They arrested the citizens and took them to the Masonic Hall, leaving none but the women and children at the houses, and when there was no one, the houses and everything in them were broken open and examined, and when anything suited the fancy or taste of the searcher he appropriated it. From some houses they took every suit of gentleman's clothes, not leaving the owner a change; from others they took as many shirts as they needed, and wherever a gold or silver watch was found, with a few exceptions, it was pocketed Many ladies breastpins found their way into the pockets of the 6th and 7th Illinois cavalry. Every dairy and cupboard was emptied of its eatables and every cook was employed in preparing them breakfast. From almost every corn-crib they took corn to feed their horses. The citizens around and near the Masonic Hall, where the officers were, were not molested, except the stores. Under the pretext of searching for arms they broke open every store and office in the town, scattering the goods and papers in every direction, and loading some of them in wagons. The windows and show cases were ruthlessly and needlessly smashed.

Some of the soldiers rode their horses into the stores and into some of the offices. While the citizens were at the Masonic hall hospital, many soldiers were seen riding by with boots, hats, and dry goods of various kinds, and large bundles of tobacco. The officers in command could not fail to see this, and knew that their men were pillaging the town. The men seemed to think that any amount of guns and ammunition were concealed in the iron safes, because they broke open almost every one in town, none of which had any money in them except one, and that but a small amount — Every horse they could see and catch, with every bridle and saddle, they took and carried off. A great many of the men urged the negroes, wherever they met them, to run away, and some one or two they forced to go, one of whom has returned. Some nine or ten went off with them, and during the week some twenty or thirty followed them from town. They burned the depot and machine shops, and the machinery of the Louisiana penitentiary, stationed here, which is a great loss to the Confederacy.

With pistols in hand, and presented, they demanded the watches and money from some of our citizens: They got some four or five gold watches, and perhaps as many silver ones. They even robbed an old negro man of Mr. F. Hardesty of an old silver watch.

They visited the residence of Mrs. Lee, and, presenting a pistol to her head, demanded all the money in the house. They cursed and abused her very much, and greatly terrified her and her daughter, Mrs. Batchelor. They put a pistol to the breast of Rev. Mr. Hamlin, at his residence, and demanded his watch, threatening to shoot him if they did not get it. They did the same with Dr. E. Delong, but neither of these gentlemen owned watches, and of course the members of Grierson's Western cavalry did not get them They paroled all the sick and all the straggling Confederate soldiers they found in town. They left about half-past 9 o'clock A. M. During their stay they were the most alarmed set of men our citizens ever saw.

A portion of the men who were detailed to guard the citizens, saw Capt. Hayden with a gold watch; when the citizens were dismissed they followed him to his home and presenting their pistols forcibly took his watch and chain. As soon as they finished paroling the citizens they left with their plunder. On Monday evening following five of them went to the residence of A. D. Palmer, about four miles from town, during the night, and inveigled the old man from his house some distance, and then pretending to have an order from Gen. Banks to take him and his papers and box to Gen. B., they forced the old man to give them his money box and papers, robbing him of six thousand dollars. A few days since they robbed Mr. George Keller, near Jackson, Louisiana, of fifteen thousand dollars.

They are now engaged in gathering all the cotton they can find and carrying it off. They go with wagons in parties of from two to three hundred, and take what they can find.--The negroes have gone to them by the hundred. Some of the planters have lost every negro, mule, horse and wagon they had, and in some instances they have taken all the provisions. These are the men that fight according to the laws of nations and respect private property. Every town they enter they pillage.

He had considered it the part of a patriot and statesman if possible to avert the condition of public affairs we had lately witnessed, and following the sublime example of Him who had died to save the world, he had prayed that this bitter cup of domestic dissention might be put away from our lips. The discord of our country was calculated to gladden the worst of despotisms, but the country would survive the shock it was called upon to endure. No nation can perish that has a spark of popular virtue left. The people are the guardians of the national titles and national greatness and prosperity. No nation can be saved except by the sacrifice of individuals. In the language of the Scriptures, we must renounce father, mother, brother, all for our country's sake; we must give up our treasures, our affections; we must make sacrifices, give up everything to be saved. For himself, he had surrendered all. There was not a child of his capable of bearing arms who had not been freely given to the service of the country. If he would not preserve our nationality he was here to be buried in its ruins. If he had to fall, he wanted to fall in the streets of the capital of his country, and be trampled under the heel of the assassins of its freedom and greatness. He had chosen for his file leader Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee. He was for this Union with slavery if it must be, and without slavery if he could have it so. (Tremendous cheering) There is now a new issue. A way with the dead past.

The future will developed who shall govern this great country. Neither wisdom nor virtue came into existence with this people. They will not die with the result of this contest. --Presidencies, secretary ships, foreign legations, presented no temptations to him. He was ready to put them all away from him. If his country would be saved he should never accept official position at the hands of his countrymen. He had been cens the prediction that the rebellion would bounded in ninety days. It would have been ended in that time — it would, in fact, have been ended before it was begun, if the counsels of true patriots had been heeded. It has been protracted by the hopes held out of foreign interference. It had thus dragged its slow length along, with blood and carnage in its track, through two long years; but in this beginning of the third year we had just attained the beginning of the end.

We have seen the stars one by one falling away from our national firmament, but now we are to witness the joyful sight of star after star, after wandering in darkness, returning to the galaxy in which it belonged. Missouri had been for a while obscured, but it now shines with redoubled brightness. Maryland had wavered; it is now firmly act in the national coronet. Kentucky had been almost torn from the magic circle; but its stead fastness was now assured. It will not be long before Tennessee will be numbered again among the loyal States, nor till Arkansas shall be again represented in the halls of our Congress. Louisiana had already asked for recognition upon the old basis, and the Old North State would soon follow suit. In a little while we shall witness the extraordinary spectacle of Old Virginia asking forgiveness of her sins, and even South Carolina, the source of all this mischief, would be sandwiched between Georgina and North Carolina and purified of her iniquity. We already see a pretended confederation divided into four parts by transverse lines drawn along the Mississippi river and the Southern line of Tennessee. When the war could no longer be put aside he had but one request to make.--He invoked God Almighty to inspire the people with virtue enough to vote for the Union, and our armies with courage enough to fight for it. But after all this conflict, this greatest, proudest, most prosperous of nations, must still continue to thrive If foreign nations would keep their hands off we should settle these questions for ourselves, and when the next Provost Marshal should call upon the people of this district, he hoped every man fit for duty would only ask where he was to be placed. If they needed any one to follow, old as he was he should be with these who were ready to lay down their lives for the preservation of the life of the nation.

Since that time many occasions have arisen for departing from a rule which at the first glance, might seem to be an inevitable cause of isolation. One was an invitation to join the Congress of the Spanish States of America, then just liberated. Another was the urgent appeal of Hungary to aid her in the recovery of her ancient and illustrious independence. Still another, the project to guarantee Cuba to Spain, conjointly with France and Great Britain. More recently, the invitation to cooperate with Spain, France, and Great Britain, in Mexico; and later still, the proposition of some of the Spanish-American States to establish an international council for the republican States of this continent. All these suggestions were, in succession, declined by our Government, and this decision was each time approved by the judgment of the American people.

But this is not the only blunder. Mr. Seward affirms that the invitation to the United States to join the Congress of the Spanish States of America just liberated, was declined by our Government. Now it so happens, and Mr. Seward is old enough to remember it, that just the reverse is the fact, for the invitation, in 1826, was accepted by our Government, and ministers were appointed and actually went on their errand. This the files of his own department would tell him all about. This is blunder number two.

We have space for but one other remark, and that we make interrogatory. Mr. Seward has, as we all know, published huge volumes of diplomacy, and left no corner of the world and no period of his times unilluminated. But it seems there is one dark cranny--one mystery, here obscurely hinted at, that puzzles us — We are quite aware, as he tells us, that in 1861 or 1862 we were invited to cooperate with Spain, France, and Great Britain in Mexico, and declined doing so; but we learn from this dispatch that "later still"--that is, within the last year or eighteen months--there has been made to us a proposition of the Spanish American States to establish an international council for the republican States of the continent. Of this we confess we were absolutely ignorant, and as to this we trust Mr. Seward's next volume will give us some light. It is a pretty comprehensive sort of a suggestion. The Secretary closes this remarkable document with a reason for declining to meddle with Poland which is "unique." It has reference to the rebellion, and evinces a consideration for our wayward sisters that is worthy of all praise. He really does not like to meddle with European politics in the absence of Mr. Davis, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Slidell, whom, as he long ago told M. Mercier, "he hoped some day to welcome back to the Senate." His language now is, "It would be still less wise to deviate from our traditional policy when a local, though we hope transitory insurrection, deprives our Government of the advice of one part of the American people, to which so grave a deviation from the established policy would be far from being indifferent !"

This is almost as cruel blood letting as that in the pamphlet already referred to, which objected to Mr. Seward's informing Minister Adams, last July, that the "last obstacle to the navigation of the Mississippi had been overcome, and that it was open to trade once more from Prince Rupert's Land" (!) (which is a thousand miles north of its sources) "to the head-waters of the Mississippi;" or that which maliciously suggested that Mr. Seward, in stating to Minister Harvey that "Portugal, in the age of Camoens," brought slavery into this continent, had forgotten that Camoens died in Lisbon in 1579, about half a century before the Portuguese traffic in slaves began on this hemisphere.