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Latest European news.
demonstrations of joy at the prospect of peace.

The last news from Europe is replete with interest to the Southern reader. The intelligence that Mason and Slidell had been surrendered, caused a universal burst of joy throughout the island. In Manchester the bells were ring, and everywhere the people seem to have taken a long breath in token of satisfaction.


The London times on the reception of Mason and Slidell.

The Times, of the 11th ult., contains the following:

‘ How, then, are we to receive these illustrious visitors? Of course, they will be started at, and followed, and photographed, and made the subject of paragraphs. There is no help for that. Mr. Thomas Sayers cannot walk the streets with a friend, or ask the Mayor for permission to put up a booth in a market. place, but the crowd immediately conclude the rough, hard-visaged, ill- favored pair to be the Confederate Commissioners. Messrs. Mason and Slidell, with their two Secretaries, though not so handsome and graceful as their country man, Blondin, would certainly fill the Crystal Palace if they proposed to address the visitors there on the merits of their cause. But, for the benefit of the discriminating — for the guidance of the minority, that prefers at least a respectable idol, and that does not wish to throw away its confidence and applause, we may as wall observe that Messrs. Mason and Slidell are about the most worthless booty it would be possible to extract from the jaws of the American nation, They have long been known as the blind and habitual haters and revilers of this country. They have done more than any other men to get up the insane prejudice against England which disgraces the morality and disorders the policy of the Union. The hatred of this country has been their stock in trade. On this they have earned their political livelihood and won their position, just as there are others who pander to the lower passions of humanity. A diligent use of this bad capital has made them what they are, and raised them to the rank of Commissioners. It is through their lifelong hatred and abuse of England that they come here in their present conspicuous capacity.

So we do sincerely hope that our countrymen will not give these fellows anything in the shape of an ovation. The civility that is due to a foe in distress is all that they can claim. What they and their secretaries are to do here passes our conjecture. They are personally nothing to us. They must not suppose, because we have come to the very verge of a great war to rescue them, that, therefore they are precious in our eyes. We should have done just as much to rescue two of their own negroes, and had that been the object of the rescue, the swarthy Pompey and Cœar would have had just the same right-to triumphal arches and municipal addresses as Messrs. Mason and Slidell. So, please, British public, let's have none of these things. Let the Commissioners come up quietly to town, and have their say with anybody who may have time to listen to them. For our part, we cannot see how anything they have to tell can turn the scale of British duty and deliberation. There have been so many cases of peoples and nations establishing an actual independence, and compelling the recognition of the world, that all we have to do is what we have done before, up to the very last year. This is now a simple matter of precedent. Our statesmen and lawyers know quite as much on the subject as Messrs. Mason and Slidell, and are in no need of their information or advice.


Bright horse for the South Dawning — the recognition of the South.

The London Herald, of the 7th January, contains the following unanswerable arguments in favor of Southern recognition:

‘ We do not desire, by any attempt at persuasion on our part, to hurry this Government and people into a precipitate resolution on so momentous a matter. But the question that lies before us, and one that presses for a speedy answer, is, whether it be right or not that we should, without delay, recognize the independence of the Southern Confederacy? We say without delay. That sooner or later it will have to be recognized is inevitable. The question is, whether it should not be done at once?

We are left to our free choice in the matter. Wheaton, Cooke, Vattel and all international jurists, have clearly laid this down. Wheaton affirms that, in the case of the revolt of a province, of an empire or State, the first thing for foreign States to do is to allow belligerent rights to both parties in the conflict. In the next place, a foreign Government may, if it pleases, recognize the independence of the revolted people, or enter into treaties of commerce or amicable relations with it. The mere recognition cannot justly be regarded by the other belligerent party as an occasion of war. The period of recognition is left to the option of the foreign States. But repeated precedents — such cases as the revolt of the Belgians, the South Americans, the Greeks, the Swiss Cantons,--have established the practice of recognizing de facto Governments, even before the parent State has chosen to admit their independence. This fact, that other such Government have been recognized, without delay, establishes a sort of right to recognition, which may very fairly be pressed upon us by the Confederate States. That is, a de facto Government, which possesses all the machinery of State and manages its own concerns, and which its enemies have no reasonable expectation of subduing by means of lawful war. Who can suppose that by such means the North will over subdue the South? Seven millions of men; united by their hopes, their animosities, and their fears, have stood up successfully for nine months against all the armaments that have so furiously been hurled against them by the twenty-one millions of the North. Inch by inch they have contested their ground, and inch by inch they have gained it; they have won every battle, and put to flight every army that has taken the field. They are in a better position now than they were when they commenced the contest. Every day adds to their determination to accept no terms, to agree to no compromise with the enemy. They feel themselves a separate nation, and a separate nation they have resolved to be henceforth. We do not speak of the merits of the quarrel, but only of the attitude of the combatants and the prospects of the strife. The North may lay waste, with its fleets, the flourishing coast towns of the South, if may tilt cut its cargoes of stones to choke up the inlets provided for the interchange of amicable relations between peoples by a bounteous Providence, more merciful than man to man: it may land its armies in the swamps to harry the planters and do battle with the yellow fever; it may send its steam squadrons down the broad river and burn Mobile and New Orleans; but all this will not bring it one jot nearer to the end; and this will but add to the fierce intensity of hate which the injured Southerners will bequeath to the yet unborn. Secure in their stubborn patriotism, in their firm resolution to conquer their liberty or die, the men of the Confederate States will maintain the struggle till their enemies are exhausted by their efforts and desist from their utter powerlessness to protract it further. If it causes such losses in the North, and necessitates such tremendous sacrifices as the world has never dreamed of before, what must be the silent pain, the untold agony, of the smaller and weaker people that is too proud to let us hear, its crying Before they ask for foreign aid, the people of the South will waste with famine and sickness — will die and make a decent of the seven fair States that but recently were peopled with a happy and contented race. And is there nothing political or romantic in all this? Is it because our brethren beyond the seas are for the most part men of the same race as ourselves that their heroism causes us no thrill, their sufferings bring no tears? Had the same spectacles of constancy been exhibited by Poles and Hungarians — had some exotic race, some tribe of Hindoos, Chinamen, red Indians, or South Sea Islanders been the heroes of such a strife, how loud had been the voice of sympathy from this generous country! what fervid pratious and Io pœans, what odes and sonnets, what appeals from the platform what passionate emotions in the closet would then have pleaded the cause of the patriot and the oppressed!

If it be argued that by recognizing the Southern States we shall weaken the hands of the North and assist to bring to an end this war of sections we answer that this is the very reason why we most wish that the step should be taken. It is in the interest of humanity that we desire that this war which is only kept up by the blind obstinacy of the North should be brought to as speedy a close as may be.


What Inducements the South Offers to England.

If right and justice is ignored, John Bull will hardly resist an appeal to his pockets so alluringly set forth in the following extracts from the London Herald, of the 10th ultimo:

‘ It is believed that the plenipotentiaries of the Confederate States now in London are prepared to conclude with this country a treaty of commerce and navigation of the most liberal and comprehensive character, which would concede to us advantages such as we can never hope to obtain from the protectionist Northern States. Not only would British merchants be placed on a footing of perfect equality with American merchants, but the British flag would be assimilated in all respects to the flag of the Southern Confederacy. Nay, more the Confederate States, applying upon tenuously the most enlarged principles of free trade in its fullest occupation, are disposed, we are assured to admit us to a participation in their coasting trade on the felling of perfect equality. We

are warranted in reckoning on a large participation in this valuable carrying trade, inasmuch as the Confederate States are mainly agricultural, and possess little or no shipping. Hitherto the Northern States have monopolized the coasting trade. The disruption of the late United States will, however, practically admit British shipping to the enjoyment of that reciprocity from which it has too long been unfairly excluded. Our ship owners will at once appreciate the importance of this concession.

There is another weighty consideration well calculated to reconcile us to the disruption of the United States. New York has, till lately, been the banker; broker and commission agent of the Southern States, Official returns show that upwards of three-fourths of the European goods consumed by the South have been shipped to Northern ports, for transmission thence to the South. Secession and the Morrill tariff must bring about a complete revolution in these branches of business, Much of our late export trade to New Nork will be diverted into new channels. Already houses in London and Liverpool (convinced that the subjugation of the Southern by the Northern States is an utter impossisibility and recognition of the Confederate States inevitable) are making their preparations for the establishment of branch houses at New Orleans, Charleston, and Norfolk, the moment trade with these places shall be reopened. French houses at Paris and Lyons are likewise preparing for similar direct intercourse with the South.

Arrangements have been completed by enter prising parties with large resources at Liverpool for the establishment of two lines of first class steamers, one to Charleston and the other to New Orleans. A third line to Norfolk, (the terminus of the Seaboard and Roanoke, Railway, by which cotton from North Carolina and Tennessee can be laid down there as cheaply as at New Orleans,) is also in contemplation, Under the operation of a highly protective tariff the cotton manufacturers of Lowell and other places in the North have hitherto supplied the Southern States with course cotton fabrics, (domestics,) and negro clothing to the value of about ten millions sterling annually. Manchester may for the future command nearly the whole of this business.

In the event of the Confederate Commissioners being surrendered, and war on that ground averted, it is clear that upon commercial grounds the Governments of England and France have every inducement to recognize the well-earned independence of the Confederate States. The precedents of the Swiss Cantons; the seven United Provinces of the Netherlands, of the revolted Spanish American colonies, of Greece, of Belgium, of Texas, and of the Kingdom of Italy, justify and command this step, which, if not manfully taken by Ministers at once, is certain to be taken by Parliament on its to assembling.

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