From Norfolk.
the Burnside fleet — What has become of it — European trade with the Confederate States--Accidental death, &c.Special correspondence of the Dispatch.]
Norfolk, Feb. 4, 1862.
The Dispatch has already been apprised by telegraph of the rumor that the Burnside fleet had left the waters of North Carolina.
A letter has been received by a gentleman here, from a perfectly reliable source in Elizabeth City, stating that a steamer went down on Saturday to reconnoitre, and on returning, reported that no Yankee vessels could be found, that they had all left and gone to sea. It is now stated here that the crippled ducks came into Hampton Roads yesterday, but of this I am not yet certain; although it is quite possible that the vessels that remain after the terrible disasters which the fleet suffered, may have been compelled to get into deeper water, a safer harbor, and more hospitable quarters.
As the wind was blowing freshly from the eastward for two days, a number of coasting vessels have, as usual, sought shelter in our splendid roadstead; and the arrival of these may have given rise to the report that Burnside's vessels had come back to the Fort.
The London Herald states that houses in London and Liverpool are making preparations for the establishment of branch houses at Norfolk, New Orleans, and Charleston, the moment trade with these places shall be re-opened; that French houses at Paris and Lyons are likewise preparing for similar direct intercourse with the south; that arrangements have been completed by enterprising parties with large resources, at Liverpool, for two lines of first-class steamers--one for this city and Charleston, and one to New Orleans.
The same paper states that this city is the terminus of the Seaboard and Roanoke Railway.
That paper might have added, also, the great Seacoast and Mississippi Valley line; of the Albemarle and Chesapeake Ship Canal; the Dismal Swamp Canal; and lastly, in the canal; way, of the great water line to the Ohio — the James River and Kanawha Canal.
Besides this, it might have been added, that this seaport of Virginia, which has been wisely chosen as the Western depot and landing place of those foreign steam lines, is within an hour's sail of Chesapeake Bay, on which the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the York, and the James, ceaselessly pour their sweeping currents, and down which come vast treasures in the shape of the various productions of the rich valleys of Virginia.
No better place surely on the whole line of seacoast could have been chosen for the storehouses of some of the great ocean lines of steamers that are to cross the ocean regularly, and deeply laden with the various productions of European industry and ingenuity.
Norfolk has lagged in the race quite long enough; but it does appear now that one of the important results of the war, recklessly waged by the inveterate haters of their best friends, will be to divert the trade from the North to southern ports, which will be benefited beyond calculation by the great concentration of foreign trade.
I regret to state that a young man named John Taylor, of the 2d North Carolina regiment, was accidentally killed, several days ago, at Sewell's Point, by the explosion of a bombshell which he was handling at the time.
His remains have been forwarded to his home. 