WASHINGTON, Jan. 31
Jesse D. Bright will be expelled from the Senate, but
probably not till Tuesday, as there will be a long executive session on Monday.
The postal receipts for letters carried during the last
quarter of 1861 are but little less than during the same period last year, when
the mails went all over the Union. The
cost of transportation is three millions less.
A new development in reference to the Morgan purchase of
vessels for the government has just been made.
It appears that before the Savannah steamers were sold, the owners
agreed to give a certain broker two per cent if he would sell the property to
the government. He sold to Morgan, to
whom he paid two and a half per cent.
The broker now sues the owners for his two per cent. The owners contest the claim, insist that
they are not bound to pay, and declare that they can prove that a plan was
formed by some parties to fleece the government in the purchase of these ships,
by making five per cent on exorbitant prices.
The matter will be exposed in Court.
Times’ Dispatch.
Private letters received in Washington from persons abroad,
confirm the impression that the governments of England, France and Spain
meditate an early recognition of the Confederate States. This recognition, it will be pretended, is
made in the cause of humanity.
It is now confidently asserted that there are not 10
Republican members of the House who are prepared to advocate the immediate and
unconditional emancipation of salves.
All hope of legislation favorable to this class of politicians is
abandoned, and the administration programme of preserving the Union and
constitution and enforcing the laws is said to be omnipotent [sic] in the
House.
Herald’s Dispatch.
The President has submitted to Congress the correspondence
in reference to the Spanish bark seized by our cruiser, and brought in as a
prize. Lewis Taylor, who was approved by
the government and accepted by the Spanish Minister as reference, has awarded
$2,791,91 [sic] damages to be paid by the government to the master of the bark.
A deserter from the 1st N. C. Cavalry who gives
his name as N. T. Emmett, confirms the statements of previous deserters as to
the condition of the rebel troops an entrenchments about Manassas. The term of enlistment of over 80,000 men, he
alleges, expires at the end of this month.
Of this number not one-tenth will reenlist, and if an attempt at
coercion is made, he prophesies desperate and bloody resistance.
The President, Secretary of War and Q. M. General have been
in consultation with parties from the West to-day, in regard to the frauds in
the Q. M. Department at Cairo. Frauds in
the way of contracts are said to exist, which will be investigated to the
fullest extend
The investigating committee find that parties in
Philadelphia claim from government, for army supplies of different kinds, over
$16,000,000. Specimens of some of the
goods, for the payment of which a portion of this enormous sum is demanded,
were brought here by the committee, and are positive evidence that government
has been defrauded.
Messrs. Covode and Odell reported the result of their
investigation to the Secretary of War to-day.
The Richmond Dispatch
admits that the aggregate force of the rebels now in the field is but 250,000.
Special to the Commercial.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1.
It is reported that the transports of the Burnside
expedition are nearly all of heavier draft than was represented by their
owners. This was the cause of all this
difficulty at Hatteras bar.
The House committee of way and means are more confident
to-day of their ability to pass the legal tender clause of the hundred million
note bill.
Tribune’s Special.
Secretary Chase’s answer to the committee of ways and means
was received this morning. Their
resolution required him to express his opinion as to their propriety and
necessity of the immediate passage by Congress of Mr. Spaulding’s legal tender
bill.
The Secretary begins by saying that the condition of the
treasury is such that the committee’s bill should be passed at the earliest
possible moment. The general features of
the bill he admits to be correct, and to have his approval. In regard to the legal tender feature, he
urges the passage of this scheme of banking, recommended in his report as a
means for funding a considerable amount of the public stock, and concluded by
suggesting some unimportant formal amendments, to which in no way affected the
principles of the bill.
A letter received here this morning, from one of the most
distinguished merchants in New York, says that only eight bank presidents in
that city coincide with Mr. Gallatin.
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport
Iowa, Monday Morning, February 3, 1862, p. 1
