As to the guerrillas, we know that they are an exasperating set of fellows, but they must soon disappear before the advance of the Union armies.  A guerrillade on an extensive scale and of long continuance is possible only while it is supported by the presence of large and successful regular armies.  Had Wellington been driven out of the Peninsula, the Spanish guerrillas would have given little trouble to the intrusive French king at Madrid.  Defeat Lee, and Mosby will vanish.  After all, the Southern guerrillas are not much worse than other Southrons were at no very remote period.  It is within the memory of even middle-aged persons, that the southwestern portion of our country was in as lawless a state as ever were the borders of England and Scotland, and with no Belted Will to hang up ruffians to swing in the wind.  As those ruffians were mostly removed by time, and the scenes of their labors became the seats of prosperous and well-ordered communities, so will the guerrillas of to-day be made to give way by that inexorable reformer and avenger.  Order will once more prevail in the Southwest, and cotton, tobacco, and rice again yield their increase to regular industry,—­an industry that shall be all the more productive, because exercised by free men.

The political incidents of 1863 are as encouraging as the incidents of war.  The discontent that existed toward the close of 1862—­a discontent by no means groundless—­led to the apparent defeat of the war-party in many States, and to the decrease of its strength in others.  But it was an illogical conclusion that the people were dissatisfied with the war, when they only meant to express their dissatisfaction with the manner in which it was conducted.  Their votes in 1863 truly expressed their feeling.  In every State but New Jersey the war-party was successful, its majority in Ohio being 100,000, in New York 30,000, in Pennsylvania 15,000, in Massachusetts, 40,000, in Iowa 32,000, in Maine 22,000, in California 20,000.  And so on throughout the country.  The popular voice is still for war, but for war boldly, and therefore wisely, waged.

The improvement that has taken place in our foreign relations is even greater than that which has come over our domestic affairs; and for the first time since the opening of the civil war, it is possible for Americans to say that there is every reason for believing that they are to be left to settle their own affairs according to their own ideas as to the fitness of things.  This change, like all important changes in human affairs, is due to a variety of causes.  In part it is owing to what we considered to be among our greatest misfortunes, and in part to those successes which changed the condition of affairs.  Our failure at Fredericksburg, at the close of 1862, strengthened the general European impression that the Rebels were to succeed; and as their defeat at Murfreesboro was not followed by an advance of our forces, that impression