Case of Louis de Bebian.

The President of the United States, by his proclamation of April 27, 1861, for the reasons set forth therein, established a blockade of the ports of the States of Virginia and North Carolina, including the port of Wilmington in said last-named State. On the 6th day of August, 1861, the schooner Adelso, of Saint John, New Brunswick, having entered the port of Wilmington a few days previously by a fraudulent evasion of said blockade, sailed thence to Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a full cargo of turpentine and rosin, again violating the said blockade in her departure. The said schooner Adelso was built at Eastport, in the State of Maine; w as a vessel of ninety-eight tons, owned by John Kay, of Eastport aforesaid, and called the A. L. Hyde. Kay to save the vessel from seizure and loss, he being in trouble, put her in the hands of Henry Horton, his brother-in-law, a resident of New brunswick; and she was then registered as Horton's property and sailed under Captain Thomas Kimball, a naturalized American citizen of British birth, as master. Her name was also changed to the Adelso. This vessel with her doubtful ownership, equivocal hailing place, double nationality and master of twofold citizenship and allegiance was chartered expressly for the business of carrying on a trade with the said port of Wilmington in fraudulent disregard of the said blockade; and in pursuance of such intent sailed from the said port of Wilmington for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 6th day of August aforesaid; and was driven by stress of weather into the port of Newport, R. I., on the 13th day of the same month, when she and her cargo were immediately taken possession of by the officers, of customs. Louis de Bebia, represented to be a native of the Island of Guadaloupe and claiming to be a French subject, was a passenger on the said vessel on her said voyage from Wilmington aforesaid, where he resides, bound for Halifax, and was on the said vessel when she came to Newport, constrained by stress of weather as aforesaid. The collector of the port of Newport reports that by direction of the district attorney no person was allowed to go on shore from the said vessel nor anyone to go on board except the officers of the revenue; and all the papers found on board were sealed up.

On the 17th of August De Bebianw as permitted to land, and on the 19th he voluntarily made an affidavit stating that he sailed from Wilmington, N. C., on the said schooner Adelso on the 6th of the same month; that said vessel was bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a full cargo of turpentine and rosin; that he understood that the said port of Wilmington was declared to be blockaded at and before the time they sailed from that port; that J. & D. McRae & Co., of Wilmington, one of whom was the British vice-consul at that port, were the consignees of said vessel when she arrived; that the said cargo was shipped for and on account of a house in Boston as he was informed by the master during the voyage; and that after he engaged his passage but before sailing the master of the schooner informed him that he should stop at Welchpool and promised to see him on board a boat there that would take him safely to Halifax. This affidavit was made by De Bebian to show that he was simply a passenger not connected with the said vessel or her voyage or her cargo; yet he wholly omitted to state anything of the contents of his own papers showing his own business or of his possession of letters from parties in an insurrectionary State for parties in other portions of the United Sates. The said collector of the port of Newport further reports that on inspecting his trunk the