FORT HAMILTON, October 3, 1861.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

SIR: Inclosured please find engagement of John Garnett Guthrey agreeably to your telegram dated October 2, 1861.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

MARTIN BURKE,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding.

[Inclosure.]

FORT HAMILTON, October 3, 1861.

I, John Garnett Guthrey, do solemnly give my word of honor that I will do no act hostile to the Government of the United States or injurious to it. I do also solemnly pledge my word of honor not to enter or correspond with insurrectionary States during the present insurrection without the consent of the Secretary of State of the United States.

JNO G. GUTHREY.

Witnesses:

WALTER L. FRANKLIN,

Lieutenant.

J. CARBERY LAY,

Lieutenant.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, October 5, 1861.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

SIR: I have the honor to return herewith the papers inclosed in your letter of the 13th ultimo* from John A. Kennedy, superintendent of the Metropolitan police at New York, with the schedule of property found in the possession of John Garnett Guthrey, of Virginia, arrested and taken to Fort Lafayette as a political prisoner, the said papers having been submitted by you for my consideration as to the expediency of proceeding against the property under the confiscation act. I inclose also a copy of the report of the Solicitor of the Treasury, to whom the papers were referred for his opinion. The seizure having been made by an officer not placed by law under my control or supervision, and the forfeiture being claimed under the act of August 6, 1861, which confers on me no power of remission or mitigation, I do not conceive that this case falls within my jurisdiction, and the papers are therefore returned.

I am, very respectfully,

S. P. CHASE,

Secretary of the Treasury.

413 BROOME STREET, NEW YORK, December 8, 1861.

F. W. SEWARD, Assistant Secretary of State,

DEAR SIR: When in September last I made to you a favorable report in the case of John G. Guthrey, of Virginia, the evidence seemed to warrant the conclusion that he was not a political consporator and that he was engaged in private financial speculation. He was liberated on parole, the terms of which I do not know.

From recent reports I am inclined to think that he has become a conspirator in some degree. Our department has established a communication with him unknown to him, and from that source we are informed that he expects soon to obtain possession of his State stocks, and is

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* Not found, but see Jordan to Chase, p. 516.

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