and asserts the vitality of
self-government, continually jeopardized by the inexhaustible errors
of the policy followed by the master-spirits in the administration.
European doctors, prophets, vindictive enemies like the London Times,
the Saturday Review, etc., and the French journals of the police, all
of them are daily--nay, hourly--baffled in their expectations--paper
money and no bankruptcy, no inflation, bonds equal to gold, etc., etc.
And all this, not because there is any great or even small statesman
or financier at the head of the administration, but because the people
at large have confidence in themselves, in their own energies; because
they have the determination to succeed, and not to be bankrupt; not to
discredit their own decisions. All these phenomena, so new in the
history of nations, are incomprehensible to European wiseacres; they
are too much for the hatred and dulness of the Europeans in France,
England, and for that of the many Europeans here.

Yorktown evacuated!--under the nose of an army of 160,000 men, and
within the distance of a rifle shot!--evacuated quietly, of course,
during several days. One cannot abstain from saying Bravo! to the
rebel generals. Their high capacity forces the mind to an involuntary
applause. Traitors, intriguers, and imbeciles applaud, extol the
results of the bloodless strategy. McClellan is used by the rebels
only to be fooled by them. It must be so. It is one proof more of the
transcendent capacity of the strategian, and, above all, of the
capacity and efficiency of the chief of the staff of the great army.
Such an operation as that of Yorktown, anywhere else, would be
considered as the highest disgrace; here, glorifications of strategy.
McClellan's bulletins from Yorktown describe the rebel fortifications
as being almost impregnable. Of course impregnable! but only to him.

Battle at Williamsburg; and McClellan and his so perfect staff
altogether ignorant of the whole bloody but honorable affair as fought
against terrible odds by Heintzelman and Hooker; but the great
Napoleon's bulletin mentions a _real_--Oh hear! hear the great
Mars!--_charge with the bayonet_, made at the other extremity of
Williamsburg, and in which from twenty to forty men were killed!

Heintzelman's and Hooker's personal conduct, and that of their troops,
was heroic beyond name. McClellan ignored the battle; ignored what was
going on, and, as it is said, gave orders to Sumner not to support