment which such a relief always gives, will ensure the Budget an easy passage." In the city there is not quite the same feeling of confidence as at the date of my last letter. There seems to be a latent uneasiness, as if there was something not quite sound and healthy in the commercial world. Ten days ago bank rate was quite unexpectedly raised from 6 to 7 per cent., and there is a fear that it may speedily be higher. The many bubble companies lately formed—financial wind-bags, as they are rightly called—must collapse sooner or later, and no one knows when the bursting may commence. There has been a singular tendency shewn lately for private banks of many years' standing to incorporate and amalgamate themselves with joint-stock banks. The most marked instance of this has been the incorporation of Jones, Lloyd and Co. with the London and Wesminster Bank, which was announced on the 31st of March. In consequence of this announcement, the shares of the London and Westminster went up L 25 per share the same day, and one lucky shareholder realised L 25,000 by sales he made that day. This rise, of course did not last long; even by the same evening the shares had resumed something more like their natural price. There is comparatively little speculation going on in manufactured goods. The raw materials are as actively dealt in as ever, in fact, in all quarters we hear of the wool being bought off the sheep's backs. There is no country gentleman with 8 or 10 sheep on his lawn, who has not had a price bid for his clip. The high price of wool is beginning to tell seriously on goods, especially those manufactured from low kinds of wool, and there seems to be no chance of any fall till cotton resumes something like it's original price. The. Volunteer Review on Easter Monday has now become a national institution. Each 3'ear thousands of young men gladly devote their holiday to this, to them, comparatively new game ot playing at soldiers, showing no reluctance to rise before daylight, to brave the hurry-scurry confusion of crowded trains and magnificent uncertainty of meals, and all the varieties of weather to which our treacherous climate may expose them. Concerning the latter, i.e., the weather, I may remark that for some years it has been uniformly bad, until a genuine soaking day has come to be generally associated with the idea of an Easter Review. When, therefore, the important day gave promise this year of being moderately fine, hope beat higher, and a very large gathering was predicted, both of volunteers and spectators, and a highly successful display was anticipated. That it did not quite fulfil all the expectations raised was owing to several causes. The first was the place of meeting, which was selected by the War Office _in defiance of many protests, and which though useful as a means of testing the efficiency of the volunteer force in trying and difficult positions, is not likely to be chosen again for a review. Blackheath near Guildford,in Surrey, was the spot selected1, a piece of "terribly rough and broken ground," of such difficult approach that it was found some of the artillery could not be got there at all, having to be dragged through a mile and a half of deep sand Colonel M'Murdo's reply to;the objections raised against the choice of such a place that "battles are not usually fought upon Turkey carpets" was spirited and soldierly, and the volunteers themselves 'proved that there i 3 mettle in them to brave a few hardships and discipline enough to maintain order in the face of some discouraging difficulties, but there is a general feeling that any attempt to muster the volunteers on Blackheath again would prove fruitless. In addition to the undesirable character of the ground itself, the town of Guildford proved itself quite inadequate to meet the demands that were made upon it, and the landlords and j purveyors of the little town have earned i themselves an unenviable notoriety by their endeavors to make the most of their opportunity and filch the pockets of our patriotic national defenders. Add to bad roads and scant provisions a most cutting and bitter N.E. wind, which, by the time the whole volunteer force had assembled, had marshalled a host of rain-clouds to greet them with a pitiless.shower, and you will believe that such a " field-day" must have put to the test not only the patriotism but the physical strength of many of the volunteers. As a display, however, of military discipline the sham fight was eminently successful, and gave additional proof of the efficiency of the force. The number assembled did not probably reach 15,000 (though nearly 20,000 were expected); these, however, were chiefly

drawn from the metropolis alone. It is a matter of regret that these national re" views do not attract larger numbers out of .a force that is reckoned at 150,000 strong. There were 40 battalions of infantry and 2000 artillerymen present— " a military force," remarks the " Telegraph," " exceeding in strength the whole establishment of Infantry of the Line available for the protection of this Island thirty years ago." An unfortunate accident occurred which proved fatal to one of the spectators, the Rev. Mr Erie, a Presbyterian minister. He was shot in the abdomen by a ramrod by one of the Queen's Westminster Rifles, and being carried to the. hospital tent was found to be fatally wounded. This occurrence has caused much severe comment on the carelessness which resulted so sadly, and it is to be hoped it will be a warning not only to the Volunteers but to the public, whose disregard of the regulations made to ensure safety is most reprehensible. A letter from America, dated April Ist, reports snow 12 inches deep in "Virginia. This is less surprising than that we should hear of snow falling in Italy during the present month, but such news proves that not in England alone, has the winter been unusually severe and prolonged. With such a state of weather it is not a matter of wonder that but little is being done by the large'forces arrayed against each other in the disrupted states. Military movements are still delayed, and American papers in default of news, are taken up with prophecies. Gen. Halleck having, by his own request, been removed from the post of Commander-in-Chief to the Federal army, Gen. Grant has been promoted to the dignity, and made Lieutenant-General, with Halleck for the chief of the staff. The hero of Vicksburg is of course the popular favorite just now, and the unbounded faith of the Northerners in all their untried men and measures i° for the present centred in their new Lieutenant. Everyone feels that a terrible contest is impending, and a general sense of uneasyness makes the people cling the more passionately to a promised deliverer. They fortify themselves with extravagant estimates of the General's abilities, and of what be can achieve ; they magnify his past successes; and having enveloped him in a tissue of falsities, they already raise him in anticipation to the Presidential Chair. Yet even with their praises a harsh note is occasionally blended, and some one with the faculty of looking at both sides of a question, suggests the unpleasant _ iaterrogation—" what if all these things should notsbe ?" and one journalist, more bolder and more plain-spoken than the rest, says—"lf Grant be defeated, we shall see the currency destroyed, public confidence paralyzed, and civil war—the end of which no one can foretell — break out in the North." With such things threatening them, it is little wonder that the Federal Americans should endeavor to bolster up their confidence in the future with extravagant estimates of what Grant will do for them. In the meantime Grant has fixed his head-quarters with the armyof the Potomac, and has commenced a vigorous reorganisation of its forces. It is said he has expressed a desire that General M'Clellan and General Fremont should be assigned to active service, the former to take charge of the defences of Washington when the a#my of the Potomac moves. General Sherman is to command in the south-west. Mr George Augustus Sala, whose graphic sketches of " America in the midst of the war " have lately amused the readers of the "Daily Telegraph," thus_ writes of the army with which General Grant has taken up his quarters: —"It has been my fortune, in the course of a pretty active career, to see English, French, Russian, Prussian, Austrian, Turkish, Italian, and Spanish soldiers, without counting those of the minor States of Germany. I have seen some ragged and dirty ones, but I will take my affidavit that I never, until I visited the army of the Potomac, set eyes upon desperadoes who' so nearly resemble the brigands that Salvator Rosa used to paint as do the Federal warriors. Their appearance is absolutely horrible. The uniform itself, allowing for its coarse materials, repulsive colours, and slovenly cut, is not so very ugly; but the way in which it is pitchforked on to the soldiers' bodies, their unkempt hair, dirty faces, grimy hands, and grimier nails, their filthy saddles, ungroomed horses, uncleaned boots and aec mtrements, the general slouching, out-of-elbow, up all night and drunk again next morning appearance of this surprising armament is beyond my powers of description and almost beyond the power of imagination to conceive." A lively picture this, like many others that Mr Sala draws from life ! After reading his experiences one cannot wondeF that he should find it impossible to arrive at " the honest conviction that in this quarrel the South were in the wrong and the North in the right." " One's reason, " he exclaims, one's early teaching, one's sympathy should all be on the side of him who strikes the fetters off the black man's limbs, and breaks the rod of oppression in twain, and says to the slave, 'Go free.' Surely it is a noble and glorious experiment, this emancipation of enslaved millions. It is an angel's work. But come you out here, my sentimental friend, and see what devil's work has been made of the angelic task, and how lying, cheating, cozening usurp the name of philanthropy, and then go back convinced that the Northerners have right on their side, if you can."

If we look carefully at the relative position of the two parties to this suicidal strife, we cannot fail to sac what a widely different moral influence it must have upon the people. The war has never properly come home to the majority of the people of the North as a reality. There is a struggle for conquest, and their battles have hitherto been chiefly fought for them by an alien population, that they were not sorry to have drafted off from their cities. As a rule they have shirked or defied the conscription; men have grown rich on Mr Chase's rotten currency; no heavy war taxes have been imposed, which might have checked extravagance, and brought home to the people the consciousness of the burden they were really laying upon their country. And thus, some from obstinacy —from a dogged Anglo-Saxon resolution not to be beaten; some from a a fanatical determination to liberate the black at the expense of the liberties of the white;" and others from self-interest, since they fatten and flourish by the contest—all parties have been united in prolonging the struggle. There has been no principle of self-sacrificing devotion to a cause, such as turns common men into heroes by making them lay down their substance and their very lives at the shrine their love and faith have consecrated, but every •where selfish motives working discord and disunion even among the people themselves. Thus all the qualities developed

amongst the Northerners by the war, are of a base, selfish, blood-thirsty character. They have long been trying to love and to rule by the worldly principle of self-inte-rest—tliey desire to conquer by the same law. And against waat are their beggarly principles opposed? Against the devotion of men fighting for their homes, their liberty, their very existence. Against the fury of a people they have tried to crush ; against the very life-blood of a country bubbling up in indignant defiance. Who remembers now that the Confederates fired the first shot, and therefore lays the blame of the whole contest upon them ? Have they not proved over and over again their right to be a nation ? "Who, forsooth, are the Federals, that they should subdue them? Let them do it if they can! A people who are ready to die for a cause will certainly fight for it when the hirelings shall flee. If the North should ever be'victorious, it will be when war forced into their own territories has awakened a patriotic enthusiasm in the people, widely different from their present frothy zeal. If this is to be a war of subjugation, they will have to fight till the traitors in their own camp are destroyed by their own mean, mercenary, peace-destroying principles. It will be a terrible crucible, and one could wish for them some less bitter teaching.

The present attitude of the Confederates is thus described in a letter from Richmond :—" Come what may, they are going to fight it out. They are relying now entirely on themselves and on the blessing of Heaven, on a just cause. European aid of any kind, which once formed so large an element of hope, has not for a long time entered into their calculations. They expect to go through it, and have made up their mind^ to pay the cost. They may emerge from the contest with a ruined and desolated country, which it will take twenty years of industry to recover, with every household made sad and desolate by the loss of their loved ones ; but they will be able at. least to look back with an honorable pride to the terrible struggle they have sustained unaided and alone, and to feel that their land is free." The Southerners never hide from themselves the real facts of their position, they look their difficulties full in the face, and reckon the sacrifices that will be required of them, but the idea of ultimate defeat seems entirely absent from their calculations. Nor do their leaders show any anxiety lest the people should be tempted from their allegiance. Mr Lincoln's amnesty proclamation was published in .full by the Southern papers without fear that it could produce the slightest effect upon the people. We may therefore entirely discredit the stories got up in the North, of the disaffection and returning loyalty of large masses of the rebel population. Nor need we give greater heed to the boast that the Federals have a million of men in the field against the 300,000 Confederates. If Mr Lincoln could create armies by merely calling for conscripts, this force might probably now be reckoned upon, but everybody knows that the re^, suits of his conscripts, of his extravagant bounties, and his new premiums offered to "kidnaapujg" all put together fall far short of the actual needs of the Federal commanders on land and no less than thirtyfive Federal, war ships are reported as unable to put to sea for want of men while Mr Lincoln's chances of re-election seem to be dwindling. The Republicans are failing him, and taking up with Gen. eral 'Fremont, 'while the Democrats denounce both the Administration and tfie Abolitionists, and declare General M'Clellan the only man capable of rescuing the nation from disintegration and ruin. At a meeting held in New York, for the purpose of nominating General Fremont, his supporters proclaimed the equality of ail men before law, without distinction of race or colour, and denounced the initiation of serfdom by attaching the person of the laborer to the soil. All parties seem to be crying out for a powerful leader, one able " to weld in the fiery furnace of the war the crude mass of the States, into a spick and span nationality as homogeneous as France." I quote the exact words in which General Fremont is commended to the people. A curious instance of Yankee sharpness and unscrupulousness, has just come light. Soon after Christmas, the American mail brought us a paper which professed to be the official report of the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, which had been presented in the usual form to the Legislature. "In accordance with the order of the President," this document stated, " early in the present year I despatched several agents to England and_ France, with orders to contract for eight iron-clad vessels suitable for ocsan service." Then followed a complaint that the English Government had seized these vessels. This was regarded by Englishmen as "a defiaat. proclamation of facts," which might have been as well concealed, but the genuineness of the document was never disputed. Commodore Maury, however, detected some informalities in it, and immediately wrote off to the Confederate Government, who repudiate it from beginning to end. Mr Mallory, from whose pen it purports to have issued, disclaims it altogether. Its first appearance has been traced to the " New York Sun," the editors of which shift the responsibility on to a Southern correspondent. The wholethingis believed to have been manufactured in New York. We have been accustomedto receive with considerable caution American reports, but henceforth caution must be changed to distrust. This " deliberate circumstantial forging of a document with the signature of a Minister and the authority of a Department of State is a flight of enterprise™ says the • Times,' "beyond the previous example. Whether the exposure has npw spoilt the trade, or whether the trick will find imitators, we cannot say; but for the future we must weigh our ' American intelligence' in a balance adapted to the purpose."

While the House of Representatives are unanimously resolving that the United States will never recognise or tolerate a monarchy in Mexico, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria has finally accepted the Crown offered him by the Mexican people, and has already, with the Archduchess Chariot :e, started for his adopted country. Our last news of him is from Rome where he had gone to invoke the blessing of his Holiness the Pope upon his difficult enterprise. " Thus," says the " Times," "France has actually succeeded in establishing a new empire across the Atlantic, and in bringing a renowned and opulent community within the pale of civilisation once more. If the experiment is permanently successful—and we do not see why its success should be doubted, in spite of the disciples of Monroe—she will have justly earned, not only the thanks of Mexico, but the gratitude of the world."

Nothing has transpired in connection with our National Shakespeare celebration that need induce me to add to this already lengthy letter. I may be able to say more of this matter in my next.