'Department of State, Washington: Sept. 22, 1862.

GENTLEMEN,-You will receive by the mail which will carry

you this despatch evidence which will convince you that the 'aggressive movement of the rebels against the States remaining faithful to the Union is arrested; and that the forces of the Union, strengthened and reanimated, are again ready to ' undertake a campaign on a vast scale. If you consult the newspapers, you will easily perceive that the financial re'sources of the insurrection decline rapidly, and that the means " of raising troops have been exhausted.

On the other side, you will see that the financial situation of the country is good, and that the call for fresh troops, without which the material force of the nation would be seriously crippled, is being promptly responded to. I have already informed our representatives abroad of the approach of a change in the social organisation of the rebel States. This change continues to make itself each day more and more apparent. In the opinion of the President, the moment has come to place the great fact more clearly before the people of the rebel States, and to make them understand that if these "States persist in imposing upon the country the choice between the dissolution of this Government, at once necessary • and beneficial, and the abolition of slavery, it is the Union ' and not slavery that must be maintained and saved. With this object the President is about to publish a proclamation, in which he announces that slavery will no longer be recognised in any of the States which shall be in rebellion on January 1 'next. While all the good and wise men of all countries will ' recognise this measure as a just and proper military act, intended to deliver the country from a terrible civil war, they ' will recognise at the same time the moderation and magnanimity with which the Government proceeds in a matter so solemn and important.

Mr. Seward, who has been gasconading about 'the traditional policy of the American people,' pays very little respect to the actions of his predecessors.

In the war of 1812, the American troops burned Newark, Long Point, and St. David's in Canada. The first adjoined Fort George, and its destruction was defended by the officer who ordered it, on the ground that it became necessary in militaryoperations there. The act, however, was disavowed by the United States Government, Mr. Madison being President at the time, and Mr. Monroe his Secretary of State. The burning at Long Point was unauthorised, and the conduct of the officer subjected to the investigation of a military tribunal. For the burning of St. David's, committed by stragglers, the officer who commanded in that quarter was dismissed without a trial for not preventing it.

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Mr. Monroe, in a letter to Admiral Cochrane, said, 'No sooner ' were the United States compelled to go to war against Great 'Britain, than they resolved to wage it in a manner most consonant to the principles of humanity, and to those friendly ' relations which it was desirable to preserve between the two nations after the restoration of peace.'

The war with Mexico, too, was conducted in a humane spirit; and General Halleck, before he became tinctured with Sewardism, in his treatise on International Law and the Laws of War, observed: It is sometimes alleged, in excuse for such conduct, that the general is unable to restrain his troops: but in the eye of the law there is no excuse; for he who cannot preserve order in his army has no right to command it.'

When the wicked Emancipation Proclamation was resolved upon, Mr. Lincoln seems to have ignored the fact that in the discussion with Great Britain, growing out of the first article of the Treaty of Ghent, the American Government had committed itself in the strongest and most pointed manner in opposition to such a policy. Mr. John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, in his despatch to Mr. Rush, of Pennsylvania, then minister to the Court of St. James, under date of July 7, 1820, said, in italics: The principle is that the emancipation of enemies' 'slaves is not among the acts of civilised warfare;' and in his letter of October 18, 1820, to Mr. Middleton, of South Carolina, the American minister at St. Petersburg, he wrote: The right of putting to death all prisoners in cold blood, and without special cause, might as well be pretended to be

a law of war, or the right to use poisoned weapons, or to 'assassinate.'

The rail-splitter' President pays very slight respect even to the most worthy precedents; he seems to have forgottenprobably he never knew-that Napoleon, although solicited in his Russian campaign, by deputations from villages, to proclaim liberty to the serfs, had refused to resort to a measure which, as he said to the Senate of France, would have devoted many families to death.

Fortunately for the negro race and the world generally, Mr. Lincoln has not had the power of putting his Proclamation in force except in a few instances.

After such evidences of the devotion of the negroes towards their masters as has been given to the world by the circumstances connected with the war in America, it is really time that such men as Mr. Bright and his' reverend' satellites should stop their crusade against the institution of slavery in the Confederate States. Even President Lincoln admits that the freed negroes will not work-that they will do nothing but eat, eat.' And why should these ignorant philanthropists (?) applaud him for his emancipation scheme, when he boldly declares that it was promulgated only as a military necessity?' Nor is there any excuse whatever for Mr. Bright's blunders in regard to the cotton question. He said in the House of Commons on June 30 that he knew a little about cotton,' and that, 'professedly,' he had been all his life connected with the cotton trade.' He is, then, either so blinded by fanaticism that he cannot see the truth, or he has made wilful misrepresentations to serve his political purposes.

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CHAPTER VII.

THE IMPORTANCE OF AMERICAN COTTON-THE POLITICAL
HERESIES OF SEWARD AND LINCOLN.

THE cotton question, although so simple in its character, is generally imperfectly understood. This is evidenced by speeches in Parliament, and many articles that have appeared in the public prints. It would seem that persons unfamiliar with the trade have regarded all descriptions of cotton as available for the purposes of British industry. This mistake will be made apparent should the conflict in America continue another year. The importance of the product of the Southern States has yet to be fully appreciated. The King of Commerce is temporarily dethroned, but he will rise again in all his majesty and power. The cleverest exposition of the matter was given a few years ago by Mr. J. B. Smith, the member for Stockport. The following is his text:

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Everyone seems adequately impressed with the desirableness, I not to say the necessity, of multiplying to the utmost possible ' extent the sources whence we derive the supply of this raw ' material of our greatest national manufacture. But one branch ' of the question, though a most essential one, appears to have 'been nearly overlooked. We need not only a large supply and a 'cheap supply, but a supply of a peculiar kind and quality.

For practical purposes, and to facilitate the comprehension of the subject by non-professional readers, we may state in 'general terms that the cotton required for the trade of Great 'Britain may be classified into three divisions-the long staple, the medium staple, and the short staple.

1. The long staple, or long-fibre cotton, is used for making the warp, as it is technically called, i.e. the longitudinal 'threads of the woven tissue. Those threads, when of the finer 'sorts for all numbers, say above 50's-must be made of long

staple cotton; for numbers below 50's they may be made of it, and would be so made were it as cheap as the lower qualities of the raw material. No other quality of cotton is strong enough or long enough either to spin into the higher and finer ' numbers or to sustain the tension and friction to which the 'threads are exposed in the loom.

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2. The medium-staple cotton, on the contrary, is used partly for the lower numbers of the warp (and as such enters largely into the production of the vast quantities of "cotton yarn ' and sewing thread exported), but mainly for the weft, or trans" verse threads of the woven tissue. It is softer and silkier than the quality spoken of above, makes a fuller and rounder 'thread, and fills up the fabric better. The long-staple article ' is never used for this purpose, and could not, however cheap, 'be so used with advantage; it is ordinarily too harsh. For the 'warp, strength and length of fibre is required; for the weft, 'softness and fullness. Now, as the lower numbers of "yarn" ' require a far larger amount of raw cotton for their production than the higher, and constitute the chief portion (in weight) both of our export and consumption, and as, moreover, every ' yard of calico or cotton-woven fabric, technically called cloth, is composed of from two to five times as much weft as warp, it ' is obvious that we need a far larger supply of this peculiar 'character of cotton, the medium staple, than of any other.

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3. The short-staple cotton is used almost exclusively for weft (except a little taken for candle-wicks), or for the very lowest numbers of warp, say 10's and under. But it is 'different in character from the second description, as well as shorter in fibre; it is drier, fuzzier-more like rough wool; ' and it cannot be substituted for it without impoverishing the 'nature of the cloth, and making it, especially after washing or bleaching, look thinner and more meagre; and for the same 'reason it can only be blended with it with much caution, and in very moderate proportions. But its colour is usually good, and its comparative cheapness its great recommendation.

'It will be seen, therefore, that while we require for the pur'poses of our manufacture a limited quantity of the first and 'third qualities of raw cotton, we need and can consume an almost unlimited supply of the second quality. In this fact