Almost simultaneously, a large potato struck the fleet on Duck Lake on the nose, so intensely exciting him that he incontinently touched off his swivel, to the great detriment of the surrounding country. This was a critical moment, my boy; the least trifle on either side would have turned the scale, and given the victory to either party. Villiam Brown had just assumed the attitude in which he desired Frank Leslie's Illustrated Artist to draw him, when a familiar domestic utensil came hissing through the lurid air from the rebel works, and exploded in two pieces at his feet. "Ha!" says Villiam, eyeing the fragments with great pallor, "they have commenced to throw shell." In another moment that incomparable officer was at the head of a storming party; and as the fleet opened fire on the cabbage-patch in the rear of the enemy's position, an impetuous charge was precipitated in front. Though met by a perfect hail of turnips, stove-covers, and kindling-wood, the Mackerels went over the fence like a fourth-proof avalanche, and hemmed in the rebel garrison with walls of bayonets. "Surrender to the Union Anaconda and the United States of America," thundered Villiam. "You're a nasty, dirty creetur," responded the garrison, who was an old lady of venerable aspect. "Surrender, or you're a dead man, my F. F. Venus," says Villiam, majestically. The old lady replied with a look of scorn, my boy, walked deliberately toward the road, and when last seen was proceeding in the direction of Richmond under a green silk umbrella and a heavy press of snuff. Now it happened, just after we had formally taken possession of the city, while the band was playing martial airs, and the fleet winding up his chronometer, that the General of the Mackerel Brigade made his appearance on the field, and was received with loud cheers by those who believed that he brought their pay back with him. "My children," says the general, with a paternal smile, "don't praise me for an achievement in which all have won such imperishable laurels. I have only done my jooty." This speech, my boy, made a great impression upon me on account of its touching modesty. War, my boy, is calculated to promote an amount of bashful modesty never equaled except in Congress, and I have known brigadiers so self-deprecatory that they lived in a state of perpetual blush--especially at the ends of their noses. Yours, inadequately, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XLV. EXEMPLIFYING THE INCONSISTENCY OF THE CONSERVATIVE ELEMENT, AND SETTING FORTH THE MEASURES ADOPTED BY CAPTAIN VILLIAM BROWN IN HIS MILITARY GOVERNMENT OF PARIS. WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18th, 1862.