of freight to the ports of
Virginia, and thence into the interior. Before these troubles, the trade
of Maryland was almost exclusively with the South; and, unless violently
diverted, it must always remain so. The South is now straining every
nerve to establish a formidable steam-navy. It is not too much to say
that the adhesion of Maryland is absolutely indispensable if this object
is to be attained. She can not only offer superb harbors, in which the
South is palpably deficient, but her natural productions--ship timber,
iron ore (the largest and toughest plates in the United States are
hammered here), and bituminous coal, the best for steam purposes south
of Nova Scotia--would be invaluable."

With this State the South would retain all the material advantages that
the restoration of the Union could offer; without her, neither would the
territorial line be complete, nor the internal resources adequate to the
requirements of a powerful nation. President Davis has repeatedly
promised that the free vote of Maryland as to her future shall be one of
the prime conditions of any treaty whatsoever, and the Southern Congress
have confirmed this by a nearly unanimous vote. On this point there
surely ought to be no doubt or wavering. A single concession to the
arbitrary tendencies of Lincoln's Cabinet, so as to allow interference
with the free expression of Maryland's will when the crisis shall
arrive, would not only, I believe, crush the hopes of the vast majority
of this State's inhabitants, but also betray the vital interest of the
Southern Confederacy in days to come.

If further proof were needed of the Southern sympathy prevalent in
Baltimore, such would be found in the measures of coercion and
prevention employed by General Schenck, when Lee's army was thought
dangerously near. A private letter dispatched to me in the height of the
panic, more than confirmed the accounts in public prints of the
stringency of the martial law. The Federal officers were, perhaps, not
sorry to have such a chance of repaying, with aggravated oppression, the
tacit contumely which must have galled them for a year and more. The
Maryland Club, whose members are Southerners to a man (for the Unionist
element was eliminated long ago), is now the headquarters of a New
England regiment, and even Colonel Fish may now wander at will through
the cool, pleasant chambers that, before comparative liberty was
stifled, he would have found not more accessible