FORT McHENRY, MD., July 8, 1861.

The SECRETARY OF WAR:

Four men were arrested this evening on board the Mary Washington, parties to the seizure of the Saint Nicholas. The leaders is a colonel in the Virginia volunteers. His commission dates July 1, and bears address to Richard Thomas Zarvona. Richard Thomas is his true name. They were indentified by officers and men of the Saint Nicholas who were on board the Mary Washington. The colonel was secreted in a bureau. He was unboutedly on another mission. He was identified here as a West Point student.

N. P. BANKS.

FORT McHENRY, July 8, 1861.

Colonel E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General:

Four men, parties to the seizure of the Saint Nicholas, were arrested on board the Mary Washington this evening. The officers and sailors of the Saint Nicholas on board the Mary Washington identified the prisoners. The leader had a commission as colonel of the Virginia army dated July 1 and signed by Governor Letcher. He was secreted in a bureau when arrested. Captain Williams who arrested him identified him as a West Point student.

N. P. BANKS.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF ANNAPOLIS,
July 13, 1861.

Colonel E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.

SIR: * * * It is my duty to represent to the Government that such prisoners as Marshal Kane* and Colonel Thomas are not entirely safe if they should contemplate the chances of escape. No such suspicions exist as to the first, but the second is a dangerous and desperate man. He is confined in a room within twenty feet of the sallyport with seven others equally desperate and so far as we can judge his companious in the piratical acts in which he was engaged. Four these were brought in yesterday armed with weapons and ammunition sufficient for six or eight men, and moving when arrested as we suppose for the purpose of joining other parties of the same character of whose organization and purposes we have had notice from the Government at Washington, the owners of steam-boats and many private sources. With the measures we are taking the arrests of these persons will be rapidly multiplied.

* * *

With great respect, your obedient servant,

N. P. BANKS,

Major-General, Commanding Department of Annapolis.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF ANNAPOLIS,
Fort McHenry, Md., July 14, 1861.

Colonel E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.

SIR: By direction of Major-General Banks I have the honor to report for the information of the General-in-Chief that the schooner Georgiana, owned by Thomas and his party and with which a portion of them

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* See Vol. I, this series, p. 619, for case of the Baltimore police commissioners and Marshal Kane.

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