March 9, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
(CORRESPONDENCE OF THE MERCURY.)
RICHMOND, Wednesday, March 4.
This is the last day of the Abolition Congress of the United States. It has done its hellish work well, and leaves LINCOLN invested with ample powers to complete what has been left undone. The vote on the Conscription Bill shows so small a minority against it, that we must needs believe that the Yankee people are ready to sustain its sweeping clauses. Perhaps there is an understanding as to its real intent, viz: to keep the expiring enlistments from being carried into effect.
Government people say things look gloomy enough. The debates in Parliament show that England will not lend France so much as her moral support in the matter of recognition and mediation; and if England will not, then we need expect none of the other great Powers to act with France. Everybody accuses England of cold-blooded selfishness, and it must be confessed there is ground for the accusation. But there is something behind the scenes which we do not see. Have our statesmen studied the ultimate bearings on English interests of French designs in Mexico? Surely England would not endure the horrors of the existing cotton famine merely for the pleasure of thwarting a Slaveholding Confederation.
Dark as the signs are at the North and abroad, we should never forget the potential effect of a thorough victory. True, none of the battles already won have had the effect we anticipated, but every one has helped the cause greatly. Nor should we forget that the English politicians of all shades of opinion unite in the assertion that the Union can never be joined again. Let us whip the Yankees in the Spring, and leave the rest to the Almighty.
It is believed the House passed in secret session yesterday the finance measures lately passed by the Senate, which are substantially those embodied in the report of Mr. Hunter, published some weeks ago. The House amendments are not thought important. The discussion which has been going on for the last ten days related mainly to the legal tender clause, which has been defeated, I learn.
Little credit is attached to the story about the Yankees having burnt 500 negros sick of the small pox in a hospital at Georgetown, D. C. A gentleman, from the outposts on the Rappahannock, tells us the story came to him in a very direct way, but he discredits it.
The Dispatch publishes the marriage on the 13th of May, 1862 of Miss Susan Archer Talley to a Mr. Von Wiees, an officer resigned from the Yankee army. The marriage has been kept secret up to this time, and excites comment.
West & Johnston advertise the republication of ‘No Name,’ by Wilkie Collins. Other novels will follow. A writer in the Whig demands commutation for the back rations of soldiers, who are treated with gross injustice in this regard, and made to pay enormous prices to sutlers for something to eat. On Saturday four gentlemen paid, at a French restaurant in this city, nineteen dollars for three plates of oysters, a dish of fish and four cups of coffee. Thus we go.
HERMES.