Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

yield the claim which he confesses to be just, until hehimself was menaced with war? How long were theSouthern gentlemen kept in prison? What caused themto be set free? and did the Cabinet of Washington seeits error before or after the demand for redress?* Thecaptor was feasted at Boston, and the captives in prisonhard by. If the wrong-doer was to be punished, it wasCaptain Wilkes who ought to have gone into limbo. Atany rate, as “the Cabinet of Washington could not giveRoundabout Papersits approbation to the commander of the ‘San Jacinto,’”why were the men not sooner set free? To sit at theTremont House, and hear the captain after dinner givehis opinion on international law, would have been bettersport for the prisoners than the grim salle-a-mangerat Fort Warren.I read in the commercial news brought by the“Teutonia,” and published in London on the present13th January, that the pork market was generally quieton the 29th December last; that lard, though with more* “At the beginning of December the British fleet on the WestIndian station mounted 850 guns, and comprised five liners, activity, was heavy and decidedly lower; and at Philadelphia,ten first-class frigates, and seventeen powerful corvettes ….whiskey is steady and stocks firm. Stocks areIn little more than a month the fleet available for operations onthe American shore had been more than doubled. The reinforcementsfirm: that is a comfort for the English holders, and theprepared at the various dockyards included two line-confiscating process recommended by the Herald is atof-battle ships, twenty-nine magnificent frigates—such as the‘Shannon,’ the ‘Sutlej,’ the ‘Euryalus,’ the ‘Orlando,’ the ‘Galatea;’ least deferred. But presently comes an announcementeight corvettes armed like the frigates in part, with 100- and 40- which is not quite so cheering:—”The Saginaw Centralpounder Armstrong guns; and the two tremendous iron-casedships, the ‘Warrior’ and the ‘Black Prince;’ and their smaller Railway Company (let us call it) has postponed its Januarysisters the ‘Resistance’ and the ‘Defence.’ There was work todividend on account of the disturbed condition ofbe done which might have delayed the commission of a few ofthese ships for some weeks longer; but if the United States had public affairs.”chosen war instead of peace, the blockade of their coasts would A la bonne heure. The bond- and share-holders of thehave been supported by a steam fleet of more than sixty splendidships, armed with 1,800 guns, many of them of the heaviest Saginaw must look for loss and depression in times ofand most effective kind.”— Saturday Review: Jan. 11.208