One of the small steamers of the enemy was captured yesterday in Bayou Long by Lieutenant-Colonel Tarbell. All quiet in New Orleans. Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHAS. P. STONE,

Brigadier-General, and Chief of Staff.

NEW ORLEANS, LA., November 13, 1863.

VIA NEW YORK, November 20.

Major-General HALLECK,

General-in-Chief:

Major-General Banks was at Brownsville, Tex., on the 9th instant, with a good force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. There had been three revolutions in Matamoras. His position highly satisfactory.

CHAS. P. STONE,

Brigadier-General, and Chief of Staff.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
Brownsville, Tex., November 13, 1863.

L. PIERCE, Jr.,

United States Consul, Matamoras:

SIR: Recent events upon the western boundary of the United States make it necessary that the attention of Mexican authorities be called to the movements of men recently, and, we believe, still engaged in armed rebellion against the United States. The rebels, impelled by military necessity to leave the State of Texas, have taken refuge in Matamoras and its vicinity. They are making preparations, by the accumulation of stores adapted to the use of their army and the disposition of property transported from this State against law, to continue their hostile movements against the Government. It is not my purpose to complain of any refuge or protection given by the authorities of the State of Tamaulipas to men lately engaged in rebellion who have suspended hostilities or laid down their arms. Such protection is consistent with the magnanimous course of Mexico as of other States, and the Government of the United States would be the last to complain of any assistance accorded to men under such circumstances; but it must be admitted that the persistent continuation of hostile acts against the Government they have left, justly deprives them of both refuge and protection, and, under the general law of nations, as well as treaties of amity and friendship heretofore made between Mexico and the United States, such act or intention would justify a demand ont eh part of the latter, not only for the suspension of hostile purposes, but for their surrender to the Government against which their operations are directed.

I appeal to you, as the representative of the United States in the State of Tamaulipas, to make known to its authorities the evidence in your possession in relation to the movements of men lately engaged in rebellion against the United States [who] are now prosecuting their hostile purposes in Matamoras and its vicinity, and I ask you to make official and earnest protest against their right to continue such hostilities or to make preparations in that State for future movements against the authorities of the United States, and, if such hostilities are still continued, to demand their surrender to the authorities of the United States.