New York, August 22, 1863. CHARLESTON is not yet quite

taken, but New York is ; and, as I said in my last letter, that is the more important victory. The quiet which has prevailed here during the draft, there not having been the first symptom even of a row, and the changed tone of the pro-slavery Democratic press, are due less to the thorough prepara- tion of the Police Department and the presence of national troops in considerable force, than to the discovery first, that by no possible contrivance or quibble can the decision of that same Supreme Court which remanded Dred Scott to slavery—that the jurisdiction and authority of the National Government are supreme and absolute against a writ of habeas corpus issuing from a State Court, be circumvented or set aside, and thus that a man drafted into the service of that Government cannot be taken from it by State authority, except by armed and successful revolution ; next, and not least important to the other discovery, which for obvious reasons has not been made the subject of public comment here, that the militia regiments, although they are ready to obey Governor Seymour's order at a day's warning, to march southward against the rebels, or to march northward against the rioters, cannot be depended upon by him if he sets himself up against the national authority. They would, in such a case, refuse, and, in fact, most of them have already in advance refused to obey any such orders. They laugh at the Governor's airs as " Commander-in-Chief "—a phrase he has been very fond of using lately ; they say that until the rebellion is put down they regard themselves as actually, though not formally, in the national service as a reserve corps for emergencies, and that the President is their Commander-in-Chief, with the Governor as his intermediary, and they scoff at the talk about going to the rescue of "a sister State," another phrase much upon the Governor's lips, saying that they went to light for their Government, their country, and their countrymen. Under these circumstances, Governor Seymour's ability to lay siege to Forts Lafayette and Hamilton is discovered to be somewhat inadequate. You will probably, therefore, wait a long while before I shall write you a letter, which at one time I had some fears would be my duty, upon the nullification of rebellion in New York.

Meantime, and before this subject of the draft and the riots fades from our memories, let me give you a few facts and figures which have a bearing upon our Governor's recent ungraceful and undignified position. There are in the city of New York, as in older capitals, certain quarters which are almost entirely given up to the lowest and vilest classes of society ; these being composed here, with exceptions so rare as to be unnoticeable, of persons of foreign birth. Names have been given to these quarters, as Mackerelville, Five Points, Cow Bay, Orleans Hook, &c., &c. Well, of the many election districts into which this city and county are divided (for the city and county are identical), thirty-three are comprised within the borders of the quarters aforesaid. In these thirty-three elec- tion districts, according to the records of the Police Depart- ment, are two thousand seven hundred and forty-three grog- geries, two hundred and seventy-nine notorious and disorderly brothels, one hundred and seventy known and habitual resorts of thieves and ruffians, one hundred and five policy shops (places in which a vile kind of lottery business is done), gambling and dance houses unnumbered, and also the head-quarters of the mob during the late riots. Now, in these districts, at the last State election, Governor Seymour received 12,664 votes, Mr. Wadsworth receiving but 1,686 ; making Seymour's majority in these districts 10,978. But his majority is the whole State was only 10,752; so that you will see that from these dens of thieves, ruffians, and drunkards came not only the full majority by which he was elected, but 226 votes to spare. Remember that he is at present the pro- slavery Democratic candidate for the next Presidency, and that these quarters can always be relied upon to "go it blind" for the nominee of that party, unless he has given them personal offence, and you will see why it was that Governor Seymour, though not at heart a traitor, but only a narrow-minded partizan politician, temporized with the rioters, and called them openly his friends. It was by taking up their residence for a sufficient time in these election districts, that Fernando Wood and his brother Benjamin Wood, who made a fortune by dealing in " policies," were able to secure their return as members of Congress. Corrupt as the politics of New York are, they could have succeeded in no other way.

You, or some of you, have another Canada scare, or excitement, or whatever I may good-naturedly and respectfully call it, implying that you are more or less apprehensive of a trouble of which you are not afraid. Such construction we are obliged to put on the London Morning Post's article on Canada defences, on the announcement that more troops are to be sent into the provinces, and on Mr. D'Arcy IrGee's outpourings of defiance on this side. This is a good opportunity for me to do my part in attempting to disencumber you of a notion which seems to be a cardinal point of British belief with regard to this country, and which is about as well founded as the doctrine of transubstantiation or that of Papal infallibility-. When Punch caricatured the panic of Bull Run (or, rather Manassas Plains—the previous affair was the battle of Bull Run) he represented John Bull asking our flying volunteers whither they went so fast. The reply was, " Jest gwine to take Canada." (And, by the way, in this brief sentence was a radical and charac- teristic blunder. No Yankee, no man born and bred in the Free States, ever says gwine for' going." It is a negro word, caught from the slaves by their masters, and, like much of the so-called

Yankee talk which is heard upon your stage and read in your light literature, is one of the distinctive phrases which are the shibboleths of the slaveholding chivalry.) The hit

was, doubtless, a good one in London ; but it was a miss here, because we don't want Canada ; we have no thought of taking it, we would rather not have it. Only the other day I was talking with a generally well-informed and well-disposed country- man of yours, now travelling through the North, and 'an equally well informed, and, toward you, well-disposed countryman of mine, upon our international affairs. We spoke freely, without the least

reserve. This subject came up, and I was surprised to find that even this Englishman was possessed with the notion, took it as a matter of

course, a point agreed upon, that at the first opportunity we should move upon Canada. He listened with mild amazement as both of us assured him that we—not we individually, but the people of this country—did not want Canada ; and he saw that we spoke with knowledge and were sincere. We had neither of us been able to find a man who had heard such a wish expressed by any other of our countrymen. The truth is that, with all due respect for Canada and the Canadians, neither the people nor the country are at all to our taste. Neither the French habitans nor the bulk of the people there of English blood are the sort of men that we care about incorporating with our people ; and, as to the territory,

we of the Free States think that we have more than enough, and would net fire a single shot to get a million acres. For our right to a single acre of barren rocks we are ready enough to fight any- body ; but if you were to offer to give us Canada out and out, we, of course, should be as polite as barbarians like us can be, and say, " Thank you ;" but I think that we should add, "If it's all the same to you, we would rather not." The only reason that I have ever heard given for this belief among you is the " bluster " of our

press upon the subject ; and the only press which is guilty of such bluster is the New York Herald. I speak with knowledge ; for I have carefully watched the press upon this as upon other sub- jects, and I have never found these threats in any other columns. Now, upon this matter, or upon any other of equal moment, what appears in the Herald is of about as much importance as if it were written with chalk upon a dead wall. Why it is that a paper that is so much talked about, and so much read in its news columns, is so utterly insignificant as an exponent of the feelings and purposes of the public which buys and reads it, or rather of the country in which it is bought and read, I propose to tell the readers of the Spectator, but. not now. That will require one whole letter, and perhaps two.

The same steamer which brought us news of this little flutter about Canada brought also a copy of the London limes, in the City Article of which is a plea for the " sagacity" of those who have been so severely bitten by the Rebel loan. Their foresight and judgment are vindicated on the ground that, in case of a victory won by Lee at Gettysburg, " there was every symptom that the result would have led to the establishment of the Confederate power at Washington, and a prompt adhesion from New York and Pennsylvania." Now see how the same matter was looked upon here by the shrewd fellows of the Stock Exchange, who leave what patriotism they have outside the board—not, however, because the excess of it would cumber them. Remember, too, that wo believed here that Meade would probably be defeated ; and yet the price of gold during the invasion only advanced from 143 to 147k.

If Lee had won the battle of Gettysburg, as he was sure he would, and as we thought it probable he might, there would have been no collapse of the Government, no prompt adhesion of New York and Pennsylvania to the Confederacy. There would have been trouble and sorrow, and mayhap some confusion ; but a quick rally, and the war would have gone straight on.

The tone and temper of the country can, I think, be estimated from two songs which are now high in popular favour here. The air of one of them, with words which I could only half make out, has haunted me for the past month. I heard everybody singing, humming, whistling it, in the streets, even in the public offices.

The very children began to sing, and are now singing it. I found it to be a ballad, hawked about by the ballad-sellers for one cent.

It is rude, but full of feeling and of patriotism ; and the burden, often repeated in the singing, is, " When this cruel war is over," by which name it is known. These lines close every stanza :—

" Weeping sad and lonely, Hopes and fears, how vain! Yet praying, when this cruel war is over, Praying, that we meet again."

The song, however, is as full of patriotic devotion (the supposed singer is a woman) as it is of tenderness and grief. Yet while the air is filled with these plaintive tones—for the song does not cease through the day, and is heard through the watches of the night— there breaks in another in a ranting strain, of which this is the last stanza. It will at least give you the true pronunciation of the name of the distinguished Copperhead exile, who divides with Mr. Fernando Wood the honour of producing the feeling which led to the late riot :—

" 0, we're not tired of fighting yet, Nor ripe for disuniting yet !

Before they do it, or got through it, There'll be some savage biting yet. Then hip hurrah for Uncle Sam, And down with all secesh and sham! From Davis to Vailandigham, They all shall rue their treason yet !"

The meaning of all of which is that we are not the flighty, thought- less, insensible, fickle folk that our British cousins have been so ready to believe us in this matter, but that we are, and have been, sadly, though inflexibly in earnest—that we appreciate to the full, and feel in our inmost hearts, all the woes and sorrows of this war, but that we mean to push it straight through to the entire resto- ration of the authority of our Government and the integrity of our Republic, crippling, meanwhile, the monster slavery, so that soon we shall be able to destroy and cast him out for ever.

I have not said anything about the manifesto upon the war, written by Mr. Donnell, Speaker of the North Carolina House of Commons, and published in the Raleigh North Carolina Standard, because I have deemed it a matter proper to be left to your own examination and comment. I will only say to you that its import- ance and significance cannot be overrated. A YANKEE.