more under the control of a military police than they are to-day. I am glad to be informed, by many of your most loyal and respectable citizens, that order has been to a great extent preserved and treason overawed by the action of the military guards and provost-marshals in this State; and those who complain of oppression or irregularity on the part of provost-marshals in the performance of their duties must remember that the adoption of martial law was essential to the safety of the State; that under martial law provost-marshals must necessarily come into existence, and the exercise of great power may, in some instances, be confided to men who subsequently prove unworthy of their trusts. The only wonder is that there have been so few wrongs committed and so few rights invaded during the existence of such a condition of government in Missouri. But it is surely needless to say that the longer such a system is continued the greater will be the liability to abuse; and, as a logical result, what are now rare and exceptional cases of outrage and injustice on the part of the provost-marshals and soldiers will gradually but surely become of far more general occurrence; and you may expect finally to see your State under the complete dominion of the military. There will then be scarce a square yard of the State which will not enjoy the felicity of some military functionary. They will come to perform the duties of all the civil magistrates-to be the final judges of all things. Into every province of civil law, and even of domestic life, these military officials will in time most assuredly intrude, and become the final arbiters of both morals and manners.

What will become of the citizen under this extraordinary state of government? The simple mention of a few instances, I trust exceptional, which have been brought to my knowledge, by undoubted authority since my arrival in Saint Louis, will sufficiently answer. By the authorities in Washington my attention has been called to the fact that provost-marshals in several districts of Missouri are seizing and selling property, themselves being the judges of law and fact, and the custodians, and disposers of the property involved. Another instance; An application was made since my arrival here for an order to take a military guard across the river into the State of Illinois and arrest a citizen of that State, living twenty miles distant, and bring him to the military prison in this city because a colored man, also living in Illinois, complained that the white man owed him for several days' labor, and had abused him when he asked for the money. Another case, mentioned to me by a loyal gentleman of this city, a man of high character and undoubted veracity: A quarrel occurred between a man and his wife in one of the interior towns of the State in which, on complaint of the wife the provost-marshal arrested the husband, made him divide his property with his wife, and then banished him from the State. These are some of the cases (rare and exceptional, it is to be hoped) which have already occurred. What would be the condition on things after long persistence in a system which logically and surely tends to such abuses? If it were not sad and humiliating it would be ludicrous to see citizens, the most distinguished in position and intelligence appealing for justice and protection to a provost-marshal and invoking his decision of grave questions affecting life, liberty, and property.

As I said before, there are no organized forces of the enemy in the State, and I doubt not that twenty bushwhackers to each county would be considered a liberal estimate of the number of these enemies to man-kind. In some counties there are doubtless more, in others fewer; but even in those counties most infested by them they bear an absurdly small proportion to the inhabitants. These are all the enemies of peace and quiet now to be found within the borders of Missouri, and they are