The Daily Dispatch: November 21, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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A Virginian's property confiscated at Washington.

In a late number of the National Intelligencer we find an advertisement, signed by the proper authorities of Washington, offering for sale under the Federal confiscation act, a large amount of property, consisting of lots, houses, lands, mortgages, &c., the whole value at about forty thousand dollars, belonging to Mr. William Shields, formerly a resident of that city, but who, upon the first development of the treachery of Lincoln's Administration, left the land of the oppressor and took up has residence in Richmond. The advertisement goes through the farcical technicalities which generally characterize notices of like description, notifying him to attend trial, in that city, on a certain day, and show cause why said property should not be confiscated — to wit prove that he has not ‘"aided and abetted"’ the Confederate rebellion, as charged in the bill of indictment. Mr. Shields is a native Virginian, and while we are fully satisfied that the sacrifices made by him in leaving his all in Lincoln's dominions are cheerfully endured, yet our Government should see to it that his losses are in some degree compensated from the very large fund derived from the sequestration of Yankee claims within the Confederacy. As to the summons to appear in the Yankee Capital to protect his interests, it reminds one of the invitation of the spider to the fly.