[From the Herald's Correspondent]
Washington, February 10th, 1862.
An exerpt: 'The Confiscation Bill is directed particularly to the slave property; and the longer the war continues, therefore, the greater effect it will have in freeing the blacks. Indeed, to all intents and purposes, if faithfully executed, as our army advances, it will be an Act of Emancipation. An execution will take place in New York next week — the first to be recorded for the crime charged since the foundation of the Republic, the crime of slave traffic. The unfortunate criminal is a Captain Gordon, who was proved to be in command of the slaver Erie, captured by an American man-of-war in the River Congo, in Africa, having upwards of 800 unfortunate natives on board, who were sold into slavery.
Gordon, as is usual in such cases, pretended to be a passenger on the vessel, which, however, he had himself sailed there, and only going through the mock ceremony of transferring his command to a Spanish captain and crew. The pretence did not avail. On the second trial of the case he was found guilty of trafficking in slaves on board an American vessel— he being himself an American— and that entailed the sentence of death. The President extended the time of preparation for death by two weeks, but intimated he only had done so that Gordon should have entertained hopes of a pardon. This is the first conviction for this offence as well as the first execution.'
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