FLORIDA. 



diers from enlisting in the army. If they were 

 to be abandoned by the Government, their ser- 

 vice- were required to defend their homes in- 

 stead of going to fight abroad, was the answer 

 to the call of President Davis for 2,500 addi- 

 tional troops. Early in April, the Confederate 

 defences at the entrance of Pensacola bay were 

 evacuated and Forts McRae and Barrancas dis- 

 mantled. A few soldiers yet remained in Pen- 

 sacola, having made every preparation for a 

 hasty retreat. At the same time all the towns 

 on the west coast of the State were either evac- 

 uated or nearly so. Tampa Bay only was h^ld 

 with an appearance of military possession, but 

 the garrison was prepared to evacuate on the 

 approach of a hostile force. 



The occupation of Jacksonville by the Feder- 

 al forces was followed by active movements in 

 favor of the Union, which are described in con- 

 nection with the Army Operations. The posi- 

 tion is the Key of east Florida, and it was held 

 by about fifteen hundred Federal troops. With 

 one or two gunboats, they were sufficient to hold 

 the place against any force which might have 

 been brought against them. By an order of 

 Gen. Hunter, commanding the department of 

 the South, with headquarters at Port Royal, 

 the town was evacuated. Many of the citizens 

 of Jacksonville who had fled, were induced to 

 return while it was occupied by this force, and 

 avow their loyalty, by a proclamation issued by 

 Gen. Sherman, the predecessor of Gen. Hunter. 

 This promised to all good citizens protection to 

 life and goods. By the evacuation of the town, 

 thoy were deprived of this protection, and hav- 

 ing once expressed Union sentiments, they be- 

 came marked men. Fifty-four of them, em- 

 bracing men, women and children, were brought 

 to New York in a steamer, when the troops 

 left, and others came in a sailing vessel. 



Although such a large proportion of the citi- 

 zens of the State had volunteered in the army, 

 and although the crops during the year were 

 successful, yet the Legislature, to guard against 

 a scarcity, passed an act forbidding the exporta- 

 tion from the State of any beef cattle, dried or 

 pickled beef, hogs, pork, bacon, corn, corn 

 meal, salt, or provisions of any kind. The same 

 act forbid any person to buy these articles for 

 the purpose of speculation, and directed that 

 they should be sold at a price not to exceed 33 

 per cent, over cost and charges. 



A scheme for the armed colonization of Flor- 

 ida was brought to the notice of the Federal 

 Government by Eli Thayer of Massachusetts, 

 during the year. It consisted of a proposition 

 for an expedition of ten thousand colonists en- 

 listed for six months, and to be supplied with 

 arms, subsistence, and transportation by the 

 Government, and a commander whose business 

 it should be to occupy and hold the public lands 

 of the State and the lands of disloyal citizens, 

 which were to be seized for the non payment of 

 taxes under a law of Congress passed at the ses- 

 sion then closed. It received some consideration 

 by the Government, but was not adopted. 



FRANCE. 



475 



FRANCE. The ten years, which had elapsed 

 in November, 1862, since Louis Napoleon, by 

 French suffrage, became Napoleon III, em- 

 peror of France, were witnesses of great changes 

 in the political, social, intellectual, and moral 

 condition of France. "When by the coup d'itat 

 of December, 1851, the present emperor seized 

 the reins of government, the whole country 

 was in the condition of the crater of an active 

 volcano, seething and boiling for another erup- 

 tion : the peasantry impoverished, and in dread 

 of losing their little all ; the great artisan class, 

 ill supplied with work, and clamoring for bread, 

 and the u right to labor ;'' the bourgeoisie or 

 mercantile and shopkeeping class, sick and dis- 

 gusted with revolution, and willing to accept 

 any government which would insure peace and 

 quiet, and the opportunity of gain , the array 

 discontented, and sympathizing too much with 

 the masses to be a n't dependence for the gov- 

 ernment against the people. . Paris, the heart 

 of France, was, in the older portions of it, a 

 city of narrow streets, courts and lanes, over- 

 shadowed by the lofty stone palaces of the mid- 

 dle ages, and there were hundreds of localities, 

 where a resolute mob, erecting from the pav- 

 ing stones and other materials a barricade, 

 could set at defiance a large army. 



The people, as a body, were sick of repub- 

 licanism ; they preferred to be governed, to be 

 governed well, but rigorously, and to be gov- 

 erned much, their idea of a paternal and bene- 

 ficent government being that it must show its 

 hand in all the affairs of social life. 



No man understood the French character 

 better, or was more competent to manage it in 

 a way to promote his own purposes, than Louis 

 Napoleon, and when, as "the elect of seven 

 millions," he ascended the imperial throne, it 

 was with a fully matured purpose and a well 

 digested plan of maintaining a dynasty of Bo- 

 napartes. The measures by which he has ac- 

 complished this purpose thus far, are the con- 

 ciliation of all classes of the French people by 

 gratifying their tastes, while making them 

 the agents to carry out his plans. He deter- 

 mined that there should be no more battles of 

 the barricades ; and, under the plea of improv- 

 ing and beautifying Paris, he has run straight, 

 broad and elegant boulevards through every 

 portion of the ancient city, and annihilated the 

 old courts, lanes, and narrow streets, till now 

 his cannon, trained upon any thoroughfare, 

 could sweep away, with a stroke, every vestige- 

 of insurrection. He had determined to attach 

 the army to the throne and to his dynasty, and 

 he has modified the conscription laws so as to 

 make service in the army profitable and desira- 

 ble; he has cultivated the esprit du corps, and 

 the love of glory, always a Frenchman's weak- 

 ness, by noticing and rewarding deeds of brav- 

 ery, by promotions from the ranks, by making 

 his little son an officer of the army, and by the 

 thousand measures which his astute and ob- 

 serving mind had taught him were most like- 

 ly to win a French army's affection. The 



