The Foreign "Cotton

Loan."

whose coupons were to be made payable in London —on the ground that such subscription "would be scarcely consistent with the encouragement of a neutral feeling" —found it in its philosophy to encourage the Cotton Loan.* The London News, in its city article of March 20th, thus remarked upon the extraordinary success of the subscription: "It is a peculiarity of this loan that, though of limited amount, it is to be distributed over so many markets. In the Stock Exchange to-day the price (which closed yesterday at 22 a 3 premium,) touched 5 a 5 premium; and after relapsing to 4 a 44, left off at 41 a 4 premium. By a general understanding among the dealers, all the transactions are to be settled on Friday, the 24th of April, before which date the scrip will be ready for issue.”

The bonds were duly issued and became a

The Critical Hour.

hope which long had been
wanting among the people;
but the overwhelming reverses on the Missis-
sippi, and Lee's discomfiture at Gettysburg,
sent terror and despair into all Southern cir-
cles. The end seemed near. If Gilmore
should succeed in operations against Charles-
ton, and Rosecrans should follow up his suc-
cesses by a blow which should defeat, and
perhaps destroy, Bragg's army, the Confed-
erate cause must become too utterly hopeless
to warrant further resistance-subjugation
would be the work of but a few months. But,
the failure to follow up the vast advantages
won-the repose after victory-gave the
somewhat recruit their armies by a searching
enemy both time to recover spirits and to
and merciless conscription; while the grow-
ing turbulence, in the North, of the disloyal

the general spirit of resistance to the National
draft, shown by the foreign and “copper-
head" element, both in the East and West-
the organization of numerous secret societies,
dangerous to the cause of the Administration,
all conspired to give the rebellion a new lease
of life, to a greater degree than even the
Federal authorities were aware, Said Pol-
lard:

feature "on change; " and, only when the highly expectant investors began to investi-elements-the Irish riots in New York and gate as to the nature of their securities, did the holders see how purely problematical was pay day. In a few months' time the bonds were rated at five shillings to the pound. So efficient proved the Federal blockade that no considerable quantity of cotton escaped the sealed ports, while the constant destruction of the staple, through the fortunes of war, almost daily reduced the accumulated stock upon which the Confederate Government had based its credit.

The success of this loan, the failure of the Federal operations against Charleston, Hooker's repulse at Chancellorsville, and Lee's confident attitude, conspired to produce, for a brief period, during May and June, a spirit of

*Said the Times:

"If the Northern Government had held large stores of wheat, and had offered them upon certain terms, either for present or future delivery, according to circumstances, we should readily have entered into negotiations; but we should have done so not because we wished to aid the North, but because we wanted the wheat. In like manner it is perfectly legitimate to take the Confederate cotton, and there is nothing that should prevent any of our merchants or capitalists from subscribing for it, provided that they are satisfied with the price."

Nothing to prevent providing the purchasers were satisfied with the price! an expression illustrative of the leading journal's willingness to make a breach of its professed neutrality if a "good thing" could be made out of it. Many hundreds of pounds were subscribed upon the Times' endorsement of the legitimate nature of the loan.

66 The most remarkable quality displayed by the Southern mind in this war has been its elasticity under reverse, its quick recovery from every impression of misfortune. This, more than anything else, has attested the strength of our resolution to he free, and shown the utter insignificance of any 'peace party,' or element of submission or compromise in the Confederacy. Great as were the disasters of Vicksburg and Gettysburg, they were the occasions of no permanent depression of the public mind; and as the force of misfortune could scarcely, at any one time, be expected to exceed these events, it may be said they taught the lesson that the spirit of the Confederacy could not be conquered unless by some extremity close to annihilation. A few days after the events referred to, President Davis took occasion, in a proclamation of pardon to deserters, to declare that a victorious peace, with proper exertions, was yet immediately within our grasp. Nor was he extravagant in this. The loss of territory which we had sustained, unaccompanied as it was by any considerable adhesion of its population to the enemy, though deplorable indeed, was not a vital incident of the war: it had reduced the resources of subsistence, but it had multiplied the