The cotton in cities.
--We observe complaints in the New Orleans press that, in spite of the recommendations of the Board of Underwriters of that city against the transmission of cotton to that port, some city houses, who prefer profit to patriotism, are endeavoring to induce the planters to send on their cotton.
It is also stated by Northern journals that the
Federal Government is aware that there are considerable quantities of cotton in certain as sailable points, both on the seaboard and the
Western rivers, and intends soon to seize the same, and give foreign powers a satisfactory guarantee that their usual supply of cotton will not be seriously interrupted.
We know not what truth there is in these representations; but, if the
Southern people have a tittle of the spirit and determination in defending their homes which their enemies exhibit in invading them, they will burn every bale of cotton in an exposed situation, unless it can be removed at once to a place of safety.
Not another pound should be permitted to approach any place in which there is the remotest possibility that it can fall into the enemy's hands, and the man who endeavors to bring it to such a place, or to receive it, should be regarded as the worst of public enemies.
The people of
Charleston, with the foresight and public spirit which from the beginning has characterized the course of
South Carolina, has set an example in keeping cotton on the plantations, which ought to be vigorously followed by every Southern community.
We earnestly invoke the municipal and State authorities of the
South to keep a vigilant eye on the cotton which is already in Southern ports, to remove it at once to the interior, or to burn it, before permitting it to be seized by the enemy.
Let the torches and the combustibles be kept ready as carefully as the powder and shot.
Surely the sunny
South is as capable as frozen
Russia of self-sacrifice and devotion.
If
England can dispense with Southern cotton, let her make the experiment.
If she feels inclined to depend upon the
North rather than the
South for her cotton supplies, let us show her that she leans upon a broken reed.
Let us open her eyes by the light of a vast cotton conflagration, to the fact that the
South is prepared and determined to convert this whole land into a desert rather than permit it to be come the victim of Northern subjugation.
