--Yesterday morning parts of two companies, in all 60 men, belonging to the 8th Pennsylvania cavalry, under command of Captain Wilson, who were stationed at King George's Court-House, were attacked by about 300 rebels who crossed the Rappahannock in small boats. They crossed at a point some distance this side of the Court-House, thus getting in between this command and the main body of the cavalry. Forty out of the sixty made their escape, and there is reason to believe that more of them will yet return. Capt. Wilson is among the missing. How many were killed and wounded is not known. The enemy left three dead. Citizens living in King George's county, and who had applied for guards to protect their property, were known to be among the attacking party. They doubtless gave the information which led to the attack.

The following order was issued to-day by Gen. Burnside: All others who may be guilty of such gross neglect of duty will thus be promptly dealt with without respect to rank.

Headquarters Army of Potomac, Camp Near Falmouth, Va., Dec. 2.--General Orders, No. 190.--Capt. George Johnston, of the 3d Pennsylvania cavalry, while in charge of a cavalry picket on the28th of November, having by his negligence, continued after repeated warnings from his commanding officer, permitted his party to be surprised by the enemy, and himself and a number of his officers and men to be captured, is, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, dismissed the service for disgraceful and unofficer like conduct. The Commanding General hopes and believes that a lack of discipline in the regiment and brigade to which this officer belonged, did not warrant him in so gross a neglect of duty.

By command of Major Gen. Burnside.

Lewis Richmond, A. A. G.

A flag of truce was sent over the river this morning for the purpose of conveying two daughters of Dr. Sylvester Conway, of Fredericksburg.

Deserters from the rebels continue to arrive daily. They represent their army as being very destitute, particularly in clothing. No salt meat has been issued since they left Maryland. Last week an order was issued by Gen. Lee that such soldiers as were without shoed make moccasins from the rawhides — otherwise they must do duty barefooted

A Washington dispatch, dated the 2d, says:

--The following has been received at the headquarters of the army:

The proceedings of the Washington Congress on the 3d were almost devoid of interest. The following resolution, offered by Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, was objected to and laid over:

Resolved, That the Secretary of War be, and he is hereby, directed to inform the Senate whether Dr. John Laws and Whitely Meredith, or either of them, citizens of the State of Delaware, have been arrested and imprisoned in Fort Delaware; when they were arrested and so imprisoned; the charges against them; by whom made; by whose orders they were arrested and imprisoned, and that he communicate to the Senate all papers relating to their arrest and imprisonment.

The Washington correspondent of the Associated Press, on the 2d, telegraphs the following:

--Stocks are higher to-day under the influence of a rumor that the Secretary of the Treasury will recommend an additional issue of currency.

--The British bark Mary., at Queenstown, Nov. 19th, from Yarmouth, N. S, spoke Oct. 30th, in lat 41, lon, 64,30, the rebel steamer Alabama.

--The steamer China, from Liverpool on the 22d ultimo for New York, passed Cape Race at 4 o'clock on Monday afternoon.

The U. S. frigate Saratoga arrived at Lisbon on the 17th.

The steamer Bavaria, before reported ashore, got off and proceeded to Hamburg.

Gen. McClellan's removal caused a depression in American securities. The London Times says it is the first effect of the recent elections on President Lincoln. McClellan is sacrificed to the political jealousies of the party in power, being known to be conservative, and opposed to the violent acts of the Executive. The editor questions the success of the movement, as it makes Gen. McClellan a conservative martyr.

The Army and Navy Gazette regards the removal of Gen. McClellan as a defiance of the Government Democrats. No movement, it says, has been more favorable for bold Confederate movements. It questions Burnside's ability for the appointment

The text of the Russian note refusing the French proposition for mediation, fully bears out the telegraphic summary.

There are vague rumors that France has sent another note to England in response to Lord Russell's reply.

The Liverpool Post explains that the steamer "290," recently launched, is not for the Confederates, but for the China trade.

The sailing of sundry fast coasting steamers, for the purpose of running the blockade, is reported. A steamer, name unknown, recently left the Mersey, with 600 tons of arms, &c., for the Confederates.

The Times and Post replies to Mr. Seward's reflections on the case of the Alabama, and emphatically deny that there are grounds for the Federal to complain in the matter, where they reaped the greatest benefits.

Garibaldi, in a letter to W. Cornell Jewell, pledges himself strongly in favor of the North as an opponent of slavery. He goes for the abolition of slavery before any constitutional question.

The Continental news is unimportant.

The Times, of Saturday, again expatiates on the probable effect of the Democratic successes in the American elections. It says that no sudden change in the Federal policy can be anticipated, but it is enough to know that the most of President Lincoln's measures have been condemned, and will probably be abandoned.

The Morning Herald regards Gen. McClellan's removal as a terrible mistake of President Lincoln, both in a military and political point of view.

The Saturday Review thinks that the Emperor Napoleon has movements afoot which do not appear on the surface of his mediation scheme, and says that the express mention of the name Confederate States, which they selected for themselves, virtually involves recognition; and the proposed armistice implies an opinion which may shortly be altered into language more intelligible than words.

This paper hints at a probable alliance with the Southern States in connection with the Emperor's designs on Mexico.

Latest,(Via Queenstown.)--The elections in Greece commence on the 6th of December and terminate on the 10th. The great probability of the election of Prince Alfred to the throne causes excitement among foreign ministers. The country is tranquil.

There had been a slight advance in cotton at Liverpool. Breadstuffs were unchanged. Corn was easier. Provisions were declining. Console 93½ a83¾.

The Washington correspondent of the New York Herald, writing on the 1st last. about the opening of the United States Congress, says:

The iron-clad steamer Passaic sailed from New York on the 28th ult., on a trial trip to Fortress Monroe. The New York Herald, speaking of the trip, says:

The stranger who wins his way this day to Richmond will find the fullest realization of these prophetic words on a far mightier field of action than was within the preview of their inspired utterer.--It is not too much to say that the most fanatical believer in the ancient Union, be he Mr. Seward himself, would despair of the faith that is in him, and acknowledge himself, in Victor Hugo's phrase, the "somnambulist of a vanished dream," could he walk the streets of Richmond this day, and guage the spirit and feeling of its people after nearly nineteen months of such warfare as the world never contemplated before. The streets are crowded, the hotels refuse to contain their shoals of guests; everywhere the quietness and confidence of a people secure in its own strength is incontestably evident. Everything necessary for life, most things requisite for its luxurious enjoyment, as it is interpreted on this continent, are to be found in abundance. There is absolutely only one commodity of which the absence is gravely felt, that commodity being ice. Does the Federal Government hope by such a frail redder to steer the Southern Confederacy back into the harbor of Union?

Of course, with many of the supplies sucked in through the most ridiculous of blockades, and transported over the enormous area which separates Richmond from the cities of the Southern seaboard, prices are high. The board and lodging in the hotels amount to four dollars per day; clothing and boots are extremely dear, but are to be had by paying for them; medical supplies are scarce, but are constantly being introduced in not insufficient quantities across the Potomac and through the cities of the coast. And here, from personal experience, I may express my conviction of the utter impossibility of blockading the Potomac and the Ohio, and shutting off the South from supplies, along a frontier which from Fortress Monroe to distant Kansas extends for some 1,500 miles. If the whole Federal navy was concentrated in the Potomac it would be utterly inadequate effectually to block the innumerable creeks and reaches of that river. Add to this that on both sides the stream dwells a population of which not more than five per cent are in favor of the Union.

In nearly every county the court-house in which the assizes for each county used to be held is rudely demolished, doors and windows torn down, while within, upon the white walls, in every phase of handwriting, are recorded the autographs of the vandals whose handiwork surrounds the beholder. Stories upon stories have reached me detailing how the wives of the Federal officers, represented by my exasperated informants as having usually "hailed from" detested New England, forced their way behind the Federal troops into the fine family mansions of the Old Dominion, and personally superintended the abstraction and transmission north wards of old family china, silver, glass, pictures, books, furniture, and piano fortes A. Virginia lady, who remonstrated with one of these Yankee hen barriers, engaged in packing up valued family china, was met by the rejoinder, "You are a rebel, and have no rights that I am bound to respect; your property, therefore, is mine?" In short, such a pic ture of desolation as the northern frontier of Virginia and the lovely Shenandoah Valley, the Paradise of America, exhibit, can be likened only to the Palatinate after Tilly's final visit, as Thucydides paints it, after the annual Lacedœmon incursion during the Peloponnesian war.

I have traveled far and wide through Virginia; I have conversed with men, women, striplings, and children, in that State, and in Maryland; I have seen men, formerly substantial and thriving, whose everything is devoured by the Federal; but never in one single instance have I heard a word of regret by reason of the war, a timid note sounded in regard to its issues, a sigh breathed over the departed Union, a ghost of a desire expressed in favor of compromise or reconstruction. On the contrary, one universal chorus echoes through the length and breadth of the land: "The not is broken, and we are delivered!" Mr. Everett and his votaries, who still believe in imprisoned loyalty as existing in the South, might as well search in the British Islands for a man who desired them to be annexed to France. So united, so homogeneous a community as the States of the Southern Confederacy finds no parallel in our annals. No war that England has waged for a hundred years has met with such cordial, unanimous, undivided support.

The war against the French Republic had its Charles Fox; the war against Russia its Richard Cobden. There is no such character in the Southern States. The victory of the Federal in this exasperated struggle means, not the defeat of the Southern armies, not the possession of Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, which would no more lead to a conclusion of the war than the seizure of the Isle of Man. A Federal victory means nothing on earth but the extermination and annihilation of every man, woman, and child in the Southern Confederacy. There is no passion, no frenzy, in the universal language. The intensity of the hate flushes the check and clinches the teeth, but finds little expression in feeble words. If anything, the exuberance of animosity is more perceptible in the flashing eyes and eager earnestness of the women, but the settled and unconquerable firmness of the men requires nothing to be added to it.

The possibility of Richmond's falling is calmly discussed, and preparations have long been made for such a contingency. Surprise is expressed that the Federal have not long ago possessed themselves of several other Southern cities as well as New Orleans. The possession of a capital city in these days of railroads is a very different thing from what it used to be in the days of Wagram and Jena. Great suffering might be inflicted on women and children if Mobile and Charleston fell — suffering which there is only too much reason to fear would be most acceptable to the Federal, judging from the record of their deeds during the last year and a half. But every considerable city in the South might be reduced to ashes without changing the mood or undermining the resolutions of the feeblest heart, if any feeble hearts there be, in the Southern Confederacy.

I am told by the highest authority that the official statement, comprising the most minute details of the Confederate loss at the battle of Antietam Creek, estimates the Confederate loss in killed, wounded, and missing, at 6,000 men. Another fact is noticeable. A Federal loss of infinite magnitude would evoke no sigh of sympathy, no moment of sadness, except so far as it was supposed to defer the restoration of the Union. But the whole Confederacy bewails the 6,000 victims at Antietam Creek with brotherly affection and sympathy.

Nor is that appalling indifference which amazes and paralyzes the spectator in Washington and New York affected here. Scarcely a lady but wears mourning, proud to display that she has lost a relative fighting in a cause dearer to her than life; scarcely a person but speaks sorrowfully and with affliction of a loss which seems to them appalling, though not much more than one third of that inflicted upon their poco curante foe.

Well may a nation be confident of winning its independence which can exhibit such spectacles as every day produces wherever a Southern army is in the field There, in poverty, hunger, and dirt, shoeless, with shirts ragged and rent, often without hats, their feet bleeding as they drag their weary limbs through dust and briar, are serving in the ranks the gentlemen and the sangre azul of the South. Many a man who, until the commencement of the war, had scarcely a thought beyond the Cafe Foy and the Boulevards of Paris, and to whose morning toilet every diversity of cosmetic was as necessary as water, has for months been marching under a musket, without one single change of raiment, feeding on green maize and raw pork, lying at night on the bare earth, with a single blanket between him and the canopy of heaven.

And these men, many of them bearing some of England's most honored names, and descended from England's best families, are in the field, and have been so for nineteen months, fighting against mercenaries who have repudiated England, as though she were governed by a Nero, and have escaped from German penury and conscriptions. Whatever may have been the truth last winter, it is not pretended now that the Northern armies are not mainly composed of men of foreign birth !--Where are the native Americans of weight and influence serving in the Northern armies? Why does not Wendell Phillips take the field? Men older than he are serving by dozens in the Southern ranks. Where is Charles Sumner's musket?--The Senate could spare Senator Baker, in no wise Mr. Sumner's inferior in intellect, and it were a noble answer to the South, which sneers at non-duellists for want of courage, to show how one of that class can comport himself upon the perilous edge of battle. It is but probable that with unopposed command of the sea and the great rivers during their autumn floods, the South may lose thousands more of her sons, in addition to that great sea of blood which has already been cheerfully poured out in her defence. But let her be left without a single city or village, with nothing but her internal fastnesses and her immense area of territory, and though every man in the North under fifty were to take the field, they would be inefficient ever to make such a nation as the South lie at the feet of her enemy.