lr we nad no other proof of the malevolent designs of the party in power, than the system of spies and informers inaugurated by it, that alone would be sufficient to condemn it. In every age. it has been the custom of despotism to employ spies, false witnesses, and pretended conspiracies, as the agents of its corrupt power. Seneca informs us that:

"Under Tiberius Cæsar, the rage of accus. ing or informing was so common as to harrass the peaceful citizens more than a civil war. The words of drunken men, and the unguarded joke of the thoughtless, were taken down and handed to the Emperor."

In that black page of history, which so disgraces human nature, containing the records of the Roman Emperors in the decline of Roman virtue, we are told that spies and informers were considered necessary functionaries of the Government. They received, from the hands of those who were seeking to destroy the liberties of the people, rewards due only to exemplary patriotism and public service. The same is true of the darkest periods of English history. Whenever there was a design upon the rights and liberties of the people, the Government resorted to the system of hired spics and informers. Everybody who refused to be a tool of despotism was accused of having secret designs against their country. Pretended plots were discovered on every hand by those who were rewarded for finding out plots.

Sub Tiberio Caesar fuit accusandi frequens el pone publica rabies, quæ omni civili belló gravias togatam civitatem corficii. Excipiebater Elriorum fermo, simplicilas Jocnatium.

These pretended plots were always the excuse for the abridgment of the liberty of the people, and for the persecution of all whose patriotism and virtue could not be corrupted.

This employment of spics and informers is a virtual declaration of hostilities to the laws that have been ordained for the protection of the people. It is proof that the Government has designs which it fears to trust with the public. It shows a dread and jealousy of the people. It foreshadows an intention to destroy their rights by ambuscade. It is, in civil govern ment, what strategy is in war—a scheme to overcome by stealthy approaches. None but a corrupt Government ever degraded itself by the use of such instruments. The vilest of our race are usually employed in this kind of official agency. Tyrants select men to watch the people, whose word they would not take for the price of a chicken. The liberties of the

people are thus put into the hands of idlers and vagabonds. Men have the power of sending you to prison, of destroying your business, and beggaring your families, who were never, in all their lives, admitted to the society of respectable people. Extreme povcrty, united with extreme profligacy of character, render them the fit tools. for every species of craft and wrong. Tacitus calls such "instrumenta regni," the implements of government. Woe to a country when the government falls into the hands which are skilled in no higher elements of power. In a free

country, where all is in the hands of the people, the executive who has recourse to such degraded tools should be the first made to feel their destroying edge. The President who places the happiness and liberty of a free people at the mercy of an organized band of paid and secret informers is a tyrant and a scoundrel. If there are any worse names than these in our language, they belong to him also. What! shall a proud and brave people stand such a driveling imitation of the Neroes and Caligulas of history? Will not the memory of what we have too patiently endured for the last three years burn into our hearts like

fire? How we used to pity and despise the people of Austria for so tamely submitting to the detestable spy system of government! And now, how might the Austrians turn round to pity and despise us, for submitting, with the patience of asses, to a spy system far more humiliating and disgraceful than any the people of Austria have endured for half a century! How many months is it now, since the streets of every northern city and village have been as full of these spies

as the streets of Rome were in the days of Tiberius and Constantius Gallus. Ammianus Marcellinus gives the following account of the perfection of the spy system in the time of the lastmentioned infamous tyrant:

"Another expedient was to place at every corner of the city certain obscure persons, not likely to excite suspicion or caution, because of their apparent insignificance, who were to repeat whatever they heard. These persons, by standing near gentlemen, or getting into the houses of the rich, in the disguise of poverty, reported whatever they saw or heard at court, being privately admitted into the palace by the back stairs, having concerted it between themselves to add a great deal, from their own invention, to whatever they really saw, or heard, and to

Two gentlemen cannot stand talking together in the public street, with out being approached by a listener in the shape of a thievish-looking wretch, who will make some excuse for a prox imity, which is at once offensive and disgusting to cleanly and well-bred persons. The post-offices are full of these spies of the Administration; the barber-shops are full of them; the hotels, bar-rooms, and restaurants, are full of them; every place is infested with them. The decline of Roman li

berty was not more fatally marked by these dark signs of despotism than the decline of American liberty is at the present hour. No, nor so much either. For, Roman liberty was more than half a century in running down to the low water-mark which we have reached in less than three years. We seem to have touched the bottom of despotism at a single plunge.

Excogitatum est super bis, ut homines quidam ignoti, VILITAZE IPSI paru:n cavendi; ad colligendos rumores par Antiochiæ latera cu icta, destinantur, relaturi quæ andirent. Heragranter et dissimulanter honorolerum circis assistende, pervadendoque divitum domus egentium habitu, quicquid nescere po erent vel audire latentur intromissi per Posticus in regiam; nuntibant; id observantes conspirantime concorli, ut singerent quædam, el coquita duplicarent an pejus: LAUDES VERO SUPPRIMERENT CÆSARIS, quos INVITIS QUAMPLURIMIS, form do malorum impendentium exprimebat. —[14th Book of Ammianus Marcellinus.

A sure accompaniment of the spy system in all ages has been the pretended discovery of plots and conspiracies, in order to give those who are seeking the destruction of liberty an excuse for their arbitrary deeds. Whenever a Tiberius, a Nero, a Calligula, or a Constantius Gallus wanted an excuse to do some deed of unwonted tyranny, he used to order his paid spics to pretend that they had discovered a plot, or conspiracy. During the reign of these monsters, conspiracy-making was as much the business of the lackeys of the Government as fighting was of its Generals. In these disgraceful tricks, Lincoln has imitated those great masters of the art of destroying liberty. Even before he reaches the Capitol, he pretends to discover a plot to destroy him on his way by rail at night from Harrisburgh. That was when he made his grand entrance into Washington like a thief, disguised in a Scotch cap and cloak-a fitting entrance for the chosen of such a party! But the trick was so bunglingly played that everybody saw through the disguises, and laughed at the too palpable fraud; for he sent his wife and children on the doomed train that was to be thrown off the track for the purpose of dashing him to pieces. Not a month has passed since the inauguration of this shallow disciple of despotism, that his satraps have not pretended to discover some horrible plot to destroy the Government; but, not in a single case, have they dared to bring a single man to trial before the courts of justice for the crimes they pretend to have discovered. And the world looks on and laughs at this very large dealer in bogus plots and conspiracies. It is but a few weeks since the inven

tive geniuses of the Administration. discovered a horrible plot to free a few sick and ragged, and almost naked, "rebel" prisoners on Johnson's Island, who were to burn down nearly all the cities on the lake, and then make a safe escape into Dixie. And, later still, they manufactured a plot for some squalid Confederates in Canada to burn down Buffalo and Ogdensburgh, and do, the Lord knows what other deviltry in the name of the "arch traitor," Jeff. Davis. Secretary Stanton, the gull-master-general of the President, wrote to a large number of Mayors, warning them against the most horrible and awful conspiracies that were ever hatched this side of the infernal regions. The public was given to understand that "the Government" had a sure thing of it this time-that this was not, as all the rest had turned out to be a boyus conspiracy, but a genuine, nefarious, and damnable plot to destroy the Government, and turn everything over into the hands of that great cut-throat and robber, Jeff. Davis! Alas, what disappointment! for this last alarm proves to be another manufactured conspiracy, made out of the same material, and fabricated for the same purpose, as all the rest that have come and gone before it. They are all alike the devices of despotism, as old as the first tyrant that ever plotted the overthrow of the liberty of the people. To the man who has read the history of despotism, these shallow tricks are as familiar as the lessons of the primer. He can trace them all the way from the first to the fifteenth, and from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. They are an invariable attend. ant of the spy system of government which has been adopted by the Admin

istration. A government which adopts the spy system would no more think of getting along without the conspiracy trial than a burglar would go house-breaking without his skeleton. keys and wrenching irons. How long

shall the people endure these shallow, these insulting tricks? How long shall their liberty and their honor be trifled with by blaspheming fanaticism and bloody imbecility?

1864

THE author of this book, a Lieut-Col. in the Coldstream Guards, one of the most celebrated regiments in the English army, has done the public, both of Europe and America, a great service. He has written what bears the evidence of being a truthful book. In a three months' journey through every part of the South, he wrote from day to day what he saw and heard from the officers and soldiers of the army, from gentlemen of official station, and from private citizens, and the ladies. Nothing is extenuated, and naught seems set down in malice. To those who wish to get at the truth in regard to the temper and condition, and prospect of the southern people, in the midst of the inhuman war which is waged upon them by the Abolitionists, this book will be most welcome. Freemantle landed in Texas in April, 1863. He thinks the Texans a rough, wild, honest people, living in a country "where every white man is as good as another, (by theory,) and every white female is, by courtecy a lady, there is only one class." This remark,

Col.

which every well informed gentleman knows to be true, is a very handsome refutation of the falsehood with which the Abolitionists have indoctrinated their dupes in the North, that the social condition of the non-wealthy white people is deplorable in the South. It is not so. There the social ban is upon color. If, the white man is as poor as Lazarus, if he is, at the same time, a decent, well-behaved citizen, he is invariably treated with the respect due a respectable member of society. There is no such narrow and odious distinction between a rich and a poor white man in the South, as there is in the North. Our author's description of the personnel of the hero of San Jacinto is brief, but unique: "In appearance he is a tall, handsome old man, much given to chewing tobacco, and blowing his nose with his fingers." At this time Gen. Banks was progressing with his invasion of the State of Texas. Col. Freemantle says:

"Banks himself is much despised as a soldier, and is always called by the Confederates Mr. Commissary Banks, on account of the

efficient manner in which he performed the duties of that office for 'Stonewall' Jackson in Virginia. The officer who is supposed really to command the advancing Federals is Weitzel; and he is acknowledged by all to be an able man and a good soldier."

This seems to confirm what we have before heard hinted, that even Lincoln had such a poor opinion of Banks's military skill that he is only kept as an automaton at the head of his army as a political general. This may explain the sudden start he has taken to play over again the role of Ben. Butler in Louisiana. Finding that after three years he has made no mark as a military man, he plunges into the paths of despotism, determined to make his mark as a tyrant, if he cannot as a general.

Col. Freemantle gives a picture of the condition of the "slaves" in Texas, which will astonish those who know nothing of the matter except from northern books and newspapers. He

says:

"The General (Scurry) took me out for a drive in his ambulance, and I saw innumerable negroes and negresses parading about the streets in the most outrageously grand costumes-silks, satins, crinolines, hats with feathers, laces, mantles, &c., forming an absurd contrast to the simple dresses of their mistresses. Many were driving about in their master's carriages, or riding on horses, which were often lent to them on Sunday afternoons; all seemed intensely happy and satisfied with themselves."

Any gentleman who has ever been South will at once recognize this as a true picture of the general condition of the "slaves." It may almost be said that until a man has been in the South he has never seen a truly happy negro.

On his way from Texas to Louisiana the Colonel met with a number of deserters from Grant's army.

He says:

"There were forty or fifty Yankee deserters here from the army besieging Vicksburg. These Yankee deserters, on being asked their reasons for deserting, generally replied:

At Monroe our author had a talk with a number of "slaves" who had fled in great terror from Harrisonsburg, when an army attacked that place. He says:

"Shortly after day-light a number of negroes arrived from Harrisonsburg, and they described the fight as still going on; they said they were 'dreadful skeered,' and one of them told me he would rather be a slave to his master all his life than a white man and a soldier.' All spoke of the Yankees with great detestation, and expressed wishes to have nothing to do with such 'bad people.""

Col. Freemantle visited Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, a short time after Gen. Grant vacated that city. The description he gives of the conduct of that officer is of a character that will make his cheeks burn, we think, if he ever reads it. He says:

"All the numerous factories have been burnt down by General Grant, who was, of course, justified in so doing; but during the short space of thirty-six hours, in which Gen. Grant occupied this city, his troops had wantonly pillaged nearly all the private houses. They had gutted all the stores, and destroyed what they could not carry away. All this must have been done under the very eyes of Gen. Grant, whose name was in the book at the Bowmont' House Hotel. I saw the ruins of the Roman Catholic Church, the priest's house, together with many other buildings, which could in no way be identified with the Confederate Government. The whole town was a miserable wreck. Nothing could exeeed the intense hatred and fury with which its excited citizens spoke of the outrages they had undergone-of their desire for a bloody revenge. I had previously heard the Jackso nians spoken of as not particularly zealous for the war. Heaven knows Gen. Grant had now converted them into good and earnest rebels."

The author was entertained by Gen. Johnston, and gives some interesting incidents, showing the deep hatred which Mr. Lincoln has driven into the minds and hearts of the southern people:

"Whilst seated around the camp fire in