WHAT IS A BLOCKADE? – As it is important to know what England regards as a blockade, a New York paper publishes a letter from Fort Pickens, announcing the arrival there of a British frigate, whose commander exhibited instructions that no port is blocked efficiently if any vessel can enter or depart from it unknown to, or in spite of, the guardian men-of-war. And the escape of the third vessel from the blockading squadron signalizes the invalidity of the blockade.
Of this a New York paper says: “This is specific and unmistakable; and under the latter rule the blockade of New Orleans, even by the confession of our own naval officers, who are maintaining at the mouths of the Mississippi a nominal surveillance, is invalid, may be declared so by Admiral Milne, and involves us in a difficulty little anticipated, but calculated to exert a most disastrous influence upon the present contest.”
Huzza for that! England will thus be a market for our cotton and other produce after all.
