February 17, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
(CORRESPONDENCE OF THE MERCURY.)
RICHMOND, Friday, February 13.
It is rumored that Mr. BOYCE has been making a speech in secret session advocating conciliation towards the Northwest. Yesterday, the House, in its anxiety to dispose of the question of impressments, refused to go into secret session in order that Mr. BOYCE might conclude his speech. What the temper of the House is in regard to the Northwest, I cannot say. The tone of the Enquirer indicates the indisposition of the Administration to rely on anything but hard blows – the right view. Our policy is the execution of the Conscript Law.
The Yankees say all the blockading fleet ran away seven miles from Charleston harbor to see whether the Keystone State needed any assistance. What a joke! I see in the Herald of the 4th an elaborate map of Charleston, its approaches and defences. How accurate it is needless to say.
A great many operatives are anxious to leave England for Yankeedom, in order to escape the cotton famine, which Mr. Cobden admits is getting worse every day. More than this, he says there is danger lest the bankrupt manufacturers be compelled to sell their machinery, and so bring about a serious and permanent injury to the English industrial system. Inasmuch as the starving operatives would find a cotton famine at the North as severe almost as that in England, and since we need machinery and labor, a resolution looking to this matter is to be introduced at an early day in the House.
Joe Hooker has forbidden the exchange of newspapers, and so the chances of certain city papers for getting $100 worth of news on a shingle every week are rather slim. We hear of conjectural movements of Gen. Lee that need not be spoken about.
The Illustrated News for this week has a likeness of Gen. Longstreet and Mr. Timrod’s Prize Poem. Gens. Jeb Stuart and A. P. Hill are in town. Capt. Montgomery, of the New Orleans press, is writing a book to be called ‘Heroes and Heroines of the War,’ and Dr. Bagby, of the Messenger, is making a collection of the humorous anecdotes and incidents of the war.
Weather is splendid.
HERMES.