He was followed by the _Mephistopheles_ of the Rebellion, the brilliant, learned, sinister Secretary of State, Judah P.Benjamin.

He spoke as one who felt that he had the _alias_ of an English subject for shelter, or possibly the Spanish flag for protection, when the worst should come, and thus he might continue to play the part of Confederate citizen so long as it favored his ambition and his fortune.

He delivered a speech full of desperate suggestion--so desperate indeed that it re-acted and injured the cause for which he was demanding harsh sacrifices on the part of others.

He urged upon his hearers that the States of the Confederacy had nearly seven hundred thousand male slaves of the age for military service.

He gave the assurance that if freedom should be conceded to these men they would fight in aid of the Rebellion.
Besides advocating a guaranty of emancipation to all these black men,--for the right to keep whom in slavery the war had been undertaken,--Mr.Benjamin urged that every bale of cotton, every hogshead of tobacco, every pound of bacon, every barrel of flour, should be seized for the benefit of the common cause.
Happily Mr.Benjamin went too far.