out and dismantled seventy-fours, were scuttled and sunk at the upper docks on Friday. The grand conflagration now burst in judgment on the startled citizens of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and all the surrounding country. The flames leaped from pitchy deck to smoking shrouds, and writhed to their very tops around the masts that stood like martyrs doomed. It was not thirty minutes from the time the trains were fired till the conflagration roared like a hurricane, and the flames from land and water swayed, and met, and mingled together, and darted high, and fell, and leaped up again, and by their very motion showed their sympathy with the crackling, crashing roar of destruction beneath. But in all this magnificent scene, the old ship Pennsylvania was the centre-piece. She was a very giant in death, as she had been in life. She was a sea of flame, and when her bowels were consuming, then did she spout from every porthole of every deck torrents and cataracts of fire that, to the mind of Milton, would have represented her a frigate of hell pouring out unremitting broadsides of infernal fire. Several of her guns were left loaded, but not shotted, and as the fire reached them, they sent out on the startled morning air minute guns of fearful peal, that added greatly to the alarm that the light of the conflagration had spread through the surrounding country. The Pennsylvania burnt like a volcano for five hours and a half before her mainmast fell. At precisely 9½ o’clock the tall tree that stood in her centre tottered and fell, and crushed deep into her burning sides, whilst a storm of sparks filled the sky. As soon as the Pawnee and Cumberland had fairly left the waters, and were known to be gone, the gathering crowds of Portsmouth and Norfolk burst open the gates of the Navy Yard and rushed in. They could do nothing, however, but gaze upon the ruin wrought. The Commodore’s, residence, left locked but unharmed, was burst open, and a pillage commenced, which was summarily stopped. As early as six o’clock a volunteer company had taken possession in the name of Virginia, and run up her flag from the flagstaff. In another hour several companies were on hand, and men were at work unspiking cannon, and by nine o’clock they were moving them to the dock, whence they were begun to be transferred, on keels, to points below, where sand batteries were to be built. Notwithstanding the splendor of the scene, and the great destruction of property, the result was incomplete, and a large amount of artillery and munitions of war fell into the hands of the Virginians. THE STATE OF THE NATION BEFORE ITS TROOPS ENTERED VIRGINIA.