WASHINGTON CITY, December 5, 1861.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

SIR: In accordance with the urgency of the parole given by us on the 2nd instant to Colonel Martin Burke at Fort Hamilton we have come to this city. We are at Wormley's, I street, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth streets, where we will remain until you take further action in regard to us, abstaining on honor of course from any act hostile or injurious to the Union and from entering into or holding any correspondence with persons residing in any of the insurrectionary States.

We have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servants,

WM. M. GWIN.

CALHOUN BENHAM.

J. L. BRENT.

[Indorsement.]

A true copy of the paper delivered by me to Mr. Seward.

GEO. D. PRENTICE.

DEPARTMENT OF STATES, December 5, 1861.

Honorable W. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

DEAR SIR: I shall call to see you a few moments and I may shorten the interview by writing what it would otherwise be my wish to speak. I desire to trouble you as little as possible. I hope y ou read the letter I sent to your house last night. Doctor Gwin saw you at the appointed hour and was gratified with the interview. I trust all will be ight and pleasant. I am telegraphed to hasten to Louissville. It is important to me and I think it highly important to the Government that I should be there. I wish that I could go at once but as I told you in my letter last night I must not go whilst my brother is a prisoner. he and his two companions have no desire whatever to hasten a decision in their case, but I di wish that the matter may be decided soon on my account. I am sure that the three prisoners were arrestd without just cause. They went on board the steamer at San Frnacisco under what they at least night I must not go whilst my brother having served the United States Government faithfully and successfully started for Washington with claims to a considerable amount upon the Treasury and it is simply absurd under the circmstances to suppose that an arrest on the Pacific was necessary to bring him where our laws could reach him. Doctor Gwin could not take the oath of allegiance without sacrificing what he ragards as more than a hundred fortunes-his own convictions of honor and self respect-not from the slightest feeling of disloyalty but from an abhorrence of what he conscientiously believes