* “At the beginning of December the British fleet on the
West Indian station mounted 850 guns, and comprised five
liners, ten first-class frigates, and seventeen powerful
corvettes. . . . In little more than a month the fleet
available for operations on the American shore had been more
than doubled. The reinforcements prepared at the various
dockyards included two line-of-battle ships, twenty-nine
magnificent frigates—such as the 'Shannon,' the 'Sutlej,'
the 'Euryalus,' the 'Orlando,' the 'Galatea;' eight
corvettes armed like the frigates in part, with 100- and 40-
pounder Armstrong guns; and the two tremendous iron-cased
ships, the 'Warrior' and the 'Black Prince;' and their
smaller sisters the 'Resistance' and the 'Defence.' There
was work to be done which might have delayed the commission
of a few of these ships for some weeks longer; but if the
United States had chosen war instead of peace, the blockade
of their coasts would have been supported by a steam fleet
of more than sixty splendid ships, armed with 1,800 guns,
many of them of the heaviest and most effective kind.”—
Saturday Review: Jan. 11.
I read in the commercial news brought by the “Teutonia,” and published in London on the present 13th January, that the pork market was generally quiet on the 29th December last; that lard, though with more activity, was heavy and decidedly lower; and at Philadelphia, whiskey is steady and stocks firm. Stocks are firm: that is a comfort for the English holders, and the confiscating process recommended by the Herald is at least deferred. But presently comes an announcement which is not quite so cheering:—“The Saginaw Central Railway Company (let us call it) has postponed its January dividend on account of the disturbed condition of public affairs.”
A la bonne heure. The bond- and share-holders of the Saginaw must look for loss and depression in times of war. This is one of war's dreadful taxes and necessities; and all sorts of innocent people must suffer by the misfortune. The corn was high at Waterloo when a hundred and fifty thousand men came and trampled it down on a Sabbath morning. There was no help for that calamity, and the Belgian farmers lost their crops for the year. Perhaps I am a farmer myself—an innocent colonus; and instead of being able to get to church with my family, have to see squadrons of French dragoons thundering upon my barley, and squares of English infantry forming and trampling all over my oats. (By the way, in writing of “Panics,” an ingenious writer in the Atlantic Magazine says that the British panics at Waterloo were frequent and notorious.) Well, I am a Belgian peasant, and I see the British running away and the French cutting the fugitives down. What have I done that these men should be kicking down my peaceful harvest for me, on which I counted to pay my rent, to feed my horses, my household, my children? It is hard. But it is the fortune of war. But suppose the battle over; the Frenchman says, “You scoundrel! why did you not take a part with me? and why did you stand like a double-faced traitor looking on? I should have won the battle but for you. And I hereby confiscate the farm you stand on, and you and your family may go to the workhouse.”
The New York press holds this argument over English people in terrorem. “We Americans may be ever so wrong in the matter in dispute, but if you push us to a war, we will confiscate your English property.” Very good. It is peace now. Confidence of course is restored between us. Our eighteen hundred peace commissioners have no occasion to open their mouths; and the little question of confiscation is postponed. Messrs. Battery, Broadway and Co., of New York, have the kindness to sell my Saginaws for what they will fetch. I shall lose half my loaf very likely; but for the sake of a quiet life, let us give up a certain quantity of farinaceous food; and half a loaf, you know, is better than no bread at all.
THE NOTCH ON THE AXE.—A STORY A LA MODE.
PART I.
“Every one remembers in the Fourth Book of the immortal poem of your Blind Bard, (to whose sightless orbs no doubt Glorious Shapes were apparent, and Visions Celestial,) how Adam discourses to Eve of the Bright Visitors who hovered round their Eden—
'Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.'
“'How often,' says Father Adam, 'from the steep of echoing hill or thicket, have we heard celestial voices to the midnight air, sole, or responsive to each other's notes, singing!' After the Act of Disobedience, when the erring pair from Eden took their solitary way, and went forth to toil and trouble on common earth—though the Glorious Ones no longer were visible, you cannot say they were gone. It was not that the Bright Ones were absent, but that the dim eyes of rebel man no longer could see them. In your chamber hangs a picture of one whom you never knew, but whom you have long held in tenderest regard, and who was painted for you by a friend of mine, the Knight of Plympton. She communes with you. She smiles on you. When your spirits are low, her bright eyes shine on you and cheer you. Her innocent sweet smile is a caress to you. She never fails to soothe you with her speechless prattle. You love her. She is alive with you. As you extinguish your candle and turn to sleep, though your eyes see her not, is she not there still smiling? As you lie in the night awake, and thinking of your duties, and the morrow's inevitable toil oppressing the busy, weary, wakeful brain as with a remorse, the crackling fire flashes up for a moment in the grate, and she is there, your little Beauteous Maiden, smiling with her sweet eyes! When moon is down, when fire is out, when curtains are drawn, when lids are closed, is she not there, the little Beautiful One, though invisible, present and smiling still? Friend, the Unseen Ones are round about us. Does it not seem as if the time were drawing near when it shall be given to men to behold them?”