which the expedition was sent into these counties, they array themselves against the Government, and cannot expect to be treated as friends. If the county clerk, as is alleged, has openly exerted his influence to dissuade the magistrates from taking the oath of allegiance, he should be arrested for an overt of hostility to the Government..

The rules by which you should by governed may be stated briefly as follows:.

1. No arrests should be made for acts done before the proclamation was published..

2. No man should be disturbed who acquiesces in the authority of the Government, no matter how cold, or reluctant, or sullen his submission..

3. Any person who exerts his influence to dissuade individuals from at tending the meetings of the people called to declare their allegiance to the United States cannot for the reasons assigned by considered as entitled to the benefits and immunities promised by the proclamation. On the contrary, he is to be regarded as an enemy, to be dealt with at your discretion..

4. Any person who at any such meeting resists a proposition to declare the allegiance of the two counties to the United States can only be regarded as an adherent of the rebel Government and coming within the category of Numbers 3.

5. The twenty persons who have been named to you as deserving arrest should be watched, and at the very first indication of hostility to the Government they should be taken into custody. But if they have submitted in good faith, they are entitled to the protection pledged submission. It must be exemplified by an abstinence in fact from all attempts to dissuade others from an open and public declaration of their allegiance to the United States. And if you have good reasons to believe that any one of them is exerting a sec ret influence against the Government, you may with perfect propriety send for him, and require him to take the oath..

Now, let me say one word to our Union friends. I understand their feelings perfectly. I have gone through the same process here which you are passing through in Accomac County. I have succeeded with the aid of a very judicious police in re-establishing order and bringing back the State to its true allegiance; but I have been constrained to differ frequently from our Union friends. They ask too much. They looked more to forcible measures than to a quiet, firm, and steady adherence to fixed principles. Our Union friends in Accomac must not be unreasonable. They must act boldly and decisively, and they will beat their adversaries without difficulty. With all we have done and are doing to support them; with the certainty that they will be sustained under all circumstances, they will have no excuse if they do not come out fearlessly, no matter what the course of secret traitors may be. As men of sense they cannot fail to see that treachery cannot long be kept secret, and that their game is a sure one. I trust, therefore, they will come out promptly and strongly, and set the authors of the past mischief at defiance. If these mischief-makers continue their operations, you will soon detect and bring them to punishment..

I send $2,000 in specie per Captain Tyler. The Kent will wait till Monday, if necessary, for the Seventeenth Massachusetts..

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,.

JOHN A. DIX,.

Major-General..