reliable assurances of the loyalty he owes to the United States his duress will not be prolonged a day beyond the time when the danger to be apprehended from his being set at large shall have passed.

I aval myself of this opportunity to renew to your lordship the assurance of my high consideration.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 11, 1861.

Colonel JUSTIN DIMICK, Fort Warren, Boston, Mass.

SIR: Let J. C. Stovin, a prisoner cinfined in Fort Warren, be released on his engaging upon oath that he will neither enter into any of the States in insurrection against the authority of the United States Government nor hold any correspondence whatever with persons residing in those States without permission from the Secretary of State; and also that he will not do anything hostile to the United States during the present insurrection. I transmit this order to John S. Keyes, esq., U. S. marshal, who has been instructed by this Department to cause a police examination to be made in some cases of the persons and baggage of prisoners discharged from custody to the end that no correspondence or other improper papers be conveyed by them to persons outside the fort. *

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 14, 1861.

Major General JOHN A. DIX, Baltimore, Md.:

* * * It is presumed you have received the order for the release of Stovin. At all events discharge him.

F. W. SEWARD,

Assistant Secretary.

WASHINGTON, March 19, 1862.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, &c.

SIR: You will no doubt recollect the correspondence which passed between us in the months of October and November last respecting the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. John Carville Stovin.

Mr. Stovin has now submitted to Her Majesty's Government a printed statement of a claim which he makes against the Government of the United States for pecuniary compensation for his imprisonmenss of property which it entailed. I do myself the honor to transmit to you a copy of the statement. +

Mr. Stovin complains in the first place of certain acts done on the 19th of June, 1861, which appear to Her Majesty's Government to have been acts of lawless interference by certain military officers of the United States Government with his personal liberty and also with his property, a horse belonging to him having been taken without payment. It does not, however, appear that these acts were authorized or santioned by the Government of the United States or that Mr. Stovin may

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* This order was repeated November 18 to Colonel Burke at Fort Lafayette, New York Harbor.

+ Stovin's statement omitted; it is a recitation of the circumstances of his arrest, and a denial of the alleged causes therefor, with a demandfor $150,000 damages.

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