re-establish and maintain the national authority is unchanged, and is, we believe, unchangeable. The manner of continuing the effort remains to be chosen. "On careful consideration of all the evidence accessible, it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept nothing short of the severance of the Union-precisely what we cannot and will not give. "His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily re-accept the Union; we cannot voluntarily yield it. "Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory. If we yield, we are beaten; if the Southern people fail him, he is beaten. "Either way it would be the victory and defeat following war. What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he cannot reaccept the Union, they can." "Some of them, we know, already desire peace and re-union. The number of such may increase. They can at any moment have peace, simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national authority under the Constitution. "After so much the Government cannot, if it would, maintain war against them. The loyal people would not sustain or allow it. If questions should remain, we would adjust them by the peaceful means of legislation, conference, courts, and votes, operating only in constitutional and lawful channels. Some certain and other possible questions are and would be beyond the Executive power to adjust; as, for instance, the admission of members into Congress, and whatever might require the appropriation of money. The Executive power itself would be greatly diminished by the cessation of actual war. Pardons and remissions of forfeiture, however, would still be within Executive control. In what spirit and temper this control would be exercised can be fairly judged of by the past. "A year ago a general pardon and amnesty, upon specified terms, were offered to all except certain designated classes, and it was, at the same time, made known that the excepted classes were still within the contemplation of special clemency. During the year many availed themselves of the general provision, and many more would, only that the signs of bad faith in some led to such precautionary measures as rendered the practical process less easy and certain. "During the same time, also, special pardons have been granted to individuals of the excepted class, and no voluntary application has been denied; thus practically the door has been, for a full year, open to all except such as were not in a condition to make a free choice-that is, such as were in custody or under constraint. "It is still open to all, but the time may come, probably will come, when public duty shall demand that it be closed, and that it be more rigorous than heretofore. "In presenting the abandonment of arms to the national authority, on the part of the insurgents, as the only indispensable condition to ending the war on the part of Government, I retract nothing heretofore said. As to slavery, I repeat the declaration made a year ago, and that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the Acts of Congress. "If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, not I, must be their instrument to propose it. "In stating a single condition of peace, I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the Government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report, estimated the receipts for the fiscal year at $396,000,000, of which $300,000,000 were from internal revenue, and the expenditures at $1,168,256,005, of which there was for the War Department, $531,753,191; for the Navy Department, $112,219,666; for interest on the public debt, $127,000,000; and the balance of former unexpended appropriations, $350,000,000. This latter amount was estimated as likely to remain unexpended at the close of the year, reducing the total to $818,256,005. Deducting therefrom the estimated receipts, $422,256,005 remained to be provided for by loans. The debt at the close of the fiscal year was estimated at $2,645,320,682. On changing dollars into pounds sterling the following is the result-On the 31st of July this year the public debt was 348,000,0007. The receipts from the customs amounted to 20,400,0007.; the internal revenue to 21,900,0007.; and the receipts from miscellaneous sources, including a small sum from land sales, and another from direct taxation, to 9,714,8007.; the proceeds from loans amounted to 124,000,000. The daily expenditure was going on at the rate of half-a-million; and the interest of the public debt, with the expenses to be provided for in the next twelve months ending in July, 1865, will amount to 233,600,0001. The Secretary of the Treasury estimated that the public debt at that period will be 529,000,0007. 1 1 RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE, IN 1864. Ir is not easy to ascertain the exact number of new works actually produced in publication included which we have before us, and which bears on its title-page the We now proceed to give a compendious summary of the principal works of the year, and in judging of their relative importance, we shall rely, as before, not so much on ourselves as on others. We shall endeavour to delineate the literary, artistic, and scientific features of the year, by the citation of contemporary authorities; and although we may occasionally summarize in our own words the opinions of the public or the critics, our main object will be to stereotype those opinions, and thus to record the production of the most interesting works, side by side with the verdict which has been passed upon them by the best judges. The most important historical work of the year, or perhaps we should rather say the work which has excited the most immediate interest, is Mr. Kaye's "History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857-8.” The time seems to have arrived when people can discuss the painful subject of the Indian Mutiny calmly, whereas for some years it seemed almost a forbidden topic. So many of our countrymen had suffered from the effects of the terrible outbreak, that it was held imprudent to mention it in ordinary conversation, for fear of rudely tearing open some illclosed wound. Mr. Kaye is understood to have been gathering his materials for a long time; and by waiting patiently till seven years after the termination of the struggle, he has at once shown respect for private feelings and given himself the best chance of securing complete and accurate information. Mr. Kaye was originally an officer in the Company's service; and a residence of many years in India, first in a military and afterwards in a civil capacity, has given him qualifications for the task which no man of merely European experience (at least, such is the universal opinion of Anglo-Indians) could possibly possess. At the same time his present position in England, in an important official post (of which the duties must nevertheless leave him a certain amount of learned ease), gives him an excellent vantage-ground, and recommends his labours to the public attention. Moreover, he has this advantage over many persons high in office, that he owes his advancement to his own personal exertion and vigour of mind, and not to adventitious circumstances of birth and fortune. It is not surprising, then, that his work on a subject so interesting to the English nation should have been anticipated with impatience and read with avidity. The feeling has been this, that other histories can be read at any time, but that the present is the time for a history of the Mutiny. The volume now published is only introductory, but it is important, as giving a full history of the Sepoy army, and a summary of the state and circumstances of our Indian Empire at the time of the outbreak. Mr. Kaye's own opinions as to the immediate cause of the Mutiny are well epitomized in the "Athenæum": 66 Unfortunately, in 1856, a long series of misgovernments, resulting in a state of anarchy, oppression, and misrule, rendered it, in the opinion of the British authorities, absolutely necessary to annex the kingdom of Oudh. To Sir James Outram, a man of similar ideas to Sleeman and Lawrence, was left the task of carrying it out. His ungrateful task was executed with mingled firmness and humanity, but the bad angel of our rule interposed. After a few months' tenure of office, Outram was compelled by sickness to follow Lord Dalhousie to England. His locum tenens, Mr. Coverley Jackson, was a man of a very different description. Clever and experienced, he did not bring to his work that chivalrous regard for vested interests and the native aristocracy which had distinguished his predecessor. He had, likewise, a contentious temper, and wasted, in quarrels with subordinates possessed of equal infirmities, the energies which should have been devoted to overcoming the difficulties of a transition state. The effect of the annexation, and the circumstances under which it was carried into operation, was most disastrous. The intention was good, but the manner bad, and the result worse. Among the natives it seemed as if no loyalty could protect them from what they regarded as unmitigated spoliation; and then, for the first time, did the princes of India listen to the overtures of the Nana. On our soldiery the effect was most mischievous. A large portion of our native army was recruited from Oudh, and the discontent of the inhabitants could not but be shared in by them. They had, also, a peculiar grievance of their own. Litigation is the favourite pursuit of the natives of India, and the Sepoys were interested in many of the lawsuits which were daily going on in Oudh. Under the old system, any Sepoy who had a cause pending, or could claim an interest in one through his relations, possessed the right of petitioning, through his commanding officer, the Resident of Lucknow. The weight of British influence always secured him justice, sometimes more than justice. His highly-prized privilege now disappeared. Moreover, the Sepoy formerly, on visiting his native village in Oudh, had been looked on as a great man, the representative of the paramount power. Annexation destroyed this social superiority. To these causes of danger may be added the swarms of disbanded soldiers from the army of the deposed King, who, unchecked by a powerful British force, inundated the province. But not to mere political measures must the rebellion be attributed. Our administration, not in Oudh only, but throughout India, had produced an amount of general discontent extending far beyond those immediately affected by annexation. The mistakes committed by us in this direction are ably treated by Mr. Kaye. The fundamental error seems to have been the systematic depression of the native aristocracy. By so doing we virtually separated ourselves from the mass of the people; we destroyed a class interested in the stability of the existing order of things, broke down a bulwark against popular movements, cut off all means of communication with a majority of our subjects, and precluded any thing approaching to sympathy between governors and governed. We levelled every breakwater, and then were surprised at the force of the revolutionary wave. In short, no republican could have been more democratic than conservative England. Mr. Kaye is of opinion that if our misdeeds caused us injury, our efforts to ameliorate the social and moral condition of our subjects were still more hurtful to us. The spread of education, the countenance given to it by Government, and the introduction of railways and electric telegraphs, undermined the influence of the Brahmins-that influence being entirely founded on ignorance and rendered the most powerful and energetic portion of the Hindoo population our irreconcilable enemies. Female education, the law which enabled converts to inherit, the permission to widows to re-marry, and the threatened assault on polygamy, likewise stirred up great hatred against the white reformers. The introduction of the system of messing in our jails gave the Brahmins a handle for asserting that our whole policy tended to the destruction of caste. It is true that the prisoners messed together by castes, but then if their cook was of an inferior caste (and what security was there against the misfortune?) the consequences would be dreadful,—at least so argued the natives.” The Reader" thus expresses itself as to the manner in which the work is executed : "The 'Chupattee' and 'Lotah' movement, the growing disaffection caused by the greased cartridges and the flour declared to be bone-dust, and the outbreaks at Berhampore, Barrackpore, and in Oude, are well described in the latter part of the volume, which brings us down to the eve of the terrible 10th of May, when the rising at Meerut set the north-west in a flame. We have already expressed our appreciation of the admirable arrangement of the material, which could not have been better treated up to this point. The next volume will record more exciting events, and will probably interest a wider circle of readers; but it can scarcely have the same value as the present one, and should not be read except by its light." It is, of course, impossible to pronounce any decided opinion of a work which has only just commenced; but the passage last quoted shows the high value that critics attach to the thoughtful essay which forms the first volume. That disputes and differences of opinion will arise as the work goes on is very |