Loss of the Steamer "Anglo-Saxon"

MAY 9, 1863.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

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(Previous Page) races, is there any harm in helping them to do all they can do? Because a man shows no symptom of rivaling Newton or surpassing Shakespeare, must he therefore be degraded, despised, and outraged, and what capacity the Lord has given him be hopelessly extinguished? Why, good Sir, who are so busily declaring that colored men were made to be kicked and cuffed by white men, suppose that we all got our deserts how would you and I fare? If what you call superior capacity is to relegate all inferior capacities to contempt and permanent deprivation of common human rights, you and I are in a bad way, for there are plenty of people who are in every point our superiors.

The Lord has made negroes to be slaves, declare the slaveholding doctors, and you must not try to make soldiers of them: you can not do it if you would, and if you could they would be good for nothing. That was a pretty enough argument until the facts mocked it to pieces. For in no engagement in which the colored soldiers have taken part have they shown themselves in any way inferior to the best. Here, for instance, by the recent arrival from New Orleans, we learn that one hundred and eighty of the Louisiana black Union soldiers routed a force of three hundred rebel cavalry and a company of infantry. The black Louisianians, late slaves and others, took a set of colors from the retreating white chivalry. You may read it in the correspondence of a paper which editorially assures us that no colored soldiers can be raised, and that when they are raised they will not fight! Let us know the place where they have had a chance and have not fought.

But while those who do fight fight well, there is no better proof of the common sense and common humanity of the colored men than that they are in no great haste to flock in multitudes and fight for those who studiously insult and despise them. We should think him a pretty poor Yankee who was very anxious to take up the cudgels for a man who incessantly told him that he was the scum and offscouring and lees and nasty refuse of creation, and who took care that he should be believed by spitting in the Yankee's face, and kicking him, and knocking him down, and insisting upon his working forever without wages. If, despite all this, the Yankee should take up arms and fight for his abuser, we should say either he is the best and most heroic of men, or he is the meanest-spirited dastard that ever lived.

FROM A DIARY.

IT was a good meeting this afternoon in Madison Square, although the air was chilly and the sky threatening. Scott made a capital figure-head; but how utterly factitious the enthusiasm for the old gentleman is! In consideration of his unquestioned cervices we agree to treat him as if we thought him a great man, for somebody must play that part. No king in the world looks so well as Scott did, dressed in full black with a broad blue ribbon, and bowing his towering white head to the crowd. I was standing in the crowd listening to John Van Buren, and observed near me Jones, who was attending in the next crowd to the speaker at the next stand. Jones I have long known as a man of moderate. sensible views, as becomes one who has large interests at stake. Smith was near him, one of the Hartington breed of loyal men.

"Hallo?" said Smith, "nobody's making a speech here worth hearing but John Van Buren."

"I am very well content," replied Jones.

"Who is that?" asked Smith.

"Jobson," answered Jones.

"Pshaw! a d—d Abolitionist," sneered Smith.

"Yes," said Jones, in an audible voice, and turning his great square shoulders so as to confront the other, and looking him straight in the eyes—"Yes, and every man here who is not a d—d Abolitionist Is a d—d traitor."

Smith stared blankly, but said nothing more.

Certainly no phrase ever did so much service as the one by which Smith described Jobson. I was dining at S.'s the other day, when F. turned round to J. at the table, and said, half bitterly:

"I will take a hundred shares if you will only kill off these —Abolitionists and stop the war."

J. burst out into a loud laugh. "Don't you think it a little late in the day to talk such rubbish as that? You've used that phrase all your life, and you haven't the least idea what you're talking about. There isn't a man at this table who can tell what an Abolitionist is, except that he is a man who hates slavery, which is only another way for saying that he is a man. And as for bringing on the war, why, I remember, my dear F., when Yancey came to the Cooper Institute in the last campaign, and gave fair warning that if he and his party didn't succeed they'd raise Ned: and the next day you gave a hundred dollars to the side for which he spoke. You gave a good many other hundred dollars during the canvass, and each one was a premium upon rebellion. Yancey went straight home and said, 'They're sit right at the North. F. has given a thousand dollars for our success. Whatever we do he'll wink at it.' You're a pretty man to talk about stopping the war by killing off other folks. If you and your kind had said to Yancey and his kind, 'None of that talk! Were not going to roast our pig by burning the house down,' he would have shrugged his shoulders, gone home, and said, 'We can't count upon 'em,' and there would have been no war. No, my dear F., when Jeff Davis and Toombs and the rest began to secede, it wasn't Garrison or Wendell Phillips they relied upon; it was you gentlemen in New York and elsewhere who had given them reason to suppose that they might rely upon you. And as for ending the war by killing off, you had better apply the method to the smaller number, not to the greater. It would take you a dreadfully long day to count the d—d Abolitionists."

F. smiled good-naturedly, and replied, "Why, I really believe you are one of them," in such a cheerful tone that it was perfectly clear he was. And I, who remember a score of years of dining out in New York, can not be enough amazed at what I constantly hear and see.

BROADWAY.

BROADWAY is clearly doomed to have a railroad; but whether it shall be for Mr. George Law's profit or for that of the city are questions in dispute. What special services Mr. Law has rendered the city or the State that he should prevail against the strongly-expressed wishes of the powerful proprietors upon Broadway and the general sentiment of the city does not appear. In what way his supremacy over Broadway is to lighten the taxes is also not evident. In fact, who is to gain by the enterprise, except some stage companies, the Legislators who have received money, if

any have received money, and Mr. George Law, are questions that remain open for answering.

It is the universal Impression, which may be a universal mistake, that neither the necessity of the street, nor the desire of the property owners upon it, but the lobbying of Mr. Law, has carried his bill through the Legislature. On the other hand, the grant to the Harlem Company under their charter secures an income to the city. Every citizen, of course, gives his sympathy and interest to the Harlem project. Doubtless, whichever prevails, the traveling public will be equally accommodated and the road equally well laid. But it is a good thing to lighten taxes at the same time, and it is a bad thing to know that the convenience of the city of New York is at the mercy of any man, however rich, however couch of a public benefactor, however eminent and honorable, he may he.

IN RE THE EMPEROR OF CHINA'S NAVY.

ONE of the most faithful and influential friends of this country in Great Britain writes to the Lounger as follows:

I am not surprised that you should be irritated at the ship-building for the Confederates in British yards; it is shameful and unworthy of British merchants, and our Government has, in my opinion, shown culpable remissness in putting the law in force. I do not, however, believe that there has been on the part of the Government any intentional violation of neutrality. I am happy to say that the feeling in this country on the subject among all who favor the North is exceedingly strong, and, I presume, has already found expression in adequate terms at a meeting which was to have taken place at Manchester on Monday, but of which I have not yet seen the report. Indeed I have no doubt that the Government are now resolved to do their duty dimly, and as an earnest of this I refer you to a dispatch of Lord Russell's in the Daily News which I send you, on the Peterhoff question; this, I think, should give satisfaction. I wish also to call your attention to a speech by the Duke of Argyle, made a few days ago at Leith."

It was at the meeting mentioned by our correspondent that Professor Goldwin Smith of Oxford made an admirable speech to the effect that, whenever Great Britain declines to enforce a municipal law of her own which is contravened to the injury of a friendly power, it is the indication of an unfriendly spirit upon her part. Whether the unfriendliness is positive hostility must be determined by the circumstances.

That Great Britain, however, does not wish to have it so regarded is clear enough from her awakening activity to detain the cruisers of his Majesty the Emperor of China.

ANTI-STROPHE.

THERE is always a prosaic as well as a poetic view of any subject, even of royal weddings, as this good-humored parody of Tennyson's nuptial ode shows. It is a contribution to the West Philadelphia Hospital Register:

THE LAUREATE'S ODE.
AFTER TENNYSON.

Welcome thee! Welcome thee! Welcome thee!

Alexandra!

Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen are we: Dane of the feminine gender is she,

Alexandra!

Welcome her fog! Welcome her sleet!

Welcome her little boys out in the street! London's mire and mud, stick to her feet;

Muddy her, muddy her, muddy her—Greet!*

Up umbrellas up! Break cloud that lowers;

Anoint her fair head with plentiful showers;

Welcome her, welcome her, welcome her Dow'rs!** From the top of her head to her heel she is ours,

Alexandra.

Blow trumpet and bugle, and cornet and fife;

Crowd, men, and crush women out of their life,

And flutter and sputter and mutter and blare;

And thunder and blunder and wonder and stare!

Fat Britons, uncover—leave every poll bare,

Wave out the bandanas in the moisty March air!

Pull at the bell; pull, till all your arms tire,

Shout, scream, and run as you would to a fire,

Anglo Saxons; ne'er mind how much you perspire, Welcome her; welcome her; fancily and sire!

Thunder!

Alexandra.

Sea King's Daughter, a Wale'ess must be,

A palpable truth as A, B, C, D.

John Bull's as happy as happy can be: Happy, happier—happiest she!

Alexandra.

TWO VIEWS OF DIXIE.

THE London Atheneum, one of the most amusingly anti-American periodicals in England, can not bolt all the stuff that is served up to John Bull in the cause of the "Confederates." A certain Hudson, "Juris utriusque Doctor," has published in London a book upon The Second War Independence in America, translated by the author from the second revised and enlarged German edition. The point of the performance is that slavery is happiness, slaveholders patriarchs, and the South heaven. It is not a new tune, but it jars upon the Atheneum, which thus disposes of a very silly book:

"No unprejudiced reader will refrain from laughing at this flattering picture of life in Dixie's Land, where there is actually no literature whatever superior to pro-slavery journalism, no science higher than that 'social science' which left the New Orleans jail what Mr. Russell found it, no politics apart from a fierce determination to keep black serfs in firm bondage—where refined taste expresses itself in deen drinking, 'elevated social intercourse is tempered by dueling, and appreciation of what is noble manifests itself in incessant calumny of England, and the English. When the Southerners were being injured by the misrepresentations and fictions of abolition enthusiasts, we did our beat to expose the falsehood of statements which were misleading our countrymen; and now that pro-slavery cant is making itself heard with corresponding influence, and aims at depreciating the labors of the philanthropists whom Clarkson and Wilberforce led on to victory, we are equally prompt in giving it its right name. We can assure Southern writers that the tone which has of late become prevalent among them will fail to achieve its object, as far as English opinion is concerned. It is true that just

*This true Tennysonism has a beautiful and significant meaning, which the reader may possibly discover by turning back 125 pages.

**Tennysonian for Dowagers.

now there is a fashion in England with careless and frivolous people to profess admiration for 'the patriarchal character' of American slavery, but it is the folly of 'a season.' It will soon die out, and in the mean time it will not touch the strong hatred of 'the peculiar institution' which lives in the heart of our race."

HUMORS OF THE DAY.

A HEART THAT CAN FEEL FOR ANOTHER.—"I give and bequeath to Mary, my wife, the sum o' one hunder pounds a year," said an old farmer. "Is that written down, measter?" "Yes," replied the lawyer; "but she is not so old—she may marry again. Won't you make any change in that case? Most people do." "Ay, do they?" said the farmer, "Well, write again, and say that if my wife marries again, I will give and bequeath to her the sum of two hunder pounds a year. That'll do, won't it, measter?" "Why, it's just doubling the sum she would have if she remained unmarried," said the lawyer, "It is generally the other way—the legacy is lessened if the widow marries again." "Ay," said the farmer, "but him is gets her'll desarve it."

"Why don't you wear your ring, my dear?" said a father in a ball-room to his daughter. "Because, papa, it hurts me when any one squeezes my hand." "What business have you to have your hand sqeezed?" "Certainly none; but still, you know, papa, one would like to keep it in squeezable order."

A cockney tourist met a Scottish lassie going barefoot toward Glasgow, "Lassie," said he, "I should like to know if all the people in these parts go barefoot?" "Part on 'em do, and part on 'em mind their own business," was the rather settling reply.

At the battle of Trafalgar a generous British sailor, seeing a brother tar bleeding profusely from a severe wound, ran to his assistance. He had no sooner raised him from the deck than the wounded man said, "Thank you, Jack, and I'll be glad to do the same for you before the fight is over."

Jones and Brown were talking lately of a young clergyman whose preaching they had heard that day. The sermon was like a certain man mentioned in a certain biography, "very poor and very pious." "What do you think of him?" asked Brown. "I think," said Jones "he did much better two years ago." "Why, he didn't preach then," said Brown. "True," replied Jones; "that is what I mean."

An actor named Priest was playing at one of the principal theatres. Some one remarked at the Garrick Club that there were a great many men in the pit. "Probably clerics who have taken Priest's orders," said Mr. Poole, one of the best punsters, as well as one of the cleverest comic satirists of the day.

One of the Kembles made his first appearance on the stage as an opera-singer. His voice was, however, so bad, that at a rehearsal the conductor of the orchestra called out, "Mr. Kemble! Mr. Kemble! you are murdering the music!" "My dear Sir," was his quiet rejoinder; "it is far better to murder it outright at once than to keep on beating it like you do."

Au angry woman, in order to be revenged on her husband, ripped the tick off the bed, and sent all the feathers afloat in the air, and then rushing to the balusters of the stairs, and breaking her arm upon them, she exclaimed, with insane energy, "Now, you scoundrel, you must pay a surgeon."

"Well, Jane, this is a queer world," said Joe to his wife. "A sect of women philosophers has just sprung up." "Indeed," said Jane; "and what do they hold?" "The strongest thing in nature,' said he—"their tongues!"

That was a pretty conceit of a romantic husband and father whose name was Rose, who named his daughter "Wild," so that she grew up under the appellation of "Wild Rose." But the romance of the name was sadly spoiled in a few years, for she married a man by the name of "Bull."

DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE.

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC IN MOTION.

IT is announced that General Hooker commenced a movement on Monday morning, 27th ult., at daybreak, and that at sunrise heavy masses of artillery and other troops were crossing the river

GENERAL BANKS AT WORK.

A severe battle was fought on Friday, the 17th ult., at the Vermilion Bayou, Louisiana, in which, after a hard contest with the rebel batteries and a strong force of infantry, our troops gained a complete success, driving the enemy from his position, capturing his guns, and taking fifteen hundred prisoners. In addition to this the batteries at Bute la Rose were silenced by our fleet, the valuable salt-works of Petite Anse, which supplied the whole interior with this indispensable article, were captured, and a number of the rebel boats were destroyed, during the expedition of General Banks into the Bayou Teche region. Thus the finest portion of Louisiana is at the command of the Union forces, and the rebellion in that quarter is tottering.

MAP SHOWING THE THEATRE OF GENERAL BANKS'S
CAMPAIGN.

RUNNING THE VICKSBURG BLOCKADE.

The particulars of the passage of Admiral Porter's fleet under the batteries of Vicksburg show the fact that the transport Henry Clay was so severely damaged by shot that she sunk, and that all hands made for a flatboat as

the boat was going down. The pilot floated down the river nine miles on a plank, and was picked on opposite Warrenton. There are eleven gun-boats below Vicksburg now, including three under Farragut. The Navy Department has received an official account of this running of Admiral Farragut's fleet by the batteries at Warrenton, and his conflict with the batteries at Grand Gulf.

ANOTHER FLEET PASSED.

On 24th six more transports were successful in running the blockade—the Tigress, Empire City, Moderator, Anglo-Saxon, Cheesman, and Harrison. The Free Stone and A. D. Hine took two double-deck flatboats through the Duckport canal. These boats are capable of carrying one thousand men each. Transports now run by Warrenton without difficulty, the batteries being silenced.

CAPTURE OF TEXAN RANGERS.

The Texan Rangers of General Van Dorn's Legion were attacked on 27th at daybreak, eight miles out from Franklin, Tennessee, by General Gordon Granger's cavalry, 700 strong, under Colonel Watkins, of the Sixth Kentucky cavalry. The enemy were surrounded and defeated. Nearly two hundred prisoners were taken. Among them was Colonel Brooks, commandant of the rebel camp, and several officers. The camp and equipages of the enemy were destroyed, and about three hundred horses and mules were captured.

THE EXPEDITION TO CELINA.

A dispatch was received from General Wright, at Louisville, on the 22d, to the effect that the expedition Celina was entirely successful; that our troops destroyed the town, one hundred thousand pounds of bacon, ten thousand bushels of wheat, ten thousand bushels of corn, one hundred barrels of whisky, one hundred barrels of flour, a considerable quantity of sugar, coffee, tea, malt, and other stores, and forty boats, which had been used in transporting goods from Brentsville and other points on the Cumberland. The rebels report a loss of ninety killed; but Colonel Graham, commander of the expedition, is of the opinion that the number is greater. We had one wounded and one missing. General Wright claims it as a perfect success.

THE LAST OF THE "QUEEN OF THE WEST."

The Richmond papers of 22d, in their dispatches from Port Hudson, confirm the news of the attack upon the Queen of the West at Grand Lake by our gun-boats, and the capture of her officers and crew. The Queen, it appears, got aground and was blown up by a shell from the Calhoun. The Diana, which was assailed about the same time in the Atchafalaya River by the Union gun-boat Clifton, was burned by the rebels.

THE REBEL ATTACK ON CAPE GIRARDEAU.

The attack upon Cape Girardeau, Missouri, by the rebels, under Marmaduke, has not only proved a failure but a severe defeat for the enemy. After a fight of three hours uvith General McNeil they were gloriously repulsed. Reinforcements of men and gun-bolts reached McNeil during the fight. At last accounts the enemy were retreating, and McNeil was in pursuit.

MORE REBEL RAIDS.

Reports have been current that the rebels, in considerable force, have been committing depredations in Western Virginia, on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and even threatening again to invade Pennsylvania—either Wheeling or Pittsburg being the point aimed at. These reports seem to have for a basis the fact that considerable force of guerrillas, under Jenkins, appeared at Morgantown, Virginia, on the Monongahela River, and near the State line of Pennsylvania. It is not probable that they intend coming any further North. Other detachments of rebels appeared at the same time in other parts of Western Virginia, near the railroad line; but prompt measures, as we learn from the Wheeling Intelligencer, were taken to intercept them, and it is not believed that they have been able to effect much.

FOREIGN NEWS.
ENGLAND.

THE PIRATICAL BUSINESS.

AT latest dates the English Government was still engaged in efforts ostensibly directed against the fitting out of rebel war vessels in the ports of the kingdom. Although the Alexandra was seized by the officers of customs at Liverpool, a number of men still continued at work on her, making her ready for sea, until they were turned off the vessel by the Government officials.

THE NEW ANGLO-REBEL PIRATE.

The Japan, or Virginia, was built at Dumbarton—not at Greenock—Scotland, and ran out from the Clyde on the 3d of April. The order for her arrest arrived from London on the 4th—the day after her departure.

LOSS OF THE "ANGLO-SAXON."

The Montreal Steamship Company's steamer Anglo-Saxon, Captain Burgess, which left Liverpool on the 16th and Londonderry on 17th April, for Quebec and Montreal, was wrecked four miles east of Cape Race on Monday the 27th of April, during a dense fog. The Anglo-Saxon carried the Canadian and United States mails, and had on board three hundred and sixty passengers and eighty-four of a crew making a total of four hundred and forty-four persons. Three of her passengers reached St. Johns, Newfoundland, at four o'clock on Monday evening, and reported the disaster, adding that the vessel had broken up after striking, when they lost sight of her, and that a great number of her passengers had perished. The news yacht, stationed off Cape Race, set out for the wreck immediately after the receipt of this intelligence. The steamers Dauntless and Bloodhound also steered for Cape Race. Seventy-three persons escaped from the vessel by means of ropes and spars, twenty-four were taken off in life-boat No. 2 belonging to the ship, and the Dauntless succeeded in picking up at sea nintey others who had got off in two boats. Among these were the Hon. John Young, his wife and seven children; the first and fourth officers and fourth and fifth engineers of the Anglo-Saxon; the pursuer, first and second engineers, and surgeon of the ship were also saved, as was Lieutenant Sampson, of the Royal Artillery, a passenger. The commander of the Anglo-Saxon, Captain Burgess, was supposed to have been lost. Seven persons embarked on a raft from the wreck, and this raft, with the ship's boats Nos. 4 and 6, were missing when the dispatches left St. Johns. The deck of the Anglo-Saxon broke up in an hour after she struck, and nothing but her mizzen-mast was standing. Several persons clung to the fore-rigging until the main-mast fell, but no assistance could reach them. Guns were duly fired at Cape Race, in order to attract the attention of the missing boats. On the 28th the weather an the coast was fine and clear, but they had not been heard of.

POLAND.

THE INSURRECTION.

The Polish insurrection is still in great vigor and activity. The Czar of Russia has so far yielded as to offer a general amnesty to all the Poles who return to their allegiance by the 13th of May. England, France, and Austria have addressed separate notes to Russia, couveying a friendly "warning" to the Emperor on the subject of reforms for Poland. Cronstadt his been placed in a state of defense, and the Russian army is to be increased. It is said that Russia was to direct her attention toward Sweden for some offense taken respecting the Polish question. Serious eventualities were likely to ensue. Napoleon had, it was said, inquired if Italy could take a military part under certain circumstances, and had had an assurance to the effect that the could furnish sixty thousand men.

MEXICO.

NEWS FROM PUEBLA.

Our accounts from Mexico to the 31st March show that the Mexicans, so far from being defeated at Puebla, as reported through French sources, have frequently repulsed the enemy and are probably still in safe possession of that city.