[Numbers 5.], and to refer to the same and to the documents appended thereto for more full information in reference to their proceedings and to the views by which they have been governed.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

CHARLES HOWARD.

WM. H. GATCHELL.

JOHN W. DAVIS.

GEO. WM. BROWN.

Mayor and Ex-officio Member of the Board of Police.

Numbers 5. Memorial of the Board of Police Commissioners.

To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

The memorial of Chas. Howard, Wm. H. Gatchell, and JNO. W. Davis, citizens of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, respectfully represents:

That between 2 and 3 o'clock on the morning of the 1st of July instant, they were severally aroused from sleep at their respective dwellings by large bodies of soldiers of the Army of the United States quartered in or about this city, and were removed by force and against their will from their homes and families to Fort McHenry, where they have ever since been confined as prisoners, and now are.

Your memorialist at the time receive no information as to the cause of their arrest than that the same was made by order of Major-General Banks, commanding this military department, nor have they since been informed of any charges whatever against them further than those contained in a proclamation of General Banks issued later in the same day, a copy of which, taken from one of the newspapers of the city, they append hereto.*

By reference to the said proclamation you honorable bodies will perceive that the arrest of your memorialist is alleged to have been made "in pursuance of orders issued from the headquarters of the Army at Washington, for the preservation of the public peace in this department," and is attempted to be justified by the refusal of your memorialist, as members of the board of police of Baltimore, to acquiesce, in the legality and effect of a previous proclamation of General Banks declaring their official authority supersede. The proclamation in question goes on to charge that you memorialist, after such attempted suspension of their functions, had continued to hold sessions daily:"that upon a forced and unwarrantable construction" of the previous proclamation referred to they had declared the police law to be suspended, and their police force to be off of duty, "intending to leave the city without any police protection whatever"; and that they had moreover refused to recognize as policemen certain persons selected by a provost-marshal, under General Banks, to act in that capacity. There is a further allegation that the "headquarters under the charge of the board, when abandoned by the officers, resembled in some respects a concealed arsenal."

Your memorialist respectfully represent that together with their colleague, Charles D. Hinks, esq., who was arrested with them (but has since been discharged upon his parole because of ill health), and the

---------------

*See p. 141.

---------------

10 R R-VOL II