ct of the country, is concentrated in the hands of
McClellan, and he uses it to throw up entrenchments. The partisans of
McClellan point to his highly scientific preparations--his science. He
may have some little of it, but half-science is worse than thorough
ignorance. Oh! for one dare-devil in the Lyon, or in the old-fashioned
Yankee style. McClellan is neither a Napoleon, nor a Cabrera, nor a
Garibaldi.

Mason and Slidell escaped to Havana on their way to Europe, as
commissioners of the rebels. According to all international
definitions, we have the full right to seize them in any neutral
vessel, they being political contrabands of war going on a publicly
avowed errand hostile to their true government. Mason and Slidell are
not common passengers, nor are they political refugees invoking the
protection of any neutral flag. They are travelling commissioners of
war, of bloodshed and rebellion; and it is all the same in whatever
seaport they embark. And if the vessel conveying them goes from
America to Europe, or _vice versa_, Mr. Seward can let them be seized
when they have left Havana, provided he finds it expedient.

We lose time, and time is all in favor of the rebels. Every day
consolidates their existence--so to speak, crystallizes them.
Further--many so-called Union men in the South, who, at the start,
opposed secession, by and by will get accustomed to it. Secession
daily takes deeper root, and will so by degrees become _un fait
accompli_.

Mr. Adams, in his official relations with the English government,
speaks of the rebel pirates as of lawful privateers. Mr. Seward
admonished him for it. Bravo!

It is so difficult, not to say impossible, to meet an American who
concatenates a long series of effects and causes, or who understands
that to explain an isolated fact or phenomenon the chain must be
ascended and a general law invoked. Could they do it, various
bunglings would be avoided, and much of the people's sacrifices
husbanded, instead of being squandered, as it is done now.

Fremont going overboard! His fall will be the triumph of the
pro-slavery party, headed by the New York Herald, and supported by
military old fogies, by martinets, and by double and triple political
and intellectual know-nothings. Pity that Fremont had no brilliant
military capacity. Then his fall could not have taken place.

Mr. Seward is too much ruled by his imagination, and too hastily
discounts the future. But imagination ruins