The Federal Spy system in Europe.
The London Index, of the 5th inst, has an editorial on the boldness and persistence shown by the spies of the United States in England and France.
Among other things it says:
Some of the doings of these gentry would be amusing, if they were not so intolerably annoying to decent people.
A short time since, in Liverpool, the residence of a lady whose husband (then absent) is connected with Confederate affairs, was beset by spies, who watched it night and day, and sought ingress under various pretences, until the nuisance at last became so great that the police had to be applied to. In or near Glasgow, an outrage even more flagrant was perpetrated.
A Federal official, bearing a commission from the President of the United States, obtained, under pretext of seeking lodgings, access to the chambers of a gentleman supposed to be implicated in the building of some suspected vessel in the Clyde, and upon the date acquired in this ingenious recon
Facts worth being known.
--A correspondent of the London Index gets up the following historical memoranda for the special edification of Russell and Seward:
Fact No. 1. In all the wars which Spain engaged with her revolted colonies in America, nearly all the privateering that was done against the flag of Spain under the various "patriot flags," was done by Americans in American vessels, commanded by American officers, built, armed and equipped in American ports, openly and without even any attempt at disguise.
The present Admiral David Porter, who has burned so many towns and houses on the Mississippi, and who has written such very bombastic reports, served in one of these patriot cruisers, called the Guerrero, under command of his uncle, Capt. John Porter (his father, Commodore David-Porter), who was formerly, if not at the very time, an officer of the United States Navy, and this very Guerrero was the terror of the Spanish merchant ships, and fought most gallantly with a
The British Attempts to communicate with the Confederacy.
--The London Index, of 2d June, says:
"We have to chronicle a second abortive attempt on the part of the Foreign Office to communicate with the Confederate Government.
It will be remembered that the Petrel, having on board the dispatch with which Mr. Crawford, Her Majesty's Consul-General in Havana, was charged, was peremptorily refused admission into the port of Charleston by the commander of the Federal blockading squadron.
She thereupon returned to Bermuda, and reported her failure to the Admiral of the station, who immediately transmitted the dispatches to Lord Lyons.
The latter made a formal request for permission to forward them through the lines, which was refused; and Lord Lyons was moreover informed by Mr. Seward that "it would not be agreeable to the Government of the United States, for Her Majesty's Government to hold any intercourse whatever with the Confederates"--After this rebuff, which Lord Lyons
Another Newspaper correspondent banished.
A letter from New York contains the following:
"The banishment of Mr. Condon, the New Orleans correspondent of the London Index, I gave you about a week since.
It seems he was permitted to remain in the city, however, for several days after the time specified in the order, and even this has again been changed by allowing him to remove to any foreign country.
The original order, banished him to Pascagoula, along with Dr. Merritt and other cetters to the index, and Banks was determined to find out whether the charge was true or false.
Accordingly he set a watch upon the letters that came to him (Condon) through the post-office. One of these, as ill-luck would have it, came from the Index office, with a draft enclosed for correspondence.
The letter was resealed and allowed to be delivered to Condon.
He endorsed the draft and sold it; the proof was positive, and the order for his banishment at once followed.
Mr. Condon had charg
arrived in Paris, in company with Mr. Mason, the rebel commissioner in London.
They were received with great respect and attention by the Confederates resident in the French capital.
Dispatches relative to a joint protest in the case of the Florida had been exchanged between the Governments of England and France; but the New York Herald's correspondent in Paris thinks that official action will be suspended until reports of the affair reach the two Cabinets from Brazil.
The London Index says that the new Confederate war steamer Shenandoah--supposed to be the Sea King — had gone out on service, fully armed and manned, and in excellent trim, to replace the Florida.
The New York emigrant ship Great Western was detained at Liverpool by the local authorities on the charge that a large number of the passengers were recruits for the Union army, enlisted in Lancashire, England.
There was some contusion about the matter, and four or five young men had left the vessel and gone
Invasion of the North.
The London Index, a Confederate paper, published in London, predicts that "when peace at last shall come, it will be no longer a peace between equals, but a peace extorted at the point of the sword in smouldering Northern cities."
In the name of the Prophet,--figs!
If peace depends upon the successful invasion of either country by the other, it will never come in this day and generation.
If the war has proved anything, it has proved that a defensive policy is the true policy of the South.
We can stand on our own soil and preserve our independence a thousand years. The dominant party in the United States would like nothing better than an invasion of the North.
It would unite all parties in that nation and fill Lincoln's armies to repletion.
We prefer to act upon Bishop Doane's maxim in religious matters--"Stand like an anvil," and test the question of endurance with the Yankee hammers.
Radical changes in Fashions.
--A Paris correspondent of the Index gives notice of some curious, and, as she says' "radical" changes in ladies' dress, in the most fashionable circles of the centre of fashion.
Her descriptions will be sure to interest many of our lady readers.--She writes:
"In ladies' evening toilets it is impossible not to perceive a decided tendency toward a radical change.
This change, or reform, is as yet confined to the very elite of fashionable society, but by a well-known and invariable law will doubtless extend in another season or two to all classes that pretend to 'dress, ' and not merely to be clothed.
At Compiegne this winter one might have fancied one's self at the court of the Empress Josephine, so close was the imitation to the fashion of the first empire.
Crinolines were discarded, the skirts being narrow, almost tight; the waists very short, cut in the shape of a heart in front, and supported by broad waistbands with fancy clasps; the ma
appahannock case, has been acquitted on all the counts.
Cardinal Wiseman is reported to be rapidly sinking.
The Index, the rebel organ in London, ridicules Mr. Blair's alleged peace negotiations, but does not altogether discredit the peace practically make a new Union.
Under such circumstances, war with England or France, or both, would be a necessity.
The Index contends that the United States Government is paving the way for such a war. It says that the war is reaching such a cristh; and events are occurring which may precipitate that decision — at least in the case of France.
In the mean time, the Index bids the friends of the South to be of good cheer, and promises them shortly a series of agreeable surprises.
The InIndex also gives a rumor, which is alleged to be current in political circles, of the intention on the part of the British Government to sever its connection with Canada before the termination of the American war, so that the finest province of Great
The London Index, a Confederate journal published in England, says that the war is reaching such a crisis that England and France must decide to become the friends of one of the belligerents, or to fight them both, and that events are occurring which may precipitate that decision, especially with France.
In the meantime, the Indies bids the friends of the South to be of good cheer, and promises them shortly a series of agreeable surprises.
We trust the friends of the South in England need no such invocation.
If men cannot be of "good cheer" who have such a bill of fare as Confederates abroad sit down to, their spirits must be very low indeed.
What the "series of agreeable surprises" is, which the Index promises, we are unable to imagine.
We are not so demented as to expect English or French intervention after so many disappointments.
Perhaps the "series of agreeable surprises" may be the return to this bereaved country, one after another, of the Confederates abroad.
say that "public opinion" cannot fail to see in the false news, contradicted by the Moniteur, of a cession of the Sonora district to France, a manœucre of the English journals in order to excite sentiments of hostility in North, America against French policy and Maximilian's empire, and to avert the danger which threatens England in the direction of Canada by making diversion. This theme, with insignificant variations, is the subject of several paragraphs.
The Danish rams.
The London Index, the rebel organ, says:
We are credibly informed that secret negotiations are now progressing between the Government of the United States and that of Denmark for the acquisition by the former of the large Clyde- built iron-clad, of the Warrior model, which, it will be remembered.
was at one time supposed to be designed for the Confederates, and, under the threat of proceedings by the Crown, sold by her owners to Denmark, then a belligerent.
The vessel now lies in Copenhagen, and, if
