1. By way of precaution, the people are informed that whenever any property is needed for the use of the United States army, it will be taken from rebel sympathizers, and receipts given for the same marked "disloyal," and to be paid at the end of the war, on proof that the holder is a loyal man.

2. Rebel sympathizers are defined to be not only those who are in favor of secession, but also those who are not in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, and of furnishing men and money unconditionally for that purpose. "Loyalty" is to be proved by the vote given at the election.

3. County judges are required to appoint none but "loyal" men as judges of election, notwithstanding the provisions of our laws, which require the officers of election to be taken equally from each political party.

4. Persons offering to vote, whose votes may be rejected by the judges, are notified that they will be immediately arrested by the military.

5. The judges of election are notified that they will be ar rested and held responsible by the military, should they permit any disloyal men to vote.

In addition to all this there was at work beneath the surface a potent machinery, whose labors could be traced only by results, for the work was done in darkness and in secret.

In every city, town, and considerable village in the commonwealth, there had long been organized, under the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury, a body of men known as a "Board of Trade," an innocent title, little expressive of their true functions. Under the same regulations of the Secretary, no shipments of goods to the interior of the State could be made without the permit of the United States custom-house officers at Cincinnati or Louisville. In order to obtain such a permit, the individual applying must have procured the recommendation of the "Board of Trade" located nearest to his place of business, and the recommendation was given to none but "loyal" men, each Board establishing its own test of "loyalty." Without such recommendation no merchant could hope to add to his stock by importation-no mechanic to replenish the materials necessary in his calling. These inquisitorial bodies, therefore, held in their hands the absolute fate of every tradesman and mechanic in the State. The prosperous merchant

and needy shopkeeper were alike at their mercy. The tradesman and mechanic were thus left to choose between a vote for Bramlette and the utter ruin of their business.

Such were the circumstances under which the election of August 3d was begun. In twelve counties not a single vote was permitted to be cast for Wickliffe. In eight others he received less than ten votes to the county. In fifteen others he received less than fifty votes to the county. In sixteen others he received less than one hundred votes to the county. These fifty-one counties embraced many of the strongest Democratic counties in the State. In only twenty-eight counties of the State did Bramlette receive a majority of the population entitled to vote. Less than two-fifths of the population entitled to vote made him Governor of Kentucky. Thus was the fate of Kentucky sealed, and, on the 1st of September, Bramlette entered upon the duties of the office into which he had been foisted by bayonets.

We have briefly seen what little comfort there was for the Confederates in the fall elections of 1863, and the contemporary political movements in the North. We naturally glance from this part of the situation, external to the military campaigns, to the European relations of the Confederacy. Here there was quite as little encouragement for the South as in that other alternative of hope outside the war-Yankee politics.

OUR EUROPEAN RELATIONS.

Some feeble attempt was made by the Confederacy in the fall of 1863 to reassert its dignity by the dismissal of the foreign consuls, who had been, oddly enough, allowed for nearly three years to reside in the Confederate States, and exercise super-consular powers under authority granted by the government with which we were at war. The force of this proceeding was, however, much impaired by the fact that it was attributed to certain, objectionable action of the British consuls in the Confederacy, and not based, as it should have been, upon the conduct and bearing towards us of the British Government itself. Put upon that ground, the dismissal would have marked distinctly our sense of British injustice.

We have referred in former pages to the prejudicial effect

of so-called British "neutrality" with respect to the Confederate States. Another instance was now to be afforded of its unequal and unjust disposition in the seizure by the British Government of two two-thousand-ton iron-clads, combining the ram and monitor principles, which were being built for the Confederacy by the Messrs. Laird, at Birkenhead. The seizure was made without any evidence to justify it. The Messrs. Laird were forbidden to allow these vessels to leave their yard "without an ample explanation of their destination and a sustainable reference to the owner or owners for whom they are constructed." It was curiously held by Lord Russell that "Messrs. Laird were bound to declare-and sustain on unimpeachable testimony such declaration-the government for whom the steam rams have been built." In other words, without an affidavit or other legal foundation for proceedings against them, these gentlemen were required to come forward and prove their innocence.

The animus displayed in this proceeding was in keeping with the whole conduct of the British ministry towards this country. They suspended, to our great detriment, the law of nations which allowed captures at sea to be taken into neutral ports for condemnation. They ignored and violated their own solemn engagement in the Treaty of Paris, requiring that a blockade, to be acknowledged and binding, should be such as actually to exclude ships from ingress or egress. They allowed their Foreign Enlistment Act to be inoperative against our enemy, permitting them not only to supply themselves with vast quantities of arms and ammunition, but even to recruit their armies from British dominions. But they had revived against us a law practically obsolete, and, in order to give it force and make it applicable, they had reversed a principle of law to be found in the codes of all free countries.

But, notwithstanding the invidiousness of foreign powers, especially against the naval efforts of the Confederacy, it was a matter of surprise how much we had accomplished upon the sea against an enemy whose navy was his particular boast. A few solitary ships, hunted by vast navies, had maintained in foreign seas a warfare that required not only the loftiest courage, but the most consummate skill, the most sleepless vigilance, and the most perfect self-reliance.

Two years had passed since Semmes commenced his cruise in the Sumter, since which time about one hundred and fifty Yankee vessels, valued, with their cargoes, at ten million dollars, had been captured by vessels under the Confederate flag. From the first appearance of the little schooner, Jeff Davis, the Confederate navy had been the terror of the entire Yankee mercantile marine.*

The effect of our privateering on Yankee commerce and tonnage was already immense. Since the commencement of the war, three hundred and eighty-five vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of more than one hundred and sixty-six thousand tons, had been transferred to foreigners at the port of New York alone, most of which were sailing under the flag of Great Britain, the most prominent commercial rival of the Yankee. At other ports the same practice had prevailed, and it would be fair to estimate the loss of Yankee tonnage under it, during the past two years, at three hundred thousand tons. This loss to the North, as a matter of course, involved a consequent increase of the tonnage and power of its rivals.

In the first six months of the year 1860 the number of vessels cleared at New York for foreign ports was seventeen hundred and ninety-five, of which eleven hundred and thirty-three were American and six hundred and sixty-two foreign-a difference of nearly one hundred per cent. in favor of American vessels; while, during the same period of the present year, there had been twenty-one hundred and ninety-seven clearances, of which fourteen hundred and fifty were foreign and only seven hundred and forty-seven American-showing an increase in the number of foreign vessels, and a difference in their favor, as compared with the first named period, of about two hundred per cent.

The Yankees had a navy which was daily increasing, and one which, in war-making power, already exceeded vastly any navy in the world. Yet it was impotent against a few Con

* A report was made to the Yankee Congress of captures by Confederate cruisers up to the 30th of January, 1864. The list, which was not complete, foots up 193, with a tonnage of 89,704. At fifty dollars a ton, the vessels are valued at $4,485,200; the cargoes, at one hundred dollars a ton, are estimated at $8,970,400. Total value, $13,455,500. Sixty-two were captured by the Alabama, twenty-six by the Sumter, and twenty-two by the Florida.

federate cruisers which defied its power, and burnt Yankee vessels even within sight of their commercial marts.

NAVAL AFFAIRS OF THE CONFEDERACY.

We take occasion here to make a brief summary of what had been accomplished in the naval affairs of the Confederacy since the commencement of the war. At that time, but seven steam war vessels had been built in the States now forming the Confederacy since the war of 1812, and the engines of only two of these had been contracted for in these States. All the labor or materials requisite to complete and equip a war vessel could not be commanded at any one point of the Confederacy.

To these disadvantages was to be added the notorious incompetency of the Confederate Secretary of the Navy. His contracts were injudicious; and there was traced more or less directly to his mismanagement, the destruction of the Virginia-Merrimac, the Louisiana, the Mississippi, the vessels in Lake Ponchartrain, bayou St. John, the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, and elsewhere.

Yet the department, with all its drawbacks, could now exhibit results of no mean order. It had erected a powdermill, which supplied all the powder required by our navy; two engine-boilers and machine-shops, and five ordnance workshops. It had established eighteen yards for building war vessels, and a rope-walk, making all cordage, from a rope-yarn to a nine-inch cable, and capable of turning out eight thousand per month.

Of vessels not iron-clad, the department had purchased and otherwise acquired and converted to war vessels, forty-four. Had built and completed as war vessels, twelve.

Had partially constructed and destroyed to save from the enemy,

ten.

And had now under construction, nine.

Of iron-clad vessels, it had completed and had now in commission, fourteen.

Had completed and destroyed, or lost by capture, four.