Proposed Sale of the South, Slavery and All

Among the most interesting items of news from Europe by the Asia is the report of the Independance Belje “that the Southern Commissioners have informed tho English governmentthat, in return for the recognition of the Southern confederacy, they would establish most absolute free trade for fifty years, abolish the external slave traffic, and emancipate all the blacks born after the recognition.”

We are strongly inclined to believe that Mason and Slidell were charged with that extensive discretion which would cover these propositions, and that Jeff. Davis and his confederates have placed all their hopes upon British intervention. All their other calculations failing, the conspirators who contrived this rebellion believed that Southern cotton and free trade would infallibly bring England to their rescue. The influence of these temptations upon the British government—which had been presented in every shape and form by industrious Southern emissaries—was betrayed in the indecent haste with which Lords Palmerston and Russell seized upon the Trent affair as a cause for war. But that cloud having blown over, and King Cotton and free trade having failed to silence the abolition objections of the English people to a war with the United States in support of a pro-slavery confederacy, we can readily believe that Davis and Company, as a last resort to save themselves from the penalties of unsuccessful treason, are prepared to sell our revolted States, slavery and all, for English intervention.