officers found concealed among his clothing letters and papers by which it appeared that he was to purchase an assorted cargo at Liverpool, England, and return with the same to Wilmington, N. C. The letters of instruction were from Messrs. O. G. Parsly & Co., of Wilmington, N. C., to Brown, Shipley & Co., Liverpool. The invoice or list of goods to be purchased was as follows: 5,000 to 10,000 army blankets, 1,000 bags of coffee,

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tons of iron of various sizes, round and flat, whole amount of inovice to be $40,000; also a list of numerous articles of clothing, &c., apparently on private account. The goods were to be shipped in a British or French vessel. With these papers were also instructions how to proceed on the arrival of the vessel off the port of Wilmington, N. C. They were to make signal from the vessel which would be answered from the shore, and if proper a pilot would be sent on board by which means the blockade could be run. The said collector further reports the discovery in De Bebian's possession of a number of letters, some addressed to parties in foreign countries and some to parties in each of the States of Vermont, Maine, New York, Missouri and Connecticut. The said collector although not previously intending the detention of said De Bebian- coming as he did from a port in the power of the insurrectionists, a passenger on a vessel detected in illicit commerce-on the discovery of these evidences of his conspiring to evade the blockade and render aid and assistance to the rebels and of his agency in the unlawful forwarding of correspondence between the insurrectionary States and other portions of the Union, ordered his arrest on the said 19th day of August, 1861, for the said offenses. The said De Bebian was sent to Fort Lafayette and held in custody there until September 16, 1861, when he was discharged on his parole for two weeks; which time was subsequently enlarged, and on the 4th day of October, 1861, he was discharged from his parole. The said collector of the port of Newport, Seth W. Macy, esq., subsequently made the following affidavit. *

It thus appears that Louis de Bebian had been engaged in illicit commerce in disregard of lawful blockade in transporting lumber from Wilmington to the West Indies, and had entered into engagements for the further prosecuting of the same business; that he had embarked on board a vessel of equivocal character then engaged in unlawful evasion of the blockade in which he participated; that he was engaged in the unlawful conveyance of clandestine correspondence between an insurgent State and other portions of the Union; that he had conspired with others to afford aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States by purchasing and importing supplies for their armies; by stealthily and fraudulently through the means of concerted reciprocal signals evading the blockade, and that he was detected on the way to carry these purposes into effect with the evidence of his criminality upon him. On the 21st of August, 1861, De Bebian addressed a paper to the French viceconsul at New York in which he alleges that his voyage "was for business purely commercial," and in giving the particulars of his mission makes the following statement:

I am going to Europe to be at had to learn the decision of the two great powers on the subject [question] of blockades, to move to advantage at the first possibleting our funds in shipments of merchandise most in demand. Our house means articles such as seem best for a future time, such as woolens, blankets, &c., for it is customary in autumn to lay in every sort of winter covering and a pair of blankets for each negro. The wants of the army having absorbed all that there

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*Omitted here. See p. 450 for Macy's affidavit.

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28 R R-SERIES II, VOL II