rates, was not to be considered as a revolution, in the ordinary acceptation of that term; far less, was it to be considered as an act of insurrection or rebellion; that it was, both in form and in fact, but the termination of a Confederacy which, during a long course of years, had violated the terms of the federal compact by the exercise of unwarranted powers, oppressive and degrading to the minority section. That the seceding parties had so withdrawn as organized political communities, and had formed a new Confederacy, comprising then, as now, 13 separate and sovereign States, embracing an area of 870,610 square miles, and with a population of 12,000,000. This new Confederacy has now been in complete and successful operation, as a Government, for a period of nearly 18 months; has proved itself capable of successful defence against every attempt to subdue or destroy it; and in a war conducted by its late confederates on a scale to tax their utmost power, has presented everywhere a united people, determined at every cost to maintain the independence they had affirmed.

Since that interview more than five months have elapsed, and during that period, events have but the more fully confirmed the views I then had the honour to present to your Lordship. The resources, strength, and power in the Confederate States developed by those events, I think, authorize me to assume, as the judgment of the intelligence of all Europe, that the separation of the States of North America is final; that under no possible circumstances can the late federal Union be restored; that the new confede

racy has evinced both the capacity and the determination to maintain its independence, and, therefore, with other Powers, the question of recognizing that indepenence is simply a question of time.

The Confederate States ask no aid from, nor intervention by, foreign Powers. They are entirely content that the strict neutrality which has been proclaimed between the belligerents shall be adhered to, however unequally it may operate, because of fortuitous circumstances, upon them.

But if the principles and the morals of the public law be, when a nation has established before the world, both its capacity and its ability to maintain the Government it has ordained, that a duty devolves on other nations to recognize such fact, then I submit that the Government of the Confederate States of America, having sustained itself, unimpaired, through trials greater than most nations have been called to endure, and far greater than any it has yet to meet, has furnished to the world sufficient proof of stability, strength, and resources, to entitle it to a place amongst the independent nations of the earth.

I have, &c.,
(Signed) J. M. MASON.

No. 10.-Mr. Mason to Earl Russell.-(Received August 1.)

54, Devonshire Street, Portland Place, August 1, 1862.

My Lord,-In the interview I had the honour to propose in my late note, I had intended briefly to submit the following views, which I thought might not be

If it be true, as there assumed, that in the settled judgment of England the separation of the States is final, then the failure of so great a Power to recognize the fact in a formal manner, imparts an opposite belief, and must operate as an incentive to the United States to protract the contest.

In a war such as that pending in America, where a party in possession of the Government is striving to subdue those, who for reasons sufficient to themselves, have withdrawn from it, the contest will be carried on in the heat of blood and of popular excitement, long after its object has become hopeless in the eyes of disinterested parties.

The Government itself may feel that its power is inadequate to bring back the recusant States, and yet be unable at once to control the fierce elements which surround it whilst the war rages. Such it is confidently believed is the actual condition of affairs in America.

It is impossible in the experience of eighteen months of no ordinary trial-in the small results attained -and in the manifest exhaustion of its resources, that any hope remains with the Government of the United States either of bringing about a restoration of the dissevered Union, or of subjugating those who have renounced it. And yet the failure of foreign Powers formally to recognize this actual condition of things, disables those

Again, it is known that there is a large and increasing sentiment in the United States in accordance with these views, a sentiment which has its origin in the hard teachings of the war as it has progressed.

It was believed (or so confidently affirmed) that there was a large party in the Southern States devoted to the Union, whose presence and power would be manifested there as soon as the public force of the United States was present to sustain it. I need not say how fully the experience of the war has dispelled this delusion.

Again it was believed, and confidently relied on, that in the social structure of the Southern States there was a large population of the dominant race indifferent, if not hostile, to the basis on which that social structure rests, in which they were not interested, and who would be found the allies of those whose mission was supposed to be in some way to break it up; but the same experience has shown that the whole population of the South is united, as one people, in arms to resist the invader.

Nothing remains then on which to rest any hope of conquest but a reliance on the superior numbers and the supposed greater resources of the Northern States. I think the results of the last (or pending) campaign has proved how idle such expectations were, against the advantages of a people fighting at home, and bringing into a common stock of resistance, as a free-will offering, all that they possessed whether of blood or treasure-a spectacle now historically before the world.

It is in human experience that there must be those in the United

States who cannot shut their eyes to such facts, and yet, in the despotic power now assumed there by the Government, to give expression to any doubt would be to court the hospitalities of the dungeon. One word from the Government of Her Majesty would encourage those people to speak, and the civilized world would respond to the truths they would utter, "that for whatever purpose the war was begun, it was continued now only in a vindictive and unreasoning spirit, shocking alike to humanity and civilization." That potent word would simply be to announce a fact, which a phrenzied mind could only dispute, that the Southern States, now in a separate Confederacy, had established before the world its competency to maintain the Government of its adoption, and in its determination to abide by it.

To withhold it would not only seem in derogation of truth, but would be to encourage the continuance of a war, hopeless in its object, ruinous alike to the parties engaged in it, and to the prosperity and welfare of Europe. (Signed)

J. M. MASON.

No. 11.-Earl Russell to Mr.

Mason.

Foreign Office, August 2, 1862. Sir, I have had the honour to receive your letters of the 24th of July and 1st instant, in which you repeat the considerations which, in the opinion of the Government of the so-called Confederate States, entitle that Government to be recognized of right as a separate and independent Power, and to be received as an equal in the great family of nations.

VOL. CIV.

In again urging these views you represent, as before, that the withdrawal of certain of the confederates from the Union of the States of North America is not to be considered as a revolution, in the ordinary acceptation of that term, far less an act of insurrection or rebellion, but as the termination of a Confederacy which had, during a long course of years, violated the terms of the federal compact.

I beg leave to say in the outset that upon this question of a right of withdrawal, as upon that of the previous conduct of the United States, Her Majesty's Government have never presumed to form a judgment. The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and the character of the proceedings of the President and Congress of the United States under that Constitution, mu t be determined, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, by the States and people in North America who inherited, and have till recently upheld, that Constitution. Her Majesty's Government decline altogether the responsibility of assuming to be judges in such a controversy.

You state that the Confederacy has a population of 12,000,000; that it has proved itself for eighteen months capable o successful defence against every attempt to subdue or destroy it; that in the judgment of the intelligence of all Europe the separation is final; and that under no possible circumstances can the late federal Union be restored.

On the other hand, the Secretary of State of the United States has affirmed, in an official despatch, that a large portion of the once disaffected population has been restored to the Union, and now

R

evinces its loyalty and firm adherence to the Government, that the white population now in insurrection is under 5,000,000, and that the Southern Confederacy owes its main strength to hope of assistance from Europe.

In the face of the fluctuating events of the war; the alternations of victory and defeat; the capture of New Orleans; the advance of the Federals to Corinth, to Memphis, and the banks of the Mississippi as far as Vicksburg, contrasted, on the other hand, with the failure of the attack on Charleston, and the retreat from before Richmond; placed, too, between allegations so contradictory on the part of the contending Powers;Her Majesty's Government are still determined to wait.

In order to be entitled to a place

among the independent nations of the earth, a State ought to have not only strength and resources for a time, but afford promise of stability and permanence. Should the Confederate States of America win that place among nations, it might be right for other nations justly to acknowledge an independence achieved by victory, and maintained by a successful resist ance to all attempts to overthrow it. That time, however, has not, in the judgment of Her Majesty's Government, yet arrived. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, can only hope that a peaceful termination of the present bloody and destructive contest may not be dis

tant.

I am, &c., (Signed) RUSSELL

PUBLIC GENERAL ACTS.

with Bleaching by the Open-air Pro

cess.

hundred and seventy-three thousand seven hundred and forty-seven Pounds out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the Year ending the Thirty-first day of March, One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two. II. An Act to supply the Sum of Eighteen Millions out of the Consolidated Fund to the Service of the Year One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two. III. An Act to amend an Act intituled An Act to amend the Law relating to Supply Exchequer Bills, and to charge the same on the Consolidated Fund; and to repeal all Provisions by which Authority is given to the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to fund Exchequer Bills.

IV. An Act to enable Her Majesty to issue Commissions to the Officers of Her Majesty's Land Forces and Royal Marines, and to Adjutants and Quartermasters of Her Militia and Volunteer Forces, without affixing Her Royal Sign Manual thereto.

V. An Act for punishing Mutiny and Desertion, and for the better Payment of the Army and their Quarters. VI. An Act for the Regulation of Her Majesty's Royal Marine Forces while on

shore.

VII. An Act to provide for the Registration and Transfer of India Stocks at the Bank of Ireland, and for the mutual Transfer of such Stocks from and to the Banks of England and Ireland resp ectively. VIII. An Act to prevent the Employment of Women and Children during the Night in certain Operations connected

John Soane's Museum to send Works of Art to the International Exhibition, 1862.

X. An Act for continuing for a further limited Time, and for extending the Operation of Orders made under "The Industrial Schools Act, 1861," and "The Industrial Schools (Scotland) Act, 1861."

XI. An Act to explain an Act, intituled

An Act for the better Government of Her Majesty's Australian Colonies. XII. An Act for the Protection of Inventions and Designs exhibited at the International Exhibition of Industry and Art for the Year One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two.

XIII. An Act for raising the Sum of One million Pounds by Exchequer Bonds for the Service of the Year One thousand eight hundred and sixty-two. XIV. An Act to extend to the Isle of Man the Provisions of the Act Eighteenth and Nineteenth Victoria, Chapter Ninety, as to the Payment of Costs to and by the Crown.

XV. An Act to define the Powers of the President and Fellows of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland with respect to the Election of its Fellows.

XVI. An Act for extinguishing certain Rights of Way through the Netley Hospital Estate in the Parish of Hound in the County of Southampton. XVII. An Act to extend the Time for making Enrolments under the Act passed in the last Session of Parliament, intituled An Act to amend the Law relating to the Conveyance of