of the conquerors. But the time for speculation has ceased - the crisis is upon us - and we feel that the best or worst will soon be known. Let all do their duty and bear with patience and fortitude the trials that await us.

[From the Progress.]

We shall probably never know all the facts connected with the conference which recently took place on shipboard in Hampton Roads between Lincoln and Seward and the commissioners of Mr. Davis, but as the details begin to leak out from both sides, we find that the ultimatums of the two rulers were just what we predicted they would be before the conference took place: Lincoln demanded unconditional submission to the laws and authority of the United States, while Mr. Davis' commissioners were instructed to demand the unconditional recognition of the Confederacy, including States that have never furnished us either men or material with which to prosecute the war.

It is evident from the Northern news published by us yesterday that the dispatches that have been sent out from Richmond, relative to the conference, have been highly colored for the purpose of inflaming and exasperating the people, and with the further hope, no doubt, of inducing our people to consent to the mad project of arming and freeing two or three hundred thousand negroes. We have heard from very excellent authority, from a gentleman who was recently mingled with members of Congress in Richmond, that it was well understood there that the delegations from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina were favorably disposed toward reconstruction, provided they could get the Union, as it was, under the Constitution as it is, or was when Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated; and it was also understood that Mr. Davis would not oppose it. Now, if this be so, and we have but little doubt of it, whey were the commissioners instructed to demand the unconditional recognition of the Confederacy? Mr. Davis had no idea the Federal authorities would do that, and hence this attempt to negotiate is all a farce, and the supposition that the subject of reconstruction and a restoration of the old Union has been freely discussed and favorably considered by Mr. Davis and his Congress is strengthened by the speech delivered by him on Monday nigis reported as saying that "under no circumstances would he be again for reconstruction and Union. "

This language clearly implies, if it implies anything, that he had been for it, and that he would have accepted it could he have obtained his own terms. The dispatches from Richmond tell us a good eal about "pains and penalties," "confiscations," &c., that would follow the acceptance of Lincoln's, terms, but they fail to tell us what we get from a Washington dispatch, to wit: "That Lincoln informed the commissioners that recognition was utterly out of the question; that the United States could stop the war only on condition that the authority of the National Government should be recognized and obeyed over the whole territory of the United States. This point conceded, he assured them that upon any other matter of difference they would be treated with the utmost liberality. " But this would not do, because it seems from the Northern account of the conference Mr. Stephens was instructed, if he could not get unconditional recognition, to maneuver for temporary recognition, holding out as an inducement that if the Federal authorities would but treat with us "as an independent nation that such an agreement could be had as would unite the North and