The Daily Dispatch: July 21, 1863., [Electronic resource]

The Washington Cabinet Proposing an amnesty.

We once saw a noted bully engaged in a fight with an Irishman, whom he had contrived to shove over a log, and thus throw. No sooner was the Irishman on his back than the bully mounted him, when the Irishman threw one arm around the bully's neck and gave him a blow which almost demolished his nose. Upon seeing the crimson fluid the bully cried out "boys, you had better part us." "No, no," said the Irishman, "not yet awhile. Wait until I say the word." He then gave him three more tremendous blows in the face, and said "I think you may take him away now." And they did take him away, half dead with his beating.

Seward seems to have gotten enough already in the grand milling match which has been going on for the last two years. He fancies he has us down, but he fears the mortal hug he may get if he attempts to pursue his advantage. He advises us, in effect, to cry enough, assuring us that it will be for our own good, and being convinced that he himself will reap no small benefit from it, in the saving of limb and feature. He and Attorney General Bates, who thought the Yankees could conquer us by cutting off our tea and coffee, and stopping the operations of the Post-Office, are for holding out the olive branch to us, bidding us be good boys and quit our naughty tricks, promising not to flog us for past offences, and only to plunder us of nine tenths of our property, by liberating our slaves, instead of taking it all. They promise no such thing, however, to President Davis, and other prominent actors in this revolution. Them they must punish, as poor old James II., when he had scarcely a friend in the world, could not be induced to include Churchill in a general amnesty which he was persuaded to proclaim.

There are some men to whom no experience can teach anything, and Messrs., Seward and Bates seem to be of that number. They might have learned, before this, that the South will have peace on one condition, and on one only. That condition is eternal separation from the North. They are perfectly willing to be at peace with the North, provided they will let them alone. Let the North take herself off, and never come back here, where she is not wanted, where she is detested, where her presence is the signal, as it is the incentive, to everlasting war. That is the only way to reach the haven of peace, and Seward and Bates ought to know it by this time. But they have been deceiving themselves with the illusion that there is a strong Union party in the South, and that they need but encouragement to come forward. This it is that induces them to indulge the fond dream of treating us as conquered rebels, and dictating their terms in the style of conquerors.

Lincoln, Welles, and Stanton are, however, fiercer. They will make no compromise with rebels. They will slay and take possession. They had best be sure that we are conquered first before they proceed to carry out the rest of their designs. But a few weeks ago we were almost in sight of the Yankee capital, and the Yankee Cabinet was shaking in its shoes. They had best be certain that a few days may not produce a revolution as sudden as that which occurred to our army, and that they may not be the losers by it.

All this flourishing of trumpets, if it be designed for anything save to amuse the readers of the New York Herald, is designed for Europe. But Europe knows too well what sort of people Lincoln and his Cabinet are. Europe knows that the end is further off than it ever was. We have been existing as an independent people too long to be conquered by the Yankees. What they might have done in the first two months of the war it is hardly worth while to imagine. Suffice it that they did not do it — that they let the favorable season pass — and that fortune never has but one flood tide. How supremely ridiculous they do look, talking about pardon to people who have half a million of men under arms! How supremely ignorant they must be to imagine that their proclamations can have the slightest effect in the South!