instruments, and a number of trifles, and that trade with the Yankees in these could result in no serious harm. But by the enlarged license of the government it soon became an infamy and a curse to the Confederacy. What was a petty traffic. in its commencement soon expanded into a shameless trade, which corrupted the patriotism of the country, constituted an anomaly in the history of belligerents, and reflected lasting disgrace upon the honesty and good sense of our government. The country had taken a solemn resolution to burn the cotton in advance of the enemy; but the conflagration of this staple soon came to be a rare event; instead of being committed to the flames it was spirited to Yankee markets. Nor were these operations always disguised. Some commercial houses in the Confederacy counted their gains by millions of dollars since the war, through the favor of the government in allowing them to export cotton at pleasure. The beneficiaries of this trade contributed freely to public charities and did certain favors to the government; but their gifts were but the parings of immense gains; and often those who were named by weak and credulous people or by interested flatterers as publicspirited citizens and patriotic donors, were, in fact, the most unmitigated extortioners and the vilest leeches on the body politic.

In this war we owe to the cause of truth some humiliating confessions. Whatever diminution of spirit there may have been in the South since the commencement of her struggle, it has been on the part of those pretentious classes of the wealthy, who, in peace, were at once the most zealous “secessionists," and the best customers of the Yankees, and who now, in war, are naturally the sneaks and tools of the enemy. The cotton and sugar planters of the extreme South who prior to the war were loudest for secession, were at the same time known to buy every article of their consumption in Yankee markets, and to cherish an ambition of shining in the society of Northern hotels. It is not surprising that many of these affected patriots have found congenial occupation in this war in planting in copartnership with the enemy, or in smuggling cotton into his lines. The North is said to have obtained in the progress of this war, from the Southwest and Charleston, enough cotton at present prices to uphold its whole system of