CHAPTER VI.

PATRONAGE WITHDRAWN FROM MY PAPER-PREDICTING THE SUCCESS OF SECESSION-THE AUTHOR ALWAYS AFTER OFFICE—INDEBTEDNESS TO STORES-OUR OWN PARTISANS REFUSING TO ENDORSE US-MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH SPURNING US.

A South Carolina Correspondent.

WE are receiving quite a number of letters from South Carolina, and it is only at intervals that we condescend to notice one, and then only when the name of the writer is given. The following polite note we publish on account of its information derived from Knoxville:

"W. G. BROWNLOW:

'ABBEVILLE C. H., S.C., Jan. 27, 1861.

"SIR:-I wrote to you a few days ago under the signature of 'T. J. C.,' and informed you that you were the greatest liar out of hell, and one of the most infamous scoundrels living between heaven and earth; and I then told you, and now repeat, that nothing would afford us as much pleasure as to see you in Abbeville, where we could treat you to a coat of tar and feathers. I told you in that brief letter that my understanding was that the people of Knoxville were a respectable and intelligent people, and that it was

a matter of surprise that they would allow you to remain in their midst,-a vile scamp, as you have shown yourself to be.

"Since writing that note to you, I have seen a long and interesting letter from Knoxville to a citizen of this Republic, giving some facts in regard to you that I am resolved the world shall know, at least to the extent of the circulation of Southern papers. I was permitted to take down the points made against you in the Knoxville letter, and they are as follows:

"1. The Southern States having withdrawn their patronage from your Abolition sheet, you no longer have subscribers enough to defray the expenses of pubication, and you are about to starve out.

"2. The town and county in which you publish your slanderous sheet will shortly cast a majority of their votes for Secession, and so will your State.

"3. You have repeatedly thrust yourself forward as a candidate for office, but never have been elected.

"4. You are indebted to every store in your town, -and nothing can be made out of you at law,-until you cannot get credit in any store for a suit of clothes!

"5. Your own partisans refuse, upon the stump, to endorse any thing you say, and will not be held to an account for your doctrines; while the common people send off to other sections of your State for newspapers.

"6. The members of your Church have no respect

for you, and the better class refuse to speak to you, either publicly or privately.

"This, you lying old hypocrite, is your character furnished by a South Carolinian from your own town, where you are best known.

"T. J. CINCLAIR."

KNOXVILLE, Feb. 14, 1861.

T. J. CINCLAIR :-Your insulting letter is before me, and I take the opportunity to reply, though I have no idea that I am replying to a gentleman, or a man who pays his just debts, or tells the truth in common conversation. I am not ignorant of the deadly opposition to me in South Carolina, and more especially from the blackguard portion of her citizens, of whom you are a fit representative. I expect that the vials of contumely, reproach, and defamation will be poured upon me by a hireling press of a corrupt and plundering Southern Confederacy, by the insolvent bullies, hardened liars, and vulgar cut-throats whose only ambition is to serve as tools under an arrogant and hateful pack of aristocratic leaders. But while I have strength to wield a pen, my nerve shall be exerted in defence of that Union which was purchased with blood. Under the mantle of freedom, dark assassins of our National Constitution are endeavoring to insinuate themselves into the temple of those privileges, our rights to which were secured by the toil of our fathers and sealed

with their blood. But these border States will teach you that our Constitution is not built upon such a sandy foundation as to be shaken and demolished without the rotten pillar of reputed South Carolina orthodoxy to support it.

As it regards your Knoxville letter-writer, he is a liar and a coward, and dare not give his name to the public. My neighbors, without distinction of parties, will testify that he is a liar. Even my enemies-and I have some will testify from their own personal knowledge that he is a liar. I do not believe, for one moment, that any citizen of Knoxville ever wrote any such letter to South Carolina. You have been duped for once, or else some straggling subject of your contemptible Southern Confederacy has passed through here and sent to your would-be Republic the infinitely infernal production from which you quote your six propositions.

I would as soon be engaged in importing the plague from the East, as in helping to build up a Southern Confederacy upon the ruins of the American Constitution. I expect to be abused for my defence of the Union. "Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart" will all bark at me. The kennel is now unloosed: all the packfrom the deep-mouthed bloodhound of South Carolina and Florida to the growling cur of Georgia-are baying at me. If I were to stop to throw stones at all the snarling puppies that yelp at my hcels in South

Carolina and elsewhere, I should have little time to do any thing else.

Your first falsehood, as gathered from a Knoxville writer, is that my subscription has so diminished of late that my office does not pay expenses. There are twelve newspapers in Eat Tennessee besides mine, and I have more paying subscribers than all of them put together. I have the largest list of any political paper in the State; and my list of yearly subscribers is now larger than it ever was before,-increasing now at the rate of two hundred per week, and the rise of that. So much for my prospects of starving out.

2. But my town and county have cast a majority of their votes for Secession, and my State was to have done so! Well, sir, on Saturday last our election was held, and a full vote was had all over the State,the issue being Union or Disunion. In my town, out of a vote of 960 the Secession ticket received 113, and in the remainder of the county the Secession ticket received about 100 votes, leaving the Union majority in the county and town upwards of three thousand! In the State at large the Secession ticket is so badly beaten as to be absolutely disgraced. It has been "routed, horse, foot, and dragoon," the Secessionists having elected only about half a dozen members to the State Convention!

3. As to my thirst for office, I simply have to say that I never declared myself for office in my life. I