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ter of those who associate with crimps? If we stretch out our charitable indulgence to its utmost limits, we cannot say that such connections, when pronounced to be "very indifferent," comport with gentlemanly honour and standing. In such a case, we are sceptical about the existence of the "tip of the last joint !" But methinks I hear those editors whispering to each other the sentiment that those "who live in glass houses must not throw stones." And then comes the startling announcement, that "systems of evil are by no means likely to be uprooted by personal attacks, and we can only attribute the violence of his censure upon the Cheevers, Beechers, and Stowes to the fervour of his zeal in advocating the cause which he has espoused!" This is certainly very charitable, but whilst the writer disclaims all personal animosity he would claim the right of entertaining what opinions he chooses; and of expressing them when and where he likes and of calling a spade a spade without asking any pardons, or making any apologies; and as the writer has been wantonly and wickedly assaulted by Federals and pro-federals, on both sides of the water, and false statements put to his account, is it matter of surprise that his virtuous indignation should be aroused and brought into full play, or that he should try to make the sword give a terrible rebound? God forbid that he, or any other man, should lie motionless under the heels of misguided and reckless men until all life is trodden out of them. An open field, and fair play, is all that the writer asks, and

falling back on his motto nil desperandum auspice deo, onward he is prepared to go-forwards, though floods and flames oppose.

Yours respectfully, for truth as well as liberty.

JOSHUA R. BALME.

THE LORD MAYOR'S BANQUET, LONDON.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE BELFAST NEWS-LETTER.

SIR,-A terrible indignation has been shewn by those who have blindly embraced the cause of the Federals in this country, against the Lord Mayor of London for extending to Mr. Mason, a Confederate Commissioner, the rights of hospitality.

"The above act," say these men, "has disgraced the metropolis and country," because Mason is a "slaveholder," the author of the "Fugitive Slave Law," and represents a "Government based on slavery." These sins are vile and infamous, and the writer has no cloak to cover them up, or inclination to extenuate them, or connive at them; but where is the difference in point of principle in the Lord Mayor of London receiving as his guest Mr. Mason and the public receptions which these same men have accorded to his Excellency Mr. Adams, Ambassador from our Federal Government, and the representative of a party which has always upheld the Fugitive Slave Law. "Hang Mason, who devised the above infamous law," say these men. On the same rule, they would have to hang up and quarter Ambassador Adams, President Lincoln, ninety-nine hundreds of our clergy, and the

vast multitudes of our "meaner whites, or whiter trash," in the North, who have ratified and endorsed, sanctified and blest, this horrible law, and executed it in our socalled Free States in the North. On page 88 of Lincoln's "Campaign Book," the President says, “I have never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I think, under the Constitution of the United States, the people of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave Law." If so, what sin was there in Mason supplying the text of it? The above claim was sustained by Lincoln's perversion of the original draft of the Constitution, to apply it to the Fugitive Slave Law in his inaugural address to the Presidency, and has since been executed under the worst exasperations on the steps of our National Capitol, in full view of his Presidential mansion.

However sinful or criminal it may be to devise such a law, it is ten thousand times more so to execute it; and this guilt attaches to our Northern people in America. The above law would have been a dead letter but for them. It still hangs over the people; and as its enforcement has alone preserved slavery, slave propagandists would have been powerless to preserve or extend the dire and manifold evils of slavery, but for it.

The same query with which we commenced may be extended to the different representatives of America, in its application to the Confederate and Federal Governments. The Confederates openly and

boldly seek to build up their Government on slavery. Our Federals represent our Government to be the freest in the world: and yet, from its foundation to the present, the victims of slavery have increased from 647,000 to 4,000,000. One stands out unblushingly like the libertine; the other comes up under the garb of a sneaking hypocrite, and has never yet sought to wash its hands of its guilt, denouncing slavery as a sin, to be taken by the tail and dashed against the wall. And yet, forsooth, the meek reprovers of the Lord Mayor would reject the representatives of the Confederate Government, whilst they fawn upon and flatter, caress and cherish, the representatives of the latter. In the above respects both representatives are on a par; but these men are not received by civil rulers and magistrates, or the authorities of city corporations, or their representatives, on the ground of their moral character, or the charac ter of the government or people whom they represent; but on the basis of their representative character touching the comity of nations in their relationships to each other. If any other rule was observed but this, in the present condition of society and the world, how restricted would be the intercourse of nations and men; but whilst these men have cherished resentment to the Lord Mayor, and poured on him their reproaches and contempt for making Mr. Mason his guest at one of his banquets, they have subjected themselves to a tenfold greater reproach in the welcome which they have given, tributes paid, and gifts

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