After some general conversation, the Colonel remarked that his wife and daughter would pass the winter in Charleston.

'And do you remain on the plantation?' I inquired.

'Oh yes, I am needed here,' he replied; 'but Madam's son is with my family.'

'Madam's son!' I exclaimed in astonishment, forgetting in my surprise that the lady was present.

'Yes, sir,' she remarked, 'my oldest boy is twenty.'

'Excuse me, Madam; I forgot that in your climate one never grows old.'

'There you are wrong, sir; I'm sure I feel old when I think how soon my boys will be men.'

'Not old yet, Alice,' said the Colonel, in a singularly familiar tone; 'you seem to me no older than when you were fifteen.'

'You have been long acquainted,' I remarked, not knowing exactly what to say.

'Oh yes,' replied my host, 'we were children together.'

'Your Southern country, Madam, affords a fine field for young men of enterprise.'

'My eldest son resides in Germany,' replied the lady. 'He expects to make that country his home. He would have passed his examination at Heidelberg this autumn had not circumstances called him here.'

'You are widely separated,' I replied.

'Yes, sir; his father thinks it best, and I suppose it is. Thomas, here, is to return with his brother, and I may live to see neither of them again.'

My curiosity was naturally much excited to learn more, but nothing further being volunteered, and the conversation turning to other topics, I left the table with it unsatisfied.

After enjoying a quiet hour with the Colonel in the smoking-room, he invited me to join him in a ride over the plantation. I gladly assented, and 'Jim' shortly announced the horses were ready. That darky, who invariably attended his master when the latter proceeded from home, accompanied us. As we were mounting I bethought me of Scip, and asked Jim where he was.

'He'm gwine to gwo, massa. He want to say good-by to you.'

It seemed madness for Scip to start on a journey of seventy miles without rest, so I requested the Colonel to let him remain till the next day. He cheerfully assented, and sent Jim to find him. While waiting for the darky, I spoke of how faithfully he had served me during my journey.

'He's a splendid nigger,' replied the Colonel; 'worth his weight in gold. If affairs were more settled I would buy him.'

'But Colonel A—— tells me he is too intelligent. He objects to "knowing" niggers.'

'I do not,' replied my host, 'if they are honest, and I would trust Scip with uncounted gold. Look at him,' he continued, as the negro approached; 'were flesh and bones ever better put together?'

The darky was a fine specimen of sable humanity, and I readily understood why the practiced eye of the Colonel appreciated his physical developments.

'Scip,' I said, 'you must not think of going to-day; the Colonel will be glad to let you remain until you are fully rested.'

'Tank you, massa, tank you bery much, but de ole man will spec me, and I orter gwo.'

'Oh, never mind old ——,' said the Colonel, 'I'll take care of him.'

'Tank you, Cunnel, den I'll stay har till de mornin.'

Taking a by-path which led through the forest in the rear of the mansion, we soon reached a small stream, and, following its course for a short distance, came upon a turpentine distillery, which the Colonel explained to me was one of three that prepared the product of his plantation for market, and provided for his family of two hundred souls.

It was enclosed, or rather roofed, by a rude structure of rough boards, open at the sides, and sustained on a number of pine poles about thirty feet in height, and bore a strong resemblance to the usual covering of a New England haystack.

Three stout negro men, divested of all clothing excepting a pair of coarse gray trowsers and a red shirt,—it was a raw, cold, wintry day,—and with cotton bandannas bound about their heads, were 'tending the still.' The foreman stood on a raised platform level with its top, but as we approached very quietly seated himself on a turpentine barrel which a moment before he had rolled over the mouth of the boiler. Another negro was below, feeding the fire with 'light wood,' and a third was tending the trough by which the liquid rosin found its way into the semi-circle of rough barrels intended for its reception.

'Hello, Junius, what in creation are you doing there?' asked the Colonel, as we approached, of the negro on the turpentine barrel.

'Holein' her down, Cunnel; de ole ting got a mine to blow up dis mornin; I'se got dis barrl up har to hole her down.'

'Why, you everlasting nigger, if the top leaks you'll be blown to eternity in half a second.'

'Reckon not, massa; de barrl and me kin hole her. We'll take de risk.'

'Perhaps you will,' said the Colonel, laughing, 'but I won't. Nigger property isn't of much account, but you're too good a darky, June, to be sent to the devil for a charge of turpentine.'

'Tank you, massa, but you dun kno' dis ole ting like I do. You cudn't blow her up nohow; I'se tried her afore dis way.'

'Don't you do it again; now mind; if you do I'll make a white man of you.' (This I suppose referred to a process of flaying with a switch; though the switch is generally thought to redden, not whiten, the darky.)

The negro did not seem at all alarmed, for he showed his ivories in a broad grin as he replied, 'Jess as you say, massa; you'se de boss in dis shanty.'

Directing the fire to be raked out, and the still to stand unused until it was repaired, the Colonel turned his horse to go, when he observed that the third negro was shoeless, and his feet chapped and swollen with the cold. 'Jake,' he said, 'where are your shoes?'

'Wored out, massa.'

'Worn out! Why haven't you been to me?'

''Cause, massa, I know'd you'd jaw; you tole me I wears 'em out mighty fass.'

'Well, you do, that's a fact; but go to Madam and get a pair; and you, June, you've been a decent nigger, you can ask for a dress for Rosey. How is little June?'

'Mighty pore, massa; de ma'am war dar lass night and dis mornin', and she reckun'd he's gwine to gwo sartain.'

'Sorry to hear that,' said the Colonel. I'll go and see him. Don't feel badly, June,' he continued, for the tears welled up to the eyes of the black man as he spoke of his child; 'we all must die.'

'I knows dat, massa, but it am hard to hab em gwo.'

'Yes, it is, June, but we may save him.'

'Ef you cud, massa! Oh, ef you cud!' and the poor darky covered his face with his great hands and sobbed like a child.

We rode on to another 'still,' and there dismounting, the Colonel explained to me the process of gathering and manufacturing turpentine. The trees are 'boxed' and 'tapped' early in the year, while the frost is still in the ground. 'Boxing' is the process of scooping a cavity in the trunk of the tree by means of a peculiarly shaped axe, made for the purpose; 'tapping' is scarifying the rind of the wood above the boxes. This is never done until the trees have been worked one season, but it is then repeated year after year, till on many plantations they present the marks of twenty and frequently thirty annual 'tappings,' and are often denuded of bark for a distance of thirty feet from the ground. The necessity for this annual tapping arises from the fact that the scar on the trunk heals at the end of a season, and the sap will no longer run from it; a fresh wound is therefore made each spring. The sap flows down the scarified surface and collects in the boxes, which are emptied six or eight times in a year, according to the length of the season. This is the process of 'dipping,' and it is done with a tin or iron vessel constructed to fit the cavity in the tree.

The turpentine gathered from the newly boxed or virgin tree is very valuable, on account of its producing a peculiarly clear and white rosin, which is used in the manufacture of the finer kinds of soap, and by 'Rosin the Bow,' and commands, ordinarily, nearly five times the price of the common article. When barreled, the turpentine is frequently sent to market in its crude state, but more often is distilled on the plantation, the gatherers generally possessing means sufficient to own a still.

In the process of distilling, the crude turpentine is 'dumped' into the boiler through an opening in the top,—the same as that on which we saw Junius composedly seated,—water is then poured upon it, the aperture made tight by screwing down the cover and packing it with clay, a fire built underneath, and when the heat reaches several hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the process of manufacture begins. The volatile and more valuable part of the turpentine, by the action of the heat, rises as vapor, then condensing flows off through a pipe in the top of the still, and comes out spirits of turpentine, while the heavier portion finds vent at a lower aperture, and comes out rosin.

No article of commerce is so liable to waste and leakage as turpentine. The spirits can only be preserved in tin cans, or in thoroughly seasoned oak barrels, made tight by a coating of glue on the inner side. Though the material for these barrels exists at the South in luxuriant abundance, they are all procured from the North, and the closing of the Southern ports has now entirely cut off the supply; for while the turpentine farmer may improvise coopers, he can by no process give the oak timber the seasoning which is needed to render the barrel spirit-tight. Hence it is certain that a large portion of the last crop of turpentine must have gone to waste. When it is remembered that the one State of North Carolina exports annually nearly twenty millions in value of this product, and employs fully three-fourths of its negroes in its production, it will be seen how dearly the South is paying for the mad freak of secession. Putting out of view his actual loss of produce, how does the turpentine farmer feed and employ his negroes? and, pressed as these blacks inevitably are by both hunger and idleness, those prolific breeders of sedition, what will keep them quiet?

'What effect would secession have on your business?' I asked the Colonel, after a while.

'A favorable one. I should ship my crop direct to Liverpool and London, instead of selling it to New York middlemen.'

'But is not the larger portion of the turpentine crop consumed at the North?'

'Oh, yes. We should have to deal with the Yankees anyhow, but we should do as little with them as possible.'

'Suppose the Yankees object to your setting up by yourselves, and put your ports under lock and key?'

'They won't do that, and if they did England would break the blockade.'

'We might rap John Bull over the knuckles in that event,' I replied.

'Well, suppose you did, what then?'

'Merely, England would not have a ship in six months to carry your cotton. A war with her would ruin the shipping trade of the North. Our marine would seek employment at privateering, and soon sweep every British merchant ship from the ocean. We could afford to give up ten years' trade with you, and have to put down seccession by force, for the sake of a year's brush with John Bull.'

'But, my good friend, where would the British navy be all the while?'

'Asleep. The English haven't a steamer that can catch a Brookhaven schooner. The last war proved that vessels of war are no match for privateers.'

'Well, well! but the Yankees won't fight.'

'Suppose they do. Suppose they shut up your ports, and leave you with your cotton and turpentine unsold? You raise scarcely anything else—what would you eat?'

'We would turn our cotton-fields into corn and wheat. Turpentine-makers, of course, would suffer.'

'Then why are not you a Union man?'

'My friend, I have two hundred mouths to feed. I depend on the sale of my crop to give them food. If our ports are closed, I can not do it,—they will starve, and I be ruined. But sooner than submit to the domination of the cursed Yankees, I will see my negroes starving and my child a beggar.'

At this point in the conversation we arrived at the negro shanty where the sick child was. Dismounting, the Colonel and I entered.

The cabin was almost a counterpart of the 'Mills House,' described in my previous paper, but it had a plank flooring, and was scrupulously neat and clean. The logs were stripped of bark, and whitewashed. A bright, cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, and an air of rude comfort pervaded the whole interior. On a low bed in the farther corner of the room lay the sick child. He was a boy of about twelve years, and evidently in the last stages of consumption. By his side, bending over him as if to catch his almost inaudible words, sat a tidy, youthful-looking colored woman, his mother, and the wife of the negro we had met at the 'still.' Playing on the floor, was a younger child, perhaps five years old, but while the faces of the mother and the sick lad were of the hue of charcoal, his skin, by a process well understood at the South, had been bleached to a bright yellow.

The woman took no notice of our entrance, but the little fellow ran to the Colonel and caught hold of the skirts of his coat in a free-and-easy way, saying, 'Ole massa, you got suffin' for Dickey?'

'No, you little nig,' replied the Colonel, patting his woolly head as I might have done a white child's, 'Dickey isn't a good boy.'

'Yas, I is,' said the little darky; 'you'se ugly ole massa, to gib nuffin' to Dickey.'

Aroused by the Colonel's voice, the woman turned towards us. Her eyes were swollen and her face bore traces of deep emotion.

'Oh massa!' she said, 'de chile am dyin'! It'm all along ob his workin' in de swamp,—no man orter work dar, let alone a chile like dis.'

'Do you think he is dying, Rosey?' asked the Colonel, approaching the bedside.

'Shore, massa, he'm gwine fass. Look at 'em.'

The boy had dwindled to a skeleton, and the skin lay on his face in crimpled folds, like a mask of black crape. His eyes were fixed, and he was evidently going.

'Don't you know massa, my boy?' said the Colonel, taking his hand tenderly in his.

The child's lips slightly moved, but I could hear no sound. The Colonel put his ear down to him for a moment, then, turning to me, said,—

'He is dying. Will you be so good as to step to the house and ask Madam P—— here, and please tell Jim to go for Junius and the old man.'

I returned in a short while with the lady, but found the boy's father and 'the old man'—the darky preacher of the plantation—there before us. The preacher was a venerable old negro, much bowed by years, and with thin wool as white as snow. When we entered he was bending over the dying boy, but shortly turning to my host, said,—

'Massa, de blessed Lord am callin' for de chile,—shall we pray?'

The Colonel nodded assent, and we all, blacks and whites, knelt down on the floor, while the old preacher made a short, heart-touching prayer. It was a simple, humble acknowledgment of the dependence of the creature on the Creator,—of His right to give and to take away, and was uttered in a free, conversational tone, as if long communion with his Maker had placed the old negro on a footing of friendly familiarity with Him, and given the black slave the right to talk with the Deity as one man talks with another.

As we rose from our knees my host said to me, 'It is my duty to stay here, but I will not detain you. Jim will show you over the plantation. I will join you at the house when this is over.' The scene was a painful one, and I gladly availed myself of the Colonel's suggestion.

Mounting our horses, Jim and I rode off to the negro house where Scip was staying.

Scip was not at the cabin, and the old negro woman told us he had been away for several hours.

'Reckon he'll be 'way all day, sar,' said Jim, as we turned our horses to go.

'He ought to be resting against the ride of to-morrow. Where has he gone?'

'Dunno, sar, but reckon he'm gwine to fine Sam.'

'Sam? Oh, he's the runaway the Colonel has advertised.'

'Yas, sar, he'm 'way now more'n a monfh.'

'How can Scip find him?'

'Dunno, sar. Scipio know most ebery ting,—reckon he'll track him. He know him well, and Sam'll cum back ef he say he orter.'

'Where do you think Sam is?'

'P'raps in the swamp.'

'Where is the swamp?'

''Bout ten mile from har.'

'Oh, yes! the shingles are cut there. I should think a runaway would be discovered where so many men are at work.'

'No, massa, dar'm places dar whar de ole debil cudn't fine him, nor de dogs nudder.'

'I thought the bloodhounds would track a man anywhere.'

'Not t'ru de water, massa; dey lose de scent in de swamp.'

'But how can a negro live there,—how get food?'

'De darkies work dar and dey take 'em nuff.'

'Then the other negroes often know where the runaways are; don't they sometimes betray them?'

'Neber, massa; a darky neber tells on anoder. De Cunnel had a boy in dat swamp once, good many years.'

'Is it possible? Did he come back?'

'No, he died dar. Sum ob de hands found him dead one mornin' in de hut whar he lib'd, and dey buried him dar.'

'Why did Sam run away?'

''Cause de Oberseer flog him. He use him bery hard, massa.'

'What had Sam done?'

'Nuffin', massa.'

'Then why was he flogged? Did the Colonel know it?'

'Oh, yas; Moye cum de possum ober de Cunnel, and make him b'lieve Sam war bad. De Cunnel dunno de hull ob dat story.'

'Why didn't you tell him? The Colonel trusts you.'

'Twudn't hab dun no good; de Cunnel wud hab flogged me for tellin' on a wite man. Nigga's word ain't ob no account.'

'What is the story about Sam?'

'You won't tell dat I tole you, massa?'

'No, but I'll tell the Colonel the truth.'

'Wal den, sar, you see Sam's wife am bery good-lookin', her skin's most wite,—her mudder war a mulatter, her fader a wite man,—she lub'd Sam 'bout as well as de wimmin ginrally lub dar husbands,' (Jim was a bachelor, and his observation of plantation morals had given him but little faith in the sex), 'but most ob 'em, ef dey'm married or no, tink dey must smile on de wite men, so Jule she smiled on de Oberseer,—so Sam tought,—and it made him bery jealous. He war sort o' sassy, and de Oberseer strung him up and flog him bery hard. Den Sam took to de swamp, but he didn't know whar to gwo, and de dogs tracked him; he'd ha' got 'way dough ef de Oberseer hadn't shot him; den he cudn't run. Den Moye flogged him till he war 'most dead, and arter dat chained him up in de ole cabin and gabe him 'most nuffin' to eat. De Cunnel war gwine to take Sam to Charles'on and sell him, but sumhow he got a file and sawed fru de chain and got 'way in de night to de 'still.' When de Oberseer cum dar in de mornin', Sam jump on him and 'most kill him. He'd hab sent him whar dar ain't no niggas ef Junius hadn't a holed him. I'd a let de ole debil gwo.'

'Junius, then, is a friend of the Overseer.'

'No, sar; he hain't no friends, 'cep de debil; but June am a good nigga, and he said 'twarn't right to kill ole Moye so sudden, for den dar'd be no chance for de Lord forgibin' him.'

'Then Sam got away again?'

'O yas; nary one but darkies war round, and dey wouldn't hole him. Ef dey'd cotched him den, dey'd hung him, shore.'

'Why hung him?'

''Cause he'd struck a wite man; it 'm shore death to do dat.'

'Do you think Scip will bring him back?'

'Yas; 'cause he 'm gwine to tell massa de hull story. De Cunnel will b'lieve Scipio ef he am brack. Sam'll know dat, and he'll come back. De Cunnel'll make de State too hot to hole ole Moye, when he fine him out.'

'Does Sam's wife "smile" on the Overseer now?'

'No; she see de trubble she bring on Sam, and she bery sorry. She won't look at a wite man now.'

During the conversation above recorded, we had ridden for several miles over the western half of the plantation, and were then again near the house. My limbs being decidedly stiff and sore from the effects of the previous day's journey, I decided to alight and rest at the house until the hour for dinner.

I mentioned my jaded condition to Jim, who said,—

'Dat's right, massa; come in de house. I'll cure de rumatics; I knows how to fix dem.'

Fastening the horses at the door, Jim accompanied me to my sleeping-room, where he lighted a pile of pine knots, and in a moment the fire blazed up on the hearth and sent a cheerful glow through the apartment; then, saying he would return after stabling the horses, the darky left me.

I took off my boots, drew the sofa near the fire, and stretched myself at full length upon it. If ever mortal was tired, 'I reckon' I was. It seemed as if every joint and bone in my body had lost the power of motion, and sharp, acute pains danced along my nerves, as I have seen lightning play along the telegraph wires. My entire system had the toothache.

Jim soon returned, bearing in one hand a decanter of 'Otard,' and in the other a mug of hot water and a crash towel.

'I'se got de stuff dat'll fix de rumatics, massa.'

'Thank you, Jim; a glass will do me good. Where did you get it?' I asked, thinking it strange the Colonel should leave his brandy-bottle within reach of the darkies, who have an universal weakness for spirits.

'Oh, I keeps de keys; de Cunnel hisself hab to come to me wen he want suffin' to warm hisself.'

It was the fact; Jim had exclusive charge of the wine-cellar; in short, was butler, barber, porter, footman, and body-servant, all combined.

'Now, massa, you lay right whar you is, and I'll make you ober new in less dan no time.'

And he did; but I emptied the brandy-bottle. Lest my temperance friends should be horror-stricken, I will mention, however, that I took the fluid by external absorption. For all rheumatic sufferers, I would prescribe, hot brandy in plentiful doses, a coarse towel, and an active Southern darky, and if on the first application the patient is not cured, the fault will not be the nigger's. Out of mercy to the chivalry, I hope our government, in saving the Union, will not annihilate the order of body-servants. They are the only perfect institution in the Southern country, and, so far as I have seen, about the only one worth saving.

The dinner-bell sounded a short while after Jim had finished the scrubbing operation, and I went to the table with an appetite I had not felt for a week. My whole system seemed rejuvenated, and I am not sure that I should, at that moment, have declined a wrestling match with Heenan himself.

I found at dinner only the Overseer and the young son of Madam P——, the Colonel and the lady being still at the cabin of the dying boy. The dinner, though a queer mixture of viands, would not have disgraced, except, perhaps, in the cooking, the best of our Northern hotels. Venison, bacon, wild fowl, hominy, poultry, corn-bread, French 'made-dishes,' and Southern 'common doin's,' with wines and brandies of the choicest brands, were placed on the table together.

'Dis, massa,' said Jim, 'am de raal juice; it hab ben in de cellar eber since de house war built. Massa tole me to gib you some, wid him complimen's.'

Passing it to my companions, we drank the Colonel's health in as fine wine as I ever tasted.

I had taken an instinctive dislike to the Overseer at the breakfast-table, and my aversion was not lessened by learning his treatment of Sam; curiosity to learn what manner of man he was, however, led me, towards the close of our meal, to 'draw him out,' as follows:—

'What is the political sentiment, sir, of this section of the State?'

'Wal, I reckon most of the folks 'bout har' is Union; they're from the "old North," and gin'rally pore trash.'

'I have heard that the majority of the turpentine getters are enterprising men and good citizens,—more enterprising, even, than the cotton and rice planters.'

'Wal, they is enterprisin', 'cause they don't keer for nuthin' 'cep' money.'

'The man who is absorbed in money-getting is generally a quiet citizen.'

'P'raps that's so. But I think a man sh'u'd hev a soul suthin' 'bove dollars. Them folks will take any sort o' sarce from the Yankees, ef they only buy thar truck.'

'What do you suffer from the Yankees?'

'Suffer from the Yankees? Don't they steal our niggers, and hain't they 'lected an ab'lishener for President?'

'I've been at the North lately, but I am not aware that is so.'

'So! it's damnably so, sir. I knows it. We don't mean to stand it eny longer.'

'What will you do?'

'We'll secede, and then give 'em h—l, ef they want it!'

'Will it not be necessary to agree among yourselves before you do that? I met a turpentine farmer below here who openly declared that he is friendly to abolishing slavery. He thinks the masters can make more money by hiring than by owning the negroes.'

'Yes, that's the talk of them North County[A] fellers, who've squatted round har. We'll hang every mother's son on 'em, by G——.'

[Footnote A: The 'North Counties' are the north-eastern portion of North Carolina, and include the towns of Washington and Newberne. They are an old turpentine region, and the trees are nearly exhausted. The finer virgin forests of South Carolina, and other cotton States, have tempted many of these farmers to emigrate thither, within the past ten years, and they now own nearly all the trees that are worked in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. They generally have few slaves of their own, their hands being hired of wealthier men in their native districts. The 'hiring' is an annual operation, and is done at Christmas time, when the negroes are frequently allowed to go home. They treat the darkies well, give them an allowance of meat (salt pork or beef), as much corn as they can eat, and a gill of whisky daily. No class of men at the South are so industrious, energetic, and enterprising. Though not so well informed, they have many of the traits of our New England farmers; in fact, are frequently called 'North Carolina Yankees.' It was these people the Overseer proposed to hang. The reader will doubtless think that 'hanging was not good enough for them.']

'I wouldn't do that: in a free country every man has a right to his opinions.'

'Not to sech opinions as them. A man may think, but he mustn't think onraasonable.'

'I don't know, but it seems to me reasonable, that if the negroes cost these farmers now one hundred and fifty dollars a year, and they could hire them, if free, for a hundred, that they would make by abolition.'

'Ab'lish'n! By G——, sir, ye ain't an ab'lishener, is ye?' exclaimed the fellow, in an excited tone, bringing his hand down on the table in a way that set the crockery a-dancing.

'Come, come, my friend,' I replied, in a mild tone, and as unruffled as a basin of water that has been out of a December night; 'you'll knock off the dinner things, and I'm not quite through.'

'Wal, sir, I've heerd yer from the North, and I'd like to know if yer an ab'lishener.'

'My dear sir, you surprise me. You certainly can't expect a modest man like me to speak of himself.'

'Ye can speak of what ye d—— please, but ye can't talk ab'lish'n har, by G——,' he said, again applying his hand to the table, till the plates and saucers jumped up, performed several jigs, then several reels, and then rolled over in graceful somersaults to the floor.

At this juncture, the Colonel and Madam P—— entered.

Observing the fall in his crockery, and the general confusion of things, the Colonel quietly asked, 'What's to pay?'

I said nothing, but burst into a fit of laughter at the awkward fix the Overseer was in. That gentleman also said nothing, but looked as if he would like to find vent through a rat-hole or a window-pane. Jim, however, who stood at the back of my chair, gave his eloquent thoughts utterance, very much as follows:—

'Moye hab 'sulted Massa K——, Cunnel, awful bad. He hab swore a blue streak at him, and called him a d—— ab'lishener, jess 'cause Massa K—— wudn't get mad and sass him back. He hab disgrace your hosspital, Cunnel, wuss dan a nigga.'

The Colonel turned white with rage, and, striding up to the Overseer, seized him by the throat, yelling, rather than speaking, these words: 'You d—— —— —— —— —— —— ——, have you dared to insult a guest in my house?'

'I didn't mean to 'sult him,' faltered out the Overseer, his voice running through an entire octave, and changing with the varying pressure of the Colonel's fingers on his throat; 'but he said he war an ab'lishener.'

'No matter what he said,' replied the Colonel; 'he is my guest, and in my house he shall say what he pleases, by G——. Apologize to him, or I'll send you to h—— in a second.'

The fellow turned cringingly to me, and ground out something like this, every word seeming to give him the toothache:—

'I meant no offence, sar; I hope ye'll excuse me.'

This satisfied me, but, before I could make a reply, the Colonel again seized him by the throat, and yelled,—

'None of your sulkiness; get on your knees, you d—— white-livered hound, and ask the gentleman's pardon like a man.'

The fellow then fell on his knees, and got out, with less effort than before,—

'I 'umbly ax yer pardon, sar, very 'umbly, indeed.'

'I am satisfied, sir,' I replied. 'I bear you no ill-will.'

'Now go,' said the Colonel; 'and in future, take your meals in the kitchen. I have none but gentlemen at my table.'

The fellow went. As soon as he had closed the door, the Colonel said to me,—

'Now, my dear friend, I hope you will pardon me for this occurrence. I sincerely regret you have been insulted in my house.'

'Don't speak of it, my dear sir; the fellow is ignorant, and really thinks I am an abolitionist. It was his zeal in politics that led to his warmth. I blame him very little,' I replied.

'But he lied, Massa K——,' chimed in Jim, very warmly; 'you neber said you war an ab'lishener.'

'You know what they are, don't you, Jim?' said the Colonel, laughing, and taking no notice of Jim's breach of decorum in wedging his black ideas into a white conversation.

'Yas, I does dat,' said the darky, grinning.

'Jim,' said the Colonel, 'you're a prince of a nigger, but you talk too much; ask me for something to-day, and I reckon you'll get it; but go now, and tell Chloe (the cook) to get us some dinner.'

The darky left, and, excusing myself, I soon followed suit.

I went to my room, laid down on the lounge, and soon fell asleep. It was nearly five o'clock when a slight noise in the apartment awoke me, and, looking up, I saw the Colonel quietly seated by the fire, smoking a cigar. His feet were elevated above his head, and he appeared absorbed in no very pleasant reflections.

'How is the sick boy, Colonel?' I asked.

'It's all over with him, my friend. He died easy; but 'twas very painful to me, for I feel I have done him wrong.'

'How so?'

'I was away all summer, and that cursed Moye sent him to the swamp to tote for the shinglers. It killed him.'

'Then you are not to blame,' I replied.

'I wish I could feel so.'

The Colonel remained with me till supper-time, evidently much depressed by the events of the morning, which had affected him more than I could have conceived possible. I endeavored, by cheerful conversation, and by directing his mind to other topics, to cheer him, and in a measure succeeded.

While we were seated at the supper-table, the black cook entered from the kitchen,—a one-story shanty, detached from and in the rear of the house,—and, with a face expressive of every conceivable emotion a negro can feel,—joy, sorrow, wonder, and fear all combined,—exclaimed, 'O massa, massa! dear massa! Sam, O Sam!'

'Sam,' said the Colonel; 'what about Sam?'

'Why, he hab—dear, dear massa, don't yer, don't yer hurt him—he hab come back!'

If a bombshell had fallen in the room, a greater sensation could not have been produced. Every individual arose from the table, and the Colonel, striding up and down the apartment, exclaimed,—

'Is he mad? The everlasting fool! Why in h—— has he come back?'

'Oh, don't ye hurt him, massa,' said the black cook, wringing her hands. 'Sam hab ben bad, bery bad, but he won't be so no more.'

'Stop your noise, aunty,' said the Colonel, but with no harshness in his tone. 'I shall do what I think right.'

'Send for him, David,' said Madam P——; 'let us hear what he has to say. He would not come back if he meant to be ugly.'

'Send for him, Alice!' replied my host. 'He's prouder than Lucifer, and would send me word to come to him. I will go. Will you accompany me, Mr. K——? You'll hear what a runaway nigger thinks of slavery: Sam has the gift of speech, and uses it regardless of persons.'

'Yes, sir, I'll go with pleasure.'

Supper being over, we went. It was about an hour after nightfall when we emerged from the door of the mansion and took our way to the negro quarters. The full moon had risen half way above the horizon, and the dark pines cast their shadows around the little collection of negro huts, which straggled about through the woods for the distance of a third of a mile. It was dark, but I could distinguish the figure of a man striding along at a rapid pace a few hundred yards in advance of us.

'Isn't that Moye?' I asked the Colonel, directing his attention to the receding figure.

'I reckon so; that's his gait. He's had a lesson to-day that'll do him good.'

'I don't like that man's looks,' I replied, carelessly; 'but I've heard of singed cats.'

'He is a sneaking d——l,' said the Colonel; 'but he's very valuable to me. I never had an overseer who got so much work out of the hands.'

'Is he cruel to them?'

'Yes, I reckon he is; but a nigger is like a dog,—you must flog him to make him like you.'

'I judge your niggers haven't been flogged into liking Moye,' I replied.

'Why, have you heard any of them speak of him?'

'Yes; though, of course, I've made no effort to draw gossip from them. I had to hear.'

'O yes; I know; there's no end to their gabble; niggers will talk. But what have you heard?'

'That Moye is to blame in this affair of Sam, and that you don't know the whole story.'

'What is the whole story?' asked the Colonel, stopping short in the road; 'tell me before I see Sam.'

I then told him what Jim had recounted to me. He heard me through attentively, then laughingly exclaimed,—

'Is that all! Lord bless you; he didn't seduce her. There's no seducing these women; with them it's a thing of course. It was Sam's d—— high blood that made the trouble. His father was the proudest man in Virginia, and Sam is as like him as a nigger can be like a white man.'

'No matter what the blood is, it seems to me such an injury justifies revenge.'

'Pshaw, my good fellow, you don't know these people. I'll stake my plantation against a glass of whisky there's not a virtuous woman with a drop of black blood in her veins in all South Carolina. They prefer the white men; their husbands know it, and take it as a matter of course.'

We had here reached the negro cabin. It was one of the more remote of the collection, and stood deep in the woods, an enormous pine growing up directly beside the doorway. In all respects it was like the other huts on the plantation. A bright fire lit up its interior, and through the crevices in the logs we saw, as we approached, a scene that made us pause involuntarily, when within a few rods of the house. The mulatto man, whose clothes were torn and smeared with swamp mud, stood near the fire. On a small pine table near him lay a large carving-knife, which glittered in the blaze, as if recently sharpened. His wife was seated on the side of the low bed at his back, weeping. She was two or three shades lighter than the man, and had the peculiar brown, kinky hair, straight, flat nose, and speckled, gray eyes which mark the metif. Tottling on the floor at the feet of the man, and caressing his knees, was a child of perhaps two years.

As we neared the house, we heard the voice of the Overseer issuing from the doorway on the other side of the pine-tree.

'Come out, ye black rascal.'

'Come in, you wite hound, ef you dar,' responded the negro, laying his hand on the carving-knife.

'Come out, I till ye; I sha'n't ax ye agin.'

'I'll hab nuffin' to do wid you. G'way and send your massa har,' replied the mulatto man, turning his face away with a lordly, contemptuous gesture, that spoke him a true descendant of Pocahontas. This movement exposed his left side to the doorway, outside of which, hidden from us by the tree, stood the Overseer.

'Come away, Moye,' said the Colonel, advancing with me toward the door; 'I'll speak to him.'

Before all of the words had escaped the Colonel's lips, a streak of fire flashed from where the Overseer stood, and took the direction of the negro. One long, wild shriek,—one quick, convulsive bound in the air,—and Sam fell lifeless to the floor, the dark life-stream pouring from his side. The little child also fell with him, and its greasy-grayish shirt was dyed with its father's blood. Moye, at the distance of ten feet, had discharged the two barrels of a heavily-loaded shot-gun directly through the negro's heart.

'You incarnate son of h——,' yelled the Colonel, as he sprang on the Overseer, bore him to the ground, and wrenched the shot-gun from his hand. Clubbing the weapon, he raised it to brain him. The movement occupied but a second; the gun was descending, and in another instant Moye would have met Sam in eternity, had not a brawny arm caught the Colonel's, and, winding itself around his body, pinned his limbs to his side so that motion was impossible. The woman, half frantic with excitement, thrust open the door when her husband fell, and the light which came through it revealed the face of the new-comer. But his voice, which rang out on the night air as clear as a bugle, had there been no light, would have betrayed him. It was Scip. Spurning the prostrate Overseer with his foot, he shouted,—

'Run, you wite debil, run for your life!'

'Let me go, you black scoundrel,' shrieked the Colonel, wild with rage.

'When he'm out ob reach, you'd kill him,' replied the negro, as cool as if he was doing an ordinary thing.

'I'll kill you, you black —— hound, if you don't let me go,' again screamed the Colonel, struggling violently in the negro's grasp, and literally foaming at the mouth.

'I shan't lef you gwo, Cunnel, till you 'gree not to do dat.'

The Colonel was a stout, athletic man, in the very prime of life, and his rage gave him more than his ordinary strength, but Scip held him as I might have held a child.

'Here, Jim,' shouted the Colonel to his body-servant, who just then emerged from among the trees, 'rouse the plantation—shoot this d—— nigger.'

'Dar ain't one on 'em wud touch him, massa. He'd send me to de hot place wid one fist.'

'You ungrateful dog,' groaned his master. 'Mr. K——, will you stand by and see me handcuffed by a miserable slave?'

'The black means well, my friend; he has saved you from murder. Say he is safe, and I'll answer for his being away in an hour.'

The Colonel made one more ineffectual attempt to free himself from the vice-like grip of the negro, then relaxed his efforts, and, gathering his broken breath, said, 'You're safe now, but if you're found within ten miles of my plantation by sunrise, by G—— you're a dead man.'

The negro relinquished his hold, and, without saying a word, walked slowly away.

'Jim, you d—— rascal,' said the Colonel to that courageous darky, who was skulking off, 'raise every nigger on the plantation, catch Moye, or I'll flog you within an inch of your life.'

'I'll do dat, Cunnel; I'll kotch de ole debil, ef he's dis side de hot place.'

His words were echoed by about twenty other darkies, who, attracted by the noise of the fracas, had gathered within a safe distance of the cabin. They went off with Jim, to raise the other plantation hands, and inaugurate the hunt.

'If that d—— nigger hadn't held me, I'd had Moye in h—— by this time,' said the Colonel to me, still livid with excitement.

'The law will deal with him. The negro has saved you from murder, my friend.'

'The law be d——; it's too good for such a — hound; and that the d—— nigger should have dared to hold me,—by G——, he'll rue it.'

He then turned, exhausted with the recent struggle, and, with a weak, uncertain step, entered the cabin. Kneeling down by the dead body of the negro, he attempted to raise it; but his strength was gone. Motioning to me to aid him, we placed the corpse on the bed. Tearing open the clothing, we wiped away the still flowing blood, and saw the terrible wound which had sent the negro to his account. It was sickening to look on, and I turned to go.

The negro woman, who was weeping and wringing her hands, now approached the bed, and, in a voice nearly choked with sobs, said,—

'Massa, oh massa, I done it! it's me dat killed him!'

'I know you did, you d—— ——. Get out of my sight.'

'Oh, massa,' sobbed the woman, falling on her knees, 'I'se so sorry; oh, forgib me!'

'Go to ——, you —— ——, that's the place for you,' said the Colonel, striking the kneeling woman with his foot, and felling her to the floor.

Unwilling to see or hear more, I left the master with the slave. A quarter of a mile through the woods brought me to the cabin of the old negress where Scip lodged. I rapped at the door, and was admitted by the old woman. Scip, nearly asleep, was lying on a pile of blankets in the corner.

'Are you mad?' I said to him. 'The Colonel is frantic with rage, and swears he will kill you. You must be off at once.'

'No, no, massa; neber fear; I knows him. He'd keep his word, ef he loss his life by it. I'm gwine afore sunrise; till den I'm safe.'

Of the remainder of that night, more hereafter.

* * * * *

MR. SEWARD'S PUBLISHED DIPLOMACY.

With the executive capacity and marked forensic versatility of William Henry Seward whilst Governor and Senator of the Empire State, the great public have long been familiar. That public are now for the first time practically discussing his diplomatic statesmanship. A world of spectators or auditors witness or listen to the debate, and are eager to pronounce favorable judgment, because so much of national honor is now entrusted to him. Our national history discloses no crisis of domestic or foreign affairs so momentous as the present one. The most remarkable chapter in that history will be made up from the complications of this crisis, and from the disasters to or the successes of our national fame. Hence to himself and to his friends, more than to the watchful public even, Mr. Seward's course attracts an interest which may attend upon the very climacteric excellence of his statesman-career during a quarter-century.

Much, that remains obscure or is merely speculative when these pages at the holiday season undergo magazine preparation, will have been unfolded or explained at the hour in which they may be read. The national firmament, which at the Christmas season displayed the star of war and not of peace, may at midwinter display the raging comet; or that star of war may have had a speedy setting, to the mutual joy of two nations who only one year ago played the role of Host and Guest, whilst the young royal son of one government rendered peaceful homage at the tomb of the oldest Father of the other nation.

Hence, it is not the province of this paper to indulge in speculations regarding the future of Mr. Seward's diplomacy;—only to collect a few facts and critical suggestions respecting the diplomatic labors of Secretary Seward since his accession to honor, with some interesting references to our British complications which have passed under his supervision.

Fortunately for the enlightenment of the somewhat prejudiced audience who listen to our American discussion, there appeared simultaneously with the publications of British prints the governmental volume of papers relating to foreign affairs which usually accompanies a President's Message. It is not commonly printed for many months after reception by Congress. But the sagacity of Mr. Seward caused its typographical preparation in advance of presidential use. It therefore becomes an antidote to the heated poison of the Palmerston or Derby prints, which emulate in seizing the last national outrage for party purposes. And its inspection enables the great public, after perusing what Secretary Seward has written during the past troublous half year, to acquire a calm reliance upon his skill in navigating our glorious ship of state over the more troublous waters of the next half year.

The most cursory inspection of this volume must put to shame those Washington news-mongers, who from March to December pictured the Secretary as locked up in his office, in order to merely shun office-seekers, or as idling his time at reviews and sham-fights. The collection demonstrates, that his logic, persuasion, and rhetorical excellence have in diplomatic composition maintained their previous excellences in other public utterances; and that his physical capacity for labor, and his mental sympathy with any post of duty, have been as effective, surrounded by the dogs of war, as they were when tasked amid the peaceful herds of men. The maxim, inter arma silent leges, is suspended by the edicts of diplomacy!

Mr. Seward entered the State Department March the fifth (according to reliable Washington gossip), before breakfast, and was instantly at work. He found upon his table, with the ink scarcely dry, the draft of a (February 28th) circular from his predecessor, Mr. Black (now U.S. Supreme Court reporter), addressed to all the ministers of the United States. That circular very briefly recited the leading facts of the disunion movement, and instructed the ministers to employ all means to prevent a recognition of the confederate States. The document in question is dated at the very time when President Lincoln was perfecting his inaugural; and why its imperative and necessary commands were delayed until that late hour, is something for Mr. Buchanan to explain in that volume of memoirs which he is said to be preparing at the falling House of Lancaster.

From the dates of Mr. Seward's circulars, it is evident that he devoted small time to official 'house-warming' or 'cleaning up.' Some time, no doubt, was passed in consulting the indexes to the foreign affairs of the past eventful four months, and in making himself master of the situation. His first act is to transmit to all the (Buchanan) subordinates abroad copies of the President's Message, accompanying it with a score of terse and sparkling paragraphs regarding the rebellion; yet, in those few paragraphs, demonstrating the illusory and ephemeral advantages which foreign nations would derive from any connection they might form with any 'dissatisfied or discontented portion, State, or section of the Union.' In this connection, he refers to the 'governments' of J. Davis, Esq., as 'those States of this Union in whose name a provisional government has been announced;'—which is the happiest description yet in print.

There is apparently a fortnight's interregnum, during which a procession of would-be consuls and ministers marches from the State Department to the Senate chamber to receive the accolade of diplomacy. The Minister to Prussia, Mr. Judd, first finds gazette, and on March 22d the Secretary prepares for him instructions suitable to the crisis. There are 'stars' affixed to the published extracts, showing coetera desunt, matters of secret moment perchance! And here we may fitly remark, that whilst the labors of the diplomatist which came before the public for inspection display his industry, it is certain that quite as voluminous, perhaps more, must be the unpublished and secret dispatches. 'The note which thanked Prince Gortchacow through M. De Stoeckl was reprehensibly brief,' the leading gazettes said; but are they sure nothing else was prepared and transmitted, of which the public must remain uncertain? Are they ready to assert that Russia has become a convert to an open diplomacy? Or does she still feel most complimented with ciphers and mystery?

So early as the date of the Judd dispatch, the text of the Lincoln administration appears. 'Owing to the very peculiar structure of our federal government, and the equally singular character and habits of the American people, this government not only wisely, but necessarily, hesitates to resort to coercion and compulsion to secure a return of the disaffected portion of the people to their customary allegiance. The Union was formed upon popular consent, and must always practically stand on the same basis. The temporary causes of alienation must pass away; there must needs be disasters and disappointments resulting from the exercise of unlawful authority by the revolutionists, while happily it is certain that there is a general and profound sentiment of loyalty pervading the public mind throughout the United States. While it is the intention of the President to maintain the sovereignty and rightful authority of the Union everywhere, with firmness as well as discretion, he at the same time relies with great confidence on the salutary working of the agencies I have mentioned to restore the harmony and union of the States. But to this end, it is of the greatest importance that the disaffected States shall not succeed in obtaining favor or recognition from foreign nations.'

Two months prior to this, and on the Senate floor, Mr. Seward had said, 'taking care always that speaking goes before voting, voting goes before giving money, and all go before a battle, which I should regard as hazardous and dangerous; and therefore the last, as it would be the most painful measure to be resorted to for the salvation of the Union.'

A day or two succeeding the Judd dispatch, Mr. Seward writes for Minister Sanford (about to leave for Belgium) instructions; commingling views upon non-recognition with considerations respecting tariff modifications. In these appears a sentence kindred to those just quoted—'The President, confident of the ultimate ascendency of law, order, and the Union, through the deliberate action of the people in constitutional forms,' etc.

From those diplomatic suggestions, which are accordant with European exigencies, Mr. Seward readily turns his attention to Mexican affairs, in a carefully considered and most ably written letter of instructions for Minister Corwin. He touches upon the robberies and murder of citizens, the violation of contracts, and then gracefully withdraws them from immediate attention until the incoming Mexican administration shall have had time to cement its authority and reduce the yet disturbed elements of their society to order and harmony. He avers that the President not only forbids discussion of our difficulties among the foreign powers, but will not allow his ministers 'to invoke even censure against those of our fellow-citizens who have arrayed themselves in opposition to authority.' He refers to the foreshadowed protectorate in language complimentary to Mexico, yet firm in assurance that the President neither has, nor can ever have, any sympathy with revolutionary designs for Mexico, in whatever quarter they may arise, or whatever character they may take on.'

Within one week (and at dates which contradict the prevailing gossip of last April, that Messrs. Adams, Dayton, Burlingame, Schurz and Co. were detained awaiting Mr. Seward's advices) still more elaborate and masterly instructions are given out to these gentlemen. The paper to Mr. Adams will in future years be quoted and referred to as a model history of the rise and progress of the secession enormity. It may be asked, Why are such dispatches and instructions needed? Why such elaborate briefs and compendiums required for gentlemen each of whom may have said, respecting his connection with subject-matter of the Secretary (none more emphatically so than Messrs. Adams and Burlingame), quorum pars magna fui? Yet, it must be remembered that diplomacy, like jurisprudence (with its red tape common to both), taketh few things for granted, and constantly maketh records for itself, under the maxim de non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio; and ever beareth in mind that when certioraris to international tribunals are served, the initiatory expositions and the matured results must not be subjected to a pretence of diminution, but be full and complete.

The early dispatch for Mr. Burlingame contains the caustic sentence, 'Our representatives at Vienna seem generally to have come, after a short residence there, to the conclusion that there was nothing for them to do, and little for them to learn.' But 'the President expects that you will be diligent in obtaining not only information about political events, but also commercial and even scientific facts, and in reporting them to this department.'

Although the Austrian mantle was soon transferred to the classic shoulders of Mr. Motley,—another honored Bay-state-ian,—the caustic reference to predecessors, and the implied compliment of request, did not at all lose their respective significance.

What a compact statement is contained in the following sentence of the instructions to the representative of foreign affairs at Vienna!—'The political affairs in Austria present to us the aspect of an ancient and very influential power, oppressed with fiscal embarrassments,—the legacy of long and exhausting wars,—putting forth at one and at the same time efforts for material improvement and still mightier ones to protect its imperfectly combined dominion from dismemberment and disintegration, seriously menaced from without, aided by strong and intense popular passions within.' A lyceum lecturer might consume an evening over the present political condition of Austria, and yet not convey a more perfect idea thereof than is comprehended by the preceding paragraph!

Mr. Seward in first addressing Mr. Dayton discusses the slavery element of the rebellion, and elucidates more particularly the relations of France to a preserved or a dismembered Union; and evolves this plucky sentence: 'The President neither expects nor desires any intervention, or even any favor, from the government of France, or any other, in this emergency.' But a still more spirited paragraph answers a question often asked by the great public, 'What will be the course of the administration should foreign intervention be given?' Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat those who should yield it as allies of the insurrectionary party, and to carry on the war against them as enemies. The case would not be relieved, but, on the contrary, would only be aggravated, if several European states should combine in that intervention. The President and the people of the United States deem the Union which would then be at stake, worth all the cost and all the sacrifices of a contest with the world in arms, if such a contest should prove inevitable.'

In the advices to Mr. Schurz, at Madrid, occurs a most ingenious application of the doctrine of secession to Spanish consideration in respect to Cuba and Castile; to Aragon and the Philippine Islands; as well as a most opportune reference to the proffered commercial confederate advantages. 'What commerce,' asks the Secretary, 'can there be between states whose staples are substantially identical? Sugar can not be exchanged for sugar, nor cotton for cotton.' And another sentence is deserving remembrance for its truthful sarcasm: 'It seems the necessity of faction in every country, that whenever it acquires sufficient boldness to inaugurate revolution, it then alike forgets the counsels of prudence, and stifles the instincts of patriotism, and becomes a suitor to foreign courts for aid and assistance to subvert and destroy the most cherished and indispensable institutions of its own.'

Thus, within six weeks succeeding his entrance into the chambers of State, Mr. Seward had mapped out in his own brain a much more comprehensive policy than he had even laboriously and ably outlined upon paper. He had placed himself in magnetico-diplomatic communication with the great courts of Europe; surrounded by place-seekers, dogged by reporters, and paragraphed at by a thousand newspapers, from 'Fundy' to 'Dolores.' And the most remarkable rhetorical feature of these many dispatches is the absence of iteration, notwithstanding they were written upon substantially one text. It is characteristic of them, as of his speeches, that no one interlaces the other; each is complete of itself. Mr. Seward has always possessed that varied fecundity of expression for which Mr. Webster was admired. A gentleman who accompanied him upon his Lincoln-election tour from Auburn to Kansas, remarked, that listening to and recalling all the bye-play, depot speeches, and more elaborate addresses uttered by Mr. Seward during the campaign, he never heard him repeat upon himself, nor even speak twice in the same groove of thought. Neither will any reader discover throughout even these early dispatches a marked haste of thought, or a slovenly word-link in the Saxon rhetoric.

So far, we have alluded only to the instructions prepared before plenipotentiary departure. But the executive axe in the block of foreign affairs having been scoured, and new faces having fully replaced the decapitated heads in foreign diplomatic baskets, circulars, instructions and dispatches daily accumulate, 'treading on each other's heels.' The volume contains one hundred and forty emanations from the pen of Secretary Seward. How many more there exist is only known to the Cabinet or the exigencies of secret service. Is not the bare arithmetical announcement sufficient to satisfy the inquirer into Mr. Seward's diplomatic assiduity? If not, will he please to remember as well Mr. Seward's perusals of foreign mails, cabinet meetings, consultation of archives or state papers or precedents, examinations into the relation of domestic events to foreign policy, and the inspection of the sands of peace or war in the respective hour-glasses of his department?

The circulars of Secretaries Black and Seward are promptly answered by Mr. Dallas about a month after the inauguration, and whilst awaiting the arrival of Charles Francis Adams. He said, among other things, 'English opinion tends rather, I apprehend, to the theory that a peaceful separation may work beneficially for both groups of States, and not injuriously affect the rest of the world. The English can not be expected to appreciate the weakness, discredit, complications and dangers which we instinctively and justly ascribe to disunion.'

In this connection, let us remark, that we recently listened to a very interesting discussion, at the 'Union' club, between an English traveler of high repute, and a warm Unionist, upon the attitude of England. The former seemed as ardent as was the latter disputant in his abhorrence of the Southern traitors; but he constructed a very fair argument for the consistency of England. Taking for his first position, that foreign nations viewed the Jeff Davis movement as a revolution, self-sustained for nearly a year, his second was, that the most enlightened American abolitionists, as well as the most conservative Federalist, coincided in the belief that disunion was ultimate emancipation. Then, acquiescing in the statement of his antagonist, that the English nation had always reprehended American slavery, and desired its speedy overthrow, he inquired what more inconsistency there was in the English nation construing disunion in the same way wherein the American abolitionist and conservative Unionist did, as the inevitable promotion of slavery's overthrow? When it was rejoined that the canker of slavery had eaten away many bonds of Union, and promoted secession, the English disputant demanded whether the war aimed at rebuking slavery in a practical way, or by strengthening it as a locally constitutional institution? When the question was begged by the assertion that recognition of the Southern confederacy, although granted to be of abolition tendencies, was ungenerous and unfraternal, the position assumed was that nations, like individuals, cherished self-love, and always sought to turn intestine troubles among competitive powers into the channels of home-aggrandizement; and it was asked whether, should Ireland maintain a provisional government for nearly a year, there would not be found a strong party in the States advocating her recognition?

But Mr. Seward, in replying to Mr. Dallas in a dispatch to Mr. Adams, dismissed all arguments of policy or consistency, and remarked: 'Her Britannic Majesty's government is at liberty to choose whether it will retain the friendship of this government, by refusing all aid and comfort to its enemies, now in flagrant rebellion against it, as we think the treaties existing between the two countries require, or whether the government of her Majesty will take the precarious benefits of a different course.'

So early as May 2d, the British Secretary told Mr. Dallas that an understanding existed between the British and French governments which would lead both to take one and the same course as to recognition. Mr. Seward comments upon this in one of the most manly letters ever written by an American Secretary. It will be preserved upon the same historic shelf whereon reposes the manuscript of Daniel Webster's letter to the Chevalier Hulsemann. To Mr. Adams he says, that the communication loses its value because withheld until the knowledge was acquired from other sources, together with the additional fact that other European states are apprized by France and England of the agreement, and are expected to concur with or follow them in whatever measures they adopt on the subject of recognition! Great Britain, if intervening, is assured that she will calculate for herself the ultimate as well as the immediate consequences; and must consider what position she will hold when she shall have lost forever the sympathies and affections of the only nation upon whose sympathies and affections she has a natural claim. In making that calculation she will do well to remember that in the controversy she proposes to open, we shall be actuated neither by pride, nor passion, nor cupidity, nor ambition; but we shall stand simply upon the principle of self-preservation, our cause involving the independence of nations and the rights of human nature. These utterances were doubtless, in their book form, perused by the British cabinet during the Christmas holidays.

Taking the pages which close up the word-tilts of the diplomatists at date of November first (and we dare say our Board-of-Brokers readers regret that complete dispatches down to the sailing of the Africa, with that interesting pouch of letters on board, are not to be had at all the book-stores!) we may imagine Messrs. Russell, Adams, Seward and Lyons resolved into a conversational club, and talking as follows from week to week:—

Mr. Adams. It is gratifying to the grandson of the first American Minister at this court to feel that there are now fewer topics of direct difference between the two countries than have, probably, existed at any preceding time; and even these are withdrawn from discussion at St. James, to be treated at Washington. It would have been more gratifying to find that the good will, so recently universally felt at my home for your country, was unequivocally manifested here.

Lord Russell (smiling blandly). To what do you allude?

Mr. Adams. It is with pain that I am compelled to admit that from the day of my arrival I have felt in the proceedings of both houses of Parliament, in the language of her Majesty's ministers, and in the tone of opinion prevailing in private circles, more of uncertainty about this than I had before thought possible. (Lord Russell silent and still smiling blandly). It is therefore the desire of my government to learn whether it was the intention of her Majesty's ministers to adopt a policy which would have the effect to widen, if not to make irreparable a breach which I believe yet to be entirely manageable.

Lord Russell. I beg to assure your Excellency there is no such intention. The clearest evidence of this is to be found in the assurance given by me to Mr. Dallas, before your arrival. But you must admit that I hardly can see my way to bind my government to any specific course, when circumstances beyond our agency render it difficult to tell what might happen.

Mr. Seward (aside). But the future will care for itself. We deal with the 'Now.' 'There is "Yet" in that word "Hereafter."' Great Britain has already acted on the assumption that the Confederate States (so called) are de facto a self-sustaining power. After long forbearance, designed to soothe discontent and avert the need of civil war, the land and naval forces of the United States have been put in motion to repress insurrection. The true character of the pretended new state is revealed. It is seen to be a power existing in pronunciamento only. It has obtained no forts that were not betrayed into its hands or seized in breach of trust. It commands not a single port, nor one highway from its pretended capital by land.

Mr. Adams. Her Majesty's proclamation and the language of her ministers in both houses have raised insurgents to the level of a belligerent state.

Lord Russell. I think more stress is laid upon these events than they deserve. It was a necessity to define the course of the government in regard to the participation of the subjects of Great Britain in the impending conflict. The legal officers were consulted. They said war de facto existed. Seven States were in open resistance.

Mr. Adams. But your action was very rapid. The new administration had been but sixty days in office. All departments were demoralized. The British government then takes the initiative, and decides practically it is a struggle of two sides, just as the country commenced to develop its power to cope with the rebellion. It considered the South a marine power before it had exhibited a single privateer on the ocean. The Greeks at the time of recognition had 'covered the sea with cruisers.'

Lord Russell (smiling yet more blandly). I cite you the case of the Fillmore government towards Kossuth and Hungary. Was not an agent sent to the latter country with a view to recognition?

Mr. Seward (aside). The proclamation, unmodified and unexplained, leaves us no alternative but to regard the government of Great Britain as questioning our free exercise of all the rights of self-defence guaranteed to us by our Constitution, and the laws of nature and of nations, to suppress insurrection. But now as to the propositions sent, viz. (1.) Privateering abolished. (2.) Neutral flag covers enemy's goods except contraband of war. (3.) Neutral goods safe under enemy's flag, with same exception. (4.) Effective blockades.

Mr. Adams (aside to Mr. Seward). It is to be agreed to, if there be received a written declaration by Great Britain, to accompany the signature of her minister,—'Her Majesty does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences now prevailing in the United States.'

Mr. Seward (still aside). I am instructed by the President to say it is inadmissible. (1.) It is virtually a new and distinct article incorporated into the projected convention. (2.) The United States must accede to the Declaration of the Congress of Paris on the same terms with other parties, or not at all. (3.) It is not mutual in effect, for it does not provide for a melioration of our obligations in internal differences now prevailing in, or which may hereafter arise in, Great Britain. (4.) It would permit a foreign power for the first time to take cognizance of, and adjust its relations upon, assumed internal and purely domestic differences. (5.) The general parties to the Paris convention can not adopt it as one of universal application.

Lord Russell. Touching the disagreements as to acquiescing in the Paris convention and the proposed modification, I ask to explain the reason of the latter. The United States government regards the confederates as rebels, and their privateersmen as pirates. We regard the confederates as belligerents. As between us and your government, privateering would be abolished. We would and could have no concurrent convention with the confederate power upon the subject. We would have in good faith to treat the confederate privateersmen as pirates. Yet we acknowledge them belligerents. Powers not a party to the convention may rightfully arm privateers. Hence, instead of an agreement, charges of bad faith and violation of a convention might be brought in the United States against us should we accept the propositions unreservedly.

Mr. Adams. Your Lordship's government adhere to the proposition of modification?

Lord Russell. Such are my instructions.

Mr. Adams. Then, refraining for the present from reviewing our past conversations to ascertain the relative responsibilities of the parties for this failure of these negotiations, I have to inform you that they are for the time being suspended.

* * * * *

Mr. Adams. But your Lordship has many time unofficially received the confederate ambassadors, so styled. This has excited uneasiness in my country. It has, indeed, given great dissatisfaction to my government. And, in all frankness and courtesy, I have to add, that any further protraction of this relation can scarcely fail to be viewed by us as hostile in spirit.

Lord Russell. It has been custom, both here and in France, for a long time back, to receive such persons unofficially. Pole, Hungarians, Italians, and such like, have been allowed unofficial interviews, in order that we might hear what they had to say. But this never implied recognition in their case, any more than in yours!

Mr. Adams. I observe in the newspapers an account of a considerable movement of troops to Canada. In the situation of our governments this will excite attention at home. Are they ordered with reference to possible difficulties with us?

Lord Russell. Canada has been denuded of troops for some time back. The new movement is regarded, in restoring a part of them, as a proper measure of precaution in the present disordered condition of things in the United States. But Mr. Ashmun is in Canada, remonstrating as to alleged breaches of neutrality.

(Lord Lyons. I viewed the subject as cause of complaint.

Mr. Seward. And I instantly recalled Mr. Ashmun.)

Mr. Adams. He was in Canada to watch and prevent just such a transaction as the fitting out of a pirate or privateer—the Peerless case.

Lord Russell. Mr. Seward threatened to have the Peerless seized on Lake Ontario.

Mr. Adams. I respectfully doubt your Lordship's information. It was surely an odd way of proceeding to furnish at once the warning in time to provide against its execution!

* * * * *

Mr. Adams. I deeply regret a painful necessity which compels me to make a representation touching the conduct of Consul Bunch at Charleston. A private and opened letter, intercepted on the person of a naturalized American citizen and colonel in the confederate army,—Robert Mure, bearer of dispatches to Great Britain,—disclosed these words: 'Mr. Bunch, on oath of secrecy, communicated to me that the first step to recognition was taken. So prepare for active business BY THE FIRST OF JANUARY.'

Lord Russell. I will without hesitation state to you that, in pursuance of an agreement between the British and French governments, Mr. Bunch was instructed to communicate to the persons exercising authority in the so-called confederate States, the desire of those governments that certain articles of the declaration of Paris should be observed by them in their hostilities(!) But regarding the other statement, I as frankly say, Her Majesty's government have not recognized, and are not prepared to recognize, the so-called confederate States as a separate and independent power.

Mr. Seward (aside to Mr. Adams). The President revokes the exequatur of Consul Bunch, who has not only been the bearer of communications between the insurgents and a foreign government in violation of our laws, but has abused equally the confidence of the two governments by reporting, without the authority of his government, and in violation of their own policy, as well as of our national rights, that the proceeding in which he was engaged was in the nature of a treaty with the insurgents, and the first step toward a recognition by Great Britain of their sovereignty. His whole conduct has been, not that of a friend to this government, nor of a neutral even, but of a partisan of faction and disunion.

* * * * *

Lord Lyons. My government are concerned to find that two British subjects, Mr. Patrick and Mr. Rahming, have been subjected to arbitrary arrest.

Mr. Seward. At the time of arrest it was not known they were British subjects. They have been released.

Lord Lyons. They applied for habeas corpus, and its exercise was refused. Congress has not suspended the writ. Our law officers say that the authority of Congress is necessary to justify this arrest and imprisonment.

Mr. Seward (with suavity, but profound dignity, as if the nation spoke). I have to regret that, after so long an official intercourse between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, it should be necessary now to inform her Majesty's ministers that all executive proceedings are of the President. Congress has no executive power or responsibility. The President constitutionally exercises the right of suspending the writ of habeas corpus. This government does not question the learning of the legal advisers of the British Crown, or the justice of the deference which her Majesty's government pays to them; nevertheless, the British government will hardly expect that the President will accept their explanation of the Constitution of the United States!

* * * * *

Are not the following inferences legitimately to be made from a close and calm study of the published dispatches respecting our foreign relations with Great Britain, and in connection with much that has transpired since their congressional publication?—

1. The British government officers were in some way prepared to expect that the election of Mr. Lincoln would result in an attempted disruption of the Union. The arrival of Governor Pickens in England just before the presidential election, and his arrival in New York, and immediate journey to South Carolina, on the day of that election, may be cited as one of many coincidences—showing that the spirit of Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson, if not their doings and plans, were parodied on the other side of the Atlantic.

2. The British government were not averse to disunion from the outset, and seized every pretext of tariff, or of inaction respecting the rebellion, that it might quibble with the United States authority.

3. The tone of the press, ministry and people was early heard, and echoed by Mr. Dallas to our government. Mr. Seward therefore, at the outset, knew his position, and most opportunely and dignifiedly maintained a bearing all the more noble because it proceeded from a government which had taken arms against a sea of troubles.

4. The British government waited only so long as international decency technically warranted before proclaiming an acknowledgment of civil war in the United States, and accepting the government of Mr. Davis as an equal belligerent with that of Mr. Lincoln. This was a matured step, and a strong link in a chain of ultimate recognition.

5. The Crown ministers early sought and obtained an understanding with France for mutual action: an understanding palpably hostile to the United States and tantalizingly acknowledged by open diplomacy.

6. The British ministry construed strictly as against the Washington government, but liberally as toward that of Jeff Davis, in regard to all arising complications.

7. The British government palpably permitted purchases and shipments of contraband articles by Southern emissaries, but exercised the utmost vigilance when the United States agents entered the market for similar purposes.

8. The action of Lord Russell respecting the proposition to abolish privateering was covertly insulting. It asked to interpolate a new condition as between France and England of the one part and the United States of the other; and a condition conceived in a spirit of liberality toward Jeff Davisdom, and promulgated in a meddlesome mood toward the United States government.

9. The tone of Lord Lyons was a more permissible manifestation of British spleen than the higher functionaries at home displayed, yet none the more acrid. This appears in all his letters and dispatches respecting blockade, privateering, the arrest of spies, and the detention of British subjects, or the seizure of prizes. It is especially offensive in the letter to Mr. Seward which drew forth a diplomatic rebuke upon a dictation by English law authority regarding constitutional construction.

10. The correspondence of the State Department was conducted by Mr. Seward (as was well said by the N.Y. Evening Post, Dec. 21) with great skill and adroitness. It was also firm in the defence of our national honor and rights. His rhetoric was always measured by the dignified, tasteful, and cautious rules of international intercourse. Its entire tone in correspondence was earnest but restrained, and in style fully equaling his best, and most ornate efforts.

What are Mr. Seward's views in the 'Past' respecting England and the emergency of a war with her, is a question now much mooted. It can be readily answered by reference to a speech made at a St. Patrick's Day dinner whilst he was Governor. 'Gentlemen, the English are in many respects a wise as they are a great and powerful nation. They have obtained an empire and ascendancy such as Rome once enjoyed. As the Tiber once bore, the Thames now bears the tribute of many nations, and the English name is now feared and respected as once the Roman was in every part of the world. England has been alike ambitious and successful. England too is prosperous, and her people are contented and loyal. But contentment and loyalty have not been universal in the provinces and dependencies of the English government. The desolation which has followed English conquest in the East Indies has been lamented throughout the civilized world. Ireland has been deprived of her independence without being admitted to an equality with her sister-island, and discontent has marked the history of her people ever since the conquest. England has not the magnanimity and generosity of the Romans. She derives wealth from her dependencies, but lavishes it upon objects unworthy of herself. She achieves victories with their aid, but appropriates the spoils and trophies exclusively to herself. For centuries she refused to commit trusts to Irishmen, or confer privileges upon them, unless they would abjure the religion of their ancestors.'

Ten years later, in the United States Senate, during the debate upon the Fisheries dispute, Mr. Seward said, after discussing England's financial and commercial position: 'England can not wisely desire nor safely dare a war with the United States. She would find that there would come over us again that dream of conquest of those colonies which broke upon us even in the dawn of the Revolution, when we tendered them an invitation to join their fortunes with ours, and followed it with the sword—that dream which returned again in 1812, when we attempted to subjugate them by force; and that now, when we have matured the strength to take them, we should find the provinces willingly consenting to captivity. A war about these fisheries would be a war which would result either in the independence of the British Provinces, or in their annexation to the United States. I devoutly pray God that that consummation may come; the sooner the better: but I do not desire it at the cost of war or of injustice. I am content to wait for the ripened fruit which must fall. I know the wisdom of England too well to believe that she would hazard shaking that fruit into our hands.'

Another question, now asked,—'Will Mr. Seward exhaust negotiation?'—may be in like manner answered by himself. In a succeeding debate on the same 'fisheries' controversy, commenting upon negotiation, he said: 'Sir, it is the business of the Secretary of State, and of the government, always to be ready, in my humble judgment, to negotiate under all circumstances, whether there be threats or no threats, whether there be force or no force: but the manner and the spirit and the terms of the negotiation will be varied by the position that the opposing party may occupy.'

It can not be denied that more cordial relations exist between the President and the Secretary of State than ever any previous administration disclosed: so that when Mr. Seward acts, the government will prove a powerful unit. Indeed, in this connection, history will hereafter write precisely what Mr. Seward, in his speech on the 'Clayton-Bulwer treaty,' said respecting the Taylor administration:—'Sir, whatever else may have been the errors or misfortunes of that administration, want of mutual confidence between the Secretary of State and his distinguished chief was not one of them. They stood together firmly, undivided, and inseparable to the last. Storms of faction from within their own party and from without beset them, and combinations and coalitions in and out of Congress assailed them with a degree of violence that no other administration has ever encountered. But they never yielded.'

We can not better conclude this paper, while the volumes of Mr. Seward's works are open on the table, than by quoting still again, and asking the reader to apply his own remarks on Secretary of State Webster in the fisheries-war speech, before alluded to: 'I shall enter into no encomium on the Secretary of State; he needs none. I should be incompetent to grasp so great a theme, if it were needed. The Secretary of State! There he is! Behold him, and judge for yourselves. There is his history; there are his ideas; his thoughts spread over every page of your annals for near half a century. There are his ideas, his thoughts impressed upon and inseparable from the mind of his country and the spirit of the age. The past is at least secure. The past is enough of itself to guarantee a future of fame unapproachable and inextinguishable.'

* * * * *

TO ENGLAND.

The Yankee chain you'd gladly split, And yet begin by heating it! But when the iron is all aglow, 'Twill closer blend at every blow. Learn wisdom from a warning word, Beat not the chain into a sword.

* * * * *

THE HEIR OF ROSETON.

CHAPTER 1.

Qui curios simulant, et Bacchanalia vivunt. JUV.

Odi Persicos apparatus. HOR.

Indulge Genio: carpamus dulcia. PERS.

Roseton awoke. A silver clock upon the mantle, so constructed as to represent Guido's 'Hours,' had just struck the hour of eight, accompanying the signal with the festal la ci darem of Don Giovanni. This was Roseton's invariable hour of waking, no matter what might be the season, or what might have been his time of retiring. Slightly stirring upon the couch, the night drapery became relaxed, and from his sleeve of Mechlin lace appeared a hand and wrist of unspeakable delicacy, yet of iron strength. Another slight movement, and one saw the upper portions of the form of the late slumberer; 'a graceful composition in one of Nature's happiest moments.' It was indeed difficult properly to estimate either the beauty of his proportions or their amazing strength. The most celebrated sculptors of Europe had made pilgrimages across the sea to refresh their perceptions by gazing upon a figure which, even in the unclassic habiliments of modern dress, caused the Apollo to resemble a plowboy; and the athletes of both hemispheres had, singly, and in pairs, and even in triplets, measured their powers vainly against his unaided arms. To keep ten fifty-sixes in the air for an hour at a time was to him the merest trifle; but the ennui of such diversions had long since crept upon him, and only on occasions of the extremest urgency did he exercise any other faculties than those of the will. In compliance with an effort of the latter nature, his favorite servant now entered the apartment. The Rev. Geo. Langford had but a moment before been deeply engaged in solving the problem of the fourth satellite of Jupiter, when a sharp, tingling sensation in the rear of his brain convinced him that a master will desired his attendance. The scholar, who thus rose to be the servant of Roseton,—a position that even the President of a Western college might envy, such were its dignities and emoluments,—stood for a moment at the foot of Roseton's couch, and in silence received the silent orders of the day. No words passed, but in an incredibly short space of time Roseton's commands had flashed into the mind of his attendant, and the latter withdrew to reduce them to writing for the benefit of the four masters of the four departments of the House. They in turn methodized them for their forty-eight deputies, and one hundred and ninety-two servants—in addition to the female who came to the house to receive the weekly wash—performed their daily task intelligently and harmoniously.

A bath of atar of roses next received the master of the House of Pont-Noir. This was renewed every hour of the day; for Roseton's fancy indulged the frequent and the casual lavation, and his exacting taste demanded the strictest purity. A careless servant once ventured to leave the bath filled without a change of the fluid, after it had been occupied; but the negligence was at once detected by the master of Pont-Noir, and his weekly allowance of cologne-water was summarily reduced. Upon the ceiling, over the bath, were frescoed, in Titianelli's richest style, the most graceful legends of mythology. Here Theseus toyed with Ariadne; here the infant Mercury furtively enticed the Grecian Short-horns; here Triton blew his seaweed-tangled horn, and troops of ocean-nymphs threw the surface of the deep into 'sparkling commotions of splendor;' here Venus allured Anchises, by sweetly calling him to the leafy tops of Ida; here Deucalion surmounted the miraculous floods; and here Pyrrha first instructed wondering men in the knowledge of the existence, beauties and duties of the fairer part of creation. Here, reclining in dreamful ease, and indulging in the perpetual warmth by which the bath confessed the power of unseen caloric agency, Roseton was wont ever to sport with delicious memories, now with rapturous hopes, and at times to compose those elegant sonnets for the New York weekly newspapers, for each one of which a thousand dollars was joyfully given by the delighted proprietors to the poor of the city.

Carefully wiped, and clothed in a morning robe by twelve gentlemanly attendants, each one a scion of the first families of the metropolis, Roseton was borne to the breakfasting apartment. Here, indeed, a scene presented itself, among whose splendors imagination only could safely dwell, and before which the practical and the prosaic mind might well grow comatose or skeptical. Malachite tables of every conceivable shape from the Ural; carpets to whose texture the shawls of Cashmere had become tributary; paintings by all the known, and many of the unknown, old masters; these were only rivaled by chairs of the most undeniable and gorgeous curled maple; and a beaufet of true cherry acknowledged, in common with a Jerome horologe, a Connecticut origin. These incredible adjuncts to luxury were, however, eclipsed by the dazzling glory of a vast pyramid of purest oreide, which at its apex separated into four divisions to the sound of slow music, by forty hidden performers, revealing, as it descended to the floor, an equal number of tables, on which plate, Sevres China, Nankin porcelain, and the emerald glass of New England, rivaled the display of damask, fruits, liqueurs, and delicatest meats. Here smoked a sweetbread, here gleamed a porgy, not yet forty-eight hours caught, and here the strawberry crimsoned the cream that lapped its blushing sides. Here the Arabian berry evolved clouds of perfume; here Curacoa glistened from behind its strawy shield; and here a decanter of warranted real French brandy, side by side with a bottle of Stoughton's bitters, suggested that a cocktail might not only be desirable, but possible. But Roseton's eyes gazed languidly upon the spectacle, and the walls of the pyramid again ascending, shut the quadruple banquets from the sight.

A moment elapsed, and they fell once more. A fountain of cool, fragrant distillation threw showers of delight into the atmosphere, under the canopy of which again appeared four luxurious tables. Upon one, tea and toast suggested the agreeable and appropriate remedy for an over-night's dissipation; upon another, an array of marmalades, icy tongues reduced by ether to a temperature of minus sixty, Finnane haddock, and oaten meal of rarest bolting, indicated and offered to gratify the erratic taste of a Caledonian. Again, upon another, a Strasburg pie displayed its delicious brown, the members of the emerald songster of the fen lay whitely delicate, and accompanying absinthe revealed the knowledge of Gallic preferences. Upon the fourth, smoking and olent Rio, puddings of Indian, cakes composed of one third butter, one third flour, one third saleratus, and the crisping bean, surmounted by crimped pork, showed that a Providence Yankee might well find an appropriate entertainment. But again the eyes of Roseton looked vacantly on, and again, amid strains of music, the walls of the pyramid ascended.

A short pause, and they sunk again. Now appeared, as a central figure, an odalisque. In each ivory hand she bore a double fan of exquisite workmanship, on each of which again glistened a delicate and fairy banquet. Here were ultimate quintessences—pines reduced to a drop of honeyed delight; bananas whose life lay in points of bewildering sweetness; enormous steamboat puddings compressed within the compass of a thimble, exclusive of the sauce; chocolates, oceans of which lay in mimic lakes, each of which the bill of a humming-bird might expand; tongues of most melodious singing birds—the nightingale, the thrush, and the goldfinch; lambs en supreme, each eliminated of earthly particles, and spiritualized in scarcely tangible results. Over all hovered the memories of exquisite beverages, which became realities when you approached, and stole over the sense with insidious deliciousness.

These, too, faded away amid the disregard of their owner, though the odalisque shed floods of tears of disappointment; and others succeeded, but they tempted Roseton vainly, and a glance at the clock showed that it was now ten o'clock by New Haven time. At this moment the Rev. George Langford experienced another biological sensation; Roseton had conceived a breakfast.

Repairing to a battery in a recess of his laboratory, Langford attentively studied the ebullitions occasioned by an ultimate dilution and aggregation of the chemicals in the formula HP + O^(22). During this time the sensations in his brain successively continued to rack and agonize him; but, faithful to his mission, he remained immersed in thought until his intellect grasped the key of the problem. Issuing then from the recess, he promulgated the results of his investigation to the four masters of the house, These, with the aid of the forty-eight deputies, executed the inchoate idea, and once more—and finally—the pyramid unfolded. But now a single table appeared, bearing upon its snowy mantle a Yarmouth bloater, and a bottle of Dublin stout. Roseton's eyes lighted up with unaccustomed pleasure, and he gave instant commands for the duplication of the salary of his esteemed attendant-in-chief.

In accordance with the custom of the house, the morning journals now appeared; and here the fancy of Roseton had therein a living and distinctive character over each. Youths, of perfect beauty, who had, during the three previous hours, diligently studied the sheets in question, passed before him, one by one, dressed in appropriate costume, and each one delivered to him in mental short-hand the entire contents of the journal which he represented. These were rendered wholly in the Sanscrit tongue, in which Roseton was an adept; with the exception of the Tribune, the language of which, Roseton was accustomed to say, is unique, and incapable of translation. First appeared the representative of the Herald, dressed as a jockey; an irresistible air of assurance accompanied him, and he threw frequent summersaults with inconceivable quickness. Next marched the Tribune;—a youth shrouded in inexplicable garments, and the living centre of a whirlwind of exploding theories. Then stepped the Times in rapid succession; a blooming boy dressed with precision, and delicately balancing himself as he delivered his part. Next appeared the World, habited as a theological student, and sorrow for irreparable loss was indicated by a Weed upon his hat. One looked for the embodiment of the News in vain, but a Wooden figure, wheeled in silence through the apartment, was thought to convey a mysterious lesson. A martial ghost, wearing upon his head a triple crown, like the vision of Macbeth, yet bravely supporting himself under the three-fold encumbrance, seemed the Courier of Wall Street. The pageant passed, but Roseton seemed unsatisfied; and it soon occurred to him that the deep draughts of secession news, which he had been accustomed to receive each morning from the Journal of Commerce, had, on this occasion, failed him. But on further reflection his infallible logic convinced him that the existence of this paper must have ceased at the same time with that of the Southern mails.

It now remained to perform the morning toilet; and a corps of attendants conveyed Roseton to his dressing-room. Here the lavish wealth of the Pont-Noirs found another appropriate field for its display. The floor was of Carrera marble, curiously tesselated, rising in the centre to the support of a fountain, where water-nymphs breathed forth shattered columns of fragrant spray, whose parabolic curves filled a spacious lake below. Vases of diamond, emerald and ruby crowded the mantles, each filled with some unknown perfume—the result of Roseton's miraculous chemistry; for in this science Roseton was supreme. In a single day he exhausted the resources of American laboratories, and a short visit to Europe convinced him that henceforth he must be his own instructor. Savants in vain solicited his formulas. 'Why,' he reasoned, 'should I furnish children in science with tools of which they can not comprehend the use?' Delicate tables, chiseled from the humbler gems, were scattered about the chamber; agate, topaz, lapis-lazuli, amethyst, and a smaragdus of miraculous beauty. Chairs of golden wire completed the furniture of this unequaled apartment.

The hangings of the walls were a freak at once of genius and lavishness. They consisted of the bills of the Valley Bank, extravagantly lapped, and of untold denomination. But the ceiling—how shall I describe it? Did you, indeed, look up inimitably into a Hesperian sky, or was this firmament the creation of the painter's art? Nothing flecked the profound, unsearchable, impassive blue. There brooded the primeval heavens, undimmed by earthly vapors, unfathomed by earthly instruments; forever indescribable by earthly tongues.

Two hundred years before, a Pont-Noir of the Roseton branch accumulated immense wealth from a diamond mine in East Haddam, Connecticut. He was a man of deep and ardent imagination, and uncomprehended by the simple villagers, who irreverently styled him the 'mad Roseton.' He died, and left a singular will. It provided that his estates, money, and jewels, should be realized and invested on interest for the space of two hundred years, by a committee of trustees, consisting of the governors of the six New England States, to be assisted by the fiscal board of Mississippi, whenever such a State should be organized. At the expiration of that time, the avails were to be paid to Roseton, of Pont-Noir, provided but one of that name should exist; if more were living, the estate was to remain in abeyance until such a condition should be reached. Not undiscerningly had he foreseen the probability that his will would be disputed, and a short time before his death he caused a formal attestation of his sanity to be made by the entire body of clergymen comprising the Middlesex Conference. His mode of proof was simple, consisting only of an original manuscript, refuting the Arminian heresy; but it sufficed, and the will was obeyed. Not unwisely, also, had he calculated upon the energies of population; for, during one hundred and fifty years, the Pont-Noirs spread over both continents. Then they paused, and but two of the race—chosen by lot—were allowed to marry. At the expiration of twenty-five years, a single male of the race, also chosen by lot, married, and became the father of the present Roseton. On the day that Roseton was twenty-four years old, his father summoned him to his apartment. 'To-morrow,' said he, 'the mystical two hundred years expire, and an estate of inconceivable magnitude will vest in the single Roseton—if there be but one. My son, my life is of less consequence than yours, since it is farther spent; but it still has sweetness, and it is the only life that I possess. Here are three goblets of wine—one is Scuppernong, the other two are harmless. I will apportion our chances fairly, and will drink two; you shall drink one. The lawyers are at hand to arrange the inquest, and to confer the title-deeds to the estate.' In silence the son consented, and the devoted pair drank off the goblets as proposed, and at once sat down to a banquet prepared for them, and for the legal gentlemen attendant. When the ices came in, the elder Roseton was carried out; and the heir of Pont-Noir, having seen the remains properly bestowed in a place of safety, and a special inquest held, finished the night with the counsellors in the enjoyment of a tempered hilarity, and rose next morning the possessor of wealth so boundless, so unspeakable, that my brain reels as I endeavor to grasp at even its outlying fragments.