at those ports must find an outlet - New Orleans. Let me advise you not be at all uneasy. You will eventually lose nithing by this war. Whatever may be the result I being a British subject the property will be secure. * * * Address me under cover to Mr. B. F. Milliken, Easport, Me.

Hoping that peace may soon dawn and that we may again all partake of macaroni seasoned with Italian sauce, I am, yours, faithfully,

W. H. AYMarch

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 12, 1861.

ROBERT MURRAY, Esq., U. S. Marshal, New York.

SIR: W. H. Aymar, the owner of the Joseph H. Toone, who was recently released from Fort Lafayette is expected to return to New York soon on his way to Havana. If he comes you will please convey him to Fort Lafayette and recommit him to the custody of Colonel Burke. *

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

F. W. SEWARD,

Assistant Secretary.

Cases of Richard H. Stanton and others.

Richard H. Stanton, of Maysville, Ky., was arrested on the 2nd day of October, 1861, by order of General Nelson, together with six others whom the general styles "active secessionists," viz: William Hunt, William T. Casto, Isaac Nelson, George Forrester, B. F. Thomas and James H. Hall. In communicating the fact of this arrest to the war Department General Nelson says: +

In pursuance of the said request of General Nelson, Stanton, as well as the persons arrested with him, was soon afterward transferred to Fort Lafayette for safe custody. Stanton by his own representations and through many other who interested themselves in his behalf claimed to be loyal and to be guiltless of any act which should have caused his arrest. It has generally happened in the history of arrests made for disloyalty and for precautionary purposes during the present rebellion that persons against whom there has been the most explicit proof or for whose detention the most emphatic reasons existed have made the loudest and most continuous asseverations of loyalty and have marshalled their hosts of personal friends to sustain such asseverations with unexampled unanimity. Although General Nelson did not send forward proofs of the charges which he made against Stanton it was not therefore deemed that the professions of the prisoner and the ex parte testimony of his friends ought to be taken as conclusive of his innocence, especially as in his very appeals for discharge he made and reiterated statements quite inconsistent with such loyal regard for the duties of citizenship as can inspire undoubting confidence in cases like this. On the 4th of November, 1861, Stanton addressed a letter to the Secretary of State in behalf of himself and the others above named arrested with him in which speaking for the whole party he alleges that they had never "engaged in the rebellion or indebted to do so, never contributed

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* No record of Aymar's subsequent arrest.

+ Extract omitted here. See full text of Nelson's letter, p. 916.

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58 R R - SERIES II, VOL II