LEGATION OF FRANCE TO THE UNITED STATES,

Washington, March 11, 1862.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, &C.

SIR: In conformity witth what was agreed upon between us at our last conversation of the affair of M. de Bebian I have the honor to communicate to you six numbered papers, which have bee addressed to me by this Frenchman as well as the lette----,* begging you will please return them to me after you shall have so used them as you shall deem proper.

I size this occasion to repeat to you, sir, the assurance of my high consideration.

HENRI MERCIER.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE Washington, March 14, 1862.

M. HENRI MERCIER, &C.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 11th instatn with the six papers and the letter therein referrd to in relation to the case of M. de Bebian which accompanied it.

Be pleased, sir, to accept the assurance of my high consideration.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, March 25, 1862.

M. HENRY MERCIER, &C.

SIR: I have already explained to you that the accidental displacement of certain documents rendered it necesssary to defer my reply to your note of the 19th of January last concerning the case of Louis de Bebian.

You are but too well aware, sir, that a party of seditous persons early in the last year organized an insurrection and attempted by civil war to set up a revolutionary government under the name of the Confecerate States of America upon the rins of the constitutional government of the United States of America. You are also well aware that as early as last April this revolutionary movemnt was accepted by the political body of North Carolina with all its authorities and that the city of Wilmington went under the sway of that pretended government.

You hardly need to be reminded that as early as the month of March last the insurgents laid siege around this capital which siege has only been fully raised within the past month; nor are you a stanger to the fact that agents of the revolutianary authorities have for more than a year been engaged in different parts of the United States endeavoring to extend the insurrection while others being political agents were abroad, some seeking direct intervantion by the European states to subert the American Union, and still others who were commercial agents were engaged in those states in obtaining shimunition, military stores and supplies for the revolutionary army.

I beg also to recall to your recollection the fact that so early as the 27th of April the President upon the grounds of that insurrection proclaimed and set on foot a blockade of all the ports in the then insurrectionary district including the dprot of Wilmington, in the State of North Carolina, and that this blockade was actually established at that port on the 24th day of July last.

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*Not found.

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